Author: Tayyib el-Sharif

The Gulf nation has made significant progress in the World Passport Power Rankings. Qatar has climbed three places in the World Passport Power Rankings, positioning itself in 52nd place on a global list. The Qatari passport now provides citizens access to 103 visa-free destinations worldwide, with countries like Japan recently announcing visa exemption for holders of the document. The report shows a remarkable reshuffling at the top of the rankings. In a surprising turn of events, Singapore ousted Japan from its long-held position as the world’s most powerful passport holder. In particular, Singapore’s rise to the top has been driven…

Qatar’s debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to fall further in the wake of economic recovery, Allianz Trade said and noted the country’s fiscal reserves remain solid.Qatar’s fiscal breakeven point has ranged between $35 and $55 per barrel of crude oil over the past decade. Hence the government has recorded large annual fiscal surpluses in most years, except for 2016-2017 when oil and gas prices had been persistently low for some time. Even in 2020 a small surplus of +1.3% of GDP was achieved. The surplus widened to around +4.4% in 2021 and Allianz Trade estimates it to have increased to more…

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, was in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from Tuesday to Friday calling for stronger regional and multilateral cooperation in glacier protection and water management. She also announced new UNESCO investments for scientific cooperation in Central Asia. “When glaciers melt, they take with them entire ecosystems and significantly increase the risk of natural disasters. This also threatens to deprive a large part of the world’s population of their means of subsistence. This issue requires greater regional and international cooperation”, pleaded Audrey Azoulay on Thursday during her speech at the Astana International Forum – a speech in which the Director-General of UNESCO underscored…

From ancient murals to Shakespeare and Hollywood, the Egyptian queen has long been a source of artistic inspiration. A wall painting from around 46 BCE presumed to be of the Egyptian queen is one of few depictions from her lifetime that still survives. Venus and Cupid, which is in the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus in Pompeii, Italy, is believed to be a mural of an infamous statue of Cleopatra unveiled by Julius Caesar the same year in Rome. The lost statue belonged in the now ruined Temple of Venus Genetrix. Caesar and Cleopatra, both already married at the time, entered into a love affair for several…

Brussels, Frankfurt (26/2 – 50) Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China and Mongolia in the east and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The region has a rich cultural history, with many of the countries having deep ties to Russian and Soviet culture. It is home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations, including those in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The region also boasts a variety of languages, religions and ethnicities which have shaped its…

Well-known Kazakh businessmen Kenes Rakishev and Vyacheslav Kim (both in the Top 10 richest businessmen according to Forbes Kazakhstan) announced their intention to create a new venture fund based on the International Financial Center in Astana (Kazakhstan). “The transformation of the competition, which has identified the best startups in Kazakhstan over the past 10 years, into an investment fund is a natural process that had to happen sooner or later.” — Kenes Rakishev Businessmen shared these plans at the Build Your Own Business» grants ceremony organized by Kenes Rakishev and Asel Tasmagambetova’s Saby Foundation. At the tenth anniversary ceremony, the finalists of the competition…

Kazakhstan is gearing up for snap elections of the lower house of parliament on March 19, and there is a sense of anticipation in the air. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who came to power in 2019, called for snap elections in the wake of the deadly street protests in January 2022. The elections are part of the president’s ambitious reform agenda, Jana Kazakhstan (New Kazakhstan), which aims to usher in a new era of political liberalization. The parliamentary elections are stage two of Tokayev’s program, following his re-election winning 80 percent of the votes last November. The coming elections will see…

Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates for 2022 in six major Southeast Asian countries have been released by the 20th. Each country maintained positive growth following the previous year due to the easing of restrictions on behavior associated with the novel coronavirus and the recovery in personal consumption. Four countries – Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines – saw record growth. 　A recovery in tourism and exports helped. Malaysia recorded an increase of 8.7% from the previous year, the first growth rate in 22 years since 2000. It was the highest growth rate among the six major countries. 　Vietnam also increased by 8.0%,…

New York, Brussels, Astana (18/1 – 60). After facing the most challenging year in 2022, Kazakhstan continues its political modernization. Under the second term of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev who has been reelected in November, Central Asia’s richest country will enjoy more democracy in 2023. This year will be the moment for President Tokayev to prove his vows to step up changes for the ’New Kazakhstan’. End of the Oligarch As the world witnessed, in January 2022, Kazakhstan was ripped apart by the nationwide protest that led to the most violent unrest in the country’s modern history. 238 people dead and…