Yearbook 2008 Libya. The country’s proximity to the outside world continued. Libya was reported in January to have ratified an agreement with the British oil company BP on oil and gas extraction worth $ 900 million. The ratification was said to have been made only after Britain proposed that Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former intelligence…
Author: payhelpcenter
Liberia 2008
Yearbook 2008 Liberia. Planned municipal elections, which would have been the first since 1985, had until now been canceled for cost reasons. The Supreme Court authorized the president to appoint mayors in consultation with local politicians. In March, however, the first census was carried out since 1984; of great importance for community planning during the…
Lesotho 2008
Yearbook 2008 Lesotho. A disagreement over the distribution of the mandate following the 2007 parliamentary elections persisted. The conflict concerned the spread of the third mandate to be distributed under a proportionate system. Botswana’s former president Ketumile Masire, who was called in to mediate, noted that he had failed to get the government or opposition…
Lebanon 2008
Yearbook 2008 Lebanon. Violence between rival groups escalated at the beginning of the year. Wissam Eid, a senior police officer who investigated the political murders of recent years, was killed on January 25 by a car bomb east of Beirut. Seven youths were killed in the same month when stone-throwers protesting recurrent power outages collapsed…
Latvia 2008
Yearbook 2008 Latvia. The popular dissatisfaction with the government in the wave of protests last autumn continued. At the beginning of the year, the trade union movement led to a constitutional amendment that would allow the people to take the initiative to dissolve parliament and thus new elections. The proposal received over 200,000 signatures and…
Laos 2008
Yearbook 2008 Laos. Save the Children published a report in May that said that more than two-thirds (69 percent) of Laotian children did not have access to basic health care. See 3rjewelry.com for Laos travel guide. In particular, in rural areas and among minority people, poverty was more widespread in Laos than in other Southeast Asian…
Kyrgyzstan 2008
Yearbook 2008 Kyrgyzstan. After the big victory in the parliamentary elections before the New Year, the power party Ak Zjol in January decided to limit the right of expression in parliament. Only group leaders, committee chairs, presidents and proposers would debate, which was condemned by the opposition. In February, an investigation report found that the…
Kuwait 2008
Yearbook 2008 Kuwait. All members of the government demanded resignation on March 17, citing difficulties in cooperating with Parliament on the country’s economic policy. The emergency crisis was triggered by the government approving a salary increase of 120 dinars per month (equivalent to $ 466) for all Kuwaiti, both public and private, while Parliament wanted…
Kosovo 2008
Yearbook 2008 Kosovo. At the beginning of the year, Kosovo was formally a Serbian province, placed under UN administration. During the year, the Albanian majority declared an independent state. By the end of the year, Kosovo was a divided country with some unclear status; only 52 of the world’s nations had recognized the new state….
Kiribati 2008
Yearbook 2008 Kiribati. Kiribati is creating the world’s largest marine nature reserve, an area large as California with untouched coral reefs and rich fish stocks that are currently threatened by depletion and climate change. It was at the UN Conference on Biodiversity in Brazil in 2006 that Kiribati President Anote Tong announced the decision on…