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Jensen Huang proposes Kazakhstan as a hub of physical AI and receives the Order of DostykUzbekistan summons Iran’s ambassador over posts calling the Registan Persian heritageNovak counts three diesel tankers at sea and a 500,000 tonne October export allowanceArmenia has effectively already withdrawn from the CSTO, Masadykov says

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190 results
  1. Kazakhstan brings Tleuberdi back from Vienna to run its foreign ministry
    PoliticsBrief2 Sept

    Kazakhstan brings Tleuberdi back from Vienna to run its foreign ministry

    Mukhtar Tleuberdi, foreign minister from 2019 to 2023 and ambassador in Vienna since then, was appointed foreign minister again by decree on Wednesday. His is the first ministerial name of the government whose prime minister the Kurultai approved on Monday, on day 3 of the 10 days the law allows.

  2. Tbilisi asks a court to send its pardoned Russian back to Russia
    PoliticsBrief2 Sept

    Tbilisi asks a court to send its pardoned Russian back to Russia

    The Migration Department filed a petition with Tbilisi City Court on Tuesday to expel Denis Kulanin to Russia, 2 days after the same court allowed him to leave for a third country. He is still in the migration centre with a ticket to Yerevan he cannot use.

  3. Armenia's former tax chief is carried into court on a stretcher
    PoliticsBrief2 Sept

    Armenia's former tax chief is carried into court on a stretcher

    Gagik Khachatryan, who ran the State Revenue Committee and then the finance ministry under Serzh Sargsyan, was taken from his home by Investigative Committee officers on Tuesday and delivered to court lying down. The detention is the milestone the new case opened on 29 August had been pointing to.

  4. A pardoned Russian's ticket out of Georgia expires in a migration cell
    PoliticsBrief1 Sept

    A pardoned Russian's ticket out of Georgia expires in a migration cell

    Denis Kulanin, released from a protest-case sentence by presidential pardon on 28 August, spent 1 September in Tbilisi's temporary migrant detention center while a ticket to Yerevan bought for him went unused. The migration service wants a court-ordered deportation, and voluntary exit is blocked until a judge rules.

  5. Dushanbe and Yerevan agree to convene their economic commission
    PoliticsBrief1 Sept

    Dushanbe and Yerevan agree to convene their economic commission

    Rahmon and Pashinyan used the SCO sidelines in Bishkek to line up the next session of the Tajik-Armenian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, with business forums to follow. No documents were signed.

  6. Armenia opens a new case against the man who ran its taxes and treasury
    PoliticsBrief1 Sept

    Armenia opens a new case against the man who ran its taxes and treasury

    The Investigative Committee announced a new criminal case against Gagik Khachatryan, a former finance minister and former head of the State Revenue Committee, and said he would be detained. Prosecutors want 210 properties, stakes in 29 companies and 33 billion drams, about $85 million, forfeited.

  7. The SCO leaves Bishkek with 28 documents and two new centers
    PoliticsBrief1 Sept

    The SCO leaves Bishkek with 28 documents and two new centers

    The 25th anniversary summit closed on 1 September with 28 signed texts, the Bishkek Declaration at the top: charter amendments that add two new bodies to the organization's structure, a roadmap for settling more trade in national currencies, and sectoral programs running to 2030.

  8. Charter amendments top the SCO's anniversary pile in Bishkek
    PoliticsBrief1 Sept

    Charter amendments top the SCO's anniversary pile in Bishkek

    The organisation's heads of state met in Bishkek today over a Bishkek Declaration and more than 20 documents, charter amendments among them. The final texts were still unpublished as this edition went to print.

  9. Aliyev and Pashinyan pace out the Trump route in Bishkek
    PoliticsBrief31 Aug

    Aliyev and Pashinyan pace out the Trump route in Bishkek

    Azerbaijan's president and Armenia's prime minister met on the margins of the SCO summit on 31 August and discussed what both readouts call further practical steps on the TRIPP corridor. For one afternoon the normalisation track between Baku and Yerevan ran through Kyrgyzstan.

  10. Tokayev gives the Security Council its own apparatus
    PoliticsBrief31 Aug

    Tokayev gives the Security Council its own apparatus

    While the chamber waits for a prime minister's name, the president spent Saturday building a state body: the Security Council's apparatus, directly subordinate and accountable to him.

  11. Moscow packs a referendum for Bishkek
    PoliticsBrief31 Aug

    Moscow packs a referendum for Bishkek

    The Kremlin has named the topic Vladimir Putin brings to Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek: the choice it wants Armenia to put to a vote.

  12. Georgia's president pardons 9 from the protest cells
    PoliticsBrief28 Aug

    Georgia's president pardons 9 from the protest cells

    Mikheil Kavelashvili pardoned 9 people jailed across three waves of Georgian protest, from the 2024 marches against the foreign-agents law to last October's unrest, in an act the ruling party framed as answered petitions.

  13. Lavrov answers the Kocharyan file with a referendum demand
    PoliticsBrief28 Aug

    Lavrov answers the Kocharyan file with a referendum demand

    Moscow's first comment above spokesperson level on Armenia's prosecuted ex-presidents arrived on Friday from Sergey Lavrov: the leadership in Yerevan is "guided by other tasks", the Eurasian membership on the table is worth $6 billion to $12 billion a year by his count, and the choice between Brussels and that union should go to a referendum without delay.

  14. The Kurultai builds itself in an afternoon, and the government's clock waits on two names
    PoliticsBrief28 Aug

    The Kurultai builds itself in an afternoon, and the government's clock waits on two names

    Kazakhstan's new parliament finished its own construction on Friday: a speaker elected by secret ballot, three deputy speakers, 8 committees, all inside the opening sitting. The executive it faces stayed unbuilt. President Tokayev accepted the Bektenov cabinet's resignation in the morning and told deputies he will submit a prime minister and a vice-president once the chamber's structure stands, which by late afternoon it did.

  15. Baku protests images displayed at its Moscow compound
    PoliticsBrief28 Aug

    Baku protests images displayed at its Moscow compound

    Azerbaijan's foreign ministry condemned "provocative images against our country" displayed by unknown persons outside its embassy's guest house in Moscow around midday Thursday, and asked Russia for a legal assessment of the act.

  16. The Kurultai sits, and the government's 10 days begin
    PoliticsBrief28 Aug

    The Kurultai sits, and the government's mandate returns

    Kazakhstan's new single-chamber parliament convened at 11:00 in Astana on Friday, 145 deputies seated and 110 of them from one party, with three acts on its opening table: a speaker to elect by secret ballot, the Bektenov cabinet's mandate to receive, and a first bill the president has already named.

  17. Astana holds an Uzbek scholar on a spying charge, and neither capital will say why
    PoliticsBrief27 Aug

    Astana holds an Uzbek scholar on a spying charge, and neither capital will say why

    Ikboljon Qoraboyev, a professor of international relations at Maqsut Narikbayev University in Astana and a citizen of Uzbekistan, has been in custody since 3 July under article 176 of Kazakhstan's criminal code, espionage, his family told the BBC's Uzbek service. Nearly 8 weeks later no institution in either capital has said what he is accused of doing.

  18. Baku's media complaint goes on the record: 96 outlets
    PoliticsBrief27 Aug

    Baku's media complaint goes on the record: 96 outlets

    The number that reached the wires this week began as an interview. Azerbaijan's ambassador to Russia counted the Russian outlets running theses about his country at 96 or more, and asked Moscow for a political assessment and concrete measures. The count had circulated for days as a stray figure; now it has an author on the record.

  19. Georgia's jailed ex-premier turns into a recruitment target
    PoliticsBrief27 Aug

    Georgia's jailed ex-premier turns into a recruitment target

    Irma Inashvili publicly invited Irakli Garibashvili to join her Alliance of Patriots: a political prisoner, in her reading, should answer with politics. The ruling party answers his letters from jail with one word, masquerade.

  20. The Kurultai gets its names, and its first bill is about children
    PoliticsBrief27 Aug

    The Kurultai gets its names, and its first bill is about children

    Kazakhstan's five parliamentary parties published their deputy lists ahead of Friday's opening session, and Tokayev has told the new chamber what he wants on its desk first: a ban on social-network registration for anyone under 16.