Monthly Archive

High fees, spying, and outright blockage -- Central Asia's regimes are not short of ways to control Internet blogs and social networks which have mobilised the recent protests in the Middle East. ... read more..

Communism fell, but liberty has yet to arrive in Central Asia. Beyond, behind, mysterious and unvisited, the great expanse of what was once Soviet Central Asia sits ignored somewhere near the end... read more..

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... read more..

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 eve... read more..

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

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 ... read more..

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 ... read more..

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. ... read more..

Kazakhstan's main opposition party Azat said Saturday it would boycott presidential polls to be held in April, which President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to win comfortably. The Central Asi... read more..

THE game seemed to be set. Kazakhstan's political machine was running in overdrive, and since late December viewers of state television had been bombarded with sound bites from well-known and obscure ... read more..

Mukhtar Ablyazov, ex-chairman of the bailed-out Kazakh lender BTA Bank JSC, can't use allegations of a presidential conspiracy to avoid bank claims he embezzled as much as $4 billion, a U.K. judge rul... read more..

Kazakhstan's presidential hopefuls will have to pass a gruelling 90 minute spelling and grammar test, in a move that may dissuade challengers from running against the country's long-serving ruler. ... read more..

Passed to the Telegraph by WikiLeaks Ref ID: 09LONDON712 Date: 3/23/2009 15:03 Origin: Embassy London Classification: CONFIDENTIAL Destination: 09ASTANA204|09ASTANA250|09ASTANA286|09A... read more..

A line of 150 trucks waits to enter Kazakhstan. It takes so long to clear customs here that each rig usually only makes two round trips a month. And yet, contrary to appearances, documentary discrepan... read more..

Central Asia's authoritarian leaders, having crushed dissent during decades in power, are likely to use a mixture of oil and gas revenues, repression and cosmetic reforms to meet any threat of Egyptia... read more..

A Kazakh presidential hopeful has been disqualified from running in the April election because he made too many spelling mistakes in a language test, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports. Ualikhan Qai... read more..

The date for Kazakhstan's snap presidential election has been set for April 3 after amendments to the constitution and electoral law were rushed through parliament. Incumbent leader Nursultan Naz... read more..

Only a concerted effort from national governments, donors and the international community to modernise Central Asia's infrastructure can avert the region's decline into chaos. Asia Report N°2013 ... read more..

Kazakhstan's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said last week it had requested the extradition of fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov from the UK. "We have sent a petition to the UK for the arrest o... read more..

The United States on Tuesday welcomed Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's decision to scrap a referendum which would have handed him a third decade in power by skipping elections. Last month ... read more..

Weighing the option to prolong President Nursultan Nazarbayev's term to 2020 by referendum, Kazakhstan's governing elite has engaged in an unprecedented open debate. The process is of a far broad... read more..

The United States has again pressed Kazakhstan over a bid to dispense with presidential elections for the next decade – but are its words falling on deaf ears? As Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Sa... read more..

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Friday said he was ready to work for as long as required as his country is expected to hold a referendum on whether to extend his term until 2020. "I am r... read more..

Egyptian activists have been circulating a kind of primer to Friday's planned protest. We were sent the plan by two separate sources and have decided to publish excerpts here, with translations into ... read more..

Journalist who led demo against referendum allowing president to avoid elections says even small-scale protest has symbolic value. As soon as plans were announced for a referendum on extending th... read more..

You might imagine that Astana would want to keep off the world stage amid the international outcry over an ongoing bid to extend the rule of Kazakhstan's Leader of the Nation. But fresh from stee... read more..

* President backs law to allow new parties * New parties unlikely to threaten closed regime * Economic steps not matched by political reform President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who leads read more..

ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's parliament on Friday approved a referendum to extend President Nursultan Nazarbayev's term for a third decade, clearing the way for the veteran leader of Central Asia's... read more..

Among the great powers vying for influence in post-Soviet Central Asia, China has been the quietest, most systematic, and most dangerous. With its booming economy, growing population, and relentless n... read more..

ASTANA (Reuters) - More than half of Kazakhstan's 9 million voters have backed a referendum to extend veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev's rule of the oil-rich Central Asian state for a third decade,... read more..