Events and opinions

After a precipitous plunge over many months, Kazakhstan’s embattled currency has gained ground in recent weeks.

Fourteen years have passed since the newsroom Irina Petrushova ran in Kazakhstan was firebombed - shortly after she found the corpse of a decapitated dog at the office and its head outside her house - but threats against the journalist remain ongoing.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Kazakhstan, on February 6, where he and his host government discussed bilateral cooperation on large-scale transit corridor projects (Akorda, February 6). As a “new Silk Road” of transportation infrastructure slowly emerges across Eurasia, Turkey and Kazakhstan are becoming important transit hubs within this network.

Kazakhstan has slashed its growth forecast for this year, finally acknowledging the scale of damage wrought to its economy by the slump in the price for its main export commodity.

Free speech campaigners are crying foul over a criminal investigation in Kazakhstan involving two prominent media figures on charges of embezzling nearly $1 million.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by today's detention of Seytkazy Matayev, head of the Kazakh Journalists' Union and the chair of National Press Club, in Almaty.

Kazakhstan's anti-corruption agency is investigating the head of the journalists' union Seitkazy Matayev over suspected theft and tax evasion, it said on Monday, less than a month before a parliamentary election.

 A U.S. federal judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit brought by a close business associate of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's former son-in-law, who was found dead in an Austrian jail cell last year.

Kazakhstan’s plan to privatize its state industries is ambitious, but it faces some major barriers.