Nursultan Nazarbayev, the last Soviet-era political heavyweight who was elected president of oil-rich Kazakhstan five times in widely criticised votes, voluntarily stepped down after almost 30 years in power.

“I decided to end my duties as president,” the 78-year-old autocrat, whose nation of 18 million borders Russia and China, said in televised remarks before signing a decree announcing his resignation on Tuesday. 

He added he would still head the ruling Nur Otan (Light of the Motherland) political party and serve as lifelong head of Kazakhstan’s Security Council – thus retaining key positions in the halls of power that already lack political opposition critical of his increasingly authoritarian rule. 

“It is an interesting Oriental move,” Dosym Satpayev, a political analyst based in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s financial capital, told Al Jazeera.

“A political spectacle took place – formally Nazarbayev is not president, but in reality he is at the helm.”

Nazarbayev said Senate speaker and former prime minister Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will be acting president before the next presidential vote.

Nazarbayev’s fifth term expires in April 2019 and he made no announcement about a snap vote.

Another Central Asia analyst said Tokayev, a former diplomat and expert on China who served as prime minister in 1999- 2002, is the preferred successor.

“There is no one who can rule Kazakhstan better than Tokayev,” Daniilk Kislov, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera. “He is an experienced diplomat, administrator.”

Tokayev comes from the Elder Zhuz, a large tribal confederations in southern Kazakhstan, where nomadic traditions and affiliations immensely influence politics and daily life, Kislov said. 

Question of succession 

Nazarbayev struck an elegiac note during the unexpected televised address that resembled the 1999 resignation of ailing Russian president Boris Yeltsin.

“It is the people that gave me an opportunity to be the first president of independent Kazakhstan,” Nazarbayev said solemnly.

However, his opponents and international observes have for years lambasted Nazarbayev’s re-elections. He wonhis last one in 2015 with almost 98 percent of the vote.

Just like Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB spy, the new Kazakh leader might well be a former security officer. For years, observers and insiders alleged Nazarbayev’s nephew, Kairat Satybaldy, may replace him.

Satybaldy, 48, is one of the leaders of the Nur Otan party and deputy head of the Committee for National Security, the main KGB successor agency. He has degrees in law, economy and oil engineering and is a practicing Muslim – a rare sight among politicians in Kazakhstan, where most people are only nominally Muslim.

“He is an influential figure that resembles Putin,” Satpayev said. “It is hard to say whether he will become a public figure that will take part in the presidential election. But he is very likely to remain a figure who will play a role during the transit of power.”

A Russian security expert said Putin “approved” Satybaldy’s candidacy.

“Nazarbayev showed him to Putin and got his ok,” the analyst told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. 

New Great Game

The question of succession has dogged Nazarbayev for years as his political opponents ended up in exile, political oblivion, jail or a graveyard.

In 2006, opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev was shot dead execution-style – along with his bodyguard and driver. Earlier that year, Zamanbek Nurqadilov, another opposition figure critical of Nazarbayev, was found at home with two bullets in his chest and one in his head.

Years later, Kazakh authorities said Sarsenbayev’s murder was ordered by Rakhat Aliev, Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law. 

Aliev, a top security official and husband of Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter Dariga, was widely seen as his successor. But in 2007, he fell out with his presidential father-in-law and fled to Austria and was eventually arrested on murder and kidnapping charges. 

He was found hanged in a prison cell in Vienna in 2015. Austrian authorities ruled his death was a suicide but some Kazakh observers alleged he was killed.

Kazakhstan’s immense hydrocarbon resources and location at the heart of Eurasia have already triggered political rivalries between Russia, China and the West – something observers dubbed “the new Great Game” – in reference to the geopolitical competition between czarist Russia and the British Empire over Central Asia.

Nazarbayev managed to show loyalty to Moscow and Beijing, getting preferences and investments from both sides. Analysts say under the new leader, the course will not swerve – while Nazarbayev is alive.

“But after his death Beijing and Moscow will be very worried,” Satpayev said. “Very much.”

Our genetic makeup has fascinated scientists and medical researchers for decades.

In recent years, there have been significant advances in the field of gene editing, which allows scientists to rewrite DNA.

Gene editing has been used to treat and prevent a number of disorders and diseases but some warn it could eventually be used to create what some have called “designer babies”.

The medical world is divided over the application and regulation of the practice.

Last year, a scientist in China said he had created the world’s first gene-edited babies, leading to global condemnation. 

Scientists have gathered in Geneva this week to try and agree on uniform regulations for the use of gene-editing technology. 

But how would officials enforce rules around DNA? 

And what are the risks of gene editing?

Presenter: Hazem Sika 

Guests: 

Owen Schaefer – Biomedical ethicists

Sharon Begley – Senior science writer at STAT, a health-focused news website owned by the Boston Globe

Helen O’Neil – Lecturer in reproductive and molecular genetics at University College London

Source: Al Jazeera News

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday condemned “reckless” and “highly offensive” comments made by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the wake of the Christchurch massacre.

Erdogan, while campaigning for local elections, presented the attack as part of an assault on Turkey and Islam and warned anti-Muslim Australians would be “sent back in coffins” like their grandfathers at Gallipoli – a blood-drenched WWI battle.

More than 8,000 Australians died fighting Turkish forces at Gallipoli, which has a prominent place in the Australia’s collective memory.

“Remarks have been made by the Turkish President Erdogan that I consider highly offensive to Australians, and highly reckless in this very sensitive environment,” Morrison said after summoning the Turkish ambassador and dismissing the “excuses” offered.

“I am expecting, and I have asked, for these comments to be clarified, to be withdrawn… I expect that to occur,” said Morrison, who also faces an election challenge in the coming weeks.

Erdogan on Tuesday again called on Western nations to tackle Islamophobia in their countries and ensure the safety of Muslim communities there in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. 

‘All options’

Morrison said Australians travelling to Turkey should exercise common sense and cautioned that travel advice for Turkey was under review.

“I will wait to see what the response is from the Turkish government before taking further action, but I can tell you that all options are on the table,” Morrison said.

In fiery remarks, Morrison accused Erdogan of betraying the promise of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – the father of modern state and a revered figure in the Turkey – to forge peace between the two countries.

A memorial at the battlefield carries Ataturk’s words: “There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets … after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

Morrison said: “Ataturk sought to transform his country into a modern nation and an embracing nation, and I think these [Erdogan’s] comments are at odds with that spirit.”

‘Totally unfair’

Erdogan had already been sharply rebuked by New Zealand for his comments and for using gruesome video shot by the Christchurch mosque gunman as an election campaign prop.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters protested on Monday that such politicisation of the massacre “imperils the future and safety of the New Zealand people and our people abroad, and it’s totally unfair”.

Peters is travelling to Turkey this week to raise concerns about Erdogan’s recent comments, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday, side-stepping questions from reporters about the controversary.

“I do not accept that we’ll see a long-term change in our relationship, it is so deeply entrenched. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have made pilgrimages in acknowledgment of what ties and binds our countries,” she said. 

Three Turkish nationals were wounded in the rampage that killed 50 worshippers at two mosques in the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch on Friday.

The accused gunman, a self-avowed white supremacist from Australia, livestreamed much of the attack and spread a manifesto on social media claiming it was a strike against Muslim “invaders”.

The manifesto references Turkey and the minarets of Istanbul’s famed Hagia Sophia, now a museum, that was once a church before becoming a mosque during the Ottoman empire.

‘Stand against racism’

In the Washington Post op-ed, Erdogan urged Western nations to stand against racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia after the Christchurch attack.

He said all Western leaders must learn from the “courage, leadership and sincerity” of Ardern and embrace Muslims living in their countries.

“We must shed light on all aspects of what happened and fully understand how the terrorist became radicalised and his links to terrorist groups to prevent future tragedies,” said Erdogan.

He compared the attack to those carried out by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS).

“We must establish that there is absolutely no difference between the murderer who killed innocent people in New Zealand and those who have carried out terrorist acts in Turkey, France, Indonesia and elsewhere,” said Erdogan.

“After attacks by the Islamic State, there was no shortage of Western politicians and commentators blaming the most deplorable acts of terrorism on Islam and Muslims.

“As a leader who has repeatedly stressed that terrorism has no religion, language or race, I categorically reject any attempt to associate last week’s terrorist attacks with the teachings, morals or maxims of Christianity,” he wrote.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images