Blogging the democratic revolution
And here is Hersh’s entire piece along with the Pentagon press release.
Bush announced just a day after a reports of espionage in Iran by Seymour Hersh that he will not rule out action. Awesome. “The Iranian regime’s apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article…
Abbas, under huge pressure from Israel, finally made a declaration for militants to halt their attacks against Israel. But Hamas rejected this call just a few hours after it was made, launching rockets into a nearby settlement. According to the articles, Abbas will be spending a few days in Gaza to have talks with the…
Via Instapundit, the New York Times reports on the actions behind the scenes of the Orange Revolution. It is an extremely detailed, seven page account of the story about how intelligence officials blocked the suppression of the opposition by the government. For a news story, it was a very exciting read… the kind of thing…
David McDuff over at A Step At A Time came out with some great content today that I found very unique. He posted a translation of a post on a message board by a Russian man describing how he feels about the pensioner protests. Very, very profound. He also posts his translation of an interview…
INBB has an article posted about aid from the U.S. and development of democracy in those countries. Even though I could just link to the article itself, I’d rather plug him because he has many interesting articles posted — some even from differing opinions than my own — that I had never seen before. I…
Say it isn’t so. The main points are that its welfare systems, restrictive labor laws, and immigration policies with majority Muslim countries are what will eventually split it apart. Unless, of course, they take the time to do some hard reform. Read it all, as it summarizes the global power situation fairly well. But I’d…
Lawrence DiRita of the Pentagon issued a two-page statement rejecting claims of operations in Iran and other countries. There were four specific refutations named. Among these, and let me pat myself on the back, were quotes made by a “government consultant” and a “high-level intelligence officer.” You see, this is why anonymous quotes don’t work….
After Prince Harry’s little stunt, it seems that the EU is considering an all out ban on synbols Nazi-related. Now that’s just stupid. In a free, open society, people should be able to both wear offensive things, and be berated for being idiots. That, apparently, isn’t a label I would like to give to an…
Putin says Israel funded Yushchenko victory. I think Bloggledygook said it perfectly: Notable here is the implication that Putin doesn’t consider Russian aid and support to be foreign per se. Indeed. And I’m not sure how anti-semitic Russians are, but this might be aimed at mobilizing people against Yushchenko on the basis of distaste for…
Discoshaman has got an update on Ukraine news for January 17th.
Reported here. As much as people are going to complain that Israel is not even giving Abbas a chance, after some rethinking over the past few days, I am going to have to side with Sharon on this. The Palestinian Authority simply cannot act against the militants because they do not have the capabilities to…
This article could have been written any time since the summer of 2003. Of course they’re going to try their hardest to screw with the elections. This isn’t anything new. And they make this foreign fighter issue seem like it’s new as well.
After going through the Human Rights Watch Report for South America, I turned to the section about Abu Ghraib. The article is called The Twisted Logic of Torture. How enticing. I begin to read… A warped and dangerous logic lies behind the Bush administration????????s refusal to reject coercive interrogation. Many American security officials seem to…
Eurasianet has published an article regarding the Human Rights Watch: 2005 World Report, and they sum up the situation in one well-written sentence: According to the rights advocacy group, all of Russia is effectively controlled from Moscow, elections in Belarus are laughable, abuse of prisoners is the norm in Uzbekistan, while Armenia and Azerbaijan are…
Seymour Hersh from The New Yorker has reported that the U.S. is conducting secret operations in Iran. They are scouting for potential military and nuclear facilities; very necessary information for a future bombing run. The story makes extensive use of anonymous quotes, and as a journalist, that doesn’t bode too well with me. Like I…
The Kyiv Post has an editorial that makes a case against Tymoshenko and makes sthe case for its endorsement of Poroshenko. An interesting read with very good points, and definitely fair. They outline what Poroshenko has to do in order to be an effective Prime Minister, such as his business transparency and selling off Channel…
She’s a fiesty Nobel Laureate defying one of the cruelest totalitarian regimes of our day. But no, I won’t be adding her to the “Babes of Politics” section. Not that her doing this will mean too much. I can imagine it will infuriate the student resistance movement if she is imprisoned, but more importantly, it…
I have been rather reluctant to cover this, given that it is being organized by the Communist Party. The real reason I’m more interested now, however, is because Veronica Khokhlova from Neeka’s Backlog is right in the middle of St. Pete with her digital camera. She spent some time at the rally and has written…
Picked up an interview between Jamie Glazov and Natan Sharansky, co-author of “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror” via A Step At A Time If I remember correctly, this was the most recent book on President Bush’s reading list. This book is getting quite a bit of good…
Discoshaman has posted his Ukraine news roundup for January 16th. – Katerinchuk, from Yushchenko’s HQ, spoke today about the unprofessioanl nature of Yanukovych’s Supreme Court complaint. Remember, that this is coming from a partisan source. Here’s what he had to say: 1. The majority of the complaints are identical, regardless of their ostensible city of…
The shirts for my newspaper staff just came in this week. And they’re orange!
It is the fourth anniversary of the ZUBR Belarus opposition movement on the 14th. Complete with pictures. On, and on the 10th, the Georgian Parliament voted in support of Mikhail Marynich, an opposition leader who has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment. I love it when democratic movements support each other, even if it’s…
Just yesterday, there were only 18 tents erected. That has grown to 50 tents and 8000 people. Of course, that’s nothing. This comes on the heels of the Supreme Court agreeing to investigate to Yanukovich’s complaints today. In response, Maidan is collecting evidence of falsification of complaint allegations by Yanukovich.
It seems there is some rumblings over secrecy in Georgian privatization. And for good reason, because when this happens in third world countries, there tends to be large-scale embezzlement. Well, it happens at the UN too, but that’s another story… Some independent analysts disagree. The lack of public information–and public knowledge–about the sales underway can…