AHS Comparative Government

The Republic of Tatarstan is part of the Russian Federation.  Located 500 miles east of Moscow, its population is about 53% Tatar (a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that speaks a Turkic language) and about 40% Russian.  (Tatarstan is unusual for a largely Muslim Russian region: it lies in central Russia and not along one of Russia's borders). Tatarstan has long been known for its religious moderation and tolerance, and for good relations among its ethnic groups.

In the past several months, however, Tatarstan has suffered a series of terrorist attacks in which Muslim extremists have targeted moderate Muslim religious leaders.  Russian federal authorities have reacted with mass arrests, but also with some efforts to conciliate Muslim sentiment in the region.  The harshness of some of the measures taken by the authorities, however, may prove counter-productive: they may increase public support for Islamic militancy in a region traditionally unreceptive to extremism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/world/europe/radical-islamic-attacks-in-moderate-region-unnerve-kremlin.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world

In April, Bo Xilai was removed from his position on the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Chinese Communist Party, the 24-member body that establishes overall Chinese government policy.  Bo had previously been removed from his position as Party Secretary in Chongqing, a region of more than 30 million people; in that position, Bo had effectively governed Chongqing on a day-to-day basis.

On 20 August, Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was found guilty of murdering Neil Heywood, a British businessman with whom the Bo family had a long-standing financial relationship.  Gu was sentenced to death, but imposition of the sentence was suspended.  (This is unusual: in China, most people condemned to death are executed within a few days of being sentenced).  Assuming that Gu behaves well in prison for the next two years, her sentence will likely be commuted to life imprisonment; she could be released in as few as nine years.

Impressively, Gu was convicted following a one day trial in which her once-powerful husband was barely mentioned.  Then again, a longer trial might have proved deeply embarrassing to the Chinese Communist Party.  How is it that Bo, the son of a revered Communist leader, and Gu, the daughter of a prominent revolutionary general, amassed a fortune worth tens of millions of dollars?  What was their business relationship with Heywood, and what information did Heywood threaten to reveal that prompted Gu's decision to murder him?  When did Bo learn that his wife had murdered Heywood, and to what extent did he use his position as Chongqing Party chief to cover up her crime?

http://www.economist.com/node/21560909

Gu's conviction comes at a politically sensitive moment in China: over the next year, Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping will assume the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government and the People's Liberation Army (the Chinese military).  Xi is from a different faction of the Party than Bo.  But he shares a few awkward things in common with his now-disgraced comrade.  Xi is a "princeling" -- the son of a communist revolutionary leader.  And while the US State Department reportedly believes that Xi is not motivated by personal gain, and "is repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society" (2009 US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, as quoted in The Guardian on 29 June 2012), Xi's extended family has become quite wealthy in recent years.  In June, Bloomberg reported that Xi's sister and her husband owned shares in Chinese corporations worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Of course, people living in China never saw the report; the Bloomberg website was blocked in China as soon as the report appeared.

Over the past six years, the United States and its allies have imposed progressively tougher economic sanctions on Iran.  The US and its allies have imposed these sanctions in an attempt to persuade Iran to open its nuclear research facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors (as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and to desist in what appear to be its efforts to enrich uranium to nuclear weapons grade.  According to The Economist, the most recent set of sanctions have had a serious effect on the Iranian economy.  The Economist also contends that the sanctions have weakened public support for Iran's system of government (though this may be wishful thinking on the part of The Economist):

http://www.economist.com/node/21560596

One thing to keep in mind: if Israel or the United States were to attack Iran, in order to damage its suspected nuclear weapons research facilities, the Iranian regime would be strengthened immeasurably.  First, Iranians would naturally support their government (even if they don't like it very much) in the face of an attack by a foreign power.  Second, the attack would allow the Iranian government to paint any opposition to Iran's system of government -- no matter how moderate -- as traitorous.

Three members of a Russian feminist punk band tried on hooliganism charges following their disruption of services at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior have been found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19302986

Multi-national oil companies began to operate in the Niger Delta while Nigeria was a British colony; since the 1970s, oil production has generated most of the country's gross domestic product and has supplied the Nigerian government with most of its operating revenue.  Most Nigerians, however, have not benefited significantly from Nigeria's oil wealth -- most of the benefits of that wealth have gone to the country's "big men" in business, government and the military.  The people who live in the Niger Delta are among the Nigerians who generally have not benefited from the oil produced in their region; in fact, they have suffered greatly as a result of that production.  Since Nigerian independence in 1960, the average amount of oil released to the waterways of the Niger Delta each year has exceeded the amount released to Prince William Sound as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.  The environmental degradation of the Delta has made it impossible for many of the people who live there to operate their farms, and has thus robbed them of their livelihoods.  (Despite what the article linked below might suggest, most of the environmental despoliation of the Delta -- and the loss of livelihood suffered by the region's farmers -- has resulted from the activities of the multi-national oil companies that operate in the Delta.  The multi-nationals that operate in the Delta engage in practices there that would not be tolerated in their home countries).

The people of the Niger Delta have long sought to ensure that more of the oil revenue produced in the region benefits them.  When the Nigerian military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha (aided by Shell Oil, among others) brutally suppressed non-violent Delta protest activities in the 1990s, armed militant groups began to flourish.  The most important of these groups, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), signed an agreement with the Nigerian government in 2009 that resulted in the suspension of hostilities by more than 25,000 MEND fighters.  But many former MEND militants lack jobs and educations; they have joined the numerous Delta criminal gangs that steal crude oil and refine it illegally:

http://www.economist.com/node/21560299

In Russia, the government of President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly intolerant of dissent following last December's massive anti-election fraud street protests and Putin's reelection in March.  Last week, three members of a feminist punk rock band went on trial for disrupting services at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  The musicians were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" following their unauthorized performance of a "punk prayer" on the altar of the cathedral; they were protesting the close ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin government.  The band members have been in jail since February and seem likely to be sentenced to at least two additional years in jail.  At the same time, anti-political corruption activist Alexei Navalny -- a key figure in last year's anti-Putin protests -- faces ten years imprisonment on what appear to be flimsy embezzlement charges:

http://world.time.com/2012/08/02/russias-pussy-riot-trial-a-kangaroo-court-goes-on-a-witch-hunt/

Faced with strong opposition from backbench Members of Parliament from his own Conservative Party, British Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to scuttle plans to make the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, an almost entirely elected body.  Support for House of Lords reform, however, was a key promise that Cameron and other senior Conservatives made to the Liberal Democrats to persuade them to enter into the governing coalition with the Conservatives.  The Liberal Democrats cannot practically pull out of the coalition government (their representation in the House of Commons would be greatly reduced in the ensuing election); the Liberal Democrats can, however, withdraw support for other measures that the Conservatives would like to enact -- unless Cameron can give them something to keep them on board:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9447897/David-Cameron-retreats-on-House-of-Lords-reform.html#