Blogging the democratic revolution
Hungarian freedom fighters atop the jackboot remains of the Stalin statue Source: 1956 Hungary President George W. Bush, in Europe today, remembered some of the bravest democratic revolutionaries in all history, Hungary’s Freedom Fighters, who stood up to Soviet tanks in the name of democracy. It’s the fiftiest anniversary of that stunning struggle in the…
So after 3 months of squabbling the Orange Coalition is back on. But for how long? The quick details by the way are; that Yulia Tymoshenko will be Prime Minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, no wait Roman Bezsmertny, oh hold on, maybe Petro Poroshenko will be Speaker of Parliament. Yes it seems certain forces are trying to…
Think back to March 26 2006. Belarussians were on the street protesting against Lukashenka, an Afghan Christian convert risked the death penalty, London Mayor Ken Livingstone had just called the U.S Ambassador a ‘chiseling little crook’, and the Commonwealth games had just concluded. Whilst some sort of closure has been brought to all of those…
President Putin might want to watch out! A colored revolution may be brewing in his own backyard, as the protest babes advance on him. This babe, who represents the most decadent kind of freedom (my favorite kind), is setting up a youth group as an alternative to the many pro-government ones set up over the…
Elections to the lower house of the Czech Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, begin at 2:00 PM on June 2 and end at 2:00 PM on June 3. The Chamber of Deputies is the more important part of the bicameral Czech Parliament. The Chamber of Deputies has 200 members, elected for four year terms. A…
Fifteen years ago pro-democracy activists in Russia tore down a statue in front of the Moscow KGB Headquarters. The statue was a monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka, the predecessor agency of the KGB. Back in 2002 the mayor of Moscow suggested that the statue be restored, which caused an uproar, and…
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdo????an visited Algeria this past week. Meeting with Algerian National Assembly Speaker Amar Saadani on Monday, Erdo????an met with president Bouteflika on Tuesday. After their three hour meeting, the two leaders announced an accord of “friendship and cooperation.” Erdo????an visited a veterans cemetery and the Algerian military museum, surveying artefacts from Algeria’s…
Who is President Bush????????s favorite choice to become Secretary General of the United Nations? Look for the United States to support the President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, to replace Kofi Annan when his term expires Dec. 31. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the President of Latvia, has a history that has taught her the importance of democracy and…
I can????????t top Rob????????s pictures of the Montenegro celebrators, but the Montenegro vote for independence does have significance for Serbia and the Balkans over and above the beauty of their independence supporters. Everyone (including me), and especially the intelligence agencies in Europe, expected Serbia to turn over Ratko Mladic prior to the May 1 deadline…
Economist Steve Hanke has a brilliant essay in today’s Wall Street Journal on his experience and knowledge of Montenegro. Professor Hanke is one of the most important sources of reliable information on the country’s progress and very knowledgeable about the leadership of the country. Notice that recurring theme of currency turmoil that has begun to…
Montenegro is no longer the suffix of Serbia. With an overwhelming turnout, just over the required 55% needed votes were cast in favor of independence, making it the last country to break away from the core of what once was Yugoslavia. There are a lot of issues here. Will the Serbian unionists fight back? Can…
BBC News: Russian President Vladimir Putin has used a Victory Day parade to issue a warning to neo-Nazis and other nationalist extremists. He said they were “leading the world to a dead end” and would not be tolerated in Russia. His comments follow a series of attacks on foreigners – some of them fatal. Ä…Å…
Well, as we approach nearly 2 months since Ukraine’s first democratic elections of the century, the political wrangling continues. Any Kiev watchers will be familiar with the daily news stories coming out from Our Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko’s Bloc, The Party of Regions and the Socialists in regard to coalition building talks. Every evening a brief…
Imagine a country where you have to get permission to protest, and when the authorities give it to you, they snatch it right back. Then they arrest you and sentence you to 15 days in prison for an “unsanctioned rally.” The same thing happens to your colleagues; some of them are even beaten! What country…
Ten thousand Belarusians gathered to commemorate the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown twenty years after the disaster. It was organized by the democratic opposition led by Alexander Milinkevich and was the first such rally since the end of March when protestors were brutalized following a peaceful gathering of tens of thousands. You can see…
Yesterday, April 21, 2006, the United Nations Environmental Program gave out awards to ???????the Seven protectors of the Earth.??????? These seven individuals are hailed by the UN as ???????the Champions of the Earth.??????? One of the seven ???????protectors of the Earth??????? and a United Nations ???????Champion of the Earth??????? is Mikhail Gorbachev! This coming week…
Russia took over the rotating chair of the Group of Eight (G8) Presidency on January 1, 2006, and therefore Russian President Vladimir Putin will host the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in July 2006. Putin has made it clear that he wants ???????Energy Security??????? to be the number one topic of the summit, and it…
It started back in September 2005 when 18 children from the Chechen village of Staroshchedrinskaya were hospitalized with signs of poisoning, and then a month later 8 more children from the same school were hospitalized with the same symptoms. In December 2005 13 more children from the Chechen Shelkovskaya district were hospitalized with very similar…
Ratko Mladic was the former Army Chief under Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Along with Karadzic, Mladic is largely responsible for the campaign of ethnic cleansing of Croats and Muslims. Mladicwas indicted in 1995 by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the…
This would be the first time that any party has managed to hold power for two terms. As previously discussed, the political parties don’t quite conform to typical expectations as understood in the US, nor even as they would be understood a hop, skip, and jump away in Italy. If you’re not familiar with the…
Latvia will host the NATO summit in Riga this November. Latvia joined NATO and the EU in 2004. However, the NATO summit aside, things may get very interesting in Latvia this fall if the Mayor of Ventspils, Aivars Lembergs, decides to run for parliament in the national elections in October. The last few days have…
Last month Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his 75th birthday. Gorbachev, the final leader of the brutal Soviet Union, was treated to a media love fest that proclaimed him the architect of the democratization of the former captive republics of his regime. ABC News called him, ???????The man who ended the Cold War and launched democratic reforms…
You might not have guessed this right off, but Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has been watching Ukraine’s Orange Revolution intently. This Sunday, for the first time, he made a statement about his fear and loathing of it. On his weekly Sunday television variety show, ‘Alo President’ he made this following remark, addressed to his opposition….
One hundred thousand people gathered in Rome to remember the first anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Polish pope who helped liberate Eastern Europe from communism. Thousands of others gathered in Krakow and around Poland. John Paul was a democratic revolutionary in the purest sense of the idea. Many of us know…
If you ever needed more proof that Russian state-controlled natural gas monopoly is a political weapon of Putin, look no further. I will explain why in a second. For now, read the following article March 30, 2006 — Russia’s Gazprom said today it would raise natural gas prices for Belarus to European levels by 2007….