Blogging the democratic revolution
Ratko Mladic was the former Army Chief under Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Along with Karadzic, Mladic is largely responsible for the campaign of ethnic cleansing of Croats and Muslims. Mladicwas indicted in 1995 by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the siege of Sarajevo, which claimed 12,000 lives, and for orchestrating the massacre in July 1995 of more than 7,500 Muslims at Srebrenica. Mladic and Karadzic are the two most wanted suspects from the Bosnia conflict, and both are still on the run. When Slobodan Milosevic…
It has been a week now since the united Seven Party Alliance, together with the Maoists, called for a nationwide strike. It’s still going strong. The crowds of demonstrators are growing and the country is finding it hard to function. The government especially. Protests are going into their eighth day with all segments of the population participating. It’s no longer agitated students, journalists, and human rights activists. It’s businessmen and farmers and lawyers and teachers. Everyone. The regime of King Gyanendra has proven itself to be even more brutal than thought. Just in the past week alone, over three thousand…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has grand designs on the Caribbean. He considers it his swimming pool, and its tiny community of nations his pool-rafts; places where he can swirl his oily mixed drinks and get himself a back rub, made in the shade. Well, the Caribbean states don’t care for this, and today they gave a collective thump to Chavez by seeking a free trade pact as a group with the United States. With a hat tip to Boz, The Miami Herald has the item here. That’s got to be a blow for Chavez who has lavished millions of dollars…
Algeria handed over $35 million to the Palestinian Authority. I don’t know that I’ve heard of such a massive waste of money since they came out with that whole “pay as you go” cell phone system. The West has refused to keep throwing money at the PA. And because Palestine is oh so important, the Arabs must come to its aid. Yes, so important is Palestine in fact that the Algerian government needs to throw away money there while Algerians can hardly find proper housing or jobs. $35 million. Why not put that towards building these new housing units Boutef…
Nile Gardiner at the Heritage Foundation has an interesting piece about Prodi’s likely foreign policy: appeasement of terrorists and Middle Eastern tyrants; pro-EU and pro-U.N. policies at the expense of Italy’s alliance with the U.S. and Israel. Read the whole thing here.
Despite an increase in repression, the Cuban resistance movements are growing stronger and more popular than ever. In Isle of Pines, freedom fighters established a new Independent Library, named “January 28”.
This would be the first time that any party has managed to hold power for two terms. As previously discussed, the political parties don’t quite conform to typical expectations as understood in the US, nor even as they would be understood a hop, skip, and jump away in Italy. If you’re not familiar with the scene, you’ll want to hit the link and jog your memory. Results here are as follows: MSZP 43.21% FIDESZ 42.03% SZDSZ 6.50% MDF 5.04% This is a strong showing for the Free Democrats (SZDSZ – mild minarchists, sort of libertarian lite), and a truly unexpectedly…
Latvia will host the NATO summit in Riga this November. Latvia joined NATO and the EU in 2004. However, the NATO summit aside, things may get very interesting in Latvia this fall if the Mayor of Ventspils, Aivars Lembergs, decides to run for parliament in the national elections in October. The last few days have seen a small crisis in the Latvian government as several cabinet ministers resigned and there was no longer majority support for the Cabinet of Ministers. The crisis was put on hold when the government had an extraordinary meeting to approve seven new ministers that were…
Whatever will be the Supreme Court’s response after recounting the votes and regardless of how long will a likely Prodi’s government last, one thing is for sure: after 5 years of stable gov’t, Italy returns to political instability. In the last 60 years, Italy had 55 governments in 50 years. Prodi’s last administration changed prime minister for 3 times in 5 years. This is because his coalition – made up with communists, greens, moderate christian democrats and ‘former’ anti-globalization street protestors (people who incited communist mobs to throw molotov cocktails at police and shops, now will sit at the parliament!)…
OK, I have made a mistake. All is not lost for Peru’s best candidate, Lourdes Flores. She may still make the runoff. I misread one of Alvicho’s Off Topic posts on the electoral outcome. He had a headline up about the expat vote, but the tally he posted was for the Peruvian electorate as a whole, not just the expats. That’s why I thought the expats were going for Humala. They probably aren’t. Rici, posting a note at Fruits and Votes pointed this out to me. He says the expat vote is still expected to go mostly for Lourdes Flores…
Where were you on April 11, 2002? I was just getting on an airplane to Buenos Aires, Argentina to check out the crisis in that country. But I knew I would be flying over another nation – Venezuela – that was in an even more acute crisis, a military coup against Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. I hated the guy even then and found myself pleased that it was his time to go. By the time I landed, I got out of the plane and heard the news that Chavez was back and the coup attempt against him had failed. I…
Miguel Buitrago at the excellent MABB blog, just got back from a conference in Turkey devoted to discussing world democracy movements. People from different countries got together and compared notes on the progress of democratic revolution. Miguel, who is from Bolivia, said that three other Bolivians also were there. Turkey’s prime minister attended along with about 700 delegates, from countries far and wide. What a fascinating conference that must be and what a great thing that it’s going on. See what Miguel’s got on his site about this here.
The expat vote is coming in, the last frontier of vote counting in Peru’s hotly contested election race. As it happens, the Peruvian expat vote pretty much reflects the vote of the home Peruvians – most are going to Ollanta Humala, with the second-highest tally going to Alan Garcia, and free-market Lourdes Flores is left with just slightly less vote than Garcia. What a shame. I am so sad for Peru. CORRECTION: Wrong information, see my update here. That means that come May, Peru will face a stark choice between a leftwing lunatic, Ollanta Humala who has dreams of being…
“Thought he died years ago.” That’s the remark my mother made this weekend when the topic of Fidel Castro was brought up for some reason or another and the conversation rapidly moved on to some other subject. Castro should have died years ago, of course, but that hasn’t happened. If he had any dignity, he’d at least have gone into retirement. That’s why a new post from David A. Einhorn has such resonance. Einhorn recently came back from a trip to Cuba and was not impressed with what he saw and heard. Castro, like Hugo Chavez, was constantly breaking into…
I noticed this photo on the Yahoo! site, listed as one of the most frequently viewed and emailed. It’s interesting because at my workplace, the photo editor was struck by the strangeness of the photo, too, and called me over to look at it as something disgusting. He pointed out that the hackneyed peace symbolism, the dictator-pleasing dance concept, and the scary topic – nuclear uranium – all combined to create a surprisingly Orwellian image. The phony joy of the lobotomized culties just happens to match the ayatollahs’ announcement of “happy news” about Iran’s new uranium enrichment program. Kim Jong…
Now here is something we have been waiting for, Alvaro Vargas Llosa’s take on the wretched electoral situation in Peru, where a leftist Chavista, Ollanta Humala, is in the lead. Vargas Llosa’s got a new essay out, released just minutes ago, called ‘Peru – A Fox Guarding The Henhouse.’ It’s a good neutral analysis of how the votes will likely go and what will likely happen as the electoral situation shapes up in Peru. Read it here.
I received an email from my friend Abu Khawla, coordinator of the Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee (Lakhdar is a Tunisian secularist and reformist who got a death fatwa by London-based imams). Below, I am reporting Khawla’s email as I received it. Hi friends I’m forwarding you a message I received from Professor Ikbal Gharbi-Zeitouna University in Tunis. It’s about the dramatic fate of a student of Al-Azhar University in Egypt. He was sacked for just writing an artic;le (in www.rezgar.com) entitled “Against the racist separation between boys and girls” shut down Al-Azhar” In his call (in Arabic, following Prof…
The great political thinker, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, has written a beautiful essay on the trouble with France and its unsustainable economic model. He touches on the French sense of fear and insecurity as one reason why the protests were so sudden and virulent. He also notes the irony of French students saying they want jobs and security defending the very system that denies it to them. 25% unemployment is not job security. In fact, it’s not even a job. Read the whole brilliant thing here.
There have been numerous Italian regions that, although had elected left-leaning administrations, have voted for Berlusconi this time. In Italy, the right is still very popular. And yet, with its usual dictatorial method rooted in its DNA, the Left claims victory only because of the votes of the Italian expatriates! In Italy, the Italians voted a half for the right and another half for the left, with a slim majority for the right. The right has won the Senate and almost won the Upper House. The Left won the Upper House only by 0,7 votes of difference! The reality on…
The largest outcry for democracy since Nepal’s king seized power last February continues for the fifth straight day. A four-day nationwide strike and general protest was called to start on Thursday and end on Sunday jointly by the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists, but because of its success and unheard of amount of support, they have called for it to last indefinitely. That is, when they achieve victory or when they are crushed by the King’s security forces. KATMANDU, Nepal — Protests continued for a fourth day across Nepal on Sunday as crowds demanding the restoration of democracy took…
France has scrapped its proposed youth jobs laws that allows workers in their first two years of employment to be fired at will. The idea behind the bill, backed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, was to give employers more incentive to hire the young by alleviating their fears of getting a slacker they wouldn’t be able to get rid of. Things had been so bad in France that no one wanted to hire anyone. Consequently, young people had the highest rates of unemployment, by far, in the nation – something like 20%, with at least 40% unemployment rates among…
Last month Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his 75th birthday. Gorbachev, the final leader of the brutal Soviet Union, was treated to a media love fest that proclaimed him the architect of the democratization of the former captive republics of his regime. ABC News called him, ???????The man who ended the Cold War and launched democratic reforms that broke the repressive Soviet regime..??????? Katrina vanden Heuvel attended a party for Gorbachev and proclaimed, ???????He liberated Eastern Europe to find its own political path.??????? The party also had video tributes from former President George Bush, Bill Moyers, Leonardo di Caprio, former President Bill…
Yes, it will be. The Interior Ministry informs that Berlusconi’s CDL (House of Freedom) leads 49,8-49,1% at the Chamber of Deputies and leads at the Senate too! And the votes of the Italian expatriates have yet to be added, although sources say that Italians in Chile voted for CDL ! It will be a long and tense night and I am far more optimistic than I was , say, 2 hours ago. P.S. Some Italian regions that have leftist rulers seem to have voted CDL now!
Today, Mercer released its annual list of the world’s most liveable cities, based on quality of living. I Googled around and finally found a whole list of the study here. I stripped out all the non-Americas cities and just left in the cities that are in Latin America, in the Caribbean, or in U.S. cities with more than half their populations from Latin America and speaking Spanish. Here’s how it all adds up – note how low Caracas ranks, a disgusting thing, given the amount of oil wealth this country has: 55 56 LOS ANGELES, CA United States 98.3 98.3…
You can call it a peculiar kind of poll, but today’s markets are betting that Lourdes Flores may well be able to win the presidential election in Peru. This candidate’s got to fight hard but apparently she can do it. That’s why markets in Peru are up today. The dynamics are curious in Peru. Roughly, they go like this: early polls have always shown that Flores comes in second place in a three-way race with the two leftists, Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala. But in a two-way race, Flores can defeat Humala. Logic would suggest that the two leftists would…