 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
[Armenian] Prime Minister Andranik Markarian said on 28 March 2005 Monday that his government is striving to keep Armenia unaffected by the wave of successful anti-government uprisings across the former Soviet and is confident that it can weather the storm. “We are trying to make sure that the revolutionary wave doesn’t reach us,” Markarian told […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Southern Kyrgyzstan - mired in traditional clan politics, steeped in a near-secular brand of Islam and heavily influenced by its Uzbek minority - is the cradle of this so-called revolution, and it has long chafed at the domination of the more Russified, industrialized north. Southerners streamed into Bishkek by the hundreds last week, laying claim […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
A few weeks ago The Economist’s cover blared out: “Democracy stirs in the Middle East.” Now it seems that the “stirring” of democracy has been something of a mirage, and the desperate democratists, looking for vindication somewhere, anywhere, rushed towards that mirage and began mocking and belittling their critics for having ever doubted that […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Kyrgyzstan’s new rulers yesterday sought to avert a split in their ranks after their lightning coup, but tension remained high with fresh warnings of possible civil war.
Thursday’s revolt left the ex-Soviet republic with two rival parliaments and clear strains among opposition leaders, united only by the desire to get rid of veteran President Askar Akayev.
Felix […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
The mood on Kyrgyzstan’s streets has swung from jubilation at the ousting of President Askar Akayev to apprehension and anger.
The central Asian country followed fellow ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia in ridding itself this week of an unwanted leader by mass, opposition-led protests.
But euphoria has given way to anxiety after lawlessness and looting in the capital, […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Kyrgyzstan’s deposed president Askar Akayev has slammed the ouster of his regime as an “unconstitutional coup d’etat”, Kyrgyz and Russian media reported.
“An unconstitutional coup d’etat has occurred in the republic,” Mr Akayev said in a message to a Kyrgyz news agency in his first comments on Thursday’s chaotic opposition protests that sent him fleeing from […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Tensions continue after a night of unrest in Bishkek, the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. A lot of comparisons have been made between the uprising over the alleged electoral fraud in Kyrgyzstan and the earlier revolutions sparked by disputed elections in Ukraine and Georgia. But during 24 hours, VOA Moscow bureau chief […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
In the view of the pit-election situation and effort to provide fair and democratic elections in the KR and retain our positions in mass media and contacts with the opposition leaders, I advise focusing on discrediting the present political regime, thus making Akaev and his followers responsible for the economic crisis. We should also take […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
The idea that the people of Kyrgyzstan have risen up, all on their own, to establish “democracy” and the “rule of law” in a land that has never known either, is the sort of fairy tale that even the most naïve will probably greet with a considerable degree of skepticism. This is especially true if […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
But supposing we still believe, despite the strong weight of evidence, that Mrs. Schiavo remains conscious at some level and might someday lead a normal life. The question then becomes not “What is the right thing to do,” but “Who is to decide?” As in so many human affairs, it is easier to have moral […]
6 Comments »
Filed under: philosophy
Boot then writes that I am “particularly upset about the 14th Amendment (he claims it was never lawfully ratified) because it barred former Confederates from holding political office.” Read my Reconstruction chapter for yourself and consider the effort it must have taken Boot to misrepresent it this extent. My concern about the Fourteenth Amendment has […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
As further proof they point to January’s elections in Iraq. This was a vote that the Americans wanted to postpone, in which many people could not participate, that produced a victory for Islamists with close ties to Iran who want the US troops out as soon as possible. If all of this amounts to victory, […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Recent public opinion on Iraq suggests two basic findings: Most people are generally unhappy with President Bush’s handling of Iraq and they are resigned to the importance of seeing the commitment through.
Some other results from recent polls on Iraq:
Six in 10 think the president does not have a clear plan for bringing the Iraq situation […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Some anti-Syrian commentators say that the demonstrators were acting in conscious imitation of those who prosecuted the “orange revolution” in Ukraine.[1] The similarities are certainly legion, especially the lovely idea that “the people” would come out onto the streets in support of a billionaire, as they supposedly did when they held aloft pictures of Rafik […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
India on Wednesday expressed concern over sales of arms to Pakistan by the United States and said it could impact the ongoing peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.
“India’s strong concern regarding repercussions of arms sales to Pakistan by the United States — including on the ongoing India-Pakistan dialogue — has been conveyed at high levels […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Of the scores of good books published in the last year about American foreign policy, the young British scholar Anatol Lieven’s America Right or Wrong stands ahead and apart. An erudite analysis of the historical and cultural strands that have forged contemporary American nationalism, it is the antidote to a view now popular among Bush […]
9 Comments »
Filed under: politics
In fact, the links between Syria and Hezbollah are mostly a marriage of convenience, and Syria has restricted the number of seats — now at nine — that Hezbollah holds in Lebanon’s parliament, said Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
It also is wrong to say […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Lebanese legislators ignored the popular anti-government protests and decided to re-install the pro-Syrian premier who was forced to step down last week, a move ensuring Damascus’ continued dominance but raising opposition denunciation.
Meanwhile, Syria’s soldiers evacuated Lebanese positions in the north and central mountains and in some cases, Lebanon’s army moved in to occupy the bases.
Outgoing […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
TONY JONES: Well, joining me now is Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the Independent newspaper. For more than 25 years, Robert Fisk has lived in Lebanon, writing on war and politics across the region. And he was one of only a small group of Western journalists to remain in Lebanon throughout the civil war, […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Lebanon’s president, buoyed by a mass rally in support of his Syrian backers, holds talks with parliamentary deputies on Wednesday after which he is expected to name a pro-Syrian prime minister. ~Yahoo News
So the upshot of the ‘historic’ protests in Beirut in recent weeks is that…Lebanon will be governed by a pro-Syrian government again. […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
But criticism of the marriage between conservatism and populism comes not only from the left. In his bracing new book, “Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred” (Yale), the traditionalist historian John Lukacs-well-known for his elegant histories of the great men and great events of World War II-offers a dark vision of modern democracy being destroyed […]
3 Comments »
Filed under: politics
So what did all this prove? That there was another voice in Lebanon. That if the Lebanese “opposition” - pro-Hariri and increasingly Christian - claim to speak for Lebanon and enjoy the support of President Bush, there is a pro-Syrian, nationalist voice which does not go along with their anti-Syrian demands but which has identified […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
In a startling display of political strength, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese followers of the Syrian-backed group Hezbollah converged on Beirut on Tuesday to express their gratitude to Syria and angrily denounce the U.S. and Israel.
The demonstration dwarfed a series of anti-Syria rallies it was designed to counter and provided a sobering illustration of Lebanon’s […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
Morocco has been liberalizing for some years, and held fairly aboveboard parliamentary elections in 2002. Yet liberalizing Morocco produced the al-Salafiyyah al-Jihadiyyah group in Tangiers that committed the 2003 Casablanca bombings and the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Moreover, if democracy means majority rule and the expression of the general will, then it won’t always work to […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics
How much longer can American prestige survive the embarrassments inflicted by President Bush?
Bush’s demand that Syria immediately withdraw its troops from Lebanon is a ricochet demand. If Lebanon cannot have free elections while under foreign military occupation, how, asks the rest of the world, does Iraq have free elections when it is under U.S. […]
No Comments »
Filed under: politics