2 lyceum of information technologies pupil: teacher

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 1.793 million (2005); mobile cellular: 1.1 million (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 20, FM 7, shortwave 10 (1998). Radios: 10.2 million (1997). Television broadcast stations: 4 (plus two repeater stations that relay Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tadzhik programs) (1997). Televisions: 6.4 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 9,058 (2006). Internet users: 880,000 (2005).
Transportation: Railways: total: 3,950 km (2002 Highways: total: 81,600 km; paved: 71,237 km; unpaved: 10,363 km (1999 est.). Waterways: 1,100 (1990). Ports and harbors: Termiz (Amu Darya river). Airports: 61 (2006).
International disputes: prolonged regional drought creates water-sharing difficulties for Amu Darya river states; delimitation with Kazakhstan complete with demarcation underway; serious disputes with Kyrgyzstan around Uzbek enclaves mar progress on delimitation efforts; talks have begun with Tajikistan to determine and delimit border.
Major sources and definitions

Geography

Uzbekistan is situated in central Asia between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, the Aral Sea, and the slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains. It is bounded by Kazakhstan in the north and northwest, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east and southeast, Turkmenistan in the southwest, and Afghanistan in the south. The republic also includes the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, with its capital, Nukus (1992 est. pop., 182,000). The country is about one-tenth larger in area than the state of California.

Government

Republic; authoritarian presidential rule.

History

The Uzbekistan land was once part of the ancient Persian Empire and was later conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. During the 8th century, the nomadic Turkic tribes living there were converted to Islam by invading Arab forces who dominated the area. The Mongols under Ghengis Khan took over the region from the Seljuk Turks in the 13th century, and it later became part of Tamerlane the Great's empire and that of his successors until the 16th century. The Uzbeks invaded the territory in the early 16th century and merged with the other inhabitants in the area. Their empire broke up into separate Uzbek principalities, the khanates of Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand. These city-states resisted Russian expansion into the area but were conquered by the Russian forces in the mid-19th century.
The territory was made into the Uzbek Republic in 1924 and became the independent Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925. Under Soviet rule, Uzbekistan concentrated on growing cotton with the help of irrigation, mechanization, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, causing serious environmental damage.
In June 1990, Uzbekistan was the first central Asian republic to declare that its own laws had sovereignty over those of the central Soviet government. Uzbekistan became fully independent and joined with ten other former Soviet republics on Dec. 21, 1991, in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Vozrozhdeniye, an island in the Aral Sea, was a secret test site for biological weapons during the Soviet era. In 1988, the Soviets attempted to bury the evidence on the island, a frightening legacy that Uzbekistan inherited upon independence. U.S. scientists have confirmed that the island contains live anthrax and other deadly poisons.
President Karimov, a former Communist Party boss, is an autocrat who has brutally suppressed political parties and religious freedom and maintained rule with an iron fist. In 1999, after a bus hijacking, he declared, “I am prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic.” The country's thousands of political and religious prisoners are subject to appalling conditions and horrific torture, including being boiled alive.
In 1999, the country battled against militant Islamic groups bent on the overthrow of the secular government. Fighting against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) continued for the next several years.
In 2001, Uzbekistan provided the U.S. and UK with a base to fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in neighboring Afghanistan and became the United States' main regional partner in the war on terror. Karimov linked his own battle against the Islamic opposition to the global fight on terrorism. He also exploited the real threat of Islamicism by labeling all of his opponents as Islamic extremists. As a strategic partner, the U.S. has been reluctant to take a firm stand regarding Uzbekistan's dismal human rights record. According to a report in the New York Times in May 2005, the U.S. has sent clandestine planeloads of accused terrorists to Uzbekistan as part of its controversial “rendition” program, the delivery of prisoners to countries with abusive interrogation tactics that are prohibited in the United States.
On May 13, 2005, unarmed antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Andijan were killed in a military crackdown; the number of casualties is still disputed, but it may be as many as 1,000. Earlier, a number of protesters had stormed a prison and released about 2,000 prisoners to protest what they saw as the rigged trial of 23 businessmen. The government claimed the men were Islamic terrorists; the protesters insisted the 23 were antigovernment civic leaders whom the government saw as a threat to its authority. In July 2005, President Karimov ordered the U.S. military to close its air base in Uzbekistan after the U.S. called for an inquiry into the massacre and supported the airlift of Uzbek refugees escaping the violence. The base was shut down four months later, with U.S. forces moving to Kyrgyzstan.