BTA Bank, Kazakhstan's biggest lender before the global credit crisis, had a loss in the first four months of the year, the nation's financial regulator said.

An explosion killed two occupants of a car near the Kazakh security service's remand center in the capital Astana on Tuesday, shattering the windows of nearby houses, the Interior Ministry said.

Bestechung gehört in Kasachstan zum Alltag. Trotzdem zieht das Land in Zentralasien immer mehr Firmen aus Österreich an. Die Grenzen zwischen beschenken und bestechen sind dort fließend.

Life is complicated, yet fun. Only recently I had an opportunity to tell a story about an erupted in our outskirts a Deputy from the Russian LDPR-party, Ashot Egiazaryane, who escaped from Moscow because of charges of fraud and who is now hanging out in California, fooling as a second Khodorkovskiy and requests political asylum. And here is a no less entertaining story about a Kazakh boy, Daniyar Nazarbayev. Also a complicated one... absurdly.

BTA Bank, the bailed-out Kazakh lender seeking to recover assets for international creditors, can continue its $4 billion fraud lawsuit against ousted Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov, a U.K. judge ruled.

The economic recovery in Kazakhstan, driven by strong commodities prices, helped pull the country's troubled banking sector out of the crisis. And lending, which starting to resume in late 2010, is expected to pick up as Kazakhstan enters a new credit cycle.

Verny Capital, the Kazakh private equity firm whose lead investor is billionaire Bulat Utemuratov, has bought Moscow's Ritz-Carlton Hotel, ahead of a $3.2bn payout from the Glencore IPO.

Der autoritär regierende Präsident Nasarbajew bleibt mindestens bis 2016 im Amt. Die Wahlen hätten den "demokratischen Charakter" Kasachstans bewiesen.

In Kasachstan wird Herrscher Nasarbajew mindestens fünf weitere Jahre regieren. Die OSZE kritisierte die Präsidentenwahlen scharf - und prangerte massive Fälschungen an.