CAPS Unlock Podcast

<p>In this week’s edition of the CAPS Unlock podcast, we turned our attention to one country that rarely gets the scrutiny it deserves: Turkmenistan. Despite its strategic location, vast gas reserves, and sensitive...

<p>This week’s episode looks at two structural pressures shaping Central Asia’s future: food insecurity in Tajikistan and energy strategy in Kyrgyzstan, before turning to the wider regional impact of the war in...

<p>This week, we return to the political soap opera unfolding in Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the February removal of security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev. </p><p>The pressure on Tashiyev’s family continues to mount. His...

<p>This week’s episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast departs from the usual format for a single in-depth conversation with journalist Joanna Lillis, whose new book Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan draws...

<p>In this week’s very packed episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast we cover a busy news week across two countries, and speak with a researcher whose work offers a fascinating lens on how Central Asian states construct...

<p>In this episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast, we speak with Eldaniz Gusseinov, head of research at Nightingale Int., about what the war between the United States, Israel and Iran could mean for Central...

<p>Operation Epic Fury has forced every government in Central Asia to signal where it stands. And just as importantly, how carefully it intends to stand there.</p><p>We began this week’s CAPS Unlock podcast with the...

<p>This week’s edition of the CAPS Unlock podcast moves across three very different but interconnected storylines shaping Central Asia’s political and economic trajectory.</p><p>We begin with the European Union’s...

<p>This week’s episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast plunges directly into political shifts unfolding across Central Asia. Developments in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan are each highly specific, rooted in their...

<p>This week’s episode of the Caps Unlock Podcast opened with a discussion of a major shift in Central Asia’s external economic orientation: China has overtaken Russia to become the region’s largest trading partner...

<p>This week’s episode opened with a discussion of Kazakhstan’s provisional landmark arbitration victory against foreign oil majors over disputed costs at the Karachaganak oil and gas field. We unpacked why the ruling...

<p>The CAPS Unlock podcast returns after a long New Year break to track how an unsettled global agenda is pulling Central Asia into the fray.</p><p>We began with U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly launched Board of...

<p>This end-of-year episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast is longer than usual, deliberately so.</p><p>As our final instalment of 2025, it takes stock of a year that reshaped Central Asia in ways that are still coming into...

<p>This week’s episode opens on the frontier of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where two late-November attacks on Chinese workers killed five people and injured several others at a gold mine and road-building...

<p>This episode departs from our usual format. Instead of the standard three-segment structure, it’s a single extended conversation with Agnieszka Pikulicka, the journalist behind Turan Tales, a long-form newsletter and...