Blogging the democratic revolution
Is there anything harder than picking yourself up to vote in an election you know won’t win? Such is the question confronting Venezuelans this weekend. In the States, those of us who are blue voters who live in red states, and red voters who live in blue cities know what this is like. But it does not stop us. How much harder it is, though, when one knows the system is RIGGED with signs of fraud. It’s hard to lose, but it’s even harder to lose when one really wins. That is what Venezuelans are confronted with. They say vote…
As the ongoing feud between the Polish and Belarussion government over ethnic Poles in Belarus continues, and with all countries in the area outside of Russia declaring support for democracy, Polish activists are taking the issue up in a way that Elvis would be proud of. I’ll let the headline speak for itself, “Polish activists rock against Lukashenka.” 3 August 2005 (RFE/RL) — Young Poles want to use rock music to help Belarus’s pro-democracy opposition resist the regime of Belarusian President Aleksyandr Lukashenka. Pawel Stanczyk, head of Poland’s Association of Young Conservatives, says in Warsaw the association has launched a…
Kazakhstan is the most economically developed country in the region, yet after a series of colored revolutions in the former USSR, President Nazarbaev has begun to pay more attention to the activities of opposition groups and especially NGOs. The presidential election in 2006, therefore, is going to be an important milestone in judging the strength of Nazarbayev’s position. Nobody thought there would be a revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and neither did Akayev. Now, it seems as if President Bush has set this country in his sights for another possible success. He has written a letter to Nazerbayev urging him to take…
A writer at Kommersant thinks so, given the trend of events over the last half year or so, and he thinks Russia’s banning of ABC over its airing of an interview with Shamil Basayev is the freezing point. It is not surprising that Washington defended the TV company. The thing is that the Nightline program with Shamil Basaev happened at the right time when Russian-American relationship has reached the maximum freezing point. It is not hard to remind that the main problem between Russian and the United States appeared right after the Beslan events. Then President of Russia Vladimir Putin…
It looks like President Taya is out of luck today. He was out of the country attending King Fahd’s funeral in Saudi Arabia when the military decided they were going to take over! Good news? Bad news? Let’s see what all happened. Nouakchott, Mauritania – A group of army officers in Mauritania have overthrown President Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Taya in an apparently bloodless coup d’etat, announcing a military junta would rule the Islamic nation for up to two years. Taya, who himself seized power in a coup two decades ago, was out of the country at the time. arrived on Wednesday…
Venezuela’s fearless Rosalio Cardinal Castillo Lara has warned that Venezuela faces a bloodbath under dictator Hugo Chavez, and specifically cites the “unfortunate intervention” of former President Jimmy Carter. It’s about time. Carter has pretended for decades to be this pious man of peace, and feasted off his ‘Nobel laureate’ reputation while doing untold damage to democracies around the world. Because of Carter, North Korea’s monster regime is entrenched, the Iranian ayatollahs are firmly in place, Central America has endured ten years of war, Afghanistan got a communist invasion, the Soviets marched all over the world, and now Venezuela’s democracy has…
U.S. blogger Steven Vincent, whose book ‘In The Red Zone’ about Iraq, was kidnapped by Iraqi terrorists dressed as police in Basra and shot dead several times. His blog and his books were critical of terrorist infiltration into the Iraqi government, and were favorably reviewed. What an atrocity. What a damn shame. If you are not familiar with Steven Vincent, you can read about him here and here. UPDATE – with a hat tip to M: This recent essay about the sexiness of democracy in the Middle East is exquisite. What a terrible tragedy this writer’s death is! Don’t miss…
Eric Raymond has an interesting and well-reasoned piece up about our notion of Iraq’s recovery. His hypothesis is that as long as the Kurds want in, Iraq’s fine; if the Kurds see trouble, they’ll get out — and we’ll know. Makes sense to me. Definitely read the whole thing, for ESR’s typically lucid writing as well as for the rest of his thoughts. (Also, of course, the discussion in the comments thread.) UPDATE: Chrenkoff throws in some upward-looking opinion poll results.
While the whole world, myself included, has been focused on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from its base in Uzbekistan, something interesting has been going on in the upper hierarchy of the Uzbek government relating directly back to the Andijon massacre. If you’ll recall, President Karimov blamed the entire uprising as being organized by radical Islamist militants. This story was backed by Russia and China. But as I explained, and this is what everyone else keeping tabs on this story knows now, is that the protestors were pissed off because the government was trying 23 businessmen who made up a…
I have always said that the reason President Mbeki of South Africa won’t intervene in Zimbabwe is because he is Mugabe’s ideological admirer. Government-backed land redistribution in Zimbabwe only resulted in formerly white commercial farms going unused. Famine set in, and when international donors sent food aid, Mugabe’s government seized it. The government in South Africa has always been making attempts at “racial justice,” but it has been generally by market means. They want to have at least 30% of the land tranferred to black farmers by 2014, though only an estimated 5% has switched hands fairly. So what happens…
Breaking news – Colombia has jammed Telesur, the pan-American Chavez TV Station, because of its glorification of Colombia’s murderous FARC narcoterrorists. Colombia is at war with these animals. They just murdered at least a dozen policemen, see here, note that President Uribe was ‘visibly shaken.’ Now, at war, they’re acting it. It’s another sharp blow for Hugo Chavez and his Masterplan For The Takeover Of The Americas. Colombia is having none of it. Go, Colombia!
It happened after Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998. Nine billion dollars in reconstruction aid was promised by donor governments and corporations, yet less than 50% of it actually materialized. In 2003, a devastating earthquake his Bam, Iran, in which 26,000 people died. I still remember the images, and I still remember that over $1 billion in relief aid was pledged. Yet less than $120 million showed up. And remember the tsunami that rattled the world in December 2004, when we saw unprecedented generosity on behalf of the people of the world? Our respective governments tried to match up…
Alek Boyd has a good essay describing in detail all the suspicious meetings around machinery ahead of the August 7 Venezuelan local elections. The circumstantial evidence suggests that the fix is in. Read all the way to the end, where he has some interesting speculation about the real role of the Chavista International Youth Festival. I’ll give you a clue: They are up to no good. Read it here.
It’s as if the mighty impact of CAFTA that we all worked so hard to achieve has really started to yield something. Veneconomy, in a brilliant essay here, noted the signs of stinging defeat it rained on Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Suddenly all his oil billions are meaningless compared to the vast opportunity of the great Gringo market up north. What’s Chavez’s oil billions compared to the U.S.’s trillion-dollar buying market? Who wants charity when they can have something way bigger and own it free and clear, no strings attached, through honest two-way trade? National sovereignty? Get it, for real,…
…against humanity. The vicious Marxist dictator slave-marched thousands of Miskito Indians on a death march to ‘re-education camps’ that killed hundreds in the sweltering Atlantic jungle. He did it to force communism on them and to prevent them from joining the resistance. Now, with the glorious CAFTA passed, Nicaragua’s government has grown stronger and the human rights organizations are growing bolder. This is a great day for democracy, a mass murderer is getting called to account. This goes to show that the justice moves around the Americas are real, and do not just apply to thugs on the right. They…
The lessons of history never fail to escape the minds of some. Hitler raged on about his goals in the most overt manner while the rest of Europe believed that one invasion after the other would be enough to appease him. Likewise, the government of Iran, best known for its chants of “Death to America,” is beginning to remove the UN seals on its nuclear reactors while maintaining that the energy will only be used for peaceful purposes. This program has been secret for 18 years, who really believes that? Who really believes now that North Korea’s secret program, even…
Adam Gurri is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions! Check it out, along with the Iran week in review.
John Garang is ÄnowÅ an ex-rebel leader from the south of Sudan, where millions have lost their lives in a systematic genocide committed by the government. In a peace deal worked out between the two sides, Garang was sworn in as Vice President of the country and the situation was looking hopeful. Well, scratch that. Tens of thousands of people are flooding the streets of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, enraged by the death of John Garang, who led the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army rebels for more than two decades. Mr. Garang was sworn in as Sudan’s first vice president less than…
Look at the search results from the past hour to this website, and tell me there aren’t people out there who love Yulia just as much as we do. 01 Aug, Mon, 09:33:24 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko Pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:33:49 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko nude 01 Aug, Mon, 09:34:57 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:36:28 Google: pics of Yulia Tymoshenko 01 Aug, Mon, 09:37:15 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko pictures 01 Aug, Mon, 09:37:30 Google: Yulia Tymoshenko photographs 01 Aug, Mon, 09:38:57 Google: In a Ruined Country david samuels 01 Aug, Mon, 09:41:48 Google: pics of Yulia Tymoshenko 01 Aug,…
All communist regimes are characterized by shortages. In Venzuela, the government suddenly announced it was suspending all steel exports, creating a new commodity shortage on world markets. But the export gate might not be where the real shortage is. I am wondering if investment-starved Venezuela simply cannot produce the steel it used to produce. It’s only a matter of time before this happens, it may be happening now. Veneconomy sees something more sinister and directional – they argue that Venezuela cannot possibly use the extra steel it produces, at least not for awhile, and will probably end up with stacks…