Kazakhstan is facing the growing prospect of an international backlash over a crackdown on labor unions that has curtailed workers' rights and increased the likelihood of social unrest and political destabilization.
Following the formal end of national discussions in Kazakhstan on constitutional reforms intended, if only on paper, to rebalance authority away from the president toward the executive and the legislative, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled the issue should be considered further in parliament.
Swiss prosecutors announced Thursday that they are investigating whether private bank Lombard Odier failed to prevent the daughter of former Uzbek president Islam Karimov from laundering money.
The agreement to start the Foundation emerged in 2007 after more than two years of discussion between the Governments of the United States, Switzerland and Kazakhstan (known as “the Parties”) about the disposition of $84 million, plus interest, that had been frozen in a Swiss account since 1999.
Kazakhstan’s renewed efforts against corruption might mask a strategy aimed to silence opposition figures and activists.
Kazakhstan’s Football Federation has a new vice president with a familiar sounding surname — Aisultan Nazarbayev.
A wealthy British businessman who is feuding with the state of Kazakhstan over hundreds of millions of dollars of disputed assets claims the Kazakh secret police put him and his brother under “extreme psychological pressure” with a campaign of intimidation on the streets of London and in the USA.
