1. Uzbek-US agreement on military cooperation for year 2000 signed

2. Key facts about Uzbekistan

3. Voting procedure for Uzbek parliamentary vote

4. Parties in Uzbekistan parliamentary election

5. Uzbekistan rejects OSCE criticism of election campaign

6. Uzbek-Korean venture opens second textile plant

7. Uzbekistan's mufti makes remarks at National Press Club in Washington

8. Russian Prime Minister to visit Uzbekistan

9. Twenty-five new HIV cases in Uzbekistan this year

10. EBRD grants 15m dollars to upgrade Uzbek locomotive depots

11. Five Uzbek parties outline what they stand for

12. Two Uzbek parties unhappy with economic situation

13. Uzbek president leaves for Ukrainian counterpart's inauguration

14. Uzbek customs seize 6 kg of heroin headed for Russia

15. OSCE explains election decision in Uzbekistan

16. Grigorian's 10th victory

17. Uzbek forces have "completely wiped out militants"

18. Uzbekistan qualifies for Asian Cup 2000 in Lebanon

19. Why was Laylo murdered?

20. Uzbek president to run for another term

21. Japanese government aid for Japanese language in Uzbekistan

22. Uzbekistan to participate in Ukrainian-Russian aircraft development

23. Tajik deputy minister says all Uzbek fighters left for Afghanistan

24. Avalanche in eastern region claims human lives

25. Some statistics on Uzbek economy

+ Full name: Republic of Uzbekistan.

+ Population: 24 million, of which Uzbeks account for 75 percent of the total, Tajiks and Kazakhs four percent each and Russians less than six percent. There are small numbers of Karakalpaks, Tatars, Koreans and Persians. The electorate is 12.6 million.

+ Area: 447,400 square kilometres (279,625 square miles). A landlocked state, Uzbekistan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan to the east, Tajikistan to the southeast, Afghanistan to the south and Turkmenistan to the southwest.

+ Capital city: Tashkent, population around 2.5 million.

+ The official state language is Uzbek, a Turkic language. Russian is officially used between different ethnic groups and Tajik, a Persian language, is widely spoken in some regions, especially the historic Silk Road cities Samarkand and Bukhara.

+ Uzbekistan is officially a secular state, but the Sunni branch of Islam is the most widely practised religion.

+ Uzbekistan is a democracy with the president elected for a five-year period. The president appoints the prime minister and the cabinet.

The country has a unicameral legislature. The Oli Mazhlis parliament comprising 250 seats is elected every five years. Parliament is extremely weak, with President Islam Karimov wielding extensive control over all branches of power.

+ Uzbekistan prides itself on having one of the oldest civilisations in the region -- some of its areas were settled 2,600 years ago and the country was an important centre of culture and learning in the Middle Ages.

But modern-day Uzbekistan was a creation of Soviet power in 1924 based on the People's Republic of Turkestan which was formed in 1918. Later Tajikistan was hived off, although several Tajik-speaking areas were left within Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with former Communist boss Karimov as president. The country's reputation for stability was shattered in February 1999 when several bomb blasts in Tashkent claimed 16 lives and narrowly missed killing the president. The bombs were attributed to fundamentalist Moslem opponents operating mainly abroad who allegedly aim to create an Islamic state. But analysts also blame the upsurge in radicalism on the suppression of Islamic movements in the impoverished country.

+ Uzbekistan's foreign policy has been to maintain a distance from former Soviet allies as well as the West. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose grouping of 12 former Soviet republics. Analysts say Uzbekistan, which has a sizeable standing army and air force, is keen to play a dominant role in Central Asia.

+ The economy was shaken by the collapse of the command system, contracting 18 percent in real terms between 1992 and 1995. The fall was smaller than in some other CIS countries.

Gross domestic product is expected to grow by 4.5 percent in 1999 as compared to a 4.4 percent rise in 1998. Uzbekistan retains its Soviet-era dependence on raw material exports, relying largely on cotton and gold. The country has rich deposits of gold, natural gas and base metals. Tight capital controls, bureaucracy and the emerging markets crisis have hindered badly needed foreign investment and some recent tenders for the privatisation of key firms have flopped.

+ The national currency is the sum, fixed at 138.83 to the U.S. dollar. It trades on the black market at about 750 sum to the dollar. Average monthly wages are about $10 at the black market rate. (Reuters)

+ Polling stations open at 6:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. (0100 GMT to 1500 GMT). During this time all Uzbek citizens over 18 years of age can vote at 8,000 polling stations across the country. At least 50 percent of the electorate must vote in order for the election to be considered valid.

+ All 250 seats will be contested as single-member constituencies. A total of 1,019 candidates have been registered by the Central Election Commission (CEC). They represent five political parties, various government organisations and citizens' groups.

+ Any candidate winning over 50 percent of the vote in a constituency is declared elected. If a candidate fails to win the necessary number of votes and is not running unopposed, the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the first round go through to a runoff.

+ The second round must be held within two weeks after the first round. The candidate winning the greater number of votes is declared elected.

+ Repolling will be ordered if the election is declared invalid in any of the constituencies, if the runoff fails to identify the winner and in cases where only two candidates were running for election in a constituency and neither of them received enough votes to win.

+ In such cases repolling must be held within a month after the main election process.

+ Final results and the complete list of winning candidates must be published no later than 10 days after the election. Some preliminary results are expected late on Monday or early Tuesday.

+ The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has refused to send a full observer mission to monitor the election, although a special assessment team is in place.

The agency, which sent a full team to the October Kazakh parliament election but later blasted the results, said that the Uzbek election would not promote democracy in the country as voting conditions were not competitive.

PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF UZBEKISTAN - Created in 1991 as the successor to the Communist Party, the PDPU was led by Karimov until 1996 and has more than 500,000 members. It calls for peace and stability between Uzbekistan's ethnic groups. Its first secretary, Abdulkhafiz Dzhalalov, has been registered as the single candidate challenging Karimov in Uzbekistan's presidential election in January.

VATAN TARRAKIYATI (Progress of the Fatherland) - The party supports market reforms and support for entrepreneurs.

SOCIAL DEMOCATIC PARTY ADOLOT (Justice) - Its main support base is trade unions and it promises to protect socially vulnerable sections of the population.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY MILLI TIKLANISH (National Renaissance) - The party has declared its main task to be the rejuvenation of Uzbek culture, promoting solidarity with the rest of Central Asia and strengthening the idea of a common Turkestan homeland in the region.

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY FIDOKORLAR (Self Sacrifice) - President Karimov has been registered as a presidential candidate representing the Fidokorlar party. The party targets the youth as well as small- and medium-sized enterprises. It has advocated building an open society and market economy while at the same time supporting national interests.

(Interfax) South Korean Kabool Textiles has launched a 114.5m-dollar cotton spinning plant in Tashkent. Construction of the plant began in 1998. The plant has a production capacity of 24,000 t of cotton thread and 9m linear metres of unbleached cotton fabric per annum, from 26,000 t of cotton fibre. The plant employs 2,700 people, an Interfax correspondent reported from Tashkent. At the opening ceremony, Uzbek President Islam Karimov announced that the government would do everything to ensure that Kabool Textiles received favourable conditions for business in the republic. Kabool Textiles has invested about 180m dollars in the Uzbek economy to date.

(Radio Liberty) Speaking in Washington on 30 November, Uzbekistan's Mufti Abdulrashid Kory Bakhromov and Tashkent's Ambassador to the U.S. Sodyq Safaev said that hundreds of young Uzbeks are being recruited and trained as terrorists in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan by radical Islamic organizations, an RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reported. A spokesman for the Pakistani embassy denied that allegation. Safaev said that radical Islamists are hindering the development of democracy in Uzbekistan. He called for cooperation to thwart their aim of "spreading Islamic fundamentalism throughout Central Asia," according to AP.

The secretary of the central council of the Adolat Social Democratic Party, T. Toshev, captioned Among those we have put up as our nominees to the Supreme Assembly are many very bright and competent individuals, acutely aware of legal and political matters and contemporary issues. I think if they are elected, it will only benefit us. I believe they will draw on their knowledge and skills to contribute to the development of Uzbekistan and the promotion of our people's well-being.

Kh. Olimjonov, member of the Central Council of the Vatan Taraqqiyoti party, captioned I am sure that our faction members - would-be deputies from Vatan Taraqqiyoti party - will make their own contribution to working out laws and making them humane because there are very many lawyers, both theorists and practical workers, and in general humane individuals among our 132 candidates.

The secretary of the central council of the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, M. Qirghizboyev, captioned At present our party has nominated 114 candidates to the Supreme Assembly. Their election propaganda and meetings with the public are in full swing in the regions. Many of the voters are showing loyalty to our candidates. If our party succeeds in forming its own faction in the new parliament, it will work hard for the further improvement of our people's revival as a nation and its national world outlook, and it will place public interests on top of everything else in its work in parliament. Our programmes concentrate chiefly on public interests.

Member of the central council of the Fidokorlar National Democratic Party, D. Ahmedov, captioned Our party has, in the end, to be a leading faction in the new parliament. For one thing, first of all, our parliamentary candidates numbering 223 are all very strong and professional. They are very young, highly-skilled and very quick to react, we would say. From this point of view, the people, the electorate, are witnessing a difference. Since they are young and very open and professional in answering questions from people, the electorate is realizing that they are new individuals and open-minded people. And these individuals are believed to be members of the parliament who will protect and project the image of Uzbekistan in the 21st century.

The secretary of the central council of the People's Democratic Party, A. Rustamov, captioned We nominated 247 candidates to the Supreme Assembly. And more than 6,000 of our candidates to the local councils of peoples deputies are at present struggling to win a deputy's status. We have made public our programme to fulfil very important tasks at the parliament. We will form a large faction of deputies able to do that. I think that we will take part in making and adopting laws to improve our people's living conditions, to develop our country.

The `Narodnoye Slovo' editorial board has approached the leaders of the five registered political parties, which are taking part in the current election campaign, and suggested that they answer some frequently asked questions. The aim of the action is to learn more about each party's stance regarding the most acute social problems. Today we are publishing the answers they have given to the following questions:

Are you satisfied with the pace of the country's industrial development? Does your party have any concrete programme of reform in this sector of the economy?

Ibrohim Ghofurov, the chairman of the Milliy Tiklanish [National Revival] Democratic Party said: "It is a evident that there is no prosperity without developed industry. It is everybody's dream today that we create a new industrial basis in this country. Without that it will not be possible to plan our future. The present pace of development is absolutely inadequate for a country like Uzbekistan. The pace should be increased. There are conditions for that - first of all the country's natural resources and huge workforce. Uzbekistan has great and unlimited natural resources, which have not been put to full use so far. Uzbekistan's policy of integration with the world economy, close cooperation with industrially developed countries and its well-thought-out policy of attracting foreign investments will be a basis for building modern industry in Uzbekistan.

"Do we have a long-term concept for the development of the country's industry?

"At the moment it is difficult to answer this important question positively. We think that such a concept should be worked out taking into account specific circumstances, such as the country's geographical location and close neighbours and their vital and strategic needs and interests."

Doniyorov, member of the political council of the Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party, said: "According to press reports (both domestic and foreign) and official statistics, Uzbekistan is ahead of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other CIS states in terms of industrial growth rate. We have launched production of over 600 new products. A car plant has been put into operation. We are almost fully self-sufficient in oil and petroleum products. We have also succeeded in ensuring food safety. Since 1995 we have been reducing the import of foodstuffs. In 1998 the share of foodstuffs in the overall import was 15.6 per cent against 30 per cent in 1995.

"The prevailing majority of the republic's population is satisfied with the state of industry and is proud of it. The members and the leader of our party, who is a citizen of this country just like everybody else, are similarly satisfied. At the same time it would be good to raise the rate of industrial growth still more.

"The core of the party's programme of further industrial development is further expansion of the export-oriented branches of industry. The programme is based on Uzbekistan's state, economic, social and financial interests and aims at developing its industry to the level of industrially developed countries, which is possible taking into account the country's economic potential."

The first secretary of the Central Council of the People's Democratic Party, Abdulkhafiz Jalolov, said: "Judging by official reports - which your newspaper also carries - the rate of our economic development is quite satisfactory. When you take into account the growing inflation and the continuing growth of prices on essential goods and services, one cannot but admit that the present rate of industrial development is not sufficient for the emergence of a proper domestic market.

"Our party has a concrete position on the issues of the country's economic development. Our position is spelled out in a special section of the Programme of the People's Democratic Party - its new edition was issued on 8th October this year. Here are the main points:

- to reach the degree of economic freedom existing in the countries with a developed market economy;

- to free manufacturers from administrative arbitrariness and state interference in their economic activity;

- to improve the tax policy by easing the tax burden and introducing tax breaks and other effective incentives;

- to speed up the restructuring of the economy and make it more orientated towards the domestic market.

"We believe that all this and the creation of the corresponding legal conditions and guarantees will really help develop the domestic market with goods and services at reasonable prices. This is the direct and, probably, the only way to overcome inflation."

Karimov, member of the electoral office of the Central Council of the Fidokorlar National Democratic Party: "Uzbekistan has achieved the highest rate of industrial production among the CIS countries - from 1991 to 1998 the industrial production grew by 111 per cent, whereas in Russia there was a 50 per cent growth, in Ukraine - 51 per cent and in Kazakhstan - 49.

"At the same time, we understand that it is extremely difficult to keep such a high rate of industrial growth in the medium and long term given the globalization of the world economy, increasing competition and the latest trends in international relations. Nevertheless, we think it is possible to raise Uzbekistan's industrial development rate in the near future up to eight- nine per cent a year.

"We have drawn up a special economic programme. We propose to develop export-oriented industries which should be capable to compete in external and domestic markets. We should also switch over from the export of raw materials to the export of final products, which will ensure stable development of the country's economy in the long term.

"In the medium term the programme focuses on the energetic development of the sectors in which Uzbekistan has traditionally been leading in the world market. These are mainly labour and material-consuming branches of the light, food and chemical industries, as well as the processing of agricultural products, oil, gas and minerals.

"In the long term our programme gives a priority to the development of the high-tech and science-consuming branches of the mechanical engineering, electronic, pharmaceutical and microbiological industries."

Azizov, the first secretary of the Central Council of Vatan Taraqqiyoti Party: "During the eight years of independence the republic's leadership took concrete measures to introduce market relations and carried out large-scale reforms in all spheres of the national economy. This has prevented an economic collapse and kept inflation at a reasonable level - something which many CIS countries failed to do.

"However, the current rate of economic development still cannot fully satisfy the growing needs of the republic's population. The election manifesto of the Vatan Taraqqiyoti Party includes a programme of action for further development of our economy.

The programme proposes measures to deepen reforms in the field of entrepreneurship, create conditions to strengthen the institution of private ownership and to improve the taxation system."