Blogging the democratic revolution
Supposed to be pretty big, and they’ll be heading to the CNN building. I wonder if they’ll be able to ignore it since it’ll be right there in front of them. ATLANTA – A huge rally and mass demonstration will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 7 & 8, 2005 as part of a planned Ethiopia global protest rally. The rally is due to take place on Thursday July 7, 2005 at Carter Center, whereas the next day, Friday July 8, Ethiopians will converge at Martin Luther King Jr. Center to march towards CNN Headquarters. The recent political upheaval…
President Hu of China is in Russia for a four-day visit with Putin where the two will agree on an array of political and economic ties for their roles in the region and in the world. Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday called for greater efforts to strengthen the strategic partnership and economic and trade ties between China and Russia. Hu Jintao met Russia????????s top lawmakers, Boris Gryzlov, and Sergei Mironov. Later he and Putin signed a joint declaration on the new world order in the 21st century. In a meeting with Boris Gryzlov, chairman of Russia????????s State Duma, Hu said…
Bush has come out and chided countries in Africa for turning a blind eye to the regimen genocide ongoing in Zimbabwe. I would assume that this is timed to coincide with the G8 summit and the huge plan to aid, trade, and liberalize the continent. WASHINGTON – US President George W Bush yesterday accused Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe of “destroying” his country and urged countries in the region, especially South Africa, to pressure him to change. “Next door to you is a person who is destroying a country because of bad policy, and it’s not right. And the nations in…
Interesting choice, too. It was a foregone conclusion that Saad Hariri probably wouldn’t try for it, as he and Lahoud would constantly clash — and that’s not good for a newcomer into politics (Lebanese politics, no less). But I thought that they may have stuck with Mikati, who replaced Karami. Here’s the article. By Lucy Fielder BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Lebanese parliament on Thursday chose Fouad Siniora, the anti-Syrian former finance minister, to head the first government in three decades to take office without Syrian troops in the country. President Emile Lahoud, a long-time Syrian ally, is obliged to respect…
Will Franklin has this week’s carnival of revolutions up at his blog, which takes on all of this week’s democratic developments. By the way, I’ve been in Boston this whole week and have been totally cut off from the internet during that time (my posts were pre-timed to publish, how cool is that?). I’ll be back in Arizona by this afternoon. Huge thanks to Daniel, Kirk, and A.M. Mora y Leon for their work to keep everything going so well!
Yesterday, I posted “More squawking of a Russia-Belarus union,” though significantly most of that squawking comes from Belarus’ side. Here’s a piece in RFE/RL that adds further to yesterday’s post. KREMLIN ADVISERS SCOLD BELARUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD… In an open letter to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka published on 23 June at sovetpanfilova.ru, the Council for Promoting Civil Society and Human Rights (SSRIGOPCh) under Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed its concern about “the unfavorable situation with civic rights and freedoms” in Belarus. The council, which is an advisory body whose head is appointed by Putin, said that Belarus has virtually…
Remember back several months ago when Putin declared that regional governors would be appointed rather than elected. It didn’t really matter in the first place, because those elected were already vetted for approval by Moscow. The reason Putin gave is that he would be able to install more popular and competent leaders should they be needed. But elections hold both a practical and symbolic importance, especially when the corrupt and incompetent leadership is not being replaced. Russia????????s abolition of regional elections ????????- a reflex reaction to the Beslan tragedy ????????- has backfired. Instead of bringing order to the North Caucasus,…
One of the two key problems facing the new Lebanese government is what to do about pro-Syrian President Lahoud and who to elect to the position of Parliament Speaker. The new parliament, which has not yet convened, has called on Lahoud to resign, a call he is obviously ignoring. WASHINGTON (AFX) – Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who most of his parliament wants to resign, said he will remain in his post despite accusations he covered up assassinations. ‘I’m not resigning,’ he told CNN. ‘I’m staying until the end of my term.’ On Thursday, Lebanon’s new parliamentary majority called for Lahoud…
There has been some talk about this for awhile now, though it usually amounts to nothing. Lukashenko is basically looking for a way to preserve his power and status through oppression. With so much pressure from the west, he must be counting down the days until the end of his reign. Because of that, he has to look eastward; specifically, Russia (though greater ties with countries such as Zimbabwe are revealing as well). This has largely resulted in military cooperation and aid, though talks over a joint currency and even possible union are being talked about, albeit haltingly without much…
From South Africa to Nigeria, leaders from all around Africa are saying “no” to pressure on Zimbabwe’s Mugabe for his eviction of hundreds of thousands. The African Union itself has said, “If it is in the interests of the Zimbabwean government to prevent crime or improve sanitation or ensure the health of the people or ensure Harare is not turning into another slum, I do not see how the AU should take over the internal legislation of the government.” You may be thinking, “Slum? You mean the one Mugabe created himself? Are these people ignorant?” But obviously, they are not.…
The world could be coming to an end as we know it, but I’m enjoying a family BBQ. More blogging tomorrow, and I’m putting together a bunch of posts so that I’ll have something on the site while I’m in Boston on Monday. Meanwhile, definitely keep tabs on Regime Change Iran.
Let’s get one thing straight: whether it was Rafsanjani or Ahmadinejad who was selected to win, it doesn’t really matter. When looking at Iran, one only has to know that irregardless of anything, the Guardian Council and Supreme Leader Khamenei in particular control the political levers of the country. Michael Ledeen puts it eloquently, much better than I at two in the morning: Please keep two basic facts in mind as this melodrama unfolds: Neither Rafsanjani nor Ahmadinejad has any intention of altering the basic structure of the Islamic Republic, nor of “liberalizing” Iranian society (the Reich was not notably…
Last week, I wrote about how the media got the story wrong on Iran. Hopefully, they will not make the same mistakes that they made then. To help them out, I’m going to compile articles and photos that show that the Iranians once again boycotted the sham elections in huge proportions. The word has to get out to the world that the regime is completely illegitimate even in the eyes of its own people. If there was ever a time to act, it’s now! Click “more” for all the articles and photos. And remember, if you are a journalist or…
UPDATE: The regime was forced to move the Los Angeles station. New location is listed at the link. The regime is simply relentless! Here is the list of polling places that will be set up tomorrow. If there is one in your hometown or nearby, investigate! Assemble! Protest! Call the FBI. I’m currently in Sacremento at the moment, without a car, and with no ride out. Lucky for them. So if anyone is in one of these local areas, please get out there! A notable removal from the list is the polling place in Tucson, Arizona. Ha! I guess they’re…
When discussing the move towards democracy in Eastern Europe, I always try to remind of the revitalized GUAM alliance, which is meant to secure economic independence toward Russia and move toward western values. The A in GUAM stands for Azerbaijan, which is generally more repressive than the others: Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. After the opening of a major pipeline, in which many western leaders were present to criticize the government, the government began to allow protests. Well, an MP recently came out and suggested that the country may slide into civil war, recalling the fall presidential elections in 2003 when…
For those of you have have read my report on the Iranian polling station in Tucson, you may be pleased to know that the Washington Times, in an article entitled “Iran’s sham election — on U.S soil,” has picked up my experience as well as that of Will Franklin’s down in Houston and will be investigating further. But the dissidents have their own informal intelligence networks that gather information about where the voting will take place, a fact that displeases the regime and its supporters. On Friday, a clash occurred at one of the polling places, located at the Commerce…
Kirk just yesterday wrote a great article detailing the way that the U.S. strategy is moving forward to deal with political reform in Egypt. I think linking our aid to moves in the direction of sustained political openness is definitely the best way to go. In light of reading his article, I though I’d check to see if there have been any immediate after-effects, and indeed, it appears as if Mubarak has allowed a protest to go unhindered by the riot police. CAIRO — Egyptian police opened the streets of north Cairo yesterday to political protests for and against President…
Your profession is a noble one. A free press is foundational to a free society. In challenging powerful institutions to answer the hard questions others fear to ask, journalists have led to the collapse of corrupt leaders and helped ensured our democracy. You have done so by reporting the truth in spite of the threats and objections of those in power. Reporting from Iran is dangerous. It is hard to tell the truth in Iran. It takes courage. We are all to aware of the case of photo-journalist Kazemi, who was murdered by the Iranian government, for merely photographing a…
Flying to Sacremento in the morning. Updates will be around lunch time! UPDATE: Missed my first flight so I had to go through Vegas. But they have wi-fi in the airport. I’m lovin’ this. I have to board for Sacremento in a minute, so it’s relatively impossible to scramble my thoughts together into a coherent post on a worthy subject. Meanwhile, here are some quick links to some reading you can do until I get back on the ground. While on the plane, I’m rereading The Future of Freedom. The last time I read it was three years ago and…
This makes political influential number three after Rafik Hariri and Samir Kassir. Former Community Party leader George Hawi was killed in a car-bomb blast in Beirut’s Wata Mosseitbeh middle-class neighborhood at midmorning Tuesday in the latest link of a chain of political assassinations that rocked the nation in connection with Syria’s expulsion from Lebanon. He was 65. Police said the thunderous explosion went off as Hawi, an outspoken critic of Syria’s heavy-handed tutelage, climbed into his car, turned on the ignition and started the Mercedes-Benz rolling. Investigators have determined that the blast was detonated by remote control. A worker at…
I’m going to take Gary’s banner and run with it here: how is it that the blogosphere is getting this story so wrong? I usually don’t like to open my mouth too wide too quickly, but when the media isn’t even shooting, the blogosphere simply can’t afford to miss the mark. What I mean by this is that many bloggers are pointing to the obvious fact that the election results were rigged, instead of to the not-so-obvious fact that the regime had to invent high turnout numbers to legitimize itself. That’s the real story. So blogosphere, stop pouting. Moin the…
Tony predicted an Aoun loss, so obviously that was going to be the outcome. Er, and it was! Saad Hariri’s alliance swept all 28 seats, cementing him in parliament with a 72 seat majority in parliament and shutting out the possibility of an Aoun 1/3 veto. Beirut, Lebanon – The anti- Syrian Opposition dealt a commanding blow to Michel Aoun’s return to the Lebanon political scene. In a clean sweep of the 28 contested seats for North Lebanon, the Opposition amassed over 56% of the total seats in the electionin what is being hailed a landslide victory. The official results…
Andy at Siberian Light is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions! Check it out for all of the past week’s democracy goodness. And Gary Metz has the Iran week in review up. Gateway Pundit has news up about Rice pushing democracy in Egypt and more protests in Bahrain. Bingo quote: “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither,” Rice said. “Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” Right on. Will Franklin has…
I will be updating this post with more pictures as I find them and as they are sent to me. So if you have photos from anti-regime demonstrations, send them to me! Click “more” for the photos.
Overview: According to the document released by the Iranian government, a polling station for the presidential elections in Iran was located near me in Tucson, Arizona at the Southern Arizona Association for Visually Impaired (SAAVI). I drove there around 9am and the receptionist confirmed that, indeed, voting would be from 3pm-7pm. I arrived back on the scene around 4pm with my camera and notepad in hand and entered the polling station. After a brief look around, I asked the man in charge, the “poll monitor,” if I could interview him about the polling process, telling him that I am a…