Owen Jones
As the agency strives to craft a cuddly new image, we mustn't allow it to whitewash its history of torture and murder. In the latest CIA coup, America's leading spooks have sent the Twittersphere into a frenzy with their chucklesome debut on social media: "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet." How droll! More than a quarter of a million people have retweeted what has been described as "the best first tweet possible". No wonder: it's one of the world's most secretive organisations being self-deprecating, light-hearted, even – dare I say it? – cute.
There is an old adage in Kazakhstan: "Happiness is multiple pipelines." For the oil-and-gas rich Caspian country, keeping up good relations with a handful of customers -- namely, Russia, China, and the West -- at all times, without engaging too deeply with a single player, has been a guiding foreign policy principle since it gained independence in 1991.
Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh president's former son-in-law, has been detained in Austria while under investigation for alleged crimes including murder and running a crime network in the Central Asian country, his lawyer said.
The Kazakh authorities did everything possible to prevent journalists spoiling the party when President Nursultan Nazarbayev received his Russian and Belarusian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Aleksander Lukashenko, in Astana on 29 May for the signing of the treaty creating the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Kazakhstan and Belarus on Thursday into a new Eurasian Economic Union built to rival the United States, EU and China - but the absence of Ukraine undermined his dream of restoring Soviet glory days.
It won't exactly mean going back to the USSR, but Vladimir Putin is laying the foundations of a huge trading bloc which opponents see as an attempt to recreate at least part of the lost Soviet empire.
Associated Press reports that, facing public opposition and allegations of official corruption, Krakow, Poland, is withdrawing its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. It follows Stockholm, which pulled out in December due to concerns over costs. This leaves four cities officially in the running: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing, China; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo, Norway.
As Austrian media „Die Kronen Zeitung" is reporting, the former Kazakh Ambassador to Austria and the International Institutions Rakhat Aliyev - European crime units investigate against him on charges of double murder, torture, abduction and money-laundering - can travel around Europe in private learjets.
Two prominent activists lobbying against Kazakhstan's membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) – due to be created next week – have been hauled in for interrogation by Kazakhstan's domestic intelligence service over an alleged plot by Russian nationalists to destabilize the country.
It is after 8pm and Kazakhstan's parliament in the futuristic capital of Astana is practically deserted. Yet Bakytzhan Sagintayev, first deputy prime minister, is still hard at work. A few minutes into an interview with the Financial Times, he is interrupted by a klaxon-like sound: an urgent query from the prime minister.
