10°N 10°S 10°E 20°E 30°E 40°E 20°N 30°N 40°N 50°N 80°N 100°E 90°E 80°E TROPIC OF CANCER 70°E 60°E 50°E 110°E 120°E 130°E 0° EQUATOR 0° 60°N 70°N A R C TIC CIRCLE PACIFIC OCEAN ARCTIC OCEAN INDIAN OCEAN M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a Ca spian S e a Kara Sea Laptev Sea East Siberian Sea Bering Sea Sea of Okhotsk Sea of Japan (East Sea) Yellow Sea East China Sea Philippine Sea South China Sea Sulu Sea Celebes Sea Andaman Sea Arafura Sea Lake Balkhash Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal Red Sea Gulf of A d e n P e r s i a n G u l f B l a c k Sea Aral Sea Lake Baikal W O b R i v e r Y e n i s e y R i v e r L e n a R i v e r Y e l l o w R i v e r I n d u s R i v e r E u p h r a t e s R . T i g r is R . G a n g e s R i v e r B r a h m a p u t r a R . Y a n g t z e R i v e r M e k o n g R i v e r U r a l R i v e r B r a h m a p u t ra R . OPE O EURO O E O O RO O AFR FRICA FR FR AUSTRALIA A H I M A L A Y A S K U N L U N S H A N GOBI DESERT A L T A Y S H A N U R A L M O U N T A I N S KAMCHATKA PENINSULA TIBETAN PLATEAU H I N D U K U S H S A Y A N M O U N T A I N S S I B E R I A H I N D U K U S H SUMATRA BORNEO CELEBES JAVA BALI Astana Yekaterinburg Omsk Chelyabinsk Istanbul Irkutsk Chita Novosibirsk Barnaul Krasnoyarsk Khabarovsk Qiqihar Harbin Tashkent Ashgabat Dushanbe Tehran Eshfahan Mashhad Baku Baghdad Riyadh Jeddah Medina Mecca Kuwait City Sanaa Doha Tabriz Aden Muscat Abu Dhabi Amman Damascus Beirut Nicosia Jerusalem Yerevan Tbilisi Ankara Izmir Kabul Kandahar Hazarbuz Colombo Chennai (Madras) Hyderabad Cochin Bangalore Pune Nagpur Mumbai (Bombay) Male New Delhi Ahmadabad Karachi Delhi Lahore Dhaka Calcutta Yangon (Rangoon) Bangkok Dili Jakarta Surabaya Medan Bandung Phnom Penh Manila Quezon City Davao Manado Kupang Banjarmasin Bandar Seri Begawan Ho Chi Minh City Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hanoi Vientiane Taipei Hong Kong Guangzhou Macau Kunming Lanzhou Ürümqi Lhasa Fuzhou Tokyo Sapporo Kyoto Osaka Pusan Yokohama Hiroshima Fukuoka Nagasaki Qingdao Tianjin Shanghai Hangzhou Wuhan Xi’an Chengdu Nanjing Vladivostok Taiyuan Fushun Pyongyang Seoul Kathmandu Thimphu Islamabad Herat Ulaanbaatar Beijing Shenyang Bishkek Almaty Naypyidaw Tiksi Yerevan Vientiane Dushanbe Chittagong Chittagong Kathmandu Chengdu Tashkent Islamabad SOCOTRA (YEMEN) CHAGOS ARCHIPELAGO (U.K.) ANDAMAN IS. NICOBAR IS. HAINAN RYUKYU IS. KURIL IS. SAKHALIN I. WRANGEL I. NEW SIBERIAN IS. SEVERNAYA ZEMLYA SINAI PENINSULA (EGYPT) (INDIA) (INDIA) (CHINA) (JAPAN) (RUSSIA) (RUSSIA) (RUSSIA) (RUSSIA) (RUSSIA) INDIA SRI LANKA MALDIVES YEMEN OMAN SAUDI ARABIA IRAN KAZAKHSTAN UNITED ARAB EMIRATES QATAR IRAQ KUWAIT UZBEKISTAN TURKMENISTAN KYRGYZSTAN TAJIKISTAN AFGHANISTAN PAKISTAN NEPAL BHUTAN BANGLADESH THAILAND CAMBODIA VIETNAM TAIWAN SOUTH KOREA NORTH KOREA JAPAN TIMOR-LESTE (EAST TIMOR) SINGAPORE BRUNEI MALAYSIA INDONESIA PHILIPPINES LAOS CHINA MONGOLIA MYANMAR (BURMA) GEORGIA JORDAN SYRIA AZERBAIJAN CYPRUS LEBANON ISRAEL TURKEY BAHRAIN R U S S I A R U S S I A ARMENIA BHUTAN 0 0 500 KM 500 MI National capital City AMERICA’S CHALLENGES 2011 ASIA A SUPPLEMENT TO SCHOLASTIC INC. FOR INFORMATION ON JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC , CALL 1-800-SCHOLASTIC After nine years of what is now America’s longest war, 100,000 U.S. troops are trying to stabilize AFGHANISTAN, whose ineffectual and corrupt government makes fighting the Taliban even harder. With a population of 1.3 billion and its economy growing an average of 10 percent a year, CHINA is fast becoming a superpower capable of challenging the U.S., both economically and politically. Sixty years after the start of the Korean War, NORTH KOREA’S unpredictable leader Kim Jong Il continues to test nuclear weapons and threaten South Korea, where the U.S. has 28,000 troops. PAKISTAN is a nuclear- armed country threatened by Islamic extremists. Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding in the lawless tribal region that borders Afghanistan. EROS HOAGLAND, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX LANG LANG/REUTERS KCNA/REUTERS OLIVIER MATTHYS/EPA/CORBIS 0 0 1,000 KM 1,000 MI N W E E S S Canberra Aukland Alice Springs Christchurch Perth Melbourne Sydney Darwin Port Moresby Wellington TASMANIA WEST PAPUA TOKELAU AMERICAN SAMOA FRENCH POLYNESIA COOK IS. NIUE NEW CALEDONIA GUAM NORTHERN MARIANA IS. WEST PAPUA (AUSTRALIA) (INDONESIA) (NEW ZEALAND) (FRANCE) (NEW ZEALAND) (NEW ZEALAND) (FRANCE) (U.S.) (U.S.) (U.S.) AUSTRALIA FIJI KIRIBATI MARSHALL ISLANDS FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA NEW ZEALAND PALAU PAPUA NEW GUINEA SAMOA SOLOMON ISLANDS TONGA TUVALU VANUATU NAURU I N 120°E 140°E 160°E 180° 160°W 0° 20°S 20°N 40°S 60°S EQUA TO R TROPIC OF CA PRICORN TROPIC OF CANCER INDIAN OCEAN SOUTHERN OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Coral Sea Tasman Sea FOR MORE ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES IN THE NEWS, GO TO WWW.SCHOLASTIC.COM/JS ® OCEANIA MAP: JIM MCMAHON Tip: Zoom in for more detail