For Vladimir Shkolnik, becoming president of Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear corporation, has been a bit like coming home. Born in 1949, Shkolnik graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute as a specialist in nuclear science and engineering. He began his career in Kazakhstan in 1973 as a senior engineer at the Mangyshlak Atomic Energy Combine, a small experimental nuclear station. From there, he went on to hold such positions as director general of Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency, minister of science and higher education, and president of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2002, he was named minister of energy and mineral resources, and in 2007 he became minister of industry and trade, a post he held until recently.

Joint statement by the Committee on Migration of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan and UNHCR

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey has paid an official four day visit to Kazakhstan at the invitation of his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev on May 23-26, which gave a new boost to further strengthening of economic and humanitarian bonds between the two nations.

Kazakhstan can become biggest gold producer of world, President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at the meeting with the workers of the Vasilkovsky Mining and Processing Works in Akmola oblast today.

The 63rd Cannes Film Festival from May 12 to May 23, 2010, not only gathered a diverse selection of outstanding recently-produced films, but gave a second breath to the forgotten rare pearls and cinema masterpieces from across the world. The Kazakh movie Revenge by Yermek Shinarbayev was among them.

Starting May 2010 Kazakhtelecom, Kazakhstan’s largest telecommunications company, has expanded countrywide its broadband wireless services requiring a USB modem under the Megaline Mobile 3G brand.

Kazakhstan’s oil industry has seen a rapid growth in the past decade, accompanied by the quadrupling of a number of subsoil use contracts and the launch of new major projects on the Caspian shelf. The next target is to double annual oil production by 2020 and thus, with 160 million tons of oil produced annually, enter top five oil producers globally.

Kazakhstan ranks the 33rd out of the 58 most competitive nations in the world according to a 2010 edition of the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), released on May 19 by the Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Secretary of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kanat Saudabayev participated in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers in Tashkent on May 22. The main topics of the agenda were the preparation of the upcoming SCO summit in June 2010 while the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan also featured prominently.

Non-paper by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan

Le 29 août 2008, le Chef de l’Etat Nursultan Nazarbayev a signé le Décret approuvant le Programme d’Etat « Chemin vers l’Europe » pour les années 2009-2011.