Sapurmurat Niyazov, the Kim Jong-il of Central Asia, left quite a legacy: a crumbling infrastructure, egregious human rights abuses, rumors of mass starvation outside the capital, and a personality cult capped by a funny name. Turkmenbashi, the father of all Turkmen, left some pretty big shoes to fill when he died last December. As a result, Gurbanguli Berdymuhkammedov, Turkmenistan’s second dictator and the world’s most powerful dentist, faces some serious choices. The first is how closely he’ll stick to his election promise of keeping Niyazov’s policies in place. There are many encouraging signs that President Berdymuhkammedov will open his country [...]
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria — Nigeria’s militants will keep a close eye on the upcoming presidential election but have no plans to disrupt them, according to a commander of one of the armed groups that in recent months have stepped up attacks on foreign oil installations in the petroleum-rich Niger Delta. The leader, known as “Commander Akoko,” said in a recent interview with World Politics Review that his gunmen, who number in the thousands, are “prepared to die” in their effort to force the Nigerian government to make good on promises to use oil wealth to improve infrastructure in the impoverished [...]
On the whole, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s March 26-28 meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin was uneventful. As during past summits, the two leaders signed various commercial deals, issued joint declarations affirming Sino-Russian cooperation on diverse global issues, and attended high-profile cultural events. Much more noteworthy was Hu’s subsequent side trip to the Russian republic of Tatarstan on his way back to Beijing. During his March 28 sojourn, Hu met the republic’s leading industrial officials, visited a trade exhibition in the capital city of Kazan, and engaged in discussions with representatives from the republic’s major oil producer, Tatneft, [...]
