OSKEMEN, Kazakhstan -- Kazakhstan's most prominent human rights activist, who is serving a four-year prison term over a fatal road accident, has been released from a low security labor camp on furlough for the first time, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Four years ago, Kazakhstan's foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to a meeting in Astana, the Kazakh capital, to warn that a family dispute between the president and his son-in-law, two of the country's most powerful men, had boiled over.

Mukhtar Ablyazov is accused of running one of the biggest frauds in history

BTA Bank, Kazakhstan's biggest lender before the global credit crisis, had a loss in the first four months of the year, the nation's financial regulator said.

An explosion killed two occupants of a car near the Kazakh security service's remand center in the capital Astana on Tuesday, shattering the windows of nearby houses, the Interior Ministry said.

Bestechung gehört in Kasachstan zum Alltag. Trotzdem zieht das Land in Zentralasien immer mehr Firmen aus Österreich an. Die Grenzen zwischen beschenken und bestechen sind dort fließend.