News Roundup

News Roundup - May 26, 2008

By SRI ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅

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energy:

Kazakhstan rising

(Turkish Weekly) - Kazakhstan is one of the rising energy powers, with huge reserves of oil and natural gas and also tremendous reserves of uranium, which is often forgotten.

Kazakh experts forecast rise in petrol prices in summer

(Interfax/RedOrbit) - Despite the ban to export petrol and diesel oil from Kazakhstan from 1 June till 1 September, this year prices for fuel and lubricants will rise, experts think.

Kazakhs seek new oil, gas export routes to Europe

(Kazinform) - Kazakhstan will seek new routes to Europe for its oil and gas exports as Central Asia’s biggest energy producer raises shipments.

Biofuel will be supplied to Almaty from June (Gazeta.kz)

business and economy:

Avtovaz’s Alyoshin says co in talks to acquire Kazakhstan’s Asia Avto

(Thomson Financial/Forbes) - Avtovaz president Boris Alyoshin told Russia’s Kommersant daily his company is in talks to acquire Kazakhstan’s OAO Asia Avto from Bipek Avto for an undisclosed amount in order to expand in the Central Asian car market.

Kazakhstan has resumed grain supplies for Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan Business Center)

Level of tax collection in Kazakhstan lowered (Kazakhstan Today/Gazeta.kz)

National Bank of Kazakhstan: Exchange rates May 24-26, 2008 (Kazinform)

Indicators - May 23, 2008

(Reuters) - Kazakhstan’s economic indicators based on data provided by the State Statistics Agency, government institutions, the central bank and exchanges.

politics:

Medvedev tries to pick up where Putin left off

(EurasiaNet) - New Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, making his first foreign foray as president, visited Kazakhstan to emphasize the importance of energy issues in the Kremlin’s geopolitical mindset.

A single economic space in a pipeline

Although Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev emphasized the succession of power, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made it clear that his visit to Astana was a personal choice.

Kazakh Government, delegation of US Congress to meet

(Kazinform) - An official delegation of the US Congress headed by Nick J. Rahall, the Chairman of Committee on Natural Resources of the US House of Representatives will visit Kazakhstan.

Astana will long stay a locomotive of national economic development - Yakhiya Aubakirov

What were the reasons to move Kazakh capital to Astana? What are the prospects of its development?

Almaty held workshop on public service development (Kazinform)

Kazakh Government adopted resolution on rendering aid to China (Kazinform)

society:

Prince Andrew, the smoothest operator of the steppes

(Times Online) - As they dined together last Monday at the Savoy hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh, Prince Andrew and the president of Kazakhstan would have had much to talk about.

Prince Andrew sells house to Kazakh mogul (UPI)

More Cannes kudos for Kazakh ‘big ears’ film

(AFP) - Kazakh movie “Tulpan”, in which an aspiring shepherd’s big ears are compared with those of Prince Charles, on Sunday bagged its third prize at the Cannes film festival.

Sergei Bodrov talks about Mongol, the first of his Genghis Khan trilogy (Times Online)

Russia dismantles Kazakhstan 6-0 in a warm-up for Euro 2008 (AP/International Herald Tribune)

Kazakhstan pick up surprise volleyball ticket to Olympics (AFP/Yahoo! News)

Number of Kazakh food poisoning sufferers reaches 225 (Interfax/RedOrbit)

regional news:

Kyiv summit seals Caspian energy project

(Turkish Weekly) - Seven former Soviet-bloc countries, seeking to lessen dependence on Moscow’s energy supplies and transport routes, have agreed to launch a joint project aimed at bypassing Russian territory to bring Caspian oil to European markets.

World Bank bid to mitigate Aral sea shrinking

(Financial Times) - The shrinking of the Aral Sea began after the Soviet Union launched a grandiose scheme to cultivate the barren central Asian steppe in the 1960s.