Kazakhstan in move to ban opposition parties and media By Dmitry Solovyov and Robin Paxton Nazarbayev, 72, has run Central Asia's most successful economy and largest oil producer for more than two decades, tolerating little dissent in pursuit of market reforms and foreign investment that has exceeded $150 billion. Nurdaulet Suindikov, spokesman for the prosecutor-general's office, on Wednesday accused the two opposition movements Kozlov led and various media outlets of "propagating extremism." Reporters Without Borders said it was "appalled" by the prosecutor-general's move and urged the Almaty court to reject a request it said would push Kazakhstan closer to the "ultra-authoritarian model" of neighbors Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. If granted, pluralism would quite simply cease to exist in this country. The government is using the pretext of combating extremism to launch an unprecedented offensive against its critics," the Paris-based media watchdog said in a statement. A photograph of a decapitated dog hangs in the paper's Almaty offices, a reminder of a grisly delivery in 2002 after it published a series of articles alleging corruption. "They may close the paper in legal form, but given the presence of the Internet, it is hard to do so in reality," Makushina said. The satellite TV channel K+ and the Internet portal Stan-TV are among the other media outlets targeted by prosecutors. State television ran a documentary this week that identified Ablyazov as the financial backer of both channels. Baurzhan Musirov, director of Stan Production, which runs the Stan.KZ portal, denied this. The channel's reporters were first on the scene when oil workers in overalls began kicking over speakers at an Independence Day concert in Zhanaozen on December 16 last year. Musirov ranks Stan.KZ's coverage of Zhanaozen, including the seven-month labor dispute that preceded the violence, as the portal's most significant contribution to reporting on events in Kazakhstan. But he denied any allegiance to opposition groups. "We raise questions and we look at different problems," he said. Those who watch our material see a picture that doesn't exist everywhere. Ablyazov, meanwhile, has been on the run since February. He had been sentenced to 22 months in prison for contempt of court in Britain, where he had earlier received political asylum. His current whereabouts are unknown. Additional reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva; Editing by Andrew Osborn