pia agreed to abide by the 2002 Eritrea-Ethiopia
Boundary Commission's (EEBC) delimitation decision, but neither
party responded to the revised line detailed in the November 2006
EEBC Demarcation Statement; UN Peacekeeping Mission to Ethiopia and
Eritrea (UNMEE), which has monitored the 25-km-wide Temporary
Security Zone in Eritrea since 2000, is extended for six months in
2007 despite Eritrean restrictions on its operations and reduced
force of 17,000; the undemarcated former British administrative line
has little meaning as a political separation to rival clans within
Ethiopia's Ogaden and southern Somalia's Oromo region; Ethiopian
forces invaded southern Somalia and routed Islamist Courts from
Mogadishu in January 2007; "Somaliland" secessionists provide port
facilities in Berbera and trade ties to landlocked Ethiopia; civil
unrest in eastern Sudan has hampered efforts to demarcate the porous
boundary with Ethiopia

Refugees and internally displaced persons:

refugees (country of origin): 66,980 (Sudan); 16,576 (Somalia);
13,078 (Eritrea)
IDPs: 200,000 (border war with Eritrea from 1998-2000, ethnic
clashes in Gambela, and ongoing Ethiopian military counterinsurgency
in Somali region; most IDPs are in Tigray and Gambela Provinces)
(2007)

Illicit drugs:

transit hub for heroin originating in Southwest and Southeast Asia
and destined for Europe, as well as cocaine destined for markets in
southern Africa; cultivates qat (khat) for local use and regional
export, principally to Djibouti and Somalia (legal in all three
countries); the lack of a well-developed financial system limits the
country's utility as a money laundering center

This page was last updated on 18 December, 2008

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@European Union

Introduction
European Union

Preliminary statement:

The evolution of the European Union (EU) from a regional economic
agreement among six neighboring states in 1951 to today's
supranational organization of 27 countries across the European
continent stands as an unprecedented phenomenon in the annals of
history. Dynastic unions for territorial consolidation were long the
norm in Europe. On a few occasions even country-level unions were
arranged - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire were examples - but for such a large number
of nation-states to cede some of their sovereignty to an over