Jim Sleeper
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake performed the diplomatic equivalent of gold-medal figure skating last April in a meeting at the authoritarian central Asian nation of Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev University when a student asked him about warnings by American critics and human-rights monitors that "a democracy cannot have its universities making partnerships with authoritarian governments," as the questioner put it.
At least 16 people were injured during a rare riot in normally supine Almaty after a pop concert was abruptly cancelled late on August 31. Popular singer Kairat Nurtas, who was making a guest appearance at the concert in the parking lot of one of Almaty's major shopping malls, left the stage after performing one song when fans became unruly, a video posted on YouTube shows.
Kanye West is embroiled in controversy again after the rapper raked in a reported $3 million to perform at the wedding of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev's grandson, according to TMZ.
Kasachstan ist reich an Öl und Gas. Seit 1991 regiert dort der autoritäre Präsident Nursultan Nasarbajew über die etwa 15 Millionen Einwohner. In der früheren Sowjetrepublik hat die Korruption Hochkonjunktur.
Russia has asked France to extradite Kazakh oligarch banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling up to $6 billion from his former bank BTA, Russia's deputy prosecutor general was reported as saying Wednesday.
The Kazakh poet Aron Atabek has been in prison since 2007. He has been placed in solitary confinement for two years as punishment for writing a book that criticises President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and is due for return to the general prison population at the end of 2014. He has previously spent two years in solitary confinement for refusing to wear a prison uniform: one third of his incarceration so far has been spent in isolation. Both the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee against Torture have concluded that prolonged solitary confinement may amount to torture.
The oligarch brother of the president of Kazakhstan has accused his former wife of wiring $75 million (£48 million) to a celebrity jeweller nicknamed "the king of bling". The assertion, made in court papers filed in New York, is part of a bitter high-dollar split between Bolat Nazarbayev, brother of Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Maira Nazarbayeva, a Kazakh socialite with a penchant for expensive gems.
