In this issue:
Kazakhstan's Doctors Conduct World's First Transplant of Human Embryo's Nerve Cells
Senator Lugar Says U.S., Kazakhstan Should Continue Joint Nonproliferation Efforts
Kazakhstan Hosts Regional Anti-Terrorism Exercises
Say it in Kazakh:
Good morning! - Qayirly Tan [Ka-ihr-ly Tan]!
How are you? - Qalynyz Kalai [Ka-ly-nyz Ka-lai]?
The Embassy thought our readers might enjoy a few useful phrases in Kazakh.
Kazakhstan's Doctors Conduct World's First Transplant of Human Embryo's Nerve Cells
Doctors in Kazakhstan carried out the world's first ever operation to transplant a human embryo's nerve cells into a patient's damaged spinal cord last week. Indications are the operation was a success, which can potentially open the way to treating many diseases that were incurable till now. This could include spinal cord atrophy, Parkinson's, disseminated sclerosis and perhaps even serious traumas to the spinal cord, according to the BBC news August 4 report.
The team of doctors and scientists at the West Kazakhstan Medical Academy in Aktobe, led by Kazakhstan's health minister Dr. Zhaksylyk Doskaliev, MD, himself an innovative practicing surgeon and former head of the academy, conducted the operation on the female patient late last week. The team then waited four days to make sure that the success of the operation is assured before announcing the results.
The operation used a unique locally developed technology which was a decade in the making and is based on transplanting nerve cells from a still-born embryo to the affected person's spinal cord. The nerves of an unborn human can help restore the nerves of the living one. For many years, Dr. Doskaliev has been using a similar approach to transplant liver cells to cure cirrhosis in more than 300 patients.
30-year-old Aiman, who was suffering from spinal cord atrophy, was the first volunteer for this operation, and as she said in an interview with the BBC, she is happy she went for it. By the fourth day after the operation she witnessed the restoration of her sense of smell, and her fingers began to easily clench into fists. "The disease ceased oppressing me," she said.
Dr. Doskaliev, while obviously pleased with the outcome, remained cautious about the future ramifications. "We are still in a stage of clinical testing," he said. "I can't put a time frame on when we will be able to talk about final results. But there will be a time when we are able to say where this method can be used, where it cannot be used, what kind of auxiliary effects it may have and how to curb them."
(For the full BBC article in Russian, please visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/hi/russian/sci/tech/newsid_3124000/3124497.stm)
Senator Lugar Says U.S., Kazakhstan Should Continue Joint Nonproliferation Efforts
Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) said at a July 31 meeting with the visiting Kazakhstan delegation in Washington that the United States and Kazakhstan should continue their joint efforts in the area of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Kazinform.kz and other news agencies reported.
Sen. Lugar met with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Vladimir Shkolnik and Kanat Saudabayev, Kazakhstan's Ambassador the U.S.
Sen. Lugar expressed satisfaction with the bilateral cooperation under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program thus far, especially with Project Sapphire, under which Kazakhstan volunteered to have the United States remove 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in 1994, left behind by the Soviets. The Senator stressed that a lot remains to be done.
During the meeting, Minister Shkolnik and Senator Lugar agreed the cooperation between Kazakhstan and the U.S. in disarmament should serve as an example of a responsible approach to this important global issue. Ambassador Saudabayev delivered a personal note and an invitation from President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Senator Lugar to visit Kazakhstan at a convenient time.
Back in 1992, Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn (Ret.) sponsored the legislation which laid the basis for the cooperation between the U.S. and the nuclear-armed successor states to the former Soviet Union.
Since that time, under the CTR, also known at the Nunn-Lugar program 1,100 nuclear warheads with an output equivalent to 1 megaton of TNT each were removed out of Kazakhstan to Russia. The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, a place where 500 nuclear tests were carried out during the Cold War, was shut down, and its infrastructure dismantled. The world's largest anthrax production and weaponization facility at Stepnogorsk was decommissioned and decontaminated, and many other projects were implemented.
Kazakhstan Hosts Regional Anti-Terrorism Exercises
Troops from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, all members of the 6-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), began the first stage of "Interaction-2003" anti-terrorist exercises in the Almaty region in the south of Kazakhstan on August 6. The goal of the maneuvers, to last until August 8, is to improve joint coordination and actions in fighting and eliminating terrorist groups, the Kazakhstan's Defense Ministry said in a news release.
Units from the Kazakhstan's Army, Airborne and Air Defense Forces, an airborne reconnaissance platoon from Kyrgyzstan and a Russian infantry company participate in the exercises, while Tajikistan sent its observers. The two other SCO members are China and Uzbekistan.
The second stage of the action, with the goal of training the militaries in jointly destroying a supposed terrorist training camp, will take place across the border in China August 11 through 12.
The exercises are held according to the action plan under the 2001 Shanghai Convention on the fight against terrorism and extremism.
Things to Watch:
- More oil from Kazakhstan begins flowing West: President Nazarbayev opens 400-mile 7-million-tons-a-year pipeline from Karachaganak field in Western Kazakhstan to Caspian Pipeline Consortium line (please check www.interfax.com)
- Ecological disaster of global magnitude is tackled: $85-million project between Kazakhstan and the World Bank begins to reclaim the "small" Aral Sea (check www.nytimes.com for August 5)
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News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and various agencies' reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
Tel.: (202) 232- 5488 ext. 104, Fax: (202) 232- 5845
