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.
TASHKENT – Tuesday, October 18, 2011 – The latest in a series of corruption scandals in Uzbekistan is only a symptom of a much more widespread malaise, experts say. The state news agency carried a report on Tashkent airport last week, saying some of the staff there had been convicted of extortion and forgery. Reports [...]
With only three weeks left to go before the first round of Guatemala’s 2011 general elections, a number of candidates for president are being denied access by the Guatemalan media, casting a negative pall over the fairness of the proceedings. From the censorship of TV spots, to the manipulation of newspaper polls, and limited participation [...]
A United Nations human rights agency has demanded that the Chinese government immediately release a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer who has been detained for nearly a year, according to a statement released on Monday by an advocacy group. The lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, had said he was tortured during previous rounds of detention. The New York [...]
Stephanie Rudat issues a stern mandate to Dictators everywhere: Beware –Strategic use of nonviolent action combined with technology is a lethal formula empowering global citizens seeking your demise. 18 days of tumultuous freedom fighting and a dictator is shamefully evicted. Seems straightforward, doesn’t it? It’s not. In the Huffington Post, she writes that Egyptians have been [...]
In a surprise to many international political activists, Uganda’s planned investment more than double in February compared to the previous month, helped by the passage of a presidential election that many believe was held fairly, the state-run Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) recently stated. The east African country, which discovered commercial hydrocarbon deposits in its west [...]
Democratic Republic of Congo is seeking political stability, battling economic woes and stubborn rebel insurgencies as it gears up for elections due next year. The polls for the presidency and parliament, due to start in November 2011, will be the second since the official end to the 1998-2003 war, which drew in six foreign armies [...]
The long-standing and ongoing boom in commodity prices has given natural resources investors much to cheer about. It’s also revived a leviathan once thought tamed: resource nationalism or “indigenization”. Following a benign period of global deregulation, liberalization and privatization – the “Washington Consensus” of the post-Cold War era – Tim Woods reports that natural resources [...]
At this critical juncture in geopolitics, Uganda has made great strides to fulfill both its domestic and regional commitments. The Museveni administration continues to use the resources at its disposal to make the best of what is a rather debilitating situation in rural Uganda; the government maintains pressure on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to [...]
Jacob Zuma has surprised many in his role as mediator between the factions that comprise the Zimbabwean government. But even he nor the SADC can stop what seems to be a cyclical pattern that occurs when progression leads to a slowed inflation rate – Mugabe views it as cause for political capital and makes bold, [...]
