e 16-49: 2,125,558 (2008 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:

males age 16-49: 1,274,783
females age 16-49: 1,317,991 (2008 est.)

Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually:

male: 95,446
female: 95,339 (2008 est.)

Military expenditures:

0.9% of GDP (2005 est.)

Transnational Issues
Somalia

Disputes - international:

Ethiopian forces invaded southern Somalia and routed Islamist Courts
from Mogadishu in January 2007; "Somaliland" secessionists provide
port facilities in Berbera to landlocked Ethiopia and have
established commercial ties with other regional states; "Puntland"
and "Somaliland" "governments" seek international support in their
secessionist aspirations and overlapping border claims; the
undemarcated former British administrative line has little meaning
as a political separation to rival clans within Ethiopia's Ogaden
and southern Somalia's Oromo region; Kenya works hard to prevent the
clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading south across the
border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists

Refugees and internally displaced persons:

IDPs: 1.1 million (civil war since 1988, clan-based competition for
resources) (2007)

This page was last updated on 18 December, 2008

======================================================================

@South Africa

Introduction
South Africa

Background:

Dutch traders landed at the southern tip of modern day South Africa
in 1652 and established a stopover point on the spice route between
the Netherlands and the East, founding the city of Cape Town. After
the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the
Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked north to found their own
republics. The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) spurred
wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native
inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments but were
defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902); however, the British and the
Afrikaners, as the Boers became known, ruled together under the
Union of South Africa. In 1948, the National Party was voted into
power and instituted a policy of apartheid - the separate
development of the races. The first multi-racial elections in 1994
brought an end to apartheid and ushered in black majority rule.

Geography
South Africa

Location:

Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa

Ge