Military expenditures - dollar figure: aggregate real expenditure on arms worldwide in 1999 remained at approximately the 1998 level, about three-quarters of a trillion dollars (1999 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: roughly 2% of gross world product (1999 est.)
Transnational Issues World
Disputes - international:
stretching over 250,000 km, the world's 325 international land
boundaries separate the 192 independent states and 73 dependencies,
areas of special sovereignty, and other miscellaneous entities;
ethnicity, culture, race, religion, and language have divided states
into separate political entities as much as history, physical
terrain, political fiat, or conquest, resulting in sometimes
arbitrary and imposed boundaries; maritime states have claimed
limits and have so far established over 130 maritime boundaries and
joint development zones to allocate ocean resources and to provide
for national security at sea; boundary, borderland/resource, and
territorial disputes vary in intensity from managed or dormant to
violent or militarized; most disputes over the alignment of
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
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated
that in December 2003 there was a global population of 9.7 million
refugees and as many as 25 million IDPs
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 20 October, 2005
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@Yemen
Introduction Yemen