Uzbekistan update

Excerpt from the latest email my Uzbekistan correspondent sent me:

...I've never lived in an authortarian state before Uzbekistan, but it's interesting (and sad) to see the aftermath of such violence in the eyes of the news media here. I should say, the Eye of the News Media, for there is only one and that is the state-run television news program. The day after the uprising, they started off the news with a report from a flower festival in the very province where all of this violence happened. After that, a report on the production of the cotton harvest of last year. Next was a human-interest story about a remodeled school in one of the southern backwater provinces. Then, after a few more ridiculous fluff stories, we finally get to the juice of the day: in a thirty second segment, the news reports that a few terrorists had taken over a square in Andijon. According to the report, all were killed with the unfortunate death of one brave police officer. It would remotely relate to putting September 11th between Sports and Weather at 5 o'clock. Only a week later are they actually trying to paint a less skewed portrait.

The Government can't block the radio, on which we receive BBC World Service, but they can block the news websites. NYTimes and BBC News have both been blocked. For the NYTimes, a page pops up saying the server has timed out. A chintzy, MSN knockoff website comes up when I punch in the BBC's web address. However, the Uzbek government isn't as quick as it seems. For when I type in www.bbc.co.uk/uzbek, the website loads that has all of the past events translated...into Uzbek. Imagine if the masses got a hold of that page. Maybe the Government is hoping that the Uzbek Folk aren't as computer savvy as they seem.

He's promised me another update tomorrow so stay tuned.