This doesn't make me happy at all, with the shocked economy recover and massive corruption that was created post USSR collapse has lead to chaos and disillusionment in society. Russians don't want democracy now, they want stability, and Mr KGB Putin is too glad to drag to country back to state control. He is supporting the despotic goverment of Uzbekistan with arms and resources in exchange to access to natural gas supplies.

This is a traditional Uzbek song from Horzem region of Uzbekistan, usually sang at wedding ceremonies as a playful discourse between the unmarried men and women. She sings how someone would need to do more then usual to capture her heart, the poetic nature of my language means I can't really translate it word for word... as we have words in our language that combine compound English descriptions like 'burning-love-of-youthful-age'.

Feruza is from that area as well and gives the best rendition of the song I have ever heard. This made me so happy when I found it, as I remember attending many a wedding back home.

If you are curious, this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTo_Rkygqk0, is a good short movie on the history and people of Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a country in Central Asia, formerly of the Soviet Union. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. This gives Uzbekistan a status shared only with Europe's Liechtenstein in that it is doubly landlocked, that is, it is surrounded entirely by other landlocked states. The only official language, Uzbek, is a Turkic language, but Russian continues to be widely used, a holdover from Soviet rule. The word Ozbek means Real/original/true (Oz) Leaders, Nobles (bek).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Uzbekistan

This is the Beatles of Central Asia, this is what I used to listen to when I was but a wee lad.

The song is called Uchkuduk, which in my country is a city, the name translates as "three draw-wells". The song is about a desert expedition seeking shelter at at the "three draw-wells"... he starts... "Hot sun, hot sand, hot lips, oh for a drop of water, hot deserts where footsteps are not seen, tell me caravan man when will there be water?... And the chorus goes "Uchkuduk! The 3 wells! Save us! Save us! Save us from the sun! You are the desert saviour Uchkuduk". Prolly sifting for myself but whatever.

"Yalla," the leading popular music group in the former Soviet central Asian republics, is from Tashkent -- the capital of Uzbekistan, one of the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. The group, whose name is an Uzbek word for a song accompanied by dancing, has become a popular icon in Uzbekistan, frequently serving as cultural ambassadors to international festivals or meetings abroad.

The members of Yalla are graduates of the Ostrovsky Theatrical Art Institute and the Ashrafi State Conservatory in Tashkent. They are not Russian but Uzbek, a Turkic nationality from the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road. Their music incorporates traditional ethnic folk tunes and poetry of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, along with contemporary pop and dance influences, into a unique international blend. They perform songs in more than 10 languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, Nepalese and French as well as Uzbek and Russian.

Formed in the early 1970's, Yalla has appeared on Soviet national television as well as performing in Moscow and elsewhere in the Soviet Union, and on concert tours in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, including featured appearances at the "Voice of Asia" festival.

http://ip1.com/imagina/artists/Yalla.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9th_Company

he 9th Company (Russian: «9 рота») is a Russian / Finnish film by Fyodor Bondarchuk about the Soviet war in Afghanistan released in 2005. The film follows a band of young recruits from a farewell ceremony with friends and family back home, through their often brutal training in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley, up to a bloody battle on a mountain top in Afghanistan against the mujahideen.

The film is based on events which took place in early 1988 during the last large-scale Soviet military operation "Magistral". In the movie, only one soldier from the company survives and the company is said to have been "forgotten" by the military command because of the Soviet withdrawal.

During the actual event, the 9th Company, 345th Guards Airborne Regiment was pinned down under heavy fire on "Hill 3234" between 7 and 8 January 1988. They managed to stop several attacks by an estimated 200-400 mujahideen and Pakistani mercenaries. The company lost 6 men. Another 28 out of the total 39 were wounded. Two of the killed soldiers were posthomously awarded the golden star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The unit was in constant communication with headquarters and got everything the regimental commander, Colonel Valery Vostrotin, and 40th Army Commander, General Boris Gromov, had to offer in terms of artillery support.

The film received a mixed reaction from the veterans of that war, who pointed to a number of inaccuracies, but nevertheless, judging by ticket sales, was embraced by the general public, and even by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was also given the Golden Eagle Award for the Best Feature Film by the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts.

It was directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, the son of classic Soviet film director Sergei Bondarchuk, whose 1959 Destiny of a Man was a landmark in film treatments of World War II and who also shot an Oscar-winning epic, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace.

Although not the first movie to be made about the Soviet Army's experience in Afghanistan (others included the 1991 classic Afghan Breakdown by Vladimir Bortko), 9th Company was the first attempt by Russian filmmakers to create a big-screen, big-budget movie about that war, comparable to the American Vietnam War movies of the 1980s (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Born on the Fourth of July). The film, made for $9 million with help from the United Kingdom's Shepperton Studios, was released in September, 2005 and became a Russian box office hit, generating $7.7 million in its first five days of release alone, a new domestic record.

In 2006, Russia selected the movie as its candidate for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film nomination.

This is highly speculative based on a DOD 2020 reports, books and such?

Now if you read every DARPA and DOD report out there you realize that they are predicting events several years in the future without any real consideration towards economic, political or sociological considerations.

Space militarization cannot really happen, considering that such steps would be immediately countered by China and Russia. All they need to do is basically start selling off dollars switch to Euro's and collapse the US economy into a depression. This is not even considering how much resources, money, research it would require to introduce such a program.

Furthermore throwing all the funds into this program is sheer foolishness. They have already spent billions trying to make these systems work, especially the missile defense system, and derivatives such as the patriot missile system. This plan would be shot down to bits by both sides of the House and Congress not to mention the voting population. This is no longer a world were countries can stay isolationist, everything is depended on information, goods and supply chains. If aggressive actions escalated to tyranny by the USA, it would only bring more terrorist attacks, more attacks that don't use the usual military doctrine... Yes the US military is great in facing a mechanized army, but look how it cannot contain insurgents, and these technologies would only make such warfare all the more acceptable in the eyes of a enemy that cannot resist otherwise. Yes Space domination would mean power all over the world, but it's power at the expense of all the freedoms a society like the US enjoys, just like it came close to post 9/11.

There are no more US military bases in Uzbekistan. American military interests withdrew with the current problems faced in Iraq and tension from the local despotic goverment.

Loftly plans of control of Space echo the ones of controlling the communist domino effect or controlling Vietnam or the containing the problem Middle East. Surely they should understand that even best laid plans never usually work out.... It's hilarious how much totally wrong footage is being used to tell the story (e.g. soviets shown when it was talking about Nazi scientists taken during Op Paperclip, which was more based on the fact that the US saw that the USSR would be an enemy).

And if you are not convinced just look at US national debt numbers.

Tin foil conspiracies, am sorry to say.

Am for the death penalty under the right investigative conditions.

You can't argue with me that people like Charles Manson, Ted Bundy or others deserve a free ride on society for whatever ethical reason.

Most of the countries you mentioned have it because of despotism and corrupt goverment. In America it's a question of state reform, and it's not the same everywhere, Texas is probably the highest.

But really is it shocking that it exists in countries like Uzbekistan or China where political enemies can just vanish overnight?

You know whats funny? The guy who uploaded this video is from my country of Uzbekistan... Or so his profile says... its prolly bullshit but I find it weirdly amusing.

Assholes Uzbekistan! It always gets me!

Assholes Uzbekistan

The believe that anything we do can never be enough to change our climate is a dangerous one. One more example for you here. The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Please read, then tell me humans can do no harm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/678898.stm

Am from Uzbekistan! And I call a jihad on Borat!

Uzbekistan's Funniest Industrial Accidents?

I was in the former soviet republic of Uzbekistan, when I was growing up at that time, on saturday mornings all they had was the state news from 6 AM, with national news, maybe a smigdet of western news, a western music video... usually something really rubbish like that Italian chicken dance song... or one group I remember East 17? And then finally some classical Russian cartoons. Which were all original one off productions, though there was a clear Tom and Jerry knock off called Zates e Volk (Rabbit and Wolf).

When my family moved then I got to witness some classics Johnny Quest, Spiderman TAS, Beast Wars

Oh yeah and those Damn Ninja turtles? Getting their own movie made now! Hit me up when the Bugaloos make a cinematic appearance