Blogging the democratic revolution
Aussiegirl is following the prosecution of the Gongadze case, a journalist whose head was found missing under Kuchma’s regime. Here are quotes from Yushchenko. Also, has his head finally been found? Either way, the killers have been found. Secret police, no less, though that was expected. And a witness was recently injured after the killers were named. I’m thinking there may be more than these three. abdymok is all over the whole story as well, with lots of information. For some background info, he is a journalist for the Kyiv Post.
And here begins the first of the daily Lebanon roundups. It’s hard to keep track of everything on the internet, so I’ll try to round it all up for you guys right here quick and easy. NEWS: Some protestors vow to stay in the streets until they get a good government: A few diehard activists remained in tents overnight and about 400 protesters joined them midmorning, but Lebanese soldiers had been withdrawn from the area where the day before 25,000 flag-waving demonstrators demanded and got Prime Minister Omar Karami’s resignation. “We will be here every day until the last Syrian…
Today’s Daily Burma is up and ready. Complete with link to the State Departments 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Burma and keeping you informed on the latest arrest of U Thu Wai. Thanks to Robert for letting me join the Publius team. No my site doesn’t have comments. That was originally by choice but over the weekend my server shut down comments on all MT accounts due to spam overload, so now it is no longer by choice. Feel free to leave comments here.
That from the report released from allAfrica.com within the last few hours. The African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should be commended for imposing punitive sanctions against Togo and forcing the illegal president to come to his senses and heed international calls for a return to democracy and the rule of law. The stepping down of Eyadema should be a warning and a lesson to other potential despots that the African continent has no time for them. As posted this morning, the media too is waking from it’s slumber. afrol reports seven private radio…
Val at Babalu Blog has gotten his hands on an important 15-minute Cuban film that’s spreading like lightning around Castro’s oppressed island. It’s all about local KGB goons. He’s painstakingly uploaded it to his blog and from my machine it works perfectly. However, he’s only going to have it up for two days, so it’s important to see it now. It’s in Spanish today, but even if you don’t speak Spanish, go see it anyway because you can still tell what’s going on. Val will have English subtitles up tomorrow. See the whole thing here.
Lebanses President Emie Lahoud set about today to form a new government while opposition leaders – Muslim, Druze and Christian – are expected to meet Tuesday to plan for what comes next: It wasn’t clear if they would seek to keep up the street pressure or – as some have urged – step back to work through the political process to ensure a new government less tied to Damascus. They have demanded a neutral government to organize parliamentary elections this spring and to investigate Hariri’s murder, which they blame on the pro-Syrian government and Syria. Both governments have denied involvement.…
Hey everyone. Yesterday was a long day, to note, I just woke up from my twelve hour slumber. Since many of you have never been here before, I thought I would give you a run down of what this site is about and what we’ll be covering post-revolution in Lebanon. We will definitely be keeping an interested eye on there. Updates on the daily political situation, news, what the blogs are saying, things like that. But we cover a lot of other things as well, such as what is happening in Ukraine post-revolution, A.M. Mora y Leon covers Venezuela and…
All this stuff finally came in the mail today. The books from Amazon.com, both of which you can order on the left hand side. The other shipment was from an Ebay seller, directly from Ukraine. I finally got a Yuschenko TAK! scarf! Now, before I go to bed, I would like to give a special shout-out to Bryan McRoberts. Starting on March 15, Lebanonwire.com will become available by subscription only, and he donated money to me so that I could subscribe and continue to bring the latest news from that region to you all. He and his family definitely have…
Kyrgyzstan is facing a run-off after a majority of seats failed to acquire an absolute majority of the votes: MOSCOW. Feb. 28. — A majority of the seats in Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections Sunday were forced into a second round of voting when the contests failed to produce absolute majorities for candidates, according to preliminary results released Monday in the capital, Bishkek. That leaves the Central Asian republic to face another period of high political tension around the March 13 runoffs. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Monday the vote “fell short” of international standards for democratic elections,…
Ben Morgan from Swarthmore College’s War News Radio program contacted me via email and is going to do a phone interview in about an hour. It sounds like a load of fun, I’ve never done that before. So hey, if anyone else wants to interrogate me, by all means, email me! UPDATE: Alright, interview is over. I think I may have been a bit long-winded on some things, but interesting nonetheless. I’ll let you know when a web feed is available.
Back from the school. Now here’s what I’ve got from Instapundit. I’m trying to get as much insight and information in here as possible so here we go. So far there is Ed Morrissey, Sissy Willis, and Jim Geraghty who are all talking about it. Keep watching Tony as well. Michael Ubaldi has just informed me that he’s merged all his Lebanon commentary into one useful category. Check that out. The Belgravia Dispatch has an email from Beirut, check that out. Oxblog notes that the New York Times has embraced the Bush Doctrine as so many of us did before…
At Bloggledygook I have a post on Walid Jumblatt, sometime raving conspiracy theorist, sometime pragmatic politician, sometime pan-Arab nationalist. This person will likely be a prominent figure in coming events in Lebanon. Jumblatt has acted at times as one of Syria’s most vocal critics but seemed to come back into the fold when the US invaded Iraq. The big break came when he opposed the extension of Pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud’s term. Now that he was deemed to be less than friendly, Jumblatt believes he was fingered for assassination. The killing of Hariri confirmed his suspicions. It would be a…
The AP and Fox News are reporting that Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami has announced his government’s resignation in parliament. No link yet. This came before the debate on a no-confidence vote was to begin. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Boston Herald: Karami made the announcement during a parliamentary debate called to discuss Hariri’s Feb. 14 assassination in a bomb blast that killed 16 others. The announcement prompted cheers from more than 25,000 flag-waving demonstrators protesting against the government and its Syrian backers outside. The resignation was the most dramatic moment yet in the series of protests and political maneuvers that have…
I will be updating this post throughout the day as events unfold. Don’t forget to check out the photos and videos of world-wide protests for this cause. Here are more pictures. BLOGS TO CHECK OUT: Caveman in Beirut, Across the Bay, and Syria Comment. The colors are red and white, in accordance with the nation’s flag — minus the green — and I have seen in a few places the term Cedar Revolution. According to Lebanonwire, 10,000 people have poured into Martyr’s Square between late Sunday night and 5:00 this morning, despite a ban on protests: BEIRUT, Feb 28 (AFP)…
I just caught wind of this on the news. The Israeli government will shortly announce a transcript of orders delivered by the Syrian government to the terrorist group that carried out the attack in Tel Aviv. I haven’t been able to find an article on the net as of yet, but will post one as soon as I do. My prediction: If anything, Monday is the day of the Lebanese revolution. If Israel attacks and destabilizes Syria for any amount of time during this, they will lose control of the situation there and Lebanon will go free. Who knows what…
Take a look at consultative council just advised: DUBAI (AFP) – Academics and members of the appointed consultative council in the United Arab Emirates came out in favor of elections in the Persian Gulf state, arguing that it could not stay out of the regional trend toward elected bodies. When millions of Arabs in Palestine, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have gone to the polls, the UAE cannot continue to lag behind, Professor Abdul Khaleq Abdullah of the UAE University told the English-language daily Khaleej Times. “I strongly support the idea of having elected members” in the Federal National Council, said…
UPDATE: Read this post, and then continue on to my new post following the protests that are under way. In the latest developments from Lebanon, the government fears a showdown: Lebanon was headed for a showdown between the opposition and the security forces as thousands of demonstrators massed late today in Beirut in defiance of a ban on protests by the pro-Syrian government. Shouting “Syria out” and waving the Lebanese flag, the protesters converged on the central Martyr’s Square as hundreds of heavily armed troops aided by police deployed jeeps and trucks to the main crossroads leading to the square.…
A couple of days ago, I posted the full transcript of the press conference between President Bush and Putin after their meeting. In that post, I highlighted in bold what I thought were remarks worth noting and looking into. One journalist, in particular, threw a weird question out there, asking: To follow up on the issue of democratic institutions, President Bush recently stated that the press in Russia is not free. What is this lack of freedom all about? Your aides probably mentioned to you that our media, both electronic and our printed media, have full coverage on the manifestations…
CLIFFNOTES: 1) Mubarak’s announcement and actions seek to legitimize his own government, not reform. 2) Opposition has little time to develop a massive grass roots campaign. 3) This does open a window for regime change if actions outside of Mubarak’s control occur. Alright, so I’m a little skeptical. From the Christian Science Monitor: BEIRUT AND CAIRO ???????? When Egyptians head to the polls later this year to elect a president, they will face something they have never seen before on the ballots: options. In a surprise announcement Saturday, Egypt’s long-ruling president, Hosni Mubarak, ordered constitutional changes that would open the…
I emailed Nathan over at The Argus what he thought about the lack of protests, or anything for that matter, in regards to the Tajik elections. Here is his insight: I think the thing is that Kyrgyzstan is kind of deceptive. Akayev has run the place more or less like a normal country, and people have gotten a taste for the comparative freedom they’ve enjoyed. It’s hard to describe, but the country struck me as incredible after I’d been in Uzbekistan for about a year. People are laid back, all kinds of products are available, and you can get margaritas!…
Zed just let me know of his latest Daily Burma post. There is a new publication in Canada that is the first in North America to print in Burmese! Check it out, he has the PDF file of one of its issues.
A revealing interview was published Friday (Feb. 25) in the Islamist daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi with Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas’ political wing. The article was headlined: “Mashal: Pressures on Syria will have a negative effect on Hamas.” Aside from suggesting that the Syria-Hamas relationship is much closer than Syria claims, Mashal describes the truce with Israel as a purely temporary affair. He also suggests that the Bush administration has been secretly sending conciliatory messages to Hamas, a point which I hope is not true, and if true would seem to violate the Bush Doctrine. I have translated it below,…
Venezuela Today has found an extremely significant strategic development in the Colombian press: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is thinking of withdrawing Venezuela’s membership from the Organization of American States. He would do that to circumvent the regional organization’s group efforts to strengthen the OAS’ Democracy Charter, which of course does not serve his interests as a dictator. This wily move comes as a blow to the Bush administration, which has stated that its strategy is to force Chavez to adhere to democratic norms or face OAS sanctions – and, at this meeting, the U.S. is proposing to add the additional…
That’s the Palestinian people. It remains to be seen if the leadership understands that their people have had enough and are demonstrating a new willingness to talk peace: If this is to be made into something that could resemble a positive step, the PA should offer to work beside the Israeli military instead of against it, even going so far as to wage war against the Palestinian terror forces. It Abbas is to be seen as serious, he needs to begin punishing terror organizations immediately. If he does that, he will find himself in what amounts to a civil war.…