Blogging the democratic revolution
A string of high-level surveys of social development over the past year have equated Russia????????s level of achievement with that of the African nation of Niger, a landlocked sub-Saharan state of 14 million roughly half of whose national budget is derived from foreign aid. In October of last year the ???????Corruption Perceptions Index??????? from the German think tank Transparency International surveyed 159 nations and found that only 30 (less than 19%) were less corrupt than Russia. Russia found itself tied for 9th most corrupt nation in the world with Niger and Sierra Leone. Then in June, Foreign Policy????????s ???????Failed States…
Something very little noticed but very important almost slipped under the radar. Perhaps one of the biggest policy detours ever is about to happen in the Middle East. No, Bush is not pulling out of Iraq, and no, Hassan Nasrallah hasn’t played groundhog and come out of hiding. What has happened, in fact, is that the Arab states — which have historically argued for a nuclear-free Middle East (except for Saddam) — are beginning to rethink their loving attachment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Rahman al Attiyah, said at its most…
Below this is an email from a cousin of mine and his friend who is currently studying and working with an NGO in Thailand. He leans to the left, as you may notice, but provides a great description of what it’s like on the ground level after the military coup. Plus, he knows his stuff. Take a look. ***** by David Ferris & Terri Bennett For those of you who don’t know, I found out last at 11PM that there was a military coup here yesterday. The military’s top general (Songthii) lead tanks into Bangkok, declared a coup, and took…
I don’t think many people will be scratching their heads about the coup in Thailand, at least if the entire ordeal is about what we think it is. The events leading up to this make it clear. The impasse of Thai politics in which Prime Minister Shinawatra is accused of corruption yet hugely wins polls anyway, leading to mass protests, has caused one election already to be ruled invalid. Since then not much has happened, but it has created a certain political vacuum in which case both sides are preparing for a repeat of 1992. Perhaps the army really is…
While overall the testimony provided by witnesses of Saddam Hussein’s massacres has been damning, the overall “court experience” has been nothing less than a circus. I am not talking about the accusations by human rights groups like Amnesty International which accuse that the trial is well below international standards due to the inherent and legal bias against the defendant. Such things, like the fact that the tribunal does not have to find Saddam guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” are true, and were certainly existent in the infamous Nuremberg trials. However, what I am talking about is the fact that there…
As Mugabe’s Zimbabwe spirals further into turmoil — inflation over 1000% and 80% of the population underfed, underemployed, and living in poverty — you might think that such conditions would spur action in people to act against the government. They have tried, and they have tried again, but every single time they fail. This time a national strike was called involving some of the country’s largest labor unions, but at the last minute many withdrew as the government dispatched paramilitary units to arrest opposition leaders. Police arrested trade union leaders and blocked streets and the main square in the Zimbabwe…
While the United States pays tribute and mourns the September 11 terrorist attacks on its homeland, it must be remembered that there are people in this world who are even now actively plotting acts more deadly and terrible than anything before. They want to see America brought to its knees and are doing everything they can to see this happen. The not-so coincidence of Khatami’s speaking tour on this symbolic day as well as video releases by Al Qaeda are things that are to be expected. However, something that is not being widely reported on is the opening of the…
When I heard about the protests planned against Khatami’s speech at Harvard, I knew just the guy to contact. I emailed Jesse Sage over at HAMSA and he filled me in on all the information. Khatami was to speak at 4:00 p.m. so the protests would start around three. We arrived in Harvard Square outside of the Kennedy School of Government just before then, and people were already gathering by the dozens. It wasn’t just the people I knew from HAMSA and the Iran Freedom Concert Coalition, either. There were many, from pro-Israel Jews to Americans concerned about our security…
Things appear to be going from the frying pan to the fire in Russia. As if the recent news of Russia????????s internal human rights strife was not bad enough, now horrifying anti-democratic events appear to be unfolding in the former Soviet slave state of Georgia. The Moscow News reports that Georgian police uncovered an attempt to destabilize and unseat the government of elected President Mikhail Saakashvili. It reports: Nearly 30 people were arrested in Georgia on suspicion of plotting a coup against the government, officials said. They say those detained are supporters of Igor Giorgadze ???????? the fugitive former head…
Just last year dictator-in-chief Robert Mugave ordered Operation: Take Out The Trash, bulldozing tens of thousands of makeshift homes that Zimbabwe’s people were forced to live in due to his policies. The operation displaced over 700,000 people, leaving them without a place to live. He promised the international community that reparations would be made and that all of the people driven from their homes would be given new housing. One year later, this has not happened. Amnesty International sent a team of researchers into Zimbabwe to get the story. They found that out of all the homes destroyed, only a…
Pajamas Media has an especially hilarious post by The Manolo discussing the styles and fashions of different dictators. He finds that Ahmadinejad may be lacking: Briefly and remarkably, the President of the Iran wears the same khaki windbreaker, wrinkled trousers, cheap oxford shirts, scruffy beard and wild eyes favored by the aging high school chemistry teachers everywhere. Yes, in his youth he was the firebrand who would shake the very foundations of the society, but today he is content to expound upon his paranoid conspiracy theories while exercising his petty autocratic powers over the dull kids who sit in the…
(To hear the interview in .mp3 format or download it to your iPod, click here or right-click and choose “save target as”.) Since Alexander Lukashenka became president of Belarus in 1994, he has used every avenue possible to repress political opposition to his rule. He has jailed politicians and activists, shut down NGOs both major and minor, destroyed the independent media, and ensured that no man but he will win the so-called presidential election that is held every five years. Some of his biggest opposition, however, comes from university students who crave opportunity in a country whose government regulates the…
RIA Novosti reported on August 30th that “Russia’s GDP growth of 5.5% in the first quarter of 2006 was the highest among the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations for the period.” Relying on data from the IMF, Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service “said real year-on-year GDP growth in Russia during the first quarter reached 5.5%, compared to 3.7%, 3.4% and 3.3% in the United States, Japan and Canada, respectively. The rate was 2.3% in Great Britain, 1.7% in Germany, and 1.5% in France and Italy.” To its credit, RIA also reported that “Russia’s GDP still falls well behind other…
One of the first things I did when I arrived in Kiev was take the subway to Maidan, the setting of Ukraine????????s Orange Revolution in which over one million people camped out and protested against phony elections. It is now a scene of perpetual nostalgia for those cold days and nights when the one thing keeping them warm was the feeling that, for once, good things were going to happen. There would be free and fair elections, the criminals in government would get their due, and the corruption that plagues everything from multi-billion dollar deals to traffic tickets would be…
I am not talking about Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are fed and allowed to read the Koran. This is the real deal. This is what they did and in many places still do to you if you are a political dissident in the backward societies of the Middle East. The blog “… Or Does it Explode?” posts a link to an article in the groundbreaking Moroccan publication Tel Quel. The article is an impassioned interview with a former torturer, who confesses to the things that he and others did on orders from higher-ups, and how those actions haunt him to…
Just over three years ago, the United States and Chile signed a free trade agreement, opening up markets and allowing for greater prosperity in both countries. Now, Chile has signed a free trade agreement with China, the first between the Asian giant and a Latin American country, bilaterally opening up markets on both sides. It will lead, just as it has in the past, to greater prosperity for both. China and Chile have signed a free-trade agreement, Beijing’s first in South America. The deal will give China better access to Chile’s extensive natural resources, such as copper, while Chile will…
The results of the a July 30 election in the “Democratic Republic” of the Congo were announced on Monday. Nobody won an outright majority, but I will give you one guess as to what happened given that it has taken over two millions deaths to lead up to this point. That’s right, people started killing each other, as militias loyal to the top two presidential candidates attacking each others’ supporters. There is an inherent flaw to the way this election has been carried out. They are bidding for the presidency, a position that in African skeleton democracies means protection for…
I have returned from my trips to Ukraine and Belarus. As I sit here editing audio and writing stories, a question has crossed my mind that is hard for me to answer because it requires knowledge of the mass perception of what I am asking. So if you have the time, drop off a comment, and answer this for me: “When you hear the word tyranny, what do you think of?”
We’re in Belarus, just checking things out, meeting with people, seeing the sights, and taking notes. We’re going down to Pinsk to meet with Adam Goodman of the Being Had Times blog tonight and then after a couple days will be heading back to Prague. I have tons of audio interviews and things to write about, for both Ukraine and Belarus, but it will have to wait until I’m square free out of here.
Hey everyone, You’ll have to excuse the lack of posting for the last couple of days. I’ve been in the Czech Republic and have just arrived in Kiev after a 36 hour train ride. The weather has been absolutely Soviet. We’re just hanging out in an internet cafe at Maidan right now, organizing things and preparing to get our visas for Belarus. I will be interviewing many people here in Ukraine as well as in Belarus about democratization activities and political progress over the next week. Tons of video, audio, and pictures to come, though I can’t say how much…
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is surrounded by a big barricade and guard station. I was looking for a tour or someone to interview so that I could write a piece about it for Publius, but the guard said exactly the above. Any readers here who work for RFE/RL who could get me in sometime Monday? Just email me at robertmayerÉgmail.com
On July 31st, Basel transforms into Beirut. All day long, loud explosions disrupted the otherwise peaceful and introverted nature of this Swiss city on the border of France and Germany. Huge bangs near and far pierced the air and shook buildings. The first one I heard as I walked down the street that afternoon had made me duck. There was no bombing, however, or terrorist attack. It was mostly teenagers lighting off powerful rockets that are sold in little stands by the grocery stores in preparation for the coming events. August 1 is Swiss National Day, considered the country’s birthday…
Your country has a problem when inflation is at 1200%, the currency has had to be devalued by 60%, production of important natural resources like gold are down 50% over the past three years, teachers/government employees/soldiers are threatening strikes and revolts, 20% of the population has HIV/AIDS, tens of thousands are fleeing in fear, and all basic necessities of life are no longer available. This is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Hell on earth. The culmination of radical land redistribution policies and a totalitarian police state. Watch out Venezuela. This could be your future. Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has actually reached a point where…
At the end of May I wrote about Vietnam and the United States bilateral free-trade agreement, paving the way for the United States to approve a bill leading the country’s accession to the WTO later this year. Trade will lead to growth and prosperity; and, eventually, real democracy. Even we fought a war with them so many years ago, Washington and Hanoi are on pretty good terms these days. The latter knows that being friends with the former leads to big benefits in the long run. There are some, however, who don’t want to see that happen. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez,…
Have a great weekend everyone! I am working on two posts about Switzerland. One will be about the Swiss national holiday on Tuesday in which I will compare it to the American July 4th and patriotism in the two, and the other will be about Swiss social-democracy. I will be leaving for Prague, Kiev, and Minsk in less than a week to gather writing material and take a look around. Again, if you are in any of these places, feel free to drop me a line.