After two Kazakh students are charged with disrupting the investigation into the Boston bombing, residents from Kazakhstan defend their compatriots. The surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect exchanged text messages with a friend who had become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face on television, authorities say. That friend and two others now stand accused of aiding the suspected bombers.
"With China having already cornered about 40 per cent of this country's hydrocarbon assets, India's assessment is that it can get a chunk of the remaining portion if New Delhi plays its political and diplomatic cards right," The Hindu writes.
The “Church of Silence” is still a reality in this former Soviet country, where faithful still face repression. From Stalin’s gulags to censored books. “Religious freedom is non-existent” in Kazakhstan, international organisations complain, as the persecution of religious minorities intensifies. Members of religious communities and human rights defenders have said there is no freedom of faith in the country.
The uncle of Boston's two Tsarnaev brothers worked for the CIA-front organisation called USAID.
It's been a busy month for Russians in our news. From Berezovsky, to the younger Abramovich to the mess of miner ENRC...
Kazakhstan's Education Ministry has enlisted the secret police to monitor students studying abroad on a government-sponsored scholarship program. The KNB, successor to the Soviet-era KGB, will ensure the students return home to serve the motherland.
Die Pressefreiheit ist in Kasachstan in den vergangenen Jahren stetig eingeschränkt worden. "Vor fünf Jahren gab es noch unabhängige nationale Medien", sagt der Journalist Lukpan Achmedjarow der Nachrichtenagentur sda in Genf. Übrig geblieben seien heute nur noch drei regionale unabhängige Zeitungen. Darunter ist die Wochenzeitung "Uralskaja Nedelja" in der nordwestlichen Stadt Uralsk, für die Achmedjarow als Reporter arbeitet. Unabhängige Radio- oder Fernsehsender gibt es keine mehr.
