Ever since the film Borat was released, the word "Kazakh" has tended to provoke sneers on western bank trading floors. Right now, however, it merits more respect – at least as far as the issue of financial restructuring is concerned.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Thursday rejected a draft law to make him "Leader of the Nation" and grant him special powers for life if he resigned, showing he is not about to quit as head of state.
A senior US envoy urged Azerbaijan and Turkey on Wednesday to sign a long-awaited deal he said was crucial for retaining confidence in Western plans to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas.
Samruk-Kazyna should expedite the sale of its majority stakes in BTA Bank and Alliance Bank, Kazakhstan's central bank chairman Grigoriy Marchenko stated, saying that the state should not have a major shareholding role in the countries' commercial banks.
Kazakhstan received a downward trend arrow due to a spate of politically motivated libel suits against critical media outlets, a restrictive new internet law, arbitrary arrests of officials and businesspeople, and the grossly deficient judicial proceedings against human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis.
National Security Departments in every country very often used their opportunities to influence country leaders and sometimes to remove unwanted ones from country governance. With the help of secret departments palace revolutions were made, unwanted persons were liquidated; political opponents were imprisoned for many years, sometimes for the whole life. All these illegal and dangerous for any country actions were made either at the suggestion of establishment or at their connivance, when the secret services which were supposed to guarantee security of the country and people, in reality acted and somewhere still act now in their own vested interests.
US stops refueling tanker planes supporting Afghan war in price dispute at key transit base
