LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Uzbekistan
built 630 days ago
Uzbekistan is a member of the United Nations (since March 2, 1992), the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Partnership for Peace, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It belongs to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (comprised of the five Central Asian countries, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). In 1999 , Uzbekistan joined the GUAM alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which was formed in 1997 (making it GUUAM), but pulled out of the organization in 2005. Uzbekistan is ... a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and hosts the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Uzbekistan joined the new Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) in 2002. The CACO consists of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
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Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country of which 10% consists of intensely cultivated, irrigated river valleys. More than 60% of its population lives in densely populated rural communities. Uzbekistan is now the world's third largest cotton exporter, a large producer of gold and oil, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Following independence in December 1991, the government sought to prop up its Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on production and prices. Faced with high rates of inflation... the government began to reform in mid-1994, by introducing tighter monetary policies, expanding privatization, slightly reducing the role of the state in the economy, and improving the environment for foreign investors. The state continues to be a dominating influence in the economy and has so far failed to bring about much-needed structural changes.
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Located in the heart of Central Asia between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, Uzbekistan has a long and interesting heritage. The leading cities of the famous Silk Road--Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva--are located in Uzbekistan, and many famous conquerors passed through the land. Alexander the Great stopped near Samarkand on his way to India in 327 B.C. and married Roxanna, daughter of a local chieftain. Conquered by Muslim Arabs in the eigth century A.D., the indigenous Samanid dynasty established an empire in the 9th century. Its territory was overrun by Genghis Khan and his Mongols in 1220. In the 1300s, Timur, known in the west as Tamerlane, built an empire with its capital at Samarkand.
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Uzbekistan has numerous environmental issues. There is soil contamination from buried nuclear processing and agricultural chemicals, including DDT. There is water pollution from industrial wastes and the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides, which is the cause of many human health disorders. The shrinkage of the Aral Sea has resulted in growing concentrations of chemical pesticides and natural salts. These substances are then blown from the increasingly exposed lake bed and contribute to desertification. In addition, there is increasing soil salination.
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Between August 21 and September 22, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, and Turkmenistan declared their independence. Simultaneously, Boris Yeltsin ordered the CPSU to suspend its activities on the territory of Russia and closed the Central Committee building at Staraya Ploschad. The Russian flag now flew beside the Soviet flag at the Kremlin. In light of these circumstances, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU on August 24 and advised the Central Committee to dissolve. Gorbachev's hopes of a new Union were further hit when the Congress of People's Deputies dissolved itself on September 5. Though Gorbachev and the representatives of 8 republics (excluding Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) signed an agreement on forming a new economic community on October 18, events were overtaking Gorbachev.[5]
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Uzbekistan does not possess nuclear weapons, though tactical nuclear weapons may have been present on its territory during the Soviet era. Nuclear material remains in Uzbekistan in the form of irradiated fuel elements containing highly enriched uranium (HEU) at an operational nuclear research reactor near Tashkent. In September of 2004, nearly 11 kilograms of Russian-origin enriched uranium fuel, including three kilograms of HEU, were repatriated to Russia to be downblended into low-enriched fuel suitable for use in nuclear power reactors. A second research reactor in Tashkent was dismantled in the 1990s. Uzbekistan is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Uzbekistani President Islam Karimov formally proposed the creation of a Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone at the 48th session of the UN General Assembly in 1993.
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