Eurasianet

Government agencies and Kazakh-Chinese companies are using the pandemic to shield themselves from scrutiny.

All the defendants are strident government critics, but their dissidence was confined to online attacks and tiny street protests.

Bunin has also been banned from entering Uzbekistan.

Central Asia’s largest nations are using unique coronavirus vaccines that haven’t been carefully studied. Do they have a choice?

The COVID-19 outbreak has compounded a problem caused by low salaries.

Conspiracy theories have fueled the low update for vaccination.

The documents focuses on viruses, droughts, water shortages and food deficits as potential crisis flashpoints.

The saiga population has rocketed by 150 percent in the last two years.

Critics are concerned over potential privacy issues.

Our Kazakhstan correspondent describes the waiting, the bureaucracy, and the anticlimax of getting his Sputnik V jab in Almaty.

Only a tiny fraction of the population has got the jab so far.

The region appears wholly unprepared for the latest rise in cases.

Only 0.25 percent of the population aged over 15 have had the first injection.

Restrictions on movement do not appear intended to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Kazakhstan is struggling to drum up vaccine interest. Its leaders could help by getting the jab.