The shutdown is bad news for the recession-hit country partly because it will lose a source of cheap electricity and be forced to import more expensive energy.

VOA: standard.2010.01.01

as telephone service from abroad has been disrupted. Geophysicist Julie Dutton says she expects the damage to be severe, partly because the region is not accustomed to major quakes.

VOA: standard.2010.01.12

The ethnic Uzbek leader, who was a candidate in the country's 2004 election, is widely reported to be at least partly responsible for the alleged massacre of some 2,000 Taliban prisoners after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and a cover-up of the deaths.

VOA: standard.2009.08.17