Exhibition at UN Headquarters highlights Kazakhstan nuke tests, economy

With 1.3 million people in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan still suffering from the effects of almost 40 years of nuclear tests and the local economy still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union, an exhibition has opened at United Nations headquarters to highlight the area’s plight.

Following a call from the General Assembly for Secretary-General Kofi Annan to continue his efforts to increase world public awareness of the problems of the region, Kazakhstan, along with Struan Stevenson, Member of the European Parliament, opened the photo exhibit in the main lobby in New York on Friday.

The General Assembly, in its resolution, maintains that the recent economic prosperity experienced by Kazakhstan as a whole is insufficient to resolve the deeply rooted and highly technical problems of radioactive contamination in the Semipalatinsk region.

It adds that new Government programmes, if combined with international partnership assistance, could produce better results than those that have been achieved thus far.