The party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev has won all seats in Kazakhstan’s new Parliament, according to preliminary results announced on Sunday by the Central Elections Commission. The results were quickly condemned by the country’s two largest opposition groupings, which said the figures were manipulated.
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/ 10 January 2007
Oil-producing ex-Soviet state Kazakhstan on Wednesday appointed Karim Masimov, a technocrat who studied at a United States business school, to the post of prime minister. Both houses of Parliament voted unanimously to approve Masimov, who until now served as deputy prime minister. He was nominated for the job by President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Firefighters in the Kazakh capital Astana were on Tuesday battling to put out a blaze at a 32-storey skyscraper dubbed the "cigarette lighter". Flames and smoke could be seen pouring out of the building, which houses the ex-Soviet Central Asian state’s transport and communications ministry.