Timeline Kazakhstan
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Kazaks make up only 40% of the country's 16-17 million people. The Great Horde broadly runs the country, the Middle Horde provides many intellectuals, and the Little Horde appears to have the oil industry locked up.
(WSJ, 10/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.A16)
The capital is Astana. Kazakhstan is the size of Western Europe.
(SSFC, 9/30/01, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/21/04, p.A17)
c4000BCE Apples (Malus Sieversii) similar to modern day varieties began to appear around Almaty, Kazakhstan. These ultimately produced the Red Delicious and Golden Delicious in America. The Red Delicious was hybridized into the Fuji and the Empire. The Golden Delicious was hybridized into the Gala, the Jonagold, the Mutsu, Pink Lady and Elstar.
(WSJ, 7/3/03, p.A1)
800-300BCE The Scythians dominated the vast lands stretching from Siberia to the Black Sea. Those who roamed what later became Kazakstan and southern Siberia were known as the Saka.
(AM, 5/01, p.32)
1258 Feb 10, Huegu (Hulega Khan), a Mongol leader and grandson of Genghis Khan, seized Baghdad following a 4-day assault. Mongol invaders from Central Asia took over Baghdad and ended the Abbasid-Seljuk Empire. They included Uzbeks, Kazaks, Georgians and other groups. Some 200 to 800 thousand people were killed and looting lasted 17 days.
(ATC, p.91)(AP, 2/10/99)(SFC, 4/12/03, p.A1)
1405 Feb 14, Timur, aka Tamerlane (b.1336), crippled Mongol monarch, died in Kazakhstan. In 2004 Justin Marozzi authored “Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World."
(V.D.-H.K.p.172)(http://au.encarta.msn.com)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.76)
1645 Mikhail Guryev, a Russian trader, founded the Ural River port city known as Guryev. It was later named Atyrau.
(WSJ, 7/25/01, p.A1)
1832 Akmolinsk was founded. It was later renamed Tselinograd and then Akmola. In 1998 it became the capital and was renamed Astana, which means capital.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A14)
1924 Stalin divided remnants of Turkestan into the current Central Asian republics.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1924 Kazakhstan enacted women’s suffrage.
(SSFC, 12/17/06, p.G5)
1930-1960 Millions of people including ethnic Germans and Russian dissidents died during this period, unable to survive starvation and torture in a network of gulag camps scattered from Russia's Arctic tundra to the inhospitable Kazakh steppe.
(Reuters, 12/21/09)
1932-1933 Stalin imposed terror and famine on the Ukraine, Kuban and Kazakhstan that was carried out be Lazar Kaganovich.
(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-15)
1936 Dec 5, Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR became constituent republics of Soviet Union.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1943 Jan 26, Nikolai Vavilov (b.1887), Soviet botanist, died in prison. In 1929 he had traced the genealogy of the apple to Kazakhstan.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, Books p.3)(www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=54)
1944 Feb 23, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Chechens to Kazakhstan for resisting Soviet rule and abetting the Germans. More than a third of the population died before the rest were allowed to go home.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)(SFEC, 2/20/00, p.A32)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
1944 Mar 8, The Soviet government celebrated International Women's Day by forcibly deporting almost the entire Balkar population to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Omsk Oblast in Siberia. Starting on 8 March and finishing the following day, the NKVD loaded 37,713 Balkars onto 14 train echelons bound for Central Asia and Siberia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkars)
1947 Z.V. Togan (1890-1970) published “The Origins of the Kazaks and ôzbeks.
(http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-5/)
1949-1951 In Moldova SSR 2 waves of deportations were carried out, with some 40,000 Moldovans sent to Siberia and what is now Kazakhstan.
(AP, 6/13/06)
1949-1956 Four major Soviet nuclear tests were carried out near Semipalatinsk. Higher than expected mutation rates on families in the area and their children were reported in 2002.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A14)
1949-1989 Nuclear tests were carried out by the Soviets and reportedly contaminated some 500,000 local people. It was feared that nuclear waste left in boreholes and cavities beneath the surface may contaminate ground water and affect agriculture.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A19)
1950 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was 67,000 sq. km. and shrinking
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
1965 Mar 3, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1965 The Soviet Union halted overground atomic testing.
(Econ, 9/11/04, p.)
1967 Feb 26, USSR performed an underground nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
c1968 The Aral Sea began shrinking after Soviet engineers diverted water from its 2 feeder streams, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)
1969 Jul 4, The USSR performed nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR.
(www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
1970 Sep 24, The Soviet Luna 16 landed in Kazakhstan, completing the first unmanned round trip to the moon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1971 May 25, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk.
(www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
1971 A Soviet field test of weaponized smallpox caused an outbreak that killed 2 young children and a woman at the port of Aralsk. This was not made public until 2002.
(SFC, 6/15/02, p.A8)
1972-1999 A Soviet BN-350 nuclear breeder reactor operated in the port city of Aktau over this period. It generated some 3.3 tons of weapons grade plutonium.
(WSJ, 6/4/01, p.A19)
1973 Feb 15, The USSR launched Prognoz 3 at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to study solar flares.
(www.astronautix.com/craft/prognoz.htm)
1977 May 29, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1978 May 29, The USSR performed a nuclear test at Semipalatinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1978-1996 The Caspian sea had risen 8 feet due to what experts believe was an upward thrust of the Earth’s crust beneath the inland sea. Flooding has resulted over an area of 1.5 mil acres that includes 200 oil wells in the western region.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1979 Aug 18, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1983 Zoo officials in Kazakhstan reportedly claimed that a teenage elephant named Batyr could reproduce Russian to utter 20 phrases, including "Batyr is good." But there was no scientific study on the claim.
(AP, 11/2/12)
1986 Dec 16, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, an ethnic Kazakh and long-serving head of Kazakhstan’s Communist Party, was replaced by Gennady Kolbin, a Russian outsider. 2 days of student protests followed, which were brutally put down with at least 2 deaths.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
1987 Feb 26, USSR resumed nuclear testing at Semipalitinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1987 May 15, The Soviet space booster Energia took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying a black container labeled Polyus with the Skif-DM inside. The Skif-DM was a model a future weapon. Energia performed flawlessly, but the Polyus, which was supposed to fire engines to reach a higher orbit, shot back down to Earth and into the Pacific Ocean. The Skif project came to a halt and Pres. Gorbachev did not renew it.
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.A24)
1987-1992 ChevronTexaco used the services of James Giffen to gain exclusive rights to study the Tengiz oil field. Kazakstan paid his Mercator corp. some $67 million from 1994-2000 for consulting work. In 2003 Giffen was indicted under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
(SFC, 4/7/03, p.A14)
1988 Spring, Soviet germ scientists transferred hundreds of tons of anthrax bacteria into canisters with bleach and sent them for storage to Vorrozhdeniye Islamnd (Renaissance Island) in the Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A10,11)
1989 Nursultan Nazarbaev succeeded Gennady Kolbin as head of Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
1989 Soviet nuclear test explosions ended in Kazakhstan. Between 1949 and the cessation of atomic testing in 1989, 456 explosions were conducted at the STS, including 340 underground shots and 116 atmospheric.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipalatinsk_Test_Site)
1989 Kazakhstan’s population numbered about 16.5 million people. By the late 1990s it fell to 14.9 million as the economy declined.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.47)
1990 The shrinking Aral Sea split in two with a patch of desert in between.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)
1991 Dec 1, Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected president of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 12/1/12)
1991 Dec 13, Five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) agreed to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) being organized by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
(AP, 12/13/01)(www.therussiasite.org/legal/laws/CISagreement.html)
1991 Kazakhstan established independence.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)
1991 Vozrozhdeniye Island (Renaissance Island) in the Aral Sea became the property of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan.
(SFC, 3/24/03, p.A5)
1991-2000 Kazakhstan received some $550 million in US aid during this period.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C15)
1992 Mar 2, Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed to the UN General Assembly an annual reduction of military budgets by 1% and using the money to fund UN peace projects.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.81)
1993 The inflation rate was 2,265%.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1994 Nov 23, A large cache of bomb-grade uranium was transferred from Kazakhstan to the United States.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1994 Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev elevated Akezhan Kazhegeldin, a wealthy businessman, to prime minister.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1995 Nov, The oil minister says new US and Russian players had joined the struggle to develop the Soviet republic's giant Tengiz oil field, located on the northeast edge of the Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 11/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, Private ownership of land was legalized. Military bases and common land remain restricted from private ownership.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-7)
1995 Kazakhstan Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev took extra power under a new constitution.
(WSJ, 10/21/04, p.A17)
1996 Jan 2, President, Nusultan Nazarbayev was building a new Kazakh capital 600 miles north of Almaty in swampy Akmola with transfer due to begin in 1998.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1996 Apr 1, The president, Nusultan Nazarbayev, once worked at the Karmet industrial complex.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 5/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel that demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Jul 4, China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin began a 3-day to Kazakhstan, whose population numbered about 15 million. Zemin held talks with President Nazarbayev, and met with Kazakhstan Parliament Lower House Speaker Ospanov and delivered an important speech entitled "For a Better Future of Friendship and Cooperation Between China and Central Asia". The two sides signed a joint statement, the extradition treaty, the agreement on cooperation between the People's Bank of China and the Kazakhstan National Bank, the agreement on cooperation in quality control and mutual certification of import and export commodities and other documents.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.48)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-05/21/content_879991.htm)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1996 Apr 15, The State Forestry Committee announced the creation of the Zailisky Alatau National Park, which is to cover 600,000 acres south of the capital, Almaty. The park is intended to protect such endangered species as the Tien Shan bear, the golden eagle, the Barbary falcon and the snow leopard of which there are fewer than ten in the park.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel that demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Jun-Jul, Swarms of locusts threatened 2 million acres of farmland in the Atyrauz and Kokchetav regions and along the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 2, Doctors warned of a surge in TB when 56,000 prisoners are released under a government amnesty. It was estimated that 16,500 prisoners had the disease.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 6, It was reported that the first Chevron gas station opened. The country has 24 billion metric tons of reserves.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, B8)
1996 Nov, The Canadian firm Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. (later known as PetroKazakhstan Inc. of Calgary) won the bidding in the Kazakhstan’s first oilfield privatization. For $120 million it acquired a field producing 50,000 barrels a day with reserves of 340 million barrels. The deal was accompanied by an array of social obligations. It later faced problems with the Kazakh government over fuel pricing and environmental rules.
(WSJ, 11/18/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A11)
1996 Alashbayev Abdeyaziovitch, mayor of Aralsk, began to dam to separate the northern portion of the Aral Sea from the larger southern portion. This 1st attempt failed when water spilled over the top and washed away the dam.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A12)
1997 Mar 27, Ella Maillart (b.1903), Swiss sportswoman and travel writer, died. She chronicled the savage collectivisation of Karakalpak agriculture in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the 1930s.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Maillart)
1997 Sep 10, It was announced that a stock exchange would open this year.
(WSJ, 9/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Nov 8, The transfer of Kazakhstan’s capital to Akmola from Almaty was officially celebrated. The shift was in part made to move the capital away from the Chinese border.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(Econ, 11/13/04, p.47)
1997 Dec, The Caspian consortium had its funds frozen in the planned pipeline to the Black Sea after Russian rights of way were found to be far from completed. Russian fears of competition with its own Urals blend crude was suspected. The consortium consisted of the governments of Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman and 8 oil companies, with most of the funding coming from the Western oil companies.
(WSJ, 2/2/98, p.A18)
1997 Klara Serikbayeva published a new history of Kazakhstan.
(WSJ, 10/27/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct, Mr. Nazarbayev fired Mr. Kazhegeldin as prime minister and replaced him with Mr. Balgimbayev. The inflation rate under Kazhegeldin had been reduced to around 20%.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1997 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was 30,000 sq. km. and shrinking
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
1997 The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program was initiated. The 8-member group included Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(www.adb.org/CAREC/default.asp)
1998 Apr, The government investment banks to sell off minority stakes in four state enterprises: 2 oil and 2 mining companies, and planned to expand its privatization program.
(WSJ, 5/14/98, p.A14)
1998 Jun, The first module of an int’l. space station, US funded and Russian-built, was to be launched at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [it didn’t make it]
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A7)
1998 Jul 6, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement that divided the northern part of the Caspian seabed into Russian and Kazakh sectors.
(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 10, In Kazakhstan a rocket, carrying 12 Globalstar satellites valued at $180 million, crashed shortly after takeoff.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 29, Five nations endorsed the oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan committed to the 1,080 mile conduit with a push from the US.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 11, Argentina and Kazakhstan pledged to abide by the treaty to cut emissions of gases that cause global warming. This put a crack in a united front of developing nations opposed to cuts before 2012.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 20, In Kazakhstan a Russian Proton booster rocket lifted up the first stage of the new int’l. space station called Zarya (Sunrise).
(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 11/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Nov 24, Russia, Kazakhstan and a group of major oil companies agreed to build a pipeline to connect the Tengiz oil field to a Russian port on the Black Sea.
(SFC, 11/25/98, p.A16)
1998 Alashbayev Abdeyaziovitch, mayor of Aralsk, began a 2nd attempt to dam the northern portion of the Aral Sea from the larger southern portion. The sea had shrunk to half its former size and left behind 13,000 square miles of wasteland.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Akezhan Kazhegeldin, former prime minister (1994-1997), set up the Republican People's Party of Kazakhstan. He was forced into exile in 1999 and in 2001 was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail for corruption and abuse of power.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.46-7)
1998 In Kazakhstan a law was passed that barred anyone convicted of a legal infraction from running for election. Illegal acts included insults to the honor and dignity of the president.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
1998 Inflation in Kazakhstan was held to 1.9% for the year.
(WSJ, 1/7/99, p.A16)
1999 Jan 10, In Kazakhstan presidential elections were scheduled. Nazarbayev won another 7-year term in rigged elections tinged with repression.
(WSJ, 1/7/99, p.A16)(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 2, In Atyrau, Kazakhstan, 26 inmates stabbed themselves in the stomach in an attempted mass suicide to protest prison conditions. All survived.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.D2)
1999 Jun, Kazakhstan sold some 40 MiG fighter jets to North Korea.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C15)
1999 Jul 7, From Kazakhstan it was reported that a rocket carrying a telecom satellite blew up and that launches at Baikonur would be suspended.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 12, Pres. Nazarbayev ordered the investigation of MiG sales to North Korea. South Korea charged that 30 MiG-21 jets were sold this year.
(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Kazakhstan a Proton-K booster rocket with a Russian communications satellite crashed during takeoff at the Baikonur cosmodrome and all launches were cancelled.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 22, Authorities detained 22 people, all members of a Russian nationalist group called Rus, on suspicion of planning a secessionist uprising.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Kanatjan Alibekov (Ken Alibek), the former director of Soviet anthrax production in Kazakhstan, published "Biohazard."
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A11)
1999 The Kazakh film “Killer" by Darezhan Omirbaev starred Talgat Assetov.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.E4)
1999 Pres. Nazarbayev grew more self-protective after he came under suspicion of stowing funds in Swiss bank accounts. The Swiss froze over a dozen Kazakhstan bank accounts for alleged money laundering.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.A24)
c1999 Pres. Nazarbayev put Rakhat Aliyev, a son-in-law, into a senior position with the Tax Police and then the security agency KNB. He put Timur Kulibayev, another son-in-law, in charge of oil and gas transportation.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2000 Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev announced in 1998 that he was considering changing from the use of the Cyrillic alphabet to the Roman by this year in conjunction with a computerization program in the schools.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A13)
2000 May 15, A consortium of Western oil companies found a large oil reserve in the northern Caspian Sea off the coast of Kazakhstan. The 480-sq. mile Kashagan field was estimated at 8 to 50 billion barrels of oil. In 2007 it was reported that the Kashagan field contained some 12-billion barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/16/00, p.A14)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.43)
2000 June 22, In Kazakstan some 11,000 seals were reported found dead on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Infectious disease linked to weakened immune systems due to oil-related pollutants were blamed.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.D3)
2000 Jul 30, In Kazakstan the last nuclear test facility was destroyed with a controlled detonation of 100 tons of explosives.
(SFC, 7/31/00, p.A14)
2000 Nov 22, An $2.5 billion oil pipeline from Kazakstan to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea was reported completed by an int.’ consortium. Pumping of 600,000 barrels per day was expected to begin in 2001.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D5)
2001 Feb 12, Italy’s ENI SpA won the right to operate the Kashagan oil field.
(WSJ, 2/13/01, p.A18)
2001 Feb, Core samples indicated that the Kashagan oil field measured at least 25 miles across.
(WSJ, 3/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 26, In Kazakstan the Caspian Pipeline Consortium began pumping crude oil from the Tengiz field to Novorossiisk, Russia’s Black Sea port. The 990-mile Tengiz-Novorossisk oil pipeline was owned by Kazakstan, Russia, Oman and 8 oil companies. Chevron held 15% in the 12-partner consortium.
(WSJ, 2/26/01, p.A14)(SFC, 3/27/01, p.C4)
2001 Apr 19, It was reported that the 2 largest banks planned to merge in a deal that would extend the reach of Pres. Nazarbayev’s family.
(WSJ, 4/19/01, p.A13)
2001 May 17, A fire in a 26-story hotel in Almaty killed 4 people.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.D4)
2001 Jun 15, The Shanghai Five member nations (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia), having admitted Uzbekistan, signed the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)
2001 Sep 24, Kazakstan offered air and military bases to the US for attacks on Afghanistan. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were said to be negotiating use of their territory by the US.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A6)
2001 Oct 21, In Kazakstan a 3-person Russian-French crew blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew included Claudie Haignere, who in 1996 became the 1st Frenchwoman in space.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B2)
2001 Nov, Government troops closed the Karavan Newspaper and raided KTK-TV and other facilities associated with Rakhat Aliyev, son-in-law to Pres. Nazarbayev. Aliyev was later sent off as ambassador to Austria.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A1)
2001 Dec 21, Pres. Bush met with Pres. Nazarbayev of Kazakstan and signed documents “related to transportation connections."
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A5)
2002 Jan 31, It was reported that the US and Kazakstan planned a joint venture to use a former Soviet nuclear weapons plant to process uranium for power plants and absorb atomic workers.
(WSJ, 1/31/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar, The government arrested Mr. Ablyazov, a publishing and banking tycoon and leading government critic. In July he was sentenced to 6 years in prison for embezzling $3.6 million from the state.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 28, US Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld visited Pres. Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Pres. Nazarbayev in Kazakstan.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A9)
2002 May 12, In Kazakstan a roof collapsed at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Russia’s main space launch site. 8 workers were feared killed.
(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an accord over the northern half of the Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 3, A 16-country summit of Central Asian leaders opened in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 6/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug, Galimzhan Zhakianov, a provincial governor and government critic, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for selling state enterprises at illegitimately low prices.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2002 Oct 22, A ferry carrying 51 people and a shipment of oil sank in rough weather in the Caspian Sea. One report said five onboard the ferry were rescued. The Mercury II freight and passenger ferry was making its way from the port of Aktau, Kazakhstan, heading southwest to the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
(AP, 10/22/02)(WSJ, 10/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 26, The Astra-1K satellite was launched atop a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. The world's largest communications satellite, manufactured by France's Alcatel Space corporation for Societe Europeene des Satellites of Luxembourg, was lost after it went into the wrong orbit.
(AP, 11/26/02)(WSJ, 11/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 11, It was reported that the US had filed allegations that tens of millions of dollars paid by American oil companies to Kazakstan during the 1990s wound up in Swiss bank accounts of top Kazakstani officials.
(SFC, 12/11/02, p.A15)
2002 In Kazakhstan former government employees and businessmen created a new political party, Ak Zhol.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.46)
2003 Feb 2, In Kazakstan Progress M-47 lifted off atop a Soyuz-U rocket to deliver supplies to the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.A5)
2003 Jun 11, Kazakhstan's PM Imangali Tasmagambetov resigned after a prolonged battle with parliament over a land reform bill that would allow private land ownership in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 6/11/03)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.40)
2003 Jun 20, Kazakhstan's parliament passed a bill allowing private ownership of land for the first time in this vast former Soviet republic.
(AP, 6/20/03)
2003 Sep 23, China signed agreements with Russia and four Central Asian neighbors (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan) in an effort to strengthen a 7-year-old security alliance and encourage economic links across a largely undeveloped region.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Oct 18, Russia launched a Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan with a 3-man crew for the int'l. space station. Aboard were an American, a Russian and a Spaniard.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 28, A Soyuz space capsule with 3 astronauts landed in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Kazakhstan decided to create a full-fledged navy to help protect its oil interests on the Caspian Sea.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.46)
2003 James Giffen, a US oil consultant, was indicted in the US under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He was charged with accepting bribes from US companies to gain access to Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field. Giffen claimed he was working as a US intelligence asset.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2004 Jan 9, Russia and Kazakhstan extended Moscow's lease of the launching pad in Baikonur until 2050. It served as the only link to the troubled International Space Station.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Mar 12, Chinese state media reported that a 1,930-mile railway project to link China and Europe was announced by Kanat Zhangaskin, vice president of the Kazakhstan National Railway Co.
(AP, 3/12/04)
2004 May 17, China and Kazakhstan agreed to build a 744-mile crude oil pipeline to send an initial 10 million tons of Kazakh oil to Xinjiang by 2006.
(WSJ, 6/17/04, p.A16)
2004 Aug 28, The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan approved Russian membership to their economic block at talks in Astana, the Kazakh capital.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Sep 19, Kazakhs chose a new parliament expected to be dominated by Otan, the party of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev and Asar, a new party run by his daughter. US backed int’l. monitors called the elections to the 77-seat Mazhilis flawed.
(AP, 9/19/04)(WSJ, 9/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 9/25/04, p.55)
2004 Sep, Construction began on a 620-mile pipeline to take oil from eastern Kazakhstan into China’s western Xinjiang region.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.46)
2004 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule, carrying 2 Russians and an American, landed in Kazakhstan. The crew had spent 6 months at the int’l. space station.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.A7)
2004 Nov 28, In Kazakhstan 2 powerful blasts rocked the headquarters of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's ruling Otan (Fatherland) party in Almaty's busy central district.
(Reuters, 11/28/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Kazakhstan 23 people died and three others were injured in an explosion at a coal mine in the Karaganda region.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2005 Jan 1, Kazakhstan was forecast for 7.9% annual GDP growth with a population at 15 million and GDP per head at $3,170.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.91)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Recipients included Kaisha Atakhanova of Kazakhstan for fighting the import of nuclear waste.
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 May 25, In Azerbaijan officials opened the first section of a $3.6 billion, 1,100-mile pipeline that will carry Caspian Sea oil to Western markets. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey were on hand for the ceremony at the Sangachal oil terminal.
(AP, 5/25/05)(WSJ, 5/25/05, p.B2)
2005 Jul 5, An alliance of Russia, China and central Asian nations called for the US and coalition members in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from member states, reflecting growing unease over America's regional military presence. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Sep 29, Editors of five Kazakh opposition newspapers ended a hunger strike after reaching a deal with a new printing house that would allow them to return to business after being forced to shut down.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 3, The UN ambassadors of Britain, France and the US sent a letter emphasizing their continued opposition to a proposal to create a nuclear-weapons free zone in Central Asia. The letter, sent to the UN ambassadors of the five Central Asian nations, says that a draft treaty to create the zone still does not address their biggest concerns and that further discussions are needed. It calls for consultations "very soon." The five nations agreed to the draft text for a Central Asian nuclear-free zone in February. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan had originally put forward a proposal for a nuclear-weapon free zone in 1997, but divisions both internal and external over the text have stalled progress. Moscow claims that a 1992 treaty that Russia signed with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan could allow missiles to be deployed in the region.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 11, US millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and a two-man, Russian-American crew returned from the international space station to Earth in a swift, bone-jarring descent in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 18, It was reported that a leading pro-opposition news website in Kazakhstan has been closed by court order and others have experienced technical problems in the run-up to a presidential election in the Central Asian state.
(Reuters, 10/18/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Kazakhstan Zamanbek Nurkadilov (61), an outspoken critic of President Nursultan Nazarbayev was found shot to death in his home.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Dec 4, Oil-rich Kazakhstan voted in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan Nazarbayev another seven-year term.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 5, Opposition leaders in Kazakhstan said that the overwhelming re-election of President Nursultan Nazarbayev should be declared invalid, and foreign observers said the balloting did not meet international standards.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 7, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev was officially declared the winner of last weekend's election, while the opposition insisted the vote was manipulated.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 13, The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, confirmed that they have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry.
(AP, 12/13/05)
2005 Dec 15, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ceremonially opened the taps of a new pipeline carrying oil from one of the region's greatest energy powers to one of its hungriest consumers, China.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 28, The EU launched the first satellite in its Galileo navigation program, which officials expect one day will end the continent's reliance on the US Global Positioning System. A Soyuz rocket, launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carried the 1st of an expected 30 satellites.
(AP, 12/28/05)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.53)
2006 Jan 6, The Kazakhstan Parliament voted to ditch the Central Asian state's old national anthem in favor of "My Kazakhstan," a song written in 1956 and adapted by Pres. Nazarbayev.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 16, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov (41), a Kazakh opposition leader jailed for more than three years, returned home, to the cheers of hundreds of supporters. The leader of the now-disbanded Democratic Choice party, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2002 on abuse-of-office charges.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Feb 11, Altynbek Sarsenbayev (43), a Kazakh former minister and leading member of the political opposition, was abducted in Almaty. He was found shot dead 2 days later along with his bodyguard and driver later near Almaty. Sarsenbaev held a senior position in Alban, a subdivision of the Elder Horde, one of Kazakhstan’s 3 great traditional tribal groupings. Relatives and supporters of Sarsenbayev accused authorities of covering up for those behind the high-profile killing as 10 defendants faced trial on June 15.
(AP, 2/13/06)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.44)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Feb 21, Kazakhstan's intelligence agency said that five of its employees were among the six arrested suspects in the Feb 11 murder of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, a leader of the opposition Nagyz Ak Zhol party.
(AP, 2/21/06)
2006 Feb 22, Kazakhstan's intelligence chief resigned after several of his subordinates were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the slaying of an opposition leader. Erzhan Utembaev, the top administrative official of the Senate, was arrested for ordering the murder of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev.
(AP, 2/22/06)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.40)
2006 Apr 9, A capsule carrying a Russian, American and Brazilian landed in Kazakhstan following a weeklong trip to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.A3)
2006 May 5, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Kazakhstan for talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Cheney promoted export routes for vast oil and gas reserves that would bypass Russia and supply the West directly.
(AP, 5/5/06)(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 15, The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Russian and Chinese-led bloc of Asian states, said it plans to set up an expert group to boost computer security and help guard against threats to their regimes from the Internet. SCO members (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are mostly authoritarian states that maintain tight controls on communications technology, including the Internet.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 18, Kazakhstan launched its first satellite into orbit.
(SFC, 6/19/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 4, The parties of Kazakhstan's leader and his eldest daughter announced a merger, a move that tightens President Nursultan Nazarbayev's grip on power.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2006 Jul 14, In Kazakhstan police under Mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov moved in to destroy the illegal Shanyrak settlement on the outskirts of Almaty. 30-40 people on each side were injured. A policeman died after being doused with petrol and set on fire.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.39)
2006 Jul 17, The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan agreed at the G8 summit to create a joint venture to process natural gas from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak gas field.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Sep 9, Five central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) signed a nuclear-free zone treaty, but it did not cancel out a 1992 agreement to allow Russia to transport and deploy nuclear weapons there under certain circumstances.
(SSFC, 9/10/06, p.A18)
2006 Sep 11, Kazakhstan hosted the Second Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Astana.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.81)(www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=7191&geo=3&size=A)
2006 Sep 18, Anousheh Ansari (40), an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, took off on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, becoming the world's first paying female space tourist. Aboard the space station, an oxygen generator overheated and spilled a toxic irritant, forcing the crew to don masks and gloves in the first emergency ever declared aboard the 8-year-old orbiting outpost.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2006 Sep 20, In northern Kazakhstan a methane explosion tore through a coal mine, killing 41 miners. Seven miners were pulled out alive and hospitalized after it ripped through the Lenin mine in the town of Shakhtinsk.
(AP, 9/20/06)(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 28, It was reported that the industrial city of Shymkent, Kazakhstan, was reeling after learning that at least 63 children had contracted AIDS through medical negligence many blame on corruption and the illicit sale of blood. At least five infected toddlers had died after receiving injections or blood transfusions. Parents said regional health officials were aware of the outbreak in March, and have been trying to cover it up by pulling pages from the infected toddlers' treatment records to eliminate any mention of blood transfusions.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 29, Pres. Bush met with Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nazarbayev and praised him. The meeting was criticized as an unseemly gesture to an oil-rich ruler who tolerates no dissent.
(WSJ, 9/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 26, China’s state controlled Citic Group said it has reached an agreement to buy an oil field in Kazakhstan from Canada’s nations Energy for $1.9 billion.
(WSJ, 10/27/06, p.A10)
2006 Nov 10, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the ruling Otan Party would merge with the pro-government Civic Party in what the opposition described as part of efforts to ensure his grip on power in upcoming parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 3, The film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" opened nationwide in the US.
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.68)(www.premiere.com/moviereviews/3082/borat.html)
2006 Dec 3, Andris Piebalgs, the EU Energy Commissioner from Latvia, signed an accord on nuclear cooperation with Kazakhstan. The EU hoped to increase Kazakhstan uranium sales to the EU from 3% to 20%.
(WSJ, 12/4/06, p.A6)
2006 Kazakhstan’s population of 15.2 million currently included 59% native Kazakhs and 26% Russians.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov, the PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of his performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he tried to secure his position and balance interests of various powerful elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan, In Kazakhstan police arrested a manager of the Atyrau Balyk cannery, charging him and 3 colleagues, who had fled to Russia, with poaching. The cannery had a monopoly in exporting Kazakhstan’s CITES-approved quota of sturgeon. An expert estimated that poaching on the Ural River could eliminate the sturgeon in 5-10 years.
(SFC, 6/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Apr 7, Emergency officials said 247 dead seals have washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan in the past week.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, A Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 21, Charles Simonyi, an American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space, returned to Earth in a space capsule that also carried a cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 May 2, Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Agency said hundreds of dead seals have washed up on its Caspian Sea shoreline in the past several days, bringing the total number of the animals found dead along the shoreline in recent weeks to 832.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 12, The leaders of Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan reached a landmark pipeline deal that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's energy export routes.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 16, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed limited political reforms in the oil-rich country he has headed since the Soviet era, including shortening the presidential term from seven years to five and strengthening the powers of parliament.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 18, Kazakhstan's veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev was in effect declared president-for-life in a move condemned by the nation's opposition as undemocratic.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 21, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nazarbayev (66) approved a constitutional amendment that waives presidential term limits and allows him to seek the top post indefinitely.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.42)
2007 May 26, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his son-in-law, diplomat Rakhat Aliyev, after Aliyev challenged the Kazakh leader by declaring he intended to run for the presidency.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 28, Kazakh authorities issued an international arrest warrant for the powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who faces abduction charges and has publicly criticized the longtime leader.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 1, Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh ambassador to Austria until he was dismissed on May 26, was arrested for alleged involvement in the suspected kidnapping of two senior managers of a bank he controls. He appealed to Austrian authorities not to extradite him to his homeland to face kidnapping charges.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 11, Officials gathered in Kazakhstan for a 2-day meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. 37 of 51 Global Initiative partner nations, along with the IAEA and European Union as observers, assessed current plans to enhance the partnership capacity of Global Initiative nations and discussed new ways to combat nuclear smuggling and other terrorist acts. 2 days of talks produced a 10-year action plan.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.68)(www.usembassy.kz/)
2007 Jun 27, A Kazakhstan court convicted 21 medical workers for their roles in infecting scores of children with the virus that causes AIDS in a case that has outraged the country. Health officials said 118 children and 14 mothers have been confirmed as contracting HIV. The Shymkent district court gave suspended sentences to five senior health officials. 16 medical workers were sentenced to prison sentences of up to five years.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jul, Authorities in Kazakhstan slapped a $609 million fine on a Chevron-led consortium developing the Tengiz oil field. The Kazakh ecological ministry cited environmental breaches stemming from the stockpiling of sulfur between 2003 and 2006. The consortium stripped sulfur from Tengiz oil, which is laced with hydrogen sulfide gas, and stored it as pellets in massive facilities, for later use in fertilizer.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A9)
2007 Aug 8, An Austrian federal court rejected Kazakhstan's request to have its ex-ambassador to Austria, a former son-in-law of the Central Asian nation's autocratic president, extradited to face kidnapping charges in his homeland.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 17, The six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held their first joint maneuvers on Russian land in a demonstration of their growing military ties and a shared desire to counter US global clout. The presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan attended the unprecedented joint military exercises in Chelyabinsk near the Kazakh border.
(AFP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 18, Kazakhs headed to the polls in parliamentary elections seen as a key test of authoritarian Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev's pledge to boost democracy in this oil-rich nation. Nur Otan, the party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, won all 98 available seats in the lower parliament. The tally was quickly condemned by the opposition.
(AFP, 8/18/07)(AP, 8/19/07)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.42)
2007 Aug, China’s President visited Kazakhstan. Soon after it was announced that a new oil pipeline would be built from Kazakhstan to China, and that a new gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan with China would run through Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.54)
2007 Sep 6, An unmanned Russian rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite malfunctioned after liftoff, sending parts crashing in an uninhabited part of Kazakhstan and triggering concerns about environmental damage.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Russian rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur launch pad, carrying 3 astronauts to the international space station. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, left Earth alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and American astronaut Peggy Whitson. Shukor was selected from among 11,000 Malaysian candidates to fly aboard the ISS in a deal his government arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of Russian fighter jets. Whitson will be the first woman to command the outpost.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)(AP, 10/10/07)(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 20, In Kazakhstan the opposition staged a demonstration in Almaty against rising prices as people hoarded food supplies and emptied shops.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.52)
2007 Nov 30, The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OECD) awarded its rotating chairmanship in 2010 to Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.50)
2007 Corruption ratings for this year by Transparency International placed Kazakhstan at 150th out of 180 countries.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2007 US federal officials alleged that $84 million held in Swiss bank accounts stem from bribes paid by US companies to Kazakhstan’s president and other top officials for access to energy reserves. The money was frozen as an investigation continued.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2008 Jan 11, In Kazakhstan a methane gas explosion ripped through a coal mine, owned by ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, killing at least 30 miners.
(AP, 1/11/08)(AFP, 1/13/08)
2008 Jan 14, Kazakhstan’s state oil company Kazmunaigas said it has ended a long-running conflict with a group of Western majors over ownership of the Kashagan oil field, one of the world's largest new deposits.
(AFP, 1/14/08)
2008 Feb 1, The US promised Kazakhstan to help it bring its armed forces up to NATO standards in a new military cooperation pact certain to irritate Russia.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Kazakhstan Zhaksybek Kulekeyev, a former government minister and head of the state railway company, was formally charged with taking a $100,000 bribe.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2008 Apr 8, A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut and two cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, en route to the international space station.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 15, Kazakhstan joined other Black Sea grain exporters in curbing shipments to combat double-digit inflation. Wheat exports were suspended until Sep 10. Kazakhstan will become the world’s 5th largest wheat exporter this year, shipping half its record 2007 crop.
(WSJ, 4/16/08, p.A8)
2008 Apr 19, In northern Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule, carrying South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, landed 260 miles off its mark.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Jun 28, Ruslana Korshunova (20), a European Vogue cover model, fell to her death from her Manhattan apartment building in an apparent suicide. She was originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 6/29/08)
2008 Jul 21, Rakhat Aliyev, the ex-son-in-law of Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev, accused the president of diverting billions in state assets and other corruption.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 5, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co. and Texas-based ConocoPhillips said they have signed a deal with Kazakhstan’s national oil company to drill in a potentially lucrative region in the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 10/6/08, p.D1)
2008 Oct 12, A Soyuz spacecraft with two Americans and a Russian on board lifted off from Kazakhstan for the international space station. The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carried American computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, US astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.
(AP, 10/12/08)
2008 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule carrying an American and two Russians touched down on target in Kazakhstan after a descent from the international space station, safely delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2009 Jan 12, Kazakh PM Karim Masimov told his ministers to start personal blogs to get them closer to the people of the former Soviet state.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 15, Kazakh lawmakers approved legislation to guarantee at least two political parties are represented in parliament, a move designed to improve the Central Asian nation's tarnished democratic credentials.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 20, The head of US Central Command said the US has struck deals with Russia and neighboring countries allowing it to transport supplies to American troops in Afghanistan through their territory. US officials have said that one likely route is overland from Russia through Kazakhstan and on through Uzbekistan using trucks and trains. Another possible route is via Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea to the Kazakh port of Aktau and then through Uzbekistan.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan, In Kazakhstan newspaper editor Ramazan Yesergepov was arrested and charged with revealing state secrets in a move that has tarnished the ex-Soviet nation's democratic credentials as it prepared to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). His arrest came after he published correspondence in the small-circulation weekly Alma-Ata Info that appeared to show collusion in corruption between a Kazakh businessman and the National Security Committee, the successor agency to the KGB. On August 8 Yesergepov was sentenced to three years in prison.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Feb 4, Kazakhstan allowed its currency to devalue 25% in an effort to protect its foreign exchange and gold reserves amidst falling oil prices.
(WSJ, 2/5/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 4, Russia sought to bolster its security alliance with six other ex-Soviet nations (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) by forming a joint rapid reaction force in a continuing effort to curb US influence in energy-rich Central Asia.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 10, An unmanned Russian cargo ship lifted off from Kazakhstan carrying supplies and a space suit to the international space station and its three-member crew. American astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus are aboard the station along with Russian Yuri Lonchakov. The crew size will be doubled to six members later this year.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 26, Kazakhstan announced it was pulling out of the Central Asian power grid to protect its energy supplies, a move that forced rolling blackouts and electricity rationing on Kyrgyzstan, its tiny, power-starved neighbor.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb, Kazakhstan nationalized BTA Bank, the largest bank in the country. Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov was stripped of his position and left the country for exile in London. Over a dozen more bank managers were arrested and awaited trial for alleged racketeering and money laundering.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.40)
2009 Mar 26, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian-American crew and US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi blasted off for the international space station.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 8, A Russian spacecraft carrying a crew of three including US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi landed safely in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 23, A Kazakh court jailed the publisher of an opposition newspaper for failing to pay damages in a libel case that government critics contend is politically motivated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 May 7, Russian Mission Control said the unmanned Progress M-02M lifted off from Kazakhstan on schedule and should dock with the int’l. space station on May 12.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 27, A Russian space capsule, carrying Canadian Bob Thirsk, Russian Roman Romanenko and Belgian Frank De Winne, blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 2 day journey to the ISS.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May, In Kazakhstan Mukhtar Dzhakishev, head of the state nuclear agency (Kazatomprom) and friend of recently deposed banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, was arrested and charged with stealing uranium deposits. 8 of his associates were also arrested.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.40)
2009 Jun 16, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao announced a $10 billion loan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001. The SCO grouped China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/16/content_11552439.htm)
2009 Jul 19, In Kazakhstan more than 5,000 ethnic Uighurs rallied in Almaty to protest China's use of deadly force to quash Uighur protests this month.
(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Iran a Russian Ilyushin-62 plane, operated by Tehran-based Aria Airlines and carrying 153 passengers and crew, skidded off the runway and hit a wall while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. 13 of the 16 people killed in the crash were members of the crew, 9 of them from Kazakhstan. The plane landed at high speed and the tires failed.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Sep 3, In Kazakhstan a court convicted Yevgenii Zhovtis of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced him to 4 years in prison. Zhovtis, Kazakhstan’s best known human rights activists, claimed he had been blinded by the lights of an oncoming car when he hit a hit and killed a pedestrian on a country road late at night.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.46)
2009 Sep 13, In southeast Kazakhstan 37 people were killed when a fire ripped through a decrepit drugs treatment facility in Taldykorgan.
(AFP, 9/13/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Kazakhstan Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spaceship to become the world's seventh space tourist.
(Reuters, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 6, In Kazakhstan French President Nicolas Sarkozy scored a diplomatic coup during a visit, overseeing an agreement to allow military hardware for French forces fighting in Afghanistan to pass through Kazakh territory and clinching a raft of lucrative energy deals.
(AP, 10/6/09)
2009 Oct 11, The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte and two other space travelers landed safely in Kazakhstan, ending the entertainment tycoon's mirthful space odyssey.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Dec 1, In Kazakhstan astronauts from Canada and Belgium and a Russian cosmonaut landed safely, wrapping up a six-month stint on the International Space Station.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Thailand 4 Kazakhs and a Belarusian were detained and their New Zealand registered aircraft impounded after it landed in the Thai capital with tons of war weaponry on board that originated in North Korea. The Ilyushin 76 transport from Kazakhstan was allegedly traveling from North Korea to Sri Lanka when it asked to land in Bangkok to refuel. According to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. A New Zealand shell company, SP Trading Ltd., had leased the airplane.
(AP, 12/12/09)(AP, 12/23/09)(AP, 1/22/10)
2009 Dec 14, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan gathered at the Saman-Depe gas field in Turkmenistan and inaugurated a 1,139-mile gas pipeline running through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China’s Xinjiang province.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)(www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pipe-d21.shtml)
2009 Dec 20, A Russian Soyuz TMA-17 rocket blasted off from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying an American, a Russian and a Japanese astronaut to the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 22, In Kazakhstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk (51) of Kyrgyzstan died six days after being thrown from a 6th story window in central Almaty.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.45)
2009 Dilip Hiro authored “Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran."
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.98)
2009 Daniel Metcalfe authored “Out of Steppe: The Lost Peoples of Central Asia." He describes such people as the Karakalpak in Uzbekistan, the Yaghnobi in people of Tajikistan, the Jews of Bukhara and the Germans of Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.91)
2010 Jan 27, NATO's top officer said that Russia had agreed to boost cooperation with the alliance in Afghanistan, including opening more transit routes for supplies to international troops and helping service Soviet-built helicopters used by the security forces. NATO said it had finalized an agreement with Kazakhstan to open the last leg on an overland route to Afghanistan from Europe via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, offering an alternative to the one through Pakistan.
(AP, 1/27/10)(AP, 1/28/10)
2010 Feb 11, Thai prosecutors said they have dropped charges against the five-man crew of an aircraft accused of smuggling weapons from North Korea, saying the men, arrested on Dec 12, might be guilty but would be deported to preserve good relations with their home countries. The decision was made after the governments of Belarus and Kazakhstan contacted the Thai Foreign Ministry and requested the crew's release so they can be investigated at home.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Mar 11, In Kazakhstan a dam at the Kyzyl-Agash reservoir in the eastern Almaty region ruptured, pouring water into several nearby villages and affecting 3,000 residents. A 2nd dam was washed away in the nearby Karatalsky district. Emergency officials said heavy rain and melting snow have caused severe floods across a region of Kazakhstan neighboring China, flooding villages and claiming at least 35 lives.
(AP, 3/12/10)(AFP, 3/12/10)(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 18, Astronauts from the US and Russia landed safely in northern Kazakhstan's chilly steppes after spending almost six months on the International Space Station.
(AP, 3/18/10)
2010 Apr 2, In southern Kazakhstan a Russian rocket carrying 2 Russian and one American astronauts blasted off, kicking off a tightly packed schedule at the International Space Station in the coming days.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 8, The European Space Agency launched CryoSat 2 on a Russian rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The satellite was designed to measure the effects of climate change on the Earth’s polar ice caps.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 15, Deposed Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev' left the country for neighboring Kazakhstan, just hours after gunfire erupted at a rally where he was speaking to supporters.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 24, A Russian Proton rocket carrying a US AMC 49 telecommunications satellite was launched into orbit from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 4/25/10)
2010 May 12, Kazakh lawmakers approved amendments to the constitution that will give President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts committed during his rule and the right to approve important national and foreign policies after he retires.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 Jun 16, In Kazakhstan 2 US and a Russian crewmate blasted off for the int’l. space station in a Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft. A woman in the US crew doubled the ISS female crew to an all time high.
(SFC, 6/16/10, p.A2)(SFC, 6/18/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 5, Belarus signed a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 13, Kazakhstan’s cabinet approved a crude-oil export tax of $20 per metric ton. Chevron, based in San Ramon, Ca., owns 50% of Tengiz Chevroil, which operates the biggest field in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.D2)
2010 Sep 14, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Kazakhstan's failure to improve media freedom has damaged its international standing and the situation is getting worse, not better.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 21, The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said 40 young Europeans are murdered every day, with Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan having the highest homicide rates for people aged 10-29.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan returning 3 astronauts from a 6-month mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep, Kazakhstan completed a restructure of its banking system, brought on its banking crisis in Feb, 2009. The majority of creditors of BTA Bank shared the pain.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Oct 7, In Kazakhstan a Russian Soyuz TMA-01M rocket blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station carrying one American and 2 Russian astronauts.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touched down in Astana, Kazakhstan, to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit on a trip through Central Asia that will also see her visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Bahrain.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, Kazakhstan began hosting a 2-day summit of the OSCE, the first in 11 years, seeking to revamp the organisation's ability to react to security crises.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.54)
2010 Dec 1, Belarus announced that it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons by 2012. The arrangement was announced on the sidelines of an international security meeting in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Martynov.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 16, Astronauts from the US, Russia and Italy blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan on a mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 23, In Kazakhstan a forum of 900 people in Ust-Kamenogorsk put forward an initiative to extend via referendum the president’s term in office until 2020 and to cancel the next presidential election, due in 2012.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.40)
2011 Feb 3, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law a measure allowing early presidential elections. The measure allows for the vote to be held on two months' notice. The constitutional court rejected a petition drive for a referendum on keeping him in power for at least another decade.
(AP, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 4, Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev called early presidential elections for April 3, an accelerated timetable that gives the country's weak opposition forces little time to prepare.
(AP, 2/4/11)
2011 Mar 15, In Kazakhstan several hundred people rallied near the presidential palace to urge the government to assist homeowners battling repossessions, and a few dozen were detained by police.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 16, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and two Russian cosmonauts landed safely in central Kazakhstan after a five-month stint on the International Space Station. They left behind Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, Italy's Paolo Nespoli and NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, who are due to return to earth in about three months.
(AP, 3/16/11)
2011 Apr 3, Kazakhstan held elections. A heavy turnout looked set to overwhelmingly reaffirm the domination President Nursultan Nazarbayev (70). Provisional figures the next day showed Nazarbayev with 95% of the vote. Opposition politicians had called for a boycott and described the election as a sham.
(AP, 4/3/11)(SFC, 4/4/11, p.A2)
2011 May 3, Kazakhstan ratified an agreement with the United States to allow the air transit of supplies and personnel destined for operations in Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/3/11)
2011 Jun 7, A Russian Soyuz spacecraft took off from Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station. In the three-man crew were Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, American astronaut Michael Fossum, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa of Japan's JAXA space agency. The trio will spend six months on the space station.
(AP, 6/7/11)(Reuters, 6/7/11)
2011 Jul 11, Kazakhstan police said nine gunmen have been killed in a special operation to detain an armed group suspected of being behind the killing of three Interior Ministry officers in June. One policeman died during last week's raid in the village of Kenkiyak. 16 prisoners died when they blew themselves up after an abortive attempt to break out a jail in the southern town of Balkhash. One prison guard was killed in the attempted breakout.
(AP, 7/11/11)(AP, 7/12/11)
2011 Sep 3, In Tajikistan leaders from eight former Soviet states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) gathered to celebrate enduring cooperation over the two decades since their nations collectively gained independence, but mutual acrimony and recriminations cast a shadow over the event.
(AP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 16, A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts, an American and two Russians, landed in Kazakhstan following a stay at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 9/17/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 13, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev approved a bill tightening registration rules for religious groups that has been described by critics as a blow to freedom of belief in the ex-Soviet nation.
(AP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 30, An unmanned Russian cargo ship headed for the Int’l. Space Station after it launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 10/31/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 12, In Kazakhstan a radical Islamist, identified only as Kariyev, killed 7 people, including 5 law enforcement officers, in a rampage the southern city of Taraz. The suspect blew himself up as officers moved in to arrest him.
(AP, 11/12/11)
2011 Nov 14, Two Russians and an American blasted off from Kazakhstan to the ISS orbiting laboratory on a Soyuz-FG rocket, Russia's first manned mission since the failed launch of the unmanned Progress supply ship in August temporarily grounded its Soyuz rockets.
(AFP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Kazakhstan US Embassy spokesman Jon Larsen said the Peace Corps will be leaving the country. Volunteers posted messages online linking the move to rapes and other attacks. The Peace Corps has sent around 1,000 volunteers to serve in the country since it started operations there in 1993.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 21, A Russian Soyuz capsule with 3 astronauts returned from the Int’l. Space Station landed in Kazakhstan after spending 165 days in space.
(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 1, In Kazakhstan a new 5.2 mile subway line officially opened in Almaty. Work had begun in 1988 under Soviet rule.
(SFC, 12/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 16, In Kazakhstan at least 15 people died in a clash with police in the city of Zhanaozen. The city had been the site of a sit-in by oil workers seeking higher wages. Many of those workers were fired over the summer.
(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 17, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed a three-week state of emergency in the oil town of Zhanaozen, where at least 15 people were killed a day earlier in a clash between police and demonstrators. In the southwest police opened fire on rioters in the town of Shetpe, leaving one person dead and 11 wounded. Two days of rioting left 16 people dead.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 26, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his billionaire son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, from his post as head of the sovereign wealth fund.
(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)
2012 Jan 15, Kazakhstan held elections that were expected to slightly broaden democratic representation in parliament's rubber-stamp lower house. Opposition parties that were most likely to pose a robust challenge to the ruling Nur Otan party have been either disqualified from competing or rendered largely powerless. President Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party won 80.7 percent of the vote, with two other parties achieving slightly more than 7 percent each, thereby clearing the threshold to enter parliament.
(AP, 1/15/12)(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 16, International election monitors said that Kazakhstan's parliamentary election failed to meet the fundamental principles of a democratic vote.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 28, In Kazakhstan some 300 opposition activists staged a rare rally in Almaty, the commercial capital, to protest recent elections and the violent suppression of a group of oil workers. Hours later, speakers at the rally were handed two-week jail sentences for holding the unsanctioned gathering.
(AP, 1/28/12)
2012 Feb 2, Kyrgyzstan's government said it will reprimand officials responsible for allowing contaminated radioactive coal to be imported into the country from neighboring Kazakhstan.
(AP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 24, A British legal filing indicated that fugitive oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov (48), accused of embezzling at least $5.0 billion (3.2 billion pounds) from his former Kazakh bank BTA, is believed to have fled Britain on a coach bound for France to escape a jail sentence for contempt of court.
(Reuters, 2/24/12)
2012 Apr 20, In western Kazakhstan journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov was stabbed and shot in an overnight attack that his colleagues say may have been motivated by his critical reporting about the Central Asian nation's authoritarian government.
(AP, 4/20/12)
2012 Apr 27, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz space capsule landed with 2 Russians and an American ending their 163-day stay at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 4/28/12, p.A2)
2012 May 15, In southern Kazakhstan a three-man crew, NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, blasted off from the Baikonur space center on board a Soyuz craft for a four-and-half-month stay at the International Space Station. Russian charges for use of the Soyuz were $450 million per year.
(AP, 5/15/12)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.77)
2012 Jun 4, NATO concluded agreements with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to allow it to evacuate military equipment from Afghanistan and completely bypass Pakistan.
(SFC, 6/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 5, Kazakhstan's interior minister said a border guard who went missing after the death of 14 fellow soldiers at a remote frontier outpost last week has been detained and is being questioned.
(AP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jul 1, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan bringing an end to a 193-day mission for American astronaut Donald Petit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and Russian Oleg Kononenko.
(SFC, 7/2/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 15, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space program. On board were NASA's Sunita Williams, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Aug 6, Russia launched an unmanned Proton-M rocked carrying Russian and Indonesian communications satellites. A secondary booster module failed shortly after launch from Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 8/8/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 24, Kazakhstan’s PM Karim Masimov resigned after leading the oil-rich Central Asian nation for more than five years and shepherding its economy through the global financial crises.
(AP, 9/24/12).
2012 Sep, In Kazakhstan Serik Akhmetov was named as prime minister.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2012 Oct 23, A Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched in Kazakhstan carrying a 3-man crew, including an American and 2 Russians, to the Intl. Space Station.
(SFC, 10/24/12, p.A2)
2012 Nov 22, Kazakhstan's police raided the offices of a news website and took steps to halt the publication of a newspaper critical of the government, in what a media watchdog group says was an "unprecedented offensive" against government critics.
(AP, 11/22/12)
2012 Nov, Kazakhstan was for the first time elected to sit on the UN Human Rights Council.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2012 Dec 1, Kazakhstan observed a new holiday lauding President Nazarbayev (72), part of a growing cult of personality around the leader of the former Soviet republic. The First President's Day marked the anniversary of Nazarbayev's first election in 1991.
(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Dec 11, A Kazakhstan court convicted border guard Vladislav Chelakh (19) of killing 14 of his comrades along with a park ranger and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev (72) announced a raft of reforms for this energy-rich, authoritarian state, ranging from having more direct local and regional elections to imposing the use of the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 19, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American, a Russian and a Canadian lifted off for the Int’l. Space Station for a 2-day journey and 4-month stay.
(SFC, 12/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 25, Kazakhstan's acting border service chief Col. Turganbek Stambekov was among 27 people killed in a military plane crash, a Russian-made An-72, near the southern city of Shymkent. He was appointed in June to deal with the aftermath of a mass killing involving a conscript.
(AP, 12/25/12)
2013 Jan 29, In Kazakhstan a SCAT passenger jet carrying at least 20 people crashed in heavy fog near Almaty, killing all on board.
(AP, 1/29/13)
2013 Feb 27, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top official at diplomatic talks, said negotiations in Kazakhstan with world powers over how to curb Iran's nuclear program have reached a "turning point" for the better at the close of two days of discussions aimed at preventing Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 16, A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American and 2 Russians landed in Kazakhstan. The men had spent 144 days on the Int’l. Space Station. 3 astronauts remained on the ISS.
(SSFC, 3/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 19, An English judge said oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who has been in hiding since he was sentenced to jail for contempt of court last year, organised a complex fraud to embezzle billions of dollars from Kazakh bank BTA.
(Reuters, 3/19/13)
2013 Mar 29, A Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts docked with the Int’l. Space Station (ISS) after traveling just 6 hours from launch in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 3/30/13, p.A3)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Kazakhstan Iran and six world powers failed to reach agreement on an approach to reducing fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to make weapons. The EU's foreign policy chief declared that the two sides "remain far apart on substance."
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Jul 2, A Russian Proton rocket carrying navigation satellites crashed a few seconds after takeoff from the Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. This was the 4th Proton failure at Baikonur in 14 years.
(SFC, 7/3/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.45)
2013 Jul 13, Kazakhstan said the wife of fugitive former minister and oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov could not leave the country because she was under investigation. Ablyazov said his wife and daughter were in danger.
(Reuters, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 31, Dissident Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov (50), accused at home of embezzling more than $5 billion, was arrested near the French Riviera resort of Cannes. The next day he was told by a French judge that he faced extradition, but his family vowed to fight an expulsion it said was politically motivated.
(Reuters, 8/1/13)
2013 Aug 14, Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court sentenced six men 5-10 years for conspiring to assassinate government officials in Astana. They were arrested last January. The court said one had trained his under-age Muslim wife as a suicide bomber to detonate a charge.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)
2013 Sep 11, A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts touched down in Kazakhstan after undocking from the International Space Station following 166 days in space.
(AP, 9/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, A Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Dec 20, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, backed by the legislature, decided to send officers to aid UN peacekeeping missions next year for the first time since independence in 1991.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Kazakhstan began producing oil from the Kashagan oilfield in the northern Caspian Sea. The project was eight years behind schedule and at $43 billion was $30 billion over budget. Production lasted only a few weeks due to leaks of poisonous gas. A restart was hoped for in 2016.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.73)
2014 Jan 9, A French court ruled that dissident Kazakh Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling up to $6 billion from his former bank BTA, should be extradited from France to Ukraine or Russia.
(Reuters, 1/9/14)
2014 Feb 11, The value of Kazakhstan currency, the tenge, fell by 19%.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.35)
2014 Feb 16, In Almaty, Kazakhstan, protesters waived their knickers in a protest ostensibly over a rule regulating synthetic underwear. The “pantie protesters" were rounded up and led away. The real anger was over the recent devaluation of the country’s currency.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.35)
2014 Mar 11, Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut landed back on Earth in Kazakhstan after a stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) of over half a year.
(AFP, 3/11/14)
2014 Mar 26, A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and NASA’s Steve Swanson blasted off from Kazakhstan. A software glitch delayed their docking with the International Space Station until March 27.
(SFC, 3/27/14, p.A2)(AP, 3/28/14)
2014 Apr 2, Kazakhstan PM Serik Akhmetov unexpectedly announced his resignation and was swiftly replaced by Karim Masimov (49), his influential predecessor. Masimov had stepped down as prime minister in 2012 after occupying the position for five years, during which he shepherded the country's economy through the global financial crisis.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 9, A French court blocked the extradition of exiled Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, an opposition figure wanted on embezzlement charges. Russia alleges Ablyazov embezzled $5 billion (3.6 billion euros). Ukraine accuses him of pilfering another $400 million.
(AFP, 4/9/14)
2014 May 14, A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying three astronauts landed in Kazakhstan. Russian Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan had spent 188 days in the ISS.
(SFC, 5/15/14, p.A5)
2014 May 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a deal creating an economic union with ex-Soviet states Belarus and Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 5/29/14)
2014 Jun 5, Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh president's former son-in-law, was detained in Austria while under investigation for alleged crimes including murder and running a crime network in Kazakhstan.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Sep 11, The Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) opened its 14th annual summit. The 2-day meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, included the groups six member countries: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO agreed to adopt procedures for expansion with India and Pakistan likely to join next year.
(Econ, 9/20/14, p.39)
2014 Sep 25, A US-Russian space crew blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 6-month stint at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 9/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 10, A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying three astronauts from the International Space Station landed safely on the frozen Kazakhstan steppe.
(AP, 11/10/14)
2014 Nov 24, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver three new crew members to the International Space Station, including Italy's first female astronaut.
(Reuters, 11/24/14)
2015 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was projected to be down to13,000 sq. km.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
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Kazaks make up only 40% of the country's 16-17 million people. The Great Horde broadly runs the country, the Middle Horde provides many intellectuals, and the Little Horde appears to have the oil industry locked up.
(WSJ, 10/27/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.A16)
The capital is Astana. Kazakhstan is the size of Western Europe.
(SSFC, 9/30/01, p.A2)(WSJ, 10/21/04, p.A17)
c4000BCE Apples (Malus Sieversii) similar to modern day varieties began to appear around Almaty, Kazakhstan. These ultimately produced the Red Delicious and Golden Delicious in America. The Red Delicious was hybridized into the Fuji and the Empire. The Golden Delicious was hybridized into the Gala, the Jonagold, the Mutsu, Pink Lady and Elstar.
(WSJ, 7/3/03, p.A1)
800-300BCE The Scythians dominated the vast lands stretching from Siberia to the Black Sea. Those who roamed what later became Kazakstan and southern Siberia were known as the Saka.
(AM, 5/01, p.32)
1258 Feb 10, Huegu (Hulega Khan), a Mongol leader and grandson of Genghis Khan, seized Baghdad following a 4-day assault. Mongol invaders from Central Asia took over Baghdad and ended the Abbasid-Seljuk Empire. They included Uzbeks, Kazaks, Georgians and other groups. Some 200 to 800 thousand people were killed and looting lasted 17 days.
(ATC, p.91)(AP, 2/10/99)(SFC, 4/12/03, p.A1)
1405 Feb 14, Timur, aka Tamerlane (b.1336), crippled Mongol monarch, died in Kazakhstan. In 2004 Justin Marozzi authored “Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World."
(V.D.-H.K.p.172)(http://au.encarta.msn.com)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.76)
1645 Mikhail Guryev, a Russian trader, founded the Ural River port city known as Guryev. It was later named Atyrau.
(WSJ, 7/25/01, p.A1)
1832 Akmolinsk was founded. It was later renamed Tselinograd and then Akmola. In 1998 it became the capital and was renamed Astana, which means capital.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A14)
1924 Stalin divided remnants of Turkestan into the current Central Asian republics.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1924 Kazakhstan enacted women’s suffrage.
(SSFC, 12/17/06, p.G5)
1930-1960 Millions of people including ethnic Germans and Russian dissidents died during this period, unable to survive starvation and torture in a network of gulag camps scattered from Russia's Arctic tundra to the inhospitable Kazakh steppe.
(Reuters, 12/21/09)
1932-1933 Stalin imposed terror and famine on the Ukraine, Kuban and Kazakhstan that was carried out be Lazar Kaganovich.
(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-15)
1936 Dec 5, Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR became constituent republics of Soviet Union.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1943 Jan 26, Nikolai Vavilov (b.1887), Soviet botanist, died in prison. In 1929 he had traced the genealogy of the apple to Kazakhstan.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, Books p.3)(www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=54)
1944 Feb 23, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Chechens to Kazakhstan for resisting Soviet rule and abetting the Germans. More than a third of the population died before the rest were allowed to go home.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A9)(SFEC, 2/20/00, p.A32)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
1944 Mar 8, The Soviet government celebrated International Women's Day by forcibly deporting almost the entire Balkar population to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Omsk Oblast in Siberia. Starting on 8 March and finishing the following day, the NKVD loaded 37,713 Balkars onto 14 train echelons bound for Central Asia and Siberia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkars)
1947 Z.V. Togan (1890-1970) published “The Origins of the Kazaks and ôzbeks.
(http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-5/)
1949-1951 In Moldova SSR 2 waves of deportations were carried out, with some 40,000 Moldovans sent to Siberia and what is now Kazakhstan.
(AP, 6/13/06)
1949-1956 Four major Soviet nuclear tests were carried out near Semipalatinsk. Higher than expected mutation rates on families in the area and their children were reported in 2002.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A14)
1949-1989 Nuclear tests were carried out by the Soviets and reportedly contaminated some 500,000 local people. It was feared that nuclear waste left in boreholes and cavities beneath the surface may contaminate ground water and affect agriculture.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A19)
1950 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was 67,000 sq. km. and shrinking
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
1965 Mar 3, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1965 The Soviet Union halted overground atomic testing.
(Econ, 9/11/04, p.)
1967 Feb 26, USSR performed an underground nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
c1968 The Aral Sea began shrinking after Soviet engineers diverted water from its 2 feeder streams, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)
1969 Jul 4, The USSR performed nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR.
(www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
1970 Sep 24, The Soviet Luna 16 landed in Kazakhstan, completing the first unmanned round trip to the moon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1971 May 25, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk.
(www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Arch/sts-table/sts-table.html)
1971 A Soviet field test of weaponized smallpox caused an outbreak that killed 2 young children and a woman at the port of Aralsk. This was not made public until 2002.
(SFC, 6/15/02, p.A8)
1972-1999 A Soviet BN-350 nuclear breeder reactor operated in the port city of Aktau over this period. It generated some 3.3 tons of weapons grade plutonium.
(WSJ, 6/4/01, p.A19)
1973 Feb 15, The USSR launched Prognoz 3 at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to study solar flares.
(www.astronautix.com/craft/prognoz.htm)
1977 May 29, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1978 May 29, The USSR performed a nuclear test at Semipalatinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1978-1996 The Caspian sea had risen 8 feet due to what experts believe was an upward thrust of the Earth’s crust beneath the inland sea. Flooding has resulted over an area of 1.5 mil acres that includes 200 oil wells in the western region.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1979 Aug 18, USSR performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1983 Zoo officials in Kazakhstan reportedly claimed that a teenage elephant named Batyr could reproduce Russian to utter 20 phrases, including "Batyr is good." But there was no scientific study on the claim.
(AP, 11/2/12)
1986 Dec 16, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, an ethnic Kazakh and long-serving head of Kazakhstan’s Communist Party, was replaced by Gennady Kolbin, a Russian outsider. 2 days of student protests followed, which were brutally put down with at least 2 deaths.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
1987 Feb 26, USSR resumed nuclear testing at Semipalitinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1987 May 15, The Soviet space booster Energia took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying a black container labeled Polyus with the Skif-DM inside. The Skif-DM was a model a future weapon. Energia performed flawlessly, but the Polyus, which was supposed to fire engines to reach a higher orbit, shot back down to Earth and into the Pacific Ocean. The Skif project came to a halt and Pres. Gorbachev did not renew it.
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.A24)
1987-1992 ChevronTexaco used the services of James Giffen to gain exclusive rights to study the Tengiz oil field. Kazakstan paid his Mercator corp. some $67 million from 1994-2000 for consulting work. In 2003 Giffen was indicted under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
(SFC, 4/7/03, p.A14)
1988 Spring, Soviet germ scientists transferred hundreds of tons of anthrax bacteria into canisters with bleach and sent them for storage to Vorrozhdeniye Islamnd (Renaissance Island) in the Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A10,11)
1989 Nursultan Nazarbaev succeeded Gennady Kolbin as head of Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
1989 Soviet nuclear test explosions ended in Kazakhstan. Between 1949 and the cessation of atomic testing in 1989, 456 explosions were conducted at the STS, including 340 underground shots and 116 atmospheric.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipalatinsk_Test_Site)
1989 Kazakhstan’s population numbered about 16.5 million people. By the late 1990s it fell to 14.9 million as the economy declined.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.47)
1990 The shrinking Aral Sea split in two with a patch of desert in between.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)
1991 Dec 1, Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected president of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 12/1/12)
1991 Dec 13, Five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) agreed to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) being organized by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
(AP, 12/13/01)(www.therussiasite.org/legal/laws/CISagreement.html)
1991 Kazakhstan established independence.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)
1991 Vozrozhdeniye Island (Renaissance Island) in the Aral Sea became the property of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan.
(SFC, 3/24/03, p.A5)
1991-2000 Kazakhstan received some $550 million in US aid during this period.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C15)
1992 Mar 2, Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed to the UN General Assembly an annual reduction of military budgets by 1% and using the money to fund UN peace projects.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.81)
1993 The inflation rate was 2,265%.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1994 Nov 23, A large cache of bomb-grade uranium was transferred from Kazakhstan to the United States.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1994 Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev elevated Akezhan Kazhegeldin, a wealthy businessman, to prime minister.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1995 Nov, The oil minister says new US and Russian players had joined the struggle to develop the Soviet republic's giant Tengiz oil field, located on the northeast edge of the Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 11/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, Private ownership of land was legalized. Military bases and common land remain restricted from private ownership.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-7)
1995 Kazakhstan Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev took extra power under a new constitution.
(WSJ, 10/21/04, p.A17)
1996 Jan 2, President, Nusultan Nazarbayev was building a new Kazakh capital 600 miles north of Almaty in swampy Akmola with transfer due to begin in 1998.
(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A10)
1996 Apr 1, The president, Nusultan Nazarbayev, once worked at the Karmet industrial complex.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 5/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel that demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Jul 4, China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin began a 3-day to Kazakhstan, whose population numbered about 15 million. Zemin held talks with President Nazarbayev, and met with Kazakhstan Parliament Lower House Speaker Ospanov and delivered an important speech entitled "For a Better Future of Friendship and Cooperation Between China and Central Asia". The two sides signed a joint statement, the extradition treaty, the agreement on cooperation between the People's Bank of China and the Kazakhstan National Bank, the agreement on cooperation in quality control and mutual certification of import and export commodities and other documents.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.48)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-05/21/content_879991.htm)
1997 Apr 5, Regional police reported the arrest of 7 men in Novosibirsk, Russia, who officials said planned to smuggle 11 pounds (5.2kg) of enriched uranium to Pakistan or China. The uranium was reportedly stolen from a plant in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/29/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3cydhn)
1996 Apr 15, The State Forestry Committee announced the creation of the Zailisky Alatau National Park, which is to cover 600,000 acres south of the capital, Almaty. The park is intended to protect such endangered species as the Tien Shan bear, the golden eagle, the Barbary falcon and the snow leopard of which there are fewer than ten in the park.
(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)
1996 Apr 26, The Shanghai Five grouping was created with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai. Boris Yeltsin and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan visited Shanghai and signed a treaty with Pres. Jiang Zemin at the Jin Jiang Hotel that demarcated their borders with China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1996 Jun-Jul, Swarms of locusts threatened 2 million acres of farmland in the Atyrauz and Kokchetav regions and along the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.C1)
1996 Aug 2, Doctors warned of a surge in TB when 56,000 prisoners are released under a government amnesty. It was estimated that 16,500 prisoners had the disease.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 6, It was reported that the first Chevron gas station opened. The country has 24 billion metric tons of reserves.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, B8)
1996 Nov, The Canadian firm Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. (later known as PetroKazakhstan Inc. of Calgary) won the bidding in the Kazakhstan’s first oilfield privatization. For $120 million it acquired a field producing 50,000 barrels a day with reserves of 340 million barrels. The deal was accompanied by an array of social obligations. It later faced problems with the Kazakh government over fuel pricing and environmental rules.
(WSJ, 11/18/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A11)
1996 Alashbayev Abdeyaziovitch, mayor of Aralsk, began to dam to separate the northern portion of the Aral Sea from the larger southern portion. This 1st attempt failed when water spilled over the top and washed away the dam.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A12)
1997 Mar 27, Ella Maillart (b.1903), Swiss sportswoman and travel writer, died. She chronicled the savage collectivisation of Karakalpak agriculture in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the 1930s.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Maillart)
1997 Sep 10, It was announced that a stock exchange would open this year.
(WSJ, 9/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Nov 8, The transfer of Kazakhstan’s capital to Akmola from Almaty was officially celebrated. The shift was in part made to move the capital away from the Chinese border.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(Econ, 11/13/04, p.47)
1997 Dec, The Caspian consortium had its funds frozen in the planned pipeline to the Black Sea after Russian rights of way were found to be far from completed. Russian fears of competition with its own Urals blend crude was suspected. The consortium consisted of the governments of Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman and 8 oil companies, with most of the funding coming from the Western oil companies.
(WSJ, 2/2/98, p.A18)
1997 Klara Serikbayeva published a new history of Kazakhstan.
(WSJ, 10/27/97, p.A14)
1997 Oct, Mr. Nazarbayev fired Mr. Kazhegeldin as prime minister and replaced him with Mr. Balgimbayev. The inflation rate under Kazhegeldin had been reduced to around 20%.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A18)
1997 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was 30,000 sq. km. and shrinking
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
1997 The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program was initiated. The 8-member group included Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(www.adb.org/CAREC/default.asp)
1998 Apr, The government investment banks to sell off minority stakes in four state enterprises: 2 oil and 2 mining companies, and planned to expand its privatization program.
(WSJ, 5/14/98, p.A14)
1998 Jun, The first module of an int’l. space station, US funded and Russian-built, was to be launched at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [it didn’t make it]
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A7)
1998 Jul 6, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement that divided the northern part of the Caspian seabed into Russian and Kazakh sectors.
(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 10, In Kazakhstan a rocket, carrying 12 Globalstar satellites valued at $180 million, crashed shortly after takeoff.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 29, Five nations endorsed the oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan committed to the 1,080 mile conduit with a push from the US.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 11, Argentina and Kazakhstan pledged to abide by the treaty to cut emissions of gases that cause global warming. This put a crack in a united front of developing nations opposed to cuts before 2012.
(WSJ, 11/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 20, In Kazakhstan a Russian Proton booster rocket lifted up the first stage of the new int’l. space station called Zarya (Sunrise).
(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 11/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Nov 24, Russia, Kazakhstan and a group of major oil companies agreed to build a pipeline to connect the Tengiz oil field to a Russian port on the Black Sea.
(SFC, 11/25/98, p.A16)
1998 Alashbayev Abdeyaziovitch, mayor of Aralsk, began a 2nd attempt to dam the northern portion of the Aral Sea from the larger southern portion. The sea had shrunk to half its former size and left behind 13,000 square miles of wasteland.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Akezhan Kazhegeldin, former prime minister (1994-1997), set up the Republican People's Party of Kazakhstan. He was forced into exile in 1999 and in 2001 was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail for corruption and abuse of power.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.46-7)
1998 In Kazakhstan a law was passed that barred anyone convicted of a legal infraction from running for election. Illegal acts included insults to the honor and dignity of the president.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
1998 Inflation in Kazakhstan was held to 1.9% for the year.
(WSJ, 1/7/99, p.A16)
1999 Jan 10, In Kazakhstan presidential elections were scheduled. Nazarbayev won another 7-year term in rigged elections tinged with repression.
(WSJ, 1/7/99, p.A16)(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 2, In Atyrau, Kazakhstan, 26 inmates stabbed themselves in the stomach in an attempted mass suicide to protest prison conditions. All survived.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.D2)
1999 Jun, Kazakhstan sold some 40 MiG fighter jets to North Korea.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C15)
1999 Jul 7, From Kazakhstan it was reported that a rocket carrying a telecom satellite blew up and that launches at Baikonur would be suspended.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 12, Pres. Nazarbayev ordered the investigation of MiG sales to North Korea. South Korea charged that 30 MiG-21 jets were sold this year.
(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 27, In Kazakhstan a Proton-K booster rocket with a Russian communications satellite crashed during takeoff at the Baikonur cosmodrome and all launches were cancelled.
(SFC, 10/29/99, p.D3)
1999 Nov 22, Authorities detained 22 people, all members of a Russian nationalist group called Rus, on suspicion of planning a secessionist uprising.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Kanatjan Alibekov (Ken Alibek), the former director of Soviet anthrax production in Kazakhstan, published "Biohazard."
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A11)
1999 The Kazakh film “Killer" by Darezhan Omirbaev starred Talgat Assetov.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.E4)
1999 Pres. Nazarbayev grew more self-protective after he came under suspicion of stowing funds in Swiss bank accounts. The Swiss froze over a dozen Kazakhstan bank accounts for alleged money laundering.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.A24)
c1999 Pres. Nazarbayev put Rakhat Aliyev, a son-in-law, into a senior position with the Tax Police and then the security agency KNB. He put Timur Kulibayev, another son-in-law, in charge of oil and gas transportation.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2000 Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev announced in 1998 that he was considering changing from the use of the Cyrillic alphabet to the Roman by this year in conjunction with a computerization program in the schools.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A13)
2000 May 15, A consortium of Western oil companies found a large oil reserve in the northern Caspian Sea off the coast of Kazakhstan. The 480-sq. mile Kashagan field was estimated at 8 to 50 billion barrels of oil. In 2007 it was reported that the Kashagan field contained some 12-billion barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/16/00, p.A14)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.43)
2000 June 22, In Kazakstan some 11,000 seals were reported found dead on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Infectious disease linked to weakened immune systems due to oil-related pollutants were blamed.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.D3)
2000 Jul 30, In Kazakstan the last nuclear test facility was destroyed with a controlled detonation of 100 tons of explosives.
(SFC, 7/31/00, p.A14)
2000 Nov 22, An $2.5 billion oil pipeline from Kazakstan to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea was reported completed by an int.’ consortium. Pumping of 600,000 barrels per day was expected to begin in 2001.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D5)
2001 Feb 12, Italy’s ENI SpA won the right to operate the Kashagan oil field.
(WSJ, 2/13/01, p.A18)
2001 Feb, Core samples indicated that the Kashagan oil field measured at least 25 miles across.
(WSJ, 3/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 26, In Kazakstan the Caspian Pipeline Consortium began pumping crude oil from the Tengiz field to Novorossiisk, Russia’s Black Sea port. The 990-mile Tengiz-Novorossisk oil pipeline was owned by Kazakstan, Russia, Oman and 8 oil companies. Chevron held 15% in the 12-partner consortium.
(WSJ, 2/26/01, p.A14)(SFC, 3/27/01, p.C4)
2001 Apr 19, It was reported that the 2 largest banks planned to merge in a deal that would extend the reach of Pres. Nazarbayev’s family.
(WSJ, 4/19/01, p.A13)
2001 May 17, A fire in a 26-story hotel in Almaty killed 4 people.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.D4)
2001 Jun 15, The Shanghai Five member nations (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia), having admitted Uzbekistan, signed the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation)
2001 Sep 24, Kazakstan offered air and military bases to the US for attacks on Afghanistan. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were said to be negotiating use of their territory by the US.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A6)
2001 Oct 21, In Kazakstan a 3-person Russian-French crew blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew included Claudie Haignere, who in 1996 became the 1st Frenchwoman in space.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B2)
2001 Nov, Government troops closed the Karavan Newspaper and raided KTK-TV and other facilities associated with Rakhat Aliyev, son-in-law to Pres. Nazarbayev. Aliyev was later sent off as ambassador to Austria.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A1)
2001 Dec 21, Pres. Bush met with Pres. Nazarbayev of Kazakstan and signed documents “related to transportation connections."
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A5)
2002 Jan 31, It was reported that the US and Kazakstan planned a joint venture to use a former Soviet nuclear weapons plant to process uranium for power plants and absorb atomic workers.
(WSJ, 1/31/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar, The government arrested Mr. Ablyazov, a publishing and banking tycoon and leading government critic. In July he was sentenced to 6 years in prison for embezzling $3.6 million from the state.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 28, US Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld visited Pres. Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Pres. Nazarbayev in Kazakstan.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A9)
2002 May 12, In Kazakstan a roof collapsed at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Russia’s main space launch site. 8 workers were feared killed.
(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an accord over the northern half of the Caspian Sea.
(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 3, A 16-country summit of Central Asian leaders opened in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 6/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug, Galimzhan Zhakianov, a provincial governor and government critic, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for selling state enterprises at illegitimately low prices.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A8)
2002 Oct 22, A ferry carrying 51 people and a shipment of oil sank in rough weather in the Caspian Sea. One report said five onboard the ferry were rescued. The Mercury II freight and passenger ferry was making its way from the port of Aktau, Kazakhstan, heading southwest to the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
(AP, 10/22/02)(WSJ, 10/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 26, The Astra-1K satellite was launched atop a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. The world's largest communications satellite, manufactured by France's Alcatel Space corporation for Societe Europeene des Satellites of Luxembourg, was lost after it went into the wrong orbit.
(AP, 11/26/02)(WSJ, 11/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 11, It was reported that the US had filed allegations that tens of millions of dollars paid by American oil companies to Kazakstan during the 1990s wound up in Swiss bank accounts of top Kazakstani officials.
(SFC, 12/11/02, p.A15)
2002 In Kazakhstan former government employees and businessmen created a new political party, Ak Zhol.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.46)
2003 Feb 2, In Kazakstan Progress M-47 lifted off atop a Soyuz-U rocket to deliver supplies to the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.A5)
2003 Jun 11, Kazakhstan's PM Imangali Tasmagambetov resigned after a prolonged battle with parliament over a land reform bill that would allow private land ownership in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 6/11/03)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.40)
2003 Jun 20, Kazakhstan's parliament passed a bill allowing private ownership of land for the first time in this vast former Soviet republic.
(AP, 6/20/03)
2003 Sep 23, China signed agreements with Russia and four Central Asian neighbors (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan) in an effort to strengthen a 7-year-old security alliance and encourage economic links across a largely undeveloped region.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Oct 18, Russia launched a Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan with a 3-man crew for the int'l. space station. Aboard were an American, a Russian and a Spaniard.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 28, A Soyuz space capsule with 3 astronauts landed in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Kazakhstan decided to create a full-fledged navy to help protect its oil interests on the Caspian Sea.
(Econ, 10/11/03, p.46)
2003 James Giffen, a US oil consultant, was indicted in the US under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He was charged with accepting bribes from US companies to gain access to Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field. Giffen claimed he was working as a US intelligence asset.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2004 Jan 9, Russia and Kazakhstan extended Moscow's lease of the launching pad in Baikonur until 2050. It served as the only link to the troubled International Space Station.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Mar 12, Chinese state media reported that a 1,930-mile railway project to link China and Europe was announced by Kanat Zhangaskin, vice president of the Kazakhstan National Railway Co.
(AP, 3/12/04)
2004 May 17, China and Kazakhstan agreed to build a 744-mile crude oil pipeline to send an initial 10 million tons of Kazakh oil to Xinjiang by 2006.
(WSJ, 6/17/04, p.A16)
2004 Aug 28, The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan approved Russian membership to their economic block at talks in Astana, the Kazakh capital.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Sep 19, Kazakhs chose a new parliament expected to be dominated by Otan, the party of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev and Asar, a new party run by his daughter. US backed int’l. monitors called the elections to the 77-seat Mazhilis flawed.
(AP, 9/19/04)(WSJ, 9/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 9/25/04, p.55)
2004 Sep, Construction began on a 620-mile pipeline to take oil from eastern Kazakhstan into China’s western Xinjiang region.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.46)
2004 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule, carrying 2 Russians and an American, landed in Kazakhstan. The crew had spent 6 months at the int’l. space station.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.A7)
2004 Nov 28, In Kazakhstan 2 powerful blasts rocked the headquarters of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's ruling Otan (Fatherland) party in Almaty's busy central district.
(Reuters, 11/28/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Kazakhstan 23 people died and three others were injured in an explosion at a coal mine in the Karaganda region.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2005 Jan 1, Kazakhstan was forecast for 7.9% annual GDP growth with a population at 15 million and GDP per head at $3,170.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.91)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Recipients included Kaisha Atakhanova of Kazakhstan for fighting the import of nuclear waste.
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 May 25, In Azerbaijan officials opened the first section of a $3.6 billion, 1,100-mile pipeline that will carry Caspian Sea oil to Western markets. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey were on hand for the ceremony at the Sangachal oil terminal.
(AP, 5/25/05)(WSJ, 5/25/05, p.B2)
2005 Jul 5, An alliance of Russia, China and central Asian nations called for the US and coalition members in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from member states, reflecting growing unease over America's regional military presence. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Sep 29, Editors of five Kazakh opposition newspapers ended a hunger strike after reaching a deal with a new printing house that would allow them to return to business after being forced to shut down.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 3, The UN ambassadors of Britain, France and the US sent a letter emphasizing their continued opposition to a proposal to create a nuclear-weapons free zone in Central Asia. The letter, sent to the UN ambassadors of the five Central Asian nations, says that a draft treaty to create the zone still does not address their biggest concerns and that further discussions are needed. It calls for consultations "very soon." The five nations agreed to the draft text for a Central Asian nuclear-free zone in February. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan had originally put forward a proposal for a nuclear-weapon free zone in 1997, but divisions both internal and external over the text have stalled progress. Moscow claims that a 1992 treaty that Russia signed with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan could allow missiles to be deployed in the region.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 11, US millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and a two-man, Russian-American crew returned from the international space station to Earth in a swift, bone-jarring descent in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 18, It was reported that a leading pro-opposition news website in Kazakhstan has been closed by court order and others have experienced technical problems in the run-up to a presidential election in the Central Asian state.
(Reuters, 10/18/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Kazakhstan Zamanbek Nurkadilov (61), an outspoken critic of President Nursultan Nazarbayev was found shot to death in his home.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Dec 4, Oil-rich Kazakhstan voted in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan Nazarbayev another seven-year term.
(AP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 5, Opposition leaders in Kazakhstan said that the overwhelming re-election of President Nursultan Nazarbayev should be declared invalid, and foreign observers said the balloting did not meet international standards.
(AP, 12/05/05)
2005 Dec 7, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev was officially declared the winner of last weekend's election, while the opposition insisted the vote was manipulated.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 13, The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, confirmed that they have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry.
(AP, 12/13/05)
2005 Dec 15, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ceremonially opened the taps of a new pipeline carrying oil from one of the region's greatest energy powers to one of its hungriest consumers, China.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 28, The EU launched the first satellite in its Galileo navigation program, which officials expect one day will end the continent's reliance on the US Global Positioning System. A Soyuz rocket, launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carried the 1st of an expected 30 satellites.
(AP, 12/28/05)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.53)
2006 Jan 6, The Kazakhstan Parliament voted to ditch the Central Asian state's old national anthem in favor of "My Kazakhstan," a song written in 1956 and adapted by Pres. Nazarbayev.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 16, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov (41), a Kazakh opposition leader jailed for more than three years, returned home, to the cheers of hundreds of supporters. The leader of the now-disbanded Democratic Choice party, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2002 on abuse-of-office charges.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Feb 11, Altynbek Sarsenbayev (43), a Kazakh former minister and leading member of the political opposition, was abducted in Almaty. He was found shot dead 2 days later along with his bodyguard and driver later near Almaty. Sarsenbaev held a senior position in Alban, a subdivision of the Elder Horde, one of Kazakhstan’s 3 great traditional tribal groupings. Relatives and supporters of Sarsenbayev accused authorities of covering up for those behind the high-profile killing as 10 defendants faced trial on June 15.
(AP, 2/13/06)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.44)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Feb 21, Kazakhstan's intelligence agency said that five of its employees were among the six arrested suspects in the Feb 11 murder of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, a leader of the opposition Nagyz Ak Zhol party.
(AP, 2/21/06)
2006 Feb 22, Kazakhstan's intelligence chief resigned after several of his subordinates were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the slaying of an opposition leader. Erzhan Utembaev, the top administrative official of the Senate, was arrested for ordering the murder of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev.
(AP, 2/22/06)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.40)
2006 Apr 9, A capsule carrying a Russian, American and Brazilian landed in Kazakhstan following a weeklong trip to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.A3)
2006 May 5, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Kazakhstan for talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Cheney promoted export routes for vast oil and gas reserves that would bypass Russia and supply the West directly.
(AP, 5/5/06)(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 15, The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Russian and Chinese-led bloc of Asian states, said it plans to set up an expert group to boost computer security and help guard against threats to their regimes from the Internet. SCO members (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are mostly authoritarian states that maintain tight controls on communications technology, including the Internet.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 18, Kazakhstan launched its first satellite into orbit.
(SFC, 6/19/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 4, The parties of Kazakhstan's leader and his eldest daughter announced a merger, a move that tightens President Nursultan Nazarbayev's grip on power.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2006 Jul 14, In Kazakhstan police under Mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov moved in to destroy the illegal Shanyrak settlement on the outskirts of Almaty. 30-40 people on each side were injured. A policeman died after being doused with petrol and set on fire.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.39)
2006 Jul 17, The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan agreed at the G8 summit to create a joint venture to process natural gas from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak gas field.
(AP, 7/17/06)
2006 Sep 9, Five central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) signed a nuclear-free zone treaty, but it did not cancel out a 1992 agreement to allow Russia to transport and deploy nuclear weapons there under certain circumstances.
(SSFC, 9/10/06, p.A18)
2006 Sep 11, Kazakhstan hosted the Second Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Astana.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.81)(www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=7191&geo=3&size=A)
2006 Sep 18, Anousheh Ansari (40), an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, took off on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, becoming the world's first paying female space tourist. Aboard the space station, an oxygen generator overheated and spilled a toxic irritant, forcing the crew to don masks and gloves in the first emergency ever declared aboard the 8-year-old orbiting outpost.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2006 Sep 20, In northern Kazakhstan a methane explosion tore through a coal mine, killing 41 miners. Seven miners were pulled out alive and hospitalized after it ripped through the Lenin mine in the town of Shakhtinsk.
(AP, 9/20/06)(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 28, It was reported that the industrial city of Shymkent, Kazakhstan, was reeling after learning that at least 63 children had contracted AIDS through medical negligence many blame on corruption and the illicit sale of blood. At least five infected toddlers had died after receiving injections or blood transfusions. Parents said regional health officials were aware of the outbreak in March, and have been trying to cover it up by pulling pages from the infected toddlers' treatment records to eliminate any mention of blood transfusions.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 29, Pres. Bush met with Kazakhstan’s Pres. Nazarbayev and praised him. The meeting was criticized as an unseemly gesture to an oil-rich ruler who tolerates no dissent.
(WSJ, 9/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 26, China’s state controlled Citic Group said it has reached an agreement to buy an oil field in Kazakhstan from Canada’s nations Energy for $1.9 billion.
(WSJ, 10/27/06, p.A10)
2006 Nov 10, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the ruling Otan Party would merge with the pro-government Civic Party in what the opposition described as part of efforts to ensure his grip on power in upcoming parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 3, The film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" opened nationwide in the US.
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.68)(www.premiere.com/moviereviews/3082/borat.html)
2006 Dec 3, Andris Piebalgs, the EU Energy Commissioner from Latvia, signed an accord on nuclear cooperation with Kazakhstan. The EU hoped to increase Kazakhstan uranium sales to the EU from 3% to 20%.
(WSJ, 12/4/06, p.A6)
2006 Kazakhstan’s population of 15.2 million currently included 59% native Kazakhs and 26% Russians.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.59)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov, the PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of his performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he tried to secure his position and balance interests of various powerful elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan, In Kazakhstan police arrested a manager of the Atyrau Balyk cannery, charging him and 3 colleagues, who had fled to Russia, with poaching. The cannery had a monopoly in exporting Kazakhstan’s CITES-approved quota of sturgeon. An expert estimated that poaching on the Ural River could eliminate the sturgeon in 5-10 years.
(SFC, 6/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Apr 7, Emergency officials said 247 dead seals have washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan in the past week.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, A Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 21, Charles Simonyi, an American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space, returned to Earth in a space capsule that also carried a cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 May 2, Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Agency said hundreds of dead seals have washed up on its Caspian Sea shoreline in the past several days, bringing the total number of the animals found dead along the shoreline in recent weeks to 832.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 12, The leaders of Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan reached a landmark pipeline deal that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's energy export routes.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 16, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed limited political reforms in the oil-rich country he has headed since the Soviet era, including shortening the presidential term from seven years to five and strengthening the powers of parliament.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 18, Kazakhstan's veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev was in effect declared president-for-life in a move condemned by the nation's opposition as undemocratic.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 21, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nazarbayev (66) approved a constitutional amendment that waives presidential term limits and allows him to seek the top post indefinitely.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.42)
2007 May 26, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his son-in-law, diplomat Rakhat Aliyev, after Aliyev challenged the Kazakh leader by declaring he intended to run for the presidency.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 28, Kazakh authorities issued an international arrest warrant for the powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who faces abduction charges and has publicly criticized the longtime leader.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 1, Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh ambassador to Austria until he was dismissed on May 26, was arrested for alleged involvement in the suspected kidnapping of two senior managers of a bank he controls. He appealed to Austrian authorities not to extradite him to his homeland to face kidnapping charges.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 11, Officials gathered in Kazakhstan for a 2-day meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. 37 of 51 Global Initiative partner nations, along with the IAEA and European Union as observers, assessed current plans to enhance the partnership capacity of Global Initiative nations and discussed new ways to combat nuclear smuggling and other terrorist acts. 2 days of talks produced a 10-year action plan.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.68)(www.usembassy.kz/)
2007 Jun 27, A Kazakhstan court convicted 21 medical workers for their roles in infecting scores of children with the virus that causes AIDS in a case that has outraged the country. Health officials said 118 children and 14 mothers have been confirmed as contracting HIV. The Shymkent district court gave suspended sentences to five senior health officials. 16 medical workers were sentenced to prison sentences of up to five years.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jul, Authorities in Kazakhstan slapped a $609 million fine on a Chevron-led consortium developing the Tengiz oil field. The Kazakh ecological ministry cited environmental breaches stemming from the stockpiling of sulfur between 2003 and 2006. The consortium stripped sulfur from Tengiz oil, which is laced with hydrogen sulfide gas, and stored it as pellets in massive facilities, for later use in fertilizer.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A9)
2007 Aug 8, An Austrian federal court rejected Kazakhstan's request to have its ex-ambassador to Austria, a former son-in-law of the Central Asian nation's autocratic president, extradited to face kidnapping charges in his homeland.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 17, The six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held their first joint maneuvers on Russian land in a demonstration of their growing military ties and a shared desire to counter US global clout. The presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan attended the unprecedented joint military exercises in Chelyabinsk near the Kazakh border.
(AFP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 18, Kazakhs headed to the polls in parliamentary elections seen as a key test of authoritarian Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev's pledge to boost democracy in this oil-rich nation. Nur Otan, the party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, won all 98 available seats in the lower parliament. The tally was quickly condemned by the opposition.
(AFP, 8/18/07)(AP, 8/19/07)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.42)
2007 Aug, China’s President visited Kazakhstan. Soon after it was announced that a new oil pipeline would be built from Kazakhstan to China, and that a new gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan with China would run through Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.54)
2007 Sep 6, An unmanned Russian rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite malfunctioned after liftoff, sending parts crashing in an uninhabited part of Kazakhstan and triggering concerns about environmental damage.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Oct 10, A Russian rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur launch pad, carrying 3 astronauts to the international space station. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, left Earth alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and American astronaut Peggy Whitson. Shukor was selected from among 11,000 Malaysian candidates to fly aboard the ISS in a deal his government arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of Russian fighter jets. Whitson will be the first woman to command the outpost.
(Reuters, 9/20/07)(AP, 10/10/07)(SFC, 10/11/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 20, In Kazakhstan the opposition staged a demonstration in Almaty against rising prices as people hoarded food supplies and emptied shops.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.52)
2007 Nov 30, The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OECD) awarded its rotating chairmanship in 2010 to Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.50)
2007 Corruption ratings for this year by Transparency International placed Kazakhstan at 150th out of 180 countries.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2007 US federal officials alleged that $84 million held in Swiss bank accounts stem from bribes paid by US companies to Kazakhstan’s president and other top officials for access to energy reserves. The money was frozen as an investigation continued.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2008 Jan 11, In Kazakhstan a methane gas explosion ripped through a coal mine, owned by ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, killing at least 30 miners.
(AP, 1/11/08)(AFP, 1/13/08)
2008 Jan 14, Kazakhstan’s state oil company Kazmunaigas said it has ended a long-running conflict with a group of Western majors over ownership of the Kashagan oil field, one of the world's largest new deposits.
(AFP, 1/14/08)
2008 Feb 1, The US promised Kazakhstan to help it bring its armed forces up to NATO standards in a new military cooperation pact certain to irritate Russia.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Kazakhstan Zhaksybek Kulekeyev, a former government minister and head of the state railway company, was formally charged with taking a $100,000 bribe.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2008 Apr 8, A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut and two cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, en route to the international space station.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 15, Kazakhstan joined other Black Sea grain exporters in curbing shipments to combat double-digit inflation. Wheat exports were suspended until Sep 10. Kazakhstan will become the world’s 5th largest wheat exporter this year, shipping half its record 2007 crop.
(WSJ, 4/16/08, p.A8)
2008 Apr 19, In northern Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule, carrying South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, landed 260 miles off its mark.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Jun 28, Ruslana Korshunova (20), a European Vogue cover model, fell to her death from her Manhattan apartment building in an apparent suicide. She was originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 6/29/08)
2008 Jul 21, Rakhat Aliyev, the ex-son-in-law of Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev, accused the president of diverting billions in state assets and other corruption.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Oct 5, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co. and Texas-based ConocoPhillips said they have signed a deal with Kazakhstan’s national oil company to drill in a potentially lucrative region in the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 10/6/08, p.D1)
2008 Oct 12, A Soyuz spacecraft with two Americans and a Russian on board lifted off from Kazakhstan for the international space station. The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carried American computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, US astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.
(AP, 10/12/08)
2008 Oct 24, A Soyuz capsule carrying an American and two Russians touched down on target in Kazakhstan after a descent from the international space station, safely delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2009 Jan 12, Kazakh PM Karim Masimov told his ministers to start personal blogs to get them closer to the people of the former Soviet state.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 15, Kazakh lawmakers approved legislation to guarantee at least two political parties are represented in parliament, a move designed to improve the Central Asian nation's tarnished democratic credentials.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 20, The head of US Central Command said the US has struck deals with Russia and neighboring countries allowing it to transport supplies to American troops in Afghanistan through their territory. US officials have said that one likely route is overland from Russia through Kazakhstan and on through Uzbekistan using trucks and trains. Another possible route is via Azerbaijan across the Caspian Sea to the Kazakh port of Aktau and then through Uzbekistan.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan, In Kazakhstan newspaper editor Ramazan Yesergepov was arrested and charged with revealing state secrets in a move that has tarnished the ex-Soviet nation's democratic credentials as it prepared to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). His arrest came after he published correspondence in the small-circulation weekly Alma-Ata Info that appeared to show collusion in corruption between a Kazakh businessman and the National Security Committee, the successor agency to the KGB. On August 8 Yesergepov was sentenced to three years in prison.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Feb 4, Kazakhstan allowed its currency to devalue 25% in an effort to protect its foreign exchange and gold reserves amidst falling oil prices.
(WSJ, 2/5/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 4, Russia sought to bolster its security alliance with six other ex-Soviet nations (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) by forming a joint rapid reaction force in a continuing effort to curb US influence in energy-rich Central Asia.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 10, An unmanned Russian cargo ship lifted off from Kazakhstan carrying supplies and a space suit to the international space station and its three-member crew. American astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus are aboard the station along with Russian Yuri Lonchakov. The crew size will be doubled to six members later this year.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 26, Kazakhstan announced it was pulling out of the Central Asian power grid to protect its energy supplies, a move that forced rolling blackouts and electricity rationing on Kyrgyzstan, its tiny, power-starved neighbor.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb, Kazakhstan nationalized BTA Bank, the largest bank in the country. Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov was stripped of his position and left the country for exile in London. Over a dozen more bank managers were arrested and awaited trial for alleged racketeering and money laundering.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.40)
2009 Mar 26, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian-American crew and US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi blasted off for the international space station.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 8, A Russian spacecraft carrying a crew of three including US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi landed safely in Kazakhstan.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 23, A Kazakh court jailed the publisher of an opposition newspaper for failing to pay damages in a libel case that government critics contend is politically motivated.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 May 7, Russian Mission Control said the unmanned Progress M-02M lifted off from Kazakhstan on schedule and should dock with the int’l. space station on May 12.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 27, A Russian space capsule, carrying Canadian Bob Thirsk, Russian Roman Romanenko and Belgian Frank De Winne, blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 2 day journey to the ISS.
(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A2)
2009 May, In Kazakhstan Mukhtar Dzhakishev, head of the state nuclear agency (Kazatomprom) and friend of recently deposed banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, was arrested and charged with stealing uranium deposits. 8 of his associates were also arrested.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.40)
2009 Jun 16, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao announced a $10 billion loan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001. The SCO grouped China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/16/content_11552439.htm)
2009 Jul 19, In Kazakhstan more than 5,000 ethnic Uighurs rallied in Almaty to protest China's use of deadly force to quash Uighur protests this month.
(AP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Iran a Russian Ilyushin-62 plane, operated by Tehran-based Aria Airlines and carrying 153 passengers and crew, skidded off the runway and hit a wall while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. 13 of the 16 people killed in the crash were members of the crew, 9 of them from Kazakhstan. The plane landed at high speed and the tires failed.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Sep 3, In Kazakhstan a court convicted Yevgenii Zhovtis of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced him to 4 years in prison. Zhovtis, Kazakhstan’s best known human rights activists, claimed he had been blinded by the lights of an oncoming car when he hit a hit and killed a pedestrian on a country road late at night.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.46)
2009 Sep 13, In southeast Kazakhstan 37 people were killed when a fire ripped through a decrepit drugs treatment facility in Taldykorgan.
(AFP, 9/13/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Kazakhstan Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spaceship to become the world's seventh space tourist.
(Reuters, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 6, In Kazakhstan French President Nicolas Sarkozy scored a diplomatic coup during a visit, overseeing an agreement to allow military hardware for French forces fighting in Afghanistan to pass through Kazakh territory and clinching a raft of lucrative energy deals.
(AP, 10/6/09)
2009 Oct 11, The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte and two other space travelers landed safely in Kazakhstan, ending the entertainment tycoon's mirthful space odyssey.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Dec 1, In Kazakhstan astronauts from Canada and Belgium and a Russian cosmonaut landed safely, wrapping up a six-month stint on the International Space Station.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Thailand 4 Kazakhs and a Belarusian were detained and their New Zealand registered aircraft impounded after it landed in the Thai capital with tons of war weaponry on board that originated in North Korea. The Ilyushin 76 transport from Kazakhstan was allegedly traveling from North Korea to Sri Lanka when it asked to land in Bangkok to refuel. According to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. A New Zealand shell company, SP Trading Ltd., had leased the airplane.
(AP, 12/12/09)(AP, 12/23/09)(AP, 1/22/10)
2009 Dec 14, China’s Pres. Hu Jintao and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan gathered at the Saman-Depe gas field in Turkmenistan and inaugurated a 1,139-mile gas pipeline running through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China’s Xinjiang province.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.51)(www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pipe-d21.shtml)
2009 Dec 20, A Russian Soyuz TMA-17 rocket blasted off from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying an American, a Russian and a Japanese astronaut to the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 12/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 22, In Kazakhstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk (51) of Kyrgyzstan died six days after being thrown from a 6th story window in central Almaty.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.45)
2009 Dilip Hiro authored “Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran."
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.98)
2009 Daniel Metcalfe authored “Out of Steppe: The Lost Peoples of Central Asia." He describes such people as the Karakalpak in Uzbekistan, the Yaghnobi in people of Tajikistan, the Jews of Bukhara and the Germans of Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.91)
2010 Jan 27, NATO's top officer said that Russia had agreed to boost cooperation with the alliance in Afghanistan, including opening more transit routes for supplies to international troops and helping service Soviet-built helicopters used by the security forces. NATO said it had finalized an agreement with Kazakhstan to open the last leg on an overland route to Afghanistan from Europe via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, offering an alternative to the one through Pakistan.
(AP, 1/27/10)(AP, 1/28/10)
2010 Feb 11, Thai prosecutors said they have dropped charges against the five-man crew of an aircraft accused of smuggling weapons from North Korea, saying the men, arrested on Dec 12, might be guilty but would be deported to preserve good relations with their home countries. The decision was made after the governments of Belarus and Kazakhstan contacted the Thai Foreign Ministry and requested the crew's release so they can be investigated at home.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Mar 11, In Kazakhstan a dam at the Kyzyl-Agash reservoir in the eastern Almaty region ruptured, pouring water into several nearby villages and affecting 3,000 residents. A 2nd dam was washed away in the nearby Karatalsky district. Emergency officials said heavy rain and melting snow have caused severe floods across a region of Kazakhstan neighboring China, flooding villages and claiming at least 35 lives.
(AP, 3/12/10)(AFP, 3/12/10)(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 18, Astronauts from the US and Russia landed safely in northern Kazakhstan's chilly steppes after spending almost six months on the International Space Station.
(AP, 3/18/10)
2010 Apr 2, In southern Kazakhstan a Russian rocket carrying 2 Russian and one American astronauts blasted off, kicking off a tightly packed schedule at the International Space Station in the coming days.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 8, The European Space Agency launched CryoSat 2 on a Russian rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The satellite was designed to measure the effects of climate change on the Earth’s polar ice caps.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 15, Deposed Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev' left the country for neighboring Kazakhstan, just hours after gunfire erupted at a rally where he was speaking to supporters.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 24, A Russian Proton rocket carrying a US AMC 49 telecommunications satellite was launched into orbit from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 4/25/10)
2010 May 12, Kazakh lawmakers approved amendments to the constitution that will give President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts committed during his rule and the right to approve important national and foreign policies after he retires.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 Jun 16, In Kazakhstan 2 US and a Russian crewmate blasted off for the int’l. space station in a Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft. A woman in the US crew doubled the ISS female crew to an all time high.
(SFC, 6/16/10, p.A2)(SFC, 6/18/10, p.A10)
2010 Jul 5, Belarus signed a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.53)
2010 Jul 13, Kazakhstan’s cabinet approved a crude-oil export tax of $20 per metric ton. Chevron, based in San Ramon, Ca., owns 50% of Tengiz Chevroil, which operates the biggest field in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.D2)
2010 Sep 14, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Kazakhstan's failure to improve media freedom has damaged its international standing and the situation is getting worse, not better.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 21, The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said 40 young Europeans are murdered every day, with Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan having the highest homicide rates for people aged 10-29.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 25, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan returning 3 astronauts from a 6-month mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SSFC, 9/26/10, p.A5)
2010 Sep, Kazakhstan completed a restructure of its banking system, brought on its banking crisis in Feb, 2009. The majority of creditors of BTA Bank shared the pain.
(Econ, 11/27/10, p.82)
2010 Oct 7, In Kazakhstan a Russian Soyuz TMA-01M rocket blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station carrying one American and 2 Russian astronauts.
(SFC, 10/8/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touched down in Astana, Kazakhstan, to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit on a trip through Central Asia that will also see her visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Bahrain.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, Kazakhstan began hosting a 2-day summit of the OSCE, the first in 11 years, seeking to revamp the organisation's ability to react to security crises.
(AFP, 12/1/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.54)
2010 Dec 1, Belarus announced that it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons by 2012. The arrangement was announced on the sidelines of an international security meeting in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Martynov.
(AP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 16, Astronauts from the US, Russia and Italy blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan on a mission to the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 12/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Dec 23, In Kazakhstan a forum of 900 people in Ust-Kamenogorsk put forward an initiative to extend via referendum the president’s term in office until 2020 and to cancel the next presidential election, due in 2012.
(Econ, 1/8/11, p.40)
2011 Feb 3, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law a measure allowing early presidential elections. The measure allows for the vote to be held on two months' notice. The constitutional court rejected a petition drive for a referendum on keeping him in power for at least another decade.
(AP, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 4, Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev called early presidential elections for April 3, an accelerated timetable that gives the country's weak opposition forces little time to prepare.
(AP, 2/4/11)
2011 Mar 15, In Kazakhstan several hundred people rallied near the presidential palace to urge the government to assist homeowners battling repossessions, and a few dozen were detained by police.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 16, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and two Russian cosmonauts landed safely in central Kazakhstan after a five-month stint on the International Space Station. They left behind Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, Italy's Paolo Nespoli and NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, who are due to return to earth in about three months.
(AP, 3/16/11)
2011 Apr 3, Kazakhstan held elections. A heavy turnout looked set to overwhelmingly reaffirm the domination President Nursultan Nazarbayev (70). Provisional figures the next day showed Nazarbayev with 95% of the vote. Opposition politicians had called for a boycott and described the election as a sham.
(AP, 4/3/11)(SFC, 4/4/11, p.A2)
2011 May 3, Kazakhstan ratified an agreement with the United States to allow the air transit of supplies and personnel destined for operations in Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/3/11)
2011 Jun 7, A Russian Soyuz spacecraft took off from Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station. In the three-man crew were Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, American astronaut Michael Fossum, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa of Japan's JAXA space agency. The trio will spend six months on the space station.
(AP, 6/7/11)(Reuters, 6/7/11)
2011 Jul 11, Kazakhstan police said nine gunmen have been killed in a special operation to detain an armed group suspected of being behind the killing of three Interior Ministry officers in June. One policeman died during last week's raid in the village of Kenkiyak. 16 prisoners died when they blew themselves up after an abortive attempt to break out a jail in the southern town of Balkhash. One prison guard was killed in the attempted breakout.
(AP, 7/11/11)(AP, 7/12/11)
2011 Sep 3, In Tajikistan leaders from eight former Soviet states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) gathered to celebrate enduring cooperation over the two decades since their nations collectively gained independence, but mutual acrimony and recriminations cast a shadow over the event.
(AP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 16, A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts, an American and two Russians, landed in Kazakhstan following a stay at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 9/17/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 13, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev approved a bill tightening registration rules for religious groups that has been described by critics as a blow to freedom of belief in the ex-Soviet nation.
(AP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 30, An unmanned Russian cargo ship headed for the Int’l. Space Station after it launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 10/31/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 12, In Kazakhstan a radical Islamist, identified only as Kariyev, killed 7 people, including 5 law enforcement officers, in a rampage the southern city of Taraz. The suspect blew himself up as officers moved in to arrest him.
(AP, 11/12/11)
2011 Nov 14, Two Russians and an American blasted off from Kazakhstan to the ISS orbiting laboratory on a Soyuz-FG rocket, Russia's first manned mission since the failed launch of the unmanned Progress supply ship in August temporarily grounded its Soyuz rockets.
(AFP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Kazakhstan US Embassy spokesman Jon Larsen said the Peace Corps will be leaving the country. Volunteers posted messages online linking the move to rapes and other attacks. The Peace Corps has sent around 1,000 volunteers to serve in the country since it started operations there in 1993.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 21, A Russian Soyuz capsule with 3 astronauts returned from the Int’l. Space Station landed in Kazakhstan after spending 165 days in space.
(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 1, In Kazakhstan a new 5.2 mile subway line officially opened in Almaty. Work had begun in 1988 under Soviet rule.
(SFC, 12/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 16, In Kazakhstan at least 15 people died in a clash with police in the city of Zhanaozen. The city had been the site of a sit-in by oil workers seeking higher wages. Many of those workers were fired over the summer.
(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 17, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev imposed a three-week state of emergency in the oil town of Zhanaozen, where at least 15 people were killed a day earlier in a clash between police and demonstrators. In the southwest police opened fire on rioters in the town of Shetpe, leaving one person dead and 11 wounded. Two days of rioting left 16 people dead.
(AP, 12/17/11)(AP, 12/18/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2011 Dec 26, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his billionaire son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, from his post as head of the sovereign wealth fund.
(Econ, 12/31/11, p.26)
2012 Jan 15, Kazakhstan held elections that were expected to slightly broaden democratic representation in parliament's rubber-stamp lower house. Opposition parties that were most likely to pose a robust challenge to the ruling Nur Otan party have been either disqualified from competing or rendered largely powerless. President Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party won 80.7 percent of the vote, with two other parties achieving slightly more than 7 percent each, thereby clearing the threshold to enter parliament.
(AP, 1/15/12)(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 16, International election monitors said that Kazakhstan's parliamentary election failed to meet the fundamental principles of a democratic vote.
(AP, 1/16/12)
2012 Jan 28, In Kazakhstan some 300 opposition activists staged a rare rally in Almaty, the commercial capital, to protest recent elections and the violent suppression of a group of oil workers. Hours later, speakers at the rally were handed two-week jail sentences for holding the unsanctioned gathering.
(AP, 1/28/12)
2012 Feb 2, Kyrgyzstan's government said it will reprimand officials responsible for allowing contaminated radioactive coal to be imported into the country from neighboring Kazakhstan.
(AP, 2/2/12)
2012 Feb 24, A British legal filing indicated that fugitive oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov (48), accused of embezzling at least $5.0 billion (3.2 billion pounds) from his former Kazakh bank BTA, is believed to have fled Britain on a coach bound for France to escape a jail sentence for contempt of court.
(Reuters, 2/24/12)
2012 Apr 20, In western Kazakhstan journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov was stabbed and shot in an overnight attack that his colleagues say may have been motivated by his critical reporting about the Central Asian nation's authoritarian government.
(AP, 4/20/12)
2012 Apr 27, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz space capsule landed with 2 Russians and an American ending their 163-day stay at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 4/28/12, p.A2)
2012 May 15, In southern Kazakhstan a three-man crew, NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, blasted off from the Baikonur space center on board a Soyuz craft for a four-and-half-month stay at the International Space Station. Russian charges for use of the Soyuz were $450 million per year.
(AP, 5/15/12)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.77)
2012 Jun 4, NATO concluded agreements with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to allow it to evacuate military equipment from Afghanistan and completely bypass Pakistan.
(SFC, 6/5/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 5, Kazakhstan's interior minister said a border guard who went missing after the death of 14 fellow soldiers at a remote frontier outpost last week has been detained and is being questioned.
(AP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jul 1, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan bringing an end to a 193-day mission for American astronaut Donald Petit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and Russian Oleg Kononenko.
(SFC, 7/2/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 15, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space program. On board were NASA's Sunita Williams, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia.
(AFP, 7/15/12)
2012 Aug 6, Russia launched an unmanned Proton-M rocked carrying Russian and Indonesian communications satellites. A secondary booster module failed shortly after launch from Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 8/8/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 24, Kazakhstan’s PM Karim Masimov resigned after leading the oil-rich Central Asian nation for more than five years and shepherding its economy through the global financial crises.
(AP, 9/24/12).
2012 Sep, In Kazakhstan Serik Akhmetov was named as prime minister.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2012 Oct 23, A Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched in Kazakhstan carrying a 3-man crew, including an American and 2 Russians, to the Intl. Space Station.
(SFC, 10/24/12, p.A2)
2012 Nov 22, Kazakhstan's police raided the offices of a news website and took steps to halt the publication of a newspaper critical of the government, in what a media watchdog group says was an "unprecedented offensive" against government critics.
(AP, 11/22/12)
2012 Nov, Kazakhstan was for the first time elected to sit on the UN Human Rights Council.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.57)
2012 Dec 1, Kazakhstan observed a new holiday lauding President Nazarbayev (72), part of a growing cult of personality around the leader of the former Soviet republic. The First President's Day marked the anniversary of Nazarbayev's first election in 1991.
(AP, 12/1/12)
2012 Dec 11, A Kazakhstan court convicted border guard Vladislav Chelakh (19) of killing 14 of his comrades along with a park ranger and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2012 Dec 14, Kazakhstan's Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev (72) announced a raft of reforms for this energy-rich, authoritarian state, ranging from having more direct local and regional elections to imposing the use of the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language.
(AP, 12/14/12)
2012 Dec 19, In Kazakhstan a Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American, a Russian and a Canadian lifted off for the Int’l. Space Station for a 2-day journey and 4-month stay.
(SFC, 12/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 25, Kazakhstan's acting border service chief Col. Turganbek Stambekov was among 27 people killed in a military plane crash, a Russian-made An-72, near the southern city of Shymkent. He was appointed in June to deal with the aftermath of a mass killing involving a conscript.
(AP, 12/25/12)
2013 Jan 29, In Kazakhstan a SCAT passenger jet carrying at least 20 people crashed in heavy fog near Almaty, killing all on board.
(AP, 1/29/13)
2013 Feb 27, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top official at diplomatic talks, said negotiations in Kazakhstan with world powers over how to curb Iran's nuclear program have reached a "turning point" for the better at the close of two days of discussions aimed at preventing Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.
(AP, 2/27/13)
2013 Mar 16, A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American and 2 Russians landed in Kazakhstan. The men had spent 144 days on the Int’l. Space Station. 3 astronauts remained on the ISS.
(SSFC, 3/17/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 19, An English judge said oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who has been in hiding since he was sentenced to jail for contempt of court last year, organised a complex fraud to embezzle billions of dollars from Kazakh bank BTA.
(Reuters, 3/19/13)
2013 Mar 29, A Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts docked with the Int’l. Space Station (ISS) after traveling just 6 hours from launch in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 3/30/13, p.A3)
2013 Apr 5, In Kazakhstan talks began seeking to find common ground between Iran and a group of six nations over concerns that Tehran might misuse its nuclear program to make weapons.
(AP, 4/5/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Kazakhstan Iran and six world powers failed to reach agreement on an approach to reducing fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to make weapons. The EU's foreign policy chief declared that the two sides "remain far apart on substance."
(AP, 4/6/13)
2013 Jul 2, A Russian Proton rocket carrying navigation satellites crashed a few seconds after takeoff from the Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. This was the 4th Proton failure at Baikonur in 14 years.
(SFC, 7/3/13, p.A2)(Econ, 11/8/14, p.45)
2013 Jul 13, Kazakhstan said the wife of fugitive former minister and oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov could not leave the country because she was under investigation. Ablyazov said his wife and daughter were in danger.
(Reuters, 7/13/13)
2013 Jul 31, Dissident Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov (50), accused at home of embezzling more than $5 billion, was arrested near the French Riviera resort of Cannes. The next day he was told by a French judge that he faced extradition, but his family vowed to fight an expulsion it said was politically motivated.
(Reuters, 8/1/13)
2013 Aug 14, Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court sentenced six men 5-10 years for conspiring to assassinate government officials in Astana. They were arrested last January. The court said one had trained his under-age Muslim wife as a suicide bomber to detonate a charge.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)
2013 Sep 11, A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts touched down in Kazakhstan after undocking from the International Space Station following 166 days in space.
(AP, 9/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, A Russian space capsule carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station in a flawless landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Dec 20, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, backed by the legislature, decided to send officers to aid UN peacekeeping missions next year for the first time since independence in 1991.
(Reuters, 12/20/13)
2013 Kazakhstan began producing oil from the Kashagan oilfield in the northern Caspian Sea. The project was eight years behind schedule and at $43 billion was $30 billion over budget. Production lasted only a few weeks due to leaks of poisonous gas. A restart was hoped for in 2016.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.73)
2014 Jan 9, A French court ruled that dissident Kazakh Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling up to $6 billion from his former bank BTA, should be extradited from France to Ukraine or Russia.
(Reuters, 1/9/14)
2014 Feb 11, The value of Kazakhstan currency, the tenge, fell by 19%.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.35)
2014 Feb 16, In Almaty, Kazakhstan, protesters waived their knickers in a protest ostensibly over a rule regulating synthetic underwear. The “pantie protesters" were rounded up and led away. The real anger was over the recent devaluation of the country’s currency.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.35)
2014 Mar 11, Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut landed back on Earth in Kazakhstan after a stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) of over half a year.
(AFP, 3/11/14)
2014 Mar 26, A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and NASA’s Steve Swanson blasted off from Kazakhstan. A software glitch delayed their docking with the International Space Station until March 27.
(SFC, 3/27/14, p.A2)(AP, 3/28/14)
2014 Apr 2, Kazakhstan PM Serik Akhmetov unexpectedly announced his resignation and was swiftly replaced by Karim Masimov (49), his influential predecessor. Masimov had stepped down as prime minister in 2012 after occupying the position for five years, during which he shepherded the country's economy through the global financial crisis.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 9, A French court blocked the extradition of exiled Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, an opposition figure wanted on embezzlement charges. Russia alleges Ablyazov embezzled $5 billion (3.6 billion euros). Ukraine accuses him of pilfering another $400 million.
(AFP, 4/9/14)
2014 May 14, A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying three astronauts landed in Kazakhstan. Russian Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan had spent 188 days in the ISS.
(SFC, 5/15/14, p.A5)
2014 May 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a deal creating an economic union with ex-Soviet states Belarus and Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 5/29/14)
2014 Jun 5, Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh president's former son-in-law, was detained in Austria while under investigation for alleged crimes including murder and running a crime network in Kazakhstan.
(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014 Sep 11, The Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) opened its 14th annual summit. The 2-day meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, included the groups six member countries: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO agreed to adopt procedures for expansion with India and Pakistan likely to join next year.
(Econ, 9/20/14, p.39)
2014 Sep 25, A US-Russian space crew blasted off from Kazakhstan for a 6-month stint at the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 9/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 10, A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying three astronauts from the International Space Station landed safely on the frozen Kazakhstan steppe.
(AP, 11/10/14)
2014 Nov 24, A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver three new crew members to the International Space Station, including Italy's first female astronaut.
(Reuters, 11/24/14)
2015 Between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan the surface area of the Aral Sea was projected to be down to13,000 sq. km.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A18)
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