Antoine Blua is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
He's been a fairy-tale hero, had a university named after him, and he can visit countless museums to himself across the country. Now Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev is set to enjoy a new privilege -- his own special holiday.
A campaign to fight prejudice against French Muslims has been rejected in Paris because its content has been deemed overly "political" and "religious."
A proposed Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris has put French President Francois Hollande in a tough spot. He can either defy Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, who opposes the project, or risk a diplomatic row with Moscow.
Uzbek officials say a canvas on display at a Tashkent museum was painted by prominent Italian Renaissance artist Paolo Veronese. But mystery and doubt surround the recently discovered painting and its author.
This week in Kyrgyzstan, a popular television presenter was kidnapped and her life threatened -- only to find out it was all a prank carried out by journalists from a local tabloid.
What's worse, livestock theft or bride kidnapping? In Kyrgyzstan, someone who steals a cow could go to prison for up to 11 years. But men who kidnap underage girls and force them into marriage run little risk of prosecution -- although current legislation does provide for a three-year sentence. That may be about to change -- at least a little bit.
A proposed dress code is making its rounds in Kyrgyzstan's parliament, where deputies are considering banning miniskirts, sportswear, and heavy perfume inside the building.
Hundreds of carcasses of the critically endangered saiga antelope were found this week in northern Kazakhstan, prompting suggestions that the animals may have been poisoned by chemicals left behind by Russian spacecraft. Authorities and scientists, however, remain cautious.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of carrying out the deadly bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland in 1988, one of the worst terrorist attacks in modern history, has died in Libya.
In early December a young Uzbek woman was reported to have committed suicide following a days-long police interrogation. That story, it now turns out, was a hoax.
Kim Jong Un, the youngest son of the late North Korean leader, is the heir apparent to succeed his father. Thought to be in his late 20s, very little else is known about him.
The health of the world's oceans is declining much faster than originally thought, says a panel of scientists in a new report. They say a mix of interacting threats -- pollution, overfishing, and other manmade problems -- is in place for a mass extinction in the oceans.
Oxfam has warned that prices of staple foods could more than double in 20 years unless world leaders take action to reform what the British charity calls a broken food system.
A law banning the wearing of garments that cover the face in public has today come into force in France -- the first European country to impose such a ban.
Chinese authorities have said nothing -- even to his family -- about the whereabouts of Ai Weiwei, who was stopped on April 3 from boarding a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and taken away by border police.
British Prince Andrew's friendship with a billionaire American sex offender and links to some of the former Soviet bloc's most oppressive regimes land him in hot water just as the royal family gets set for a fairy-tale wedding.
Central Asia's economies have to become more diversified and competitive if they are to attract more foreign investment, says a report by a major global economic group being presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Russia and the United States are the only two countries that officially continue to retain samples of smallpox, one of the world's deadliest scourges. A long-standing, fierce debate on whether to destroy the strains shows no sign of lessening ahead of a key World Health Assembly meeting later this year.
Due to increasing pressures on tiger habitats and continued poaching, the current outlook for wild tiger populations may appear bleak. But on-the-ground work in southern India demonstrates that a brighter future for the animals is also possible.
British media reports say London is set to pay out millions of pounds in compensation to former detainees held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
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![One of the "We [too] are the nation" campaign posters -- echoing a Jacques-Louis David painting that depicts a key meeting in the run-up to the French Revolution -- mounted in the Paris Metro.](https://gdb.rferl.org/2abf5050-8e90-415c-a732-dbcd1d1ff9f6_cx0_cy12_cw0_w100_r1.jpg)
![One of the "We [too] are the nation" campaign posters -- echoing a Jacques-Louis David painting that depicts a key meeting in the run-up to the French Revolution -- mounted in the Paris Metro.](https://gdb.rferl.org/2abf5050-8e90-415c-a732-dbcd1d1ff9f6_cx0_cy12_cw0_w66_r1.jpg)
