position:authoritarian president

Paradise Leased: The Theft of the #Maldives

Maldives tourism isn’t all swaying palm trees and white sand beaches. The truth is something far uglier.

Thanks to a trove of leaked files, OCCRP reporters have uncovered the details of an audacious multi-million dollar scheme that saw dozens of Maldivian islands leased out to developers in no-bid deals — and the money then stolen. While local tycoons and international investors cashed in, the people of this island paradise in the Indian Ocean saw precious little.

For the first time, reporters have tracked the deals, finding what was handed out, to whom, and for how much.

The revelations also include fresh evidence that implicates the Maldives’ authoritarian president, Abdulla Yameen, in the scandal.

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Carte interactive:

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via @albertocampiphoto

World News - ’Better a dictator than gay,’ Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says
►http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/05/10580407-better-a-dictator-than-gay-belarus-president-alexander

Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus, on Sunday criticized EU politicians who have threatened him with sanctions and in an apparent riposte to the German foreign minister’s branding him “Europe’s last dictator,” said: “Better to be a dictator than gay.”

Guido Westerwelle is Germany’s first openly gay minister.

European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels on Friday called for new measures to pressure the Belarus president over alleged human rights abuses.

Lukashenko has led Belarus since 1994, retaining Soviet-style controls over the economy and cracking down on opposition and independent media.