Blogging the democratic revolution
Vietnam is the latest in a string of countries to negotiate a trade pact and open up its markets to U.S. companies: Vietnam and the United States have signed a new trade deal which will open the Southeast Asian country’s markets in virtually every sector. It paves the way for Vietnam to enter the World Trade Organisation this year, 11 years after it began applying. Vietnamese officials want to finish talks with the Geneva-based WTO in July. The new agreement is the latest in a series of business deals and diplomatic steps by Hanoi to integrate its fast-expanding economy into…
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States embarked on a mission to assist the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries to establish democracies. The US saw as a key factor in establishing democracies that the emerging nations go through a period of transitional justice. One of the keys to transitional justice was to encourage these new nations and their governments to adhere to the rule of law. The Department of State spends billions of dollars on programs and training to encourage the rule of law, and many embassies have personnel assigned as Rule of Law Coordinators.…
From the news: PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP)–The Nonaligned Movement, the world’s biggest bloc after the U.N., emphatically backed Iran Tuesday in its nuclear standoff with the U.S., and condemned Israel for occupying Palestinian lands. Meeting in Malaysia’s administrative capital, the foreign ministers of NAM member nations also demanded that Israel accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty without delay and open its nuclear facilities to international inspection. On Iran, the ministers “re-affirmed the basic and inalienable right” of all countries to develop, produce and use atomic energy “for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations,” said…
Fifteen years ago pro-democracy activists in Russia tore down a statue in front of the Moscow KGB Headquarters. The statue was a monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka, the predecessor agency of the KGB. Back in 2002 the mayor of Moscow suggested that the statue be restored, which caused an uproar, and even the former KGB official, and President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was opposed to the restoration. Felix Dzerzhinsky, known as Iron Felix, was responsible for mass arrests, brutality and thousands of executions. Once, when discussing the type of person he was looking for to work…
I don’t know exactly why but this manic photo caption by Castro-regime Cuban boat refugee Charlie Bravo at KillCastro absolutely cracks me up every time I read it. See what you think here.
The road to forming a new Iraqi government, from the elections in December last year to its actual formation no more than a week ago, splintering between the country’s different ethnic and religious groups has been everyone’s concern. Sunnis attacking Shiites, and vice versa. Even with the end of the insurgency, the development of death squads supplied by Iran have continued the extra-judicial killings. On the political level, despite all of the killings, things have chugged along slowly but surely. Of these developments, however, the most interesting and perhaps the most important has always been the breakdown of the Shiite…
Twenty-four years ago, June 8, 1982, Ronald Reagan spoke to the British House of Commons. In that speech President Reagan said, in part, the following: We’re approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention — totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a not at all fragile flower. From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have…
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! I never thought I would utter such words. A long time ago, Alan Garcia was Peru’s pain-in-the-ass leftwing president, from 1980-1985. He was only 35 then, and apparently not the same person he is now. He’s grown up. And he’s turned his spectacular talent to be a pain-in-the-ass to the guy it belongs on: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Garcia’s reading Hugo Chavez precisely in bullseye language that resonates with Peruvians … and with me. He’s telling Hugo Chavez to his face exactly what a creepy tinpot dictator he is, which is something Chavez needs to hear.…
Polls have closed at 3 p.m. today. These elections were to elect governors of several Italian provinces,city councils and a regione, Sicily. First exit polls ( be cautious, we may recall how they were dead wrong in the recent political elections in Italy) are like the following: Election for the governor of Sicily: Salvatore Cuffaro ( Democratic Christian Union of the Center, center-right) 53,1 % , Rita Borsellino ( center-left ) 42,2. Source: Ansa. Election for the City Council of Milan: Letizia Moratti (center-right) 49-51% , Bruno Ferrante (center-left) 48-50% . Still too close to call. I expect Moratti to…
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdo????an visited Algeria this past week. Meeting with Algerian National Assembly Speaker Amar Saadani on Monday, Erdo????an met with president Bouteflika on Tuesday. After their three hour meeting, the two leaders announced an accord of “friendship and cooperation.” Erdo????an visited a veterans cemetery and the Algerian military museum, surveying artefacts from Algeria’s Ottoman period and praising Algeria’s veterans. “…..The heroes of the struggle for independence in Algeria are the best examples for today’s generations,” Erdo????an said. Erdo????an also made statements in relation to his county’s desired assencion into the European Union, sating that ???????If the EU is…
Celebrating democracy, with a great leader they voted for and won! You know what this means … I don’t have to explain a thing… Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! Colombia is headed for the polls today, and wonderful President Alvaro Uribe is likely to win in a landslide. He only needs to get past the 50-percentage point mark to avoide a runoff, and that’s likely to be a piece of cake for him. He’s got a 30-point lead in the polls over his nearest rivals. It’s not hard to see why. Uribe’s brought confidence, security and prosperity to Colombia, something it’s not seen in decades, something that looks so fresh, so beautiful, so different, so amazing … how could Colombians not pass up on such…
East Timor, with less than a million people, is like a small town, with small-town niceness … and small-town small-mindedness. It’s also coming off a 25-year populist guerrilla war for independence, meaning that there are a lot of unemployed soldiers and guerrillas around, without a purpose. The barely-developed half-island won its independence from Indonesia in a 1999 referendum that came about by fluke, when, in an unguarded moment, the loose-tongued, clownish Soeharto successor, BJ Habibie, said that if the Timorese really wanted a referendum, he’d darn well give it to them. It turns out they did. And independence, after decades…
Why is this man smiling? And why should we smile back? This may shock you, but he’s happily, shamelessly taking credit for the U.S. House and Senate votes on immigration this week. He didn’t have all that much to do with it, except a little and except that it was none of his business. Nevermind. We gotta smile back. Fox’s political party is reaping big from these immigration reform bills being hashed out in Washington. And Mexican elections are around the corner. With World Cup headed at us like a freight train in June, something that will stop all political…
A few days ago, I was blogging about the tombs of Imogiri, near Yogyakarta, in central Java, discussing them as the place I was at onset of Indonesia’s democratic revolution in 1998. Today, those tombs are at the epicenter of the deadly earthquake in Indonesia, centered in Bantul. Hospitals are overflowing and more than 3000 are known dead in the first 12 hours, it will soar much higher. I noted earlier that Indonesia has a lot of eerie coincidences. I just wish this wasn’t one of them. There are people I know there, and I am quite worried. I will…
Read this entire article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. But if you don’t, then you should at least see the following, which is relevant. It is written by Jorge Castaneda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, regarding to two different lefts in Latin America. A TALE OF TWO LEFTS Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for…
Who is President Bush????????s favorite choice to become Secretary General of the United Nations? Look for the United States to support the President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, to replace Kofi Annan when his term expires Dec. 31. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the President of Latvia, has a history that has taught her the importance of democracy and freedom. President Vike-Freiberga was born in Riga, Latvia in 1937. During World War II Latvia was occupied by the Russians, then the Germans, then again by the Russians, and then was forced to join the Soviet Union at the close of the war. After the…
Ibrahim Gambari is the man behind the scenes in Burma lately. He’s the undersecretary for political affairs over at the UN, and on a recent trip, he was actually allowed to meet with the leaders of the military junta. Even more, he was the first foreign diplomat in a very long time to meet with detained democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her jail time is supposed to be over on May 27th, at which point she would be thrust back onto the political scene. Will she be let out? Gambari offers us some clues as to what is…
I can????????t top Rob????????s pictures of the Montenegro celebrators, but the Montenegro vote for independence does have significance for Serbia and the Balkans over and above the beauty of their independence supporters. Everyone (including me), and especially the intelligence agencies in Europe, expected Serbia to turn over Ratko Mladic prior to the May 1 deadline issued by the EU. Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (CTFY) accused Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of misleading her by insisting a month ago that Mladic’s arrest was imminent. The failure of Serbia to capture and…
The SMCCDI has two reports on the protests underway in Iran here and here. Below, some photos of the demonstrations. In my next Iran-related post, I’ll write more in detail about these demonstrations.
Students are protesting in Iran, and according to this report, it’s against Iran’s nuke program. Some of it has turned violent. Police are blamed. GatewayPundit has the scoop, and a tremendous roundup of this big potential democracy revolution here.
It was Publius’ and Venezuela Today‘s scoop last May 10. Hugo Chavez has a new role in Hollywood, not as an Oliver-Stone conspiracy hero, but as a videogame villain. Apparently, he caught wind of our post because we were the only ones posting about it, and has now blown up, calling it a CIA conspiracy and all kinds of entertaining things that ensure his reason for being in the world videogame pantheon of villains. Enjoy this news here!
The Miami Cuban community is often maligned as a bunch of “older Cuban men” who’ve not been able to get over the loss of their “stuff” from the thieving and murderous reign of Fidel Castro. They are portrayed as troglodytes, fanatically rightwing, living in the past, playing dominoes, recalling the good old days, sexist and totally irrelevant. Definitely not the “in” crowd to such “cognoscenti” who dismiss them. Well, Miami Cubans have a way of throwing those stereotypes right back in the faces of their accusers, who are often U.S. leftist ignoramuses with no understanding of the Cuban-American experience, no…
The Amir of Kuwait, Amir Sabah al-Ahmad, has dissolved the Kuwait parliament with new elections set for June 29 (the constitution requires that they be held within two months). This follows a week of intense conflict unprecedented in Kuwaiti history brought about in response to a government proposal to limit the number of voting districts from 25 to five. Opposition members of parliament – formal parties are not allowed under the Kuwaiti system – are protesting because, they allege, the new system will allow the government to redraw the boundaries in a way that hugely favors a minority of the…
I have dreaded this topic, because I hate the revolting Jimmy Carter more than anything. The only good thing Jimmy Carter did was give back the Panama Canal and make me a flaming Reagan Revolutionary. In other words, he’s a perfect example of a stopped clock being right exactly twice a day. Everything else Carter ever did was not only bad, it was PROFOUNDLY bad. He’s a textbook example of what not, what never, to do. That’s why his Carter Center’s coming back into the news is so utterly repellent. But come back he is. He’s sent his emissaries back…