(http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1111362.html)

According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Venezuela hosted a population of refugee and asylum seekers from Colombia numbering 252,200 in 2007. 10,600 new asylum seekers entered Venezuela in 2007.‏²⁷ Between 500,000 and one million illegal immigrants are estimated to be living in the Venezuela.‏²⁸

About 85% of the population live in urban areas in northern Venezuela; 73% live less than 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the coastline.‏²⁹ Though almost half of Venezuela's land area lies south of the Orinoco, only 5% of Venezuelans live there.

‏¹ http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3564217,00.h...

What was it about the men, their attitudes, the country, its institutions and above all the era which had allowed this tragedy to take place? ...they had, for all their brilliance and hubris and sense of themselves, been unwilling to look and learn from the past and they had been swept forward by their belief in the importance of anti-Communism (and the dangers of not paying sufficient homage to it). The question which intrigued me the most was why, why had it happened. So it became very quickly not a book about Vietnam, but a book about America, and in particular about power and success.

During the Taliban's seven-year rule, much of the population experienced restrictions on their freedom and violations of their human rights. Women were banned from jobs, girls forbidden to attend schools or universities.‏⁵⁸ Communists were systematically eradicated and thieves were punished by amputating one of their hands or feet.‏⁵⁹ Opium production was nearly wiped out by the Taliban by 2001.‏⁶⁰

Document 17: Memorandum of Conversation, "Secretary's Meeting with Foreign Minister Chatchai of Thailand," 26 November 1975, 1:00 p.m., State Department, Secret/Nodis

Months after the Indochina debacle, Kissinger had an "informal lunch" with Chatchai Chunhawan, Foreign Minister in the civilian government that came to power after the October 1973 student revolution against the military regime. Part of the new regime's agenda included normalization of relations with Beijing, so China (including Mao's physical condition, prospects for Deng Xiaoping, and the Chinese role in Southeast Asia) came up at several points during the conversation. Another agenda item for the Thai government was the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Thailand; as Kissinger indicated, negotiations had settled most of the issues except for the more sensitive issue of the U-2 deployments in Thailand (they would be redeployed to South Korea in 1976). The conversation, which moved easily from serious issues to banter, touched on the forces withdrawal issue, military aid, and especially regional problems, including the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Recognizing that Cambodia was controlled by "murderous thugs," Kissinger nevertheless wanted the Thais to tell the Cambodians "that we will be friends with them." That was because he saw Cambodia as a useful "counterweight", especially if aligned with China, to the real adversary, "North Vietnam." Thus, "our strategy is to get the Chinese into Laos and Cambodia as a barrier to the Vietnamese." (Note 15)