CENTRAL ASIA

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Thursday he would fire his son-in-law from the top job at the sovereign wealth fund, accusing its oil and gas unit of mishandling a strike that erupted into deadly clashes.

At least 10 people have been killed as striking oil workers clashed with government forces in a city in western Kazakhstan.

Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s Office says five militants and two members of an elite security unit have been killed in a special operation in southern Kazakhstan.

According to Uzbek media outlets, the main version is that the blast was a terrorist act.

Medvedev and Hu Jintao have already congratulated Nursultan Nazarbayev on a landslide reelection victory.

The head of state, Nursultan Nazarbayev, will sign the amended budget for 2010 - 2012. The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Masimov, informed during the selector government meeting.

The CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha will arrive in Bishkek with a working visit on 29 March, 2010.

Uzbekistan will invest US$65.6 million in 2010-2014 to combat tuberculosis in the country, the article of senior phthisiatrician of Uzbek Health Ministry Nargiza Parpiyeva said at Narodnoye Slovo.

"Francophonie Week-2010" opened at the Turkmen National Music and Drama Theatre named after Makhtumkuli in Ashgabat on March 26.

“We have achieved the goals of the Kurultai of Consent in Kyrgyzstan”, the President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev stated in the National Philharmonic Hall where the people’s forum took place on 24 March, 2010.

Agreements on extension of cooperation in the food and automobile industries were achieved at the meeting of First Deputy Prime Ministers of Kazakhstan and Russia Umirzak Shukeyev and Igor Shuvalov, held in Moscow on March 24.

President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov signed a decree on awarding participants and disabled veterans of World War Two in connection with the 65th anniversary of Victory in the World War Two.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev held a meeting with the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov on 16 March after arrival in Tashkent.

The Pervomayski court of Bishkek city pronounced a sentence to the Ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Alikbek Dzhekshenkulov.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, will visit Kazakhstan in April, 2010, the agency reports citing the UNDP PR Department in Kazakhstan.

Today, as part of his working visit to Ashgabat, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov was received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, where he held talks with his Turkmen counterpart Rashid Meredov.