Neighbours: Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. Borders: Croatia 932 km, Serbia and Montenegro 527 km. Coastline: 20 km (in the region of the town Neum, Adriatic Sea). In the middle ages, many people of the area changed from Christian to Islam, BiH was part of the Turkish empire, and after 1878 it became part of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. After World War I, BiH was part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II, Yugoslavia was ruled by Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980. The government of Yugoslavia pushed the development of military industries and the building of military objects in BiH with the result that BiH hosted a number of Yugoslavia's defence plants and important military objects. Conflicts within the of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija – SFRJ) became stronger and stronger. The government in Sarajevo declared sovereignty on 15 October 1991, however most Bosnian Serbs and the political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs didn’t accepted the proclamation. A referendum for independence was passed on 29 February 1992. The fight for independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) started in April 1992 with a war, without the support of Bosnian Serb politicians who wanted to stay in Yugoslavia. The war was supported by groups from Serbia and Croatia, and ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement, signed on 21 November 1995 by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. During the war there were fights between the three ethnic groups, but in 1994 the Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Moslems decided to establish together the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two years earlier, on 9 January 1992, the Bosnian Serbs had proclaimed the Republic of Srpska. Between 150,000 - 200,000 people died in conflicts between Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Moslems/Muslims (Bosniaks/Bosnjaks/Bošnjaks) and Bosnian Croats in BiH. The country consists today of two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federation or Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine – FBIH or Federacija) and the Republic of Srpska (Serb Republic, Republika Srpska - RS), as well as the district Brčko. The area of the Republic of Srpska is 25,053 km², or 49% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the most important town of Republika Srpska is Banja Luka with 218,436 inhabitants. Today Republika Srpska has 63 municipalities. In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina there are 10 cantons (Unsko-Sanski, Posavski, Tuzlanski, Zeničko-Dobojski, Bosansko-Podrnjski, Srednjobosanski, Hercegovačko-neretvanski, Zapadnohercegovački, Hercegbosanski and Sarajevski), each with their own cantonal governments and laws. The highest authority in BiH for civilian matters is the Office of the High Representative. The high representative is an official nominated by the Peace Implementation Council, made up of 55 countries and international organisations. Between May 2002 and 31 January 2006 the high representative was Paddy Ashdown, a British politician, who took the position from Austrian Wolfgang Petritsch. Christian Schwarz-Schilling, 75, a former German postal service minister (1982-1992), was appointed on 14 December 2005 to be the international community's next High Representative (HR) in BiH. Schilling resigned from the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in protest over its failure to intervene in the unfolding conflict in BiH. In 1995, he became the international mediator for BiH. His appointment was announced at an extraordinary session of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), which brought together representatives of international organisations and 15 countries, including guarantor states of the Dayton Peace Agreement Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and the United States. Chairman of the Presidency of BiH Ivo Miro Jović, Prime Minister Adnan Terzić and Foreign Minister Mladen Ivanić represented BiH authorities. Through the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the international community launched several parallel processes in BiH. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an integral part of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, which was initialled on 22 November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio (USA), and signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. The text of the Constitution of BiH, laid out in Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, transforms the country into a complex and decentralised state composed of the Federation of BiH and the Republika Srpska. BiH’s Parliament the House of Representatives (Predstavnički dom) and the House of People (Dom naroda). The House of Representatives is composed of 42 members, two-thirds of whom (28) are elected from the Federation of BiH, and one-third (14) from the Republika Srpska. Members of the House of Representatives are directly elected by their respective entities in accordance with the Election Law. A majority of members in the House constitutes a quorum. The House of Peoples is comprised of 15 delegates, two-thirds of whom are from the Federation (including five Bosnian Croats and five Bosniaks) and one-third from the Republika Srpska (five Bosnian Serbs). The Bosnian Croat and Bosniak delegates are selected, respectively by the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak delegates in the House of Peoples of the Federation of BiH. Delegates from the Republika Srpska for the House of Peoples are selected by the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska. Nine delegates of the House of Peoples constitutes a quorum, provided that a minimum of three Bosniak, three Croat, and three Serb delegates are present. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in 1974 by the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At that time, the presidency consisted of nine members, but after the first multiparty elections in December 1990, it had seven members - two Bosniak, two Serb, two Croat, and one member representing “other”. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the current constitution, is defined as the highest state institution. The function of the collective Head of State is carried out equally by three members from the constitutive people of Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Bosniak, Serb, and Croat people. Constitutional jurisdictions of the presidency are defined by Article 5 of the constitution, which represents a special annex to the General Framework Agreement for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The central BiH government consists of the Council of Ministers. Republika Srpska and Federacija BIH have their own state structures inside the country, independent from central structures in Sarajevo. The country has made little progress in meeting conditions for the beginning of negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union. In January 2004, the high representative adopted a decision enacting the Statute of the City of Mostar, which transformed six separate Bosniak (Moslem) and Bosnian Croat municipalities into a single city administration. In March 2004, the first state-level minister of defence was appointed. BiH was still not invited to join the NATO Partnership for Peace, because authorities of Republika Srpska failed to fully co-operate with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in Den Hague. The high representative dismissed over 50 officials from Republika Srpska in 2004, including the interior minister and chairman of the RS Assembly. The completion of the old Mostar bridge reconstruction in the summer of 2004 has been a symbol of better communication in the country after the war. The bridge was totally destroyed by Bosnian Croat military forces during the war in BiH. The economy is still functioning at a low level today, though, with one of many problems being an unemployment rate of over 40%. In 2004 the NATO-led Stabilisation Force SFOR left the area, and monitoring was taken over by the European Stabilisation Force EUFOR. EUFOR provides an ongoing international peacekeeping presence across the country. On 2 October 2004, local (municipal) elections were held with low voter turnout; only 45.52 % of BiH citizens with the right to vote came to polling stations. These were the first local elections entirely organised by authorities in BiH since the end of the war in 1995. The biggest surprise in the election was gains by the moderate Union of Independent Social Democrats in the Bosnian Republika Srpska over the more hard-line SDS (Srpska Demokratska Stranka). In February 2005 Pero Bukejlović became the new prime minister of Republika Srpska. Some parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina are: the Party of Democratic Action (Stranka Demokratske Akcije – SDA), the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the Bosnian Party (BOSS), the Civic Democratic Party (GDS), the Croatian Democratic Union Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH), the Croat Christian Democratic Union Bosnia and Herzegovina HKDU BiH,  the Croat Party of Rights (HSP), the Croat Peasants Party (HSS),  the Democratic National Union  (DNZ), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDS), the New Croat Initiative (NHI), the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH), the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), the Pro-European People's Party (PROENS), the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), the Serb Radical Party of the Republika Srpska (SRS-RS), the Social Democratic Party of BIH (SDP BiH) and the Socialist Party of Republika Srpska (SPRS). Bosnia and Herzegovina is a member of the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe. The year 2005 marks the 10th anniversary of both the massacre at Srebrenica and the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. On 11 July 2005 in Srebrenica 50,000 people remembered the victims killed 10 years earlier when a military group of Bosnian Serbs overran the UN-protected enclave. Since that time, forensics experts have exhumed more than 5,000 bodies, and identified 2,032 through DNA analysis and other techniques. More than 1,300 Srebrenica victims are already buried at a cemetery that is part of the memorial centre. In all, nearly 8,000 were killed. Two of the people most-wanted by the War Crime Tribunal, Bosnian-Serb army chief during the war Ratko Mladić, and President of the Bosnian Serbs during the war Radovan Karadžić, were still free at the end of 2005. According to the September 2004 Decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH U 44/01, several cities that changed names during the war had to change their names again, including:  Srpski Brod (before the war Bosanski Brod) changed its name again to Bosanski Brod, Srpski Drvar to East (Istočni) Drvar, Srpski Mostar to East Mostar, Srpski Sanski Most to Oštra Luka, Srpski Stari Grad to East Stari Grad, Srpsko Goražde to Ustipraca, Srpsko Novo Sarajevo to Lukavica, Srpsko Orašje to Donji Žabar, Srbinje to its old name Foča, and Kostajnica to Bosanska Kostajnica.