Blogging the democratic revolution
Hi friends, as many of you maybe know, Italy will be holding national election on Sunday, April 9. These are very important elections, given that from it will depend the future of the Coalition of the Willing in the war on terror. If Berlusconi is re-elected, Italy will continue to be a strong U.S. ally. On the other hand, if former chief of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi wins, Italy will join the Spain-France-Germany axis. So far, all we know is that the outcome risks to be too close to call and there might be a run-off. It’s quite hard…
Alvicho at Off Topic has some interesting thoughts about the symbiotic relationship between resource-hungry China and resource-rich Latin America, a topic that too frequently gets drowned in the paranoia of anti-Chinese sentiment. The relationship doesn’t bother me, as a matter of fact, I think Latin American states, especially those run by demogogues and populists, could learn the facts of life about how the world works, from places like China if they can’t bring themselves to pay attention to sensible, successful places in their own neighborhood like Chile. Alvicho’s thoughts are here.
The U.S. trade embargo against communist Cuba is frequently criticized, and with some good arguments, as an ineffective instrument against the Cuban dictator. But there’s more than one reason for this embargo, and Castro’s attitude toward paying his bills has a lot to do with why it’s in place too. Naturally, you ask yourself, why should anyone care whether Castro pays his bills? After all, if someone is going to be dumb enough to extend him credit and he doesn’t pay, why should it concern the rest of us? The reason is this: international trade is almost all insured by…
Warm weather has finally come to Ulaanbaatar, but the spring dust storms are just beginning. First I must say that the eleven staff and instructors at SIT-Mongolia and the fourteen other students I’m studying with are all amazing. Such different people but we all get along and everyone has a new perspective to offer on all the things we’re doing and seeing. My two weeks living with a nomadic Kazakh family in the Altai Mountains of Western Mongolia were phenomenal. Apart from being sick for a day, I was elated to be breathing in the most wonderfully clean air and…
On Thursday Nepal will succumb to a four-day nationwide strike in protest of the King’s seizure of the government over a year ago. He has arrested thousands of people and hundreds of journalists for protesting and writing about the theft of civil liberties in the name of crushing the Maoist rebellion. But the King has made no progress against the Maoists, and his disbanding of the legitimately elected parliament has decreased his legitimacy with the population. So much so that the situation has deteriorated to the point where civil society has taken side with the Maoists in order to force…
Breaking news… Source: ETNA The Thai prime minister announced he would quit after the messages from the streets and apparently because the King told him to. A shame, because just 14 months ago, he was very popular and I liked him in some ways. But amid public perceptions of shamelessness and corruption after a $2 billion profit-taking deal in Singapore, he dropped himself into this. The Thai people have gotten their message out loud and clear that a leader must be not just clean but above the very appearance of corruption. Leaders cannot hide behind legal technicalities as a basis…
Polls can be unreliable but this news is truly radical: Goldman Sachs, in its daily emerging market report, says: Grupo GEA Reports Calder????n Ahead of AMLO in the polls According to GEA (a consulting firm), in a poll conducted between March 18 and 21, Felipe Calder????n (PAN) overtook AMLO in the opinion polls. According to GEA, Calderon rose to first with 36% from 32% (in February); while AMLO fell to second to 34% from 41% in February. Madrazo remained in third with 28% (up 1%). According to El Universal, AMLO said that these polls showing him down reflect the desperation…
The Egyptian immam Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi made an appearence in Tizi-Ouzou, Kabylia (in the Tizi-Ouzou wilaya) today. Qaradawi, who has a television show on Al-Jazeera (esh-Sharieh wal-Hayat) and founded IslamOnline, recently debated Amr Khaled on the Dansih cartoon controversy (he took the “let us show rage” side of the debate), and openly supports suicide bombings, and jihad against Israelis. He believes strongly that “Everything will be on our side and against Jews on ÄJudgment DayÅ, at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: ‘Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there’s a…
Fill up your tank now, because oil prices are about to go higher. Three more international oil companies are out of the game in Venezuela, an unprecedented exit from an energy-hungry industry. They just can’t do business with a thug. Venezuelan dictator has sent his agents to seize control of the assets of two major companies, Total of France and ENI of Italy, in a confiscation move directed at their resistence to being forced in joint ventures that are nothing more than communist workers collectives run by Chavista political hacks. ENI calls it a direct violation of its existing contractual…
You might not have guessed this right off, but Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has been watching Ukraine’s Orange Revolution intently. This Sunday, for the first time, he made a statement about his fear and loathing of it. On his weekly Sunday television variety show, ‘Alo President’ he made this following remark, addressed to his opposition. El Universal reports: Ch????vez wondered where his rivals for next December 3rd presidential election are. He reiterated that his opponents are determined to denounce electoral fraud. He said the dissent, with US support, would establish a “pink revolution,” just like the “gringos” did in Ukraine.…
Not that they already weren’t, as Dawa party candidate and current Prime Minister Ibraham al-Jaafari only won by a single vote within the UIA due to backing by the Sadrists, but the barrier for removing him has been broken as several independent politicians have broken with the alliance and said that someone else should be chosen for the position. That’s the big news over the weekend. BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 ???????? A senior member of the dominant Shiite bloc called on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Saturday to drop his campaign to keep his post, becoming the first Shiite political…
One hundred thousand people gathered in Rome to remember the first anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Polish pope who helped liberate Eastern Europe from communism. Thousands of others gathered in Krakow and around Poland. John Paul was a democratic revolutionary in the purest sense of the idea. Many of us know about how he undermined the communist regimes of Poland and elsewhere by working with the Israelis to provide intelligence and material aid to the Solidarity leaders imprisoned inside the communist regime. You can read about it in Peter Schweitzer’s splendid book, Victory, about what Reagan,…
Thailand’s got snap elections today for prime minister, a manuever by the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, to take advantage of a disorganized opposition that wants him out but doesn’t have much of an alternative to present. Vast protests have been taking place in Bangkok over the past six weeks. Prominent leaders of the 1992 democracy-now revolts have been seen at them, and the King has voiced a veiled displeasure with both sides in this. Today’s the snap poll, which amounts to a referendum on Thaksin. Most of the opposition saw through the maneuver and word now is that they aren’t…
I found a must-see video-documentary about the Cuban Ladies in White, plus a short interview with my friend Claudia Marquez, former political prisoner now exiled in the United States and currently living in Puerto Rico. Watch the video here
Writing a sophisticated analysis on Babalu blog, Robert M explains a new movie from Cuba about dumpster divers in Havana. Like any such movie under the control of the Cuban censor, it doesn’t directly criticize the 46-year communist regime, but the point is clear enough: Cuba under supposedly egalitarianism is now producing dumpster divers. My own comment to that is this: As dumpster divers clearly can make more money digging through Western tourists’ trash than they can by working for the monopolistic state, there’s something wrong with the system that undervalues their wages that badly and makes dumpster diving more…
Rich Karlgaard makes an original and forceful argument in favor of global free trade by insisting it promotes human creativity and development. He cites the marvel of human achievement in different areas and the great human good of developing one’s talents fully, something that doesn’t always happen because it’s a huge threat to oppressors. In this regard, free trade is always supremely revolutionary and subversive to tyrants. When I spent time in martial law Poland under its communist oppressors in 1982, I was a teenager, and the one thing that struck me, a college student on the edge of starting…
If you ever needed more proof that Russian state-controlled natural gas monopoly is a political weapon of Putin, look no further. I will explain why in a second. For now, read the following article March 30, 2006 — Russia’s Gazprom said today it would raise natural gas prices for Belarus to European levels by 2007. Gazprom head Aleksei Miller told Belarusian Energy Minister Alyaksandr Ageyev about the planned change at a meeting in Moscow today. Gazprom said Minsk would respond by the end of April. Belarus, a close Russian ally, currently receives gas at a subsidized price of $47 per…
Here’s a news item that I found particularly interesting. The first women ever to be accepted into training for front-line combat positions have just graduated from their training and become full-fledged pilots in the Pakistan Air Force. PAKISTAN welcomed its first female pilots into the country’s air force yesterday, breaking into the all-male front-line bastion of its armed forces. Saba Khan, Nadia Gul, Mariam Khalil and Saira Batool were among 36 cadets who received their wings after three and a half years of intensive training. “I want to fly fighter jets and prove that girls can equally serve our country…
The Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) , which most of you probably know by reading its reports I use to post both here and on my blog, is desperately looking for help in order to survive and keep on fighting for a just cause : total regime change in Iran and the establishment of a true secular democracy. Please, read SMCCDI’s Urgent Action, and spread the word as much as you can!
The Wall Street Journal has a must-read op/ed about Darsi Ferrer, the Cuban independent doctor and prominent dissident in Havana and a very good friend of mine. I told him about this article, given that he hadn’t yet seen it. He’s very very happy and thanks the WSJ for mentioning his story.
The Maldives — tourist paradise on the shores and repressive regime on the inside. Last August thousands of people protested against the criminal nature of President Gayoom’s government. It’s schooled in the way of the Egyptians, putting down basic human liberties and those of women most of all. No democratic opposition is allowed to exist. It is a quagmire of mob-like financial schemes and regional powers like India that don’t care to see change come to the country. When those people went out to protest initially, they went out even harder after opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed was taped being arrested…
Liberian ex-dictator and accused mass murderer Charles G. Taylor Source: AFP, via Yahoo! One of the continent’s grisliest mass murderers, Liberia’s ex-dictator Charles G. Taylor, was apprehended in northeastern Nigeria yesterday and shipped back to face justice in a Sierra Leone court run by United Nations prosecutors. He’s charged with 17 counts of crimes against humanity. The UN had made a resolution that Liberia put the thug on trial a couple years ago, and President Bush, meeting with his Nigerian counterpart this week, put a lot of diplomatic muscle into making sure that happened. That’s to his credit because this…
Thousands of Mexican campesinos in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas have taken to the streets to protest the government’s neglect of their poor state. This isn’t the Subcommandante Marcos blond-haired, blue-eyed internal Sandalista crowd at work, but a spontaneous protest by the poor to seek concrete action from the government to improve their lives. The protestors don’t seem to want a new socialist collective, they just want the darn bridge, devastated after Hurricane Stan, fixed. The other reason for the protest is land. The Chiapas protestors are saying they’ve lost land due to the diversion of a river, making…
I just came through reports, in Spanish, about the likely death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The news, strangely, has been given by several news sites, among which the far-leftist Indymedia in Argentina, which quoted some Latin American media as having reported the news. The Cuban regime has immediately dismissed the claims. I assume that the regime won’t let know about the dictator’s death as soon as he dies. While we shouldn’t yet celebrate, let me say that I prepared a bottle of champaigne, as Castro’s days of life are very, very numbered. UPDATE: Given that this report is now…
Daniel Duquenal is a French Venezuelan with strong ties — and insights — to both countries. He is also a fervent believer in democracy as a man of the left. Daniel has written a spectacular essay describing the similarities between France’s angry antirevolution and Venezuela’s under the emerging Hugo Chavez dictatorship. Daniel sees similarities between the French thugs intent on burning Paris down in a bid to preserve their privileges, and the money grabbing and privilege-preserving maneuvers of Hugo Chavez’s vanguard party elite, who also are intent on forcing an unsustainable economic system on Venezuela, explicitly to impoverish it –…