The Soviet Union used a remore area of Kazakhstan to explode/test nuclear weapons and the Khazak people are STILL dying of cancers 1 THIRD above the national average and hospitals still have children abandoned there with horrendous birth-defects from the radiation.
This may seem remote to present day situations but REMEMBER,in Iraq the USA dropped hundreds of thousands of Depleted Uranium weapons on Southern Iraq and cancer/birth defect rates are STILL huge there.Also,our troops that fought there were ULTIMATELY exposed to the same radioactive dust and came home to develope various related cancers,sterility,infertility and birth defects,miscarriages,still-births etc.
Israel dropped depleted uranium on Southern Lebanon,along with millions of cluster bombs and cancer rates are still huge there because of the many centuries it takes for the radioactive dust and particles to half-deplete(never mind fully deplete,if ever).
So now back to Kazakhstan!
The World Bank and various nations including Saudi,Turket,USA,UK etc,since the early 1990's,have INVESTED billions of dollars in the Kazakhstan/Eurasian OIL pipeline(BTC-Baku,Tblisi,Ceyhan)which runs from Turkey,through these most of these caucuses to Pakistan(along with a competing parallel pipeline financed by Russia,China,Iran)and THAT'S THE REASON OUR US/coalition troops are DYING and getting blown to bits right now.Not because of Osama Bin Laden(who has been dead for years already)or "terrorism".
But,to protect this Eurasian pipeline AND THE NARCOTIC/OPIUM DRUG-TRADE routes that follow it JUST as the old Silk-Trade-Route used to from China centuries ago.
Soon,there will be MORE workers headed for Kazakhstan(and all the 'stans') to work on the Eurasian pipeline.Young,poor,eager,multi-nationals who just want to earn a good living to feed their families wherever in the world they may live(usually Asian/African with the least contractual safeguards or work-safety standards).
I wonder if there is anything in their CONTRACTS that warns them of RADIATION EXPOSURE and the risks of terminal cancer,sterility or birth defects et al.
The a reason this WHOLE area of central/southern Asia is known as "the graveyard of empires",since Alexander the Great,and now it is the graveyard of RADIATION too.If our troops are deployed to Khazakhstan.....remember this.
There is more than the 260 BILLION barrels of crude oil reserves there.
There is A MASS of uncleared nuclear waste there TOO.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-worlds-worst-radiation-hotspot-1784502.html