Blogging the democratic revolution
Yesterday, Estonia held its national parliamentary election. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party increased its position from 19 to 31 seats in the 101-seat parliament, while their coalition partner in the previous government, the Centre Party, gained one seat to move to 29. The Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica holds 19 seats, the Social Democrats hold 10, and the Greens and the People’s Union of Estonia each hold 6 (the agrarianist People’s Union was the third coalition party in the previous government). This is a remarkable gain for the liberty-oriented Reform Party, although it does not provide enough…
Sokwanele has turned up with some incredible footage of undercover news shot in Zimbabwe and aired the ITV. The video features protestors running down the street as they flea tear gas being launched at them by riot police, along with interviews and a look at how Zimbabweans are forced to live nowadays. One man describes himself as already dead, a sign that there is so little hope for change in Zimbabwe under President Mugabe that the only thing people have left to do is fight. This is a great video worth watching. What is possibly even more amazing is that…
For at least two years in a row now, women have gathered by the hundreds, if not thousands, on June 12 to demand equal rights from the tyrannical Islamic government. They’re sick of being treated as second class citizens — no, animals — in their own society. Publius reported on these events, the first one in 2005 where demonstrators gathered to protest this gender apartheid. It was one of the first such large demonstrations by women, for women, since the revolution. In 2006, the event unfolded once again, with the women taking confidence from the year before that they could…
Last week, we informed readers about aggressive efforts by and on behalf of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to punish Internet scribes who dare to criticize the Moscow regime with brutal personal attacks. In other words, demand-side pressure on Kremlin critics. The ultimate expression of this strategy was the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, though for sheer malignant, bloodthirsty sadism nothing can match the killing of strident Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London — a killing which MSNBC reported last week has been confirmed by British authorities to have been a state-sponsored Kremlin whack job (as the Conjecturer blog reminded us recently, there…
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. –Benjamin Franklin High-level talks have resumed between the two Koreas under the old “sunshine” policy, which can only mean that what has happened before in the past is bound to repeat itself very soon. North Korea’s supposedly impending nuclear disarmament is going to bring about all of the usual fringe benefits of duping the West through blackmail and coercion. The United States, for one, has trashed its previously assertive position with the north and is now considering early provision of fuel aid. The south,…
As the Bush administration moves towards disengagement in the Middle East from those regarded as extremist — including Syria, Iran, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Iraq, Hamas in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon — the result has been a vacuum of power left from the absence of traditional diplomatic channels. In the post Cold War era, this meant typically working with, and in the least, involving the United States. But in recent months as American policy becomes more rigid and inflexible, Middle Eastern diplomatic channels have rerouted outside of Washington and back into the Middle East proper. In this…
The organized campaign to see Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, who was jailed this month for insulting Islam and the government, is quite a thing to behold. Between FreeKareem.org, online petitions, blog posts, and articles in huge publications like the Washington Post, rarely has there been such an interest in the blogosphere as a whole on one human rights issue involving one person in a country so far away. I think it’s great! Bringing attention to these kinds of things is exactly how to get them changed. Otherwise, the Egyptian government will continue to its war campaign against civil society and…