Rakhat Aliev was once one of the most powerful and influential people in oil-rich Kazakhstan. But after an Almaty court ruling late on January 15, he's now a fugitive from the law.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed a landmark agreement today to build a natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast that would strengthen Moscow's monopoly on energy exports from the resource-rich region.

With the spot price of uranium climbing through $93/lb (again), and a shortage of sulphuric acid in Kazakhstan – the chemical necessary for the leaching process that isolates U3O8 from ore – likely to compound demand, there is every indicator that uranium prices will climb sharply (again) in the coming months. And despite recent seismic shifts for gold and precious metals, most analysts project the bull markets for precious and base metals will continue to snowball.

Kazakhstan's health ministry said Wednesday that the number of people, infected by drug-resistant tuberculosis is on the rise in almost all of the country's regions.

Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have signed a number of agreements on investment and trade during Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's visit to Dushanbe.

Kazakhstan wants the right to ban rocket launches from its Baikonur space center, which Russia rents, in situations where the Kazakh president is located near the launch, the prime minister said.

Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov today warned the Eni-led consortium operating the Kashagan oil project that delays and cost overruns are taking on a "systematic character" and that the government is having doubts about the ability of the consortium to complete the project.

An unmanned Russian rocket has crashed after blasting off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan. RFE/RL's Kazakh Service correspondent in Almaty, Danabek Bimenov, reports that no one was injured in the incident early today, which officials said was caused by an engine malfunction.

A Russian Proton-M booster rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite exploded shortly after lift-off early Thursday, a space agency spokesman said. - RIA Novosti

Nurlan Alimbekov, a self-described philosopher and political analyst in Kazakhstan, is facing criminal charges that include inciting religious and ethnic hatred for e-mails he sent and received.

Italian energy giant Eni SpA will raise the royalties paid to the Kazakhstan government from the Kashagan oilfield project to 20-25 pct in an effort to break the disputes with the government.

China and Kazakhstan agreed yesterday (August 19) to expand an oil pipeline that will link China to the Caspian Sea.