Yearbook 2008 Cuba. Raúl Castro became officially permanent president on February 24 when the National Assembly gathered to elect members of the Cabinet. The other members also represented the old guard, or los históricos de la revolución as they are called in Cuba, such as 77-year-old José Ramón Machado Ventura, a veteran who fought with…
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Croatia 2008
Yearbook 2008 Croatia. In early January, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader succeeded in forming a new center-right government. His conservative HDZ formed a coalition with three small parties and was also supported by another couple of parties in Parliament. For the first time since independence in 1991, a representative of the Serbian minority was given a…
Costa Rica 2008
Yearbook 2008 Costa Rica. Security Minister Fernando Berrocal was forced to resign on March 30 after claiming that the Colombian left-wing guerrilla FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) since 2000 has formed intimate ties with certain political sectors in Costa Rica. The allegation caused a great stir among Costa Rica’s political parties, and Berrocal’s departure…
Comoros 2008
Yearbook 2008 Comoros. The conflict between the Union government and the disputed president of the island of Nzwani (Anjouan), Mohamed Bacar, also characterized the first half of 2008. Bacar had seized power in Nzwani through a coup in 2001 and the following year elected president of the island. The crisis began in June 2007 when…
Colombia 2008
Yearbook 2008 Colombia. The guerrilla movement FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), which fought the government for over 40 years, was subjected to great political and military pressure during the year. The most spectacular defeat was the release of 15 people held hostage by the FARC, the most well-known being the French-Colombian politician and presidential…
China 2008
Yearbook 2008 China. The August 8-24 Olympics became a thunderous success for China, despite a wave of protests against Chinese violence in Tibet. Towards the end of the year, however, China was hit by two troublesome problems: the melamine scandal and the global financial crisis. The international protests against China’s bloody intervention in Tibet in…
Chile 2008
Yearbook 2008 Chile. Both the Government coalition Concertación and the opposition alliance Alianza por Chile claimed with some right that they won the municipal elections on October 26. The Concertación won 146 mayoral positions, which was 57 fewer than in the last municipal elections in 2004, while the opposition increased its share by 38 to…
Chad 2008
Yearbook 2008 Chad. In early February, the capital, N’Djamena, was joined by a coalition of rebel forces that have been marching from their bases in Sudan throughout Chad to overthrow President Idriss Déby’s regime. The rebels quickly gained control of parts of the capital, but around the presidential palace, army forces held their ground. Thousands…
Central African Republic 2008
Yearbook 2008 Central African Republic. In June, the government and three rebel groups signed a ceasefire agreement aimed at stopping years of armed conflict in the country’s northern parts. However, the formal peace talks that followed the ceasefire went slow, and an amnesty for war crimes adopted by Parliament in September was received with doubt…
Canada 2008
Yearbook 2008 Canada. During a ceremony in Parliament on June 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the Canadian authorities forcing some 150,000 indigenous children to attend Christian boarding schools. He described the treatment of the children as “a sad chapter” in the country’s history when he spoke to hundreds of former pupils in boarding…