Kyrgyzstan: 'Askar Akayev, the embattled Soviet-era President of Kyrgyzstan, claims he is facing an attempted coup d'etat and has vowed not to let his strategically important central Asian state become engulfed in a Ukraine-style revolution. As the 60-year-old potentate spoke, Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished former Soviet republic of five million people, looked dangerously close to violent clashes, if not civil war. The opposition, which says it is seeking to launch a revolution in the style of Ukraine or Georgia, has seized control of two large southern cities after rioting and sometimes violent stand-offs with the police.' (Independent)