Chechen in Kyrgyzstan Recalls Stalin-Era Deportations. Kazakhstan: US Investigators Probe Kazakhstanis’ Potential Links to Accused Marathon Bomber.

Eurasianet - Chechen in Kyrgyzstan Recalls Stalin-Era Deportations - On a spring weekend, like so many of his neighbors, the 75-year-old is weeding his fields outside Tokmok, in northern Kyrgyzstan’s fertile Chui Valley. But he is eager to drive his pitchfork into the ground and talk.

Kazakhstan: US Investigators Probe Kazakhstanis’ Potential Links to Accused Marathon Bomber - Two Kazakhstani students in the United States are still being held in Boston as American investigators probe their possible connection to Djokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old charged with carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.

BBC - US calls for transparent probe over Xinjiang clashes - The US has urged China to conduct a transparent investigation after clashes in the restive Xinjiang region left 21 people dead.

The Diplomat - Patience, Not Preemption, on the Korean Peninsula - "The history of North Korea suggests that its leadership acts with greatest vehemence when it is internally weak, as a way to justify its economic failures by blaming a foreign conspiracy..."

Platts - KazMunaiGaz set to become national export operator for Kazakhstan's crude - Swiss-based KazMunaiGaz Trading, a newly set-up unit of Kazakhstan's state-owned oil and gas producer KazMunaiGaz, is expected to become the only crude export operator for crude oil produced in and owned by the Republic of Kazakhstan, a representative for KazMunaiGaz-owned Rompetrol Group said Wednesday.

Radio Free Europe - New Kazakh Newspaper Confiscated By Authorities - Madia Torebaeva, a journalist with "Pravdivaya gazeta" ("The Truthful Newspaper"), told RFE/RL that all 1,200 copies of the paper were seized by officers from the city's Interior Policies Department on April 24.