KASHGAR, China (Reuters) - Uighur merchant Obul Kasim carries emotional scars from his confrontation with an unbending government after he failed to save his 100-year-old mud-brick home from demolition, a victim of the urban renewal marching across the historic Silk Road.

ALMATY (Reuters) - The U.S.-based human rights body Freedom House has demanded the immediate release from prison of a Kazakh labor lawyer, saying trumped-up accusations were used to punish her for supporting striking oil workers.

Serik Medetbekov, einst Medienmanager in Kasachstan, lebt heute in Dresden und ist Sprecher oppositioneller Kräfte im Ausland. 

Eine schillernde Vita und schwerwiegende Anschuldigungen: Jahrelang weigerten sich Österreichs Behörden, gegen Rachat Alijew zu ermitteln, obwohl ein kasachisches Gericht ihn in Abwesenheit wegen Folter verurteilt hatte. Nun hat Österreich ein Verfahren eingeleitet - doch jetzt hat Alijew sich abgesetzt.

ALMATY Aug 1 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's veteran leader was easily re-elected in April to lead Central Asia's largest economy until 2016, but his brief trip abroad for medical reasons in July reignited an old concern -- who will succeed him?

LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - A British Virgin Islands court will on Monday consider an application from units of Kazakh miner ENRC to strike out a $2 billion claim filed by Canadian rival First Quantum Minerals over a disputed Congo copper project.