Blogging the democratic revolution
Egypt’s parliament has just passed a resolution which will set May 25 as the day the Egyptian population will vote to amend the constitution so as to provide for multi-candidate presidential elections. The resolution was endorsed by a huge majority of parliament, though this is because it was proposed by Mubarak and his party dominates….
This is extremely rare for Uzbekistan, where Islam Karimov really puts the boot down. It seems that 4000 people have taken to the streets to protest the trials of several loca businessmen accused of “extremist activities.” More than 4,000 residents of Andijon demonstrated for a second consecutive day in a row on 11 May (see…
Al-Jazeera has run an interview with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir from Khartoum on its popular “Without Limits” program. I thought it was enlightening, and the main impression I took a way from it was that of a man in a very weak position. The issue wasn’t addressed directly (although the feed cut off a…
Val has important updates on Cubans’ efforts to forge a civil society from the depths of Castrodom. Note that they are doing it from Havana, showing a courage we can only marvel at. And in what will surely go down as a vote of shame, there were actual U.S. Congressinsects who voted against supporting them…
Tomas Sancio has a superb piece noting the strong and growing presence of Latin American popular culture into mainstream American culture. He takes a screenshot from a Web site to show his point. I am always fond of telling my Latin American friends that when they come to big cities here in the states, they…
“Fidel Castro asserted terrorist should be judged in Venezuela” goes one headline from one of those impartial and objective Cuban propaganda sources; another one reads “New York Times Urges US Government to Deny Asylum to Terrorist Posada Carriles”… The majority of the 176 Posada Carriles-related articles, indexed by Google News, originate from Cuban or Venezuelan…
Everyone — I’ll be appearing on CNBC’s Kudlow and Company on Thursday between 5-6pm eastern time. I’ll be talking politics in South America. I’ve asked some people to record it and host the video for download, so hopefully that can be made available if some of you can’t catch it. For now, I am going…
Last week, Congress approved steep taxes on oil and gas as a compromise between the industrious free marketers of Santa Cruz province, and the Marxist nationalizers of cocalero kingpin Evo Morales, who gets his funding from the drug trade and from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Obviously, that was no solution. Santa Cruz province is threatening to…
U.S. Congress has just passed a resolution offering support and encouragement to Cuba’s brave civil society advocates, who, like the creators of the Declaration of Independence, are meeting in perilous conditions in Castro’s island hellhole to forge the beginnings of a new civil society, a new social contract, a new means of governance in what…
An envoy from the United States met with King Gyanendra yesterday evening to press for the restoration of civil liberties. As you may recall, the king imposed a state of emergency on February 1 and dissolved the parliament, leading to the arrest and detainment of hundreds of journalists, students, and political opponents. Constitutionally, the state…
Miguel has an item out from a Mexican newspaper reporting that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez may have shipped weapons to Mexican Marxist guerrillas, bought with funds from Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s office, who is now running for president of Mexico. Via Havana. AMLO denies he knew anything about it, but that’s not…
ABC is reporting that a grenade was tossed at President Bush as he addressed thousands gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia. Guram Donadze, spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said no hand grenade was thrown close to Bush. “This is an absolute lie. This did not occur,” Donadze told The Associated Press. Officials from President Maikhail Saakashvili’s…
Leftist ecology outfits are basically money-making operations. The more of a stink they can raise on an issue, the more the cash rolls into their coffers. It has nothing to do with merit, only buzz. And the causes they champion are not based on principle but on how leftwing. Ask anyone who’s ever been involved…
“You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty and because you acted, Georgia is today both sovereignty and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.” And the crowd went wild. “In recent months, the world has marveled at the…
I’m watching Bush’s speech to Georgia now. I’ll write more as soon as it’s over. Huge applauses. There must be a hundred thousand people there!
The ritz and glamour of the V-E Day celebrations in Moscow are coming to a close, and nearly everyone, except my German grandmother, has been watching and opining on what it all means for U.S.-Russia relations. At one moment, you have Bush praising the Baltics and preaching freedom and democracy in Belarus. On the other,…
We’ve been busy organizing between several of us to get the Carnival of Revolutions back up in a new, self-perpetuating, rotating model. Sounds exciting. Jim Hoft put together an impossibly comprehensive post to mark its reappearance, and you can see it here.
I’ve just returned from the evening’s activities. A very good reason not to blog. Happy Mothers’ Day everyone!
Regime Change Iran’s week in review is up. It’s interesting to note that while the media has been abuzz about a potential North Korea nuclear test in June, Iran has given the same date as its deadline to start enriching uranium.
It was the winter of 1982. It was the freezing nadir of the Cold War. Soldiarity’s Revolution in Poland had been bitterly crushed. I was a student in England, passionate about Soviet studies and in the center of great scholarship. As Greenham Common leftists camped out to protest cruise missiles, Ronald Reagan and the U.S….
After 15 years of exile in France since the end of the civil war, Michel Aoun has returned promising an end to “political feudalism.” Gen. Aoun pledged to struggle for a new Lebanon free of rampant political feudalism upon his return Saturday from 14 years of exile in France. “The era of unchecked political feudalism…
I’m tempted to pontificate on the cult of personality and the nature of totalitarian regimes. Never mind that. Just click here.
Some newspapers have dismissed Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s moving of his oil company’s headquarters to a Havana, Cuba, as just a small detail. Well, it is not a small detail, according to one respected Venezuelan journalist, it is a sign of a spreading shadow of tyranny over a huge region of many flags. Daniel Duquenal…
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has created another useless union this week, positively thrilling the Canadian press, but in Latin America, there is nothing new about it. So here is the deal: In Argentina during the 1990s, people used to joke about the extent of something known as ‘the corporate republic’ or ‘corporate state.’ The corporate state…
Bush is travelling to Russia to for the 60th anniversary of V-E Day on Monday. I almost used the word “celebrate” in there, but that would not be enirely accurate. Verbal sparring has edged its way up between the United States and Russia, as President Bush and Putin insist upon different views of the Soviet…