Kazakhstan's president is pushing FTSE 100 miners Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) and Kazakhmys into listing some of their shares on the country's stock exchange in growing signs of state intervention in the private sector.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that Britain's special representative for international trade and investment is not Prince Andrew.

Des documents, mis en circulation par des ennemis politiques du clan au pouvoir au Kazakhstan, montrent que des centaines de millions, qui auraient été blanchis par le gendre du président, auraient transité par des banques suisses. Le Ministère public de la Confédération a ouvert une enquête, apprenait-on il y a trois semaines.

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.

Communism fell, but liberty has yet to arrive in Central Asia.

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 for projects in Kazakhstan.

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 events in the Middle East entitled: "The Tunisians, the Egyptians...Who's Next?"

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

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 Egypt-style uprising in the central Asian state.