The website of corruption watchdog, the Global Witness, is now blocked in Cambodia after it released a report criticizing its oil and mining industries last week. The site was blocked by ISP company, AngkorNet, although company representatives could not provide reasons for the liited access.
Month: February 2009
In recent news, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a coalition consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – ratified an agreement on February 4th to establish a collective security force in the region.
The security force, consisting primarily of Russian paratroopers, would increase from its present size of 3,000 to a force of approximately 10,000 troops and be under a unified command. This military force would be utilized to combat terrorism and extremism, transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, regional emergencies, as well as to counteract “military aggression” in the area.
The establishment of this coalition comes in unison with Russia doling out a lot of funding in the area — including $2 billion to Kyrgyzstan who recently closed down the U.S. base at Manas and $7.7 billion of a US$10 billion “crisis fund” which will provide economic relief to those in Central Asia suffering from the current economic climate.
During the recent summit in Moscow, the CSTO also extended the term of former Russian KGB officer Nikolai Bordyuzha as secretary general of the coalition for an additional three years.
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Clinton wants better Russia ties
As Moscow flexes its muscles and reasserts its influence in the former Soviet Republics, the most recent indication was when U.S. bases were closed in Kazahkstan in exchange for aid, the new U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hopes to have a “more constructive” ties with Russia. She wants to include Moscow as a “co-operative partner” on issues like Iran’s nuclear plans. Clinton is scheduled for her first trip in Asia on February 15, reports the BBC.
Boon or bane? China has overtaken the United States in terms of car sales when the country snapped up 790,000 vehicles last January compared to the United State’s 656,976 vehicles. Is this a real indication that China’s domestic consumption is strengthening? Just before Luna New Year, China cut car purchase taxes by half. Its auto industry expects the government’s policy stimulus to make the year of the ox a good one for sales growth. To see the chart, click here.
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China declares emergency as drought bites
China has declared an emergency over a drought which could devastate crops and farmers’ incomes, official media said, threatening further hardship amid slumping economic growth. The drought gripping parts of central and northern China has sent Zhengzhou wheat futures prices up 5 percent this week but physical prices have not moved, with most investors confident the country’s reserves and last year’s big harvest can offset any fall in wheat production this spring. The drought could hurt the incomes of farmers in Henan, Anhui and other populous provinces when many have lost factory and construction jobs after China’s growth faltered in late 2008.
Russia and four former Soviet republics offered to help the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan even as one, Kyrgyzstan, moved forward on a decision to cut off American access to an air base used for war supplies. The Russian president said the five countries, including the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, are ready for “full-fledged and comprehensive cooperation” with NATO forces in the region.
Cambodia’s political elite has captured the country’s oil and mineral wealth, putting its economic future at risk while international donors turn a blind eye, an environmental watchdog said. Impoverished Cambodia has enough natural wealth to wean itself off foreign aid but international donors must do more to ensure the assets are properly managed.
In the report entitled: “Country for Sale,” the group said earnings from oil, gas and minerals were being “jeopardized by high-level corruption, nepotism and patronage” in allocating and managing the assets. “The same political elite that pillaged the country’s timber resources has now gained control of its mineral and petroleum wealth,” said Global Witness Campaigns Director, Gavin Hayman.
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Castro To Obama: Change Cuba Policy
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro is again using the Internet to let the White House know just what concerns Havana.In a blog posting Wednesday evening, Castro raised a laundry list of Havana’s grievances with Washington going back five decades.
Castro asked President Obama whether he is familiar with the damage caused by U.S. policy of germ and bacteriological warfare against the island’s people, animals and plants among many other aggressions dating back decades. But the former Cuban leader was also quick to point out that he does not blame Obama for the crimes of his predecessors, many of them carried out either before Obama was born or when he was a child in Hawaii.
North Korea is planning to test fire a long-range missile that could hit the west coast of the US, South Korean officials told state media. Any such test would further inflame regional tensions and follows Pyongyang’s warnings in recent weeks that it stands on the brink of open war with Seoul. South Korean government officials told the Yonhap news agency that they had received U.S. satellite images of a train carrying a suspected Taepodong-2 missile to Dongchangri, near the Chinese border where nuclear-armed North Korea is building a launch pad.
Kyrgyzstan said it would close a U.S. military base on its territory after Russia offered US$2bn of emergency aid.The base is located at Manas outside Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital and was built with Russia’s blessing in 2001 to support U.S. coalition forces’ campaign to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Russia has since then called for the removal of U.S. bases from central Asia, a region it considers to be in its zone of influence.