International fugitive and Kazakh opposition star Mukhtar Ablyazov urged supporters to carry blue balloons during the Nowruz holiday.

For the past month, lack of gasoline, price increases, and public discontent highlighted Kazakhstan's infrastructural and institutional impasse.

Yet another Article 174 case closed.

International law frowns on creating stateless persons, but Astana's irritating exiles can afford to buy new passports.

Kazakhstan renamed Astana's international airport after the first and current president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

If Mukhtar Ablyazov envisions an eventual triumphant return to Kazakhstan, things just got more difficult.

Kazakh politics plays out far from the steppe -- in New York lofts and courts.

Teimur Akhmedov was charged under Article 174: inciting hatred.

Radiotochka, a respected radio and web news outfit, will phase out due to financial difficulties.

Kazakhstan's renewed efforts against corruption might mask a strategy aimed to silence opposition figures and activists.

Pipelines and politics, both foreign and domestic.

Not so fast; Nazarbayev will remain the “supreme arbiter.”

Russia, Turkey and Iran conclude the two-day negotiation with an agreement on jointly monitoring the shaky ceasefire.

Changes in the economy ministry and presidential administration forced by arrests at the top.

Idrissov is headed back to London, as Astana gears up to host Syria talks and takes up a seat on the UN Security Council.

In 1986, student protesters crowded the streets of Almaty and were suppressed by Soviet authorities.