y military service; length of military service is 18
months and 12 months for university graduates (2006)

Manpower available for military service:
males age 18-49: 1,961,973
females age 18-49: 2,033,186 (2005 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:
males age 18-49: 1,314,955
females age 18-49: 1,676,408 (2005 est.)

Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males age 18-49: 82,358
females age 18-49: 78,067 (2005 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$121 million (FY99)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
2.6% (FY99)

Transnational Issues Azerbaijan

Disputes - international:
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; 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 ratify
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

Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 2,800 (Russia)
IDPs: 580,000-690,000 (conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh)
(2006)

Illicit drugs:
limited illicit cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for
CIS consumption; small government eradication program; transit point
for Southwest Asian opiates bound for Russia and to a lesser extent
the rest of Europe

This page was last updated on 8 February, 2007

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@Bahamas, The

Introduction Bahamas, The

Background:
Lucayan Indians inhabited the islands when Christopher Columbus
first set foot in the New World on San Salvador in 1492. British
settlement of the islands began in 1647; the islands became a colony
in 1783. Since attaining i