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International

Astana, Kazakhstan

‘Stan’ is a slur: Seeking to dispel the image of his country as backward, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has proposed changing Kazakhstan’s name to “Kazakh Yeli,” which means “Land of the Kazakhs.” Kazakhstan is much more economically developed than its former Soviet socialist republic neighbors Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan and has none of the insurgent problems of Afghanistan or Pakistan. But the “stan” suffix, Nazarbayev said, makes the world lump his country in with those. Some Kazakh media have already started using the new name, though Parliament hasn’t yet voted on whether to adopt it formally.

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