Ukrainian police on Monday launched a terror probe into a blast in the government-controlled port of Odessa after an explosion outside a building housing a soldiers' support center.

Local authorities said the late Sunday explosion in the city of one million caused no injuries but shattered windows in the office of volunteers helping soldiers fighting pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

Two Tunisian and three Yemeni detainees were transferred from the U.S.-run prison at Guantanamo Bay to Kazakhstan on Tuesday, the Pentagon said.

The move is part of President Barack Obama's stepped up effort to close the controversial military jail, which was set up to detain terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev followed his Belarusian counterpart to Ukraine on Monday as Moscow's old allies reassessed their reliance on Russia in the heat of its financial malaise.

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Kazakhstan Friday at the start of a two-day trip aimed at boosting trade and political ties with the emerging Central Asian country.

The French leader was due to hold talks later in the day with Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has run the country since independence in 1991.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday pledged to bolster ties with energy-rich Kazakhstan as he looked to strengthen Tehran's links with the neighboring Central Asia region during a five-day tour. 

Rouhani said Iran had a "serious will" to step up ties with the former Soviet state following a meeting with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Authorities in Kazakhstan are on high alert after a container holding the radioactive substance caesium-137 disappeared in the west of the country, police said Tuesday.

A police spokesman for the Mangistau region said the material -- commonly used for military and medical purposes -- appeared to have fallen off a vehicle that was transporting it.

A U.S. jury on Monday returned the first conviction over the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks, finding a friend of the prime suspect guilty of obstructing the investigation into the bombings.

Azamat Tazhayakov, 20, was convicted of obstruction and conspiracy over taking a backpack from alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's college dorm room in the days after the attacks.

Russia on Thursday signed an agreement with Belarus and Kazakhstan on creating a Eurasian Economic Union designed to strengthen ties between the three ex-Soviet countries.

The agreement was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Kazakh capital of Astana.

The last words from a Malaysian passenger jet missing for 10 days were apparently spoken by the co-pilot, the airline said Monday, providing a glimpse into the crucial period when the plane was deliberately diverted.

Clarification that the voice was most likely that of First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid came during a press conference at which Malaysian officials hit back at "irresponsible" suggestions that they had misled the public -- and passengers' relatives -- over what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

A court in Uzbekistan has sentenced two men to life in prison for raping and murdering 11 women in the Central Asian republic and neighboring Kazakhstan, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Uzbek citizens Abduseit Ormanov and Polat Pardaliyev robbed, raped and then killed seven women in Uzbekistan and four women in neighboring Kazakhstan between 2011 and 2012, prosecutor Azizbek Nazarov said.