Kazakhstan's highest court refused Thursday to overturn a prison sentence for a newspaper editor in a case that has drawn widespread international condemnation.

Kazakhstan’s financial regulator imposed a deadline on BTA Bank to complete its debt restructuring by September 18, notwithstanding a possibly negative impact on the country’s reputation with Western investors.

Press rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has criticised the three-year jail term handed down to a Kazakh newspaper editor for divulging classified documents.

Nurlan Bisekeyev, the defense lawyer of the former chief of Kazatomprom Mukhtar Djakishev announced that his client has irresistible proof of his innocence, which he is ready to present at an open trial.

A senior security official may eventually succeed Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev in a deal similar to Vladimir Putin's rise to power in Russia, a political analyst said in a rare public comment on Friday.

Newly nervous post-Soviet states crack down on Western schools.

Kazakh activists are calling on police to conduct an objective investigation into a deadly traffic accident that involved one of the country's leading human rights activists, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.