On August 13, Starlink, the low-orbit satellite network owned by SpaceX, started providing its services in Kazakhstan. Users will be able to connect to the internet by just plugging the device “and pointing it to the sky,” the company says on its website.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on August 15 that the Adal Azamat program should be included in the pedagogy curriculum at universities. A record number of teachers are undergoing qualification in the country. The Adal Azamat program is a new standard focusing on forming children under the principles of justice, hard work, and patriotism.
On August 11, Tokayev urged government agencies to download and use the local Aitu messenger instead of other commercial tools. The president argued that this would ensure the protection of citizens’ personal data.
Finance minister Madi Takiyev said on August 13 that a registry of public officials’ assets will be published before the end of the year. The document will focus on the ownership of financial instruments, companies, as well as properties. In May last year, Vlast launched a website listing properties owned by Kazakhstan’s politically-exposed persons (PEPs) in Dubai.
Despite the lobbying by the ministry of finance, which argued that the minimum wage should be increased to 90,000 tenge ($170), the government plans to keep the legal minimum at 85,000. Serik Zhumangarin, the minister of economy, said that the topic is not under consideration. Kazakhstan increased in 2023 to 70,000 ($150 at the time) and in 2024 to 85,000 ($186 at the time).
At a town-hall meeting on August 14, Astana mayor Zhenis Kassymbek said the city government will preserve Malyi Taldykol, a group of lakes that has been under threat because of aggressive construction works. The Supreme Court ruled to establish water protection zones.
Kassymbek also said that it would be wrong to close the city’s central roads to traffic for marathons. The mayor said that residents complain of weekend road closures due to large-scale events. According to worldwide practice, city marathons are regularly run in city centers with specific, timed road closures.
Kazakhstan’s ministry of defense confirmed on August 13 that a member of its military personnel had been detained in Poland. The Polish security services said they had detained on July 30 a Kazakhstani officer working in a diplomatic mission, under suspicion of espionage.
KMF, which became the largest microfinance organization in the country in 2018, obtained a banking license on August 12, the Agency for the Regulation of the Financial Market said. KMF became the 23rd bank in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan’s law enforcement discovered a multimillion dollar crypto-mining fraud against the electricity network in the East Kazakhstan region, the Financial Monitoring Agency said on August 11. According to the Agency, for two years, a group of companies illegally supplied crypto-mining enterprises with electricity intended for the needs of the population, social facilities, and strategic enterprises. The Agency calculated a cost to the budget of around 9 billion tenge ($16.7 million).
A court in Astana overturned an order by Atyrau department of ecology against the North Caspian Operating Consortium, the ministry of ecology said on August 15. The ministry said the inspection was conducted with procedural violations. Earlier in July, Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court ordered a new hearing on an environmental fine, worth $5 billion, against NCOC.
Kazakhstan’s oil exports were diverted away from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline after a contamination in the Azeri Light crude variety affected shipments across the Mediterranean Sea last month. On August 13, S&P Global reported that Kazakhstani oil had been rerouted to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, a pipeline running through Russia that transports around 80% of Kazakhstan’s exports. disrupted the Mediterranean export system
Satirical news channel Qaznews24 announced its shutdown on August 13. The decision came “due to pressure from law enforcement agencies and new investigative checks,” the editorial board wrote in a note. In April, Temirlan Yensebek, the channel’s creator and former editor, was sentenced to five years of so-called “restricted freedom” (a form of non-custodial sentence) for “inciting ethnic hatred.”
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