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The United States has kept a tight grip on to its peaceful nuclear technology for decades, forcing emerging nations like China to purchase Russian, French and Canadian designs. American company Westinghouse, however, has been allowed to deliver its newest third-generation nuclear plant to China. Radio Australia's Adam Connors reports that the need for energy over the coming few decades is reaching a fever pitch in red-hot economies like China. Energy analyst with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Alan McDonald, told Radio Australia that China and India will be the most veracious about the most controversial energy source of all. "China...

Five ex-communist countries sign oil pipeline deal bypassing Russia by Jonathan Fowler 1 hour, 50 minutes ago VILNIUS (AFP) - Five former communist-bloc countries signed a deal Wednesday to extend an oil pipeline that bypasses Russia, in a move that could diversify supplies and cut Moscow's energy clout. ADVERTISEMENT The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine and host nation Lithuania looked on as government ministers and state oil company bosses inked an accord creating the "Sarmatia" consortium, which is to build the new network. Most ex-communist countries -- and much of the rest of Europe -- rely heavily on energy...

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Discontent over Russia's continued domination of former Soviet republics soured a summit of their leaders, with Kazakhstan announcing plans to form an economic grouping without Moscow and Tbilisi refusing to sign an amended CIS treaty. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed at the summit Friday the creation of a union of Central Asian countries that would "allow the region of 50 million people to create a self-sufficient market using both economic and political means." Nazarbayev, speaking with reporters in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, also made clear his unhappiness at Russia's domination of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign is looking for political cash this week in an unlikely place: Resource-rich Kazakhstan, where the Republican presidential front-runner's law firm does substantial business in the often murky oil, gas and minerals industries. A fund-raising event tomorrow in Almaty, the commercial center of the former Soviet republic, will mark the campaign's third foray overseas for cash. Last week, Mr. Giuliani flew to London for a fund-raising luncheon where about 100 Americans living in Europe paid between $1,000 and $2,300 for a ticket -- the second his campaign has held in the United Kingdom. Mr....

Giuliani is reaching out to Borat's glorious nation......his campaign will throw a fund-raiser in Kazakhstan (in the Crimea).

SEMEY, Kazakhstan (CNN) -- Kazakhstan's nuclear orphans are a distressing sight. The first child I met in the local orphanage was lying limply in his crib. His giant, pale head was perched on his tiny shoulders, covered in bed sores, like a grotesquely painted paper-mâché mask. Peering out, a pair of tiny black eyes darted around. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. The doctor told me he was 4 years old. Through the bars in the next crib, I saw another child, twisted with deformities. His fragile legs and arms turned in impossible contortions....

MOSCOW -- President Putin of Russia and his Chinese counterpart, President Hu, will attend an unprecedented show of joint military force Friday amid fears that the Russian leader is trying to turn an increasingly powerful central Asian alliance into a second Warsaw Pact. The American government will be watching the military maneuvers anxiously from afar after its request to send observers was rejected. The maneuvers will be held under the auspices of the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Founded in 2001, the SCO, which includes the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well as China and...

Russian and Chinese troops are joining forces this week in the first military exercises by an international organisation that is regarded in some quarters as a potential rival to Nato. Thousands of soldiers and 500 combat vehicles will take part in “Peace Mission 2007”, organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Russian officials have also proposed an alliance between the SCO and a body representing most of the former Soviet republics. Scores of Russian and Chinese aircraft begin joint exercises tomorrow before a week of military manoeuvres from Thursday that will include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will close ranks to oppose Washington’s growing influence in the Central Asia, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Kyrgyzstan earlier this week. The SCO is set to boost ties with Iran as controversy with the United States is growing. Sergey Lavrov warned that the deployment of the U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe can adversely affect the Central Asia. ”We see that consequences of the unilateral action will affect Central Asia and we should take into account not only the interests of the member states, but also the interests of the observers in this...

TOKYO — Toshiba Corp is arranging to sell a 10 percent portion of its 77% equity stake in Westinghouse Electric Co of the United States to Kazatomprom, a nuclear power business firm run by the Kazakhstan government, sources close to the matter said Saturday. The move is in line with the Japanese government's policy of enhancing cooperation with Kazakhstan — the country with the world's second-biggest uranium reserves — in the field of nuclear power generation amid intensifying global competition for acquiring the nuclear fuel, the sources said. Last year, Toshiba purchased the major U.S. energy company for $5.4 billion...

Kazakhstan and Belarus topped the list of the countries perceived to be the friendliest to Russia while Estonia was named the iciest country by an overwhelming number of Russian respondents, a recent poll held by the Levada agency in mid May revealed. The poll, which sampled 1,600 Russian citizens in 128 towns in 48 regions of Russia, showed that 39 percent of the respondents consider Kazakhstan to be the country friendliest to Russia. The number of positive answers slightly increased compared to 33 percent last year. Belarus took second place with 38 percent of those interviewed naming it an amicable...

US Manager at Tengizchevroil Found Dead in Kazakhstan by Kadyr Toktogulov Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday, May 22, 2007 ALMATY, Kazakhstan, May 22, 2007 (Dow Jones Newswires) Chevron Corp.-led (CVX) Tengizchevroil, or TCO, said Tuesday its employee Peter Tabarini was found dead in the Ural River near the town of Atyrau in western Kazakhstan after apparently drowning. Tabarini, a native of New York, U.S., has been missing since May 13 and his body was found Tuesday without any signs of violence, a TCO spokesman said. Tabarini had worked for Texaco and then Chevron since 1989 in various auditing and finance roles...

Kazakhstan Parliament Abolishes Presidential Term Limits on Nazarbayev By VOA News 18 May 2007 Lawmakers in Kazakhstan have voted to allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to stay in office for an unlimited number of terms. Both the upper and lower houses of parliament Friday voted overwhelmingly in favor of amending the constitution to let Mr. Nazarbayev remain president as long as he chooses. The proposed amendment is an exception only for Mr. Nazarbayev. Future leaders will be limited to no more than two consecutive terms. Lawmakers also passed an amendment requested earlier this week by President Nazarbayev to reduce the presidential...

By Alexander Vershinin, Associated Press Writer | May 12, 2007 TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan --Russia announced a deal Saturday to dramatically increase the amount of natural gas it moves from Central Asia to Europe, a key victory in a growing rivalry with the West for the region's vast energy resources. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the region's main energy producers, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, agreed to build a pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan and into Russia's network of pipelines to Europe. The three presidents also said that, with Uzbekistan, they would revamp the entire Soviet-built pipeline network that carries...

Poland, ex-Soviet states secure energy Posted : Sat, 12 May 2007 00:04:00GMT KRAKOW, Poland, May 11 Poland and six former Soviet countries signed a deal to extend the Odessa-Brody pipeline and send energy supplies to Europe bypassing Russia. The presidents of Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Ukraine, and the Kazakh deputy energy minister, meeting in Krakow, Poland, Friday, signed a resolution declaring joint energy security planning as a major policy decision, RIA Novosti reports. The Odessa-Brody pipeline, which sends mostly Russian oil to the Black Sea port, will extend to the port of Gdansk in Poland and the Plock refinery....

Geopolitics: A strategic shift on Europe's northern tier is shaping up fast. With Russia trying to halt a missile shield and intimidating Estonia, Sweden and Finland are starting to rethink neutrality. It shows seriousness. For about a decade, conventional wisdom held that the end of the Cold War made NATO irrelevant. But out on the frontier of Western civilization, in the farthest Nordic states of Sweden and Finland, a different picture is emerging as an old predator rises from the East. Russia's recent moves in the region have forced them to take a new look at defense alliances they once...

Russia and China: The Mechanics of an Anti-American Alliance Fall 2006 - Number 11 Alexandr Nemets Conventional wisdom has it that China’s expanding military capabilities, and Beijing’s growing regional ambitions, will one day soon pose a challenge to the United States in Asia. Likewise, Russia under Vladimir Putin has shed any ambiguity about its post-Cold War direction, become increasingly assertive, powerful and anti-American. Yet perhaps the greatest threat to U.S. interests and objectives in the years ahead will not come from Beijing or Moscow alone, but from the ominous alliance that is emerging between the two. It is a partnership...

Russia has renewed its pledge to build its strategic partnership with China, in a thinly veiled attempt to oppose what Moscow views as American unilateralism. President Vladimir Putin told visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday that the positions of both countries on Iran and North Korea "either coincide or are similar." In response, Hu, whose three-day state visit to Russia ends Wednesday, hailed what he described as "strategic cooperation between China and Russia, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council." The neighbors, who share a 2,700-mile border, signed a joint statement pledging to cooperate on a variety of issues. In...

ALMATY (Reuters) - Fictional Kazakh TV reporter Borat has made an unexpected cameo appearance as a victim of censorship in a heavyweight annual human rights report issued by the State Department. ADVERTISEMENT The 2006 report, released in Washington on Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, criticized the real Kazakhstan, a vast oil-producing Central Asian state, for increased restrictions on freedom of speech and other abuses. The State Department, which says Kazakhstan has no independent judiciary, also listed the murder last year of Kazakh opposition politician Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, his bodyguard and driver as "unlawful deprivation of life." The report...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan-- LAWFUEL - Law News, US Law Firms --Bracewell & Giuliani LLP closed three cases in January for a total of US $1.625 billion, acting as international counsel for the offering of corporate debt and solidifying their place as the premier legal authority on Kazakhstani business affairs in the Caspian region. “We continue to thrive and grow in Kazakhstan, mirroring the country itself,” said Greg Vojack, managing partner for the firm's offices in Kazakhstan. “As Kazakhstan transitions into a prosperous free marketplace after the fall of Soviet Russia, its fine-tuned monetary policies are helping the country’s financial sectors grow...

Thank you, Vladimir Putin. Thank you for confirming that the Cold War is very much alive and that your nation is responsible for keeping it so. After all, it is far better for us to know absolutely who you are and what your intentions continue to be. Thank you for confirming that we can trust the Soviets to be Soviets and that nothing has changed in your country except that you found it convenient after the Berlin Wall fell to act "American." Your words changed: "Comrade" became "citizen," "Premier" became "President." Western styles found you clothed in sharp suits...

Mr Putin said the US "has overstepped its borders" The Munich security conference was born in the 1960s - the height of the Cold War. Forty years on, there been talk of a new chill. Given the tone and content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the gathered defence ministers, parliamentarians and pundits, it is not, perhaps, hard to see why. Warming quickly to his task after only the briefest of greetings, President Putin accused the US of establishing, or trying to establish, a "uni-polar" world. "What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term,...

Russia's Defense Minister Unveils Plans to Overhaul Military By Lisa McAdams Moscow 08 February 2007 Russia has unveiled plans to replace nearly half the army's hardware by 2015. Welcomed by some as a long-overdue necessity, others question whether the plan can really be carried out. VOA's Lisa McAdams in Moscow reports. Sergei Ivanov (file photo) Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told lawmakers Wednesday the government planned to spend nearly $200 billion on the military upgrade. He said it would allow Russia to maintain its nuclear deterrent, while developing its conventional forces. Ivanov told lawmakers the plan calls for the purchase of...

Pentagon prepares for possible war with Russia 08.02.2007 /PanARMENIAN.Net/ U.S. Defense Secretary thinks that American armed forces must be ready for a large-scale war, the Associated Press reports. “We need a full set of measures to conduct a war, including both special military units necessary for war against terrorists and infantry troops to be able to fight against large regular armies. We do not know what changes can take place in such countries as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others,” Robert Gates stated. He made this statement February 7 during hearings in the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services,...

Until now Sacha Baron Cohen has insisted on being interviewed in character. Roland White discovers he’s not the man you expect We remember him fondly as the hip-hop king of Staines. We have briefly been introduced to him as Bruno the fashion reporter, the campest man in Austria. And some of us are still reeling from the sight of that bikini-style thong that he wore as Borat, the glorious reporter make much comedy benefit Kazakhstan. Yet it’s rare that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who last week won a Golden Globe as best actor in a comedy, puts on a performance...

In an article of their own MEMRI has brought to light two articles published in December of 2006 from the Syrian government daily: Teshreen, and the Iranian government daily: Tehran Times. The articles give evidence to Russia's global ambitions to re-establish Russia's international power by increasing Russian presence, influence, and participation in the oil rich Middle-East. The article posted at MEMRI is from January 12, 2007 and entitled: Iranian and Syrian Government Papers on Renewed Superpower Role for Russia to Counter U.S. in Middle EastThe following are selected excerpts from the two articles cited by MERMI: "We must acknowledge that...

Of Borat, America, anti-Semitism, Israel, ADL, and Kazakhstan By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- January 16, 2007..... Every so often we are enlightened with a truly "gifted" movie. A cinematic Hollywood adventure which actually make us think, laugh and even shed a tear. Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is one such movie. Borat is a movie about a fictional Kazakh TV news reporter who is dispatched to the United States to report on the "greatest country in the world." British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen plays the role of Borat who...

ALMATY, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov has resigned, forcing the entire government to step down, a government source told Reuters on Monday. "The prime minister has resigned," the source said, giving no reason for Akhmetov's resignation. Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, is rich in oil and gas which it pumps mainly to the West.

"Grandfathers Frost", we await you! In just two days Noviy Vestnik will round up its 'Be a Grandfather Frost!' campaign. This Saturday, December 23rd, correspondents from NV will visit the orphans at the Home for Handicapped Children, and bring the presents that our readers readied for them. In our first winter issue we invited all who wished to take part to become magicians out of a fairy tale, and make the wishes of these orphans come true.More than fifty children wrote Grandfather Frost, and any adult who wishes can participate by preparing a gift.Two weeks after the campaign began, our...

Two British animal rights campaigners, wearing only bikinis made of lettuce, have urged Kazakhs to stop eating horses and go vegetarian. Kazakhstan's national cuisine is almost entirely meat-based, and horse sausage and boiled sheep's head are considered delicacies. Lamb and offal are part of the staple diet and the activists braced freezing temperatures in the country's largest city, Almaty, to push home their message. Kazakhstan has recently been made famous by Sacha Baron Cohen's spoof TV reporter Borat. It has led campaigners from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to urge the public to go veggie. One of the...

ALMATY (Reuters) - Two British animal rights campaigners clad in nothing more than bikinis made of lettuce leaves braved freezing temperatures on Tuesday to urge the people of Kazakhstan to stop eating horses and go vegetarian. As the putative homeland of fictional TV reporter Borat, the vast and formerly nomadic Central Asian state has risen to prominence in recent months, leading People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to ask them to stop eating meat. "Whereas Borat is ridiculing the country, we're trying to come here with a positive message," Yvonne Taylor, 35, told Reuters. "We're saying that going...

A genuine TV reporter crew from Kazakhstan found covering the recent US elections something of a struggle.A TV crew from Kazakhstan's Channel 31 was in Columbus to make a documentary on the US political system. But the crew got a wary reception from press secretaries who feared public humiliation by Sacha Baron Cohen. It didn't help that the Kazakh cameraman's first name was 'Bolat', reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Cohen's 'Borat' movie - featuring a fake Kazakh TV reporter humiliating Americans - was then No 1 at the box office. Press secretaries for both Republican and Democratic parties were suspicious...

"Oh, come on, Rush! It's much ado about nothing. It's just one spy wiping out another spy." It's Russians wiping out a spy. Now you've got Putin sending air defense systems to Iran who's going to bail us out of Iraq, threatening Israel. You've got Putin sending missiles and rockets and warheads and helping Iran with its nuclear program, and all of this combined, then you've got the Baker report, the Iraq study group report and Chuck Hagel and a bunch of courageous, brave American Democrats and Republicans saying, "We gotta honorably pull out of there. We gotta get out...

THE COLD WAR was supposed to have ended 15 years ago, but the death in London of Alexander V. Litvinenko presents Scotland Yard with more than your average murder mystery. The former Russian spy and fierce critic of the Kremlin was poisoned. But how and by whom? The tale began Nov. 1 at itsu, a busy London sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus that features a Madame Butterfly Zinger, Squirrels Dreams and something called Bang Bang Free Range Chicken. Poison is definitely not on the menu. Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and a KGB successor agency,...

Tensions between Britain and Russia burst into the open today when a leading Cabinet minister voiced criticism of President Putin's "huge attacks" on liberty and democracy.Peter Hain, the outspoken Northern Ireland Secretary, indicated that relations with Moscow had hit a low as he exhorted the Russian leader to return to democratic processes. Outspoken: Peter Hain, Northern Ireland Secretary His comments come as the Government has been treading carefully with Russia amid claims that the Kremlin ordered the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. The Foreign Office asked Moscow on Friday to hand over any material which might...

Just a headline, as of 10AM.

Downing Street has refused to say if Tony Blair has seen controversial comedy film Borat, as he meets the Kazhakstan president at Number 10.The prime minister's official spokesman said: "I don't do book reviews and I don't do film reviews." Mr Blair is currently meeting President Nursultan Abish-uly Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan's ambassador to the UK has said Borat, which stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, "grossly misrepresented" his country. The film, whose full title is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, depicts Kazakhstan as a racist, sexist, violent, primitive and oppressive country. It features a...

Britain said a huge jagshemash! to President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan yesterday as he arrived in London for official visit making benefit for two glorious nations.President Nazarbayev, great leader of the Central Asian republic, who achieved 90 per cent of votes in an allegedly rigged election in December 2005, will meet the Queen, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown today. An audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace will be followed by a lunchtime meeting with Mr Blair in Downing Street. In another sign of Mr Brown's increasing influence, he will meet the Chancellor next door in the afternoon. The Prime...

It takes a great stretch even for the DUmmie imagination to compare the fictitious Borat portraying an imaginary resident of Kazakhstan to wearing blackface. However, in the age of the politically correct I guess it is not surprising to finding loons who will take offense to almost anything no matter how ridiculous. On the subject of blackface, I was actually thinking about this yesterday before I saw this DUmmie THREAD titled, "How is BORAT any different than BLACKFACE?" The reason why is that I was watching The Jolson Story on cable late at night. I thought this subject would...

Their country has gained international fame as the butt of one man's jokes, so when a company of Kazakh horsemen arrived wielding swords it was only natural to wonder whether they had caught sight of their tormentor.Borat, the alter ego of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was nowhere to be seen. That was a shame, since the Kazakhs were keen to introduce him to a traditional sport in which two riders wrestle until one is thrown from his horse. Some suggested that Borat might like to try another of the Kazakhs' feats, called audarspak ? swinging under the horse's belly and,...

(AgapePress) - If a deeply-accented reporter from Kazakhstan approaches you and asks to film the two of you while you use your occupation to teach him about American culture -- run. You are about to get punk'd. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the creation of edgy comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who also is the man behind the character "Ali G." Borat's fan base consists of the kind of people who find funny immensely vulgar comedy which produces its laughs at the expense of often completely innocent people. Unfortunately, there are many such...

Fraternity boys sue movie studio over appearance in "Borat" SANTA MONICA, Calif. - The joke was on two unsuspecting fraternity boys who thought they were being interviewed by a Kazakh reporter named Borat and made racist and sexist comments on camera. But now that they've learned their encounter would appear in the No. 1 movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," they're not laughing anymore. A lawsuit filed Thursday on their behalf claims they were duped into appearing in the spoof documentary and "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in."...

This week, an immigrant who groped nine women was nicknamed the 'Polish Borat' after he told police such behaviour was normal in his country. But what does the original Borat make of Thomasz Stepniowski's antics?Here, DAVID THOMAS imagines what guidance he might have for immigrants visiting Britain. Proper Behavings with British GirliesIs very difficult foreign men to adjust British way of making sexytimes with girlies. Result? Many Poles, Kazakhs, etc in court, just for being friendly! Why this confusion? Simple - in Britain, impossible to tell which girls is prostitutes. In Kazakhstan, respectable girlies wear veil, yashmak, old fertiliser bags,...

Russia has banned the hit comedy film, Borat, which has been accused of poking fun at Moscow's neighbour and close ally Kazakhstan. The film stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as a spoof reporter on a trip to the US. A senior official at Russia's culture ministry has told the BBC it will not provide a distribution licence. The film has described as a "mockumentary" which follows Mr Cohen's travel across the US. On the way, he has a series of real life encounters with unsuspecting Americans in which he makes the most outrageous, sexist, racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic comments....

The two most important people in America today don't work in Congress — they work in comedy Not that the two are mutually exclusive. Mark Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is far more profound than anything Nancy Pelosi has to say. And Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan will do more to save America than any plodding pseudo-documentary by Michael Moore. Plus, unlike Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, and every episode of Studio 60, Steyn and Cohen are actually funny. Two comedians. Neither of...

"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," 20th Century Fox's big-screen incarnation of Cohen's Kazakh journalist from "Da Ali G Show," took in $26.4 million during its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers on Friday called for international condemnation of the United States' economic blockade of Cuba, calling it a "massive human rights violation." Members of the State Duma, the Russian parliament's lower house controlled by Kremlin's loyalists, unanimously voted in favor of an appeal to parliaments worldwide to condemn the sanctions and urge the U.S. to end the blockade. "The United States ... in recent years has further strengthened its policy of interfering with the affairs of a sovereign state with the aim of a forcible change of the constitution regime of the Republic of Cuba," the statement...

UPDATED Saturday AM: (Keep refreshing screen for latest #s) All the box office guru predictions for this weekend went wrong. I'm told that Fox's Borat, though playing in just 837 theaters, shocked the experts and became the No. 1 movie in the U.S. Friday.Funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen's spoof took in a staggering $8.9 million for what should be an opening weekend of as much as $25 million. Based on the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about long lines at the box office, sold-out screenings, and fans driving more than an hour to find a theater showing the pic, I...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Borat may not be the biggest star of the U.S. multiplex this weekend, but the fictional Kazakh TV reporter is getting huge buzz, rave reviews and seems likely to "make benefit glorious box office" in the long run. "Borat," starring British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as the boorish, anti-Semitic alter ego he introduced to U.S. audiences on cable television's "Da Ali G Show," opened on Friday amid some of the most intense media hype of any film this year. Leading online ticketing service Fandango.com reported brisk business for the film, whose full title is "Borat: Cultural...

-- I can't wait to see "Borat," which has twice as many laughs as all of this year's other movie comedies combined, for a fourth time. Propelled by Sacha Baron Cohen's genius performance, this proudly offensive mock documentary is a blast of fresh, rude air. Cohen plays Borat Sagdiyev, a stupid but somehow likable TV personality from Kazakhstan who has some unforgettable encounters with the natives during a tour of the United States - mostly accompanied by Azamat (Ken Davitian), the burly producer of his TV documentary. Borat, a fixture on "Da Ali G Show," is not only unfamiliar with...