Central Asia's authoritarian leaders, having crushed dissent during decades in power, are likely to use a mixture of oil and gas revenues, repression and cosmetic reforms to meet any threat of Egyptian-style protests.
A Kazakh presidential hopeful has been disqualified from running in the April election because he made too many spelling mistakes in a language test, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
The date for Kazakhstan's snap presidential election has been set for April 3 after amendments to the constitution and electoral law were rushed through parliament.
Only a concerted effort from national governments, donors and the international community to modernise Central Asia's infrastructure can avert the region's decline into chaos.
Kazakhstan's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said last week it had requested the extradition of fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov from the UK.
The United States on Tuesday welcomed Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's decision to scrap a referendum which would have handed him a third decade in power by skipping elections.
Weighing the option to prolong President Nursultan Nazarbayev's term to 2020 by referendum, Kazakhstan's governing elite has engaged in an unprecedented open debate.
The United States has again pressed Kazakhstan over a bid to dispense with presidential elections for the next decade – but are its words falling on deaf ears?
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Friday said he was ready to work for as long as required as his country is expected to hold a referendum on whether to extend his term until 2020.
Egyptian activists have been circulating a kind of primer to Friday's planned protest. We were sent the plan by two separate sources and have decided to publish excerpts here, with translations into English. Over Twitter, we connected with a translator, who translated the document with exceptional speed.
