Country information

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Area: 2,699,800km
Population: 15.2m
Capital City: Astana
People: 53.4% Kazakh, 30% Russian, 3.7% Ukrainian, 2.4% German, 2.5% Uzbek, 2.5% Tartar, 5.5% other
Languages: Kazakh and Russian
Religion(s): Muslim 57%, Russian Orthodox 31%, Protestant 2%, Other 7%
Currency: Kazakh Tenge
Major political parties: Nur OTAN ('Fatherland') Party,  Social Democratic Party, Ak Zhol, , Azat  
Government:
Head of State:Nursultan Nazarbayev
Prime Minister/Premier: Karim Masimov
Foreign Minister: Marat Tazhin
Membership of international groupings/organisations: UN, the IMF/World Bank, EBRD, OSCE, Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty, the Eurasian Economic Community, Central Asian Co-operation Organisation, Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building.

HEALTH

Drugs

Kazakhstan is a significant transit route for Afghan grown and produced opium and heroin. Most of this northern flow is aimed at the growing domestic drugs market in Russia, but Central Asia is becoming a transit route for some Afghan heroin trafficked to Europe across the Caspian Sea and through the Caucasus. There is also increasing evidence of international crime gangs working in Kazakhstan, often with contacts in Germany and the Baltic States. The Central Asian Republics recognise the drugs threat but have only a limited capacity to tackle it. Drug seizures in Central Asia increased tenfold between 1995 and 1999 and almost tripled between 1999 and 2000. Porous borders and ineffective border management hinder the counter-narcotics effort, but the European Commission, OSCE, UN, IOM and US Government are implementing border projects.

There is small-scale cultivation of the opium poppy in southern Kazakhstan. Hemp grows wild in many parts of Southern Kazakhstan. Precursor chemicals (acetic anhydride) are produced of which the vast majority is for legitimate purposes, but some is diverted for heroin production. According to official statistics, there are  55,286 registered drug addicts in Kazakhstan in 2007, compared to  53,577 in 2006. UNODC estimate that there are actually between 165,000 and 186,000 drugs users in Kazakhstan and that 70% of these are injecting drug users. The increase in drug use is reflected in the increase in reported HIV cases –  9,378 cases in 2007 compared to  7,402 the previous year.

 

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