Blogging the democratic revolution
This post is a supplement to my last post on the municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, intended to provide a summary overview of the situation in that country. First I suggest that you read Daniel Drezner’s article on the Saudi elections. It covers most of the territory, but make sure you read the comments, as…
Below is a translation from the pro-Islamist London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, on the municipal elections in Saudi Arabia. I was thinking about translating some articles from Saudi papers and their reports on the political success of the process, but what I read sounded too much like something from Pravda on the economic rejuvenation of the…
They just got released, and as expected, the Shiites dominated: BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 13, 2005 ???????? Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims won nearly half the votes in the nation’s Jan. 30 election, giving the long-oppressed group significant power but not enough to form a government on their own. The Shiites likely will have to form a…
I just received this email from The Dread Pundit Bluto: A family member serving in Kuwait says that the troops there don’t have access to news about the area because the only major news source in the camps is CNN. He says the troops have been trying to find information on blogs. Recent terrorist activity…
Miguel’s got an impressive analysis of the extent and severity of damage in Venezuela’s recent floods, focusing on what the government could and didn’t do to prevent the disaster which has now claimed over 100 lives.
The thuggery of Venezuela’s dictatorship does not stop. Last week, they made a travesty of justice. They threw respected constitutional lawyer Tulio Alvarez in jail for two years for ‘slander’ which is to say, warning the truth about some corrupt congressman, a Chavez crony, lining his pockets. But that was just an excuse. The real…
The hemisphere’s dictators, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba, have each weighed in with narcissistic fears for their sorry hides. Val tells us that Chavez is brooding that the US would actually bother with an invasion of his tropical mess. (Sorry Hugo, we don’t want the reconstruction costs from your years of…
Hugo Chavez hurled his uncouth insults at US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Now Mugabe of Zimbabwe’s getting in on the act. There must be something about a successful Black woman that arouses their Inner Barbarian because they’re both coming out of the woodwork like roaches and getting counted.
1999 was a warning to Venezuela – at that time, at least 30,000 people died in mudslides due to government neglect and never got any aid after that either. This week the torrential rains have returned and it turns out the communist government of Hugo Chavez has had much better things to do than reinforce…
Torrential rains have left about 5000 people homeless in Venezuela. Venezuela’s land expropriators have got just the solution for them…here. Amazing how one problem solves the other.
Carlo Stagnaro suggests that the European Union is ignoring Putin’s abuses because he signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. I’d like to add that signing on to Kyoto itself is a kind of abuse. I’m not sure if Putin will ignore it or not, but it makes the perfect excuse to put into place anti-free…
Check out this chart of aid going to CIS countries. Poor Belarus — quite literally.
Daniel Henninger thinks so: The Nobel Peace Prize Committee will announce its 2005 winner in October. I think that this year the voters of Iraq should receive the Nobel Peace Prize. They have already won the world’s peace prize by demonstrating in a single day a commitment not seen in our lifetime to peace, self-determination…
Eurasianet offers one of the first recent interviews by new Georgia PM, Zurab Noghaideli. On another note, President Saakashvili gave his state of the nation address: Declaring Georgia “a proper state,” President Mikheil Saakashvili delivered his annual state of the nation speech to parliament on February 10. The upbeat speech was the Georgian leader????????s first…
Nathan has today’s news update for what’s coming out of Central Asia.
From Regime Change Iran, though I wish they’d post the link to the Reuters article they cite: North Korea has sent a message of solidarity to Iran amid suspicions the reclusive communist state had boasted of having nuclear weapons to raise the stakes while U.S. attention is focused on Iran’s nuclear programmes. North Korea declared…
I wrote my senator, John McCain, about this around a month ago. Here are the results: The United States promised to cancel the Jackson-Vanik amendment for Ukraine, give Ukraine market economy status, and support Ukraine????????s entry into the WTO, a U.S. congressional delegation including Hillary Clinton and John McCain assured Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko…
Donetsk is a highly Russian region in eastern Ukraine that was the home of whatever opposition Yanukovich could muster toward Yushchenko’s ascendency. Today, Yuschenko went over there to open dialogue about the corrupt mining industry and spur reforms to further the economy. Terry Rogers has the transcript. Here is the story.
John Burgess posted a roundup of news from the Arab press on the munipal elections, along with his own commentary about the articles. And the press seems very excited.
The United States will instead, as I have been predicting, defer to the regional powers: WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration said Friday that it wasn’t interested in one-on-one talks with North Korea about its nuclear programs outside the six-party negotiations involving the communist nation’s neighbors. “It’s not an issue between North Korea and the…
Looks like everything went fine: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – (KRT) – Saudi men went to the polls Thursday for the first nationwide election in the Arab world’s most conservative monarchy, though the royal family barred women from the experiment. The election passed in peace, despite fears that rebels might seek to disrupt the vote and…
Transitions Trends posts statements by the State Department that makes them look like they just don’t care. From the State Department: I don’t have anything new to say about Nepal from what we’ve said previously, which is, obviously, that the actions of the King, in summarily dismissing the government and declaring a state of emergency…
Kirk H. Sowell posts five reasons why you should read his blog. I suggest you do that.
Nathan has posted his daily roundup today about what’s going on in Kyrgyzstan.
Aussiegirl posts a writeup by BonnieBlueFlag, who has been informed that Yushchenko is coming to America and will be partying it up with the political and media elite. Well, I have an excellent source (Cindy Adams, NYP), who tells us today that Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine, is planning a March visit to the U.S….