TONY PATERSON
Prison authorities discovered his corpse at 7.20 on a Tuesday morning late last month. Rakhat Aliyev's body was hanging from a noose made from gauze bandages which had been attached to a peg in the cell's shower unit. Aliyev, the former son in law and prominent millionaire opponent of the autocratic Kazakh president, was found dead in his solitary cell in the hospital unit of the Josefstadt prison in Vienna in circumstances that might have been lifted from the pages of a John Le Carré spy novel.
It's no secret that 2014 ended on a poor note for Kazakhstan. Sagging oil prices coupled with an economic crunch in Russia to hammer Astana's economy. Russian adventurism – and not-so-veiled threats against Astana's statehood – saw relations between Moscow and Astana reach their post-Soviet nadir. And far from the post-Soviet integration project Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev envisioned, the Eurasian Economic Union morphed into another excuse for reasserting Russian hegemony, all to Astana's detriment.
A key element to President Vladimir Putin's vision of growing Russian influence in the world is his plan to lead the former Soviet republics into an economic union. 
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both expected to re-elect their leaders this spring. Few will be surprised if Nursultan Nazarbayev keeps his job in Kazakhstan - though he's yet to announce he is running again - or if Islam Karimov stays president in Uzbekistan.
It's the damning new book that lifts the lid on Tony and Cherie Blair's lust for money. Yesterday, in our exclusive serialisation, we told how revelations about his relationship with a tycoon's wife put a strain on the Blair marriage. Today we reveal how the couple are happy to sell their services to some of the world's most repulsive tyrants . . .
The ignominious end of Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakhstan's most feared man, heir apparent, sugar czar, fugitive. On the morning of February 24, the warden of Vienna's Josefstadt prison announced the suicide by hanging of his most notorious inmate. Rakhat Aliyev, former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and a man on the run since he fell afoul of his powerful relative in 2007, had surrendered himself to the Austrian authorities last May and was awaiting trial on murder charges.
I am in Astana, the gateway to southern Siberia. The temperature in the afternoon is around -10 degrees Celsius. All around us the ground is covered in ice, but Astana residents still say, "We've made it through winter now, and the scent of spring is in the air." Everyone is getting ready to celebrate Nevruz on March 21. Personally, I love the cold of Astana. It's a dry cold, a cold that keeps people strong and doesn't make them ill. For Kazakhstan, the winter season is especially important. Dec. 1 is the "first president of the Kazakhstan Republic" day, marked by the president turning on the lights of a new year's tree, then a couple of weeks later on Dec. 16 is Kazakhstan's Independence Day.
