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…
Category: Asia
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, according to Digopaul. 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…
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. Shortly after the…
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….