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POTUS to Face no Charges over Qazaq Flag-gate

10 May

9 May 2018

US President Donald Trump is to face no charges over an incident when he wrapped himself in the Qazaq flag during President Nazarbayev’s visit to the White House in January.

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Let’s make Qazaqstan great!

The decision came as part of a general amnesty for 9 May – the day that commemorates the cessation of hostilities in World War 2 for former Soviet Union countries.

Abusing the state flag usually carries a hefty sentence in Qazaqstan, which operates a strict zero tolerance policy, but due to President Drumpf’s diminished responsibility, it was decided no further action would be taken at this moment in time.

Lady Fudge, a prominent member of Lord Venal’s legal team, told kazaxia that taking legal action would have created problems, especially in the light of arch-rival Uzbekistan sending a high-level delegation headed by President Mirziyoyev to the White House later this month.

“In Qazaqstan once charges are pressed you are de facto considered guilty until proven guilty so if the case involving POTUS had made it to court, it would almost certainly have ended in a conviction,” Lady Fudge said.

(Editor’s note: the acquittal rate in Qazaqstan hovers around 1%)

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Qazaqstan: Adios to the Apostrophe

20 Feb

19 February 2018

Astana has announced a new version of Qazaq’s latin alphabet using 32 symbols and ditching the much maligned apostrophe version launched last year.

Despite only unveiling the new alphabet in October last year, the Leader of the Nation has now changed his mind and the apostrophe-heavy alphabet has now been strangled before its birth in 2025 in favour of a diacritic-laden version.

Adios to the short-lived apostrophe
Welcome diacritics

There was an immediate reaction on social media with the Twitter hashtag #A’po’s’t’rof’dunS’a’qtap’Qal’  (#SaveTheApostrophe) getting at least three likes as pro-apostrophe fans defended the October version of the alphabet.

 

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When Nureke meets Donny

16 Jan

16 January 2018

Later today Qazaqstan’s Leader of the Nation, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is due to meet America’s novice president Donald Drumpf in Washington.

In this opinionated piece, kazaxia speculates on what may pass in this meeting between one of the world’s longest serving non-royal heads of state and the orange haired golfer who has enjoyed a gaffe-strewn first year in the White House.

Nazarbayev Trump

(image borrowed from https://www.kazakhembus.com/content/president-nazarbayev-meets-president-trump)

What advice can the world’s fourth longest-serving leader give to the newbie, whose forebears left Germany when it was quite a shithole?

kazaxia has identified three areas for advice:

Media

President Drumpf’s first year has been marred by a stormy relationship with the media, with many a foul-mouthed outburst on Twitter coming out of Donny’s Mar a Lago golf resort in the middle of the night.

Qazaqstan has reined in its pesky media by forcing outlets, such as Respublika, to close or encouraging owners to sell their outlets, such as Svoboda Slova, to more compliant, pro-goverment owners.

Opponents

Donny’s campaign to become president saw calls of ‘Lock her up’ directed at his main rival Hillary Clinton. This method has proved a most effective one in Qazaqstan with the authorities throwing many opponents, such as Vladimir Kozlov, behind bars.

Hagiography

2018 got off to a bad start for the White House with Micheal Wolff’s ‘explosive’ exposé of the Drumpf presidency – ‘Fire and Fury’. To counteract this ‘fake news’ account of the day-to-day workings of the regime, Don should consider using Elbasi’s personal hagiographer, ex-jailbird Jonathan Aitken, who can be guaranteed to give a glowing account of life in the White House.

It looks like these guys’ll get on like a house on fire!

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Qazaqstan Latyn A’lipbi’ine Qol Qoiydi

27 Oct

Qazahi’a’ is pleased to announce that after many minutes of public consultation, President Nazarbayev has decided in his wisdom that Qazaqstan’s Latin alphabet will look like this:

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 12.44.53

The idea behind the switch from Cyrillic to Latin for the Qazaq language was motivated by a desire to make modern technology more user-friendly for Qazaqs. The Cyrillic alphabet currently uses 42 characters, making it awkward to use on tech devices as it uses up all the keyboard including the space usually used for numbers.

The president’s solution is a slimmed-down 32 letter alphabet using ‘ to modify letters so, for instance, ‘ch’ (a sound imported from Russian) becomes ‘c” and ‘sh’ becomes ‘s”.

Here at Qazahi’a’  we’re not convinced that apostrophes are the way forward, but who cares about that – it’s all been decided, as usual, from the top down.

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