Blogging the democratic revolution
Miguel Buitrago has done a very valuable translation of an interview with Felipe Quispe, a Bolivian romantic indigenous leader running for president whose views are even more extremist than those of Evo Morales. It’s positively surreal but an absolute must-read for perspective on what an out-of-it space case this guy is in this election year….
Aleksander Boyd has posted a long and extensive report on the state of democracy in Venezuela from its leading democracy advocate, Sumate. The report shows in precise terms the parlous state of Venezuelan democracy and the news is not good. But it is a very important and historic report and Alek read all of it…
El Universal has its weekly Venezuelan land-expropriations roundup, illustrating how the increasingly Marxist government is taking ever greater numbers of rights from the people. The disturbing string of ongoing confiscations is here.
Argentina is rapidly hurtling toward the front of the news with the upcoming Summit of the Americas and President Bush’s visit to the beautiful but sinking-economically-to-the-bottom country. All this will be front page by the end of the week. David Sasaki at Global Voices has an excellent blog roundup on all that’s being written in…
Following the approval of the new Iraqi constitution despite opposition by the majority of Sunnis, Sunni Iraqi leaders are getting serious about the political process and their own stakes in the new Iraq. This past week a new Sunni coalition party was formed from three parties – the Iraqi People’s Conference, the Iraqi Islamic Party,…
Zanzibar held presidential and parliamentary elections over the weekend. As with many elections in Africa that we have covered here at Publius the aftermath has been a violent one with protestors clashing with state police forces. The opposition is claiming victory although, as is suspected, fraud is likely to be committed on a wide scale….
Speaking at the “World Without Zionism” conference, the president of Iran said that he wanted Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Here is a picture of him at the conference: But that’s not the whole thing. Gary Metz over at Regime Change Iran has the exclusive picture that the media isn’t showing you. That’s…
It is true that the investigation just about completed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is not related to the Iraq war, but the incident giving rise to the investigation does relate to one of the reasons why the liberation of that country was necessary. For background you probably aren’t getting from the MSM, see…
Felipe Calderon’s entry into the Mexican presidential race for 2006 creates a whole new dynamic in the election. It’s something I’ve believed since the beginning. Calderon is from the right-leaning PAN party, same as incumbent President Vicente Fox, but he comes across as a different player because he wasn’t Fox’s choice as successor. Fox himself…
Now this is something you have to see! Venezuela’s Francisco Toro has challenged Venezuela’s Gustavo Coronel to an ‘Opinion duel’ on a special blog they set up for just that purpose. They are arguing about the nature of the ‘ni-ni’‘s, those people in Venezuela who have not made up their minds about whether they support…
Breaking news – and likely trouble. An electoral board has ruled that the Dec. 4 presidential election will not go through, due to a redistricting dispute. Now, the possibility of roadblocks and using food as a weapon looms. The current caretaker president – who’s in office only because the last two presidents were thrown out…
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the weather here in Boston. But anyway, I’m sick again and have been for the past three days. It seems to be climaxing today so that’s why I haven’t blogged. You know it’s bad when you can’t even swallow your own saliva! So have a nice weekend…
One of the world’s most important under-reported stories is the ongoing struggle for political influence and commercial advantage in Central Asia – mainly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyryzstan and Tajikistan – between Russia, China and the United States. Security Watchtower has an important post, The Battle for Central Asia, which is worth reading and which links…
The bloggers have come up with a real big one on voter fraud in Venezuela. Miguel explains it out very well here. Venezuelan congressional elections are being held on Dec. 4 and a court has ruled in favor of stacking the vote today. See my post here. But that’s not the only problem. Now Javier…
On Academic Elephant’s superb blog, I found a small post that resonated with me: The tendency of the mainstream media to belittle U.S. officials when they visit small countries. There are all kinds of valid reasons to criticize them, and from many angles. But to savage Donald Rumsfeld because he paid a visit to distant…
Charles Krauthammer really gives it to Brent Scowcroft today – as the world’s foremost anti-revolutionary. Scowcroft has spent his entire life obstructing democratic revolution. If you believe in democratic revolution, you will never look at that man the same way again. He pretends to be oh so safe and sane. But he’s set democracy back…
In a significant defeat for Venezuela’s democracy, a new voting system installed by the Chavista government, called ‘los morochas’, which disproportionately benefits Chavista incumbents, was affirmed by Venezuela’s Supreme Court, an appointed body stacked with Chavista loyalists. It is expected to raise Hugo Chavez’s representation in the Congress – where he already has a majority…
…on poverty figures. It’s one of the most disgusting things he’s ever done. Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald, in one of his best columns, uncovered what bloggers have been saying all along: poverty has risen, not fallen, in Hugo Chavez’s ’21st-century-socialist’ Venezuela, supposedly a champion of the poor. They of course meant: creating more…
Boz has an excellent roundup of all the polls being taken around the hemisphere, with at least one for each country. The polls are invaluable tools for sensing which way the winds of change are blowing in this coming fateful election year in the Americas. He also has a link to a very valuable poll…
The United Nations has issued another report regarding the situation between Lebanon and Syria, which takes notice of Syrian actions above and beyond that of the assassination of ex-PM Hariri as laid out in the Mehlis Report. The Larsen report, prepared by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen for the purpose of measuring the success of implementing…
With the media headlining the anti-war camp’s bullet points and trumpeting the fact that 2,000 U.S. troops have now died in Iraq, it is time for some perspective. While we always hope to keep our own casualties to a minimum, war is part of the routine of life, and the reality of war is that…
The big news in Azerbaijan is that, less than two weeks away from parliamentary elections scheduled for November 6, President Aliyev has ordered that NGOs be allowed to monitor the election and that indelible ink must be used to prevent double voting. All of these are measures requested by the OSCE in order to hold…
Venezuela’s main newspaper, El Universal, in a true blog style, is now putting out a weekly roundup of all the Zimbabwe-style land confiscations engulfing Venezuela under the far-left Chavez regime. The list of all the farmers who have had their ranches taken away ‘in the name of the people’ is long and horrible, given the…
As we noted here, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has offered to take questions from the public through the BBC. It’s about what you’d imagine, with readers asking some fairly tough questions, along with plenty of softballs, and Chavez replying glibly and smoothly. If you ask me, it looked coached, due to the suaveness of Chavez’s…
Stefania in Sardinia reminds us to think of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who is marking her tenth year of house arrest under the thugs who run Burma. Suu Kyi is the rightful leader of Burma. She also is a brave woman who has stood up to the gross tinpot military thugs in her struggle…