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Transcaucasus is quickly rising to the top (or should that be bottom?) of the bad-regions-for-press-freedom list. I've already covered Uzbekistan, and now Kazakhstan has made the headlines in a not very flattering way: an Astana court has ordered the closure of independent newspaper "Law and Justice" citing irregularities when the paper was registered. Journalists from this paper have previously disappeared without a trace when attempting to report critically onthe government - it should be noted that Kazakhstan is a country where "suspicious deaths" among journalists happen with alarming regularity. The Nazabayev government does not take kindly to criticism - which is presumably why the president lets members of his family run many of the national news outlets (his daughter runs several TV channels and two national newspapers, for example). A more detailed analysis of exactly what is wrong with the media landscape in Kazakhstan can be found here. Khazakstan ranks 125th (out of 169 countries) in the Reporters Without Borders 2007 worldwide press freedom index (well, at least they are better than Russia and Iraq), and has still been chosen to chair the OSCE in 2010. For those of you not in the know, the OSCE is the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an organization that has human rights on its agenda. What will Kazakhstan have to say about the Media Freedom agenda of OSCE? The OSCE web page says something about "...addressing and providing early warning on violations of freedom of expression." They evidently did not read the memo on Kazakhstan.