Blogging the democratic revolution
Don’t give up on Kyrgyzstan just yet! Gateway Pundit initially brought the story to our attention. “The authorities are losing control of the situation. Current developments in southern Kyrgyzstan, where a rally has been going on since March 4, suggest that not only the opposition, but also the people want change in the authorities,” said…
That’s what the banners are saying in the latest protest in Beirut: The crowd included a number of die-hard protesters who have been camping out at Martyrs’ Square, homemakers, men who took the day off from work, university students and others who traveled from other areas of the country. In a jab at Syrian President…
Up to 150,000 opposition activists rallied in Martyr’s Square chanting, “Syria Out!” and waving Lebanese flags: Monday’s demonstration marked three weeks since the Feb. 14 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri that began a peaceful campaign against Syrian control. The massive crowd, chanting “Freedom, sovereignty, independence!” began marching through the streets to the site of…
Who knew? The exit polls were pretty accurate. The president of ex-Soviet Moldova, a former ally of Moscow now committed to European integration, looked well placed in a parliamentary election on Sunday with an exit poll giving his Communists a healthy lead. But the poll also showed two opposition parties doing well enough to deny…
With the anti-Syrian protests underway in Lebanon right now grabbing the headlines, a reader asked for some background on the situation and an explanation of the various factions involved. The purpose of this post is to provide that background. THE OTTOMAN ERA (1517-1918) It might be said that modern Lebanon has its roots in the…
UPDATED, UPDATED: Bolivia’s President Carlos Mesa turned in his resignation to Congress this morning. (Link updated). Congress, which is led by opposition lawmakers, will vote on whether to accept it Tuesday in a special session. The gas-rich country’s been a tragic failed state for about a year and a half, but this could be a…
Dan McMinn at Orange Ukraine has a great post comparing “normalcy” in Ukraine in 2004 to normalcy in 2005. From the end: I’ve been having a debate, of sorts, with one of those folks who still believe “Yushchenko has ushered in fascism”. His only major argument, so far, is that Yushchenko’s call for all public…
Nobody is more on top of the municipal election than John Burgess. Check out his post on voting in the east, and the more recent in Najran.
Andy over at Siberian Light has the week’s worth of Russian news up at his blog.
Blogger Daniel Duquenal in Venezuela reports existing conditions and probable coming food shortages at Mercal, the regime’s subsidized food stores where Venezuelan locals are being conditioned to accept food rationing and to wait in long lines. Communism is much further along than we had previously thought in dictator Hugo Chavez’s regime. Be sure to read…
In what can only be seen as terrifying, Hizb’allah has backed Syria against the opposition and “western inference.” Because of this, the situation has just become much more dangerous than it was previously. They are not only a powerful political party, but the only one with arms. BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful party,…
Regime Change Iran has its week in review of Iran news. Lots of interesting, underreported news there.
With all that’s been going on in the Middle East lately, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s happening elsewhere. At Bloggledygook I have an update on the situation in Ukraine, including the latest on the supposed suicide of Yuri Kravchenko and the implications of his demise.
I was bothered by Indonesia’s Abu Bakar Bashir verdict and realized it was going to amount to a political struggle in Indonesia’s six-year-old democracy, because voters there had just elected a new president who ran for office on an anti-terror platform. That sham verdict is going to pose some problems for Indonesia’s new president as…
Publius Pundit isn’t the only one thinking about democratic revolutions – it’s a idea that’s caught fire in the minds of people all over the world. Val Prieto at Babal???? reports that there’s a young man at Columbia University, Loren Crowe, who’s studied in Cuba and now made it his mission to get documentary word…
Like Fidel Castro before him, Hugo Chavez for a long time has insisted he was lots of things, but definitely not a communist. We see this a lot at the beginnings of communist regimes, and it’s done mostly for domestic reasons. However, another reason is that it’s easier for internationalistas to champion the dictator as…
And if anyone asks, that’s what the opposition has dubbed the revolution they are hoping for, due to Moldova’s vineyards. Elections are being held in Moldova today. In a nutshell, the parliament will be elected, and then the parliament will elect the president. Background But this election is much more complicated than meets the eye….
Blogger Miguel Octavio, who’s an expert on markets, has come up with a startling new idea about how to make Venezuela’s pathetically money-losing state oil company profitable enough to benefit from current high oil prices. Sell shares of Citgo. An idea way too revolutionary for a leftist backwash like Hugo Chavez. This is an especially…
Three thousand protestors in Jalalabad have seized a government building and are demanding next week’s parliamentary election runoffs be free and transparent. More than half of the seats in parliament were forced into the runoffs, so this is big.
Venezuelan blogger Daniel reports that Miguel’s powerful exclusive on photoshopping is now having a big impact in Caracas through a Venezuelan newspaper pickup. This is a great victory for the blogosphere, and very sweet for Publius Pundit which was first to link Miguel’s scoop on the fake photos. After that, Miguel’s post was linked to…
Cuban refugees risking it all to flee communism arrive at the gates of Guantanamo and are ordered by US troops back to communism – through a field of landmines. One of the troops who had to carry out these illegal orders tells the terrible story here and I blanch at the inhumanity. Where is the…
Taef Accord and WMD — The Bekaa Valley? Quite a bit has happened since Thursday. The international pressure, for one, has certainly stepped up. President Bush is even talking about it during his social security runs in New Jersey! But now even Saudi Arabia is getting in on the game. Syrian troops have been fortifying…
Robin Koerner has informed me about a website that she has been working on called Watching America. Now, you all know how much I like to link out to interesting material, but I found this website in particular to be quite different from anything else. It is a news site that translates what the foreign…
Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon – each in its own way has taken steps lately, some large, some small, toward joining the free world. But now Libya? Today’s Al-Hayat reports that Libya’s ruler, Mu’amar Qadafi, seems to have charted a new path in some ways, and reframed old predilictions on other issues. Coming off…
Why does the Venezuela’s thuggish dictatorship cringe at the cold spotlight of one of Aleksander Boyd’s meticulous investigations? Find out here.