Eurasianet

In our weekly briefing: Restrictions easing, COVID denialism persists, foreign suitors come visiting in hope of business, and the latest annual horse jamboree.

Kazakh officials know they cannot be seen siding with a Chinese company.

Tashkent’s vaccination campaign is getting a shot in the arm.

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.

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

Gambling addiction has been a problem for many years in Kazakhstan, but authorities have been largely deaf to the laments of suffering relatives, until recently.