The jubilant scenes on Cairo's Tahrir Square that greeted the fall of Hosni Mubarak have been likened to those that accompanied the toppling of communist regimes across eastern Europe in 1989. But in many states inside the former Soviet Union democracy never fully took root. So, could the wildfires of Tunisia and Egypt spread to them?
KIEV, Ukraine — Kazakhstan's hardline leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has called snap presidential elections in less than two months, leaving longtime political observers guessing at his motivation.
Kazakhstan's main opposition party Azat said Saturday it would boycott presidential polls to be held in April, which President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to win comfortably.
THE game seemed to be set. Kazakhstan's political machine was running in overdrive, and since late December viewers of state television had been bombarded with sound bites from well-known and obscure citizens gushing about the wisdom of holding a national referendum to extend until 2020 the term of the long-serving and deserving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Over 5m enthusiastic signatures in favour of the referendum, representing more than half the electorate, were collected in just a few weeks.
Mukhtar Ablyazov, ex-chairman of the bailed-out Kazakh lender BTA Bank JSC, can't use allegations of a presidential conspiracy to avoid bank claims he embezzled as much as $4 billion, a U.K. judge ruled.
Kazakhstan's presidential hopefuls will have to pass a gruelling 90 minute spelling and grammar test, in a move that may dissuade challengers from running against the country's long-serving ruler.
Passed to the Telegraph by WikiLeaks
A line of 150 trucks waits to enter Kazakhstan. It takes so long to clear customs here that each rig usually only makes two round trips a month. And yet, contrary to appearances, documentary discrepancies suggest the checkpoint is a smuggler's paradise.
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.
