Kazakhstan: warm up for the OSCE
For the last 3 years the Kazakh government has been declaring to its people that the country's assumption of the chair of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010...
View ArticleBelarusian "godfather" falls out with his masters
On the eve of a Customs Union agreement between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russian state television began an information war against Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. By the ferocity of...
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Dreaming of the sea, or a holiday in Moynaq
Daniel Metcalfe's book ‘Out of Steppe’ describes his journey through Central Asia. In this excerpt he describes the Karakalpak landscape around the Aral Sea. The Soviet tourist destination, previously...
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Decapitated dogs and burning bureaus: the year Kazakhstan did democracy
Kazakhstan’s 2010 chairmanship of the OSCE has not passed without controversy. Reforms promised at the beginning of the year never happened, press harassment continues and things could get worse when...
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Central Asia: succession planning in dictatorships
Kyrgyzstan aside, recent elections in Central Asia would appear to indicate that the regions’ leaders are aiming to stay in power for life. But what will happen to their regimes when infirmity strikes,...
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Kazakhstan's Democracy Gap
Over its two decades of independence Kazakhstan has made enormous progress. Economic reforms, energy exploitation and interethnic harmony are major gains. Democratic reforms, however, lag behind....
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Getting by as a gastarbeiter in Kazakhstan
The stream of migrants from Central Asia seeking work in Russia is considerable, but racism and the migration laws there make them vulnerable to intimidation and exploitation. Many prefer to stay...
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Russia, EU and ECU: co-existence or rivalry?
The creation of the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU) could well enhance Russia’s position in the post-Soviet space at the expense of the EU. However, as the most important battleground,Ukraine would have...
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Change put on hold in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan
President Nazarbayev has been head of state in Kazakhstan for 23 years (before, and since, independence in 1991). The 2011 election effectively confirmed his life tenure, which has put the country into...
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Will Russia pivot East or West?
Russia-watchers have long been interested in her place on the international arena. Now, with China at the centre of the growing power game, the question is how Russia will seek to position herself in...
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Berlusconi’s l’amico Nursultan, and the Shalabayeva affair
Silvio Berlusconi has had lots of friends, or so he says – l’amico George (Bush), l’amico Tony (Blair), and now l’amico Nursultan (Nazarbayev) of Kazakhstan. The Shalabayeva affair has exposed the cost...
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Kazakh banking – devaluation, consolidation and bad loans
Kazakh banking is in a state of disarray, as banks assimilate the consequences of a recent 20% devaluation of the tenge. But there is also consolidation taking place, adding to the flux; and those bad...
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Behind the rise of the private surveillance industry in Central Asia
Multinational companies–including two listed on the NASDAQ–have been quietly providing Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology to aid state repression.It's not...
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Phantom foreign investors for an open new Uzbekistan
A high-profile urban development project in Tashkent is designed to showcase the country for western capital. Our investigation suggests principal investors are from much closer to home. Project design...
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