LUXEMBOURG, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - The European Union on Monday formally scrapped its travel ban against senior Uzbek officials, despite continued concerns over human rights abuses in the central Asian country.

TASHKENT, Oct 10, 2008 (AFP) - An independent Uzbek journalist who worked for Western media outlets was sentenced to 10 years in prison on drug charges Friday, his lawyer said, in a case condemned by human rights groups.

TASHKENT, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov said Monday he regretted a lack of European investment in his country, while boasting of a rosy economic outlook.

WASHINGTON, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - US retail giant Wal-Mart said Wednesday it will stop buying cotton from Uzbekistan until it has confirmation that the former Soviet republic has taken steps to end forced child labor in the cotton fields.

TASHKENT, September 15, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan, the world's third-largest cotton exporter, has banned child labour in its cotton fields after coming under pressure from US and EU importers, a government official said Monday.

BISHKEK, September 11, 2008 (AFP) - Kyrgyzstan may have to pay more than twice as much as the current price for gas imported from neighbor Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Igor Chudinov told reporters Thursday.

'So far the contract with Uzbekistan has not yet been signed,' but Bishkek plans to set the price 'at around 300 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres,' Chudinov said.

MOSCOW, September 2, 2008 (AFP) - Russia and Uzbekistan agreed on Tuesday to build a new pipeline to carry gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan to Russia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, quoted by news agencies.

SEOUL, August 27, 2008 (AFP) - South Korea's main flag carrier Korean Air on Wednesday launched a regular cargo flight service to Uzbekistan, with a regular passenger service also due on the route to the central Asian state.

BERLIN, August 26, 2008 (AFP) - Germany has extradited an alleged Islamic extremist to France three months after his arrest as part of a probe into the financing of a militant network, prosecutors said Tuesday.

ATHENS, August 23, 2008 (AFP) - Police in Athens have freed a Ukrainian woman forced into prostitution and arrested four suspected members of the trafficking network that brought her to Greece, police said Saturday.

The 23-year-old woman was found in a flat in the Athens district of Kallithea following a tip-off from Interpol, a police statement said.

DUSHANBE, July 21, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan on Monday slashed gas supplies to neighbouring Tajikistan by 45 percent in a dispute over a seven-million dollar (4.4-million euro) debt, a top official from the Tajik gas monopoly said.

PARIS, July 19, 2008 (AFP) - The suspected head of a group providing funding to Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan was charged in France after being extradited from the Netherlands, a source familiar with the case said Saturday.

DUSHANBE, July 16, 2008 (AFP) - An explosion outside Tajikistan's Supreme Court last year was masterminded by the secret services of the neighbouring Central Asian state of Uzbekistan, the head of the court said on Wednesday.

TASHKENT, July 10, 2008 (AFP) - Three people were killed and 21 injured when a series of explosions ripped through a munitions depot at a military base in southern Uzbekistan on Thursday, officials said.

'According to initial information, three people were killed and 21 injured as a result of the explosions,' Uzbekistan's emergency situations ministry said in a statement.

TASHKENT, July 10, 2008 (AFP) - Three people were killed and 21 injured when a series of explosions ripped through a munitions depot at a military base in southern Uzbekistan on Thursday, officials said.

'According to initial information, three people were killed and 21 injured as a result of the explosions,' Uzbekistan's emergency situations ministry said in a statement.

TASHKENT, June 6, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan has released from jail a once-powerful Soviet apparatchik who became a rival to President Islam Karimov and had spent over two decades behind bars, a relative said on Friday.

TASHKENT, June 2, 2008 (AFP) - A senior US official on Monday praised signs of liberalisation in Uzbekistan as authorities released a prominent rights activist from jail.

PARIS, May 16, 2008 (AFP) - Police in France, Germany and the Netherlands arrested on Friday 10 people suspected of providing funding to Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, officials said.

Eight arrests took place in France, one in the Netherlands and one in Germany.

PARIS, May 16, 2008 (AFP) - French police on Friday detained eight people on suspicion of funding Islamist groups from Uzbekistan, which have a history of activism in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

- Uzbekistan is a predominantly Islamic former Soviet republic in central Asia which has a record of authoritarian rule and social unrest.

PARIS, May 16, 2008 (AFP) - Ten suspects were detained on Friday in France, Germany and the Netherlands, accused of funding Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, officials said.

A French source close to the case said eight suspects of Turkish origin were lifted in a suburb of the eastern city of Mulhouse and in the central Rhone region.

PARIS, May 16, 2008 (AFP) - French police detained eight suspects on Friday who allegedly helped bankroll extremists in Uzbekistan and were said to have ties to Al-Qaeda, a source close to the case said.

The eight suspects of Turkish origin were nabbed in a suburb of the eastern city of Mulhouse and in the central Rhone region, the source said.

MOSCOW, May 12, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbek authorities are continuing to persecute witnesses of a bloody 2005 crackdown by security forces against an uprising in the eastern province of Andijan, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

LUXEMBOURG, April 29, 2008 (AFP) - EU foreign ministers agreed Tuesday to suspend sanctions against Uzbekistan for a further six months, despite criticisms from human rights groups.

Ministers initially suspended a European visa ban on Uzbek leaders back in October after receiving 'positive signals' from the regime, although an arms embargo imposed last year remains active.

TASHKENT, April 24, 2008 (AFP) - Russian oil major Lukoil plans to invest 5.5 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros) in the gas-rich Central Asian state of Uzbekistan by 2015, company president Vagit Alekperov said Thursday.

ALMATY, April 23, 2008 (AFP) - The United Nations refugee agency said on Wednesday it was trying to stop Kazakhstan from extraditing a man wanted by neighbouring Uzbekistan for involvement in the 2005 Andijan uprising.

TASHKENT, April 16, 2008 (AFP) - An increasingly influential Uzbek company, Zeromax Gmbh, has been granted a license to develop major new oil and gas fields in the isolated ex-Soviet republic, said a government resolution seen by AFP Wednesday.

TASHKENT, April 14, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbek energy firm Uzbekneftgas has formed a joint venture with China's CNPC to build a pipeline that would bring gas from Turkmenistan to China, an official with Uzbekneftgas told AFP on Monday.

TASHKENT, April 14, 2008 (AFP) - A dissident Uzbek poet and his son went on trial on Monday in the ancient city of Bukhara charged with resisting arrest and injuring two policemen, a human rights lawyer who was present told AFP.

BERLIN, April 12, 2008 (AFP) - The German police force helped train security officials from China and Uzbekistan -- in addition to the ones from Libya that are at the centre of an ongoing scandal, a German newspaper said Saturday.

Last week it was revealed that around 40 police officers had allegedly been involved in illicitly helping Libyan security forces.

BUCHAREST, March 26, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov is to attend the NATO summit in Bucharest on April 2-4 as a member of the alliance's Partnership for Peace, Romanian diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

TASHKENT, March 13, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan has allowed the Red Cross to resume visits to its prisons after years of negotiations, the organisation said Thursday, as the isolated Central Asian state improves relations with the West.

SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia, March 12, 2008 (AFP) - Two Uzbeks -- one of them a 17-year old boy -- have been found murdered in separate incidents in and around Saint Petersburg, Russian police announced Wednesday.

The teenage victim was stabbed to death in the middle of the street by two unknown assailants in the south of the city.

TASHKENT, March 6, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan has seized 568 kilogrammes (1,250 pounds) of heroin in the country's largest-ever haul of the drug, the National Security Service said in a statement on Thursday.

TASHKENT, March 6, 2008 (AFP) - The US military is again using Uzbekistan as a stop-off point for military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan after ending its presence there over a diplomatic row, a US official said Thursday.

SEOUL, Feb 25, 2008 (AFP) - A South Korean consortium on Monday forged a deal with Uzbekistan's state gas company to jointly develop a major gasfield in the central Asian country, officials said.

TASHKENT, Feb 13, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbekistan has begun to restore electricity supplies to Central Asian neighbour Tajikistan, which is in the grips of an energy crisis amid its coldest weather for 40 years, local media reported Wednesday.

MOSCOW, Feb 6, 2008 (AFP) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin pledged closer ties at a Kremlin meeting Wednesday that underlined Moscow's clout in energy-rich ex-Soviet Central Asia.

TASHKENT, Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) - A prominent human rights activist has been released in Uzbekistan after three years in prison for reporting on a bloody crackdown in the east of this Central Asian country, relatives said Tuesday.