Учебно-методическое пособие по работе с темой "COUNTRY PROFILE". Дедова С.А. - 44 стр.

What information can you get from the following chart?                            stan and perhaps the same number in Afghanistan, where they are the major
Kyrgyzstan:                                                                       population group. Over the years Pashtun on both sides have raised the
Population: 4.8 million                                                           «Pashtunistan» issue, as it's called, demanding a merger of all Pashtun or at
Capital: Bishkek                                                                  least a plebiscite to decide what nation they will be part of. As Afghanistan
Languages: Kyrgyz and Russian (no breakdown available)                            stirred this issue in the 1960s, Pakistani officials concluded their nation was
Ethnic groups: Kyrgyz – 65 %, Uzbek – 14 %, Russian – 13 %, other – 8 %           boxed in by enemies – on the east by India (with whom Pakistan has fought
Religions: Muslim – 75 %, Russian Orthodox – 20 %, other – 5 %                    two wars over Kashmir) and on the west by Afghanistan.
Life expectancy: 63.5 years                                                               Whatever the future regime in Kabul, Pakistan probably will try to
Infant mortality: 77 per 1,000 births                                             dominate it.
Total area: 76,641 square miles                                                           Pakistan has the means to dominate; its military, 620,000 strong, is
In brief: The Epic of Manas recounts the tale of a medieval tribal leader’s       by far the largest in the Stans. And it has the bomb, as it proved in test ex-
adventures conquering land for the Turkic people and of feasts where              plosions in 1998, answering India's nuclear tests.
guests «ate mountains of meat and drank lakes of kumiss», still a favored                 Defense gets about 30 percent of the government budget. Education
beverage of fermented mare’s milk. Says one expert, «The Kyrgyz think of          receives less than a tenth as much – even though almost half the nation’s
themselves as the poets and artists of Central Asia».                             145 million citizens are under the age of 15. Few rural girls receive any
                                                                                  education at all. More and more, families send their sons to thousands of
                                WILD CARD                                         schools called madrasahs that may dispense an ultraconservative version of
                                                                                  Islam and little else. Many madrasahs also foment hatred of the U.S., call-
        Power broker – or powder keg for a region in chaos? Set up by the
                                                                                  ing the attack on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden one of a long list of
British in 1347, Pakistan blends East and West.
                                                                                  U.S. offenses against Islam.
        It's been called a powder keg and a failing state – «a cat that has
                                                                                          The U.S. was once Pakistan’s closest ally and many Pakistanis
used up several of its lives», in the words of one U.S. expert.
                                                                                  probably still respect their old friend. But the relationship could become
        The economy is flagging, education is a shambles. For the fourth
                                                                                  problematic as Pakistan stumbles toward its uncertain future, carrying its
time since Pakistan came into existence 54 years ago, the army in 1999
                                                                                  nuclear baggage.
ousted the elected government and took control. Afghanistan's wars have
flooded Pakistan with weapons, spawning a «Kalashnikov culture», a pro-           Read the following brief information to get additional facts about Pakistan.
pensity to settle disputes with modern weaponry, even grenade launchers.          Population: 144.6 million
Shoot-outs between political parties, or between civilians and police or sol-     Capital: Islamabad
diers, are common in the port city of Karachi, now swollen to 12 million          Languages: Punjabi, variants – 58 %, Sindhi – 12 %, Pashtu – 8 %, Urdu –
people.                                                                           8 %, other – 14 %
        In 1947 Pakistan was created as a Muslim homeland in the partition        Ethnic groups: Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun, Baluchi, Muhajir
of British India. The name is an acronym, coined from some of the new             Religions: Sunni Muslim – 77 %, Shiite Muslim – 20 %, other – 3 %
land's regions: Punjab, Afghania (the North-West Frontier), Kashmir, and          Life expectancy: 61.5 years
Indus-Sind. Pak happens to mean «pure» in Urdu, the official language.            Infant mortality: 81 per 1,000 births
Thus Pakistan is «land of the pure».                                              Total area: 307,374 square miles
        Punjab Province, with 59 percent of the population, is so dominant        In brief: Nearly two-thirds of the population of all the Stans lives in Paki-
in politics that Baluchi and Pashtun, the peoples of the North-West Fron-         stan, the world’s second most populous Muslim country, after Indonesia.
tier, bristle at the «Punjabization» of the nation and demand autonomy. The
Pashtun intensify the difficulties, for their homeland is divided by an artifi-   3) Using the previous texts as the sample, make up a profile of any country.
cial boundary drawn by the British in 1893. About 11 million live in Paki-

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