September 2, 2005

The president of Kyrgyzstans National Bank, Ulan Sarbanov, has been arrested for corruption. This is very unusual in Central Asia. Corruption is widespread, and often quite brazen. It's very rare for someone this high up the food chain to be brought up on charges. The new Kyrgyz government said it would go after corruption, but many doubted the small class of rich, powerful or educated people who dominate the country would turn on their own to try and eliminate the corruption.