Insights

When time permits, have a look at the latest edition of 'INVESTIR: Insights from the International Country Risk Guide' for August. From Italy’s latest political uncertainty, to anti-Putin protests; improving fundamentals in Moldova, to continuing dissent in Hong Kong amid mainland equity buying. Read Entire Entry

Fully eight months after securing confirmation as prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi has still not managed to completely fill out his Cabinet. However, he did finally secure approval of his nominees to head the ministries of Interior, Defense, and Justice, thereby at least temporarily averting a Read Entire Entry

Officials had hoped that the introduction of a new currency, the RTGS, supported by a $500 million loan from the Afreximbank would create a path to economic stability, but the exercise has proven to be another failed attempt to restore market confidence. Substantial devaluation on the parallel Read Entire Entry

The diplomatic reverberations of the notorious murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by government agents at Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey last October have not died down completely. However, despite credible evidence that the killing was ordered by the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Read Entire Entry

In April, the center-left Ap definitively ruled out any chance that it might allow drilling for oil and gas near the islands of Lofoten, Senja, and Vesteralen in the Arctic Sea if it forms the government after the 2021 general election. The Ap’s declaration is of immediate importance because it Read Entire Entry

A political truce concluded in mid-2018 helped to calm domestic tensions, but the respite proved temporary, and a renewed eruption of violent protests prompted officials to postpone legislative elections that were scheduled to take place in January. The government’s failure to adhere to the terms Read Entire Entry

The founding of a new political party, the PSP, by dissident members of the PAP headed by Tan Cheng Bock will enhance perceptions of political pluralism in the city-state without posing a significant threat to the hegemony of the governing party, which has maintained a stranglehold on power since Read Entire Entry

Until mid-February, all indications were that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika would seek a fifth term at an election scheduled for April 2019, despite significant physical limitations caused by a stroke he suffered in 2013 and questions surrounding the actual role of the 82-year-old leader in making Read Entire Entry

The OAS-sponsored anti-corruption body, MACCIH, managed to dodge what could have been a fatal bullet last year, when the Congress unexpectedly rejected all five of President Juan Orlando Hernández’s nominees for the attorney-general’s post, and instead reappointed the incumbent, Oscar Read Entire Entry

The country’s longest-ever delay in the post-election formation of a government ended at 131 days, when Stefan Löfven, the leader of the Social Democrats, was sworn in for a second four-year term, once again at the head of a minority government made up of the SAP and the Greens. As was the case Read Entire Entry