Blogging the democratic revolution
6.4% GDP Diversified economy 3.1% inflation 17% stronger peso Tax cuts Pensions Competitive advantage $3 billion budge surplus equal to 3% of GDP Revolution iVIVA CHILE!
We’ve discussed Belarus quite a bit over the past few days, including an item showing that Congress approved $24 million of funding for opposition parties in the countries. Now, it seems as if the EU has finally moved beyond “stern condemnations” to real action, by getting ready to set aside funds for similar measures that…
El Universal’s Roberto Giusti has an insightful interview with a top pollster in Venezuela who’s found that President Hugo Chavez is rapidly sliding in the popular approval polls. Among many reasons, he’s found that poor people can only be bought off with ‘social programs’ for so long. Chavez also has dropped in a relatively short…
With news of the draft constitution circling the streets, women aren’t all that happy knowing that legislation will be based on sharia and certain rights won’t be given. So what do they do about it? Make their views known by exercising their right to assembly! This was the first civil rights protest held by women’s…
The consensus, left and right, is that Colombia is an good place. And it’s getting better. And better. Colombia is in fact a bright rising star. And for all the criticism I read, left and right (but mostly left), on Plan Colombia, it doesn’t really get at what is going on in Colombia. It’s called…
Election day is tomorrow in Venezuela. It’s more awful than anyone realizes. Not only are the results stacked and foreordained, the electronic evidence one leaves at the ballot box is easily traced to the individual voters, effectively nullifying secret ballot. What will follow will be retribution for dissidents. No one will be permitted to dissent…
Eurasia Daily Monitor has a very in depth article concerning the parliamentary and government rivalries going on in Ukraine. In particular, PM Tymoshenko wants President Yushchenko to break with parliamentary speaker Lytvyn and put together a parliamentary majority so that they can finally get WTO legislation passed. In this case, the problem is in the…
As most House spending bills do, this one almost slipped under the radar. They just approved $24 million dollars to fund democracy in Belarus. The U.S. House of Representatives voted late Wednesday to earmark $24 million for promoting democracy, development of political parties and independent media in Belarus over the next two years, the RIA-Novosti…
The new terrorist president of Iran will have to give an address to the United Nations soon. The Bush administration is thinking of preventing that from happening. The Bush administration is considering taking the unprecedented step of preventing a visting head of state from addressing the United Nations in New York by denying a visa…
I’m watching this very closely, because it’s so interesting and complex a situation. Seventeen soldiers stage a coup while President Taya is out of the country, people rejoice in the streets, and everything goes back to normal. There’s more to it than that, but the normalcy is what makes it such an interesting case. The…
The leader of the Yeni Fikr youth movement has been arrested by authorities, who are claiming that he took money from Armenian special intelligence in order to prepare a revolution in Azerbaijan through a plot hatched by the United States NDI. Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor-General’s Office announced on 4 August the arrest of Ruslan Bashirli, leader of…
Meanwhile, down at the Crawford Ranch… Source: Associated Press …too bad I don’t have a good horsy picture with ten-gallon hats, but a pickup-truck picture will do. Venezuela’s dictator can only wonder what his next door neighbor is laughing about with President Bush right here – because it’s almost certain Chavez’s name got brought up…
Miguel has first details of the broadcastings of the TeleChavez network. It’s totally weird. BLECCCCHHHHHH!!!!!!
Earlier this morning Robert posted an entry on some Poles in Belarus who happen to be rock music lovers using their passion to protest against the government, based on a Radio Liberty report from yesterday (Aug. 3, see Rock Against the Regime!). Whether this was related to today’s crackdown or not, Le Monde is reporting…
Here’s a small item that looks like real news – Nick Burns, the number three guy at State, insists that the Andean Free Trade Agreement (this is CAFTA, but for Andean states like Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) is advancing nicely. News sources have repeatedly said that the bloody and terrible Congressional battle to pass CAFTA…
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a vile Maoist terror group enamored of Pol Pot terrorized the Peruvian countryside. They were communists known as the Shining Path and along with their ugly cousin known as Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), they specialized in murder. Being cowards, they didn’t just go after ‘oligarchs’ (whom they never…
Amid growing signs of discontent in Cuba now, George Moneo at Babalu blog proposes a new meme for Cubans on the island, to remind them and reinforce them that the vile Castro regime is over and it’s time for the birth of freedom. His words, which he urges Cubans to utter, write, engrave, graffiti and…
Is there anything harder than picking yourself up to vote in an election you know won’t win? Such is the question confronting Venezuelans this weekend. In the States, those of us who are blue voters who live in red states, and red voters who live in blue cities know what this is like. But it…
As the ongoing feud between the Polish and Belarussion government over ethnic Poles in Belarus continues, and with all countries in the area outside of Russia declaring support for democracy, Polish activists are taking the issue up in a way that Elvis would be proud of. I’ll let the headline speak for itself, “Polish activists…
Kazakhstan is the most economically developed country in the region, yet after a series of colored revolutions in the former USSR, President Nazarbaev has begun to pay more attention to the activities of opposition groups and especially NGOs. The presidential election in 2006, therefore, is going to be an important milestone in judging the strength…
A writer at Kommersant thinks so, given the trend of events over the last half year or so, and he thinks Russia’s banning of ABC over its airing of an interview with Shamil Basayev is the freezing point. It is not surprising that Washington defended the TV company. The thing is that the Nightline program…
It looks like President Taya is out of luck today. He was out of the country attending King Fahd’s funeral in Saudi Arabia when the military decided they were going to take over! Good news? Bad news? Let’s see what all happened. Nouakchott, Mauritania – A group of army officers in Mauritania have overthrown President…
Venezuela’s fearless Rosalio Cardinal Castillo Lara has warned that Venezuela faces a bloodbath under dictator Hugo Chavez, and specifically cites the “unfortunate intervention” of former President Jimmy Carter. It’s about time. Carter has pretended for decades to be this pious man of peace, and feasted off his ‘Nobel laureate’ reputation while doing untold damage to…
U.S. blogger Steven Vincent, whose book ‘In The Red Zone’ about Iraq, was kidnapped by Iraqi terrorists dressed as police in Basra and shot dead several times. His blog and his books were critical of terrorist infiltration into the Iraqi government, and were favorably reviewed. What an atrocity. What a damn shame. If you are…
Eric Raymond has an interesting and well-reasoned piece up about our notion of Iraq’s recovery. His hypothesis is that as long as the Kurds want in, Iraq’s fine; if the Kurds see trouble, they’ll get out — and we’ll know. Makes sense to me. Definitely read the whole thing, for ESR’s typically lucid writing as…