Two men who had been colleagues at the former FTSE 100 mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation have been found dead at a hotel in the US. The bodies of James Bethel, 44, the former head of the group's copper and cobalt division in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Gerrit Strydom, 45, who was the general manager of ENRC subsidiary Congo Cobalt Corporation, were discovered last weekend in separate rooms at the hotel in Springfield, Missouri.

The council ruled that a Russian-style bill banning "gay propaganda" could violate Kazakhstan's constitution as the country bids to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Kazakhstan's Constitutional Council has thrown out a Russian-style bill that would ban "propagandizing non-traditional sexual orientation" to minors. The bill passed Kazakhstan's Senate in February but had not yet been signed into law by President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Once he promised to transform Britain. Instead Tony Blair became a despised figure around the world. And now what is probably the final act in Tony Blair's political career has ended in abject failure as he leaves his job as Middle East peace envoy. Given his dismal record, there is little surprise the former Labour prime minister is departing from the role he took upon leaving Downing Street eight years ago.

Investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, author of the current bestselling book "Clinton Cash," believes Wall Street analyst and investor Charles Ortel's finding that Bill and Hillary Clinton managed the Clinton Foundation to enrich themselves and their closes associates adds an important dimension to his own investigations into allegations of bribery.

In a new report, the International Crisis Group says that Kazakhstan is facing a stress test–its only president since independence turns 75 this summer and Russia's "actions in Ukraine cast a shadow over Kazakhstan." To date, the report notes, Kazakhstan's devotion to continuity has trumped needed democratic reforms. Nursultan Nazarbayev's recent landslide reelection demonstrates his absolute centrality to political stability in the country and could prove to be "a serious vulnerability."

IN 1989, the ruling Politburo of the Soviet Union chose new leaders for two of the empire's Central Asian republics. Twenty-six years later, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan are still in power. They have weathered the Soviet Union's collapse, wars in Afghanistan and other neighboring nations, the rise of China and the spread of Islamist terrorism with a mix of repression, crony capitalism, corruption and the cultivation of competing powers, including the United States. Now, like leaders across Eurasia, they are wondering if they can survive the revived imperialism of Russia under Vladi­mir Putin.