Disputes - international:
Globally, there are over 250,000 km of international land
boundaries that separate the world's 192 independent states, along
with 70 dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, and other
miscellaneous entities. 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
their national security at sea. On land, 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.
All of these factors have contributed to a wide array of boundary,
borderland, and territorial disagreements that vary in intensity
from unresolved or dormant to outright war. Territorial disputes may
evolve from historical and/or cultural animosities, or they may be
brought on by resource competition. Ethnic clashes continue to be
responsible for territorial fragmentation around the world.
Undemarcated, indefinite, porous, and unmanaged boundaries encourage
illegal cross-border activities, uncontrolled migration, and
political confrontation over boundary allocations. Other sources of
contention include the use of water and mineral (especially
petroleum) resources, fisheries, dams, and nuclear power plants.
Many islands or island groups are also disputed, including those at
sea and in streams. Nonetheless, many nations are actively
cooperating to clarify, delineate, and demarcate their international
borders. The tragic aspect of international discord is the impact on
the sustenance and welfare of populations caught in the conflict. It
is frequently left to members of the world community to cope with
enormous refugee situations, and the resultant hunger, disease, and
impoverishment that they create.
Illicit drugs:
cocaine: worldwide, coca is grown on an estimated 205,450 hectares
- almost exclusively in South America with 70% in Colombia;
potential cocaine production during 2002 is estimated at 938 metric
tons (or 1,200 metric tons of export quality cocaine at an average
of 78% purity); coca eradication programs continue in Bolivia,
Colombia, and Peru, and 292 metric tons of export quality cocaine
are documented to have been seized in 2002; consumption of export
quality cocaine is estimated to have been 875 metric tons
opiates: cultivation of opium poppy occurred on an estimated 141,213
hectares in 2002 and potentially produced 2,183 metric tons of opium
- which conceivably could be converted to the equivalent of 238
metric tons of pure heroin; opium eradication programs have been
undertaken in Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Mexico, Pakistan,
Thailand, and Vietnam, and the annual average for opiates seized
worldwide over the past five years (1998-2002) has been 45 metric
tons of pure heroin equivalent; estimates for average annual
consumption over this time period are 315 metric tons pure heroin
equivalent