Corporate Foreign Policy

PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli has been accused of 21 breaches under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989.

PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli has made banking history in Malaysia after a police report was lodged against him under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (BAFIA) by National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) Sdn Bhd chairman Mohamad Salleh Ismail.

In his report, Salleh accused Rafizi of 21 breaches for revealing private and confidential banking details that were protected under Part XIII, Secrecy and Information.

Rafizi had distributed to the media the banking details and credit ratings of NFCorp, National Meat and Livestock Corporation Sdn Bhd, Real Food Company Sdn Bhd and Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd as well as the personal banking details of the directors and shareholders, including Salleh’s.

Rafizi had further pointed out that Salleh had used NFCorp’s public funds to secure a personal loan to purchase eight shop office units at KL Eco City and that Salleh had been constantly defaulting on his loan repayments.

Continue reading.. ›

There’s no question about it – Argentina “lost” when they announced the renationalization of oil company YRG, seizing the 51% stake from the Spanish energy giant Repsol.  In the weeks since, they have been taking a beating in the global media.  If it was President Kirchener’s plan to take the oil company all along, the media wing of the party did a poor job conditioning the narrative.  But has the hate-fest gone too far?  Might there actually be some instinctual contrarians leaping to Argentina’s defense, denouncing the imperial abuses of the Spaniards?

Maybe not, but at the very least, many people can sympathize for the dire economic motivations that have led Argentina to undertake such a decision.  From Win Thin, Global Head Of Emerging Markets Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, as quoted by Diverging Markets, I can’t help but feel very sorry for Argentina myself.

Basically, Fernandez is doubling down on its past policies that have done nothing but push Argentina closer to crisis. Put in the context of Latin America, Argentina is going further down the road traveled to some extent or another by Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. This group stands in sharp contrast to the orthodox-oriented core of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.

Continue reading.. ›

The following was originally published in Education News, penned by Zimbabwe Minister of Education David Coltart:

Despite massive challenges including political interference and lack of human resource capacity, Zimbabwe has seen change in one of its most fundamentally-critical sectors, change that has come about as a direct result of international support. More must be done, but for the sake of our audiences acknowledging where assistance can go from root to fruit, it is imperative we keep them appraised as to the precedents set by the Education Transition Fund.

Zimbabwe’s Education Transition Fund (ETF) has dramatically altered for the better the futures of children throughout the nation, children once disillusioned from having no teachers at school, from sharing a textbook amongst thirty of their fellow students, from a lack of administrative oversight and from crumpling infrastructure. The Fund, now in its second phase, has been an innovative boost, founded as a multi-donor mechanism in 2009 by the Ministry of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture in partnership with UNICEF and the international donor community. Its aim was and continues to be to bridge the sponsorship gap in the education sector during a transition period to notable recovery from what was an absolute state of emergency.

Continue reading.. ›

While shale could help Poland lessen dependence on Russian supplies and cut its gas bill, a government proposal for a levy on production threatens to curtail investment. Europe’s best hope for a shale-gas boom is indeed fading as explorers in Poland confront rising taxes, political concerns focused on environmental degradation, a lack of rigs and rocks that are harder to drill than expected.

The National Post and BusinessWeek report that failed wells by Exxon Mobil curbed the optimism that led two dozen companies to grab licenses. Shale-gas reserves may be lower than estimated, and well drilling costs almost three times as much in Poland as in the U.S.

“The growth of shale in Poland will also be slower than in the U.S. because it would need to build the infrastructure the U.S. already had available,” said Laura Loppacher, an oil and gas analyst at Jefferies International Ltd. in London. “We know the gas in place is there, but it’s unclear if it can be extracted at a rate that’s commercial.”

Continue reading.. ›

Concern is building in Zimbabwe over the fate of a human rights activist who has been missing for roughly a month, with many fearing the worst. Paul Chizuze has been missing since the 8th of February and since his disappearance and in the name of open protest, freedom of expression and civility, his friends and colleagues have launched a campaign on social media networking sites Facebook and Twitter, to try and find out where he is.

Pressure group Sokwanele posted an alert on its website saying Chizuze “Allegedly left his home around 8 pm on 8th February, and what happened after this remains a mystery. He may have been murdered, hijacked or abducted by parties unknown.” It is noted that his car, a white twin cab Nissan Hardbody (registration ACJ 3446) is also missing.

Ten organizations led by the Christian group Churches in Bulawayo and the Solidarity Peace Trust also recently issued an appeal saying they feared Chizuze may have been ‘murdered’.

Paul Chizuze is a paralegal who worked with civic organizations including the Amani Trust. Chizuze worked closely with Education Minister David Coltart, who wrote on the social microblogging site Twitter: “I am very distressed about the disappearance of a good friend and colleague.”

Continue reading.. ›

Oil and Gas Eurasia has recently published significant findings from the Polish Geological Institute that could very well shake up the geopolitical debate on shale energy and environmental degradation. According to the report, shale gas mining will not damage the water supply or increase carbon emissions.

The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily added that it has seen the report prepared for the Ministry of Environment which concludes that apart from the noise from drilling, ‘fracking‘ shale gas in Poland will not have negative environmental consequences.

Experts studied the environmental impact of the ‘fracking process’ performed in 2011 on one of the boreholes in the village ?ebie? in Pomerania, northern Poland.

Continue reading.. ›

In this exclusive interview, German businessman Franz J. Sedelmayer discusses his decades-long dispute with the Russian government, challenging Russia’s sovereign immunity, and the link between state corruption and the current environment of civil unrest in Russia.

Q: Looking at the very long history of your dispute with the Kremlin, no one could say that you lack resilience in seeking recovery of your stolen property. So where did this all begin?

A: As the Eastern Block began to break down in 1989, we saw an opportunity to set up a company supplying law enforcement equipment to Russian executive organs of state helping with their modernization and training their personnel. Later on I also founded a security service to assist new foreign investors in navigating in a rather risky economy. We set up our joint venture, JSC Kamenny Ostrov, together with the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Police Department, which offered the use of facilities on Stone Island for a 25-year lease. We ended up bringing in cash, equipment and renovating our company facilities, investing upwards of $4,000,000.

We began having political problems right away as the law changed, banning the police from participation in commercial activities, and creating a heated competition for the other 50% of our company between organs of the new federal government and the old property fund ran by the Supreme Soviet.

Continue reading.. ›

Zimbabwe Minister of Education David Coltart is unequivocally on a mission. And his mission is particularly unique here in Zim – it is supported on both (if not more) sides of the proverbial aisle.

It is common knowledge that education is a pillar of infrastructural stability, allowing a nation and its respective citizenry to develop and thrive. Education turns aspiration to talent, fosters it and allows it to give back through implementing an acquired skill at home, ultimately equating to a nation sustainably developing.

Yet after the turmoil of 2008, one would have all but written off the former breadbasket of Africa regarding its developmental potential. David Coltart is out to prove those naysayers wrong.

Continue reading.. ›

The following contains excerpts of a recent article published by Financial Times correspondent Joe Leahy, based in São Paulo:

The Brazilian ministry of development, trade and industry is investigating claims by Brazilian cellphone producers that their Chinese counterparts are dumping cheap handsets on the market. The intense rate of importation of what the Ministry believes are substandard telecommunications products is having adverse effect on the domestic opportunity for sustainable production.

“These are being sold here below the cost of production,” said Abinee, the Brazilian association of electrical and electronics industries. “We can’t compete.”

The move follows other measures by Brazil to curb cheap imports from China as one of the world’s newest and most important trading partnerships becomes more adversarial.

Continue reading.. ›

With mining company Anglo American’s successful sale of a contentious $5.4 billion stake in Las Bronces copper mine in Chile, they may have won the point but lost the game, as relations with the Chilean government and wider public have sharply soured during the dispute.  During the transaction in question, the state-owned copper interest Codelco had decided to exercise its legally granted call option in order to purchase 49% of the Las Bronces share, but was blocked from doing so when Anglo moved forward to sell 24.5% of its Chilean company to Japan’s Mitsubishi.  But this week, the Chilean government went ahead and announced on Monday that they would officially take over the full 49% of Anglo American Sur, including the half of the stake sold to the Japanese.

According to a number of financial and political risk analysts interview by The Financial Times, the aggressive and “arrogant” moves by Anglo have prompted a certain level of “unquantifiable risk” that the company may have unleashed in their handling of the dispute with an unusually business-friendly like Chile.  The question remains:  was it worth $5.4 billion in value in terms of the heightened risk their operations will now face?

Continue reading.. ›