Kazakhstan

KHORGOS, Kazakhstan -- He, too, had heard that life offered a better chance in Kazakhstan, so he crossed over from China on a desolate, sandy stretch where the lights of the border towns were only a faint and distant glow.He had moved under cover of a thick, moonless night. He had yanked apart the wires on the border fence and climbed through in a place where no one could have heard him because of the rushing spring waters of the Khorgos River nearby.But the dogs got his scent and in minutes the Kazakh border patrol swept in and had their intruder.

Last week, Mitt Romney described Russia as America's "No. 1 geopolitical foe," prompting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to respond: "I think it's somewhat dated to be looking backwards instead of being realistic about where we agree, where we don't agree. " While Mr. Romney's basic sentiment is correct, Mrs. Clinton is also right in suggesting that Mr. Romney's characterization of Russia is both dated and diplomatically unproductive. Not to mention that it makes for awkward dealings later when you inevitably have to sit down across the table from someone like Vladimir Putin and ask him a favor.

WASHINGTON -- The former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, yielding to U.S. and Russian pressure, announced yesterday that it will join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear power.The move clears a major hurdle blocking ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which slashes long-range atomic weapons arsenals in the United States and the former Soviet Union.Secretary of State James A. Baker III may now be in a position to get Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to sign a protocol to the treaty next weekend in Lisbon, Portugal, and then send it to the Senate for ratification hearings.

Many Howard County members of the General Assembly are using their summers for professional travel, going as near as Washington and as far as Kazakhstan. While Del. Guy Guzzone attended a weeklong seminar in Washington last month, state Sen. Allan H. Kittleman is preparing to go halfway around the world for a cultural exchange trip to the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan with Maryland schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick and others. This large, former portion of the old Soviet Union, skewered a few years ago in the comedy film Borat, will host the Marylanders from Friday to Aug. 16. Kittleman, a Republican, said he is looking forward to it. "I've been very involved with literacy in Maryland," he said.

WASHINGTON -- The United States has uncovered a large cache of bomb-grade uranium in Kazakhstan and secretly negotiated to bring it to the United States for safe storage, Clinton administration official disclosed last night.The half-ton of highly enriched uranium, enough to make as many as 50 bombs, has been a major worry for administration officials since they learned of its existence. Officials did not disclose whether the material had reached the United States yet.Administration officials said the nuclear material, located at Ust-Kamenogorsk, was poorly protected and represented a potential source of nuclear material for Third World states and arms traffickers.

MOSCOW -- One of the country's most influential republican leaders launched a furious attack on Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin yesterday, saying the "great-power, chauvinist" attitude of Mr. Yeltsin's government was driving other republics out of the union.Speaking with reporters, Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of the republic of Kazakhstan, said Mr. Yeltsin and his supporters were trying to monopolize power in the new Soviet Union. Mr. Nazarbayev also said Mr. Yeltsin and his followers had discussed the subversion of republics that refused to comply with their wishes.

MOSCOW -- The president of Kazakhstan yesterday said an accident two weeks ago at a nuclear fuel plant had released a toxic gas cloud that affected "many inhabitants" of the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the Tass news agency reported.Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of the Kazakh republic, asked the Soviet government to declare the accident site in eastern region of Kazakhstan near the Chinese border an ecological disaster area.The number of victims in the accident and the nature of their injuries have not been made public, in a holdover from the secrecy that for many years surrounded industrial accidents.

MOSCOW -- A British comedian impersonating a Kazakh reporter who clashes with feminists and learns the ways of evangelical Christianity on a cross-country romp through the United States doesn't seem a likely enemy of the Russian state. But, apparently, Russia thinks he is. The satirical film, in which the fictional Borat Sagdiyev during a cultural fact-finding mission to America portrays his central Asian homeland as one where women are kept in cages and homosexuals were once forced to wear blue hats, will not appear on movie screens here.

Farmers in Kazakhstan, a country in the former Soviet Union, have been raising sheep for hundreds of years.The problem is that they're still using many of the methodsemployed when nomads traveled the area centuries ago, said Paul Tashner, president of TCO International, a Westminster-based enterprise helping Russian and American companies do business together."

An American's desire to do business in the former Soviet Union and a Russian's love of cars came together a a year ago in a partnership that will take a Jeep Eagle dealership to a former Soviet republic.Their brainchild, the Siberian American International Trading Co., will deliver its first Jeep Cherokees to Kazakhstan by the end of this year, Paul Tashner, president of the company in Westminster, said yesterday.Mr. Tashner -- who had visited Russia and studied its transportation system while working as a marketing manager for CSX Corp.

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors. And Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections.

The sentimental overload of the Christmas season can be too much for even the sappiest souls trapped at family gatherings. Luckily, a jolt of dark satire about faraway locales (that aren't Aunt Janice's den) is only a coffee table away. Here are some of the new standouts that can be found at most major bookstores: 1. Borat Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. / Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Author: Borat Sagdiyev Price: $24.99 Why we like it: The raunchy movie has been encapsulated into a coffee book.

MOSCOW -- Kazakhstan President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev could remain in office for the rest of his life under a package of constitutional amendments approved by the parliament yesterday. The measures, which need Nazarbayev's signature to take effect, would remove any limit on the number of terms he can serve. Under the current constitution, Nazarbayev, who has exercised authoritarian rule over the oil-rich Central Asian country since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, would have to step down in 2012.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia brokered an agreement yesterday with two Central Asian countries to build a new gas pipeline to Russia, delivering a major setback to continuing American efforts to send Central Asian natural gas exports directly to Europe. The presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed to build a new pipeline around the Caspian Sea, giving Russia significantly more control over much of Central Asia's massive natural gas reserves.

Capsules by Michael Sragow and Chris Kaltenbach unless noted. Full reviews at baltimoresun.com/movies. Apocalypto -- pits a spotless young Mayan man, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), against evil marauders led by their majestically efficient captain Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo) and the satanically sadistic Snake Ink (Rodolfo Palacios). Although it's told in a Mayan dialect, with English subtitles, the movie is just an arthouse film for jocks. Only the surface is exotic: the Mayan empire in its late-decadent phase.

MOSCOW -- A glimpse of what a future Soviet Union might look like began to emerge yesterday as Russia and Kazakhstan agreed to seek a new, looser union run by 15 equal republics instead of a central government.While Russia, the largest republic, and Kazakhstan, the third-largest, were negotiating, the liberal new head of the KGB declared that agreement on a new union treaty was not only still possible but also vital to create a stability that would lead to economic reforms. Without such reforms, he said, the nation faces economic catastrophe.

HONG KONG - One of China's state-owned oil companies may still be smarting from its failure to acquire Unocal this summer. But another Chinese oil giant showed yesterday that this country is still snapping up assets to satisfy its hunger for energy. China's biggest state-owned oil company, China National Petroleum Corp., said it would pay $4.18 billion for a Canadian oil company with shares traded in New York and substantial reserves in Kazakhstan. It is China's largest foreign acquisition yet, and more than twice what a Chinese computer company paid for International Business Machines Corp.