Alga, Kazakhstan News

More than a year since the worst political violence in Kazakhstan's modern history, social tensions continue to rise and independent media are under fire from the government.

Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unregistered Alga! Party, has received a seven-and-a-half-year prison term and an order seizing his assets, including those registered in his name for his party.

In December 2011, at the end of a 7-month strike by disgruntled oil workers, deadly riots in the town of Zhanaozen near the Caspian Sea shocked the formerly peaceful nation of Kazakhstan.

Ten months later, the events of Zhanaozen still cloud the politics of Kazakhstan.

It wasn't quite the lowest point of the expedition. But Paolo Gasparini was decidedly uncomfortable at a banquet in the small town of Alga, Kazakhstan, when he was given the honour of dividing a boiled sheep's head among the gathering.