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 a couple of them (one by myself) point out inadequacies. Second, if you have not already, read my post below, An Islamist Perspective on Saudi Elections. Drezner’s article mainly deals with the moderate reformists and the politically dominant Saudi-Wahhabi bloc, but my post deals with…
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 Ukraine in the 1920s. I have a few comments below. Keep in mind that the interviewee is considered an ally of Osama bin Laden; see links at bottom in this regard (and keep in mind that the writing style was clumsy in the original, 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 coalition in the 275-member National Assembly with the other top vote-getters the Kurds and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s list to push through their agenda and select a president and prime minister. The president and two vice presidents must be elected by a two-thirds majority. The…
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 in Kuwait makes this a pressing issue, especially since al-Qaeda linked terror cells have admitted wanting to target routine convoys from Kuwait to Iraq. This is not the sort of thing CNN reports until it’s too late. This is a post summarizing recent events in…
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 reason they threw him in jail was for his report on the recall referendum fraud, a document so all-encompassing and so slam-dunk against the whole scam that it apparently still scares Chavez. Here is that document, translated into English. You’ll never look at that recall…
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 neglect!) Meanwhile, fidel outdoes him by saying that if anyone shoots his little buddy, Hugo Chavez, it will be the United States’ fault, even if a Venezuelan takes care of business. Speaking in a six-hour speech, the murderer of thousands blubbers: ‘This comes from a…
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 hillsides where his “beloved” poor live over the past six years. 4000 people have been evacuated – and a lot got out on their own, already fully intuiting that the government wasn’t going to do a thing help them. Here is Miguel’s photogallery of the…
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 market measures and further government control. UPDATE: Kirk posts in the comments section: I think it is important here to note the reason why Russia decided to ratify the Kyoto Treaty in the first place – the European Union agreed to support Russia’s bid to…
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 and human rights–the goals for which the Nobel Peace Prize began in 1901. Formal recognition by the Nobel Committee of what the Iraqi people did on Jan. 30 would do more to ensure the furtherance of these goals, in concrete ways, than any other imaginable…
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 detailed public statement on government policy since the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, a leading architect of the country????????s reform program. Saakashvili asserted that the 2003 Rose Revolution that brought his administration to power had begun to accomplish its goals. “Georgia was a failed…
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 on Thursday for the first time it possessed nuclear weapons and pulled out indefinitely from six-party talks on its weapons programme, saying it needed a defence against a hostile United States. The North’s official news agency reported on Friday that two top officials had sent…
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 on Friday. ???????We have received support and we expect Ukrainian hopes to come true,??????? Tymoshenko said. She said she hopes for larger U.S. financial support for programs of: healthcare, education, democratization, and development of small business. The Jackson-Vanik amendment was applied to Ukraine after the…
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 United States. It’s a regional issue,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “And it’s an issue that impacts all of its neighbors.” North Korea has plenty of opportunity to talk to the United States within six-party talks, McClellan said. In an interview with a…
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 embarrass the government on the day that the world was watching. At war with a homegrown insurgency, the ruling House of Saud is betting that a flicker of democracy – limited to local elections – might win support for the regime and ease public frustration…
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 and taking repressive measures such as banning media and jailing political opponents, is something that we view with the greatest concern. This is what Transition Trends has to say about it: “Greatest concern”? As India is seriously threatening to suspend military aid to Nepal, all…
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. with his lovely American born wife, Kateryna. Kateryna (aka Katherine) Chumachenko was born of Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago, IL in 1961. Kateryna Yushchenko has been called Ukraine’s bridge to the West. Growing up she had to blend two worlds and cultures: American education and friends,…