Word: astana
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...wasn't exactly the G-8. Still, when Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev hosted a summit of heads of neighboring Central Asian states in his capital of Astana earlier this month, there was a certain whiff of power being flexed, albeit arriviste power. The occasion was marked by the inauguration of the Palace of Peace and Accord - a 62-m-high pyramid of steel and pale gray granite, designed [an error occurred while processing this directive] by Norman Foster, with stained-glass panels by the artist Brian Clarke. Its art and sculpture were chosen to represent the world's major...
...turn off the taps if it didn't fork over $3.4 billion in back taxes. Though the authorities later backed off and gave the company a month to find the money, the market jitters remained. In Kazakhstan, a mere $5.4 million is in play. Yet the mood in Astana, the austere, half-constructed new capital, is wary. "Doing business here is like negotiating with the wind," one Western oil company executive says. The timing of the accusations against BG is curious, coming just weeks after the Kazakh government announced its intention to buy BG's stake in the multinational consortium...
...helicopter makes its way between mountains, not above them, a few dozen feet above the lower peaks, a few hundred from the cliffs on each side. There is no room for error. The roads are no less a challenge. The unpaved single-track trail from the helicopter pad at Astana in the Panjshir Valley--a United Front stronghold--winds between a fast-moving river and steeply rising mountainsides...