Uzbekistan has put several major state-owned real estate assets up for sale, offering them to domestic and foreign investors as a part of the government’s programme to reform the economy.

“Two months have passed and less than two percent of the population has been vaccinated,” the president’s press service said he told ministers. “Delays are not an abstract problem, but a matter of national importance. We are talking here about national security, more illness and death rates, our citizens.”

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are set to increase oil output gradually from May under a fresh OPEC+ deal, energy ministries of both oil-producing countries said.

Pozner, who rose to fame in the United States as a unabashed apologist for the Kremlin due to his unusual status as a Soviet-American-French citizen, had arrived in the capital Tbilisi, ostensibly for a lavish feast for his 87th birthday. He was accompanied by an coterie of pro-Kremlin government reporters and swishy Russian pop culture figures.

The World Bank forecasts an economic recovery in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia this year, with further growth expected in 2022.