and opium poppy,
mostly for domestic consumption; used as transshipment point for
opiates via Central Asia to Western Europe

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

@Germany
-------

Introduction

Background: Germany--first united in 1871?suffered defeats in
successive world wars and was occupied by the victorious Allied
powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the
beginning of the Cold War and increasing tension between the US and
Soviet Union, two German states were formed in 1949: the western
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic
Republic (GDR). The newly democratic FRG embedded itself in key
Western economic and security organizations, the EU and NATO, while
the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw
Pact. The decline of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War
cleared the path for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German
re-unification in 1990. Germany has expended considerable
funds--roughly $100 billion a year--in subsequent years working to
bring eastern productivity and wages up to western standards, with
mixed results. Unemployment--which in the east is nearly double that
in the west--has grown over the last several years, primarily as a
result of structural problems like an inflexible labor market. In
January 1999, Germany and 10 other members of the EU formed a common
European currency, the euro, and the German government is now
looking toward reform of the EU budget and enlargement of the Union
into Central Europe.

Geography

Location: Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North
Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark

Geographic coordinates: 51 00 N, 9 00 E

Map references: Europe

Area:
total: 356,910 sq km
land: 349,520 sq km
water: 7,390 sq km
note: includes the formerly separate Federal Republic of Germany,
the German Democratic Republic, and Berlin, following formal
unification on 3 October 1990

Area--comparative: slightly smaller than Montana

Land boundaries:
total: 3,621 km
border countries: Austria 784 km, Belgium 167 km, Czech Republic 646
km, Denmark 68 km, France 451 km, Luxembourg 138 km, Netherlands 577
km, Poland 456 km, Switzerland 334 km

Coastline: 2,389 km

Maritime claims:
continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of e