Blogging the democratic revolution
Bahrain isn’t exactly known for its vibrant civil society and liberal democracy, but it has slowly been developing since King Hamad began introducing slow reforms when he took power in 1999. That’s why protests there are so interesting to highlight. Today, 4000 protestors took to the streets because of a law recently passed that would…
Forbes presents to you t a list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. This goes without saying, but not only is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the most powerful woman in the world, but she uses it to advance the most important cause there is: the advance of freedom. She is joined…
In the wake of terrorist bombings against his country, Egypt’s President Mubarak has declared his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. Not that there was any doubt that he’d run for a fifth term, but now he has a platform to go on. President Hosni Mubarak announced his bid yesterday to run in Egypt’s first…
With so much talk of the return of the Great Game in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan’s maneuvers between the powers and its neighbors makes for one of the best case studies. The refugees who took flight from Andijon across the border to Kyrgyzstan following Karimov’s May massacre has been one of those issues that the new…
I wanted to highlight this because it’s really very dramatic given how much the international eye has refocused on Serbian war crimes. The wife of one of the leaders indicted for genocide spoke out on regional television stations appealing for his surrender. I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. 29 July 2005 (RFE/RL)…
CAFTA is often compared to NAFTA, but the roots of the trade pact are very different. They began in 1983 when the great Ronald Reagan launched his Caribbean Basin Initiative. As he fought the march of communism with all his strength, the far-thinking President Reagan also knew that U.S. might is based not only on…
Alexis de Tocqueville, the extraordinary French observer who chronicled how democracy rose and developed in America, is 200 years old today. In the Age of Democratic Revolution & Civil Society, he gave us all a roadmap that is more important than anyone ever realized. Great economists like Hernando de Soto, who first underlined the importance…
It looks like a somewhat promising election is about to go down the tubes. It looks like deposed military strongman Vieira won Guinea-Bissau’s runoff election. But allegations of fraud are coming from the other candidate, Sanha, who is the current ruling party’s candidate. Guinea-Bissau’s former military ruler Joao Bernardo Vieira has won run-off presidential elections,…
Ugandans went to the polls today to vote in a referendum on allowing multiple parties run in elections. Political parties were effectively outlawed 19 years ago, but President Museveni is being pressured by foreign donors, who supply half of the government’s budget, to enact reforms. Turnout was very low largely due to torrential rains and…
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in April called on the IRA to lose its arms after getting totally snubbed by the usual supporters in Irish America. Yes, even Ted Kennedy gave him the cold shoulder. This announcement seems several months in the making, though hardly anyone believed the organization would seriously embrace the message. They…
On Tuesday I discussed how pressure from the ASEAN countries forced Burma to forgo the chairmanship, a notable break from a general policy of nonintervention with regards to any particular country’s internal affairs. The move was cheered by the United States, the EU, and pro-democracy activists everywhere. Representatives from both bodies had threatened to boycott…
in the House. Victory for our hemisphere. The full list of how they voted. Our friend Will has analysis and a good roundup of what other bloggers are saying here. IBD has an editorial saying this trade treaty will benefit businesses across the board, citing the word of Central Americans who are in the middle…
Tulio Alavarez, the respected Venezuelan attorney who conclusively proved that there was fraud in Hugo Chavez’s recall referendum, was set upon by Hugo Chavez’s thugs as payback for his democracy work. The goons stopped him as he was preparing to get on an airplane. They tried to call his car stolen. They tried to plant…
Tick tick tick – CAFTA’s victory is expected in three hours, according to my sources, and to the Washington Post, but cross your fingers, it’s not over until it’s over… This trade treaty is the most important measure of support we can give to the entire hemisphere. Central Americans don’t want our troops. They don’t…
Only a few days after the United Nations issued its “damning” report about the genocide in Zimbabwe, Mugabe figured it might be a good idea continue demolishing homes. Shows how much he takes the dreaded UN seriously, huh? The United States and Britain, however, have been stepping up the pressure on South Africa to do…
A few weeks ago when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met in Kazakhstan, it called for the quick pullout of U.S. forces from its bases in Central Asia. The U.S. has bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, with special flight rights in Tajikistan, which are members of the SCO. Even Kyrgyzstan at the time was making statements…
I kid you not. As corrupt, thuggish and stupid as they are ugly. Miguel has much more here. As an antidote, feel free to compare and contrast.
First views of Hugo Chavez’s new Marxist TV station reveals the grand unveiling of another Chavez failure – this is a real dog. The programs following the inauguration were sad and gray: verses of Eduardo Galeano, a sugary documentary on the life of Che Guevara and news totally biased in favor of the Ch????vez revolution….
The G8 summit is over, aging hipsters have finished playing concerts the nostalgic world over, and experience as old as their songs has been cast out the window in favor of some feel-good debt relief lovin’. Dictators from the Middle East to Asia are outraged and harping on endlessly; not because they’re being forced into…
It looks like a couple of things are going down in Iran. Jim Hoft is rounding up news on a protest in front of Tehran University calling for the release of Akbar Ganji. But there is other unrest throughout the country. I’ve reported over the past week about the state of emergency and mass unrest…
Foreign ministers from an arc of ten Asian countries of various degrees of political openness are meeting in Laos to drink wine, joke, and maybe sign a few important cooperative agreements at the annual ASEAN summit. Underscoring the whole event, however, is that Burma is next in line to take over the leadership position in…
Well, this almost totally slipped under the radar! If it weren’t for certain services that focus specifically on this kind of stuff, the world may never know that Bush was following up on his promise to support the democratic opposition in Belarus. They met at the White House. George W. Bush declared support to Belarusian…
Marvellous, prosperous, democratic, revolutionary Chile, which has already signed free trade pacts with the U.S. and other nations, has signed three more free trade pacts with Brunei, New Zealand and Singapore. While Hugo Chavez up north and his Master in Havana scream about how bad they are. And the U.S. thrashes about trying to decide…
Earlier today A.M. Mora y Leon posted an entry on the necessity of passing CAFTA, and I wanted to add to that. Today the Wall Street Journal published an article which described the kind of negotiating going on in the House of Representatives over this trade pact, and in doing so illustrated the short-sightedness which…
Miguel Octavio, in a vintage Miguel presentation, outlines the latest illogicalities of the Chavista revolution. My god they are stupid. Don’t have a government television station anyone wants to watch? Fine then, build a new international one. And so it goes with several more examples. Well worth reading, read it here.