As new cases of polio appear in Tajikistan, a war of words is heating up between the Central Asian country and Russia, where officials have barred young Tajik children from entering for fear that they will spread the virus.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that Russia and Kazakhstan have agreed to launch a customs union from July 1, cutting Belarus out of the first stage of the union.
Floodwater forced more than 260 people to evacuate the Saryagash district in South Kazakhstan Oblast today, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
Kazakh authorities have launched an investigation into the mass death of the endangered saiga antelope in the west of the country.
Kazakh circus acrobat Vladimir Gashuta, who trains children at his house, is demanding local officials support his work by providing him with a school building. When they refused, he took his fight to court.
Watchdog Amnesty International has warned that human rights abuses continued to plague the world in 2009, with torture or ill treatment, unfair trials and imprisonment, and restrictions on free speech among the most common violations.
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations will host its third-annual forum in Rio de Janeiro from May 27-29. The conference, titled "Bridging Cultures, Building Peace," will be attended by high-level dignitaries including President Lula da Silva of Brazil, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Some of Central Asia's energy-rich countries have their eyes set on international sport stars to boost their image.
The head of the Russian delegation to the KADEX-2010 arms exhibition says it is ready to sell arms to its partners in a regional security grouping at a reduced price.
Motoo Konishi, the World Bank's regional director for Central Asia, said approval of the funds, called a "Development Policy Loan," reflects confidence by the World Bank in the "direction of economic policies and reforms" of the Kazakh government.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's nephew has been named the secretary of the country's main political party, Nur-Otan.
About 2,000 saiga antelopes were found dead in the West Kazakhstan region's Zhanybek district last week.
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