Blogging the democratic revolution
The name Paul Sch????fer is too mild-mannered for a case as weird as this one. An ex-Nazi called that was recently caught in, where else, Argentina. However, he had a whole family cultie enclave in Chile dedicated to torture, to which dictator Augusto Pinochet seems to have outsourced some dirty-war work. That was not all. His Colonia Dignidad cult – braided-haired hausfraus and lederhosen-clad men – also was active in child abuse. What does this have to do with revolutions? It is that savages should be caught the first time, so they can’t set up shop in places like Chile…
Larry Kudlow on Real Clear Politics has an important analysis on just how out out of whack oil prices are and why skyrocketing prices at the pump won’t last. If he is right, there will be political consequences for oil giants like Iran, Venezuela and others whose dictators have sealed their claims to power on a foundation of soaring oil. The market gets these bastards every time.
I just flipped through the keywords on Publius’ tracking system and one keyword search a minute ago was the whole sentence: “Is Tulio Alvarez in jail?” The answer to that seems to be yes, because this lawyer was sentenced to prison by a Venezuelan puppet court, but anyone who knows more, please help us out via comments here.
Val Prieto at the excellent Babalu Blog is performing a public service by holding the New York Public Library accountable for its Castro worship. They’ve done it before, selling Che Guevara wristwatches, and he’s forced them to stop. But they are at it again and he isn’t going to let their dewey-eyed effort to legitimize the hemisphere’s most brutal tyrant go uncriticized. Be sure to click on to see Val’s lashing little note about the Library’s elementary ignorance of Cuban culture in its advertising. (Remember, this is a library, repository of learning, maybe these people should open up a book…
President Hugo Chavez has stacked the Supreme Court with his political cronies, people of very little legal background, and they’ve begun reversing decisions from the previous court – in a bid to persecute Chavez’s political opponents. Those who oppose Chavez are finding that earlier rulings in their favor, shielding them from political revenge, are now perfectly reversible. Venezuela’s bloggers call this a dangerous development. Shorter and longer descriptions can be read here and here. UPDATE: And a very good essay by Jorge Arena here.
Despite the reappointment/disappointment of Karami back to the position of prime minister, several fantastic developments have occurred today. Like always, let’s begin with Hizb’allah. First of all, the European Parliament has finally designated them as a terrorist group. Christmas was a few months ago, but better late than never! European legislators on Thursday branded the radical Lebanese Hizbollah group a ???????terrorist??????? organization and urged EU governments to place the group on their terrorist blacklists, as the bloc did with the Palestinian Hamas group in 2003. ???????ÄEUÅ Parliament considers that clear evidence exists of terrorist activities by Hizbollah. The ÄEUÅ Council…
Recently proposed in the Senate and the House is the ADVANCE Democracy Act. This bill, as it suggests in the title, would make the spread of democracy and liberty official U.S. policy. To advance and strengthen democracy globally through peaceful means and to assist foreign countries to implement democratic forms of government, to strengthen respect for individual freedom, religious freedom, and human rights in foreign countries through increased United States advocacy, to strengthen alliances of democratic countries, to increase funding for programs of nongovernmental organizations, individuals, and private groups that promote democracy, and for other purposes. This bill is huge,…
Click here to see what I mean. Well, unless you’re at work. Here is another good picture that is more work safe.
Last week I reported on the brutal murder of the biggest opposition journalist in Azerbaijan, and between then and now over ten NGOs have condemned the murder. While there has been a near media blackout in terms of what has happened since then, a new scandal within the government has erupted. Top government officials have been found to be involved in a high-profile kidnapping ring, and the opposition is once again calling for the government’s resignation. BAKU, March 11 (AFP) – The Azeri opposition called Friday for the government to step down in the wake of the break-up of a…
There are two people who you absolutely need to keep up with in order to keep up with the growing protests in Kyrgyzstan. Nathan has got the latest dispatches from the ground. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit has some cool pictures for you to check out, though they are from January when the weather was much colder. Right now, the weather is around 46 degrees fahrenheit as I post this.
The so-called "tapegate" revolving around the murder of Georgiy Gongadze is but one of many recording-related scandals in Ukraine. One such long and torturous story (which also features Mykola Melnichenko and his recordings) involves a prominent banker whom former President Leonid Kuchma is said to have conspired to intimidate, jail and destroy. This story has gone largely unreported in the West. It is time to tell it. On March 13, 2000, Borys Feldman, President of Sloviansky Bank, which at the time was Ukraine’s most profitable commercial bank, was arrested and charged by authorities with failing to pay income tax on…
This week, the U.S. declared Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s economic model an absolute failure and warned him against exporting it abroad. That’s the right thing to say, and obviously, they have looked at what he’s done domestically. But for ordinary Venezuelans, there is still hunger and poverty. Venezuelan blogger Gustavo Coronel gives an important description of how this Chavez model has created new hunger in his essay: ‘The Venezuela of Hugo Ch????vez: The truth in numbers.’ What is happening there is devastating.
We noted that Venezuelan blogger Alek Boyd exposed some stunning tax irregularities among the chavistas in the U.S. here. Now, the chavistas are scurrying to alter their Web sites. This blogger’s work the only accountability this regime has. See Alek’s expose and its aftermath here and here.
If any of you read the story of a Bahraini blogger being arrested for “hate speech,” then this is a very encouraging story for everyone. Chan’ad recounts how a row of 200 peaceful protestors along Hall of Exhibition Avenue were stared down by a phalanx of riot police. Tensions evidently heated up, with protestors staging a sit-down in front of the officers, but all remained peaceful and organizers eventually ended the rally early at 8:30 to avoid an escalation. Chan’ad notes that four people were inexplicably arrested before the protest even began, and that police had blocked off part of…
Andy has this week’s news roundup of happenings inside and out of Russia.
Nathan is collecting exclusive information and accounts. One such account is from a Kyrgyz employee working for an international NGO. Notice how big the protests are getting. The most dangerous situation is in Jalal-Abad. In Jalal-Abad, about 10,000 people are continuing blocking the oblast administration and protesting in Central park. Several opposition famous figures are meeting with them and from yeserday Bakiev, supported with others, has started initiating the idea of conducting presidential elections first, remove current government and after that do the rest of parliamentary elections. And this: Opposition parties and movements of Kyrgyzstan have united to form the…
John Hawkins has an amazing roundup of quotes from people who predicted that Iraq would be the domino to start a trend of democratization in the Middle East. Check that out!
Cuban thugs and machine-gun goons surrounded the arrogant Venezuelan president, who made the press wait an hour and a half before showing up and then only took five questions. “Coincidentally” they were from from communist newspapers like L’Humanite. If Chavez was looking for bad PR and the opprobrium of the otherwise friendly Parisian media, he could not have done a better job. Blogger Daniel has the scoop (and a devastating excerpt from a French news account) here.
A lot has unfolded since the last roundup. There have been massive demonstrations organized by Hizb’allah, the deposed Prime Minister has just signed back on, Syria is quickening its pullout, and the U.S. is beginning to accept that Hizb’allah can’t be taken out of the picture yet. As I have said over and over, where Hizb’allah goes will determine a lot of the political landscape of Lebanon’s future. Now, just about everyone knows about the massive pro-Syria rally that Hizb’allah held on Tuesday. Disciplined and well-organised, Hizbollah mobilised about 200,000 supporters, although the day was carefully presented as a display…
Both blogger Miguel and blogger Daniel in Venezuela see growing examples of media self-censorship in the light of dictator Hugo Chavez’s all-encompassing media law. The details are disturbing and this is quite serious. Read and compare each of these unrelated news items here and here.
Venezuela for the first time in decades has a first rate soccer team. But given its leadership, it’s still not ready for prime time. Pathetic. See here.
Daniel in Venezuela has a sombre, moving essay grasping for meaning of the strange cases of Venezuela’s soldiers who are being set ablaze in prisons with impunity for unknown reasons by the military. The cowed media whisper it down but the horrified public gazes on. Daniel closes with this warning: But I am not afraid and I will report, again, that Venezuela is in fact a hidden military regime … History also shows us that sooner or later all is revealed and those who did not raise their voices find in turn the finger pointing at them. Look at Chile…
This is very interesting. Edith Mirante, author of Burmese Looking Glass and founder of Project Maje once worked for Tiffany’s before her initial visit to Burma. I wonder if she had any influence here.
Although Robert will be doing a lengthy Lebanon post later, I thought that the latest maneuver by Emile Lahoud and the Syrian regime warranted an early post. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud is said ready to re-designate outgoing Premier Karami (who resigned in the face of protests) to form a new pro-Syrian government: The re-designation is bound to reverse the fortunes of a peaceful opposition uprising to shake off Syria’s 29-year-old suffocating hegemony, which was sparked by the assassination of ex-Premier Hariri three weeks ago. It is also locally seen as a slap to President Bush’s contention that “democracy is knocking…
There has finally been an update to the situation in Moldova, as there has been a relative media blackout post-election. Before anything, recall my latest post: I wasn????????t initially excited about the opposition????????s prospects here, or their ties to Moscow, but this could turn out to be very interesting. While the opposition is somewhat fragmented right now, they could potentially unite on their broader ideals and prevent Voronin from gathering the necessary votes he needs. Two things could happen then: the communists would have to settle for a more agreeable candidate in order to get the necessary votes, or the…