Blogging the democratic revolution
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…
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,…
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…
No, its not pornography or terrorist websites. It’s Publius! Check out this new website, GreatFireWallOfChina.org, and type in any website to see if it’s blocked in China. What can I say? It’s an honor that the Chinese government thinks we’re influential enough that we deserve to be blocked. Cheers!
In a ruling more than a decade in the making, whose length is so long that most people will only ever read the summary, the International Court of Justice in the Hague has decided that Serbia can not be held directly responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide that occurred during the war in Bosnia, but should have used its influence to prevent it. The focus on the ruling also mainly focused on Srebrenica as the major case in which it happened. February 26, 2007 — The United Nations’ highest court ruled today that Serbia was not directly responsible for genocide…
Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club posts about a subject close to home — about a document called the Melo Report released yesterday in the Philippines. It’s the result of a fact-finding investigation conducted by former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo into extrajudicial killings committed by both the military and communist rebels. The result is interesting, but my historical standards, not too surprising. By and large, the communists have killed far more people than their right-wing adversaries. There is evidence that the military “allowed, tolerated and even encouraged” political assassinations, and that retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan was among those…
Cradle-robbing dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe cuts into a huge birthday cake. Courtesy AFP. Mugabe turned 83 on Wednesday — one year closer to his sweet, sweet death (unless he’s a robot like Castro). It promises to be a time of celebration for a few dozen millionaires. This Saturday is the big event! It’s a party worth over $50,000 dollars, enough to pay for the drugs of a few hundred AIDS victims for a year or even tons of grain to feed his people. Meanwhile, the rest of Zimbabwe isn’t doing so well. Inflation is up 1600% in the last…
Sharia is the new sexy! Rather than bikinis, burkas are back in style. Fashion designer Louise Golden unveils a brilliant, untried fashion that is sure to provoke a flurry of sales and the unwanted attention of men everywhere. Let me introduce to you the 2007/2008 winter sharia collection! All courtesy of the Associated Press. Whether or not these outfits are really meant to be sharia ninja gear is up in the air, but Drudge says it is in his initial post. Unfortunately for the designer, if it is, she messed up pretty badly and I doubt these would sell at…
Throughout most of the Cold War, prevailing wisdom in foreign policy suggested that international relations between governments and the study of comparative politics should remain separate. The leaders of the United States spent most of their time meeting with, negotiating with, and occasionally threatening leaders from the Soviet Union. Whether or not people were being sent off to the gulag or purposely starved made no difference. Those people had no power, whereas the Politburo did. This went on largely until the Helsinki Accords were signed in 1975, effectively tying America’s foreign policy to the Soviets’ treatment of its own citizens.…
I’d like to apologize for the lack of posts in recent days. We’ve been discussing and preparing to implement a major upgrade to Publius that I think you will all enjoy. We’ll have some posts up soon, but I want you all to know that you can look forward to a very new and very different Publius.
Over the past six months, and especially since Russia cut off the flow of natural gas through Belarus, tensions between the two countries’ political elites has been at a divisive high. Belarus had to give up a majority stake in its Beltranshaz pipeline system or face a huge increase in gas prices. As we described here almost a year ago, such a gas increase would affect the everyday Belarusian to such a huge degree that the impact would likely cost President Lukashenko his job. What Russia has done now, however, is to put Lukashenko on the spot. No longer is…
Joshua Frost from Registan writes in TCS Daily that, following the death of the all powerful Turkmenbashi, next month’s presidential election offers a shining opportunity to bring the country’s ÄnowÅ more dynamic political elite into America’s sphere of influence. After all, Turkmenistan is an incredibly strategic important country. To cite a few examples that he gives, it lies between both Iran and Afghanistan, not to mention on top of 260 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Not to mention that Turkmenbashi’s repression may lead to a surge of interest in radical Islam in the country, there are at least three…
Yesterday’s siege of Beirut by Hezbollah yesterday was a pivotal turning point in the Lebanese story, one so often torn by strife and grief. The fact that the shutdown degenerated rapidly into a showdown shows that they have taken the decided step to escalate tensions in the country to the breaking point. Reports of fist-fights, rock-throwing, and even sprays of automatic gunfire rocked the news. Police reports say that most of these injured were punctured with bullets. Lebanese are once again fighting Lebanese, with over 100 people injured and several dead. On day two fights broke out in Tripoli. Now,…
During his 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush set forth a bold plan to to make the advancement of freedom and democracy the cornerstone of America’s foreign policy. Under liberal democracies, the Islamic terrorist and statist authoritarian threat would practically vanish from the face of the earth. Sure, there would be conflicts, but no liberal democracy has ever warred with another; and because democracies respond to the will of the people, there is no rich soil for terrorism to plant its roots. In that speech, he mentioned the word “democracy” seven times and “freedom” nineteen times when talking…
For months now, Hezbollah has been leading mass protests against the democratically elected government of Fouad Siniora. It’s calculations as to the result were off, to say the least. Judging from how anti-Syria protests in 2005 toppled the government, on the surface it would appear as if the same strategy could work for Hassan Nasrallah. He studied the tactics and pulled off the demonstrations without falter. Perhaps what he only saw was the surface. The demonstrations in 2005 were against a foreign occupier, not a democratically elected, domestic government. Unfortunately for Nasrallah, things did not go as planned. Despite all…
The first parliamentary elections since the devolution of Serbia-Montenegro into their own respective countries took place in Serbia on Sunday. Ultra-nationalist Radical Party took home the most votes of any party, with just less than 30% of the vote, but the victory will go to the many Western-oriented, democratically minded parties who will hopefully be able to bang out some sort of coalition in the coming weeks. Here is the result as reported by ISN Security Watch. Radicals take home the most votes, but a coalition of democrats could save Serbia from isolation, but not without a great deal of…
It was not more than a couple of weeks ago that I picked up a copy of Newsweek at the embassy with that same title. It detailed Moqtada al-Sadr’s rise to power; the murders of his Shia rival, the hesitance of American troops to kill or capture him, and his domination of presdent-day Iraqi politics. Overall, not much new information. However, it was the headline that said it all. Moqtada al-Sadr, given either the lack of will or the lack of ability on part of the Iraqi and American ground forces to counter him, has become the most powerful man…
Our friend Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit continues the amount of information building up showing that extremist Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be running out of support at home. Prices are doubling and tripling, unemployment is even worse than it was before, and support is dwindling for him in the parliament. Is it a sign of things to come? Read on: he government puts unemplyment at 10 per cent but economists say it could be as high as 30 per cent. The government also says inflation is 11 per cent, but experts estimate it at 30 per cent! Ä…Å…
Freedom House has just released its latest edition of “Freedom in the World,” and 2006 doesn’t look to have been a good year for the advancement of freedom. In fact, in many cases, freedom has declined significantly in areas where just a couple of years ago great gains were being heralded. In it’s press release, Freedom House notes where exactly this is happening, and why. The year 2006 saw little change in the global state of freedom in the world and the emergence of a series of worrisome trends that present potentially serious threats to the expansion of freedom in…
The Spanish are known for doing their protests big. Everytime they’ve had an anti-ETA or anti-terrorism march, it’s been huge. They’ve been dealing with terrorism for decades like few developed countries have, and with nearly a thousand deaths accumulated over the years, the airport bombing two weeks ago have been them over the edge. Tonight, rather than going out to the nightclubs or spending time with family and friends, all of Madrid poured into the streets together as one with just one thing to say: No to Eta! From where I am at an internet cafe, it looks like there…
Just over a year ago, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine due to a standoff over whether the country would pay full “market price” over the subsidies that it had been receiving. Consequently, given that a large amount of Western Europe’s gas flows through Ukraine’s pipelines, there were a lot of German and French folk freezing their butts off last year until the flow was restored. The news made international headlines immediately, most likely due to who it affected rather than the simple action itself. But regardless, it was the first sign of a Russia ready to bully…
After the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, it is no surprise that President Bush would seek to reshuffle the rest of his war cabinet. It leaves a vacancy that begs that such a void be filled wherever possible. According to the latest news, Bush will be sending Negroponte back over to State while appointing a retired admiral to fill his place; ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad will become the new ambassador to the United Nations; and his own vacancy to be filled by ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker. This all suggests a large realignment in the way that the Bush administration…
It was a weekend of a lot of explosions. Outside of the bomb attack at the Madrid airport, nine blasts went off across Bangkok, killing and injuring dozens of people. It is another question of why and who, as essentially both the former government as well as the opposition is out of power following a military coup in September. It could be either, and while the former opposition to ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was known to commit such acts, the military is blaming it on Thaksin supports. In this case, either makes sense, and such an attack by Islamists from…
A large reason for my absence here from Publius, beside a hectic end to the year, has been that I’ve been enjoying my vacation time with my family here in Madrid and Andorra. Since I’ve been in the latter for the past several days, it’s been nearly impossible to get on the internet without forking out five euros an hour at the nearest cafe, but a week is long enough to remain holed off from the rest of the world. And frankly, my fingers were getting fidgety. I was in Madrid the day that the bomb went off at Terminal…