"Turkmenistan has launched out down the Information Superhighway. It has a home page and is opening a centre where Turkmens can connect with the outside world through Cyberspace. The potential in a country like this is huge. Old systems like telephones and postal services are atrocious. The Internet could bypass much of this, pitching Central Asia straight into the computer age. Some urban Central Asians already use electronic mail centres set up with aid money. It's possible too that Internet could find its way into schools and universities starved of books and journals. It's hard to overstate how valuable information is here. Several governments, including that of Turkmenistan keep a tight grip on communications, phones are bugged, independent newspapers are outlawed and dissenters silenced. The coming of Internet is a challenge, at least one exiled opposition party has a web site, so do many groups the Central Asian governments are wary off, like supporters of the Taleban movement in Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see who will get access to the Turkmen system. Some states keep control through expensive tariffs, but illegal systems are hard to police. Central Asia online has another dimension too, few outsiders even know where these countries are, now it may be possible to tap into the Turkmen desert or the Tajik mountains from almost anywhere."