Under the spotlight at this years Astana Economic Forum are the challenges of ensuring sustainable urban growth in Kazakhstan and across the rest of the planet.

A Russian rocket has been successfully launched and is on its way to the International Space Station

Adventures travels to Shymbulak near Almaty in Kazakhstan to test some of the many winter sports on offer.

Aventures takes to the sleigh to experience dog sledding in Kazakhstan.

Three spaceflyers launched on Monday (December 3) to the International Space Station (ISS) abort a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Festival pitches itself as major forum for co-productions in the former Kazakh capital, the cradle of Soviet cinema with a long tradition of filmmaking.

Miles of white beaches, sand dunes and blue water. The Caspian Sea offers truly unexpected views. A hundred kilometers from the shore of this sea, which is actually a lake, you can go into a completely different world, including the Torysh Valley, a huge desert expanse of mysterious round stones.

The Torysh Valley is strewn with round-shaped rocks and stones of varying dimensions: from spheres that you can hold in one hand to those that reach up to 3 meters in diameter. There are no studies that prove the exact process of formation of these spheres, but they probably have a volcanic origin.

Burabay National Park takes its name from the lake and the town nearby. Wild nature, in a mosaic of hills, steppes, forests and lakes, stretches for 835 square kilometers. One of the best ways to enjoy this wild nature is on horse back, while there is also a diverse abundance of flora and fauna.

Vladimir Zemblevskiy, a falconer who has been working with birds for 40 years, showed Euronews how a hunt takes place with a 5-year-old male golden eagle in the steppe, not far from Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

Euronews visits Shymbulak, one of the most popular ski resorts in Kazakhstan, not far from Almaty. From December to April it is the winter sports kingdom. In the summer, the mountains turn into a paradise for lovers of hiking and mountain biking, or for exploring the nearby steppes with a buggy.

Just forty minutes from the center of Almaty is the Medeu Alpine sports complex, where you can take the cableway to reach Shymbulak, a natural park and the most popular ski resort of Kazakhstan. In the summer season, the mountains turn into a paradise for lovers of hiking and mountain biking.

The convention sees five nations - Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan – agree to the status of the disputed body of water.

Regional music takes centre stage at Star of Asia festival in Kazakhstan, featuring folk metal music and other music fusion, including local boy band Mad Men

NASA's Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei and Russia's Alexander Misurkin spent 168 days aboard the ISS.