Blogging the democratic revolution
This editorial suggests that Ecuador’s problems – like its absence of institutions, combined with the availability of technology, and the reluctance of militaries to shoot – could mean other countries may topple too. Ecuador’s action is like the flailing around of the tail of a thrashing snake. It could strike other countries. Read it here. UPDATE: Agencia EFE reports it has started in Peru: Protestors have blocked off Macchu Picchu, a top tourist income source in Peru.
The United Nations flew into Beirut Sunday night to make sure that they’re “really gone.” Let’s see how well they can do that. But UN jabs aside, this is actually really good news, with some corrupt pro-Syria Lebanese security heads resigning as well. SYRIAN troops complete their withdrawal from Lebanon today, ending almost 30 years of occupation and paving the way for the country????????s first free and fair elections in a generation. Positions were bulldozed and checkpoints dismantled as the last tanks and artillery guns were removed for the short trip home. Lorries filled with troops and equipment belched black…
One of the most hilarious and scary headlines of the day has been that Putin mourned the downfall of the USSR in his “State of the Nation” address. In his annual state of the nation address to parliament and the country’s top political leaders, Putin said the Soviet collapse was “a genuine tragedy” for Russians. “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves…
I’m not sure what day the election results are supposed to be announced, as a date hasn’t been written in anything that I’ve read. I’m going to have to assume that it will be announced whenever they are done counting… and recounting. The problem here is that everybody knows that the longer it takes the government to count the vote, the more chances they have to commit fraud. So get a load of this. Togo’s opposition is awaiting results from Sunday’s presidential election, amid street violence that has killed several people and injured dozens. Voters were asked to choose a…
Dedicated readers of Publius Pundit will have noticed that when I contribute to this blog, I attach a link at the bottom of the post to my blog, Window on the Arab World, and More! Up until today my blog was hosted by Blogger, a free blogging service which is wonderful for what you pay for it, but which otherwise has a variety of problems and limitations. I have today completed my design at my new Movable Type formatted blog, and will therefore be posting more regularly after two weeks of light blogging. That also means more posting here at…
I have been wondering this question for a really long time now, as the main Pora! site I visited hasn’t been updated in quite a while. There has been news of the new student youth movement in Russia called Red Pora!, but that news is sparce. Thankfully, we have orange revolutionary Dan McMinn. He has a great post up outlining the history of the youth movement and where Pora! is going. The Basic Ultra-Abridged Description of Pora Pora sprung up in fall of 2004 as a primarily youth protest organization focused on the election of 2004. During the Orange Revolution,…
Regime Change Iran’s week in review is up. Email alerts are your friend. A very important item, I think, is the news of a petition signed by 2.8 million Iraqi Shiites against Islamic Iran’s intervention.
Togo has become a place of fright as the populace has gone to the polls and voted. It is literally a situation that you cannot believe is real, and that if you blink, it will all go away. But it won’t go away. After living 38 God-forsaken years under a despotic military state, the people of Togo are sick of their government and wish to erase the memories of widespread imprisonment, famine, and poverty. What we are seeing in Togo is what could have happened in Zimbabwe if they had taken to the streets. The outcome now is very uncertain,…
None other than blogger Alek Boyd – who’s been featured in a Sunday front page feature in El Universal, the top newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela for his awesome blogging exposing the corrupt political networks of the Hugo Chavez political machine in the U.S., something for which the U.S. owes him a debt of gratitude. Who says blogging doesn’t lead to revolution? Check it out here, here and here. UPDATE: Free Republic has an excellent English translation of the interview. Be sure to read it to see the depth of Alek’s grasp of the current issues surrounding the Venezuelan government’s propaganda…
You didn’t hear about it. I didn’t hear about it. Almost all contact with the outside world has been cut off for a week due to widespread protesting. Belize, the only English-speaking country in Central America, disappeared off the map for the past week and almost no one noticed. Since April 15 the tiny country the size of Wales has been without telephone links as a result of strikes and protests. Only a few internet cafes with satellite connections provide a tenuous link to the outside world. The prime minister, Said Musa, said technicians at the main telephone company had…
I just came across this article in Mosnews saying that $5 million has been set aside in the soon-to-be approved emergency war spending bill for democracy programs in Belarus. The U.S. Senate has approved an extra $81 billion war budget that includes $5 million for programs aimed to support democracy in Belarus, RIA Novosti reports. The programs will be under the control of the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The Bureau announced earlier this month that $2 million would be spent on ???????consolidation of democratic parties??????? in Belarus. I started looking around the bill for it,…
Back in February, Togo experienced a constitutional coup of sorts. ÄDictatorÅ Gnassingbe Eyadema died after a long, treacherous rule of 38 years. The coup happened when his son, Faure Gnassingbe, decided to assume power despite constitutional law dictating otherwise. The UN, of all bodies, said no to this happening, so what did Faure do? He immediately amended the constitution! Immediately afterward, the African Union, the same one that endorsed Mugabe’s reelection, condemned the move and imposed immediate sanctions on the country. So did the United States. Faure stepped down, and on March 3rd, elections were called for April 24th. This…
Communist regimes don’t just white out the images of newly designated enemies of the state. Given the attention these photoshoppings get, and their capacity for changing history (as the phony Dan Rather memos did in the U.S. elections), the Chavez regime of Venezuela seems to be beginning a new tactic of simply and systemically ignoring names of enemies, designated enemies and potential enemies in photo captions. There’s a very good analysis of this new trend here.
If there is going to be a revolution in Venezuela, it’s going to involve the military. There are increasing signs of distrust between Chavez and his military. American Thinker Web site is down, so I posted my own analysis of the growing signs temporarily here.
How low can it go for Venezuelan sciences? Apparently much lower than anyone imagined in Hugo Chavez’s pseudo-revolution. Venezuela’s IVIC, which had been the finest scientific research institution south of the Rio Grande, is now being forced to conduct research not based on what will advance science but what will advance the Chavez party. That means no more petroleum engineering discoveries for efficient production but instead new orders from on high to conduct “scientific” experiments on what the best Orisha voodoo methods are for divining the future and getting back at one’s enemies. If you can stand to read more,…
The battle over the impeachment of Mexico City’s popular leftist mayor is heating up, with demonstrations planned for Sunday. They are hoping to get up to 400,000 people. A rally planned for Mexico’s capital city on Sunday could prove the defining moment in the complicated legal tangle involving Andr????s Manuel L????pez Obrador, Mexico City’s popular leftwing mayor and presidential aspirant. There are two possible outcomes. A big, non-violent ???????silent march??????? the mayor’s strategists hope for 400,000 protesters would show the nation that popular support is not waning for Mr L????pez Obrador, who faces arrest on a contempt-of-court charge. Demonstrations are…
Earlier this week, Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky announced that he had offered 10 CDs of the Melnychenko recordings to Viktor Yushchenko. Now, the Parliament has denied Berezovsky an entry visa: KIEV, April 22 (Itar-Tass) – The Supreme Rada (parliament) of Ukraine has refused to support the request of MP Alexander Volkov to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on issuing an entry visa to political refugee Platon Yelenin (Boris Berezovsky), who has been invited to Ukraine by a group of MPs. Only 19 MPs voted in support for the request, while the needed number of votes is 226. I have this this…
Earlier today a firefight broke out in Mecca between gunmen loyal to Osama bin Laden and Saudi security forces. This coincided with the third and final round of local elections in that country which have been reported with significant fanfare in the West. This is the latest sign that the on again, off again fight between the Saudis and their Islamist opponents is alive, and raises the issue of the stability of the kingdom. While the overthrow of the House of Saud is still viewed as very unlikely, a degree of instability far short of that would could still be…
Of course, Gutierrez is a scumball for stacking the Supreme Court with his political bed partners and the mass protests against him were totally warranted. But apparently there was something wrong with the vote that kicked him out, and it has the OAS concerned. QUITO, April 21 (Xinhuanet) — The Organization of American States(OAS) Thursday gave the new government in Ecuador 24 hours to explain how the Congress concluded that President Lucio Gutierrez should be removed from office, the local press reported. The request came after Ecuador’s acting representative to the OAS, Jaime Barberis, told an emergency session of the…
Even as he reiterates his commitment to democracy, either he is lying or does not know the definition. The pro-Putin Duma is expected to pass legislation that would further restrict qualifications for parties entering the legislature. Russian MPs have approved a crucial second reading of a controversial law which could increase the Kremlin’s control over parliament. The bill, which is expected to be adopted, would change the way parliamentary deputies are elected. Members of the lower house, the Duma, would be chosen by proportional representation, with parties needing 7% of the vote to get seats. Critics say it will be…
You want it? I don’t have it. But Andy does! Check out Siberian Light for everything that’s happened this week in Russia.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with seven Belarussian dissidents today in Lithuania and assured them that Belarus is on the road to democracy, their biggest chance being the next presidential election. VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Belarusian dissidents Thursday she thinks an end to authoritarian rule in their country is within reach. She drew a rebuke from Russia’s foreign minister for earlier comments about Belarus. After meeting with the seven dissidents, Rice said next year’s presidential election in Belarus offers ééan excellent opportunity” to focus on the need for credible elections in the country,…
The third and last round of the Saudi municipal elections are over. The votes still need to be counted and winners announced, but in any case, they will probably turn out relatively similar to the previous two rounds. Riyadh, 21 April (AKI) – Saudis went to the polls on Thursday for the third and final phase of the Kingdom’s historic municipal elections after twelve days of intense campaigning, which officially ended on Wednesday. Some 140,000 Saudis were expected to vote in the poll, but they are only electing half the members of their municipal councils. The other half will be…
Work, work, work. In the meantime, though, the third round of municipals are starting up in Saudi Arabia. JEDDAH, 21 April 2005 ???????? The business city of Jeddah will go to the polls today with the rest of the Western Region to elect new municipal councils in Saudi Arabia????????s historic democratic exercise. As many as 548 candidates are contesting for seven Jeddah seats, pinning their hopes on some 80,000 registered voters. Saudis in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah as well as Taif, Qasim, Hail, Tabuk, Al-Jouf and the Northern Border Region also go to polls today in the…
UN diplomats, on a fun-packed junket to Haiti, say that the Caribbean nation is not getting the job done: April 20 (Bloomberg) — Haiti’s political leaders aren’t taking steps toward reconciliation needed for successful elections this year and the interim government hasn’t begun reconstruction projects to stabilize the Caribbean nation, U.S. and Brazilian diplomats said. Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who joined Security Council envoys on a mission to Haiti last week, said the government needs to resolve the case of former prime minister Yvon Neptune, an opposition member detained without charges since June 2004.…