ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole
legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure
for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured
opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992
and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but are viewed as
having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President
MOI stepped down in December of 2002 following fair and peaceful
elections. Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic,
united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, defeated
KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a
campaign centered on an anticorruption platform.

Kingman Reef
The US annexed the reef in 1922. Its sheltered lagoon
served as a way station for flying boats on Hawaii-to-American Samoa
flights during the late 1930s. There are no terrestrial plants on
the reef, which is frequently awash, but it does support abundant
and diverse marine fauna and flora. In 2001, the waters surrounding
the reef out to 12 nm were designated a US National Wildlife Refuge.

Kiribati
The Gilbert Islands were granted self-rule by the UK in
1971 and complete independence in 1979 under the new name of
Kiribati. The US relinquished all claims to the sparsely inhabited
Phoenix and Line Island groups in a 1979 treaty of friendship with
Kiribati.

Korea, North
An independent kingdom under Chinese suzerainty for
most of the past millennium, Korea was occupied by Japan in 1905
following the Russo-Japanese War; five years later, Japan formally
annexed the entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was
split with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist
domination. After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the
US-backed republic in the southern portion by force, North Korea,
under its founder President KIM Il Sung, adopted a policy of
ostensible diplomatic and economic "self-reliance" as a check
against excessive Soviet or Communist Chinese influence. It molded
political, economic, and military policies around the core
ideological objective of eventual unification of Korea under
Pyongyang's control. KIM's son, the current ruler KIM Jong Il, was
officially designated as KIM's successor in 1980 and assumed a
growing political and managerial role until his father's death in
1994. He ass