Yearbook 2009 Philippines. According to countryaah, the peace agreement between the government and Moro’s Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which at mid-2008 appeared to be within reach, appeared at the beginning of the year as increasingly remote. Almost daily, battles occurred on the southern main island of Mindanao. In September, hundreds of people were reported to…
Category: Asia
The most famous traveler to Asia of this era was the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (1254-1324). In 1271, Polo accompanied father and uncle on a trip to Central Asia and Northern China. Via Baghdad, Iran and the Pamir Mountains they first reached northern China and finally Chanbelik, today’s Beijing. There Marco Polo acquired the trust of Kublai Khan (1259-94), the founder of the Yüan dynasty, on whose behalf he made numerous trips through China and acted as governor of the city of Hangzhou. In 1295 Marco Polo returned to his Italian homeland after a three-year journey via Iran, Armenia and Trebizond. His travelogue about the culture and geography of the Far East had a great influence on the worldview of the late Middle Ages.
With the discovery of new sea routes to India, Southeast and East Asia, the Silk Road lost its importance for long-distance intercontinental trade.
South Asia – Seasonal monsoons
The monsoon arises with the shift of the zenith of the sun between the northern and southern tropics. During the winter months, the zenith is south of the equator. In summer the sun moves north. Then the Innertropical Convergence Zone (ITC) also migrates north. The ITC is a low pressure channel that is formed by the rise of warm air masses. The low pressure attracts air and creates winds. So it comes to the southwest monsoon in summer. Depending on where the ITC is, the winds change direction. Thus the monsoon changes its direction twice a year. The northeast monsoon in winter brings rather dry air, while the southwest monsoon is characterized by high rainfall and marks the course of the rainy season. The rainy season in India runs from June to October. For more information about the continent of Asia, please check militarynous.com.
Pakistan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Pakistan. According to countryaah, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani noted in early May that Pakistan was fighting for its survival as a nation. At that time, army associations had just been sent to the Swat Valley in the northwestern border province to fight the Taliban militia that had taken control of the area….
Oman 2009
Yearbook 2009 Oman. According to countryaah, a German cargo ship, the convenience flag in Antigua and Barbuda, was hijacked in June 60 nautical miles south of the city of Sur on the Omani coast, the NATO military alliance reported. The suspicions fell on Somali pirates, and this was the first time they had operated so…
North Korea 2009
Yearbook 2009 North Korea. Relations with South Korea, which deteriorated significantly in 2008, were further aggravated when North Korea’s leadership declared in January that a non-aggression pact and other political and military agreements no longer applied. The play may have been a mark directed at the United States, where Barack Obama just took over as…
Nepal 2009
Yearbook 2009 Nepal. Collaboration between the Maoist-led government and government institutions cracked down. The Maoists protested that the army was recruiting soldiers without first enrolling former guerrillas, as stipulated in the peace treaty that set the stage for the 10-year civil war. By way of countermeasures, the Maoists announced that they would themselves invest in…
Myanmar 2009
Yearbook 2009 Burma. According to countryaah, the UN had no major successes in trying to push the military junta into democratic reforms. Envoy Ibrahim Gambari visited in February and met with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in her house arrest but was not received by junta leader Than Shwe. The World Organization suffered a…
Mongolia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Mongolia. In the May presidential election, the bourgeois opposition candidate Tsachiagijn Elbegdordj, former prime minister in two rounds, won the election on the promise of tough fight against corruption. He received just over 51 percent of the vote, against just over 47 percent for incumbent Socialist President Nambarijn Enchbajar. He quickly defeated and…
Maldives 2009
Yearbook 2009 Maldives. According to countryaah, the May elections were a relative setback for newly elected President Mohamed Nashid. His party’s Maldivian Democratic Party received 26 of the 77 seats, two fewer than the Maldivian People’s Party, formed by former President Maumun Abdul Gayum. It forced the former political prisoner Nashid to rely on a…
Malaysia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Malaysia. When the ruling UMNO ruling party, which has dominated Malaysian politics since independence in 1957, held a congress in March, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who did not wait for reelection to the post of party leader. According to countryaah, the reason was mainly fierce internal criticism of him after unexpectedly bad…
Lebanon 2009
Yearbook 2009 Lebanon. After a devastating government crisis, parliamentary elections were held on June 7. The ruling March 14 coalition with the West-friendly Future Movement at the forefront triumphed but failed to get enough mandates to form government alone. The election results surprised many observers. One explanation was the relative calm that prevailed during the…
Laos 2009
Yearbook 2009 Laos. In March, the country’s first international rail link was opened. The 30-minute stretch between Thailand and Laos across the Mekong River was part of the UN-supported Trans-Asian Railway. Present at the opening ceremony included Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. According to countryaah, the Lao government hoped that the connection would significantly reduce…
Kyrgyzstan 2009
Having become an independent state in 1991, Kyrgyzstan found itself facing an extremely difficult situation, particularly from an economic point of view. One of the most backward of the former Soviet states, it was particularly affected by the disintegration of the Soviet market, while the rapid transition to a market economy led, in the early…
Kuwait 2009
Yearbook 2009 Kuwait. In the recent parliamentary elections on 16 May, women were elected for the first time. Former Health Minister Masuma al-Mubarak, women’s rights activist Rula Dashti and the two professors Aseel al-Awadhi and Salwa al-Jassar were each given their mandate. Islamist groups lost eight seats and remained at 16, but still had great…
Koh Samui Attractions and Tourist
Attractions on Koh Samui Of course, there are amazing beaches that primarily attract tourists to Koh Samui in Thailand. The scenery is also strikingly beautiful so a “jungle trip” is something you should include on your holiday trip. Otherwise, Koh Samui offers some attractions in the form of theme parks with everything from snakes to…
Kazakhstan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Kazakhstan. In February, Kazakhstan announced that it would allow the United States to ship non-military goods via Kazakhstan territory to Afghanistan. The decision came after Kyrgyzstan announced the closure of the only US air base in Central Asia. At the same time, Kazakhstan participated in military maneuvers along with the Russian Federation, China,…
Jordan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Jordan. King Abdullah dissolved the parliament on November 24, and a few weeks later, December 9, Prime Minister Nader Dahabi resigned, after which the king appointed a close associate, corporate leader Samir al-Rifai, as new head of government. The outgoing parliament, dominated by the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, had halted many political and economic…
Japan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Japan. The biggest event of the year in Japan was the change of government this autumn. The party that has dominated for half a century, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), must relinquish power after a landslide victory for the opposition party Democratic Party (DPJ) in the August 30 election. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for abbreviation JA…
Israel 2009
Yearbook 2009 Israel. The re-election to Parliament on February 10 became a victory for conservative and nationalist forces. During the election campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the conservative Likud, accused the Kadima central party and the Leftist Labor Party of prematurely interrupting the Gaza Strip military offensive around New Year. Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense…
Iraq 2009
Yearbook 2009 Iraq. The election to local parliaments on January 31 in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces was a success for the newly formed government-friendly coalition Dawlat al-Qanoon (Rule of Law), which won in ten provinces. In general, voters preferred secular parties with an Iraqi nationalist agenda over religious or ethnically based parties. The…
Iran 2009
Yearbook 2009 Iran. The aftermath of the June 12 presidential election shook Iran fundamentally. The incumbent ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was challenged above all by former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi who promised increased freedom for the nation’s citizens. However, both Mousavi and the other high-profile candidates, the former Speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the former…
Indonesia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Indonesia. According to countryaah, the parliamentary elections in April were a great success for the relatively newly formed Democratic Party (DP), built around President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The DP got close to 21 percent of the vote, against about 14 percent each for the formerly dominant parties PDIP (Indonesia’s Democratic Match Party), led…
India 2009
Yearbook 2009 India. The 76-year-old Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has just recovered after a heart surgery, gained the confidence to reign for five more years since he led the Congress party and its allies in April in the parliamentary elections. The so-called United Progressive Alliance received 262 of the 543 directly elected seats, against…
Georgia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Georgia. The war against the Russian Federation in August 2008 cast its shadow over Georgia during the year. The opposition blamed President Micheil Saakashvili for the war, tens of thousands of refugees were homeless and a costly reconstruction awaited, while the effects of the international financial crisis also affected Georgia. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for abbreviation…
East Timor 2009
Yearbook 2009 Timor. According to countryaah, the police force in East Timor, which was almost disbanded during political unrest in 2006, began gradually to regain control of the country during the year. The force has very limited resources and the UN police who have maintained the scheme in recent years remain for the time being…
Cyprus 2009
Yearbook 2009 Cyprus. Direct negotiations between Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and his Turkish Cypriot colleague Mehmet Ali Talat continued during the year. During the fall, they both met twice a week for property, EU relations, finance and territorial negotiations. However, a solution seemed distant, especially since the nationalists won the re-election to the Turkish Cypriot…
China 2009
Yearbook 2009 China. During the global financial crisis, China overtook Germany and in 2009 became the world’s third largest economy after the US and Japan. But the United States remained one by a large margin, despite its bank crash causing the collapse. China was seen as the locomotive that would pull the world economy out…
Cambodia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Cambodia is a countries located in Southeastern Asia. Thirty years after the fall of the Khmer regime in 1979, the first trial began in February against one of five former Khmer leaders who were prosecuted at the UN-backed Special Tribunal in Phnom Penh. The court was appointed to judge the highest ranking Khmer…
Brunei 2009
Yearbook 2009 Brunei. According to countryaah, Brunei and the other nine countries of the Southeast Asian cooperation organization ASEAN signed a free trade agreement with India in August after more than six years of negotiations. According to the agreement, customs duties between the parties are to be lowered on electronics, chemicals, machinery and textiles. These…
Bhutan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Bhutan. A virus spread by a fly knocked out large parts of the orange crop in 2009. Oranges are one of Bhutan’s most important export goods. One reason for the spread of the virus was, according to researchers, a lack of pest control on many plantations. Most fruit crops are owned by landowners…
Bangladesh 2009
Yearbook 2009 Bangladesh. After an overwhelming election victory in December 2008, Hasina Wajed took office in January as prime minister at the head of a coalition government dominated by her own party of the Awami League. Shortly thereafter, the 80-year-old party veteran Zillur Rahman was elected to the main ceremonial presidential post with no counter-candidates….
Bahrain 2009
Yearbook 2009 Bahrain. The king, Shaykh Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, was reported in April to have pardoned 178 people accused of breaking the country’s security laws. Among the released were reportedly two Shiite opposition leaders, Imam Mohammed Maqdad and Hassan Mushaima, leader of the Haq Movement for Freedom and Democracy. According to Countryaah, the…
Azerbaijan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev’s plans to become a lifetime president created political strife at the beginning of the year. The opposition party Musavat tried to organize protests, but one of the party’s leaders was arrested in January along with two activists who collected signatures against the plans for constitutional changes. The opposition called…
Armenia 2009
Yearbook 2009 Armenia. The mass protests in 2008 against the election of Serzh Sarkisian as president created continued conflict in 2009. Seven leading oppositionists were accused of organizing the demonstrations in Yerevan. In March, a year after the protests, new mass demonstrations were held, demanding the release of political prisoners. In June, the Sarkisian dissolved…
Afghanistan 2009
Yearbook 2009 Afghanistan. Developments in Afghanistan in 2009 were slipping both the country’s government and its foreign allies out of their hands. The Taliban and other insurgency movements grew stronger and expanded their influence in the country, the military loss figures rose and more and more civilians fell victim to the fighting. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for abbreviation…
Asia Population
Asia’s population is approx. 60% of the earth’s population. Nearly two-thirds live in just two countries: China with $ 1.3 billion. and India by approx. 1 billion inhabitants. But states such as Indonesia (225 million), Japan (127 million), Pakistan (142 million) and Bangladesh (131 million) (2001) also have more input than any Western European state….