Mukhtar Ablyazov, ex-chairman of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank, asked a U.K. judge to order the lender to hand over documents explaining how his personal stake in the bank's Georgian subsidiary was sold without his permission.

Iran plans to gradually boost the volume of its oil swaps with Central Asian countries, the oil ministry's news website, Shana reported, citing Mohsen Qamsari, head of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Co.

MONTREAL - South Korea President Lee Myung-bak returned home last week from a tour of Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan that helped to raise his country's profile and project its foreign economic diplomacy across Inner and Central Asia while significantly expanding Seoul's ties with the three countries.

(SRI) - Kazakhstan's oil wealth has had a positive effect on economic growth but the country needs to step up its efforts to develop other sectors of the economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report published last week.

LONDON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Kazakh miner ENRC will need to bring robust independent voices onto its board to remain attractive for minority shareholders if one of its founders decides to seek a more active role as director, analysts and investors said.

FORTUNE -- In May, less than a month after the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a key milestone was achieved with little notice: Total U.S. supplies of petroleum and products refined from it (including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) surpassed 1.8 billion barrels, reaching the highest level in the last 20 years. Since then the total has continued to edge upward, hitting 1.87 billion barrels in the week ended August 27, according to the Energy Information Administration.

(SRI) - A federal bankruptcy judge has denied BTA Bank's attempt to use U.S. bankruptcy law to shield it from an overseas legal proceeding, a ruling that limits the reach of the U.S. bankruptcy court in foreign insolvency disputes.

ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA — The fate of the massive deposits of lithium recently discovered in Afghanistan is destined to be no different from that of landlocked Central Asia's other natural resources: tapped by the West, and eventually controlled by the East.

The second phase of development of the Kashagan oil field has been postponed until 2018-2019, local newswires reported on Thursday, citing the chief executive of Kazakh oil and gas company KazMunaiGas.