Asemgul Mukhitqyzy is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Kazakh Service.
Emotional public discussions on Kazakhstan's plans to build a nuclear power plant have ended, teeing up a referendum this fall. For many opponents, the main threat is of a worst-case-scenario disaster, although others oppose what they see as Russia's inevitable involvement in the project.
Many prominent ethnic Kazakh intellectuals found themselves caught in China's multiyear suppression of Muslim and Turkic communities in Xinjiang. After initially speaking out, their relatives in Kazakhstan are now too scared to discuss their plight.
Floodwaters in the western Kazakh city of Oral are forcing residents to move to safer ground. Many complain official rescue efforts have been disorganized with little information provided. Widespread flooding in the Central Asian country has led to the evacuation of nearly 19,000 people.
Markets in Kazakhstan have begun to shun popular mobile payments to avoid a 10 percent sales tax. As of January 1, authorities started tracking mobile transactions in an effort to enforce the tax, which vendors are obliged to pay after more than 100 transactions per month.
A plan to rename the town of Derzhavinsk in northern Kazakhstan in honor of the last khan of the Kazakh people has divided its residents and again highlighted the tensions over the country’s Russian colonial past.
Moscow has demanded an explanation from Astana regarding the appearance of a Kazakh "Yurt Of Invincibility" in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv, to assist local residents in need as the country struggles with power cuts caused by Russian air strikes targeting energy infrastructure.
Police in Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, have detained about 20 people who rallied in front of the government headquarters to demand justice for those killed or arrested in the violent dispersal of anti-government demonstrations in January.
Thirty years ago, ethnic Kazakhs in Mongolia began heading to their ancestral homeland as the Soviet Union collapsed. Among them was a little girl called Asemgul Mukhitqyzy, now an RFE/RL reporter. She spoke to her father, who led a group of 600 people from Ulan Bator, about the challenges they face
Kazakhstan's human rights commissioner, Elvira Azimova, has held a rare meeting with a group of people whose relatives are being held in custody in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang and who have asked for the Central Asian country's government to help secure their release.
Muratkhan Aidarkhanuly and his wife worked for the government in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang for about 30 years before retiring and moving to Kazakhstan to be closer to their grandchildren.
