world markets;
achieving a sustainable economic growth outside the oil, gas, and
mining sectors; and strengthening relations with neighboring states
and other foreign powers.

Kenya
Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo KENYATTA
led Kenya from independence in 1963 until his death in 1978, when
President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional
succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969
until 1982 when the 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 were viewed as having generally reflected the will of the
Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December 2002 following
fair and peaceful elections. Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate
of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow
Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed
the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption
platform. KIBAKI's NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the
constitutional review process. Government defectors joined with KANU
to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement,
which defeated the government's draft constitution in a popular
referendum in November 2005.

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 for much of its long history,
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