North America.

• Position: World Affairs Annual 2013

CUBA

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, President Raul Castro has begun limited reforms that include allowing Cubans to start their own businesses and, beginning in 2013, travel without an exit visa. Will the U.S. lift the trade embargo that it imposed on Cuba after the Communist revolution five decades ago?

MEXICO

Drug violence has claimed the lives of 47,000 Mexicans in the last six years, as the government battles powerful drug cartels (above, a drug arrest in Mexico City). Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has vowed to end the bloodshed. With illegal immigration a major issue in the U.S., there is also pressure to tighten security along the 2,000-mile border between the nations.

HAITI

Two years after a devastating earthquake killed 250,000 people and left 1 million homeless, Haiti is still struggling to recover. An ongoing cholera epidemic, believed to have been accidentally started by United Nations relief workers, has now claimed more than 7,500 lives since it began in late 2010.

CANADA

Melting ice sheets in the Arctic regions of northern Canada are thought by most scientists to be the result of global warming. How to respond to climate change has been a topic of considerable debate in the United States.

North America (includes Central America and the Caribbean) URBAN AREA (SQ MI) POP. % POP RISE COUNTRY POPULATION %/YEAR CAPITAL Antigua and 171 30 St. John's Barbuda 100,000 0.8 5,382 84 Bahamas 400,000 0.9 Nassau 166 45 Barbados 300,000 0.5 Bridgetown 8,867 44 Belize 300,000 2.1 Belmopan 3,855,103 80 Canada 34,900,000 0.4 Ottawa 19,730 62 Costa Rica 4,500,000 1.1 San Jose 42,426 75 Cuba 11,200,000 0.3 Havana 290 67 Dominica 100,000 0.5 Roseau 18,792 66 Dominican 10,100,000 1.6 Santo Republic 8,124 63 Domingo El Salvador 6,300,000 1.4 San Salvador 133 40 Grenada 100,000 1.3 St. George's 42,130 50 Guatemala 15,000,000 2.4 Guatemala 10,695 47 City Haiti 10,300,000 1.8 Port-au- 43,433 50 Prince Honduras 8,400,000 2.2 Tegucigalpa 4,244 52 Jamaica 2,700,000 1.0 Kingston 758,450 77 Mexico 116,100,000 1.5 Mexico City 50,337 57 Nicaragua 6,000,000 1.9 Managua 28,640 65 Panama 3,600,000 1.5 Panama City 104 32 Saint Kitts 1100.000 0.7 Basseterre and Nevis 238 128 Saint Lucia 200,000 0.7 Castries 150 40 Saint Vincent 100,000 1.2 and the Grenadines 1,990 13 Kingstown Trinidad and 1,300,000 0.6 Tobago 3,678,190 79 Port-of-Spain United States 313,900,000 0.5 Washington, D.C. POLITICAL SYSTEM & COUNTRY LANGUAGES HEALD...