President Kibaki, speaking Tuesday at Kenyatta International Conference Centre when he officially launched the Women Enterprise Fund, stated the Kenyan government intends to allocate more resources for onward lending to women. “In this regard an additional 500 million shillings will be allocated in the coming financial year, to boost the Women Enterprise Fund,” he said. [...]

With the the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre fast approaching, the onus is on Beijing to show the world that it has changed for the better. Even before June 4, 1989, the day democracy advocates were gunned down, human rights in China remained an issue adamantly in question. China’s State Council recently released [...]

Hopes were high. Promises were made. There were even small clamors of joy found in the most dilapidated of homes. From the moment Morgan Tsvangirai was inaugurated as Zimbabwean prime minister, February 11, 2009, Zimbabwe has witnessed nothing but controversy and corruption, power struggle instead of power shared. President Robert Mugabe maintained the post he had [...]

How do investors interested in Latin America view Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez landing in Beijing? Would they view it as a flamboyant fanatic’s desperate last leg of a world tour made to prop up a failing PDVSA? Would they view it as the final stop on a very successful and diverse investment campaign for Latin [...]

  Hugo Chavez and Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso today agreed to cooperate on oil and gas developments in the Latin American nation. Chavez is attempting to secure funds for energy projects after a 65 per cent decline in oil prices forced him to cut government spending in March. Last week, it was through a meeting with [...]

Twenty years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Kazakhstan joins Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine in abandoning its attempts to prop up exchange rates. Kazakhstan’s economic growth has screeched to a near halt – down to 1 percent from 10 percent, their central bank devaluing the tenge by 18 percent and their four biggest banks being [...]

In order to cope with the challenges of a growing international economic crisis, Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming stated Monday that China is willing to increase cooperation with their largest African trading partner, Angola. Of course this is not a bad trend. Since November of 2006, China has not only forgiven Angola’s matured debts [...]

Today I read with great interest this piece in the New York Times Magazine, which explores some of the central corporate foreign policy issues we see crop up for a variety of technology companies, such as Skype and Yahoo!’s recent experiences with the Chinese government seeking the identity of dissidents.  To what extent are these [...]

  Here is a question: should we be relieved or even more worried by the announcement this week that the top three internet giants have adopted a common set of principals known as the Global Network Initiative (GNI), which promises greater protection of human rights and free speech with respect to each company’s business operations [...]

Things are looking worse than ever in Zimbabwe, as the increasingly isolated President Robert Mugabe defied international pressure and outright condemnation to proceed with a “one-candidate poll” in the runoff election for the presidency on Friday – leaving not only the beleaguered public, but also foreign and domestic businesses, between a rock and a hard [...]