Many thanks for your email. We have a number of academics that are conducting research in your areas of interest, including myself.
However, before we can enter into a dialogue with a prospective PhD student, it is vital for us to have the student's qualifications (particularly their academic record) assessed by the University International Student's office
That is, before we can process your application and ascertain a suitable supervisor for you, you will need to contact the University International Students' Office in order to provide us with an assessment of your qualifications.
All students who have obtained their under-graduate degree and research-based postgraduate degrees (in which a MBA may not qualify) at another university have to have their qualifications assessed.
If you have the prerequisites to get into the PhD programme and we know your final grade of your Master's thesis, we will probably begin to process your application and ascertain suitable supervisors so your are all ready to begin in 2007.
The response from your Uni has clearly illustrated their application and assessment procedures. On the requirments of your school, you have to send your application documents to the International Student Office. In my opinon, you can email your eletronic docuemts ( including scanned papers and files) to the department you want to apply to and then you are supposed to receive some recommendations from the school. If your supervisor is available and your qualification is approved, you will be required to send your certificate documents. Many Universities are of pleasure to allocate supervisors to the potential applicants, based on applicants' majors and background. So, it is unnecessary to contact with your prospective professor in advance if you feel unconvinient.
By the way, according to what you wrote above, it seems that you had a great chance to succeed in your application for Ph.d. Considering the bad situation, you can also be offered a place of Master Degree by Research. In that case, it is easy for you to transfer it to Ph.d degree in the cousrse fo your master cadidature.
So, get out there and do it!