Energy Crisis Hits Tajik Press

Many Tajik newspapers may not be published this week because of the severe energy shortage affecting the country, the privately- owned Tajik news agency Asia-Plus reported on 11 February.

(The energy crisis has been caused by what the state meteorological agency says is the country’s coldest winter for a quarter of a century. This has led to the icing up of a river feeding the lake that drives the key Norak hydroelectric power station. The problem has been exacerbated by cuts to fuel and electricity imports from neighbouring Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.)

Few papers expected to appear

Quoting the director of the state-owned Sharq-i Ozod printing house, Manzurkhon Dodokhonov, Asia-Plus said that work at the company, which prints 95 per cent of the country’s press (both state and privately-owned), was being disrupted by regular power cuts.

“It is not out of the question that only a few titles of the weekly printed press will come out this week,” Dodokhonov said.

An official of the first channel of state-owned Tajik Television said, however, that state-run TV networks were operating according to their usual schedules, Asia-Plus reported.

In a separate dispatch, it noted that most of the 80 sets of traffic lights in the capital Dushanbe were not functioning during the daytime, due to the electricity shortage.

Originally published by Asia-Plus news agency website, Dushanbe, in Russian 11 Feb 08.

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