Blogging the democratic revolution
I almost missed it. Coming Anarchy is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions, chock full democracy goodness.
The tyrannical government of Maldives is charging opposition MDP Chairman Mohamed Nasheed on counts of terrorism after he was detained last Friday. TVM and Voice of Maldives, the state-run media in Maldives, has announced that the Chairperson of Maldivian Democratic Party, Mohamed Nasheed (Anni), is to be charged for terrorism. State run media said Nasheed is to be charged under the terrorism act????????s article 6 (b) with reference to 2 (g) Article 2(g) states, ???????any act or the attempt to commit an act that may instill fear among the people or threaten life, person or property of any person verbally…
Protestors in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, seek a bigger piece of the oil pie. Trouble in Lago Agrio as the troops move in to protect the oil wells. Ecuadorean oil workers try to fix a vandalized pipeline in the Amazon jungle. SOURCE: Reuters Strife has engulfed Ecuador again, with thousands of protestors in two northeastern provinces shutting down oil wells that supply 15% of Ecuador’s GDP, 33% of Ecuador’s tax base, and 2.3% of the U.S.’s energy. The protestors didn’t just block the pipelines – someone (and I am not sure it was them) blew them up with dynamite and committed…
It looks like hackers are taking shot at Burmese military junta websites. An interesting story, I think, of how pro-democracy forces can protest without being there. Aug 19, 2005 (DVB) – Burmese computer experts and hackers are increasingly targeting their attacks on websites owned by and related to Burma??????s military junta, State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), according to sources close to Burmese hackers. A Burmese computer student told DVB that recent breakdowns of the New Light of Myanmar and Myanmar Times websites could be the handiworks of either independent hackers or computer experts of ousted military intelligence service (MIS).…
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), known for its civil unrest and terrorist tactics from countries ranging from Syria to Turkey to Iran, has declare a truce with the Turkish government after the prime minister promised to resolve the problem through more democracy — meaning, trying to help the Kurds out in their demands. I think it’s a good development. ANKARA, Turkey – Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in this nation’s impoverished southeast region on Friday announced a one-month cease-fire. A top commander of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, confirmed what he termed a “suspension of hostilities”…
Voting opened in the ethnic Somali region of Ethiopia, while a partial re-run vote was held in other districts where irregularities were too high back in May. Not that it matters, at this point. JIJIGA, Ethiopia — Voting in eastern Ethiopia ended peacefully Sunday, as elite forces, pro-government militia and police patrolled streets to secure the region’s delayed elections. Voters in the mostly ethnic Somali region, some armed with assault rifles, gathered at sunrise at polling stations to elect 23 federal lawmakers and 168 regional legislators. Some voters said they hoped the election would bring a way out of poverty…
Our friend Jim GatewayPundit has a good Zimbabwe news and blogger roundup, including a link to a new film about dictator Robert Mugabe’s ‘clear out the trash’ campaign that has left hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans in the informal sector homeless and suffering. See it here.
The Cuban dictator was lying in wait for about three months, silently, stealthily, like a shark in stilling water … and then the brutal tyrant moved. Friday the Monster At Our Gate confiscated the land and house of the homeowner who lent it to Cuba’s fearless civil society democrats who riveted the world with their unprecdented meeting last May. What this underlines is that there are no, absolutely no, property rights in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The civil society democrats launched an unprecedented meeting at the end of last May. They pleaded for civil society, a large component of which includes…
Oh, yes. Mubarak has his official election campaign website up, in English, complete with an “email the president” feature. Click here to let him know what you think about him. As for me, I’ve written him a poem: Roses are red Violets are blue Babes in bikinis Look better than you But that’s probably a given. I was never particularly good at poetry. Jim Hoft writes: Roses are red. Violets are blue. Mubarak will win hands down. Do you think it will rain?
Perhaps another confirmation of what we may see in the future of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah promised Condoleezza Rice that the kingdom would be sufficiently liberalized to hold national elections within 15 years. Saudi King Abdullah promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a series of reforms that could give the desert kingdom an elected government within 10 to 15 years, says a senior U.S. official who was present when the two met in June. “He professed to transform his country and talked about having a representative government within a decade or a decade and a half,” said the official, who…
I kid you not. Here they are, in Cologne, Germany, for the World Festival of Youth: Oh Benedict! You’re so dreamy!
In an extreme sign of victory, Colombia’s vile communist narcoterrorists are suddenly apologizing for their latest murders, the killings of two priests and two others. Over 40 years, they’ve killed countless priests, journalists, businessmen, housewives, children and others. But this is the first time they are “sorry.” A strong hand against terror is withering the brazeness of these cold-blooded murderers. Suddenly, killing away isn’t so popular. That strong hand is in the leadership of the great President Alvaro Uribe, a man of death-defying courage who has met terror threats and terror bombs by hitting back harder. And he’s winning. Now,…
In the new era of revolutions, tyrants often are reluctant to send troops in to shoot when the millions of people roll into the streets demanding justice. They don’t want CNN’s cameras on them and 20-year war crime trials in the Hague to follow. That’s one reason why the whole world has seen a democratic awakening – in Ukraine – in Kyrgyzstan – in Lebanon – in Bahrain – in Kuwait – in Maldives – in Philippines – in Russia – in Georgia. But in countries with certain authentic tyrants determined to cling to power past their mandates, like Venezuela…
Ecuador is a basket case about to blow. It’s likely to get yet another a new president before U.S. Labor Day. And with its sudden oil production shutdown and troop dispatch, it’s also the leading news story moving world financial markets, hitting stocks and oil prices Friday. Just see the Top Ten leader here. No country is more important. And what is the turmoil about this time? A splitting apart government, with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro in the middle of it. Alek Boyd has an excellent – and rare – political x-ray of the shenanigans going on there. It’s…
Looking for beautiful women in bikinis? Try Monterrey. Definitely don’t look in Saudi Arabia. Check out the latest summertime fashion in Riyadh. Hat tip to Light Seeking Light. Click here for the rest of this tantalizing assortment of swimsuits. UPDATE: Now here we go. The Religious Policeman does a mock interview with the Saudi Minister of tourism: RP: So men and women will be able to go swimming up there? M: Certainly RP: Together? M: I didn’t say that. Swimming together, as you know, is un-Islamic. Most hotels only allow the men to go swimming. However there are one or…
In our latest showing of theatre performances from around the world, Robert Mugabe will be performing “I didn’t get what I wanted, so I held a fraudulent election and changed the constitution,” followed by his exquisite and complex personal rendition of “How to be a leftist dictator.” The latter will be reproduced cinematically as a late night feature on CNN. Just kidding, but it just keeps getting worse and worse over in Zimbabwe. If imposing a famine through land seizures weren’t enough, the government is throwing a hissy fit because white farmers have held up the process in court. But…
After local and provincial officials chose new members for half of the country’s Senate, the constitutional court set in stone the date of the country’s next presidential elections. President Nazarbaev’s term runs dry in the beginning of 2006, but elections weren’t expected until December of that year — over a year from now. But the court, which is hardly independent, has set it for this December instead. Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court has set the first Sunday of December as the date for presidential elections, ending a lengthy debate between the government and the opposition over the timing of the vote. President…
Since gain independence in 1962, Burundi has been ruled by the Tutsi minority, but the Hutu majority rebelled against the government in 1993 when its first democratically elected leader, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tuti paratroopers. Since then, ethnic warfare has ravaged the country and lands around it like Rwanda, culminating in the deaths of nearly a million people. The country has been under a transitional government for the past four years, which is largely responsible for helping to heal the country to the point of reaching a peace agreement. In March, the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of a…
Back in the 1980s, Nicaragua’s Sandinistas engaged in a communist campaign of mass murder against the innocent Miskito Indians on Nicaragua’s north Atlantic coast. The Miskito were peaceful people who lived in a strategic spot coveted by Cuban troops who were making inroads into Nicaragua as the region slid into civil war. Cuban troops wanted a supply route to foment unrest in Honduras and El Salvador, where the war to end communism was much hotter. The Sandinistas razed villages, burned crops and killed lifestock. Then they force-marched the Miskito on a long trek through the jungle to ‘re-education camps.’ There,…
In a continuing sequence of improved bilateral relations, Russia and China are staging first-ever joint military exercises over the next eight days. Andrew Young takes a look at all of the dimensions, both charitable and provocative. Here is his conclusion: Geopolitical considerations are also important to this exercise, although less important than the practical Russian and Chinese aims that I’ve outlined above. The two countries have an increasingly close, although still edgy relationship. Any kind of operation like this allows them to develop a closer working relationship and, more importantly, gives an outward show of co-operation to the rest of…
This is something that has been lingering on my mind for the past few days, as it has really gotten more attention than usual in the media and certainly isn’t something we usually think about often in U.S. politics. There was a piece just published in the Wall Street Journal, which prompted Rush Limbaugh to take up his opinion on the matter. The reason that the issue is becoming big is because the Akaka Bill, which could grant native Hawaiians their own self-governing land, is to be voted on in the Senate in September. In effect, it would be creating…
PREVIOUS POSTS, BACKGROUND: HERE LATEST PHOTOS: HERE, and HERE. It took nearly a week, but international NGOs and human rights organizations are starting to condemn the crackdown in Maldives. I’m rather surprised that they even know about it, given that Reuters gave up after its two token pieces toeing the government line. Reporter Without Borders jumps on top and tackles the regime for its brutal destruction of press freedoms in the past few weeks, including the closure of the only opposition newspaper and the arrest of several journalists. Article 19, an NGO that promotes global freedom of expression, has written…
Something from Val over at Babalu blog. I think she’s trying to tell us something. See it here.
Even with the winner a foregone conclusion, the unprecedented multi-candidate presidential elections in Egypt started today. The official campaign period for Egypt’s landmark presidential election opened Wednesday. Ten men, including sitting President Hosni Mubarak, are vying for the presidency in the country’s first multi-candidate election. The three leading contenders for the presidency all scheduled rallies for Wednesday to launch their election campaigns. Incumbent President Hosni Mubarak decided not to wait for the rally and took out a full-page ad in Egypt’s largest newspaper, the government-run Al-Ahram. A private television station bought space on another page, trumpeting its exclusive coverage of…
And they’re off! There is exactly one month before parliamentary elections are held in Afghanistan, meaning that official campaigns between some 6,000 candidates for 249 assembly seats and and positions in 34 provincial councils are now underway. An essential element to any successful election, free media coverage, is present in large quantities and will be the deciding factor in who wins and who loses given the plethora of contenders. This won’t be decided necessarily on the media’s bias, but by how each candidate’s message resonates with the voters, as JEMB is allowing every single person running the opportunity to run…