Inside Kazakhstan's giant crypto-mine

 

Last year Kazakhstan became the second biggest crypto-currency mining country in the world, thanks partly to a vast mine containing 50,000 computers in the desert near the northern city of Ekibastuz.

Young men work 12 hours a day for 15 days in a row without leaving the site, in order to keep it running round the clock.

But the rapid growth of crypto-mining in the country has put pressure on the energy sector, which relies heavily on polluting, carbon-intensive coal-fired power stations.

Earlier this month the rising cost of car fuel acted as the trigger for nationwide political protests. For five days the Kazakh crypto-mines could not connect to the internet, causing crypto-currency transactions across the world to slow down.

Kazakhstan: Who sparked deadly violence?

 

Authorities in Kazakhstan say "armed extremists" are behind the recent deadly violence there.

It’s thought dozens of people were killed, including many in the country’s largest city Almaty.

NATO calls for calm in Kazakhstan

 

After days of violent protests, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has vowed to destroy "armed bandits." He gave "special thanks" to Russian President Vladimir Putin for sending troops to quell the unrest.

Kazakhstan protesters storm government buildings and Almaty airport

 

Protesters took over government buildings and reportedly stormed the airport in Almaty, Kazakhstan, after demonstrations against a fuel price rise spread quickly across the country. A government announcement that the price would be fixed at a lower level did not slow protesters who say they are unhappy with corruption and the cost of living. 'Peacekeeping forces' from a Russia-led military alliance will be sent to help the country’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, regain control. Kazakh media outlets cited the interior ministry as saying 317 police and national guard servicemen have been injured and eight killed. There have been no reliable estimates of civilian casualties

No fish, no future – the disappearing lake

Lake Balkhash in southeastern Kazakhstan is shrinking. For fishermen like Erbolgan Erbosynov, it's an existential threat. Fish are everything to him: his livelihood, his culture, and his tradition.

Silent Bombs: Kazakhstan's Polygon Legacy

Decades of nuclear bomb testing by the Soviet Union have left a damaging fallout in Kazakh children generations later.

Between 1949 and 1989, the Soviet Union exploded 460 nuclear bombs in eastern Kazakhstan. About 200,000 villagers living within 45km of the test site, the 'Polygon', were exposed to high levels of radiation for.

Not only were they not protected but they were treated as human guinea pigs, instruments of study in the event the Cold War turned into nuclear war. But what is probably most devastating of all is what is happening today.

Children born decades later and never directly exposed to nuclear fallout are sick and getting sicker. They are the product of "radiation-induced mutation in the chromosomes of sperm and ova". In other words, the damage their parents and grandparents suffered in the Soviet Union's heedlessness has not only been passed down but also intensified in the third, fourth and fifth generations.

Russian Pilot Asks Truck Driver Road Direction

An Mi-8 gunship made a spectacular landing on a highway in Kazakhstan, blocking a truck convoy. To the astonishment of the drivers, a crew member then got out and started asking for directions to the closest city.

Crude reality: Winners and losers in the oil crisis

We explore the demise of oil, from production companies in the North Sea to a former Caspian tiger fallen on hard times.



As the oil price has dropped more than 70 percent since the summer of 2014, the oil industry is facing its deepest downturn in more than two decades.

The price of oil has decoupled from the actual cost of production; it is becoming unprofitable and the effects are being felt across the globe.

Nigeria and Angola, Africa's two biggest oil producers, are both in talks with the World Bank about support for their strained state finances.

Budgets in Russia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Canada are in deficit, which means cuts in public spending.

Are the Olympic Games still worth the effort?

Despite the absence of natural snow in Beijing, China's capital beats Almaty to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.


The International Olympic Committee has selected Beijing to host the Winter Games in 2022.

Beijing will enter the record books - as the first city to host the Summer and Winter Olympic games.

It has been a night of endless cheer and jubilation in China.

But with the fanfare are questions surrounding China's human rights record, allegations of corruption and a lack of snow.

Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty was the runner-up - but the Central Asian nation has also been accused of violating basic human rights.

Other cities, including Oslo, Munich and Krakow pulled out of the race to host the 2022 games, citing low public support and growing security demands.

Kazakhstan's Hard Sell

Can Kazakhstan become a world power and tourism hotspot despite its poor human rights record and steep prices?

Fancy visiting a lake that is famous for now being a dry ship cemetery? Or how about visiting the world's largest tent?

Welcome to Kazakhstan, the former closed Soviet state that promises tourists a bewildering array of attractions unlikely to be found elsewhere.

Poised strategically between Europe and Asia, Kazakhstan has long been largely ignored by the West or parodied in Hollywood.

Now it is putting out the welcome mat for foreign tourists and seeking to reinvent itself as a player on the international diplomatic stage.

Kazakhstan: Poisoned Legacy

Shymkent is a drab and largely unremarkable town, except for one thing – its highly polluted environment. The dust blowing through its streets and the soil beneath the feet of its inhabitants contain such high concentrations of lead and other toxic elements - cadmium, antimony and arsenic - that they would surely generate a major scare if detected anywhere else.

Here they just cause endemic health problems that the local people are forced to live with. Take lead poisoning, for example, the most obvious ill effect. It is simply rife here – particularly among young children.

The culprit: a decrepit lead smelting plant right in the heart of the city. Built in the 1930s at the height of Soviet industrialisation, it went on to play a crucial role in the USSR’s fight against Nazi Germany – making most of the tens of millions of bullets fired by the Red Army during World War II. But while the factory was celebrated in propaganda films during and after the war as a paradigm of socialist achievement, little was ever said about its truly appalling environmental record, not even when Kazakhstan achieved independence in 1991.