LITTLE has changed in Uzbekistan since the collapse of communism and the breakup of the old Soviet Union, least of all the man in charge.

Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's autocratic president, has dominated the central Asian republic since 1989, when he took over as leader of the communist party.

The following year he became president and has since retained a firm grip on power.

The orphan son of a Tajik mother and Uzbek father, his rule has been characterised by oppression, torture, human rights abuses and a failing economy.

Mr Karimov, 67, is from the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan and is an economist by profession. During the days of Soviet Uzbekistan he served as finance minister, one of several senior government posts he held.

In the presidential elections after the collapse of the USSR, Mr Karimov was returned as leader in a poll in which few opposition groups were allowed to field candidates.

A year after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Mr Karimov began tightening his grip and banned both the Birlik and Erk opposition parties and jailed their activists for alleged anti-state activities. In 1995 he won the election unopposed and in 2002 he secured support in a referendum to extend the presidential term from five to seven years.

His ruthlessness in stamping out opposition is absolute - he is said to have boiled enemies alive - and last year the parliamentary elections were deemed to be neither free nor fair by the limited number of foreign observers allowed to monitor them.

A UN report has described the use of torture in Uzbekistan as "systematic", and the media is tightly controlled by the state while opposition parties are banned.

Mr Karimov justifies the brutality of his regime on the perceived

threat from Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, but a wave of bombings and shootings last year suggest that his policies help to create terrorism rather than keep it in check.

Much of the unrest in Uzbekistan is related to the failing economy and the state's crackdown on private enterprise: Mr Karimov believes that the expansion of capitalism will bring with it a democratic awakening among the middle class.

The poor living standards which are the result of the command-style economy coupled with oppression, state violence and a lack of religious freedom have provided a breeding ground for violent resistance to his regime.

Mr Karimov's daughter, Gulnara, is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by a judge in New Jersey, in connection with a custody case after she defied court orders to return her son, 10, and daughter, five, to their home in the US.

She took them to Uzbekistan in 2001, a day after her American husband Mansur Maqsudi told her he wanted to end their 10-year marriage.

He has not seen his children since, despite being granted sole custody.

Gulnara was later appointed to a position at the Uzbek embassy in Moscow, giving her diplomatic status.