Blogging the democratic revolution
Asif Ali Zardari was taken to his home by police immediately upon landing in Pakistan. Reposrts are alternatively saying that he has been detained or merely deposited at his home: Hundreds of PPP activists clashed with security forces at the Lahore airport in an attempt to meet their leader. The airport was sealed off after the government issued a red alert on Friday night saying there was a terrorist threat. Outside the airport police prevented any public movement and took into custody a number of PPP leaders including Makhdum Amin Fahim, who tried to gather there to welcome Zardari. PPP…
I’ve been reading a lot about the maneuvering in Asia between China, India, Australia, and India. Of course, in the midst of all this, it doesn’t help U.S. policy that China has been portrayed as a capitalist boomland with the slight burden of a communist regime. Up until now, most people and even legislators have been growing too friendly with the China’s expansion. In case anyone forgot, let me refer you to the previous sentence: China has a communist regime. At large, China is becoming a major power player on the world stage, and because of it, many issues ranging…
Gateway Pundit has a report on the arrest of 20,000 members of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) who were anticipating the return to the country of PPP leader (and husband of former PM Benazir Bhutto) Asif Ali Zardari: Police continued cracking down on Pakistan People????????s Party (PPP) activists on Thursday and arrested thousands of them from all over the country while Pakistan Railways (PR) cancelled and barred group reservations in trains bound for Lahore till April 16. The PPP claimed the government had arrested about 20,000 party leaders and activists countrywide in a bid to stop them from welcoming Asif…
This just in from Mexico: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist populist mayor of Mexico City, unequivocally denies he is another Hugo Chavez. I don’t think he’s telling the truth, he is running for president after all, but how interesting it is, in his quest for votes, that he feels a need to deny any association with Hugo Chavez. Obviously, word has gotten around in Mexico. This corresponds to another story, seen yesterday about views that Chile’s OAS candidate has received the ‘kiss of death‘ by getting Hugo Chavez’s endorsement. Clearly some kind of critical mass is building in this…
He just doesn’t get it, does he? Just picture what the people in that room were thinking. Just when you thought the revolution had gone dead in Venezuela, this thug reminds you there is still reason for one out there. He never lets you down. Miguel has a photo of Hugo Chavez pontificating away at this, and notes his Parisian-tailored custom suit. Don’t miss this picture here. UPDATE: And Alek Boyd has an actual video of the grotesque spectacle here. (Scroll down on the page, and look for the item bylined ‘By Hugo Chavez.’ Indeed.)
The Tajik government informed foreign embassies and organizations that they must give notification in advance of contacts with political parties, journalists and NGOs. Foreign ministry spokesman Igor Satarov said the change was designed to guard against “the spread of propaganda”. Observers say the government of this impoverished mountainous state is on the alert after popular revolts toppled regimes in three other ex-Soviet republics, including neighboring Kyrgyzstan in March. Satarov said diplomats and international groups, including non-governmental organisations, had “considerably intensified information activities on Tajik territory”. “Though these activities are perfectly legal and designed to promote democratic principles in Tajik society,…
Hey everyone, I will be in Boston from now until Sunday evening. In the meantime, you’ll have the other three holding a beach party. Feel free to drink, be merry, and discuss international politics!
I’ve almost lost count of how many times this guy has quit, threatened to quit, and cried in a corner simply because he was on the wrong side of history. Look like this is the last time. Premier-Designate Omar Karami has resigned the task of forming Lebanon’s new government Wednesday. He made the announcement at a news conference after 7 weeks of futile attempts to put together a viable cabinet lineup. Karami blamed his failure on ‘impossible conditions to meet’ that were put forward by his allies of the Ein El-Tineh coalition of Syria’s loyalists in Lebanon. Karami’s move leaves…
The latest drama out of Kiev is that Boris Kolesnikov, a prominent supporter of Yanukovich has been arrested. KIEV, Ukraine — The arrest of a top politician and businessman closely linked to Ukraine’s richest man has sharpened the conflict between President Viktor Yushchenko and the embattled power brokers of Leonid Kuchma, his predecessor. Boris Kolesnikov, a close friend and partner of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s wealthiest industrialist, was arrested last week for alleged racketeering in a case that Mr Yushchenko’s government says was reported to police in 2002 but ignored until this year. Yuri Lutsenko, interior minister, said at the weekend…
I fell asleep and crashed hard last night before I could make a post on this, but 4000 students protested in Moscow. In the crowd were students from various Moscow universities and several groups from Lipetsk, Voronezh and the Moscow region. Some students came to the rally with their professors. Another rally of 2,700 students was held Tuesday in Nizhny Novgorod. At the Moscow rally, students held banners and posters that read “Hands Off Free Education!” “A Hungry Student Is a Force to Be Reckoned With!” “How About Trying to Live on a Salary of a Young College Professor?” and…
The press is reporting that Paraguay’s ambassador to Venezuela was physically attacked in Caracas Friday. This comes on the heels of the kidnap/murder of Paraguay’s former first daughter by FARC guerrillas directing the operation by email from downtown Caracas. Paraguay has done literally nothing to Venezuela to attract this kind of thuggery. It does however have a weak state, a leftist guerrilla insurgency, and a rightwing government. Clearly, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez thinks he’s got a state he thinks he can kick around with impunity. It’s not going to go down well in the streets of Asuncion. Read it here.…
It’s started. Cubans in Cuba are publicly meeting to begin their post-Castro revolution. Babalu has it. Don’t miss it. Read it here.
Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has an important item out about growing unrest in China. Huge riots are occurring, not just in the remote, impoverished west, but now in the wealthier coastal cities. At issue is corruption and impunity. And with the rise of mass communications and Internet connectivity, Chinese expectations about governance are rising. A billion people are getting sick of all the corruption and oppression they see around them. The root of the problem is this: the government will not renounce unworkable communism as its philosophy. It says communism is its system but capitalism is its policy. That…
Alek Boyd emailed one of Prime Minister Zapatero’s minions about the purpose of selling chemical agents to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. He writes that in the reply he got from Spain, the Zapatero official said the exported chemical agents were used in tear gas. I guess we know what Hugo Chavez is planning now, given the disposition of Venezuela’s citizens. It should give one pause. Take a look at what Alek has learned here. UPDATE: U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice has expressed concerns to Spain about its arms sales to Venezuela.
Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo, whose case we have tracked here was sentenced to six months’ jail by a Venezuelan kangaroo court. They said she misidentified a photo in one of her stories. It’s a characteristic of tyranny to issue draconian sentences for technicalities. But for Venezuela, the free press loses another voice. Government bureaucrats can safely operate outside free scrutiny. This is an outrage. Here is the email I got: Acaban de sentenciar a Patricia Poleo a 6 meses de carcel en el juicio con Jesse Chacon. VIVA LA LIBERTAD DE EXPRESION!!!!!!. UPDATE: Miguel Octavio has an insightful longer essay…
I knew that the parliament had declined new election for June 26 as set by the old parliament, but I didn’t know that they’d set a new date. In any case, it’s not the much further away from the old date. Legislators initially hesitated in accepting his offer to step down, reluctant to allow him a dignified exit. After days of debate, they deepened his disgrace by stripping him of privileges he had gained as the Central Asian nation’s first president under a 2003 law. Yesterday, legislators in the 75-seat parliament voted, 38 to 2, to ”suspend Askar Akayev’s presidential…
I thought I’d round up the media from last week’s visit by Yushchenko to the United States. One Eyed Cat has two photos up from the rally at the Shevchenko monument. Leopolis has more photos from this rally, which took place in Washington, D.C. Aussiegirl points us to another gallery from the rally. This website has a ton of photos from the banquet held there. More here. Here is video of the speech by Yushchenko with Bush in front of Congress. Orange Chronicles has video from the rally, just look on the left side.
Immediately after the falsified elections, the MDC had declared that it would not bother with going into parliament and would not challenge the results in court. The strategy since then seems to have changed since then, with the opposition taking its seats today. Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has taken up its seats in parliament, which puts an end to speculation that the MDC would boycott parliament to protest an election it alleges President Robert Mugabe’s party won fraudulently. The 41 Movement for Democratic Change candidates who won in last month’s election were sworn in as…
Will Franklin is looking at Bhutan’s Freedom House ranking, the king’s policies, and the newly proposed constitution. Here is the entire thing in PDF. He notes: Bhutan’s proposed constitution is ambitious, bordering on too ambitious. The beauty of the American Constitution is its relative simplicity, which has helped it stand the test of time. Bhutan’s is certainly more manageable than the voluminous phone book known as the European Union constitution, but it still might face some minor problems due to its broad nature. For example, preventing “unlawful attacks on honour and reputation” might conflict with the protection of freedom of…
The sad reality of Venezuela’s opposition is its meltdown. Agencia EFE gives a good description of how opponents of the Chavez regime have largely drifted over into Miami, where they are both invisible and increasingly irrelevant to the revolution. Coming to the U.S. is, in a sense, a revolution of its own, because it’s a transformative experience, that of becoming a free person, but given the choice between freedom here and fighting a thug at home, most people prefer to melt into the milieu. It’s kind of sad. The regime knows this and is using it as a safety valve…
In Venezuela during the April 11, 2002 coup attempt, Miguel analyzes the chain of checks and balances that prevented the event from being far bloodier and more violent than it originally began. Those checks and balances – which he broadly reads as ‘decency’ – are now absent in today’s Chavez regime, which has since slid into tyranny. The analysis is critical to understanding how democracies metamorphasize into nondemocracies. Read it here.
In unstable countries, the fuse of revolution is lit from a burning dollar bill. And right now in Venezuela, there’s very dry tinder indeed. Billions of dollars of oil cash is being stolen by the cronies of dictator Hugo Chavez on a scale never seen while poverty there rises. Forty percent of Venezuela’s economy is oil, and all of that from an inefficient state oil company. What does that mean? Money that should be used to reinvest in equipment and maintenance to create jobs and keep the operation going is instead going into corrupt pockets while the pumpjacks, pipelines, refineries,…
This week’s carnival of revolutions is up! Find out what’s gone down.
Remember how thrilled you were when that clown-faced leftwing South American dictator with the leering grin got thrown out of power, in April 2002? And then just as swiftly, like some demented jack-in-the-box popping back out of his sealed box, he popped back into the seat of power? Jorge Arena has an interesting interview with Francisco Toro who was an eyewitness to the April 11 coup event in Venezuela, discussing the sights, moods and voices of the country during those uncertain days. Ruefully enough, it illuminates just how unworthy and incompetent Chavez’s opposition was. No wonder Hugo Chavez made it…
Recently here on Publius Pundit we had a spirited discussion about democratic reform in Egypt, with me warning of the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood using elections as an opening to come to power and create an Islamist state, a Sunni equivalent of what we face in Iran right now. My initial post, Egypt: Democracy Enthusiasts’ Toughest Test?, drew a number of critical comments which you can read there. I responded with another post, Response to Comments – Democracy in Egypt, dealing with the issues raised. One of the points I made was that American democracy supporters had to be…