Uzbekistan Latest

Latest email from my Uzbekistan correspondent:

Well, it's official. The BBC web-browser in my local cafe has been blocked by a crude looking page that is supposed to look like the MSN homepage.

Luckily, it's more difficult to block the radiowaves. I listen every half-hour for an update and every half-hour I receive news about this crisis. The latest is an overdue condemnation from the U.S. State Department and also re-running the statement by U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, condemning the human-rights violations that have been reported within the last few days. Uzbek opposition has reported over 700 people dead in the military crackdown in Andijon.

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The next hotspot looks like it will be Karasuv, which is a border town of Kyrgyzstan. The residents have already taken over the mayor's office, the tax-collectors building and the local police office, which according to BBC radio, are the three most hated institutions of local government. I can wholeheartedly agree with them. Even as far away as I am from the [Ferghana] Valley, I definitely notice an increased police presence in the streets of the major regional capital, as well as my town.

Karasuv is an interesting town because it happens to be near the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan, which is where the protests in that country first started before the Tulip Revolution. Villagers have rebuilt bridges into the Kyrgyz area in order to start trade again. Supposedly the army has the town's main roads blocked off, and it's only a matter of time it seems before something happens...

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New update here.