NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 26, 2011

Q: Pressure is growing on the government of Uzbekistan to prove that it is ending the use of children to harvest cotton. Where is the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan?

Circle the area on this map

Q: School children as young as 10 are reportedly being bussed to farms to harvest the cotton, a mainstay of Uzbekistan's economy. How old does someone have to be in the United States to be a farmworker?

A. 12

B. 14

C. 16

D. 18

A. While children in other sectors must be 14 to be employed and work hours are limited, in agriculture children can work at age 12 for unlimited hours before and after school and non-school days. Some children work 10 hours or more a day.

Q: Child labor accounts for 22 percent of the workforce in Asia, What is the proportion in the United States and Canada?

A. 32%

B. 17%

C. 9%

D. 1%

D. According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labor worldwide. Africa has the largest share of children in the workforce with 37 percent, and Latin America is 17 percent. The percentage is much lower in wealthier countries like the United States and Canada, where it is 1 percent.

Q: Uzbekistan exports the largest share of its goods to Ukraine and imports the largest share of its goods from the nation that once ruled Uzbekistan. Which nation?

A. Pakistan

B. Russia

C. China

D. India

B. Russia conquered the territory of present-day Uzbekistan in the late 19th century. It became part of the Soviet Union in 1924 and gained its independence in 1991 after the Soviet collapse.

Q: Decades of pursuing greater and greater cotton production has taken a heavy toll on Uzbekistan's environment. What has it caused?

A. Aral Sea shrinking

B. Salty soil

C. Pesticide pollution

D. All of the above

D. The Aral was once the fourth largest inland sea on earth, but it has been drained to half its size to grow water-hungry cotton. Heavy use of water, pesticides and fertilizer has increased salinity and polluted the soil.