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China continued to seek a mutually acceptable solution to the disputed alluvial islands at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers and a small island on the Argun River as part of the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation. The 400 year-old border dispute between Russia and its Eastern neighbour ended in December 2008 with a 340 square kilometer piece of land being officially placed under the Chinese flag. The half-Russian, half-Chinese island is a hundred kilometers from the city of Khabarovsk. It has two names: the Russian half is called Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, the Chinese half is now known as "the Island of the Black Bear".
the sovereignty dispute over the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai group known in Japan as the "Northern Territories" and in Russia as the "Southern Kurils," occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, now administered by Russia, and claimed by Japan, remains the primary sticking point to signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities;
about a third of the boundary with Georgia remains undelimited and none of it demarcated with several small, strategic segments remaining in dispute; OSCE observers monitor volatile areas such as the Pankisi Gorge in the Akhmeti region and the Argun Gorge in Abkhazia;
equidistant seabed treaties have been signed with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the Caspian Sea but no consensus on dividing the water column among any of the littoral states
Canada, Russia, the US, Denmark [via Greenland] and Norway are staking claims in the Arctic Ocean, which may contain a quarter of the world's untapped petroleum reserves, and is becoming more accessible due to global warming. Under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, they could acquire rights to Arctic seafloor territory if the areas are linked to their continental shelves. Russia made its claim in 2001, though it will make a resubmission. Canada ratified the Law on the Sea in 2003, so it has to file its claim by 2013.The United States had not ratified the Law of the Sea Convention.
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| Rwanda | Tutsi, Hutu, Hema, Lendu, and other conflicting ethnic groups, associated political rebels, armed gangs, and various government forces continue fighting in Great Lakes region, transcending the boundaries of Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda to gain control over populated areas and natural resources - government heads pledge to end conflicts, but localized violence continues despite UN peacekeeping efforts |
