Almaty - Kazakhstan on Thursday sentenced two men accused of killing Denis Ten, a figure skater who won bronze at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, to 18 years in a penal colony.

Almaty - Kazakhstan on Wednesday said dozens of its citizens, including children, had been evacuated from Syria after being held "hostage" in the country.

Almaty - The trial of two men accused of murdering a male figure skater who won bronze at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 has begun in Kazakhstan, two local news agencies reported Thursday.

Baikonur - A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts took off from Kazakhstan and reached orbit on Monday, the first manned mission since a failed launch in October.

Baikonur - Astronauts set to board the first manned space mission since an unprecedented accident aboard Russia's Soyuz, on Sunday brushed aside safety concerns, saying they were ready to take risks.

Astana - The United Nations envoy on Syria signed off from his posting Thursday ruing "a missed opportunity" to help end the country's long conflict at talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana.

Astana - Negotiators from Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on Wednesday, the Kazakh foreign ministry said, for two days of talks aiming to preserve a fragile 10-week-old truce in northern Syria.

Baikonur - Russian investigators have launched a probe into why a Soyuz rocket failed shortly after blast-off, in a major setback for Russia's beleaguered space industry.

Baikonur - Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin retained an enviable sang-froid Thursday as he realised while travelling at thousands of miles an hour that his spacecraft would have to make an emergency landing. "An accident with the booster, 2 minutes, 45 seconds....

Astana - Two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth on Thursday wrapping up a six-month mission at the International Space Station as tensions between Washington and Moscow threaten a rare area of cooperation.

Astana - Two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth Thursday wrapping up a six-month mission at the International Space Station as tensions between Washington and Moscow threaten a rare area of cooperation.

Almaty - When he looks back on his youth in China's far-west Xinjiang region, Akikat Kaliolla, an ethnic Kazakh, recalls the place's natural beauty and the big, colourful weddings typical of his majority-Muslim community.

Astana - Kazakhstan on Thursday sentenced a man to three years in prison for inciting hatred on social media after he took a swipe at the country's septuagenarian leader and his kinsmen.

Astana - Long-ruling Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appointed a new chief of staff Monday, sending a loyalist into retirement in what could be interpreted as a move towards a managed succession.

Aktau - The leaders of the five states bordering the resource-rich Caspian Sea signed a landmark deal on its legal status on Sunday in the Kazakh city of Aktau, easing regional tensions and potentially facilitating lucrative oil and gas projects.

Aktau - The leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan are meeting in the Kazakh port city of Aktau on Sunday to sign a landmark deal on the Caspian Sea.

Aktau - The leaders of the five states bordering the resource-rich Caspian Sea signed a landmark deal Sunday on the legal status of the inland sea which boasts a wealth of oil and gas reserves and sturgeon.

Zharkent - A Kazakh court on Wednesday freed a Chinese citizen who gave testimony on a secretive network of Chinese "re-education camps" during her explosive immigration trial.

Astana - Kazakh figure skater Denis Ten, who won bronze at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, died on Thursday aged 25 after being stabbed, Kazakhstan's culture and sports ministry told AFP.

- Secretive "re-education camps" allegedly holding hundreds of thousands of people in a Muslim-majority region in western China are the focus of an explosive court case in Kazakhstan, testing the country's ties with Beijing.