Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has wrapped up a visit to China and is heading home with lucrative contracts to supply China with energy resources and promises of some $7 billion in Chinese loans for projects in Kazakhstan.

Almaty residents have found some unusual post in their mailboxes this week. Among the usual stack of adverts for supermarkets and pizza delivery lies a mysterious political tract on the tumultuous events in the Middle East entitled: "The Tunisians, the Egyptians...Who's Next?"

Kazakhstan announced billions of dollars in deals with China on Tuesday, underlining central Asia's gradual shift away from Moscow and towards Beijing.

A key adviser to Kazakhstan's veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev has insisted the president's move to call early elections was not prompted by events in Cairo – and that there is little chance of an Egypt-style uprising in the central Asian state.

The jubilant scenes on Cairo's Tahrir Square that greeted the fall of Hosni Mubarak have been likened to those that accompanied the toppling of communist regimes across eastern Europe in 1989. But in many states inside the former Soviet Union democracy never fully took root. So, could the wildfires of Tunisia and Egypt spread to them?

KIEV, Ukraine — Kazakhstan's hardline leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has called snap presidential elections in less than two months, leaving longtime political observers guessing at his motivation.