Trailer - http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/borat/trailer/
website - http://www.borat.tv/ (great layout)
In November 2005, following Borat's hosting of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry voiced their concerns about the character. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilised behaviour", concluding "We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind".
Baron Cohen has since posted a video on the Official Borat Website (since removed by the Kazakh government) where Borat responds to Ashykbayev in character. In the video, Borat states, in part, "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew. Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear the blue hat [sic], and the age of consent has been raised to eight years old."
Reuters has quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying "They (the Kazakh Government) are damned if they do (respond) and damned if they don't," he said. "It's sort of unfortunate that he hit upon Kazakhstan."
The next week, the government hired two Western public relations firms to counter Borat's claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in the New York Times. The ad carries testimonials about the nation’s democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. On a previous occasion, Borat responded to official Kazakh complaints by issuing his own press release, which consisted of random Cyrillic characters.
Borat's conflict with Kazakh authorities has recently come to a head. According to Reuters www.borat.kz has been suspended [4]
"We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name," Nurlan Isin, President of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies, told Reuters. "He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."
Reporters Without Borders has petitioned the ICANN ombudsman to intervene and reverse this decision. [5]
It should also be noted that the character of Borat does not in any way resemble ethnic Kazakhs, who comprise the majority of the nation's population.
-wikipedia-
and to spite them even more he's making a movie.
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Originally Posted by sportcars
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