THE INDEX — April 7, 2010

Violence erupted as protestors and police clashed in Bishkek, capital of the Central Asian nation Kyrgystan, over increasingly oppressive government leadership. More than 5,000 protestors took to the streets in the capital city and surrounding provincial areas to decry abuses and demand the resignation of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who apparently has fled the presidential palace. "We don’t want this rotten power!" protester Makhsat Talbadyev said, as he and others in Bishkek waved opposition party flags and chanted, "Bakiyev out!" At least 17 people were killed and more than 180 wounded Wednesday, as security forces violently fought back the crowds. President Bakiyev came to power five years ago, following the the so-called Tulip Revolution that ousted his predecessor. But his government has grown increasingly unpopular as the nation’s economic situation has soured. Most recently, sharp increases of nearly 200 percent on utility costs are said to have ignited current protests.

Argentine trade officials have protested China’s proposal to block soybean oil imports, a key agricultural export of the Latin American country. One of the world’s largest suppliers of soybean oil, Argentina exports heavily to China, its largest customer. This month, however, China plans to start applying a health safety standard, which has been in place but not enforced, on the residual solvent hexane, contained in soybean oil shipped from Argentina. This action will effectively bar all soyoil imports from the South American nation. A foreign ministry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana expressed "the distress and concern of the Argentine government” over the suspension of an estimated $2 billion worth of soybean oil. Analysts have noted an unprecedented overstock of edible oils in China which have been met by poor domestic demand. In addition to the oversupply, the Chinese processing industry is currently running under capacity and therefore not able to handle the volume of oil to be refined. "It looks like China is using trade disputes and quality standards to curb its reliance on overseas vegetable oil imports," said a regional vegetable oil trader in Singapore, although Chinese officials deny this claim.

Top Afghan election officials have resigned following inflammatory anti-Western remarks by President Hamid Karzai. Azizullah Ludin, the Afghan election commission president, and Daoud Ali Najafi, the commission’s chief electoral officer, submitted resignations after growing international pressure that last year’s presidential elections were marred by fraud. Last week, the Afghan president made several inflammatory anti-Western remarks, alleging that the widespread fraud was actually carried out by international bodies, such as the United Nations and European Unoin. Karzai later apologized for his comments, which were followed by the announcement that Ludin and Najafi were stepping down. The resignations appear to indicate that President Karzai has backed down from his stand-off with Western powers over electoral procedures, says the BBC. Karzai’s apparent decision to make Ludin and Najafi fall on their swords is perhaps belated acknowledgement that, if reforms are not met, his government risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars from Western donors required to finance the September parliamentary elections. Despite winning last summer’s election, Karzai was criticized by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) for fraud and widespread irregularities. More than a quarter of all votes were declared invalid.

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