From my DevelopmentEx email:

UZBEKISTAN: Jean Lemierre, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), this week threw down the gauntlet to Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, warning that Tashkent could face cuts in the bank’s financial support next year unless it implemented wide-ranging reforms, reports the Financial Times (U.K.). Mr. Lemierre urged Mr. Karimov to make radical economic and political changes, including eliminating torture in his prisons, by March 2004, when the EBRD board will meet to consider alternatives, including reducing the bank’s activities to negligible levels.