Blogging the democratic revolution
I must apologize for not being able to feature especially large segments related to Lebanon due to personal time constraints. I hope to be able to do something big and comprehensive for the Kyrgyzstan elections on Sunday. However, Arthur Chrenkoff has done a great job day by day rounding things up on Lebanon, just like he has done for Afghanistan and Iraq. One thing I will point out especially because it is so amazing. Lebanon has a tent city: BEIRUT – A small tent city has popped up on Martyrs’ Square in Beirut as anti-Syrian protesters call for political changes…
So CNN finally writes something about this story. . . OLYMPIA, Washington (AP) — Republicans dissatisfied with the balloting that installed Democrat Gov. Christine Gregoire alleged Tuesday that 1,108 felons voted illegally in the 2004 election. Dino Rossi, the failed GOP candidate, is challenging Gregoire’s election in court on the grounds that illegal votes and election workers’ errors irrevocably tainted the results. He is pushing for a new election. Gregoire won the election by just 129 votes, after a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Rossi had won the first two counts. Democrats say Gregoire is the legitimate governor, and…
John Burgess has another article by a woman writing in support of suffrage., as well as letters to the editor regarding a previous article. Very cool stuff. Women’s suffrage shouldn’t even need evidence to back itself up, however, these womens’ ability to write logically and eloquently on the subject lends a great deal of additional weight to their cause in the minds of detractors.
I found this post by Neeka disturbing. In Khasavyurt, Daghestan, today, blood on the floor of a tiny, shitty apartment with shattered windows and bullet marks on the ceiling. The blood is, possibly, of Raja Aliyev, b. 1984, allegedly head of a militant group from Chechnya. A dead body on the floor is probably Aliyev’s as well. On the table, “the evidence”: a few Qur’ans and a dozen other religious-looking volumes – and then, suddenly, a 1980s Soviet edition of the Arabian Nights, its cover filled with Islamic ornaments, pretty and so unmistakably familiar. But I’m sure there are people…
David McDuff posts the translated political declaration on his blog. The topics it covers are both broad and general, positive and negative. The negative is quickly reinforced with the positive, however. It looks pretty sober, in any case.
Picked up the story from Bloggledygook. Captain Ed reports a little-told story that the Taliban in Afghanistan is starting to give up the fight and rejoin society on peaceful terms. One of the Taliban’s most senior and charismatic commanders has become a key negotiator as more and more members of the Islamic militia in Afghanistan give up the fight against the Americans. The commander, Abdul Salam, earned the nickname Mullah Rockety because he was so accurate with rocket propelled grenades against Russian troops. … After the Taliban’s three-year struggle against a superior US force, there is growing optimism among the…
Virtually one of the only good sources of news that I can find, Radio Free Nepal has a roundup of the latest stories coming out of the country. And pictures. And the emergence of yet another Nepali blogger! I think we will start to see more and more of these as the crisis goes on. UPDATE: Even more! One Nepali blogger notes that the tide may be turning against the monarchy. Just look at this. I am giving King G a few more weeks. With India, US, and UK united, China is not going to even think of meddling. So…
The elections aren’t for a while, but. . . ARMENIAN OPPOSITION LEADER DOES FOREIGN POLICY U-TURN National Accord Party (AMK) Chairman Artashes Geghamian told a party conference in Yerevan on 19 February that the United States “must be the main pillar of democratization and strengthening” of Armenia, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reported. By contrast, during the 2003 presidential election campaign, Geghamian had argued for closer relations with Russia and Armenia’s accession to the Russia-Belarus Union. Geghamian finished in third place in the first round with some 17 percent of the vote. Geghamian also announced on 19 February that the AMK will…
Across the Bay has a couple pictures of the protests in Lebanon. No smoke or mirrors — that’s a lot of people.
After a military coup toppled the government last month, it seems as if the U.S. has pulled through on threats to withdraw all aid from Togo. Oxblog has the story.
Let the laughing at Putin ensue: Belgium ???????? President Bush scolded Russia for backsliding on democracy Monday and dined on lobster risotto and filet of beef with French President Jacques Chirac (search ). Three days before seeing Vladimir Putin (search) in Slovakia, Bush admonished the Russian leader to “renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law.” Putin has raised alarms in the West by consolidating power, rolling back democratic reforms and curbing press and political freedoms. Bush said the United States and all European countries “should place democratic reform at the heart of their dialogue with Russia.” The…
Arthur Chrenkoff lands a sweet interview with Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. If you were a member of that “war cabinet” what three things you would suggest the United States should do that is not currently doing? We should be funding more (mostly private) radio and television broadcasting to Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The people in those countries know that they are being lied to by their governments, but they don’t know the truth, especially about their own country. If you read some of the blogs from Iran, for example (and there…
David McDuff — I got it right this time — posts part 3 of his series Dragons and Democracy. The new Utopianism, if such it can be called, consists mainly of a rejection of reason: while the socialists at least had arguments and a program, the new anticapitalists ???????seem to have sunk to a lower mental level.??????? There are roots and precedents and roots for this malaise. Conquest points to the emotionalism of postwar French intellectual life, when ???????much of the emotional drive had not come so much from a devotion to the proclaimed social transformation as from a hatred…
I already posted my favorite quotes from Bush’s speech, but there is still plenty of speculation and analysis from the blogosphere that is worth reading. Here’s the full transcript of the speech. And here is a lot of the preliminary commentary wrapped up by Chester. Because it was so long ago, you may not remember when I predicted Bush’s “war on tyranny” inauguration speech, but I think Bill’s analysis of the speech given to Europe is good because he predicted it with great foresight on the pragmatism of idealism. Neo Coneli has reads into what Bush’s plan for Israel. More…
This is why I hate waking up late. The Lebanese are continuing their rather impressive protests to end the occupation by Syria. And it looks as if the French are working with America on this. BRUSSELS, Feb 21 (AFP) – US President George W. Bush and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac on Monday called for the immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. “The United States and France join with the European Union and the international community in condemning the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, and in their support for a free, independent, and democratic Lebanon,” they…
The BBC has an article by the same name, dealing with the imprisonment and torture accorded to those who oppose the mullahs. Iran is becoming an increasingly dangerous place to keep an online diary. Web logs have become a popular forum for dissent. And the Iranian government has responded by arresting dozens of bloggers. Some of those detained are reportedly being held in solitary confinement and tortured. Bloggers Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both currently in prison in Iran. Mr Sigarchi has been in detention since 17 January while Mr Saminejad was first detained in November. “Freedom of expression…
Zed has a rather large post on the politics and news coming out of Burma, you know, the military dictatorship nobody ever talks about.
This is Egypt, a country I’m not too familiar with in terms of the political situation. So you’ll have to judge for yourselves on the character of the prostesters. CAIRO (Reuters) – Several hundred Egyptians protested in central Cairo on Monday in the largest street demonstration since the launch last year of a campaign against continued rule by the Mubarak family. Liberals, leftists and Islamists chanted: “Enough, shame, have mercy” and “Down, down with (President) Hosni Mubarak (news – web sites)” in a public square outside the gates of Cairo University, as tens of thousands of mostly bemused commuters drove…
Nathan has got the news roundup for all of you. The parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan are on February 27. Luckily, that is a Sunday, which means I will have plenty of time to be posting on it as well. If there’s anything the tin-pot despots there know, it is when to pick a good day for rigged elections! I don’t even think I have to say that Russia is backing the current regime. UPDATE: More on the Rainbow of Revolutions from Aussiegirl. Here’s my favorite quote from the article she posted: Moscow has been careful to appear impartial this time,…
Sure, I could just go to the Kyiv Post or Maidan and wrap up all the news for you guys. But Discoshaman just does it better!
That is the name of the new series of posts that David McDuff is doing. You may remember one of his other series entitled Going Back, where he discussed his impressions of the Soviet Union while living there in the sixties. This current series is his reflections on essays in the book The Dragons of Expectation – Reality and Delusion in the Course of History, which is about many things from the human mindset on ideas to history to democracy. The first post is located here and the next here.
Nathan has a news roundup accompanying why he really likes India as both a trade and strategic political partner for the United States. I have some of my own kind thoughts on India as an emerging democratic regional power.
Another crazy report, just like a lot of the bunk charges that come out of Human Rights Watch. Great name, great mission. Terrible follow through. LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Nearly two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, women there are no better off than under the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, the human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday. In a report entitled “Iraq — Decades of Suffering,” it said that while the systematic repression under Saddam had ended, it had been replaced by increased murders, and sexual abuse — including by U.S. forces. Washington promised…
A sly man by the name of Tony let me know about his blog today, called Across the Bay. This is not a paid advertisement — I could only be so lucky — but this blog is of special note because it is totally about Lebanon. Here is a little bit about the author: Ph.D. candidate in Ancient Near Eastern Studies with focus on Semitic Linguistics, Ancient Levantine history, religion, and ethnicity studies. I think we can take his word for it.
From a Venezuelan blogger, citing dictator Hugo Chavez’s declaration: ???????The US is planning to kill me…??????? “He should be so lucky; his complete failure should be judged with him alive.” (Read the rest here.)