Blogging the democratic revolution
I didn’t watch the UK elections very closely because I was pretty sure that one way or another, the excellent Prime Minister, Tony Blair, would win. But it was a wonderful experience to see how people abroad and from other lands marvelled at this English spectacle, in all its civilized execution. I’ve always liked the UK system, but it’s instructive to see how others who live in non-democratic societies experience England’s authentic democracy. There are two very good essays out on it now, one by blogger Daniel Duquenal and the other by Aleksander Boyd, both of which are fresh in…
Alek Boyd has a very good translation of a long article in the Latino press on the specific nature of the totalitarian threat that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez poses to the different countries in the region. He menaces the weakest of the states. It’s very sound, very sane, very informed analysis, well worth reading here.
The president has just finished a mini press conference with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The affection and good humor between the four leaders were palpable. Two of Bush’s statements were particularly telling. In answer to a question speculating on whether the US and Russia would cut a deal in which Russia would ensure that Belarussian President Lukashenko would not be reelected in exchange for American endorsement of the next government, Bush answered that cutting deals on someone else’s future was unacceptable. He noted that hat’s the same kind of deal that sealed the fate of these countries…
Zubr, one of the better known Belarussian opposition youth groups to the west, is about to receive a nice check from the Berkeley chapter of Students for Global Democracy. They organized a Hike For Democracy event, and raised one thousand dollars. Berkeley, California, USA — A group of 30 students at the University of California, Berkeley, organized a Hike for Democracy to raise money for the Belarusian pro-democracy youth movement, ZUBR. On 30 April 2005, the students, in the organization “Berkeley Students for Global Democracy” (Berkeley SGD), hiked 17 kilometers around Tilden Park, a beautiful protected wild area in the…
The London-based Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Friday that protesters have taken to the streets again in Bahrain. The English-language media is ignoring this almost entirely, but we have tried to cover it here at Publius Pundit (see Mass March Urges Reform in Bahrain and Crackdown Coming in Bahrain?). This is a translation of the Al-Quds article, “Thousands Protest in Bahrain to Demand Reforms“: Thousands of Bahrainians engaged in mass protest to demand the implementation of constitutional reforms through a call from the four political associations… near the village of Sanabis in the west of the capital Munama carrying Bahrainian…
The Palestinian Authority held local elections yesterday, and the results, released earlier today, indicate a win for the secular Fatah but a clear gain for Hamas. This is an excerpt from the Reuters report, “Fatah prevails but Hamas gains in Palestinian polls“: Unofficial results released on Friday showed Hamas making strong inroads in key urban centres in the West Bank and Gaza, an indicator it could do well in this summer’s parliamentary ballot, possibly complicating Abbas’s peace efforts. Fatah won control of 52 of the 84 municipal councils being contested in the West Bank and Gaza in Thursday’s vote, while…
Bolivia’s passed its Hydrocarbons Law, on fairly miserable terms that will be sure to chase out foreign investment, dispirit President Carlos Mesa, rouse Evo Morales to block roads and starve cities, and drive separatist sentiment in pro-trade Santa Cruz province. And the result of all this? Bolivia’s natural gas will face a great future underground. Miguel Buitrago has the whole story, nicely analysed, here.
I just finished my last final exam — happy to be back on the internet everybody. Big thanks, of course, to A.M Mora y Leon, Daniel, and Kirk for keeping this place going full throttle for the past week! On that note, I’m going to go take a huge nap. I will resume my posting later this afternoon or tonight since I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands.
Michael Totten is back from Lebanon and posting, he says “by popular demand,” a very nice collection of protest babe pictures. I have read posts on some of the less, uh, optimistic websites that state that the whole protest babe thing is bogus because none of those women were Muslim. Not so, says Michael: If any of you think only the Christian women of Lebanon walk around without their own portable tents, forget that. It????????s isn????????t even close to true. My hotel was on the Muslim side of Beirut and I saw almost as many modern-looking women on that side…
I have just posted the Midweek Edition of my Middle East News Bulletin, a roundup of some news since the weekend. This is the link: http://www.arabworldanalysis.com/blog/
If this is true, it certainly won’t help the effort in Iraq. However, take care with reading what the article actually says: WASHINGTON – U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly $100 million that was supposed to have been spent on reconstruction projects in south-central Iraq, government investigators said Wednesday. There are indications of fraud in the use of the $96.6 million, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. A separate investigation of possible wrongdoing continues. More than $7 million of the total is unaccounted for, the report said. An additional $89.4…
Who will lead the Organization of American States? A Chilean democratic socialist so determined he is known as ‘El Panzer’ in his native country. Oppenheimer interviews him for the first time and notices that he seems to be proactive. He counters a Venezuelan party hack’s declaration that the Chilean will honor ‘commitments’ to dictator Hugo Chavez with a wonderful smackdown, saying he owes the Thug of Caracas nothing. Also, the Chilean rebuffs Jimmy Carter’s insistence that the OAS appoint an ‘independent’ commission to evaluate democracies. Oppenheimer disagrees with that but I sure don’t. The disaster in Ecuador hangs heavy on…
Stefania over in beautiful Sardinia has a tremendously good blog called Free Thoughts, highlighting freedom struggles and democratic revolutions around the world. What makes it so valuable is the singularity of her information. It’s news we don’t see here, not even in the rightwing press. She also has a lot of photos. Scrolling through it is fascinating. She now has photos from deep inside Cuba, pictures of the little groups meeting and trying to forge civil society in the ramshackle Castro-ruins that pass for housing in Havana. They look like people in a war zone. But their brave, defiant faces…
The two major developments in Iraq over this past week have been (1) the formation of Iraq’s first democratically elected government and (2) the reaction of the terrorist opposition, which has expressed its views by a string of bloody attacks. I’m sure you have read enough of these things elsewhere, so I decided not to do a full post on this, but what I haven’t seen elsewhere in English is a list of the names of the ministers in the new government. This is the new government list according to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Bawaba. Obviously this is a government with…
With Juan Forero at the helm, the Paper of Record once again shows itself to be the paper of record lows. Arrogant and ignorant, it refuses to correct its errors. Alek Boyd wrote a letter to the NYT to point out the uncomfortable Chavista fact that poverty has grown dramatically under the Chavez regime. Facts from Chavez’s own government statistics show that Chavez’s love of the poor is nothing more than an effort to create more of them. Not only was it in the facts themselves, it was also the topic of one of the most chilling Oppenheimer columns ever…
Credible sources inside Cuba report that Val Prieto’s estimable Babalu Blog has been banned by Cuba’s brutal dictator. That means his eloquent words are resonating grandly to Cubans through the pinhole access to the Internet a few Cubans have. It also means that the cringing and cowardly caudillo supremo is thrashing around like a chawed up turkey now that the cat’s eaten half of it. Val is blogging Cuba’s democratic revolution. Shrivel, tyrant, squeal, and die. Vaya Val! UPDATE: Steve’s humdinger analysis on the situation is an absolute must-read. I am so tempted to post it, writing doesn’t get better…
Under white-hot political pressure, Mexico’s attorney general dropped charges against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, freeing the Mexico City mayor to run for president of the nation in 2006. The intent is to cap a flaming political crisis. They now say the Mexican standoff is over. Let’s see… Read it in the Spanish-language press here.
Oil prices are rising. Yet US inventories are up. That’s not normal. Venezuela is pumping below its OPEC quota, with production down. (Link UPDATED). The state oil company is in shambles. And Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is on the rumored verge of firing 12,000 oil workers in already-rebellious Zulia state in the west. Meanwhile, his oil minister denies it. Screaming ‘sabotage’ and ‘CIA infiltration’ and ‘silent strike,’ Chavez’s underlings are in distress as the oil refineries (including the gigantic Amuay refinery which was shut down last month amid rumors of worker sabotage) slide into turmoil. The generals of the military…
Big Gun Rumsfeld lays down the law: There will be no U.S. intervention in Venezuela. It will be strictly Venezuelan. Because frankly, he thinks Venezuelans know how to take care of business. The Liberator of Baghdad and Kabul also takes aim at Chavez, warning of Venezuelans’ desire to live in a country that ‘is respected,’ – indirectly indicting Chavez for his clown dictatorship. Notice Chavez’s wimpy response to Rummy’s curt words, with his ‘welcoming’ of the Rummy statement, a weak answer uncharacteristic of him. He seems to be ignoring the squinty glare in Rumsfeld’s eye that signals The Thug of…
Is Jordan heading toward a constitutional crisis? It is rare for Al-Jazeera to report from Jordan on anything, but just now (about 8:00 a.m. Wednesday in Jordan time) I saw a report on a sudden outburst of public anger from opposition parliamentarians over the lack of democracy. Jordan has had an elected parliament for years, but elections are always rigged and the institution has been kept pretty harmless under both the late King Hussein and his son, the current monarch, King Abdullah. I took special interest in the story because I spent a year living there. Jordan is a pretty…
Former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune has been staging a hunger strike in jail for the last 15 days. He has refused medical treatment in the Dominican Republic until the interim government drops accusations that he organized a massacre: “Mr. Neptune said he would accept to be evacuated only if all the charges brought against him were lifted,” Mike Joseph, a spokesman for interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, said in a statement late Sunday. “Such demands are absolutely unacceptable.” Doctors from the United Nations’ peacekeeping contingent in Haiti said on Saturday that Neptune’s vital functions were seriously threatened and he…
Today marks the 100th day in office fr Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko: KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine’s pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday marked his first 100 days in office, saying his government remained on track to fulfil the demands of protesters who helped propel him to power. “We haven’t betrayed any of the slogans from Independence Square,” Yushchenko said, referring to the Kyiv city square that became the nerve centre of the popular uprising last year that became known as the “Orange Revolution.” Yushchenko has said that fighting poverty remains his top goal. His presidency so far has brought…
Tip of the hat to The Emirates Economist for letting me know about this item. Two weeks ago, the parliament voted 24-20 to give women the right to vote in municipal elections. This was heralded as a great first step, but skepticism still remained. And for good reason. The bill failed to pass the second round of voting. Kuwait City: A Bill granting Kuwaiti women the right to vote and contest in municipal council elections failed to pass muster in the second round in the parliament yesterday. The Bill was passed in principle by the parliament on April 19. However,…
An amazing article in today’s New York Sun has the number on how blogging is revolutionizing the world. Now, there is a new project to rationalize what we look for in from blogs, utilizing their inherent competitive advantage, when a global news event happens. (Because we want to know just what it is like in the middle of the crowd when Beirut happens!) And fascinatingly, this new development is led by the genius who understands this phenomenon better than anyone else on earth, Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, specifically speaking of revolutions. When you read the article, notice Glenn’s powerful way of…
No, it’s not a government statistic, it’s Datanalisis, a highly regarded private pollster. They report that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez now sports a 70% popular approval rating. The kind of news that makes you wonder if the Revolution is on his side of the fence. Or if the revolution has been frothed up by growing anti-U.S. sentiment, courtesy of Chavez, but not exclusively Chavez, a trend I am hearing from Venezuelan sources. Did people lie to this guy? How come Chavez’s May Day crowds were so small then? I don’t know. There are some mysterious contradictory currents within this news…