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Article: Central Asia: Aral Sea Problem.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Foreign Policy in Focus
- Article date:
- March 13, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Institute for Policy Studies. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Following the Soviet Union's collapse, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan entered an international system transformed by globalization and the emergence of a liberalized economic order. The challenge to integrate into this system was tremendous, since the Central Asian states had only reluctantly embraced independence. Finding themselves cut off from their traditional sources of revenue from Moscow, new Central Asian heads of state had to deal with stagnating economies, collapsing social welfare systems, high levels of corruption, disgruntled populations, and severely damaged environments. Despite these daunting problems, the breakup of the ...