f
political boundaries are confined to short segments and are today
less common and less hostile than borderland, resource, and
territorial disputes; undemarcated, indefinite, porous, and
unmanaged boundaries, however, encourage illegal cross-border
activities, uncontrolled migration, and confrontation; territorial
disputes may evolve from historical and/or cultural claims, or they
may be brought on by resource competition; ethnic clashes continue
to be responsible for much of the territorial fragmentation around
the world; disputes over islands at sea or in rivers frequently form
the source of territorial and boundary conflict; other sources of
contention include access to water and mineral (especially
petroleum) resources, fisheries, and arable land; nonetheless, most
nations cooperate to clarify their international boundaries and to
resolve territorial and resource disputes peacefully; regional
discord directly affects the sustenance and welfare of local
populations, often leaving the world community to cope with
resultant refugees, hunger, disease, impoverishment, deforestation,
and desertification

Illicit drugs:
cocaine: worldwide, coca is grown on an estimated 173,450
hectares-almost exclusively in South America with 70% in Colombia;
potential cocaine production during 2003 is estimated at 728 metric
tons (or 835 metric tons of export quality cocaine); coca
eradication programs continue in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru; 376
metric tons of export quality cocaine are documented to have been
seized in 2003, and 26 metric tons disrupted (jettisoned or
destroyed); consumption of export quality cocaine is estimated to
have been 800 metric tons
opiates: cultivation of opium poppy occurred on an estimated 137,944
hectares in 2003-mostly in Southwest and Southeast Asia-with 44% in
Afghanistan, potentially produced 3,775 metric tons of opium - which
conceivably could be converted to the equivalent of 429 metric tons
of pure heroin; opium eradication programs have been undertaken in
Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Mexico, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam

This page was last updated on 10 February, 2005

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@Yemen

Introduction Yemen

Background:
North Yemen became independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The
British, who had set up a protectorate area around the