@Pakistan:Transnational Issues
Disputes - international: status of Kashmir with India; water-sharing problems with India over the Indus River (Wular Barrage)
Illicit drugs: producer of illicit opium and hashish for the international drug trade (poppy cultivation in 1999 - 1,570 hectares, a 48% drop from 1998 because of eradication and alternative development); key transit area for Southwest Asian heroin moving to Western markets; narcotics still move from Afghanistan into Balochistan Province
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PALAU
@Palau:Introduction
Background: After three decades as part of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific under US administration, this westernmost cluster of the Caroline Islands opted for independent status in 1978 rather than join the Federated States of Micronesia. A Compact of Free Association with the US was approved in 1986, but not ratified until 1993. It entered into force the following year when the islands gained their independence.
@Palau:Geography
Location: Oceania, group of islands in the North Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Philippines
Geographic coordinates: 7 30 N, 134 30 E