News

Hollywood actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, best known for the Mortal Kombat franchise, has died at 75 from complications following a stroke, USA Today reported.

Tagawa died Dec. 4 in Santa Barbara. The Tokyo-born actor rose to prominence through his roles across the Mortal Kombat universe, including the 1995 film, television adaptations and video games. His film credits also include «Pearl Harbor,» «Planet of the Apes,» «47 Ronin,» «Elektra» and «Memoirs of a Geisha.»

He moved to the U.S. at a young age and enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he studied traditional Japanese karate. He later...

The 2025 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final kicked off in Japan. Kazakhstani figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov came in sixth and last place in the short program on Dec. 4.

Judges awarded Shaidorov 71.30 points. During his skate, the athlete made several serious errors and even fell during the execution of a quadruple Lutz.

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama secured victory with a solid 10-point gap, receiving 108.77 points. Shun Sato placed second with 98.06 points, while two-time champion American Ilia Malinin — the favorite of the contest — finished a dramatic third with 94.05 points.

Italian...

One of the most distinctive buildings in the old city still stands in the center of Astana: the house of first-guild merchant Vasily Kubrin, built between 1910 and 1912.

It was a luxurious one-and-a-half-story mansion with a wing topped by a green turret, a basement, an English-style garden, and an underground passage connecting the home to a store. The property also included a barn cellar and stables — features typical of a full-fledged merchant estate in major Russian cities.

The story of its origin reads almost like a novel. Kubrin once traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met his...

New Zealand Police have recovered a valuable Fabergé locket after a man allegedly swallowed it during a theft at an Auckland jewelry store. Officers retrieved the limited-edition piece nearly a week later, after it passed through the suspect’s body naturally, according to the Associated Press.

The locket, inspired by the Fabergé egg featured in the 1983 James Bond film «Octopussy,» is considered a rare collector’s item and is valued at about $19,000.

The 32-year-old suspect was arrested at Partridge Jewelers on Nov. 28, shortly after the alleged theft, although he did not enter a guilty plea to...

Meirzhan Yussupov, CEO of Kazatomprom — Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium producer — says it is appropriate for the national company to automatically receive a 90% stake in uranium mining projects upon contract renewal, regardless of the foreign partner’s previous share.

Amendments advance in parliament

Amendments to Kazakhstan’s Subsoil and Subsoil Use Code, drafted by lawmakers, recently passed the Mazhilis (lower house) and await Senate review. The changes would require Kazatomprom, or a subsidiary, to receive a 90% stake upon any uranium contract renewal.

«If a joint venture wishes to extend its contract, Kazatomprom or...

Residents of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, have begun sharing photos on social media of murals that have disappeared from city streets — works that adorned building walls for years and became part of the city’s visual culture.

Users are posting archival photos and recalling their memories of street art that can no longer be seen today.

Dozens of comments and photos have appeared under one of the threads. Among the images are a well-known mural depicting a banknote, a realistic horse’s head, and a large piece featuring characters from the «Joker,» among others. Many commenters said...

Leeds United forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored a goal in Chelsea’s net that was rated with an xG of 0.9913. According to ESPN, this goal is the sixth in the ranking of the easiest goals scored in the English Premier League history.

English Premier League 2025-26

Matchweek 14, Dec. 3

Leeds United (Leeds) vs. Chelsea (London): 3-1

Goals: Jaka Bijol 6’, Ao Tanaka 43’, Dominic Calvert-Lewin 72’; Pedro Neto 50’

In the 72nd minute, Leeds forward Noah Okafor won the ball from defender Tosin Adarabioyo in the opponent’s penalty area, and the...

Freedom Bank has become the third-largest bank in Kazakhstan by transaction volume and the number of active clients, according to Timur Turlov, CEO and majority shareholder of Freedom Holding Corp., who took part in the Global Banking Summit in London. He made this statement during the panel discussion «The Future of Banking Infrastructure – Can Classic Systems Survive?»

Responding to a question from Financial Times Projects Editor Oliver Ralph, the panel’s moderator, about engineers and a culture of changing quickly, Timur Turlov said that Freedom Holding launched its banking platform five years ago, highlighting the importance of changing old patterns.

Salvador Plasencia, a 44-year-old doctor from Los Angeles, has admitted to illegally supplying ketamine to actor Matthew Perry in the weeks leading up to Perry’s fatal overdose in 2023. Plasencia pleaded guilty to several counts of distributing the drug and has been sentenced to prison, The Guardian reported.

Perry, who was best known for his role in «Friends,» died at 54 in his house due to a ketamine overdose. Although he had been getting the medicine legally to treat his depression, it was well known that Perry was addicted to alcohol and painkillers and sought...

Kazakhstani tennis player Elena Rybakina became the ninth highest-paid sportswoman in 2025, Sportico reported.

According to the outlet, Rybakina earned a total of $12.6 million, $8.6 million in prize money and $4 million in endorsements. Almost half of her earnings ($5.23 million) she received for her victory at the 2025 WTA Finals in Riyadh.

The highest-paid female athlete of the year was American tennis player Coco Gauff, who earned $31 million, including $23 million from endorsements. Her most profitable advertising contract was with New Balance. Gauff also works with Bose, Head, Rolex...

Svetlana Aitbaeva, the mother of Kazakh singer Dimash Qudaibergen, shared new family photos on Instagram featuring her youngest son, Abilmansur, and fans were immediately captivated.

The photos, taken backstage before a concert in Barcelona by the family, capture a touching moment as Mansur prepares to take the stage.

«We managed to take a photo with Mansur before he went on stage,» Aitbaeva captioned the post.

A self-driving taxi operated by Waymo passed through a police high-risk stop, ignoring both their requests and visual signals. According to Jalopnik, the autonomous system failed to detect the danger, causing the vehicle to move into a police standoff with armed officers.

How the robotaxi ended up in a dangerous zone

Witnesses recorded a video of a self-driving Waymo Jaguar I-Pace turning and entering an intersection blocked by police, who were detaining the driver of a pickup truck. Despite flashing emergency lights, the taxi continued moving with passengers inside, slowing down only several seconds later.

The...

At about 12:45 p.m. on Dec. 4, an estimated magnitude-4.6 earthquake struck the Almaty area. Residents received immediate mobile alerts warning them of the quake.

Stronger tremors were reported by people in high-rise buildings, while many who were outdoors said they did not feel the shaking. No injuries or damage were reported.

The tremors were also felt in southern Kazakhstan and in Kyrgyzstan.

Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov met with executives from the U.S.-based company LanzaJet to discuss the construction of a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant in the Kostanay region.

According to the preliminary design, the facility is planned for the city of Rudny. The plant would have an annual capacity of 54,000 tons of SAF and up to 100,000 tons of processed bioethanol.

The fuel would be produced from ethanol derived from organic feedstocks, including grain, corn, potatoes and other crops. A feasibility study for the project has already been completed.

LanzaJet is an American...

An F-16 assigned to the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds crashed during a training mission in the Southern California desert on Wednesday after the pilot safely ejected, the Associated Press reported.

The crash happened near Trona, in San Bernardino County, according to local fire officials. Local emergency crews responded immediately to reports of an aircraft incident, transporting the pilot, who had ejected and was conscious and alert, to a hospital with injuries that were described as not life-threatening.

Military officials said the jet had departed from Nellis Air Force Base and was flying in controlled airspace at the...

Captain of the Greek football club Olympiacos, Panagiotis Retsos, will skip the upcoming UEFA Champions League match against Kairat Almaty, the Greek sports outlet SDNA reported.

The 27-year-old center-back suffered a muscle injury in a Super League Greece match against Panetolikos (1-0), which turned out to be more serious than initially expected, according to the outlet. The player will miss at least two weeks.

The club’s manager, Jose Luis Mendilibar, now has to decide who will pair with Lorenzo Pirola in central defense. Most likely, Alexios Kalogeropoulos — who substituted Retsos after the injury — will...

FIFA has released the list of celebrities set to perform at the 2026 World Cup Draw ceremony, scheduled for Dec. 5 in Washington.

Taking the stage at the Kennedy Center will be classical tenor Andrea Bocelli; a duet featuring pop stars Robbie Williams and Nicole Scherzinger; and the American disco group Village People, who will perform their hit «Y.M.C.A.» The song is known to be a favorite of President Donald Trump and was played at his second inauguration in January 2025.

The gala will be hosted by Emmy Award–winning model, producer, and television personality

In prison, it may seem there’s nothing to see and nothing to do — but plenty of time to read. Books and prisons have a complicated relationship, one that reveals what’s trending among people behind bars even within a tightly regulated physical and informational environment.

Duma and Jesus

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently completed a brief 20-day stint at Paris’s La Santé prison. While his sentence captivated the nation, his reading list sparked equal intrigue. Sarkozy brought two symbolic companions: Alexandre Dumas’s «The Count of Monte Cristo,» a classic tale of unjust imprisonment and revenge, and...

Undefeated American boxer Terence Crawford has lost his title as the undisputed super middleweight champion (up to 76.2 kilograms). On Dec. 3, he was stripped of the WBC title for failing to pay the $300,000 sanction fee for his bout against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the World Boxing Council said on its website.

Crawford reportedly earned $50 million for the fight with the Mexican athlete. However, following a reassessment of the event’s scale, the WBC changed the rules and reduced the applicable fee from 3% to 0.6%.

The WBC noted that it had informed Crawford of his...

The business activity index for the service sector in Kazakhstan fell to 48.7 in November, down from 49.3 in October. This was partly due to delays at the Russian border, but the main factor was a decline in new orders, according to a report by Freedom Holding Corp.

New business across Kazakhstan’s service sector rose modestly in the penultimate month of the year. The latest increase was the weakest since March, with the pace of expansion having now waned for the sixth month running.

With new business growth slowing, Kazakh services companies chose to streamline their...

The Winter Egg, a diamond-studded crystal Fabergé egg that once belonged to the mother of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II, has sold for a record $30.2 million at a Christie’s auction in London, compared to the previous record of $11.8 million for another Fabergé egg sold at an auction in 2007, the BBC reported.

Carved from rock crystal and decorated with 4,500 diamonds and platinum snowflakes, the egg is one of the most beautiful works by the Russian jeweler Carl Fabergé, according to some expert estimates.

The Fabergé house made only 50 eggs for Russia’s...

There are 25 five-star hotels in Kazakhstan and the most expensive one turned out to be in Shymkent.

According to Kazakhstan’s Bureau of National Statistics, 3,198 rooms were available in the country’s top hotels for wealthy tourists from January to September 2025. This includes 2,463 standard rooms in five-star hotels, 1,177 suites and 278 apartment-hotel units.

Furthermore, one-third more residents of Kazakhstan spend their vacations at these hotels than foreign tourists — 370,000 compared to 265,000. Among affluent foreign visitors, 56% choose Almaty for their vacations in Kazakhstan.

The room occupancy rate is highest in the Akmola region, reaching...

Franklin the Turtle, a gentle cartoon hero from Canada known for kindness and everyday life lessons, recently featured in an image shared online by U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, portraying the turtle attacking boats labeled as drug traffickers, according to the BBC.

The image drew immediate criticism from the cartoon’s publisher, Kids Can Press, which condemned the use as unauthorized and fundamentally opposed to the values the character represents. The company emphasized that Franklin is meant to promote empathy, cooperation and emotional growth — not violence.

In a similar case, American pop star Sabrina Carpenter...

A pilot self-driving taxi project has been launched by Didi Autonomous Driving in Guangzhou, China, a city with a population of 18 million. The company has introduced the service in key areas of the Huangpu district in eastern Guangzhou, offering customers the ability to call an unmanned taxi. According to Pandaily, the new test stage marks a milestone in the development of autonomous transport in China.

Around-the-clock service

The robotaxi service became operational on Dec. 1, 2025. The trial zone covers the busiest locations, including subway stations, schools, malls, business centers and residential communities. The...