Military - note:
a CIS peacekeeping force of Russian troops is deployed in the
Abkhazia region of Georgia together with a UN military observer
group; a Russian peacekeeping battalion is deployed in South Ossetia
Transnational Issues Georgia
Disputes - international:
boundary with Russia has been largely delimited, but not demarcated
with several small, strategic segments remaining in dispute and OSCE
observers monitoring volatile areas such as the Pankisi Gorge in the
Akhmeti region and the Argun Gorge in Abkhazia; Meshkheti Turks
scattered throughout the former Soviet Union seek to return to
Georgia; ethnic Armenian groups in Javakheti region of Georgia seek
greater autonomy, closer ties with Armenia
Illicit drugs:
limited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for
domestic consumption; used as transshipment point for opiates via
Central Asia to Western Europe and Russia
This page was last updated on 18 December, 2003
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@Germany
Introduction Germany
Background:
As Europe's largest economy and most populous nation, Germany
remains a key member of the continent's economic, political, and
defense organizations. European power struggles immersed the country
in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century
and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the
US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the
Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic
(GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic
and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO,
while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War
allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has
expended considerable funds to bring eastern productivity and wages
up to western standards. In January 2002, Germany and 11 other EU
countries introduced a common European currency, the euro.
Geography Germany