At a glance.Leader: President Islam Karimov. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Economy: GNI GNI Gross National Income GNI Global Nomads International GNI Guyana News and Information GNI Gay Naturists International GNI Global Netoptex Inc. GNI Great Northern Iron GNI Gebäude Netzwerk Institut (German) per capita [Latin, By the heads or polls.] A term used in the Descent and Distribution of the estate of one who dies without a will. It means to share and share alike according to the number of individuals. : $610 (Kazakhstan $3,790, Russia $5,780). Monetary unit: Sum. Main exports: Cotton, gold, natural gas and oil. Business is driven by politics and strict border trade laws stunt non-resource industry growth. The Government has launched a campaign to privatize parts of minor enterprises while retaining a majority share. People: 27.0 million. Annual population growth rate 1.7%. People per square kilometre 60 (UK 246). Health: Infant mortality (hardware) infant mortality - It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical 38 per 1,000 live births (Kazakhstan 26, Russia 14). HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. prevalence rate 0.2%. Patients brought to hospital by ambulance must pay for their own medication and some doctors take bribes. Diet is varied with an abundance of fruit and vegetables grown in the Ferghana Valley but less than half of the population has access to safe drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. . Environment: Water pollution from industrial waste and the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides causes health problems. Soil is contaminated from buried nuclear-processing waste and agricultural chemicals, including DDT DDT or 2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-1,1,1,-trichloroethane, chlorinated hydrocarbon compound used as an insecticide. First introduced during the 1940s, it killed insects that spread disease and feed on crops. . The Aral Sea continues to shrink. Culture: Ethnic Uzbeks descended from Turks or Mongols 80 per cent, Russian 5.5 per cent, Tajik 5 per cent, Kazakh 3 per cent. The remainder is mainly Karakalpak and Tatar Tatar or Tartar Any member of the Turkic-speaking peoples who today live mainly in west-central Russia east to the Ural Mountains, in Kazakhstan, and in western Siberia. They first appeared as nomadic tribes in northeastern Mongolia in the 5th century. . Religion: Muslim (Sunni) 88%; Orthodox Christian 1%; Other (mainly non-religious) 11%. Languages: Uzbek, a Turkic language written in Cyrillic script, is the official state language, but Russian is still used for inter-ethnic communication. Human Development Index: 1990 0.704; 2005 0.702 (Kazakhstan 0.794, Russia 0.802). Sources: UNICEF UNICEF (y  `nĭsĕf'), the United Nations Children's Fund, an affiliated agency of the United Nations. , World Bank, World Guide, UNDP UNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNDP Unión Nacional para la Democracia y el Progreso (National Union for Democracy and Progress) . Last profiled October 1998 Star ratings INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR Around 26 per cent live below the poverty line. Corruption is endemic and the lower ranks of society suffer from an increasingly unequal distribution of wealth. 1998 POOR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIFE EXPECTANCY GOOD 67 years for men (Kazakhstan 66, Russia 65). 1998 FAIR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LITERACY ***** Access to primary and secondary education is good and literacy is almost 100 per cent but children miss school when they are forced to harvest cotton every autumn. 1998 EXCELLENT [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] POSITION OF WOMEN POOR The position of women is sliding as nationalism rises. Officials force many to stay in hostile, violent domestic situations in the name of 'family values'. Poverty-stricken mothers can be fooled into selling their daughters as sex slaves. 1998 POOR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FREEDOM APPALLING Homosexuals, outspoken religious leaders and opponents to Karimov's regime are often tortured and sentenced without a fair trial. Citizens must obtain State permission to live or work in a particular location and no-one can leave the country without an exit visa. Almost all media is state owned. Independent journalists are regularly imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- for carrying 'anti-constitutional material'. 1998 POOR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SEXUAL MINORITIES APPALLING Homosexuality is illegal and subject to torture and imprisonment Imprisonment See also Isolation. Alcatraz Island former federal maximum security penitentiary, near San Francisco; “escapeproof.” [Am. Hist.: Flexner, 218] Altmark, the German prison ship in World War II. [Br. Hist. . Some gay men adopt a fiercely homophobic attitude in public for fear of persecution by the authorities. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NI assessment POLITICS APPALLING Karimov presides over the worst human rights record in Central Asia. Opposition parties are banned and all members of parliament are fiercely loyal to the President. Karimov is currently serving his third term as President even though the constitution only allows him to serve two. He got round that inconvenience during the last presidential elections in December 2007 by not mentioning it. ***** EXCELLENT **** GOOD *** FAIR ** POOR * APPALLING |
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