Kazakhstan

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Traffic police in a southern Kazakhstan city have complained of a rising tide of motorists replacing their license plates with signs reading "I Love Sex. " Online news channel Mir reported yesterday that one of them, a 19-year old motorist in Kyzyl-Orda, was fined $1,000 for pinning the provocative plate to his SUV. The station also showed police footage of another car bearing a more chaste plate honoring a woman: "I Love...

MOSCOW - Kazakhstan's acting border service chief was among 27 people killed in a military plane crash Tuesday near a southern city, another blow to the agency after he was appointed in June to deal with the aftermath of a mass killing involving a conscript. The Russian-made An-72 crashed at 12:55 GMT (7:55 a.m. Philadelphia time) about 12 miles away from the city of Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's Committee for National Security said in a statement. The fatalities included a crew of seven and 20 border guards, including the acting head of the ex-Soviet nation's border protection service, Col. Turganbek Stambekov, the statement said.

Kazakhstan may be a new country carved out of the old Soviet Union, but it has an ancient cultural heritage and a diverse population. Through a cultural exchange program, a delegation of about 60 people, including government officals, businessmen and entertainers, arrived in Harrisburg last week to learn about American culture and life. On Thursday, after an afternoon tour of the campus of West Chester University, a group of Kazakh folk musicians from this exchange will give a free concert at the New Century Club in West Chester.

WITH ALL THE suppression of human rights going on in the world, it's nice to know that Kazakhstan has been singled out by the U.S. State Department for its suppression of . . . Borat. The department's annual human-rights report criticizes Kazakhstan for taking action against the satirical Web site of Sacha Baron Cohen, creator of the fictional Kazakh journalist in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. " Specifically, the government took control of the registration of .kz Internet domains in 2005 and revoked Baron Cohen's domain because it deemed his site offensive, the report said.

The United States coasted into the world junior hockey championship playoffs with a 12-0 rout of Kazakhstan last night in Ottawa. The United States will play Canada in a matchup of 3-0-0 teams today, with the top spot in Group A on the line. Kazakhstan (0-3-0) will head to the relegation round. Aaron Palushaj led the United States with two goals and two assists. Colin Wilson also had two goals, while James van Riemsdyk, a Flyers prospect, and Ian Cole each had a goal and two assists.

Kazakhstan has become the 14th of the 15 Soviet republics to declare sovereignty, defying the national legislature and banning nuclear tests on its territory in Central Asia, Soviet media reported. The action yesterday came after environmental activists claimed Kazakhstan's 15 million people suffer an elevated cancer rate and other health problems because it is the site of one of the country's main testing grounds for nuclear warheads. In Donetsk, Ukraine, a nationwide congress of coal miners put aside divisions today and adopted a plan by radical miners to form the Soviet Union's first independent trade union.

In all the heated discussions about what to do with the leaders of last month's anti-Gorbachev putsch - shooting the plotters, imprisoning them in an old dissidents' labor camp, or making them recite all of Lenin's collected works - no idea is more original than that offered by Serik Abdrakhmanov, adviser to the president of Kazakhstan. "Make them all Heroes of the Soviet Union," he declared earlier this month. Abdrakhmanov's reasoning is simple: The failed coup did more than anything else to bind together this ethnically diverse republic in one cohesive movement toward independence and economic self-sufficiency.

The Soviet Union yesterday announced that order was restored to the Central Asian city of Alma Ata after two days of rioting by students protesting the replacement of the native head of the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan with an ethnic Russian. The official news agency Tass said Gennady V. Kolbin inspected a heavy- machinery plant in Alma Ata yesterday with Politburo member Mikhail Solomentsev. Kolbin, a Russian, was named Tuesday to replace Dinmukhamed A. Kunayev as head of the Communist Party in the republic, which has many Muslims.

Armed youths went on a rampage in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, causing deaths in the latest outbreak of violence in the country's outlying republics, Tass reported yesterday. The official news agency said that the youths, some using guns and firebombs, had tried to seize a police station, public transport and other key points in the city of Novy Uzen over the weekend. It suggested that the violence was continuing in the town, in western Kazakhstan, about 1,050 miles southeast of Moscow.

Philadelphia's Stephen Fulton Jr. continued to dominate the 108-pound division in the USA Boxing National Championships in Fort Carson, Colo., Thursday when he won a 13-12 quarterfinal decision over David Carlton of Cincinnati. The victory sent Fulton into the semifinals against Santos Vasquez of Sparks, Nev. Winners will advance to the men's world championships next year in Astana, Kazakhstan, and the women's championships in Qinhuangdao, China, May 9-20. Streaming video and results of the tournament are available at www.usaboxing.org .   - Inquirer staff

BOSTON - Three college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested and accused Wednesday of trying to protect him by going into his dorm room and getting rid of a backpack filled with hollowed-out fireworks three days after the deadly attack. The three 19-year-olds were not accused of any role in the bombing itself. But in a footnote in the court papers outlining the charges, the FBI said that about a month before the attack, Tsarnaev told two of them that he knew how to make a bomb.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - A powerful blast believed to be a gas explosion ripped open an office building in the center of Prague on Monday, injuring at least 35 people and sending shock waves through the Old Town tourist district. The blast shattered windows in the scenic area of charming streets and postcard-pretty buildings, sending glass flying. Authorities closed a wide area around the site, and some tourists were stranded on street corners with baggage-loaded trolleys, unable to get into their hotels.

MOSCOW - Kazakhstan's acting border service chief was among 27 people killed in a military plane crash Tuesday near a southern city, another blow to the agency after he was appointed in June to deal with the aftermath of a mass killing involving a conscript. The Russian-made An-72 crashed at 12:55 GMT (7:55 a.m. Philadelphia time) about 12 miles away from the city of Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's Committee for National Security said in a statement. The fatalities included a crew of seven and 20 border guards, including the acting head of the ex-Soviet nation's border protection service, Col. Turganbek Stambekov, the statement said.

Hezbollah urges: 'Express . . . anger' KARACHI, Pakistan - In a move that could escalate tensions in the Arab world, the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for protests against an anti-Islam movie, saying protesters should not only "express our anger" at U.S. embassies, but also urge leaders to act. "The ones who should be held accountable and boycotted," Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech, "are those who...

BACK DURING his playing days as a NFL and Major League Baseball star, Bo Jackson was famous for his advertising campaign for Nike cross-training shoes called "Bo Knows. " In the original ad, Jackson is shown participating in football, basketball, tennis and ice hockey. Back-to-back 100-meter champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica doesn't take a back seat to anyone and on Monday, he told a British newspaper that he'd like to play soccer for world club power Manchester United. He even got an offer of assistance from Man U star Rio Ferdinand.

The Hunger Games killed, destroyed, folded, spindled, and mutilated at the weekend box office. Studio guesses say opening night was the fifth-best debut ever. Since the top four were all Harry Potter or Twilight sequels, Hunger is the top non-sequel opener ever! When all the arrows had fallen Sunday night, Hunger , at $155 million (almost twice the $80 mils it cost), had scored the third-best opening weekend ever. Now you can buy your Hunger Games hunter-grrrl shirt dress and matching lunch box and join your friends in Hunger Games -inspired nonsense, knowing millions are doing the same.

Philadelphia's Stephen Fulton Jr. continued to dominate the 108-pound division in the USA Boxing National Championships in Fort Carson, Colo., Thursday when he won a 13-12 quarterfinal decision over David Carlton of Cincinnati. The victory sent Fulton into the semifinals against Santos Vasquez of Sparks, Nev. Winners will advance to the men's world championships next year in Astana, Kazakhstan, and the women's championships in Qinhuangdao, China, May 9-20. Streaming video and results of the tournament are available at www.usaboxing.org .   - Inquirer staff

MOSCOW - A rash of teenage suicides in Russia has set off alarm bells and experts are urging the government to take immediate action. Russia has the world's third-highest rate of suicide among the 15-to-19 age group, with about 1,500 taking their own lives every year, according to a recent UNICEF report. The rate is higher only in the neighboring former Soviet republics of Belarus and Kazakhstan. In recent years, there have been 19 to 20 annual suicides per 100,000 teenagers in Russia - three times the world average, Boris Polozhy of the respected Serbsky psychiatric center in Moscow said Friday.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Traffic police in a southern Kazakhstan city have complained of a rising tide of motorists replacing their license plates with signs reading "I Love Sex. " Online news channel Mir reported yesterday that one of them, a 19-year old motorist in Kyzyl-Orda, was fined $1,000 for pinning the provocative plate to his SUV. The station also showed police footage of another car bearing a more chaste plate honoring a woman: "I Love...