Bakyt Torogeldi is a correspondent in Bishkek for RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project is an ambitious undertaking, with its path needing dozens of tunnels and bridges to traverse high altitudes in the challenging mountainous terrain of western China and Kyrgyzstan. But the railroad's biggest obstacle is probably funding.
Kyrgyz security officers have killed notorious organized-crime figure Kamchy Kolbaev (aka Kamchybek Asanbek), who was added by Washington to a list of major global drug-trafficking suspects in 2011.
Bribery is said to be widespread in Kyrgyzstan's social-welfare system, where some officials are accused of extorting money from impoverished families.
