Blogging the democratic revolution
I’m currently reading The Oligarchs, a truly fascinating book about the six everyday Soviet citizens who bought up Russia during the period of privatization and came to rule the country from behind the scenes. It’s very good, very detailed, and told smoothly like a story. The most fascinating part about it is not so much…
It’s the weekend everyone — and you know what that means. No more blogging until Monday. Consider this an open comment thread. UPDATE: Hey, it looks like my prediction that the Ukraine-Russia gas crisis would fuel Ukrainian nationalism and drive it further toward the West turned out to be true. “KIEV, Ukraine Jan 7, 2006…
Iraq the Model is talking about the death, shortages, corruption, and scandals that are taking a huge toll on public opinion in the country. Omar, known pretty well for his optimism, says that, “it is a fact that it hasn????????t been this bad in Iraq ever since the 9th of April 2003.” While I’m not…
Asharq al-Awsat has run an interview with ex-Syrian vice president Khaddam, who recently accused Assad of being involved in the Hariri assassination, and is now facing charges of treason and corruption by the Syrian government. In this interview, he counters what his detractors are saying by coming up with multi-million dollar accusations of corruption against…
Here are some articles about RosUkrEnergo, the middle-man company being used in the gas deal between Russia and the Ukraine, and the particularly shady way it’s involved. – RFE/RL goes into the history of the company and why it was created. Let’s just say it involved a certain ex-president of Ukraine, a certain current president…
It’s only lately with all this free time on my hands that I’ve been able to regularly read over Publius’ blogroll, so I stopped over at Tim Russo’s Democracy Guy blog to see if he was talking at all about his time working for NDI in Armenia. More than ever, it seems. He’s self-publishing a…
Somewhat predictably, after the united opposition failed in its attempt to enact a colored revolution in Azerbaijan — or at least prevent voter fraud at the municipal level — it completely fell apart. This Eurasia Daily Monitor article goes into detail about how the Azadliq “Freedom” coalition has split up on the national level following…
Our favorite babe of politics has come out swinging in the settlement of the gas dispute between the Ukraine and Russia, and will be challenging the deal in court. The reason has little to do with the actual price negotiated, but much more to do with the single issue that she really stands out on:…
Despite the arrest of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, the further slaughter of hundreds more, and the trial the leaders of the democratic oppositions, the United States will not be joining other World Bank donors in revoking aid to the Meles regime. According to the article, the U.S. doesn’t feel this is necessary as there has…
In a recent poll, Russian citizens picked superlatives for their politicians, naming among others who is the most honest, the smartest, and even who is the sexiest. As for the latter, ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the ironically named Liberal Democracy Party took the prize for the sexiest politician in the country. Just take a look…
The gas crisis that has shaken relations between the Ukraine, Russia, and the European Union is now over. The air is clearing, but whatever the politicians are saying now, the damage has been done. So the question begs: who came out on top of this? Or perhaps we should be asking who came out on…
Marina Ottaway from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace outlines in a brief policy paper what the current strategy for Iraq should be. To sum it up, the current momentum toward federalism is irreversible and the most important thing is to 1) convince Sunnis to accept it and 2) make sure that they get their…
Michael Totten has a really good piece in today’s Opinion Journal talking about how it is Lebanon, not Iraq, that is the Middle East’s first liberal democracy. I’m certainly inclined to agree with him. Lebanon is just about everything we could hope to strive for in Iraq over the next decade. A lot of his…
It looks like Nicholas Burns has been making some promises — promises I like! Turning to the agenda for 2006, Burns said the United States wants to continue to work through NATO as the core trans-Atlantic link but to broaden and extend NATO????????s mandate to Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In working with the…
Former Vice President Khaddam, never a favorite character of mine, quoted Assad as having threatened Rafik Hariri before his assassination and now the Syrian government wants to try him for treason. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of “The Bold and the Syrian.” DAMASCUS (AFX) – The Syrian government will try on high treason charges former…
Instead of letting them phase in following the New Year, President Yushchenko wants to hold a popular referendum on the constitutional changes that were agreed upon during the Orange Revolution last year. I smell a — dun dun dun — political ploy! KIEV (Reuters) – President Viktor Yushchenko said on Friday constitutional changes reducing his…
I see problems with this on multiple levels. CAIRO, Dec. 30 – Egyptian riot police officers rushed into a crowd of unarmed Sudanese migrants early Friday morning, killing at least 23 people, including small children, after the group refused to leave a public park it had occupied for three months hoping to press United Nations…
These guys have the right idea. In a rare protest against an official media crackdown, about 100 journalists from one of China’s most aggressive daily newspapers have gone on strike after the paper’s editor and two of his deputies were fired, local journalists said Friday. The editor of The Beijing News, Yang Bin, and deputy…
Is it me, or did Publius‘ first birthday just pass yesterday?
Now that I’ve fully recovered — it was so bad that it must have been bird flu — I can finally get back to what’s going on with the Iraqi election results. Only it’s already beginning to wind down. The political groups are criss-crossing with dozens of talks all over the country to work out…
I woke up yesterday morning to a conference being broadcasted on C-SPAN called “The Future of the Middle East,” and since I was still sick, I sat up and watched through the whole thing in between shots of Tylenol. There were a couple of people on the panel fielding questions, but the most interesting comments…
After being released on bail in March for the presidential campaign, Ayman Nour, the liberal opposition leader who got second place in this year’s presidential election, has been convicted of “forging signatures” for his candidacy registration papers. He has been given five years of prison time. The charges are false. The judiciary is corrupt. And…
My gift this year was the flu from my family. I wish they could have included some Tylenol with that! Anyhow, loyal readers, what are you all doing today?
The Sunni lists, along with ex-PM Iyad Allawi’s multi-confessional secular list and others, have joined together to contest the results of the December 15 election in order, at the least, to have the results reviewed and their complaints addressed. At the most, some members of this new coalition have called for new elections altogether. BAGHDAD,…