Word: kazakhstanis
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...Mess with the Zohan, the latest Adam Sandler comedy readying for its North American release this Friday, more than a few movie buffs caught the whiff of something familiar. There were some who saw in Sandler's shaggy new look and scattered speech patterns, similarities to Borat, the fictional Kazakhstani television celebrity played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the hit 2006 comedy. Others saw the wording of the title - and the casting of John Turturro as Sandler's arch-nemesis - and were reminded of 1998's The Big Lebowski...
...buzz-builder if the celeb plays it right. Sacha Baron Cohen, who had arrived at the screening in character on a woman-peasant-drawn carriage, recovered nicely when the film stopped just 10 minutes in; Cohen apologized and explained that the film reel was pieced together with the best Kazakhstani horse glue. The screening had to be rescheduled, but it did its job - the Borat character had a memorable coming out documented in hundreds of media outlets...
...with protocol, choosing his own country's independence day to embark on a state visit to Kazakhstan. It was the visible sign of a new order in the region. "From now on, we're calling the shots in Central Asia, and Karimov came to acknowledge that," commented a senior Kazakhstani official...
...hard to disagree. Kazakhstan is now the most prosperous nation in the region, accounting for 60% of Central Asia's entire GDP. This week, U.S. President George W. Bush will welcome Nazarbayev at the White House, and then the Kazakhstani President will go to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Kazakhstan's growing oil shipments to world markets, and its potential to emerge as a stable, modernized, predominantly Muslim but religiously tolerant state with a secular government in the volatile region, have obvious appeal for the Bush Administration - so much so that it tends to downplay the country...
...trumpets its commitment to development has grown too rigid to accommodate the very success it helped create. "Our main problem is our political system that hinges on one man," soberly admits Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest of Nazarbayev's three daughters, a Member of Parliament and a major influence in Kazakhstani politics...