ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Once an extremely powerful man in Kazakhstan, Bolat Nazarbaev, the younger brother of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, died on November 13 at the age of 70, after reportedly suffering a lengthy illness.

The spokeswoman of the Central Clinic in Almaty, Polina Shimanskaya, told RFE/RL that Bolat Nazarbaev was pronounced dead “at 9:51 this morning after a long illness.”

She did not elaborate but media reports have said Nazarbaev was hospitalized earlier in November in Almaty after suffering a heart attack.

In June 2022, local media said Bolat Nazarbaev was fighting a longtime illness and a video showing him in a wheelchair appeared on YouTube at the time.

The reports coincided with a statement from Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency saying Bolat Nazarbaev and his former wife, Maira Qurmanghalieva, were targeted by a lawsuit filed by the owners of the financial services company Karuan, who accused them of illegally taking over the firm.

In March, a court in Kazakhstan ordered Bolat Nazarbaev, who sold 31.9 percent of the industrial facility’s shares to a private company in 2009 but continued to control the factory’s operations, to regain the shares and return them to the state.

AZTM used to be state property but was privatized in 1998 with 31.9 percent of its shares obtained by the private company Temir Kon. In 2007, Temir Kon sold the shares to Bolat Nazarbaev.

In 1986, Bolat Nazarbaev’s brother, Nursultan, who ruled the oil-rich Central Asian country for nearly 30 years before he stepped down more than four years ago, said in an interview to a Moscow-based Soviet magazine, Druzhba narodov (Peoples’ Friendship), that his younger brother worked as a plumber.

In 1989, after Nursultan Nazarbaev took over the then-Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Bolat Nazarbaev was already working as a deputy director of a state bakery in the town of Qaskelen. During the decades of his brother’s presidency, Bolat Nazarbaev became one of the richest men in the country and controlled several major businesses and marketplaces in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, and the surrounding region.

Nursultan Nazarbaev, 83, and his clan lost power and influence after January 2022 protests that left at least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, dead and thousands injured.

As he stepped down, Nazarbaev hand-picked longtime ally Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev as his successor.

But he retained sweeping powers as the head of the Security Council, enjoying the powers as “elbasy” — the leader of the nation. Many of his relatives continued to hold important posts in the government, security agencies, and profitable energy groups.

In January 2022, protests that started over a fuel price hike spread across Kazakhstan because of discontent over the cronyism that had long plagued the country. Toqaev subsequently stripped Nazarbaev of the Security Council role, taking it over himself.

Toqaev also annulled the Law on the First President — the Leader of the Nation (Elbasy), depriving Nursultan Nazarbaev of the elbasy title and his immediate family members of legal immunity.

Since January 2022, several of Nazarbaev’s relatives and others close to the family have been pushed out of their positions or resigned.

In September 2022, the former president’s nephew Qairat Satybaldy was sentenced to six years in prison on fraud and embezzlement charges.

Source: Radio Free Radio Liberty

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The newly created Oxus Acquisition Corp is a next step for Kenes Rakishev to acquire companies specialized in the red-hot area of energy transition, batteries and EV’s. Kenes Rakishev, who is heavily involved in the modern tech investment scene rolls out his strategy to acquire more assets.

Oxus Acquisition Corp, created by Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev, wants to raise $ 150 million to acquire a company specializing in technologies in the field of «energy transfer». The prospectus of the IPO of Oxus Acquisition, which plans to get a listing on NASDAQ, was published on the website of the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports.

The underwriters are EarlyBirdCapital and Sova Capital, KenesRakishev.press informs. Kenes Rakishev, through Oxus Capital PTE, owns 94% of the newly created company, it is planned that after the IPO he will have 19.3%. The independent directors of Oxus have small stakes – Shiva Vikram Khemka from the Indian Sun Group, Christophe Charlier, known in Russia for his work in the Onexim Group and Renaissance Capital, and Sergey Ivashkovsky (the founder of Eurasia Investment Partners, who previously worked at Trust Bank, Rusnano, Gazprombank, Prosperity Capital and East Capital). In parallel with the market placement, the founder of Oxus will contribute personal funds to the company within the framework of private placement (this is the standard scheme for transactions of SPAC companies).

Kenes Rakishev will acquire Oxus warrants for $ 6.15 million, both underwriters will invest $ 375 thousand each. The funds raised will be placed in a special trust account with Goldman Sachs to finance a future transaction. Oxus intends to look for objects for acquisition in such segments as energy storage, battery materials, infrastructure for electric vehicles, and names the CIS, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa as priority regions. Kenes Rakishev’s holding Fincraft owns Battery Metals Technologies Ltd., which plans to produce metals for electric car batteries, and it also has investments in a number of startups in the field of energy technologies.

Source: Talk-Finance

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Kazakhstan has signed an agreement with Beijing to set immigration curbs on ethnic Kazakh nationals of China, including the sharing of information on each others’ citizens and the potential repatriation of asylum-seekers who cross their common border, Radio Free Asia has learned.

The deal, voted through the lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament on Sept. 20, requires both countries to inform each other and provide details of any “violations of entry, stay or exit regulations,” Kazakhstan’s Azattyq Ruhy news agency reported.

It comes as China marks 10 years of its “Belt and Road” regional aid, investment and global influence program, and as its state media lauded Kazakhstan as a “pioneer in jointly building” the scheme.

The agreement allows each country to veto applications by its nationals for citizenship in the other, and will make Kazakhstan less safe for members of ethnic minority groups from China’s Xinjiang region, while making it much harder for those still in China to flee the country to escape persecution, rights activists and emigre Kazakhs said.

It also places mutually agreed quotas on visas and visa-free entry across the two countries’ shared border.

The deal effectively gives Chinese officials the power of veto over applications for Kazakhstan citizenship made by ethnic Kazakhs who hold Chinese passports, according to Bekzat Maksutkhan, who heads the Kazakhstan-based rights group Atajurt.

“They need to get the consent of the Chinese side if they want to become citizens of Kazakhstan,” he said. “Also, the Kazakhstan government is obliged to repatriate anyone who immigrated from China and has become a Kazakh national, if the Chinese government requests it.”

Immigration hurdles

Nurlan Kuhedubai, who emigrated to Kazakhstan from Xinjiang as a child and now lives in Almaty, says it is already much harder for Chinese nationals to settle in Kazakhstan than it used to be.

“The Chinese and Kazakhstan authorities have been joining forces to persecute Chinese Kazakhs over the past six or seven years,” he told Radio Free Asia. “[They are preventing] Kazakhs from emigrating to Kazakhstan.”

Rights activist and YouTuber Serikzhan Bilash said there is now a crucial bureaucratic hurdle in place that wasn’t there before.

Previously, someone applying for Kazakhstan citizenship could simply declare that they renounced their Chinese nationality, but under the new agreement, they must produce an official certificate from the Chinese government before they can cease being a national of that country, he told Radio Free Asia.

“The Kazakhstan immigration bureau requires Kazakhs from Xinjiang to cancel their Chinese nationality at a Chinese embassy or consulate,” he said. “But the embassy and consulates make things difficult [for them] and refuse to cancel their [Chinese citizenship].”

Many Kazakhs fled mass incarceration and other forms of persecution in Xinjiang, thinking Kazakhstan would be a safe haven for them, Serikzhan said, only to find that Beijing is now able to have the final say over their nationality.

He said Kazakh herders are also required to give up any grazing rights in Xinjiang before they can give up their Chinese nationality.

“Administratively accountable”

Kazakhstan doesn’t allow dual citizenship, and anyone caught between their Chinese nationality and Kazakhstan citizenship can be punished for violations of that rule.

More than 400 people have been “held administratively accountable” by the Kazakhstan authorities for holding dual nationality since the beginning of this year, according to local media reports in Kazakhstan.

China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper ran an interview with Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan Zhang Xiao earlier this month, in which he said the anniversary was “a new starting point for China-Kazakhstan cooperation.”

“China will continue to strengthen security cooperation with Central Asian countries through bilateral channels and within multilateral frameworks such as the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Zhang told the paper.

“China will actively implement global security initiatives and practice a new concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security,” he said.

Official figures show that there are around 1.5 million Kazakhs in China, mostly concentrated in and around the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture.

China once welcomed Kazakhs who wished to relocate from Kazakhstan, but the mass targeting of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang prompted many Kazakhs with Chinese nationality to head back in the other direction.

Chinese restrictions on the free movement of ethnic Kazakhs with Chinese nationality to neighboring Kazakhstan have sparked cross-border tensions in recent years.

Source: Rfa News

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Kenes Rakishev and Asel Tasmagambetova planned to create a school named after Shokan Ualikhanov in Almaty on completely new principles. For every student, education at school is not just time spent and not “a bag of knowledge” that needs to be acquired. Studying is a career and there are many different paths to take. Specializing in something in which a student is talented and happy is unthinkable without a large and new high school building. And now, in 2023, the building  is completely ready and working for the benefit of the students.

From September 1, 2023, the private  school named after Shokan Ualikhanov  will accept high school students from grades 7 to 11 in the new school building.

The modern innovative building of the school, built taking into account the latest teaching methods and educational standards, is designed for 520 high school students. It provides unique opportunities to expand the intellectual, creative and academic horizons of students.

The main concept is the maximum satisfaction of the educational needs of each individual student. This means that an individual career path is created for each high school student.

The individual path includes nine areas of development, and each graduate receives a corresponding certificate, diploma or diploma.

The school management pays attention to all aspects of the personal development of students, ensuring that they not only achieve success in their professional activities, but also become moral leaders who are proud of the traditions and culture of their country.  Find out about the school More about Ualikhanov’s school

The new academic building houses a sports hall with an area of ​​600 square meters. m, a modern library with a spacious hall for 80 reading chairs, three high-tech lecture halls, an amphitheater with all-round LED screens, a dining room with 400 seats, choreography and judo halls, more than a dozen creative student recreation areas, a cafeteria and much more.

The opening of the innovation building is another milestone in the path of our school since its founding. It affirms a personalized approach to learning and the belief that every student is unique, with different aspirations and needs. We have created an educational environment that will allow students not only to develop in all aspects and achieve success in the professional field, but also to become harmonious individuals proud of their cultural heritage. Together with our dedicated teachers, we will achieve this mission by opening a new chapter in the history of education and inspiring talented students. Asel Tasmagambetova.

About the school named after Shokan Ualikhanov

The private school named after Shokan Ualikhanov was founded in 2020 by Kenes Rakishev and Asel Tasmagambetova. With the opening of the new school building, 1,320 students from grades 1 to 11 are studying in Kazakh and Russian.

Kenes Rakishev and Asel Tasmagambetova open a new building of the school named after Shokan Ualikhanov.

The educational process is built on the basis of advanced international experience and the principle of equal access to quality education. The school’s founders provide free education to the best students and scholarships to the most successful.

Education is based on the principles of sustainable development and the UN SDGs from the 1st grade.

Shokan Warikanov Private School is the first and only educational institution in the CIS to receive a LEED certificate, which indicates the school’s compliance with international environmental standards.

The school is a full member of the UN Global Compact from 2023.

Source: Reg TV

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Brussels (21/08 – 62.50)

The theatrical performance, 40 Days of Miracles was shown in the main concert hall of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea by the Republican State Academic Korean Theater of Musical Comedy of Kazakhstan, which is on tour in South Korea.

Kazakh State Academic Korean Theater tours South Korea. The theatrical performance, 40 Days of Miracles was shown in the main concert hall of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. In total, more than 500 spectators attended the event, including the Chairman of the Korea-Kazakhstan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, Woo Won Shik.

In total, more than 500 spectators attended the event, including the Chairman of the Korea-Kazakhstan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, Woo Won Shik, deputies, politicians, the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, cultural and art figures, businessmen, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps, reported by Kazakh Foreign Ministry’s press service.

While delivering a congratulatory remark, the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Republic of Korea, Nurgali Arystanov, noted that the State Academic Korean Theater is the only state Korean theater in the world located outside the Korean Peninsula, which celebrated its 90th-anniversary last year. He also added that ethnic Koreans are an integral part of modern Kazakh society and contribute to the development of the country.

After the solemn part of the event, the creative team of the theater, together with the South Korean production director Kang Tae Sik, presented to the audience the performance «40 Days of Miracles», which tells the story of the deportation of Koreans to Kazakhstan as well as a goodwill gesture of the Kazakh people, who showed kindness and hospitality toward new settlers.

Source

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Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov signed a decree on approval of the comprehensive action plan to combat the shadow economy for 2023-2025, the Prime Minister’s press service reported on July 26.

By 2025, Kazakhstan plans to reduce the shadow turnover in wholesale and retail trade to 5%, which stood at 6.7% last year. The government intends to bring this figure in transport and warehousing to 2.4% from 3.2% recorded in 2022.

The plan, drawn by Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency and government stakeholders, includes systemic measures to improve tax and customs administration, ensure effective competition and budget distribution, and protect the population from illegal businesses.

These actions will make customs inspections more effective, optimize customs procedures and develop additional measures for administrative offenses.

The plan compiled as part of the President’s election program provides for reducing informal employment and suppressing illegal activities. Kazakhstan is set to increase the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the GDP from 36% in 2022 to 37.5% in 2025.

Source: Astana Times

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Some 310,000 people have visited the National Museum of Kazakhstan since the beginning of this year, a record number considering 330,000 visitors recorded for the entire 2022, said the museum’s Acting Director Aibek Sydykov, the Culture and Sports Ministry’s press service reported on July 21.

“This indicates an increased interest in our people’s thousand-year-old cultural heritage and history,” said Sydykov.

According to him, the reason for a surge in the number of visitors this year is two new halls opened this April, including the hall of paleontology and the artisans’ center, which sparked the interest of guests of all ages.

The hall of paleontology displays the skeletons and remains of a tyrannosaurus rex, a hipparion horse, a large-horned deer, a giant rhinoceros Paraceratherium, a mammoth, and other animals from BC.

The artisans’ center exhibits various souvenirs and the best works of arts and crafts of Kazakh masters.

The museum collection was replenished with over 4,000 exhibits during the year’s first half.

The National Museum has hosted 22 major exhibits since the beginning of 2023, including four international ones.

A record high number of more than 47,000 people visited the museum in one day as part of the Night of Museums international campaign.

Source: Astana Times

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Altai, Western Mongolia – Mendei Berdimurat pulls on the reins of his horse and looks up from beneath the rim of a worn-out flat cap on his head.

The 52-year-old from Saksai in the Altai mountain range in west Mongolia has been a herder all his life. But this year he is worried.

“The lakes should have melted by now. This is June. But seeing it still frozen shows how bad the winter has been,” he says.

Mongolia’s harsh winters are lasting longer each year – bleeding into the summer months – and threatening the survival of nomadic communities who make up one-third of the country’s population of three million.

The extreme weather and the severity of climate change are also having a detrimental effect on food security and income, according to the United Nations.

Berdimurat, who is making his annual 150km migration with his livestock from his winter camp to the summer pastures, looks weary.

“I lost more than 60 animals …” he says. “It is a lot of money to lose.” His herd comprises about 100 animals: yaks, cows, sheep, goats and horses; many are malnourished and look weak.

For most nomads, their wealth is held in their livestock. Since January, more than 483,000 livestock have died from starvation, freezing or disease, according to Mongolia’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry.

Serikgul Askerhan, a wife of a herder in her 30s, says her family lost half of their sheep and goats plus 10 yaks this winter. In a simple wood cabin within the national park of Altai Tavan Bogd, 100km from Berdimurat and his herd, she serves Kazakh milk tea and homemade yoghurt and cheese.

Coming in from the cold, Askerhan’s 70-year-old mother-in-law who they call Äje (grandmother in Kazakh) rubs her hands together to warm them. She has lived through many difficult winters, but says this year was unusual because the snow never stopped.

“Usually it will snow and then we have a few days where it stops. January is the coldest month. But the snow came again in March and kept snowing until after April … Now in the middle of June places are still frozen. I have never seen this in all my life.”

The Mongolian government tried to collect and bury the dead animals this winter but the landscape – vast, open mountainous terrain that stretches as far as the eye can see – remains dotted with half-eaten, decayed carcasses now being exposed from the deep thaw.

This year, temperatures plummeted to below minus 40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit) in some provinces. Relief agencies have been trying to support nomadic communities but many live in hard-to-reach areas.

Last summer 50 percent of the territories in the west and south saw hay yields decline from the severe drought and there was a deterioration of pasture from overgrazing and insufficient reserves for livestock production. When winter hit, the nomads were ill-prepared. The frozen lakes in Altai are now beginning to melt and flooding is the next problem they face – as it cuts off key access routes and makes migration harder and riskier.

“Mongolia is highly vulnerable to climate change, experiencing warm temperatures, at almost three times the rate of the global average in the last 70 years,” Tapan Mishra, the UN’s resident coordinator for Mongolia, said in a March report.

About 80 percent of rural households in Mongolia are at risk of losing their livelihoods, Mishra added, due to unfavourable weather conditions, insufficient reserves for livestock production and the economic crisis’s effect on fuel and food supplies.

He says in his lifetime he has never witnessed a winter like this. “There was so much snow, and since February it didn’t stop. It meant there was no grass to graze the animals.”

“Is this climate change? He asks. “I don’t know, but I know that the winters are not the same. There is definite change.”

Source: Al Jazeera

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