West Side Homies Under Attack

KAZAKHSTAN'S Foreign Ministry threatened legal action overnight against a British comedian who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.

Sacha Baron Cohen, who portrays a spoof Kazakh television presenter Borat in his Da Ali G Show, has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan, the world's ninth largest country yet still little known to many in the West, on British, Australian and US channels.

Cohen appears to have drawn official Kazakh ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month as Borat, who arrived in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle.

[ Booze, Punching Cows and Sexy time. What more could you want ]