Kazakhstan

  "Borat" does it again, but this time it was organizers of a sports event in Kuwait and not Sacha Baron Cohen who slipped up. The obscene anthem from the 2006 satirical film rather than the country's true national anthem was played Thursday at an awards ceremony for a Kazakhstan athlete who had won a gold medal for shooting at the 10th Arab Shooting Championship, according to media reports....

WASHINGTON - The latest round of international negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program concluded Saturday with no sign of progress and the future of the fitful diplomatic effort uncertain. Officials from Iran and the six world powers had "long and intensive discussions" in the two-day session in Kazakhstan, but ended "far apart on the substance," Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, said in Almaty. The group didn't schedule another meeting, as they usually have done in the past to show that diplomacy would continue with at least low-level conversations.

— Say "Kazakhstan" to most filmgoers and their minds will jump to "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary about a plow-driving, shower-averse horndog that took the U.S. box office by storm in 2006. The film put the vast but obscure oil-rich nation of 16 million, wedged between Russia and China, on the map for many Americans but left Kazakh officials objecting that Cohen had misrepresented the country: For starters, many of its inhabitants are not Eastern European-sounding people with bushy mustaches but Koran-reading Central Asians.

WASHINGTON - Iranian officials did not directly respond Friday to the latest American-backed offer to curb Tehran's disputed nuclear program, raising the possibility that the high-level diplomatic effort may be suspended for at least a few months. Iranian and international negotiators meeting in Kazakhstan engaged in a "long and substantial discussion" but remained "a long way apart on the substance," said a Western official, who asked to remain unidentified, citing sensitive diplomatic issues.

A university student in Alma Ata was sentenced to death by firing squad and four others received jail terms for rioting in the capital of Kazakhstan republic in December, the newspaper Izvestia reported today. The tough sentences were meted out by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan in predominantly Muslim central Asia after a three-week trial, Izvestia said. It did not say when the trial ended. The rioting Dec.

A Russian cruise missile misfired during exercises and hit Kazakhstan, Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said, in the latest such incident to strain relations between the former Soviet neighbors. Interviewed on television, Ivanov said the rocket misfired during a test Wednesday at Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea near Russia's southern border with Kazakhstan. Ivanov said there was no damage or casualties.

The government of Kazakhstan wasn't happy with "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," the film in which Sacha Baron Cohen played a fictional journalist from that country who poked fun at Americans. But not everyone there had problems with the comedy.

China's biggest state-owned oil firm has reached an agreement to buy a major oil producer in neighboring Kazakhstan for $4.2 billion -- a victory in Beijing's campaign to secure foreign energy supplies for its booming economy. The proposed acquisition of PetroKazakhstan Inc., a Canada-based company, by a unit of China National Petroleum Corp., comes three weeks after another Chinese oil company, CNOOC Ltd., dropped its bid for Unocal Corp. amid opposition from U.S. politicians.

China, aggressively seeking overseas energy assets to fuel its booming economy, said Sunday that one of its biggest conglomerates had bought the Kazakhstan oil assets of a Canadian company for $1.91 billion. China's CITIC Group bought the oil assets of Canada's Nations Energy Co. and granted KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan's state-owned oil company, an option to a 50% interest in Nations Energy, the official New China News Agency said.

The top civil servant in Kazakhstan's Senate, five members of an elite national security unit and two former security officers have confessed to killing a key opposition leader, the Central Asian country's interior minister said Monday. Opposition leaders, however, said they believed responsibility for the slaying of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, his driver and his bodyguard lay higher in the power structure of the oil-rich former Soviet state.

People in Iran believe that “ Argo ,” which chronicled the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and the later rescue of six Americans who escaped and hid with the Canadian ambassador, is "a propaganda attack against our nation and entire humanity" and a "violation of international cultural norms. " The comments, following a screening of the best picture-winning drama on Monday in Tehran attended by Iranian cultural officials and film critics, sparked news reports that the nation is considering suing Hollywood over how the country was depicted in Ben Affleck's film.

WASHINGTON - Six world powers floated a modestly improved proposal to Iran on Tuesday as talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear program resumed after an eight-month hiatus, with little expectation of a breakthrough. Opening a two-day session in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the so-called P5-plus-1 group offered to slightly ease economic sanctions if Tehran halts production of near-weapons-grade uranium fuel. The powers - China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and the United States - fear Iran is seeking the ability to make bombs, an intent it denies.

LONDON -- Marlen Esparza couldn't stop sobbing. And Claressa Shields wanted to weep. There may be no crying in baseball but there were plenty of boxers shedding tears at the ExCeL Centre in London's Docklands after the women's Olympic semifinals Wednesday. Esparza showed emotion after she lost and had to settle for a bronze medal - the first medal won by the U.S. in women's boxing - and Shields because victory means she will fight again for the gold Thursday. "I'm still kind of shocked," said Shields, a high school junior from Flint, Mich., who wasn't old enough to compete in Olympic boxing until her 17th birthday in March.

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.   --Jewish proverb The drive from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan was abruptly curtailed when I arrived at the wrong border crossing. The crossing was closed for repairs and there was supposedly another one about 60 miles away. The only sticking point: I had no idea how to get there. Fortunately for me, an Uzbekistan stranger did. However, he wanted to be paid for his services. 200,000 som to be precise. I didn't have 200,000 som (about $100)

— Over John Armah's shoulder, about a quarter-mile away, was Buckingham Palace. Just around the corner was the prime minister's residence. The stage was perfectly set for the apparently inevitable moment Saturday when reigning world champion cyclist Mark Cavendish would win Britain's first gold medal of the 2012 Olympics. Maybe the screen star previously known as Elizabeth II, who did a James Bond video skit for the opening ceremony, would nip over for another rendition of "God Save the Queen" at the medal presentation.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. --David Russell The Mongol Rally , the 10,000-mile journey from Britain to Mongolia, is a road trip, for heaven's sake. So far, I've gotten acquainted with the the Ukrainian police (50 euro, about $62, fine for speeding) and the Ukrainian police again (I evaded them). I didn't meet the Russian police, although I had laid in a store of vodka in case I did. Now my co-driver, Steve, and I were getting ready to cross into Kazakhstan , where the police apparently were very eager to get acquainted.

More than 5,000 ethnic Uighurs rallied in Kazakhstan's largest city to protest China's use of deadly force to quash Uighur protests this month. The show of solidarity was the largest in any of the former Soviet republics -- home to a half-million Uighurs -- since the July 5 violence in China's Xinjiang region that authorities say claimed almost 200 lives. "We have come out to protest today because of the events of July 5 and because the Chinese authorities are continuing to deprive people of their human rights," said Khakhriman Khozhamberdi, a Uighur activist in Kazakhstan.

Coal mining accidents Wednesday in Kazakhstan and Ukraine killed at least 53 workers and left one missing. A methane gas explosion at the Lenin mine in central Kazakhstan was so powerful that bodies were found more than half a mile away, Kazakh TV channel KTK reported. The blast killed 40 miners. Zhanar Bekbanova, a spokeswoman for the Karaganda regional administration, said one miner was missing and presumed dead, and three were in serious condition.

  "Borat" does it again, but this time it was organizers of a sports event in Kuwait and not Sacha Baron Cohen who slipped up. The obscene anthem from the 2006 satirical film rather than the country's true national anthem was played Thursday at an awards ceremony for a Kazakhstan athlete who had won a gold medal for shooting at the 10th Arab Shooting Championship, according to media reports....

— Say "Kazakhstan" to most filmgoers and their minds will jump to "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary about a plow-driving, shower-averse horndog that took the U.S. box office by storm in 2006. The film put the vast but obscure oil-rich nation of 16 million, wedged between Russia and China, on the map for many Americans but left Kazakh officials objecting that Cohen had misrepresented the country: For starters, many of its inhabitants are not Eastern European-sounding people with bushy mustaches but Koran-reading Central Asians.