Usbekistan

After three years of steady but piecemeal reforms, the government of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev faces its most demanding test yet -- to persuade the international community through parliamentary and local elections on Dec. 22 that it is truly committed to democratic change.

The head of Uzbekistan's Information and Mass Communication Agency has said that access to a dozen news and human rights websites has been restored in the authoritarian Central Asian country. … Some of the sites had been blocked since 2004.