title: Stephen Hawking

text: In late 2006, Hawking revealed in a BBC interview that one of his greatest unfulfilled desires was to travel to space; on hearing this, Richard Branson offered a free flight into space with Virgin Galactic, which Hawking immediately accepted. Besides personal ambition, he was motivated by the desire to increase public interest in spaceflight and to show the potential of people with disabilities. On 26 April 2007, Hawking flew aboard a specially-modified Boeing 727–200 jet operated by Zero-G Corp off the coast of Florida to experience weightlessness. Fears that the manoeuvres would cause him undue discomfort proved groundless, and the flight was extended to eight parabolic arcs. It was described as a successful test to see if he could withstand the g-forces involved in space flight. At the time, the date of Hawking's trip to space was projected to be as early as 2009, but commercial flights to space did not commence before his death.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking died at his home in Cambridge on 14 March 2018, at the age of 76. His family stated that he "died peacefully". He was eulogised by figures in science, entertainment, politics, and other areas. The Gonville and Caius College flag flew at half-mast and a book of condolences was signed by students and visitors. A tribute was made to Hawking in the closing speech by IPC President Andrew Parsons at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: His private funeral took place on 31 March 2018, at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge. Guests at the funeral included "The Theory of Everything" actors Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, and model Lily Cole. In addition, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Stephen Hawking in "Hawking", astronaut Tim Peake, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and physicist Kip Thorne provided readings at the service. Although Hawking was an atheist, the funeral took place with a traditional Anglican service. Following the cremation, a service of thanksgiving was held at Westminster Abbey on 15 June 2018, after which his ashes were interred in the Abbey's nave, between the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Inscribed on his memorial stone are the words "Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking 1942–2018" and his most famed equation. He directed, at least fifteen years before his death, that the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy equation be his epitaph.{k} = \frac{1}{4} \frac{A}{l_\text{P}^2},</math>


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Jacob Bekenstein had conjectured the proportionality; Hawking confirmed it and established the constant of proportionality at formula_2. Calculations based on string theory, first carried out in 1995, have been found to yield the same result.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: This relationship is conjectured to be valid not just for black holes, but also (since entropy is proportional to information) as an upper bound on the amount of information that can be contained in any volume of space, which has in turn spawned deeper reflections on the possible nature of reality.}} In June 2018, it was announced that Hawking's words, set to music by Greek composer Vangelis, would be beamed into space from a European space agency satellite dish in Spain with the aim of reaching the nearest black hole, 1A 0620-00.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's final broadcast interview, about the detection of gravitational waves resulting from the collision of two neutron stars, occurred in October 2017. His final words to the world appeared posthumously, in April 2018, in the form of a Smithsonian TV Channel documentary entitled, "Leaving Earth: Or How to Colonize a Planet". One of his final research studies, entitled "A smooth exit from eternal inflation?", about the origin of the universe, was published in the "Journal of High Energy Physics" in May 2018. Later, in October 2018, another of his final research studies, entitled "Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair", was published, and dealt with the "mystery of what happens to the information held by objects once they disappear into a black hole". Also in October 2018, Hawking's last book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", a popular science book presenting his final comments on the most important questions facing humankind, was published.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: On 8 November 2018, an auction of 22 personal possessions of Stephen Hawking, including his doctoral thesis (""Properties of Expanding Universes"", PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1965) and wheelchair, took place, and fetched about £1.8 m. Proceeds from the auction sale of the wheelchair went to two charities, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Stephen Hawking Foundation; proceeds from Hawking's other items went to his estate.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In March 2019, it was announced that the Royal Mint would issue a commemorative 50p coin, only available as a commemorative edition, in honour of Hawking. The same month, Hawking's nurse, Patricia Dowdy, was struck off the nursing register for "failures over his care and financial misconduct."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In May 2021 it was announced that an Acceptance-in-Lieu agreement between HMRC, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Cambridge University Library, Science Museum Group, and the Hawking Estate, would see around 10,000 pages of Hawking's scientific and other papers remain in Cambridge, while objects including his wheelchairs, speech synthesisers, and personal memorabilia from his former Cambridge office would be housed at the Science Museum. In February 2022 the "Stephen Hawking at Work" display opened at the Science Museum, London as the start of a two-year nationwide tour.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: At Google's Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Stephen Hawking said that "philosophy is dead". He believed that philosophers "have not kept up with modern developments in science" and that scientists "have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge". He said that philosophical problems can be answered by science, particularly new scientific theories which "lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 2006, Hawking posed an open question on the Internet: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?", later clarifying: "I don't know the answer. That is why I asked the question, to get people to think about it, and to be aware of the dangers we now face."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking expressed concern that life on Earth is at risk from a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, global warming, or other dangers humans have not yet thought of. Hawking stated: "I regard it as almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years", and considered an "asteroid collision" to be the biggest threat to the planet. Such a planet-wide disaster need not result in human extinction if the human race were to be able to colonise additional planets before the disaster. Hawking viewed spaceflight and the colonisation of space as necessary for the future of humanity.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking stated that, given the vastness of the universe, aliens likely exist, but that contact with them should be avoided. He warned that aliens might pillage Earth for resources. In 2010 he said, "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking warned that superintelligent artificial intelligence could be pivotal in steering humanity's fate, stating that "the potential benefits are huge... Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. It might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." However, he argued that we should be more frightened of capitalism exacerbating economic inequality than robots.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was concerned about the future emergence of a race of "superhumans" that would be able to design their own evolution and, as well, argued that computer viruses in today's world should be considered a new form of life, stating that "maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was an atheist. In an interview published in "The Guardian", Hawking regarded "the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail", and the concept of an afterlife as a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark". In 2011, narrating the first episode of the American television series "Curiosity" on the Discovery Channel, Hawking declared:


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's association with atheism and freethinking was in evidence from his university years onwards, when he had been a member of Oxford University's humanist group. He was later scheduled to appear as the keynote speaker at a 2017 Humanists UK conference. In an interview with "El Mundo", he said:


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was a longstanding Labour Party supporter. He recorded a tribute for the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, called the 2003 invasion of Iraq a "war crime", campaigned for nuclear disarmament, and supported stem cell research, universal health care, and action to prevent climate change. In August 2014, Hawking was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to "The Guardian" expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue. Hawking believed a United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) would damage the UK's contribution to science as modern research needs international collaboration, and that free movement of people in Europe encourages the spread of ideas. Hawking said to Theresa May, "I deal with tough mathematical questions every day, but please don't ask me to help with Brexit." Hawking was disappointed by Brexit and warned against envy and isolationism.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was greatly concerned over health care, and maintained that without the UK National Health Service, he could not have survived into his 70s. Hawking especially feared privatisation. He stated, "The more profit is extracted from the system, the more private monopolies grow and the more expensive healthcare becomes. The NHS must be preserved from commercial interests and protected from those who want to privatise it." Hawking blamed the Conservatives for cutting funding to the NHS, weakening it by privatisation, lowering staff morale through holding pay back and reducing social care. Hawking accused Jeremy Hunt of cherry picking evidence which Hawking maintained debased science.<ref name="bbc20/8/2017"></ref> Hawking also stated, "There is overwhelming evidence that NHS funding and the numbers of doctors and nurses are inadequate, and it is getting worse."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In June 2017, Hawking endorsed the Labour Party in the 2017 UK general election, citing the Conservatives' proposed cuts to the NHS. But he was also critical of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, expressing scepticism over whether the party could win a general election under him.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking feared Donald Trump's policies on global warming could endanger the planet and make global warming irreversible. He said, "Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children." Hawking further stated that this could lead Earth "to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was also a supporter of a universal basic income. He was critical of the Israeli government's position on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, stating that their policy "is likely to lead to disaster."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 1988, Hawking, Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan were interviewed in "God, the Universe and Everything Else". They discussed the Big Bang theory, God and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: At the release party for the home video version of the "A Brief History of Time", Leonard Nimoy, who had played Spock on "Star Trek", learned that Hawking was interested in appearing on the show. Nimoy made the necessary contact, and Hawking played a holographic simulation of himself in an episode of "" in 1993. The same year, his synthesiser voice was recorded for the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking", and in 1999 for an appearance on "The Simpsons". Hawking appeared in documentaries titled "The Real Stephen Hawking" (2001), "Stephen Hawking: Profile" (2002) and "Hawking" (2013), and the documentary series "Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe" (2008). Hawking also guest-starred in "Futurama" and had a recurring role in "The Big Bang Theory".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking allowed the use of his copyrighted voice in the biographical 2014 film "The Theory of Everything", in which he was portrayed by Eddie Redmayne in an Academy Award-winning role. Hawking was featured at the "Monty Python Live (Mostly)" show in 2014. He was shown to sing an extended version of the "Galaxy Song", after running down Brian Cox with his wheelchair, in a pre-recorded video.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking used his fame to advertise products, including a wheelchair, National Savings, British Telecom, Specsavers, Egg Banking, and Go Compare. In 2015, he applied to trademark his name.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Broadcast in March 2018 just a week or two before his death, Hawking was the voice of The Book Mark II on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio series, and he was the guest of Neil deGrasse Tyson on "StarTalk".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: On 8 January 2022, Google featured Hawking in a Google Doodle on the occasion of his 80th birth anniversary.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking received numerous awards and honours. Already early in the list, in 1974 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). At that time, his nomination read:


title: Stephen Hawking

text: The citation continues, "Other important work by Hawking relates to the interpretation of cosmological observations and to the design of gravitational wave detectors."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984), the American Philosophical Society (1984), and the United States National Academy of Sciences (1992).


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking received the 2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences shared with Viatcheslav Mukhanov for discovering that the galaxies were formed from quantum fluctuations in the early Universe. At the 2016 Pride of Britain Awards, Hawking received the lifetime achievement award "for his contribution to science and British culture". After receiving the award from Prime Minister Theresa May, Hawking humorously requested that she not seek his help with Brexit.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was a member of the advisory board of the Starmus Festival, and had a major role in acknowledging and promoting science communication. The Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication is an annual award initiated in 2016 to honour members of the arts community for contributions that help build awareness of science. Recipients receive a medal bearing a portrait of Hawking by Alexei Leonov, and the other side represents an image of Leonov himself performing the first spacewalk along with an image of the "Red Special", the guitar of Queen musician and astrophysicist Brian May (with music being another major component of the Starmus Festival).


title: Stephen Hawking

text: The Starmus III Festival in 2016 was a tribute to Stephen Hawking and the book of all Starmus III lectures, "Beyond the Horizon", was also dedicated to him. The first recipients of the medals, which were awarded at the festival, were chosen by Hawking himself. They were composer Hans Zimmer, physicist Jim Al-Khalili, and the science documentary "Particle Fever".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Lisa Marie Presley (born February 1, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter. She is the only child of singer and actor Elvis Presley and actress Priscilla Presley, as well as the sole heir to her father's estate. Presley has developed a career in the music business and has issued three albums: "To Whom It May Concern" in 2003, "Now What" in 2005, and "Storm & Grace" in 2012. Her first album reached Gold certification with the Recording Industry Association of America. Presley has also released non-album singles, including duets with her father using tracks he had released before he died.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley has been married to musician Danny Keough, singer Michael Jackson, actor Nicolas Cage, and music producer Michael Lockwood.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Lisa Marie was born on February 1, 1968, to Elvis and Priscilla Presley at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis in midtown Memphis, Tennessee, nine months to the day after her parents' wedding. After her parents divorced, she lived with her mother in Los Angeles, California, with frequent stays with her father at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: When her father died in August 1977, nine-year-old Presley became joint heir to his estate with her grandfather, Vernon Presley, and her great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Hood Presley. Upon Vernon's death in 1979 and Minnie Mae's in 1980, she became the sole heir and inherited Graceland. On her 25th birthday in 1993, she inherited the estate, which had grown to an estimated $100 million. In 2004, Presley sold 85% of her father's estate.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In the late 1970s, a year or two after her father's death, she attended her first rock concert when she saw Queen at The Forum in Inglewood, California. She gave Freddie Mercury a scarf of her father's after the show, and expressed her love of theatrics.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Shortly after her father's death, her mother began dating actor Michael Edwards. Lisa Marie was reportedly sexually abused by Edwards when she was between 12 and 15 years old. In an interview with "Playboy" magazine in 2003, Presley said Edwards had the habit of invading her private room intoxicated and was inappropriate with her.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On April 8, 2003, Presley released her debut album, "To Whom It May Concern". It reached No. 5 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart and was certified gold in June 2003. Presley wrote all the lyrics (except "The Road Between", which was co-written with Gus Black) and co-wrote every melody. To promote it, she presented a concert in the UK. The album's first single, "Lights Out", reached No. 18 on the "Billboard" Hot Adult Top 40 chart and No. 16 on the UK charts. Presley collaborated with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins for a co-written track called "Savior", which was included as the B-side.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: "Los Angeles Times" critic Robert Hilburn reviewed Presley's debut album. He said, "The music on her new album has a stark, uncompromising tone" and "Presley's gutsy blues-edged voice has a distinctive flair."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Her second album, released April 5, 2005, "Now What", reached No. 9 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. Presley co-wrote 10 songs and recorded covers of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry" (the album's first single, which hit No. 36 on the "Billboard" 100 AC singles chart), and the Ramones' "Here Today and Gone Tomorrow". The song "Idiot" is a jab towards different men in her life. Unlike her first album, "Now What" included a Parental Advisory sticker. Presley covers Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' for You" as a B-side. Pink makes a guest appearance on the track "Shine".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Her third album, "Storm & Grace", was released on May 15, 2012. She said: "It's much more of a rootsy record, organic record, than my previous work." It is produced by Oscar and Grammy winner T Bone Burnett.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: AllMusic offered this view: "On her first two albums, Lisa Marie Presley wanted to be a pop star with a difference; on "Storm & Grace", she clearly would rather be an artist, and if she's still working her musical shortcomings out of her system, this is a stronger, more mature, and more effective work than one might have expected. Nearly ten years into a recording career she may or may not have wanted, Presley is finally developing a musical personality that truly suits her."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Spinner.com observed: "Presley has made the strongest album of her career in the upcoming "Storm & Grace". It's a moody masterpiece, exploring the demons and angels of her life to the tune of country-spiced downbeat pop."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Pat Benatar and Lisa Marie Presley performed at the VH1 Divas Duets, a concert to benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 22, 2003, in Las Vegas. Together they sang Benatar's hit "Heartbreaker", which Presley frequently performed at her own concerts on tours afterward.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Also in 2003, Presley contributed a recording of "Silent Night" for the NBC Holiday Collection, Sounds of the Season. Other artists singing on this collection include Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Michael Bublé, Carly Simon and Bonnie Raitt.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 2006 a documentary about Johnny Ramone of the rock group the Ramones was released called "Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone". Directed by Mandy Stein, the film shows Deborah Harry, the Dickies, X, Eddie Vedder, Lisa Marie and Red Hot Chili Peppers as they stage a benefit concert to celebrate the Ramones' 30th anniversary and to raise money for cancer research.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In August 2007, the single "In the Ghetto" was released. Elvis Presley had originally released the single in 1969. In the new version, Lisa "duets" with her father. The video, simultaneously released with the single, reached No. 1 on the iTunes sales and No. 16 on "Billboard"s Bubbling Under Hot 100 singles chart. The song was recorded to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of her father's death. Lisa Marie said she decided not only to sing, but to sing with him. "I wanted to use this for something good," she told Spinner, so she filmed the video in New Orleans. Proceeds from the video and single benefited a new Presley Place Transitional Housing Campus there. Lisa Marie appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to perform the song with the Harlem Gospel Choir, using vintage footage of her father.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In October 2009, she joined singer Richard Hawley on stage in London. She sang vocals on a song the pair had been working on called "Weary". Hawley wants to help Presley relaunch her music career, and the two have embarked on a songwriting partnership in which Lisa writes the lyrics and Hawley the music. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Presley said that she was currently recording a new album in London due to be released in 2011.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: T-Bone Burnett said of collaborating with Presley on "Storm & Grace" (2012): "When songs from Lisa Marie Presley showed up at my door, I was curious. I wondered what the daughter of an American revolutionary music artist had to say. What I heard was honest, raw, unaffected and soulful. I thought her father would be proud of her. The more I listened to the songs, the deeper an artist I found her to be. Listening beyond the media static, Lisa Marie Presley is a Southern American folk music artist of great value."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley appeared in Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone" video in June 1995, directed by Wayne Isham.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 1997, Presley made a video of "Don't Cry Daddy" as a duet with her father. This video was presented on August 16, 1997, at the tribute concert that marked the 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. The video has Elvis' original vocal to which new instrumentation and Lisa Marie's vocals were added; the recording was not for commercial use. The song created a renewed interest in her as a recording artist.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley's video for her debut single "Lights Out" premiered in February 2003. Directed by Francis Lawrence, the video was from her album "To Whom It May Concern". Her second video from that album was directed by Barnaby Roper and shot in New York for the song "Sinking In".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On Presley's second album in 2005, her first single and video was for a cover of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry". The video was directed by Patrick Hoelck and singer George Michael made a cameo appearance in it. Hoelck teamed with Lisa Marie for her second video from that album for the song "Idiot" and shot the video in downtown Los Angeles. Through the video Lisa follows a woman through the streets. We never see her face until the end, when she gets in a cab with Lisa, putting her face to face with another version of herself.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley teamed up again with director Tony Kaye ("American History X") for the video of "In the Ghetto". Lisa Marie Presley filmed the video 'In the Ghetto', featuring her late father Elvis, in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. All proceeds from the video and single went to benefit a new Presley Place transitional housing campus there. "I wanted to use this for something good," Lisa Marie told Spinner of the posthumous duet.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 2006 Presley was asked to take part in a video of Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down". Rick Rubin produced the record and Tony Kaye directed the video which featured Lisa Marie Presley, Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Chris Martin, Kris Kristofferson, Dixie Chicks, Flea, Chris Rock, Kid Rock, Justin Timberlake, Sheryl Crow, Dennis Hopper, Bono, Shelby Lynne, Jay-Z, Amy Lee, Keith Richards and Johnny Depp and won a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: A new compilation of her father's love of gospel music was released in 2018. In the title track video, Presley is incorporated into scenes of her and her father, along with Elvis's vocals, as she sings a duet to the song "Where No One Stands Alone".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: The Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation (EPCF) was formed by Graceland/Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. in 1984 to continue Elvis' own tradition of generosity and community service and to honor his memory. The EPCF is overseen by Lisa Marie Presley, chairperson, and the management team of Graceland/Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. In 2001, Presley Place opened to its first residents. Presley Place provides homeless families up to one year of rent-free housing, child day care, career and financial counseling, family management guidance and other tools to help them break the cycle of poverty and regain self-esteem and independence. Also funded by the EPCF is the Elvis Presley Music Room, where the youngsters of Presley Place and others may enjoy access to musical instruments and instruction and participate in special related programs. The EPCF created the Elvis Presley Endowed Scholarship Fund at the College of Communication & Fine Arts at the University of Memphis to assist students majoring in areas of the arts. "All of us with the EPCF and Elvis Presley Enterprises are extremely proud of this amazing facility," stated Presley. "The work that MIFA (the Memphis-based Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association) does truly has an impact on peoples' lives and we look forward to this collaboration."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley joined Oprah Winfrey and her Angel Network and was active in the relief efforts after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas. Presley gave a helping hand in Memphis, Tennessee. "I'm here," she said, "because I definitely needed to do something, and it just so happens this is where I'm from. I'm going to do everything I can. People need help—this is a huge catastrophe and everyone needs to stand up." Her first stop was a food bank, where, with the help of FedEx and Kroger, Lisa Marie loaded a truck with groceries. Then it was time for a pit stop at Target for toiletries and clothes. "I thought I was going to grab a couple things at the store," Presley said, "and I ended up filling up a truck. I went a little crazy." Presley's final destination was the Grand Casino Convention Center in Mississippi to distribute the supplies to people who had lost everything. One evacuee said, "I really appreciate everything Ms. Presley is doing for us. We have nothing, so we're very grateful for everything she's doing".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 2011, Presley became a patron of the Dream Factory, a charity based in Hainault. Presley was one of the celebrity guests at the Snowball held at the Prince Regent in Chigwell in aid of the Dream Factory. Actors Ray Winstone and Sid Owen, who are both patrons of the charity, and Amanda Redman were also among guests at the star-studded event, which raised $59,000 towards granting the wishes of terminally ill children and those with life-threatening illnesses or disabilities. Organizer Avril Mills said: "We have granted 83 dreams in under three years, so the money is going to go towards a lot more dreams. It costs between $500 and $5,000 for a dream. Lisa Marie Presley was very nice and she now wants to become a patron of the charity. We talked about the charity and she brought a big framed picture of Elvis, which she got flown over for the Dream Factory from Graceland, and that raised $5,000."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Furthermore, during the time she traveled with Michael Jackson while he was on tour, she visited orphanages and hospitals with him around the world. She visited with the children, and she and Jackson would hand out toys to all of the children.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On June 6, 2004, Presley was on hand as the Grammy Foundation, in partnership with 7-UP, named Long Beach Polytechnic High School a Gold Grammy Signature School at Scottish Rite Cathedral in Long Beach, California. Created in 1998, the GRAMMY Signature Schools program recognizes top U.S. public high schools that are making an outstanding commitment to music education during an academic school year. Presley presented the custom award and a monetary grant to benefit the school's music program.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On October 22, 2005, Presley presented a special award to Isaac Hayes at the Memphis Recording Academy Honors. A host of hometown stars gathered to see Presley, Justin Timberlake, Isaac Hayes and David Porter honored by the Memphis chapter of the Recording Academy. Presley and music producer Jimmy Jam presented the award to Hayes.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On November 11, 2005, Presley participated in a Grammy SoundCheck at L.A.'s House of Blues, during which she and other industry professionals met with a group of music students to discuss career opportunities available to them within the music industry.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On June 24, 2011, Presley was officially honored by the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam, who proclaimed a day of recognition for her charitable efforts. Two days later, she was issued a Certificate of Proclamation by the Mayor of New Orleans, Mitchell J. Landrieu, in recognition of her dedication and contributions to the city.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: "Lisa Marie Presley is a humanitarian and philanthropist who continues to focus her efforts on the hometown she knows and loves, Memphis. Through her efforts and time she has improved homelessness, literacy, and raised funds for local charities and organizations. She raises awareness for Memphis and continues to set an example of what one person can do when they put their mind to it.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: "Now, Therefore, I, A.C. Wharton, Jr., Mayor of Memphis, TN, do hereby recognize the lifelong service of this illustrious humanitarian and philanthropist."


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley and her family live in San Francisco. Between 2010 and 2016 they lived in a 15th-century manor house in Rotherfield, East Sussex, England, 15 miles east of Saint Hill Manor, the British headquarters of the Church of Scientology. In a 2013 interview with Luka Neskovic for "The Huffington Post", Presley said that maybe one day she will write an autobiography, stating: "It's not out of the question. I would like to have my life out there in my own words, rather than speculations." In 2005, Lisa Marie allowed a brief look into her personal life, appearing in the TV movie, "Elvis by the Presleys". Her son, Benjamin Keough, died on July 12, 2020, at the age of 27 in Calabasas, California, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office listed his cause of death as a suicide.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley married Chicago-born musician Danny Keough on October 3, 1988. They had two children: a daughter, Riley Keough (born May 29, 1989), an actress and model, and a son, Benjamin Storm Keough (October 21, 1992 – July 12, 2020). Presley obtained a quickie divorce in the Dominican Republic on May 6, 1994.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Twenty days after her divorce from Keough, Presley married singer Michael Jackson. They had first met in 1975 when a seven-year-old Presley attended several of his concerts in Las Vegas. According to a friend of Presley's, "their adult friendship began in November 1992 in L.A." As child molestation accusations became public, Jackson became dependent on Presley for emotional support. She was concerned about his faltering health and his addiction to drugs. Presley explained, "I believed he didn't do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it." Shortly afterwards, she tried to persuade Jackson to settle the allegations out of court and go into rehabilitation to recover. He subsequently did both. In January 1996, citing irreconcilable differences, Presley filed for divorce, according to legal papers. Michael Jackson's make-up artist, Karen Faye, later claimed that Jackson had originally planned to file for divorce first and had relented after Presley begged him not to file. The following day, Jackson discovered that Presley had filed for divorce herself. In an October 2010 interview with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, Presley revealed that she and Jackson had attempted to reconcile intermittently for four years following their divorce and that she had traveled to different parts of the world in order to be with him. After Jackson's death in 2009, Presley was reported to have "felt shattered".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley was engaged in 2000 to musician John Oszajca. She broke off the engagement after meeting Nicolas Cage at a party. Presley's third marriage was to Cage. They were married on August 10, 2002. Cage filed for divorce on November 25, 2002, and the divorce was finalized in 2004.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 2005, Danny Keough was a bass guitar player in Presley's band, and also served as her musical mentor. Presley still regarded him as a close friend, and he lived in the guest house on Presley's property. Presley described her relationship with Keough after they separated: "I don't know how, but we've managed to stay close ... There's others that I have pain or betrayal associated with that I won't have anything to do with. But he and I had a special thing. Unconditional." In a 2003 interview with "The Commercial Appeal", Presley commented on reports that she and Keough were planning to remarry: "Danny is my best friend, always has been, always will be. I love him unconditionally, but we are not together. It's not like that." Keough and Presley became closer again after Presley divorced Michael Jackson. Keough's younger brother Thomas Keough had been an official witness at Presley's wedding to Michael Jackson.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley married for a fourth time on January 22, 2006, to Michael Lockwood, her guitarist, music producer and director. Danny Keough served as best man at the couple's wedding, held in Japan. In March 2008, Presley announced that she was pregnant, following speculation over her apparent weight gain. Her husband was a first-time father. On October 7, 2008, Presley gave birth to fraternal twin girls, Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood and Finley Aaron Love Lockwood, via Caesarean section at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California. The twins weighed 5 pounds 2 ounces (2.3 kg) and 5 lb 15 ounces (2.7 kg), respectively. In 2016, Presley filed for divorce from Lockwood after ten years of marriage. In February 2017, Presley said that her daughters were taken into protective custody and she opposed Lockwood's request for spousal support, claiming that she had found hundreds of images and videos of child pornography on his personal computer. The divorce was finalized in 2021.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In October 1997, Presley, along with friend and fellow Memphian and Scientologist Isaac Hayes, opened the Literacy, Education and Ability Program (LEAP). LEAP is run by Applied Scholastics, a group run by Scientologists.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On January 5, 2002, Presley received the Humanitarian Award from the Church of Scientology-supported World Literacy Crusade for her efforts to help children across America learn study skills. Presley received her award from Isaac Hayes, Chaka Khan and Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. World Literacy Crusade is regarded by critics as a front group for the Church of Scientology. On September 26 of that same year, Presley addressed a Congressional hearing in opposition to the use of medication in treating ADHD, stating: "I have spoken to children who have been forced to take a cocaine-like stimulant to control their behavior; I have shared their sense of sheer desperation. Children have been wrenched from their family's care simply because their parents favored an alternative, drug-free approach to addressing educational and behavioral problems. The psychotropic drugging of millions of children has to stop." Addressing the committee as the International Spokesperson for Children's Rights, for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a group run by Scientologists, Presley expressed her view that parents should be informed about alternatives to drugs so they may "make an informed choice about their child's educational and medical needs".


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: Presley left the church in 2014, though she had been experiencing growing discontent with Scientology as far back as 2008. Her mother, Priscilla, reportedly also left the church soon after. Priscilla's representative soon denied the news, adding she is still an active member.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: After Elvis Presley's death at Graceland on August 16, 1977, his will appointed his father, Vernon Presley, executor and trustee. His fortune had dwindled to $5 million. The beneficiaries of the trust were Vernon, Elvis' grandmother Minnie Mae Presley, and Lisa Marie, whose inheritance was to be held in trust until her 25th birthday. After Vernon's death in 1979, Elvis' former wife Priscilla Presley was named as one of three trustees in his will; the others were the National Bank of Commerce in Memphis and Joseph Hanks, who had been the Presleys' accountant. With Minnie Mae Presley's death in 1980, Lisa became the only surviving beneficiary.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: On her 25th birthday in 1993, Presley inherited her father's estate, which, thanks largely to the stewardship of her mother, had grown to an estimated $100 million.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In 1998, Presley became more closely involved in the management of the Elvis Presley Trust and its business entity, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. (EPE). She was owner and chairman of the board until February 2005, when she sold 85% of the estate's business holdings to CKX, Inc., excluding Graceland itself and the property within it.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In February 2012, Presley opened a new exhibit, "Elvis ... Through His Daughter's Eyes". It is now included in the Graceland VIP Tour and features 200 items assembled by Presley and the Graceland Archives staff.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: The personal exhibit looks at Presley's experience of growing up with a famous father. Home movies, toys and rarely seen family mementos are among the items on display.


title: Lisa Marie Presley

text: In November 1975, her father named one of his private aircraft, a converted Convair 880 jet (original passenger capacity: 100), after her. He spent more than $1 million refurbishing it to use as his main transport while on tour. The "Lisa Marie" and one of his other planes, "Hound Dog II", are on exhibit at Graceland. In January 2015 both planes were for sale. They are no longer airworthy, but their owner was hoping to sell them for $10 million in total. The buyer would have an option to purchase land adjacent to Graceland to exhibit them independently from Graceland. In the end, the Elvis Presley estate bought them back and they continue to be on exhibit.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, known as Nur-Sultan from 2019 to 2022. Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was the country's capital until 1997. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, the largest and northernmost Muslim-majority country by land area, and the ninth-largest country in the world. It has a population of 19 million people, and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per square mile).


title: Kazakhstan

text: The country dominates Central Asia economically and politically, generating 60 percent of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry; it also has vast mineral resources. Officially, it is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage, and has the highest Human Development Index ranking in the region. Kazakhstan is a member state of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Organization of Turkic States, and the International Organization of Turkic Culture.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic groups and empires. In antiquity, the ancient Iranian nomadic Scythians inhabited the land, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire expanded towards the southern territory of the modern country. Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states such as the First Turkic Khaganate and the Second Turkic Khaganate, have inhabited the country from as early as the 6th century. In the 13th century, the territory was subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. In the 15th century, as a result of disintegration of Golden Horde, the Kazakh Khanate was established on much of the lands that would later form the territory of modern Kazakhstan.


title: Kazakhstan

text: By the 18th century, Kazakh Khanate disintegrated into three "jüz" which were absorbed and conquered by the Russian Empire; by the mid-19th century, the Russians nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire and liberated all of the slaves that the Kazakhs had captured in 1859. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent outbreak of the Russian Civil War, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganized several times. In 1936, it was established as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991. Human rights organizations have described the Kazakh government as authoritarian, and regularly describe Kazakhstan's human rights situation as poor.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The English word "Kazakh", meaning a member of the Kazakh people, derives from . The native name is . It might originate from the Turkic word verb "qaz-", 'to wander', reflecting the Kazakhs' nomadic culture. The term 'Cossack' is of the same origin. The Persian suffix means "land" or "place of", so "Kazakhstan" () can be literally translated as "land of the wanderers".


title: Kazakhstan

text: In Turko-Persian sources, the term "Özbek-Qazaq" first appeared during the middle of the 16th century, in the "Tarikh-i-Rashidi" by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a Chagatayid prince of Kashmir. In this manuscript, the author locates Kazakh in the eastern part of "Desht-i Qipchaq". According to Vasily Bartold, the Kazakhs likely began using that name during the 15th century.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Though "Kazakh" traditionally referred only to ethnic Kazakhs, including those living in China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and other neighbouring countries, the term is increasingly being used to refer to any inhabitant of Kazakhstan, including residents of other ethnicities.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. The Botai culture (3700–3100 BC) is credited with the first domestication of horses. The Botai population derived most of their ancestry from a deeply European-related population known as Ancient North Eurasians, while also displaying some Ancient East Asian admixture. Pastoralism developed during the Neolithic, as the region's climate and terrain are best suited to a nomadic lifestyle. The population was Caucasoid during the Bronze and Iron Age period.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Kazakh territory was a key constituent of the Eurasian trading Steppe Route, the ancestor of the terrestrial Silk Roads. Archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse (i.e., ponies) in the region's vast steppes. During recent prehistoric times, Central Asia was inhabited by groups such as the possibly Indo-European Afanasievo culture, later early Indo-Iranian cultures such as Andronovo, and later Indo-Iranians such as the Saka and Massagetae. Other groups included the nomadic Scythians and the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the southern territory of the modern country. The Andronovo and Srubnaya cultures, precursors to the peoples of the Scythian cultures, were found to harbor mixed ancestry from the Yamnaya Steppe herders and peoples of the Central European Middle Neolithic.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 329 BC, Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army fought in the Battle of Jaxartes against the Scythians along the Jaxartes River, now known as the Syr Darya along the southern border of modern Kazakhstan.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The main migration of Turkic peoples occurred between the 5th and 11th centuries when they spread across most of Central Asia. The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from largely Iranian, into primarily of East Asian descent.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The first Turkic Khaganate was founded by Bumin in 552 on the Mongolian Plateau and quickly spread west toward the Caspian Sea. The Göktürks drove before them various peoples: Xionites, Uar, Oghurs and others. These seem to have merged into the Avars and Bulgars. Within 35 years the eastern half and the Western Turkic Khaganate were independent. The Western Khaganate reached its peak in the early 7th century.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Cumans entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. While ancient cities Taraz (Aulie-Ata) and Hazrat-e Turkestan had long served as important way-stations along the Silk Road connecting Asia and Europe, true political consolidation began only with the Mongol rule of the early 13th century. Under the Mongol Empire, the first strictly structured administrative districts (Ulus) were established. After the division of the Mongol Empire in 1259, the land that would become modern-day Kazakhstan was ruled by the Golden Horde, also known as the Ulus of Jochi. During the Golden Horde period, a Turco-Mongol tradition emerged among the ruling elite wherein Turkicised descendants of Genghis Khan followed Islam and continued to reign over the lands.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 1465, the Kazakh Khanate emerged as a result of the dissolution of the Golden Horde. Established by Janibek Khan and Kerei Khan, it continued to be ruled by the Turco-Mongol clan of Tore (Jochid dynasty). Throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. In the 15th century, a distinct Kazakh identity began to emerge among the Turkic tribes. This was followed by the Kazakh War of Independence, where the Khanate gained its sovereignty from the Shaybanids. The process was consolidated by the mid-16th century with the appearance of the Kazakh language, culture, and economy.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south. At its height, the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania. The Kazakh Khanate's territories would expand deep into Central Asia. By the early 17th century, the Kazakh Khanate was struggling with the impact of tribal rivalries, which had effectively divided the population into the Great, Middle and Little (or Small) hordes ("jüz"). Political disunion, tribal rivalries, and the diminishing importance of overland trade routes between east and west weakened the Kazakh Khanate. The Khiva Khanate used this opportunity and annexed the Mangyshlak Peninsula. Uzbek rule there lasted two centuries until the Russian arrival.


title: Kazakhstan

text: During the 17th century, the Kazakhs fought the Oirats, a federation of western Mongol tribes, including the Dzungar. The beginning of the 18th century marked the zenith of the Kazakh Khanate. During this period the Little Horde participated in the 1723–1730 war against the Dzungar Khanate, following their "Great Disaster" invasion of Kazakh territory. Under the leadership of Abul Khair Khan, the Kazakhs won major victories over the Dzungar at the Bulanty River in 1726 and at the Battle of Añyraqai in 1729.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Ablai Khan participated in the most significant battles against the Dzungar from the 1720s to the 1750s, for which he was declared a ""batyr"" ("hero") by the people. The Kazakhs suffered from the frequent raids against them by the Volga Kalmyks. The Kokand Khanate used the weakness of Kazakh jüzs after Dzungar and Kalmyk raids and conquered present Southeastern Kazakhstan, including Almaty, the formal capital in the first quarter of the 19th century. Also, the Emirate of Bukhara ruled Shymkent before the Russians gained dominance.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In the first half of the 18th century, the Russian Empire constructed the Irtysh line, a series of forty-six forts and ninety-six redoubts, including Omsk (1716), Semipalatinsk (1718), Pavlodar (1720), Orenburg (1743) and Petropavlovsk (1752), to prevent Kazakh and Oirat raids into Russian territory. In the late 18th century the Kazakhs took advantage of Pugachev's Rebellion, which was centred on the Volga area, to raid Russian and Volga German settlements. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to expand its influence into Central Asia. The "Great Game" period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. The tsars effectively ruled over most of the territory belonging to what is now the Republic of Kazakhstan.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Russian Empire introduced a system of administration and built military garrisons and barracks in its effort to establish a presence in Central Asia in the so-called "Great Game" for dominance in the area against the British Empire, which was extending its influence from the south in India and Southeast Asia. Russia built its first outpost, Orsk, in 1735. Russia introduced the Russian language in all schools and governmental organisations.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Russia's efforts to impose its system aroused the resentment of the Kazakh people, and, by the 1860s, some Kazakhs resisted its rule. Russia had disrupted the traditional nomadic lifestyle and livestock-based economy, and people were suffering from hunger and starvation, with some Kazakh tribes being decimated. The Kazakh national movement, which began in the late 19th century, sought to preserve the native language and identity by resisting the attempts of the Russian Empire to assimilate and stifle Kazakh culture.


title: Kazakhstan

text: From the 1890s onward, ever-larger numbers of settlers from the Russian Empire began colonizing the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, in particular, the province of Semirechye. The number of settlers rose still further once the Trans-Aral Railway from Orenburg to Tashkent was completed in 1906. A specially created Migration Department (Переселенческое Управление) in St. Petersburg oversaw and encouraged the migration to expand Russian influence in the area. During the 19th century, about 400,000 Russians immigrated to Kazakhstan, and about one million Slavs, Germans, Jews, and others immigrated to the region during the first third of the 20th century. Vasile Balabanov was the administrator responsible for the resettlement during much of this time.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The competition for land and water that ensued between the Kazakhs and the newcomers caused great resentment against colonial rule during the final years of the Russian Empire. The most serious uprising, the Central Asian revolt, occurred in 1916. The Kazakhs attacked Russian and Cossack settlers and military garrisons. The revolt resulted in a series of clashes and in brutal massacres committed by both sides. Both sides resisted the communist government until late 1919.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Following the collapse of central government in Petrograd in November 1917, the Kazakhs (then in Russia officially referred to as "Kirghiz") experienced a brief period of autonomy (the Alash Autonomy) before eventually succumbing to the Bolsheviks′ rule. On 26 August 1920, the Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was established. The Kirghiz ASSR included the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, but its administrative centre was the mainly Russian-populated town of Orenburg. In June 1925, the Kirghiz ASSR was renamed the Kazak ASSR and its administrative centre was transferred to the town of Kyzylorda, and in April 1927 to Alma-Ata.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Soviet repression of the traditional elite, along with forced collectivisation in the late 1920s and 1930s, brought famine and high fatalities, leading to unrest (see also: Famine in Kazakhstan of 1932–33). During the 1930s, some members of the Kazakh intelligentsia were executed – as part of the policies of political reprisals pursued by the Soviet government in Moscow.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 5 December 1936, the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (whose territory by then corresponded to that of modern Kazakhstan) was detached from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a full union republic of the USSR, one of eleven such republics at the time, along with the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The republic was one of the destinations for exiled and convicted persons, as well as for mass resettlements, or deportations affected by the central USSR authorities during the 1930s and 1940s, such as approximately 400,000 Volga Germans deported from the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in September–October 1941, and then later the Greeks and Crimean Tatars. Deportees and prisoners were interned in some of the biggest Soviet labour camps (the Gulag), including ALZhIR camp outside Astana, which was reserved for the wives of men considered "enemies of the people". Many moved due to the policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union and others were forced into involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Soviet-German War (1941–1945) led to an increase in industrialisation and mineral extraction in support of the war effort. At the time of Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, however, Kazakhstan still had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. In 1953, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev initiated the Virgin Lands Campaign designed to turn the traditional pasturelands of Kazakhstan into a major grain-producing region for the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands policy brought mixed results. However, along with later modernisations under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (in power 1964–1982), it accelerated the development of the agricultural sector, which remains the source of livelihood for a large percentage of Kazakhstan's population. Because of the decades of privation, war and resettlement, by 1959 the Kazakhs had become a minority in the country, making up 30 percent of the population. Ethnic Russians accounted for 43 percent.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 1947, the USSR government, as part of its atomic bomb project, founded an atomic bomb test site near the north-eastern town of Semipalatinsk, where the first Soviet nuclear bomb test was conducted in 1949. Hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted until 1989 with adverse consequences for the nation's environment and population. The Anti-nuclear movement in Kazakhstan became a major political force in the late 1980s.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In December 1986, mass demonstrations by young ethnic Kazakhs, later called the Jeltoqsan riot, took place in Almaty to protest the replacement of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR Dinmukhamed Konayev with Gennady Kolbin from the Russian SFSR. Governmental troops suppressed the unrest, several people were killed, and many demonstrators were jailed. In the waning days of Soviet rule, discontent continued to grow and found expression under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" ("openness").


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 25 October 1990, Kazakhstan declared its sovereignty on its territory as a republic within the Soviet Union. Following the August 1991 aborted coup attempt in Moscow, Kazakhstan declared independence on 16 December 1991, thus becoming the last Soviet republic to declare independence. Ten days later, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country's first President. Nazarbayev ruled in an authoritarian manner. An emphasis was placed on converting the country's economy to a market economy while political reforms lagged behind economic advances. By 2006, Kazakhstan was generating 60 percent of the GDP of Central Asia, primarily through its oil industry.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 1997, the government moved the capital to Astana, renamed Nur-Sultan on 23 March 2019, from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, where it had been established under the Soviet Union.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In March 2019, Nazarbayev resigned 29 years after taking office. However, he continued to lead the influential security council and held the formal title Leader of the Nation. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev succeeded Nazarbayev as the President of Kazakhstan. His first official act was to rename the capital after his predecessor. In June 2019, the new president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, won Kazakhstan's presidential election.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In January 2022, the country plunged into political unrest following a spike in fuel prices. In consequence, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took over as head of the powerful Security Council, removing his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev from the post. In September 2022, the name of the country's capital was changed back to Astana from Nur-Sultan.


title: Kazakhstan

text: As it extends across both sides of the Ural River, considered the dividing line separating Europe and Asia, Kazakhstan is one of only two landlocked countries in the world that has territory in two continents (the other is Azerbaijan).


title: Kazakhstan

text: With an area of equivalent in size to Western EuropeKazakhstan is the ninth-largest country and largest landlocked country in the world. While it was part of the Russian Empire, Kazakhstan lost some of its territory to China's Xinjiang province, and some to Uzbekistan's Karakalpakstan autonomous republic during Soviet years.


title: Kazakhstan

text: It shares borders of with Russia, with Uzbekistan, with China, with Kyrgyzstan, and with Turkmenistan. Major cities include Astana, Almaty, Karagandy, Shymkent, Atyrau, and Oskemen. It lies between latitudes 40° and 56° N, and longitudes 46° and 88° E. While located primarily in Asia, a small portion of Kazakhstan is also located west of the Urals in Eastern Europe.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's terrain extends west to east from the Caspian Sea to the Altay Mountains and north to south from the plains of Western Siberia to the oases and deserts of Central Asia. The Kazakh Steppe (plain), with an area of around , occupies one-third of the country and is the world's largest dry steppe region. The steppe is characterised by large areas of grasslands and sandy regions. Major seas, lakes and rivers include Lake Balkhash, Lake Zaysan, the Charyn River and gorge, the Ili, Irtysh, Ishim, Ural and Syr Darya rivers, and the Aral Sea until it largely dried up in one of the world's worst environmental disasters.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Charyn Canyon is long, cutting through a red sandstone plateau and stretching along the Charyn River gorge in northern Tian Shan ("Heavenly Mountains", east of Almaty) at . The steep canyon slopes, columns and arches rise to heights of between . The inaccessibility of the canyon provided a safe haven for a rare ash tree, "Fraxinus sogdiana", which survived the Ice Age there and has now also grown in some other areas. Bigach crater, at , is a Pliocene or Miocene asteroid impact crater, in diameter and estimated to be 5±3 million years old.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has an abundant supply of accessible mineral and fossil fuel resources. Development of petroleum, natural gas, and mineral extractions has attracted most of the over $40 billion in foreign investment in Kazakhstan since 1993 and accounts for some 57 percent of the nation's industrial output (or approximately 13 percent of gross domestic product). According to some estimates, Kazakhstan has the second largest uranium, chromium, lead, and zinc reserves; the third largest manganese reserves; the fifth largest copper reserves; and ranks in the top ten for coal, iron, and gold. It is also an exporter of diamonds. Perhaps most significant for economic development, Kazakhstan also has the 11th largest proven reserves of both petroleum and natural gas.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In total, there are 160 deposits with over of petroleum. Oil explorations have shown that the deposits on the Caspian shore are only a small part of a much larger deposit. It is said that of oil and of gas could be found in that area. Overall the estimate of Kazakhstan's oil deposits is . However, there are only three refineries within the country, situated in Atyrau, Pavlodar, and Shymkent. These are not capable of processing the total crude output, so much of it is exported to Russia. According to the US Energy Information Administration, Kazakhstan was producing approximately of oil per day in 2009.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan also possesses large deposits of phosphorite. Two of the largest deposits include the Karatau basin with 650 million tonnes of PO and the Chilisai deposit of the located in northwestern Kazakhstan, with resources of 500–800million tonnes of 9 percent ore.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 17 October 2013, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) accepted Kazakhstan as "EITI Compliant", meaning that the country has a basic and functional process to ensure the regular disclosure of natural resource revenues.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has an "extreme" continental climate, with hot summers and very cold winters. Indeed, Astana is the second coldest capital city in the world after Ulaanbaatar. Precipitation varies between arid and semi-arid conditions, the winter being particularly dry.


title: Kazakhstan

text: There are ten nature reserves and ten national parks in Kazakhstan that provide safe haven for many rare and endangered plants and animals. Common plants are "Astragalus", "Gagea", "Allium", "Carex" and "Oxytropis"; endangered plant species include native wild apple ("Malus sieversii"), wild grape ("Vitis vinifera") and several wild tulip species (e.g., "Tulipa greigii") and rare onion species "Allium karataviense", also "Iris willmottiana" and "Tulipa kaufmanniana". Kazakhstan had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.23/10, ranking it 26th globally out of 172 countries.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Common mammals include the wolf, red fox, corsac fox, moose, argali (the largest species of sheep), Eurasian lynx, Pallas's cat, and snow leopards, several of which are protected.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's Red Book of Protected Species lists 125 vertebrates including many birds and mammals, and 404 plants including fungi, algae and lichens.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Officially, Kazakhstan is a democratic, secular, constitutional unitary republic; Nursultan Nazarbayev led the country from 1991 to 2019. He was succeeded by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The president may veto legislation that has been passed by the parliament and is also the commander in chief of the armed forces. The prime minister chairs the cabinet of ministers and serves as Kazakhstan's head of government. There are three deputy prime ministers and sixteen ministers in the cabinet.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has a bicameral parliament composed of the "Majilis" (the lower house) and senate (the upper house). Single-mandate districts popularly elect 107 seats in the "Majilis"; there also are ten members elected by party-list vote. The senate has 48 members. Two senators are selected by each of the elected assemblies (mäslihats) of Kazakhstan's sixteen principal administrative divisions (fourteen regions plus the cities of Astana, Almaty, and Shymkent). The president appoints the remaining fifteen senators. "Majilis" deputies and the government both have the right of legislative initiative, though the government proposes most legislation considered by the parliament.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 2020, Freedom House rated Kazakhstan as a "consolidated authoritarian regime", stating that freedom of speech is not respected and "Kazakhstan’s electoral laws do not provide for free and fair elections."


title: Kazakhstan

text: Reforms have begun to be implemented after the election of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in June 2019. Tokayev supports a culture of opposition, public assembly, and loosening rules on forming political parties. In June 2019, on the initiative of the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev the National Council of Public Trust have been established as a platform in which wider society can discuss different views and strengthen the national conversation regarding government policies and reforms. In July 2019, the President of Kazakhstan announced a concept of a ‘listening state’ that quickly and efficiently responds to all constructive requests of the country's citizens. A law will be passed to allow representatives from other parties to hold Chair positions on some Parliamentary committees, to foster alternative views and opinions. The minimum membership threshold needed to register a political party will be reduced from 40,000 to 20,000 members. Special places for peaceful rallies in central areas will be allocated and a new draft law outlining the rights and obligations of organisers, participants and observers will be passed. In an effort to increase public safety, President Tokayev has strengthened the penalties for those who commit crimes against individuals.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Elections to the Majilis in September 2004, yielded a lower house dominated by the pro-government Otan Party, headed by President Nazarbayev. Two other parties considered sympathetic to the president, including the agrarian-industrial bloc AIST and the Asar Party, founded by President Nazarbayev's daughter, won most of the remaining seats. The opposition parties which were officially registered and competed in the elections won a single seat. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was monitoring the election, which it said fell short of international standards.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 4 December 2005, Nursultan Nazarbayev was re-elected in an apparent landslide victory. The electoral commission announced that he had won over 90% of the vote. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded the election did not meet international standards despite some improvements in the administration of the election.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 17 August 2007, elections to the lower house of parliament were held and a coalition led by the ruling Nur-Otan party, which included the Asar Party, the Civil Party of Kazakhstan, and the Agrarian Party, won every seat with 88% of the vote. None of the opposition parties has reached the benchmark 7% level of the seats. Opposition parties made accusations of serious irregularities in the election.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 2010, president Nazarbayev rejected a call from supporters to hold a referendum to keep him in office until 2020. He insisted on presidential elections for a five-year term. In a vote held on 3 April 2011, president Nazarbayev received 95.54% of the vote with 89.9% of registered voters participating. In March 2011, Nazarbayev outlined the progress made toward democracy by Kazakhstan. , Kazakhstan was reported on the Democracy Index by "The Economist" as an authoritarian regime.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 26 April 2015, the fifth presidential election was held in Kazakhstan. Nursultan Nazarbayev was re-elected with 97.7% of votes.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 19 March 2019, Nazarbayev announced his resignation from the presidency. Kazakhstan's senate speaker Kassym-Jomart Tokayev became acting president after Nursultan Nazarbayev's resignation. Later, Tokayev won the 2019 presidential election that was held on 9 June.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan is divided into seventeen regions (, ; , ). The regions are subdivided into 177 districts (, ; , ). The districts are further subdivided into rural districts at the lowest level of administration, which include all rural settlements and villages without an associated municipal government.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The cities of Almaty and Astana have status "state importance" and do not belong to any region. The city of Baikonur has a special status because it is being leased until 2050 to Russia for the Baikonur cosmodrome. In June 2018 the city of Shymkent became a "city of republican significance".


title: Kazakhstan

text: Each region is headed by an äkim (regional governor) appointed by the president. District "äkimi" are appointed by regional "akim"s. Kazakhstan's government relocated its capital from Almaty, established under the Soviet Union, to Astana on 10 December 1997.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Municipalities exist at each level of administrative division in Kazakhstan. Cities of republican, regional, and district significance are designated as urban inhabited localities; all others are designated rural. At the highest level are the cities of Almaty and Astana, which are classified as "cities of republican significance" on the administrative level equal to that of a region. At the intermediate level are "cities of regional significance" on the administrative level equal to that of a district. Cities of these two levels may be divided into city districts. At the lowest level are "cities of district significance", and over two-thousand "villages and rural settlements" () on the administrative level equal to that of rural districts.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Economic Cooperation Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The nations of Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan established the Eurasian Economic Community in 2000, to revive earlier efforts to harmonise trade tariffs and to create a free trade zone under a customs union. On 1 December 2007, it was announced that Kazakhstan had been chosen to chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for the year 2010. Kazakhstan was elected a member of the UN Human Rights Council for the first time on 12 November 2012.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan is also a member of the United Nations, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Turkic Council, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It is an active participant in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Partnership for Peace program.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 1999, Kazakhstan had applied for observer status at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. The official response of the Assembly was that because Kazakhstan is partially located in Europe, it could apply for full membership, but that it would not be granted any status whatsoever at the council until its democracy and human rights records improved.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has pursued what is known as the "multivector foreign policy" (), seeking equally good relations with its two large neighbours, Russia and China, as well as with the United States and the rest of the Western world. Russia leases approximately of territory enclosing the Baikonur Cosmodrome space launch site in south central Kazakhstan, where the first man was launched into space as well as Soviet space shuttle Buran and the well-known space station Mir.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 11 April 2010, presidents Nazarbayev and Obama met at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., and discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between the United States and Kazakhstan. They pledged to intensify bilateral co-operation to promote nuclear safety and non-proliferation, regional stability in Central Asia, economic prosperity, and universal values.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In April 2011, Obama called Nazarbayev and discussed many cooperative efforts regarding nuclear security, including securing nuclear material from the BN-350 reactor. They reviewed progress on meeting goals that the two presidents established during their bilateral meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in 2010. Since 2014 the Kazakhstani government has been bidding for a non-permanent member seat on the UN Security Council for 2017–2018. On 28 June 2016 Kazakhstan was elected as a non-permanent member to serve on the UN Security Council for a two-year term.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has supported UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Western Sahara, and Côte d'Ivoire. In March 2014, the Ministry of Defense chose 20 Kazakhstani military men as observers for the UN peacekeeping missions. The military personnel, ranking from captain to colonel, had to go through specialised UN training; they had to be fluent in English and skilled in using specialised military vehicles.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 2014, Kazakhstan gave Ukraine humanitarian aid during the conflict with Russian-backed rebels. In October 2014, Kazakhstan donated $30,000 to the International Committee of the Red Cross's humanitarian effort in Ukraine. In January 2015, to help the humanitarian crisis, Kazakhstan sent $400,000 of aid to Ukraine's southeastern regions. President Nazarbayev said of the war in Ukraine, "The fratricidal war has brought true devastation to eastern Ukraine, and it is a common task to stop the war there, strengthen Ukraine's independence and secure territorial integrity of Ukraine." Experts believe that no matter how the Ukraine crisis develops, Kazakhstan's relations with the European Union will remain normal. It is believed that Nazarbayev's mediation is positively received by both Russia and Ukraine.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on 26 January 2015: "We are firmly convinced that there is no alternative to peace negotiations as a way to resolve the crisis in south-eastern Ukraine." In 2018, Kazakhstan signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 6 March 2020, the Concept of the Foreign Policy of Kazakhstan for 2020–2030 was announced. The document outlines the following main points:


title: Kazakhstan

text: Most of Kazakhstan's military was inherited from the Soviet Armed Forces' Turkestan Military District. These units became the core of Kazakhstan's new military. It acquired all the units of the 40th Army (the former 32nd Army) and part of the 17th Army Corps, including six land-force divisions, storage bases, the 14th and 35th air-landing brigades, two rocket brigades, two artillery regiments, and a large amount of equipment that had been withdrawn from over the Urals after the signing of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Since the late 20th century, the Kazakhstan Army has focused on expanding the number of its armoured units. Since 1990, armoured units have expanded from 500 to 1,613 in 2005.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Kazakh air force is composed mostly of Soviet-era planes, including 41 MiG-29s, 44 MiG-31s, 37 Su-24s and 60 Su-27s. A small naval force is maintained on the Caspian Sea.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan sent 29 military engineers to Iraq to assist the US post-invasion mission in Iraq. During the second Iraq War, Kazakhstani troops dismantled 4 million mines and other explosives, helped provide medical care to more than 5,000 coalition members and civilians, and purified of water.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's National Security Committee (UQK) was established on 13 June 1992. It includes the Service of Internal Security, Military Counterintelligence, Border Guard, several Commando units, and Foreign Intelligence (Barlau). The latter is considered the most important part of KNB. Its director is Nurtai Abykayev.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Since 2002, the joint tactical peacekeeping exercise "Steppe Eagle" has been hosted by the Kazakhstan government. "Steppe Eagle" focuses on building coalitions and gives participating nations the opportunity to work together. During the Steppe Eagle exercises, the KAZBAT peacekeeping battalion operates within a multinational force under a unified command within multidisciplinary peacekeeping operations, with NATO and the U.S. Military.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In December 2013, Kazakhstan announced it will send officers to support United Nations Peacekeeping forces in Haiti, Western Sahara, Ivory Coast and Liberia.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Economist Intelligence Unit has consistently ranked Kazakhstan as an "authoritarian regime" in its Democracy Index, ranking it 128th out of 167 countries for 2020.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan was ranked 122th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index for 2022; previously it ranked 155th for 2021.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's human rights situation has been described as poor by independent observers. In its 2015 report of human rights in the country, Human Rights Watch said that "Kazakhstan heavily restricts freedom of assembly, speech, and religion." It has also described the government as authoritarian. In 2014, authorities closed newspapers, jailed or fined dozens of people after peaceful but unsanctioned protests, and fined or detained worshipers for practising religion outside state controls. Government critics, including opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov, remained in detention after unfair trials. In mid-2014, Kazakhstan adopted new criminal, criminal executive, criminal procedural, and administrative codes, and a new law on trade unions, which contain articles restricting fundamental freedoms and are incompatible with international standards. Torture remains common in places of detention." However, Kazakhstan has achieved significant progress in reducing the prison population. The 2016 Human Rights Watch report commented that Kazakhstan "took few meaningful steps to tackle a worsening human rights record in 2015, maintaining a focus on economic development over political reform." Some critics of the government have been arrested for allegedly spreading false information about the COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan. Various police reforms, like creation of local police service and zero-tolerance policing, aimed at bringing police closer to local communities have not improved cooperation between police and ordinary citizens.


title: Kazakhstan

text: <poem>The law does not require police to inform detainees that they have the right to an attorney, and police did not do so. Human rights observers alleged that law enforcement officials dissuaded detainees from seeing an attorney, gathered evidence through preliminary questioning before a detainee's attorney arrived, and in some cases used corrupt defense attorneys to gather evidence. [...]


title: Kazakhstan

text: The law does not adequately provide for an independent judiciary. The executive branch sharply limited judicial independence. Prosecutors enjoyed a quasi-judicial role and had the authority to suspend court decisions. Corruption was evident at every stage of the judicial process. Although judges were among the most highly paid government employees, lawyers and human rights monitors alleged that judges, prosecutors, and other officials solicited bribes in exchange for favorable rulings in the majority of criminal cases.</poem>


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's global rank in the World Justice Project's 2015 Rule of Law Index was 65 out of 102; the country scored well on "Order and Security" (global rank 32/102), and poorly on "Constraints on Government Powers" (global rank 93/102), "Open Government" (85/102) and "Fundamental Rights" (84/102, with a downward trend marking a deterioration in conditions).


title: Kazakhstan

text: The ABA Rule of Law Initiative of the American Bar Association has programs to train justice sector professionals in Kazakhstan.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's Supreme Court has taken steps to modernise and to increase transparency and oversight over the country's legal system. With funding from the US Agency for International Development, the ABA Rule of Law Initiative began a new program in April 2012 to strengthen the independence and accountability of Kazakhstan's judiciary.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In an effort to increase transparency in the criminal justice and court system, and improve human rights, Kazakhstan intended to digitise all investigative, prosecutorial and court records by 2018. Many criminal cases are closed before trial on the basis of reconciliation between the defendant and the victim because they simplify the work of the law-enforcement officers, release the defendant from punishment, and pay little regard to the victim's rights.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Homosexuality has been legal in Kazakhstan since 1997, although it is still socially unacceptable in most areas. Discrimination against LGBT people in Kazakhstan is widespread.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's economy, supported by rising oil output and prices, grew at an average of 8 percent per year until 2013, before suffering a slowdown in 2014 and 2015. Kazakhstan was the first former Soviet Republic to repay all of its debt to the International Monetary Fund, 7 years ahead of schedule.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan has a GDP of $179.332 billion and an annual growth rate of 4.5 percent. Per capita, Kazakhstan's GDP stands at $9,686.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's increased role in global trade and central positioning on the new Silk Road gave the country the potential to open its markets to billions of people. Kazakhstan joined the World Trade Organization in 2015.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Buoyed by high world crude oil prices, GDP growth figures were between 8.9 percent and 13.5 percent from 2000 to 2007 before decreasing to 1 to 3 percent in 2008 and 2009, and then rising again from 2010. Other major exports of Kazakhstan include wheat, textiles, and livestock. Kazakhstan is a leading exporter of uranium.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's economy grew by 4.6 percent in 2014. The country experienced a slowdown in economic growth from 2014 sparked by falling oil prices and the effects of the Ukrainian crisis. The country devalued its currency by 19 percent in February 2014. Another 22 percent devaluation occurred in August 2015.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's government continued to follow a conservative fiscal policy by controlling budget spending and accumulating oil revenue savings in its Oil Fund – Samruk-Kazyna. The global financial crisis forced Kazakhstan to increase its public borrowing to support the economy. Public debt increased to 13.4 per cent in 2013 from 8.7 per cent in 2008. Between 2012 and 2013, the government achieved an overall fiscal surplus of 4.5 per cent.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Since 2002, Kazakhstan has sought to manage strong inflows of foreign currency without sparking inflation. Inflation has not been under strict control, however, registering 6.6 percent in 2002, 6.8 percent in 2003, and 6.4 percent in 2004.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In March 2002, the U.S. Department of Commerce granted Kazakhstan market economy status under US trade law. This change in status recognised substantive market economy reforms in the areas of currency convertibility, wage rate determination, openness to foreign investment, and government control over the means of production and allocation of resources.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan weathered the global financial crisis by combining fiscal relaxation with monetary stabilisation. In 2009, the government introduced large-scale support measures such as the recapitalisation of banks and support for the real estate and agricultural sectors, as well as for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The total value of the stimulus programs amounted to $21 billion, or 20 per cent of the country's GDP, with $4 billion going to stabilise the financial sector. During the global economic crisis, Kazakhstan's economy contracted by 1.2 percent in 2009, while the annual growth rate subsequently increased to 7.5 percent and 5 percent in 2011 and 2012, respectively.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In September 2002, Kazakhstan became the first country in the CIS to receive an investment grade credit rating from a major international credit rating agency. By late December 2003, Kazakhstan's gross foreign debt was about $22.9 billion. Total governmental debt was $4.2 billion, 14 percent of GDP. There has been a reduction in the ratio of debt to GDP. The ratio of total governmental debt to GDP was 21.7 percent in 2000, 17.5 percent in 2001, and 15.4 percent in 2002. In 2019, it rose to 19.2 percent.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Economic growth, combined with earlier tax and financial sector reforms, has dramatically improved government finance from the 1999 budget deficit level of 3.5 percent of GDP to a deficit of 1.2 percent of GDP in 2003. Government revenues grew from 19.8 percent of GDP in 1999 to 22.6 percent of GDP in 2001, but decreased to 16.2 percent of GDP in 2003. In 2000, Kazakhstan adopted a new tax code in an effort to consolidate these gains.


title: Kazakhstan

text: On 29 November 2003, the Law on Changes to Tax Code which reduced tax rates was adopted. The value added tax fell from 16% to 15%, the social tax, payable by all employers, from 21 percent to 20 percent, and the personal income tax, from 30 percent to 20 percent. On 7 July 2006, the personal income tax was reduced even further to a flat rate of 5 percent for personal income in the form of dividends and 10 percent for other personal income. Kazakhstan furthered its reforms by adopting a new land code on 20 June 2003, and a new customs code on 5 April 2003.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Energy has been the leading economic sector. Production of crude oil and natural gas condensate from the oil and gas basins of Kazakhstan amounted to in 2012 up from in 2003. Kazakhstan raised oil and gas condensate exports to 44.3 million tons in 2003, 13 percent higher than in 2002. Gas production in Kazakhstan in 2003, amounted to , up 22.7 percent compared to 2002, including natural gas production of . Kazakhstan holds about of proven recoverable oil reserves and of gas. Kazakhstan is the 19th largest oil-producing nation in the world. Kazakhstan's oil exports in 2003, were valued at more than $7 billion, representing 65 percent of overall exports and 24 percent of the GDP. Major oil and gas fields and recoverable oil reserves are Tengiz with ; Karachaganak with and of natural gas; and Kashagan with 7 to .


title: Kazakhstan

text: KazMunayGas (KMG), the national oil and gas company, was created in 2002 to represent the interests of the state in the oil and gas industry. The Tengiz Field was jointly developed in 1993 as a 40-year Tengizchevroil venture between Chevron Texaco (50 percent), US ExxonMobil (25 percent), KazMunayGas (20 percent), and LukArco (5 percent). The Karachaganak natural gas and gas condensate field is being developed by BG, Agip, ChevronTexaco, and Lukoil. Also Chinese oil companies are involved in Kazakhstan's oil industry.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan instituted a pension reform program in 1998. By January 2012, the pension assets were about $17 billion (KZT 2.5 trillion). There are 11 saving pension funds in the country. The State Accumulating Pension Fund, the only state-owned fund, was privatised in 2006. The country's unified financial regulatory agency oversees and regulates pension funds. The growing demand of pension funds for investment outlets triggered the development of the debt securities market. Pension fund capital is being invested almost exclusively in corporate and government bonds, including the government of Kazakhstan Eurobonds. The government of Kazakhstan was studying a project to create a unified national pension fund and transfer all the accounts from the private pension funds into it.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Kazakh National Bank introduced deposit insurance in a campaign to strengthen the banking sector. Several major foreign banks had branches in Kazakhstan, including RBS, Citibank, and HSBC. Kookmin and UniCredit both entered Kazakhstan's financial services market through acquisitions and stake-building.


title: Kazakhstan

text: According to the 2010–11 World Economic Forum in Global Competitiveness Report, Kazakhstan was ranked 72nd in the world in economic competitiveness. One year later, the Global Competitiveness Report ranked Kazakhstan 50th in most competitive markets.


title: Kazakhstan

text: In 2012, Kazakhstan attracted $14 billion of foreign direct investment inflows into the country at a 7 percent growth rate. In 2018, $24 billion of FDI was directed into Kazakhstan, a significant increase since 2012.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan climbed to 41st on the 2018 Economic Freedom Index published by "The Wall Street Journal" and The Heritage Foundation.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's economy grew at an average of 8 percent per year over the past decade on the back of hydrocarbon exports. Despite the lingering uncertainty of the global economy, Kazakhstan's economy has been stable. GDP growth in January–September 2013 was 5.7 percent, according to preliminary calculations of the Ministry Economy and Budget Planning.


title: Kazakhstan

text: From January to September 2014 Kazakhstan's GDP grew at 4 percent. According to the results from the first half of the year, the current account surplus is $6.6 billion, a figure two times higher than that of the first half of 2013. According to the Chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Kairat Kelimbetov, the increase was caused by a trade surplus of 17.4 per cent, or approximately US$22.6 billion. The overall inflation rate for 2014 is forecasted at 7.4 percent.


title: Kazakhstan

text: China is one of the main economic and trade partners of Kazakhstan. In 2013, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in which Kazakhstan functions as a transit hub.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan's foreign trade turnover in 2018 was $93.5 billion, which is 19.7 percent more compared to 2017. Export in 2018 reached $67 billion (up 25.7 percent in comparison to 2017) and import was $32.5 billion (up 9.9 percent in comparison to 2017). Exports accounted for 40.1 percent of Kazakhstan's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018. Kazakhstan exports 800 products to 120 countries.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Agriculture accounts for approximately 5 percent of Kazakhstan's GDP. Grain, potatoes, grapes, vegetables, melons and livestock are the most important agricultural commodities. Agricultural land occupies more than . The available agricultural land consists of of arable land and of pasture and hay land. Over 80 percent of the country's total area is classified as agricultural land, including almost 70 percent occupied by pasture. Its arable land has the second highest availability per inhabitant (1.5 hectares).


title: Kazakhstan

text: Chief livestock products are dairy products, leather, meat, and wool. The country's major crops include wheat, barley, cotton, and rice. Wheat exports, a major source of hard currency, rank among the leading commodities in Kazakhstan's export trade. In 2003 Kazakhstan harvested 17.6 million tons of grain in gross, 2.8% higher compared to 2002. Kazakhstani agriculture still has many environmental problems from mismanagement during its years in the Soviet Union. Some Kazakh wine is produced in the mountains to the east of Almaty.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan is thought to be one of the places that the apple originated, particularly the wild ancestor of "Malus domestica", "Malus sieversii". It has no common name in English, but is known in its native Kazakhstan as "alma". The region where it is thought to originate is called "Almaty": "rich with apple". This tree is still found wild in the mountains of Central Asia, in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang in China.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Railways provide 68 percent of all cargo and passenger traffic to over 57 percent of the country. There are in common carrier service, excluding industrial lines. of gauge, electrified, in 2012. Most cities are connected by railroad; high-speed trains go from Almaty (the southernmost city) to Petropavl (the northernmost city) in about 18 hours.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) is the national railway company. KTZ cooperates with French locomotive manufacturer Alstom in developing Kazakhstan's railway infrastructure. Alstom has more than 600 staff and two joint ventures with KTZ and its subsidiary in Kazakhstan. In July 2017, Alstom opened its first locomotive repairing centre in Kazakhstan. It is the only repairing centre in Central Asia and the Caucasus.


title: Kazakhstan

text: As the Kazakhstani rail system was designed during the Soviet era, rail routes reflected the goals of Soviet planning. This has caused anomalies such as the route from Oral to Aktobe now passes briefly through Russian territory.


title: Kazakhstan

text: Astana Nurly Zhol railway station, the most modern railway station in Kazakhstan, was opened in Astana on 31 May 2017. The opening of the station coincided with the start of the Expo 2017 international exhibition. According to Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ), the 120,000m station was expected to be used by 54 trains and would have the capacity to handle 35,000 passengers a day.


title: Kazakhstan

text: There is a small metro system in Almaty. Second and third metro lines were planned for the future. The second line would intersect with the first line at Alatau and Zhibek Zholy stations. In May 2011, the construction of the second phase of the Almaty Metro line 1 began. The general contractor is Almatymetrokurylys. More than of tunnels on the extension project have been excavated. The extension includes five new stations and will connect the downtown area of Almaty with Kalkaman in the suburbs. Its length will be . The construction is divided into 3 phases. The first phase (the current phase) will be the addition of two stations: Sairan and Moscow, a length of . For more details see: Almaty Metro.There was a tram system of 10 lines which operated from 1937 to 2015.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Astana Metro system has been under construction, but was abandoned at one point in 2013. In May 2015, an agreement was signed for the project to be resumed. There is an tram network, which began service in 1965 with, as of 2012, 20 regular and three special routes.


title: Kazakhstan

text: The Khorgos Gateway dry port is one of Kazakhstan's primary dry ports for handling trans-Eurasian trains, which travel more than between China and Europe. The Khorgos Gateway dry port is surrounded by Khorgos Eastern Gate SEZ which officially commenced operations in December 2016.