Mega-projects are an endangered species in today’s oil and gas industry. As companies struggle to keep up their dividend payments with sharply reduced revenues, multiyear, multibillion-dollar commitments are increasingly seen as foolhardy excesses.
Most of the routes from China to Europe pass via Kazakhstan’s vast landmass, located strategically on the crossroads between Europe and Asia. As China is expanding its economic outreach to Europe, the government in Astana wants to benefit beyond transit fees as it is trying to break away from oil dependence. However, benefits might come at high cost, as Kazakhstan risks becoming too dependent on China economically and politically.
A much-respected current affairs publication in Kazakhstan has announced it is set to close because of financial difficulties, further impoverishing a media scene dominated by outlets funded by the government.
The 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly today elected Sweden, Bolivia, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan to serve on the world body’s Security Council for a period of two years, starting from 1 January 2017.
Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, (from Greek: κλέπτης - kleptēs, "thief" and κράτος - kratos, "power, rule", hence "rule by thieves") is a term applied to a government seen as having a particularly severe and systemic problem with officials or a ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) taking advantage of corruption to extend their personal wealth and political power.
Kazakhstan and shareholders of Kashagan oil field have signed the rules of sampling oil, gas and sulfur at this field, Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said.
The social media accounts of politicians in the former Soviet Union have provided journalists with rich material to work with in recent times.
There is an old Kazakh proverb that states: “To be the captive of the Chinese is a tight noose — with the Russians, it is a wide, open road.”
Kazakh authorities should immediately release three activists in western Kazakhstan and drop charges against them, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists face prosecution in retaliation for peaceful protests in April and May 2016 against land code changes.
A RAMPAGE by gun-toting Islamists in a provincial city has exacerbated an already tense situation in what has generally been the most tranquil of Central Asia’s five post-Soviet states.
