le
agricultural production, and most of the food for the urban
population must be imported. Incomes in Western Sahara are
substantially below the Moroccan level. The Moroccan Government
controls all trade and other economic activities in Western Sahara.
Morocco and the EU signed a four-year agreement in July 2006
allowing European vessels to fish off the coast of Morocco,
including the disputed waters off the coast of Western Sahara.
Moroccan energy interests in 2001 signed contracts to explore for
oil off the coast of Western Sahara, which has angered the
Polisario. However, in 2006 the Polisario awarded similar
exploration licenses in the disputed territory, which would come
into force if Morocco and the Polisario resolve their dispute over
Western Sahara.

World
Global output rose by 5.2% in 2007, led by China (11.4%),
India (9.2%), and Russia (8.1%). The 14 other successor nations of
the USSR and the other old Warsaw Pact nations again experienced
widely divergent growth rates; the three Baltic nations continued as
strong performers, in the 8%-10% range of growth. From 2006 to 2007
growth rates slowed in all the major industrial countries except for
the United Kingdom (3.1%). Analysts attribute the slowdown to
uncertainties in the financial markets and lowered consumer
confidence. Worldwide, nations varied widely in their growth
results. Externally, the nation-state, as a bedrock
economic-political institution, is steadily losing control over
international flows of people, goods, funds, and technology.
Internally, the central government often finds its control over
resources slipping as separatist regional movements - typically
based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in many of the successor
states of the former Soviet Union, in the former Yugoslavia, in
India, in Iraq, in Indonesia, and in Canada. Externally, the central
government is losing decisionmaking powers to international bodies,
notably the EU. In Western Europe, governments face the difficult
political problem of channeling resources away from welfare programs
in order to increase investment and strengthen incentives to seek
employment. The addition of 80 million people each year to an
already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution,
desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine. Because of
their own internal problems and priorities, the industri