Uzbekistan

Representatives from more than 20 countries gathered in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Monday for an international conference on the future of Afghanistan.

Turkey’s national flag carrier Turkish Airlines started flights from Istanbul to the historic Central Asian city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan on March 16, according to a company announcement.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree to change the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, reports RIA Novosti.

This was the start for the third 100 years of linguistic reform.

Uzbekistan announced on Feb. 10 it will allow 30-day visa-free entry to citizens of seven countries including Turkey, according to local media reports.

A 28-year-old woman born in Uzbekistan and living in St. Petersburg was sentenced to four years in prison for the sale of her child, AFP reported.

The woman traded her newborn son in October 2016 for $ 11,500 and immediately spent the money to buy a ticket to Central Asia, the court spokesman in St. Petersburg said.

 Rakhmat Akilov, who has confessed to driving a truck that killed five people in an attack in Sweden's capital Stockholm, will stand trial in February, the main prosecutor in the case said on Monday, according to Reuters. 

Federal prosecutors brought terrorism charges Wednesday against the Uzbek immigrant accused in the truck rampage that left eight people dead.

Prosecutors said the suspect was spurred by the Islamic State group’s online calls to action and picked Halloween because he knew more people would be out on the streets.

New York terror attack suspect Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov "did this in the name of ISIS," said John Miller, NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence and counter-terrorism, reported CNN.

Saipov had been planning the attack for a "number of weeks," Miller said, and appeared to have followed instructions ISIS has put out on how to carry out such attacks.

Six Balkan countries - Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria - have been ranked among the top 50 countries in the world in the Doing Business Report of the World Bank for 2018, released on Tuesday.

Macedonia is the highest performing Balkan economy, ranked in 11th place among 190 economies worldwide in terms of quality of its business regulations.

Border control in the United States will be strengthened by order of President Donald Trump. The decision is because of the New York bombing that killed 8 people and injured 11.