Blogging the democratic revolution
I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon too much with regards to the insanely hot Lebanese protestors, but that’s because I was waiting on enough material to make a decent sized photo archive. Drop a line in the comments if I’m missing any good photos! Have fun! UPDATE: Hans Nyberg let me know about a sweet…
Via John Hawkins, I come across a list of proposed slogans for the United Nations. Here are my favorites: – Ignoring the irony of cronies of pissant dictatorships voting in a democratic fashion for 60 years. – Genocidal dictators, beware our harshly worded letters. – Having discussed at length almost every major crisis in the…
John Burgess over at Crossroads Arabia notes an article in Arab News that says 87% of Saudis favor female participation in elections. JEDDAH, 16 March 2005 ???????? A survey conducted by an independent agency in Jeddah showed 87 percent Saudis backing women????????s participation in elections. It also reflected the greater role of media in educating…
With everything going on, I haven’t been able to keep up as much with the usual blogs I read before Lebanon unfolded. So let me direct you to this series of posts I have been keeping up with called Dragons and Democracy, by David McDuff. He’s already on part 9, so you can scroll the…
**Update 3/16** Things are quickly speeding up in east Asia. Just last week, China unveiled a law that would enable it to attack Taiwan if it tries to secede. And I have to hand it to the Taiwanese. Given their position, it may just be smarter for them to remain “part of China” and still…
This is good to hear, especially after this report by Omar that talks between the United Iraqi Coalition and the Kurdish Alliance melted down on the 13th. NewsBAGHDAD/ARBIL (Reuters) – Talks between Kurdish leaders and a Shi’ite bloc to form the next Iraqi government have collapsed three days before the country’s first fully elected parliament…
You may remember earlier in the week a couple Bahraini bloggers were arrested and people protested. Well, they’ve been released and with an added boon to all of us: They’ve passed some pro-democracy legislation. The Cabinet yesterday appr????oved the Chamber of Deputies???????? decision to introduce human rights and democracy as subjects at the intermediate and…
The past month has certainly been amazing. Following the death of Rafiq Hariri, Lebanese broke out in the streets and protested, eventually forcing their government to resign. Syrian loyalists struck back by staging a hoax rally large enough to break the momentum and dishearten even some of freedom’s most ardent supporters. Everyone, however, except the…
A story so hideous I can barely think about it. This is the third such incident in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. This is how Chavez deals with dissidents and troublemakers … and warns the others. To make it even more suspicious, the soldiers, ages 19 and 20, injured in the incident were improving – but all…
I thought this was incredibly timely given that Kirk had just posted a piece on Jordanian civil society. Natasha Tynes is reporting on an unreported story in the mainstream press that I’m finding particularly interesting. You may all remember a few thousand Iraqis protesting against the insurgents when a car bomber blew up a couple…
UPDATE: Scroll to the end for all latest updates on the protests! Hizb’allah is showing up less and less in the wire — which may or may not be good. But right now, the focus is on the opposition and what moves they will make in face of the pro-Syria protest last week that brought…
The Jordanian government has been for years one of the more open of Arab states, with its monarchs – first the long-ruling King Hussein and now his son King Abdullah – ruling with a relatively light hand (I spent 1997 living in Jordan). Yet as democracy movements gain strength in other parts of the Arab…
In the latest inane Michael Moore posing, Wayne Madsen — whoever he is — has written that not only did the U.S. and Israel commit Hariri’s assassination, but Karl Rove authorized it! You’ve just got to read this. March 11, 2005????????According to high-level Lebanese intelligence sources????????Christian and Muslim????????former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was reportedly…
The phrase, from a U.S. official, speaking on the record about Venezuela, is just too good. Read the whole thing here.
Have you ever wondered how Venezuela ended up with a thug like Hugo Chavez as president? He didn’t blow in out of nowhere – if you watch Venezuela, you might hear scattered reports about how crummy and corrupt the political parties he replaced were, sowing the seed that eventually grew Chavez. Alek Boyd at VCrisis…
I bet you’ve all seen that link at the top of the screen! Make sure to click it, and in particular, go directly here for the latest on round 2 of the Kyrgyzstan parliamentary elections at The Argus!
Marxist party hacks, the world over, have the world’s worst record on the environment. Black rivers, dead lakes and Chernobyl are their legacy stretching from the Oder to Hainan. It’s particularly bad when they go after nature preserves, distributing them as political spoils to reward party hacks for their loyalty. That is why the Venezuela…
The LA Times has a good article on the many strange deaths that have shadowed the Orange Revolution. How Yushchenko handles the pressure in this time after the Revolution will tell us much about his ability to govern and the future of Ukraine. My take is here.
This is certainly a positive development. CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt on Saturday released on bail Ayman Nour, an opposition leader detained since the end of January and whose jailing aroused Washington’s concern. Scores of people, waving orange Ghad (Tomorrow) party flags, cheered Nour as he left a Cairo detention center after supporters paid his bail…
Gary Metz has published his week in review for Iran, as well as his Sunday briefing. Check those out.
This one almost flew under the radar. NABLUS, WEST BANK — Hamas, the major force behind a four-year suicide bombing campaign, announced yesterday it would run in a coming parliamentary election, a move that could undermine Palestinian efforts to end violence, reform a corrupt government and renew peacemaking. Hamas has emerged as a key player…
I was just searching for news, and the latest confirmation of the opposition’s attempt to block the parliament’s presidential election is showing. CHISINAU. March 12 (Interfax) – Members of the opposition Democratic Moldova Bloc (BDM) who have been elected to parliament made written obligations on Saturday to boycott the election by the new legislature of…
Poor girl, she is totally warped. It isn’t her fault though. She honestly isn’t much into politics, so she doesn’t fervently research what she reads. I emailed her right after the assassination of Hariri and asked her what she thinks, and here is her reply: Anyhow, you know that i lived in lebanon for 4yrs…
The people have spoken. Thousands of Bolivians in many cities have come out and rallied behind President Mesa. Gratifyingly, the news photos showed lots of Indian faces. President Mesa’s victory from his ‘resignation’ seems to have forged a fragile consensus across the country in favor of freer markets, foreign investment and more openness to the…
Firstly, the OSCE is concerned because of the major crackdowns on independent media, NGOs, and people’s lives in general. A senior official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has denounced authorities in Belarus over their treatment of independent media. The OSCE’s special commissioner for the media, Miklos Haraszti, said today that…