Less than two months before Kazakhstan takes over the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kazakh NGO's are warning the international community about the rapidly worsening human rights situation in the country. Kazakhstan's ambition to become OSCE chairman was a project oriented at enhancing the country's international image and not its democratic achievements, most leaders conclude.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has begun a third round of discussions in Almaty about upcoming counterterrorism exercises, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports. (photo: An SCO meeting last month in Beijing)
The hardest struggle is the struggle with yourself: never know who’s going to win
Human Rights Watch has urged Kazakhstan to launch a new investigation into the case of a jailed activist, saying the Central Asian state was losing credibility as the future chair of a European human rights body.
A Kazakh court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by a human rights activist who was jailed last month over a road accident in a trial criticised by rights campaigners as politically motivated.
Domestic critics of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration in Kazakhstan are rising again. The opposition’s revival may create an internal challenge for Nazarbayev and increase international attention on Kazakhstan’s democratization process, as Astana prepares to lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.
The main intrigue surrounding the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Chisinau last week was whether Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would attend.
New Russia-dominated NATO-style rapid-reaction force kicks off first military exercises
