Blogging the democratic revolution
And now for a truly satisfactory little tidbit, The Hill Rag reports that the 15 brave pro-CAFTA Democratic Congressmen who bucked their party leadership in the name of free trade for Central America, and who were politically threatened by vengeful union thugs for doing it – are now reaping big rewards from campaign contributors grateful for their effort to stand up for revolution. Oh it is good news! Donations are flowing left and right to these Congressmen who resisted lunatic economics against free trade in the name of helping Central America’s poor and everyone else too. Free trade lifts business…
A crowd of over 15,000 demonstrators gathered in Baku’s Victory Square to protest Sunday’s fraudulent elections. The protests had been sanctioned by the government for today, but it is unlikely that further protests will be officially allowed. Opposition leaders have vowed to continue taking to the streets through the weekend, and if history is any indication, riot police will try to quell any unsanctioned protests. The good news is that several groups outside of the main opposition alliance have joined in, which means that the number can only grow from here. The oppositional block “Azadliq” along with “Yeni Siyaset” ÄNew…
Jacques Chirac was swept into power in the runoff presidential election of 2002 with 82% of the vote. He achieved this unprecedented tally because his opponent was Jean-Marie Le Pen, a xenophobic man often called a French fascist. Le Pen’s defeat was preceded by a million man march in which the whole country, except for far-right National Front voters, rejected his anti-immigrant and racist views. They wouldn’t allow France to become the kind of vision that Le Pen wanted, which left him with a mere 17% of the vote. The election campaign that year says quite a bit about the…
Investor’s Business Daily has an excellent editorial up about President Bush’s visit to Argentina for discussion about the FTAA. It lashes at the negative media portrayal here in the United States, despite the fact that the vast majority of countries are on board with it. Make sure to check it out.
Maybe this is why I’m so hesitant about Chinese aggression in the future: SHANGHAI: When it comes to their sex lives, Chinese are among those who “can’t get no satisfaction.” Chinese are among the groups that are the least happy with their sex lives, according to the 2005 Global Sex Survey results released yesterday by Durex condom company. Only 22 per cent of Chinese surveyed said they are satisfied with their sex life. On a global scale, 44 per cent of all adults claim to be happy with it. Look for China to, uh, dominate Taiwan at some point.
California Conservative has a roundup of the special election in California. Wholly believing that long-engrained special interests control the government there and have morphed it to efficiently serve their needs instead of those of the people, I believe that these reforms have been a long way coming and need to pass. I generally don’t support referendums because of the concept of “enlightened democracy” which is supposed to take place in the state legislature, but that institution has become so self-serving that this has to be taken straight to the people. Let’s hope this goes through!
Here’s a quick roundup about what all the regional blogs are saying, and then below that will be the aftermath of election day. – New Eurasia is blogging a storm. Just scroll. It includes on the ground reporting, pictures of campaign posters, exit poll information, and an appearance by Ariel Cohen calling the election the most fair he’s ever seen in the former USSR. – A lot at Registan too. Again, just scroll! – Scroll at Blogrel, as Katy is on the ground in Baku.
The Mehlis Report, otherwise known as the Report of the International Independent Investigation Commission charged with investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on Feb. 14 of this year, indicated that high-level Syrian officials and their agents in Lebanon were behind the assassination. I posted a brief entry on it when it was published; this post is the more in-depth analysis I promised. Following the report, the United Nations renewed Detlev Mehlis’ mandate, and the investigation continues. Today Al-Sharq al-Awsat had two articles indicating that the pressure on Syria continues to accumulate. One, “Lebanon: Two of the…
Parliamentary elections are due to be held in Azerbaijan on November 6, and the opposition hasn’t held back in making it known that it intends to attempt a colored revolution in the event of fraud. However, most observers believe that this event will be more violent than velvet, a repeat of the October 2003 street battles between thousands of incited protestors and security forces. The riots are inevitable, as their basis will be the faulty conduct of the campaigning process and the elections, and they will simply be nowhere near perfect. There will no doubt be an attempted revolution tomorrow.…
There will be a large demonstration in Boston tomorrow in support of the more than 20 million slaves left in the world. It is hosted by iAbolish, an organization bringing together the modern-day abolitionist movement. This is a really good cause to get involved with. I’m posting all the relevant information below. If you want more, just click here! I know I’ll be there! ******** We invite you to attend the 2005 FREEDOM MARCH on Sunday, November 6th in Boston, MA from noon until 2:00 PM . The march offers a unique opportunity for fellow abolitionists to come together in…
After the opposition called for protests against the government over the fradulent May elections, and people began taking to the streets of Addis Ababa on Tuesday, the unrest has spread beyond the cities with thousands of people demonstrating against the government. Could this be the start of a revolution, or will this one be silenced just as those before it? Addis Ababa – Thousands of students took to the streets in several Ethiopian cities Friday as unrest to protest a government crackdown on the opposition spread beyond the capital. Four people were killed and 11 injured, state television reported. Prime…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has hurled a major strike at the free press. Patricia Poleo, the fearless journalist who exposed government shenanigans over a mysterious car-bombing last year of a prosecutor, has been arrested — and along with a military man, a banker and a Cuban exile, charged with the murder herself. The background to her story is here, here, here, and here. Poleo is a dissident, and has even organized protests against Chavez, like this one we blogged here, but she has never engaged in or advocated violence against the Chavez regime. Her only obsession seems to have been…
It’s time for the Summit of the Americas again, and that means leftists from all over will be flocking to Argentina to protest… well, they don’t really know what, they just know that oil-stealing Bush guy from Texas will be there. And they’ll be in great company, with the likes of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Cindy Sheheen. I can already imagine them all sitting together and enjoying tea and crumpets. George Bush left his problems at home yesterday only to find himself flying into a whole new world of hurt at the Summit of Americas in Argentina, where tens…
Hardcore leftwing ‘activists’ aligned with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Cuban despot Fidel Castro and Bolivian coca-growing champion Evo Morales have served legal papers charging genocide to Bolivia’s finest former president, the elderly Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a superb democratic revolutionary leader who in the early 1990s slew South America’s highest-ever inflation rate, began Bolivia’s natural gas expansion and set his country on the road to first-world prosperity – until he was detestably ousted from power by communistic road-blockers acting as a gang of thugs. He was the first Bolivian I had ever met. I talked with him and wrote about…
A lot has happened in Bolivia since last week. For one thing, elections were declared Dec. 18. That’s probably the most gripping story in the Bolivian blogosphere, and for obvious reasons – democracy has been put back on its rails – or well, apparently, the perspectives are different. Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has his first rate roundup of all the news reported around on Bolivian events at Global Voices. Read the whole thing here.
Luis Ramirez at Voice of America, the best correspondent in East Asia, as we and even Amnesty International have noted before, has come up with some kickass reporting on …. North Korea’s rich elite and the continuing famine in North Korea. It is fearless journalism, and like none other you have read. Even people who look down on VOA have admitted to being stunned by the first-rate quality of this reporting. The award-winning Voice of America bureau chief in Beijing went to Pyongyang and has since come out no-I-wasn’t-fooled journalism on this dark, closed, monstrous totalitarian dictatorship, the very worst…
Awhile back I was disagreeing with someone I respect on the nature of France and its need for democratic revolution, same as the rest of the unfree world. Today, I feel sad but sort of vindicated. The eighth day of rioting in France can’t be called a democratic revolution, but it’s the end result of what happens when you don’t get one. The persistent joblessness, the inability to assimilate immigrants, the government control of every aspect of life and above all the lack of freedom are exactly what’s behind this spreading explosion. Yes, France needs to expand its democracy. Badly.…
Senators Bill Frist and Richard Lugar have taken the initiative in Congress and presented a resolution calling for the fair treatment of Sanjar Umarov, the Uzbek opposition politician who has presented the most reasonable challenge to President Karimov so far. He was detained in late October. Here’s the text of the resolution. The resolution prompted the White House to issue a similar statement of support for Umarov and condemnation of the Karimov government. WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) – The United States issued a sharp rebuke to the Uzbek government on Wednesday over the arrest of opposition leader Sanjar Umarov and…
I’m still sick, everyone. I will see if I can do some blogging today, but at the moment the doctor has me pumped up on anti-biotics. They don’t seem to know what it is (after a week!) so they’ve run some blood tests and will hopefully know soon. Until then, it’s back to bed with me…
I have now posted my Middle East Week in Review news bulletin, albeit two days late. In re to democracy issues, make a point to check out the link to the new national intelligence strategy, which focuses on this point.
The UN-Afghan joint commission, JAMB, has delayed the release results from parliamentary elections held in September. This is due to some 500 complaints filed related to possible electoral fraud committed at individual polling stations, all of which are being investigated before any final results are announced. The certification of final results from Afghanistan’s 18 September parliamentary elections has been delayed because of fraud complaints. A spokesman for the joint UN-Afghan election commission says about 500 complaints that are still being investigated could affect the outcome of some races. The allegations of fraud include the intimidation of voters, the stuffing of…
Try as he did, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez still hasn’t made America’s coveted ‘Axis Of Evil’ list of nations. But it’s not all a vale of tears for him, he did get Venezuela promoted to ‘Rogue State,’ right up there alongside Syria, quietly raising the likelihood of military conflict with the U.S. No fireworks, no glory, no presidential speeches denouncing him as ‘evil.’ But it is certainly an accomplishment, a badge of honor, a gang tattoo, in Chavez’s circle of friends. Chavez will have quite a bit to talk about at the next UN cocktail party before this new status…
Here in the states, we all had a good laugh when Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez denounced Halloween as part of ‘the U.S. culture of terror.’ He also said that Halloween costumes were terrible efforts to scare people as well as alien to the Venezuelan culture. By the sound of it, you could almost imagine that he actually believed that Halloween’s playful merrymaking with ghosts and goblins was actually real to him. To U.S.-Americans, Chavez sort of sounded like a stereotypical backwoods Christian fundamentalist preacher. I grew up with such people and remember hearing the exact same exhortions against the ‘celebration…
With the ruling party once again stealing the elections back in May and putting down an impending uprising, the people of Ethiopia aren’t ready to give up that quickly. The opposition has called for a boycott of companies and products controlled by the government. It has also called for popular protests. Of course, the government won’t be having any of that, and has continued its campaign of harassment, detention, and even murder of opposition supporters. ADDIS ABABA, 1 November (IRIN) – Ethiopia’s largest opposition party on Monday called for a consumer boycott of products controlled and sold by the ruling…