to Commission on
the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to extend its continental
margins covering over 3.37 million square kilometers, expanding its
seabed roughly thirty percent more than its claimed exclusive
economic zone; since 2003, Australia has led the Regional Assistance
Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) to maintain civil and
political order and reinforce regional security
Austria
while threats of international legal action never
materialized in 2007, 915,220 Austrians, with the support of the
newly elected Freedom Party, signed a petition in January 2008,
demanding that Austria block the Czech Republic's accession to the
EU unless Prague closes its nuclear power plant in Temelin,
bordering Austria
Azerbaijan
Armenia supports ethnic Armenian secessionists in
Nagorno-Karabakh and since the early 1990s has militarily occupied
16% of Azerbaijan; over 800,000 mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis were
driven from the occupied lands and Armenia; about 230,000 ethnic
Armenians were driven from their homes in Azerbaijan into Armenia
and Nagorno-Karabakh; Azerbaijan seeks transit route through Armenia
to connect to Naxcivan exclave; Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) continues to mediate dispute;
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia have ratified Caspian seabed
delimitation treaties based on equidistance, while Iran continues to
insist on an even one-fifth allocation and challenges Azerbaijan's
hydrocarbon exploration in disputed waters; bilateral talks continue
with Turkmenistan on dividing the seabed and contested oilfields in
the middle of the Caspian; Azerbaijan and Georgia continue to
discuss the alignment of their boundary at certain crossing areas
Bahamas, The
disagrees with the US on the alignment the northern
axis of a potential maritime boundary; continues to monitor and
interdict drug dealers and Haitian and Cuban refugees in Bahamian
waters
Bahrain
none
Bangladesh
discussions with India remain stalled to delimit a small
section of river boundary, exchange territory for 51 small
Bangladeshi exclaves in India and 111 small Indian exclaves in
Bangladesh, allocate divided villages, and stop illegal cross-border
trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists through the
porous border; Bangladesh protests India's fencing and walling off
high-traffic sections of the porous boundary; a joint
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