International Reports 2/2009

Ausgabe 2/2009 der Auslandsinformationen der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

by Gerhard Wahlers

On February 10, the Israeli people elected their next parliament. The 18th Knesset elections became necessary when Ehud Olmert resigned and Tzipi Livni failed in her attempt to form a new coalition government. However, only twelve of the 33 parties in the campaign succeeded in jumping the two-percent hurdle.

by Lars Hänsel

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remained as restless as ever in 2008. In August, the CNDP militias resorted to violence again, driving innumerable people from their homes in the east of the country.

The Gas Conflict Between Ukraine and Russia

Ukraine has always been important to the Soviet Union as well as to presentday Russia as a provider of gas and technology.

by Juri Durkot

A Threat or a Necessary Supply Project?

On September 8, 2008, a few days before the parliamentary elections in Germany and Poland, a contract on the construction of a Baltic pipeline was concluded in the presence of Federal Chancellor Schröder and President Putin between the Russian Gazprom Group and the German E.on and BASF/Wintershall groups.

by Stephan Georg Raabe

It goes without saying that these political changes affected Serbia’s medialandscape. While authoritarian control by government authorities thatregularly overstepped their limits, strict censorship, and reprisals againstjournalists were common in the nineties, the transformation of 2000 changedmany things.

by Christiana Christova, Dirk Förger

Hugo Chávez Between Charisma and Bureaucracy

For one decade, comandante Hugo Chávez has been ruling Venezuela, a ruined country that keeps on going downhill. There is a price to pay for the negative impact of the global economic crisis, an overblown state budget largely financed by the export of oil, dwindling oil revenues, the disastrous consequences of a purely distributive policy, and other calamitous developments in the past.

by Georg Eickhoff