Blogging the democratic revolution
Miguel Octavio has some utterly repulsive photos of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe in the throes of love. Look at those two embrace! What’s hard to believe is that Mugabe, one of the world’s foremost creators of famine and hunger today, was so much as allowed in at this United Nations conference in…
It seems that some other countries are worried about American imperialist hegemony with regards to the internet. So, morally speaking, other countries should be able to have joint control over it to make sure that nothing bad happens. It sounds all so wonderful. Well, until you look at who wants it, and when you realize…
UPDATED: While President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia was ringing the opening bell of the New York stock exchange today, his ministers back home were announcing that interest rates would be slashed 50 basis points and nearly a billion more dollars in debt was being repaid. Meanwhile, Colombia’s trade surplus was expanding, tourism was up 19.5%,…
The delegation of the United States, along with those of many other countries, were not present as Iran’s terrorist president was delivering a speech at the United Nations summit. Meanwhile, over 2000 people outside protested his visit to America. Ouch. In other mainstream news, Iranian president blasts US in first United Nations speech.
Kofi Annan is mad. That’s right, Robert Mugabe is still plundering the entire country of Zimbabwe, and Kofi has to take time away from shredding Oil-for-Food documents to read a 100 page report about it. Hey, if I were the head of an ineffective international institution and I had to read about something I couldn’t…
Chris Borgen over at Opinio Juris has a couple of engaging posts on international institutions and the building of a global liberal order. He argues that Clinton was more successful at promoting a desirable world order because of his support for international institutions, and his greater preference than the White House’s current occupant for treaty-making….
Music to my ears. When Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon back in April, it was pretty obvious to the world that it left behind a thick residue of intelligence agents. The several bombs that have gone off, and the targetted assassination of an anti-Syria journalist, are part of a general pattern of political intimidation….
Looks like ol’ Shirin’s figured out how the world works much better than the rest of us. American Revolution? Orange Revolution? Tulip Revolution? That’s just wrong! The best means to help create democracies in societies ruled by tyrannies is through negotiations, and if that fails, by resorting to the United Nations,” she pontificated. “This is…
Who will lead the Organization of American States? A Chilean democratic socialist so determined he is known as ‘El Panzer’ in his native country. Oppenheimer interviews him for the first time and notices that he seems to be proactive. He counters a Venezuelan party hack’s declaration that the Chilean will honor ‘commitments’ to dictator Hugo…
UN diplomats, on a fun-packed junket to Haiti, say that the Caribbean nation is not getting the job done: April 20 (Bloomberg) — Haiti’s political leaders aren’t taking steps toward reconciliation needed for successful elections this year and the interim government hasn’t begun reconstruction projects to stabilize the Caribbean nation, U.S. and Brazilian diplomats said….
More than usual, anyway. The UN Commission on Human Rights just passed a resolution condemning Belarus for abuses. Following the adoption on 14 April of a resolution by the UN Human Rights Commission alleging human rights abuses by Belarusian officials, Syarhey Aleynik, Belarus’s permanent representative to the UN, criticized the document as “another attempt to…
Freedom House does an annual list of the world’s most oppressive regimes. To some of us, it doesn’t come as a surprise that six of the 18 nations on the list are members of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Significantly, six of the eighteen most repressive governments–those of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,…
Having been so involved with the events in Lebanon, I was hoping to do my own analysis of the UN findings on the Hariri assassination. But due to real life work and school starting back up next week (not to mention I’m preparing to cover the big protests in Taiwan all night…) it’s going to…
Continuing protests in southern Kyrgyzstan are giving rise to speculation that Russia might intervene militarily. Democracy Guy and Registan.net both correctly say, however, that the Russian military isn’t capable of an unwanted intervention (read: invasion), and the geo-political ramifications would be immense – certainly far more than the Kremlin wants to deal with right now….
Via John Hawkins, I come across a list of proposed slogans for the United Nations. Here are my favorites: – Ignoring the irony of cronies of pissant dictatorships voting in a democratic fashion for 60 years. – Genocidal dictators, beware our harshly worded letters. – Having discussed at length almost every major crisis in the…
I have been going around all the Iraq blogs and big bloggers and I’ve noticed something… the United Nations Foundation has bought a lot of ads promoting itself in Iraq. Check out, for instance, Tim Blair or Instapundit and they have these UN ads that say “Ensuring Credible and Fair Elections,” followed by a graphic,…