The Primero Justice party has pulled out of the coming Venezuelan election Sunday, leaving just Hugo Chavez’s MVR party all by its lonesome to run for Congress. This news comes from Marta Colomina, a well-known journalist in Venezuela. This pullout represents the full unification of the Venezuelan opposition, something never seen in Venezuelan history. They have all decided together to refuse to acquiesce to electoral fraud through a rigged election. All of the parties who can make a statement by pulling out have done so now. They are demanding free and fair elections or they won’t participate at all.

This is a disaster for Hugo Chavez, who continuously insists that the world pay him tribute as ‘the ‘democratically elected’ leader of Venezuela.’ He was going to win anyway, but now the opposition is denying him that legitimacy. They are sending a message to the world that they have no faith in Venezuela’s electoral system, something pretty much everyone in Venezuela feels the same way about. In a fierce blow for the people, these opposition parties are representing what the people - who were expected to abstain to send just this message - really think and feel.

When Venezuela gets a truly free and fair election that they have confidence in, then we will see electoral turnout. Until that day comes, both the opposition parties and the people they represent will stay out and send a message.

Miguel has the first confirmed news account here.

Daniel has an additional longer analysis with a lot of links here.

Aleksander Boyd has a superb essay about what’s at stake and Daniel has a fantastic analysis too. Click here and just keep scrolling.

This past Sunday, Egypt completed the run-off to the second of three rounds of parliamentary elections. The system is set up such that roughly a third of the 444 seats are up for contest in each round. Because the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is legally banned, they run candidates as independents and so ascertaining their strength, as well as that of President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), lies partially in how many independents end up aligning with them. The results now available are that the NDP won 75 seats bringing its total to 195, while the MB won 29 more seats, giving them 76 claimed seats. The democratic opposition parties won eight seats in the first round, divided between six different parties, but this time they were routed even more completely; the liberal Wafd Party got two seats, and that is it. Bear in mind that the MB is contesting only about a third of the seats, so if their claims are verified, they are winning about 75% of the time.

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It is now clear, if it was not before, that there are two political forces in Egypt of consequence - a corrupt, authoritarian ruling party, and its Islamist opponents. Initial reports of violence and other dirty tricks against the MB by the government led me to expect that they would not fare well this time, and they did receive fewer seats, but still did well. And in regard to the democratic opposition, I originally noted that they were “all but out” - now they really are. Given the rule that in order to run for president a candidate must be endorsed by 65 members of the parliament, this means that next election there will be no democratic alternative to Mubarak.

I conclude by advocating, as I have done before, that the United States bring to an end its $2 billion a year subsidy of this corrupt and repressive government. For more details regarding the first round of elections, see my Nov. 20 post, Egypt: The Brotherhood Up, the Ruling Party Weakened, and the Democratic Opposition All But Out.

By the Edge of the Sword & the Coin of the Realm
Surprised by the success of the Muslim Brotherhood the first time around, this time the regime was taking no chances. According to Reuters, Islamists build Egyptian parliamentary bloc:

…The authorities have curbed leeway given to the Islamists in the early stages of voting. Police restricted voting and detained 860 of the Brotherhood’s activists on Saturday — the fourth of six days of legislative elections. Riot police cordoned off polling stations in Brotherhood strongholds, either preventing anybody from voting or allowing only a trickle of people to cast ballots.

“The aim was to prevent voters from reaching the ballot boxes and to affect the result,” Brotherhood deputy leader Mohamed Habib told Reuters. “But with perseverance the people and the Brotherhood were able to overcome the barriers.”

…Monitors said NDP supporters and the Brotherhood had brawled in places. Armed thugs attacked Brotherhood supporters with machetes in at least one town, witnesses and the victims said. Police also tried to stop journalists reporting freely. Reporters working for the French agency AFP, Reuters, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the U.S.-based Associated Press all said they had been harassed or had equipment or papers seized…

Reuters also reported on vote-buying:

…Brotherhood campaign worker Mahmoud Mohamed, one of several injured people taken to hospital in Hayatim, said he was standing outside a voting station when three men attacked him. “I raised a chair to defend myself but I was hit on the head and shoulder,” he told Reuters. His head was bandaged. Another Brotherhood activist, Hani Mansour, was lying next to him in hospital with eight stitches in his head.

Witnesses said about 20 men armed with guns, swords and knives came to Hayatim early in the day, fired into the air and attacked local people. Mohamed Abdul Hamid, a monitor from the independent Sawasya group, said he witnessed the attack.

In Alexandria, Mahrous Tantawi, an unemployed man, said the NDP paid him 20 Egyptian pounds to vote for its candidate, Abdel Fattah Marzouk. “I got the money last night and now I’m here so they can take me to the polling station to vote,” he told Reuters in one of Marzouk’s offices. “This is a poor area. There is not much people here would not do for 20 pounds,” added Tantawi, 23….

The same article notes that many judges questioned the results, alleging that vote counts were distorted and that voters were intimidated in areas where the MB was known to be strong. Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on the same issue, reporting Monday that the police - not just regime thugs, but police - prevented voters from voting in ten voting offices. The same article reports that an official in the judges’ guild said that there would be more supervision in the third round to prevent this from happening again. Then on Tuesday Al-Quds reported that Mahmud Khadiri, president of the judges’ guild in Alexandria, has said that the judges are now planning to resort to demonstrations against the government, has they had before. The article also noted that the Kefaya Party, an energetic liberal opposition party which has done quite badly in the elections, is planning joint demonstrations.

Perhaps feeling that the Iron Hand was working, according to Al-Quds the government arrested another 190-200 MB activists on Monday. The same report quotes the deputy head of the MB as saying that he expected the arrests to continue for a couple more days.

Morale of the Story: How Not to Fight Radical Islam
So now, what to make of this? According to the Egyptian government’s official newspaper, Al-Ahram, the results confirmed the fairness and transparency of Egyptian democracy! No kidding - several prominent members of parliament, including the ruling party, were defeated, and the article lists them by name - Yussef Wali, the deputy president of the NDP, Khalid Mahi al-Din, head of the opposition party al-Tajammua, Muhammad Abdullah, president of the University of Alexandria, Sayyid Rashid, president of the Workers’ Union, Abu al-Iz al-Hariri, Badri Farghali, and others. So that shows how fair the process was. The article also mentions prominent members of the ruling party who won. But then that’s it. No mention of the Muslim Brotherhood at all. Of course not; they don’t exist.

Muntasir al-Ziyat, an Egyptian Islamist writing in Al-Hayat (On the Egyptian Elections: The Flood of Change), had a different perspective, of course. He argued that any fair electoral system would bring the Muslim Brotherhood into power, a defensible point, since, as noted above, the MB was only contesting about a third of the seats anyway, meaning that it appears to have won at least 75% of the seats it has contested. He also suggested that the government actually wanted the MB to do reasonably well so as to scare Western nations into the recognition that the only alternative to them was the Islamists.

I would say that Egypt is an object lesson on how not to fight radical Islam:

(1) Suppress all open dissent, both liberal and Islamist. This will ensure that the Islamists are the only real opposition, since the religious networks can’t be crushed, but links to human rights groups can be, and the government has prosecuted opposition activists who have worked with Western human rights and civil society groups.
(2) Instead of combating Islamist ideas, co-opt them, let them take over the school system, support Palestinian terrorists to show your commitment to the cause, and then when the Islamists get out of hand, bring out the machetes and the clubs.

This is not a caricature; this really is, I think, a good description of how the government has dealt with radical Islam. During the 1990s the Egyptian government fought and won a bloody war against Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which sought to overthrow the government by force of arms. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood disclaimed the use of arms to take power in Egypt and took over the institutions of society. Thus became the Islamists are the only alternative to Mubarak.

The Final Analysis
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: now is time for the United States to cut off the $2 billion subsidy it gives to Hosni Mubarak’s violent and corrupt thugocracy. It is long past time. Mubarak will argue that he is the only alternative to the Islamists, and he is right for now, and it is because of his policies that this is the case. American policymakers must come to understand that our attachment to the Egyptian government is driving anti-Americanism in Egypt; the people see America is close to this monstrosity. The legal ban on the MB needs to remain, but the myriad of restrictions placed on pro-democracy activists needs to be lifted so that they can develop themselves. U.S. aid to Egypt was originally intended to stabilize the regime in the wake of the peace agreement with Israel and the assassination of Anwar Sadat. It is now clearly in the Egyptian government’s interest to maintain peace with Israel, and in any case Egypt has been harboring members of the terrorist group Hamas, which just happens to be the Palestinian variety of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other means can be used to dissuade Egypt from hostile action toward Israel. Mubarak’s regime is falling; his credibility is gone, and the “reform” element within the ruling party is little more than a shade of the regime. It must change or die. America’s fortunes should be tied to this government no longer.

Kirk H. Sowell, Arab World Analysis.com

Alvaro Vargas Llosa has a brilliant - and I mean a most brilliant - essay, both in original thought and in exquisite writing - on Bolivia and the dangerous role of Evo Morales. He points out that Morales’ problem is not globalization, as Morales so drearily claims, but something most people don’t realize: U.S. subsidies and dictator-coddling, something that propped up Bolivian tinpots for years and encouraged them to nationalize their countries instead of listen to reason, pay their way, and engage markets. These sad layers of U.S. policy have ended all possibility of economic growth.

He’s right.

It beautifully complements the original and eloquent thinking of Carlo Alberto Montaner, in his essay on Bolivia below. It makes you wonder if the two essays arose out of a conversation between them, given that they are co-authors of an important book now out in paperback on Latin America.

Vargas Llosa’s essay on Tech Central Station is an absolute must-read here.

UPDATE: Alvicho has a thoughtful analysis of the two pieces here.

Agencia EFE has the first reports on a clash over bus fares.

Alek Boyd has more preliminary reports of riots in three cities over the stacked, rigged, fraudulent election here.

GATEWAYPUNDIT has a major roundup, with photos of the week’s multiple events here.

UPDATE: Miguel has riot photos here.

UPDATE: Scott has a terrific roundup of choice quotes here.

Speaking from Mexico, Mario Vargas Llosa really gave it to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. The short news account is here.

It follows recent condemnations of the Venezuelan dictator by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, here.

…except Hugo Chavez’s MVR party, exiting because the electoral setup is utterly tainted. It lacks transparency, it lacks secrecy and it lacks integrity. By doing this, the opposition is saying: No more participating in fraud. It’s amazing that whole political machines can operate in unity like this. It is the first time I’ve ever seen the Venezuelan political opposition ever agree on anything. Now they have, and now they finally have power.

The move comes five days before the scheduled Dec. 4 election day for congressional seats.

The only remaining opposition party now is called Nuevo Tiempo, and it’s running only in the rebel state of Zulia where all the angry oil workers live - they were going to win anyway. UPDATE: Another opposition party, known as Primero Justicia, is said to be meeting about this matter but all but has signed on the dotted line about withdrawal. Miguel will have the first update on that.

Hugo Chavez has succeeded in trashing democracy, and finally all the opposition parties recognize it. See the ‘fiasco’ post below for more details on the extent of the shipwreck.

What if they gave an election and nobody came?

Happening right now in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Stay tuned for more.

UPDATE: Miguel has the first report here.

UPDATE: Academic Elephant has a very elegant roundup covering all the bases here. Don’t miss his kicker at the end on Jimmy Carter, it’s a blast!

UPDATE: CNN has a news account here.

A Saudi national studying at Arizona State University, a party school by all counts and from my own recollection, thinks that the school should sanction the possibility of expelling students for wearing any clothing with the ASU logo when posing for dirty, dirty magazines. The ASU Web Devil reports!

If one student leader has his way, ASU students will no longer be able to grace the covers of Playboy and other sexually explicit magazines without consequences.

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU’s reputation.

“I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines,” he said. “I don’t want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be.”

Under the proposed rule, students who posed would be punished by the rules set forth in the student code of conduct.

According to the code, any student who is found to violate the rules is subject to expulsion, suspension, probation, warning or payment of restitution.

The harshest punishment would be expulsion or suspension from ASU, but Alamoodi doubts it would come to that.

“Hopefully, coming close to Äexpulsion or suspensionÅ would be enough of a deterrent for males or females to engage in this,” he said.

During a campus town hall meeting Nov. 17, President Michael Crow said he did not think there was much the University could do about students posing in Playboy.

“Such matters are private,” he said. “It’s not part of the University student code of conduct. If they’re over 18, they can do what they want.”

Alamoodi said he was not surprised by Crow’s response, but was still planning to pursue the issue.

“Like any other academic, he is strongly committed to the freedom of speech,” Alamoodi said. “It’s part of my efforts to convince the administration and the students of the benefits we can get out of Äthe ruleÅ.”

One might naturally think that I’m outraged about this because of the implications for civil liberties, but I think Alamoodi is right. In fact, I would go as far as completely agreeing with everything he says. These girls definitely shouldn’t be putting the school in such a compromising position by flashing the ASU logo in dirty magazines. They shouldn’t be wearing clothes at all! Why flash a logo when you can just, well, flash?

Alamoodi, you are a genius, and I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before. I know some people might misinterpret you and think that you’re trying to import sharia, but that’s just silly. I think we should take it a step further. Let’s go ahead and start exporting your idea to Saudi Arabia. You wouldn’t believe how many searches we get on Google for “sexy Saudi” (Publius is number one for that!), but I’m afraid that most people come up empty handed.

There needs to be more sexy Saudi women coming out of the hijab and going onto the Playboy pages. Only then will hundreds of internet readers be satisfied and our civil liberties secure!

Again, Alamoodi, you are a genius. Now tell me, which of these girls would you rather see do porn?

Lebanese freedom chicks:

Hizb’allah ninja fighter woman:

Vote for your favorite, in the comments!

Carlos Alberto Montaner always gets it right, but he’s done it this week with special brilliance. He warns that Bolivia is on a suicide path with the likely election of Evo Morales, but also notes that the failure of the current ruling class over so many decades is to blame, something I believe too. It’s certainly how Hugo Chavez got a foothold.

He is hearing the same things I am hearing: that Bolivia will become a drug haven under Morales, that Brazil will be the first victim, that a breakup of the state is likely, and that a war with Chile may happen. He writes:

The consequences of this election, if Morales wins, will rattle all of South America.

He’s right. And it might happen, given the continuous failure of the ruling classes to do anything to alleviate it all.

Read the whole thing here.

On Dec. 4, Venezuela will hold Congressional elections. They are expected to be the final nail in the coffin of the Venezuelan opposition as dictator Hugo Chavez consolidates power and installs a Marxist regime.

There are pretenses of them being legitimate as a vote however and therein lies the farce.

A test of the Smartmatic voting machines and the Cogent Systems fingerprint machines showed that not one ballot had ever been secret when the matter was put before European Union election observers, who indeed were not fooled. That led to a threatened boycott of the election and this morning, the electoral authorities agreed to halt the use of the tainted machinery. The bloggers have been whipping up a storm on the llano over this, so here is a swift roundup of the English-language blogs:

DEVIL’S EXCREMENT’s Miguel has a superb summary and roundup of all the swiftly moving events happening. In the face of all these problems, he makes the final appeal to his fellow Venezuelans: Go out and defend your right to vote by voting. It’s an exquisite piece and recommended reading first thing because it’s so intelligible to beginners.

VENEZUELA NEWS & VIEWS’s Daniel has three superb long pieces explaining out in minute detail the emerging problems with this election. It’s well worth the clicks here, here, and here.

PMBCOMMENTS’s Pedro has a strong, simple cartoon underlining graphically the cause and effect of this rigged electoral system as it stands now. See it here.

CARACAS CHRONICLES’s Francisco has several short essays explaining the matter in language a baby could understand the extent of the cheating and the shamelessness of the authorities. He goes out of his way to show in reasonable terms where the trouble lies. It’s well worth a look here, here, here, and here.

VCRISIS has an important translation of a news account - by a top journalist in Venezuela - showing that 70% of the electoral machines are tainted. It’s a must-read here.

In keeping with Argentina’s dangerous direction leftward, President Nestor Kirchner fired several members of his somewhat moderate cabinet, including his economy minister, Roberto Lavagna, and replaced them with far-left extremists who are deep in the Hugo Chavez camp of Argentine politics. They are also economic morons, set to take power in what is South America’s third-biggest economy, accounting for about two or three percent of the hemisphere’s GDP. Analysts speculate that since Argentina’s October regional elections are over with Kirchner comfortably in the lead, this may be his time to make changes.

I also suspect that President Bush’s refusal to exert influence at the International Monetary Fund, which is sought by Argentina for yet new loans, is behind this too. The IMF despises Argentina and has no intention of giving it any money. With no hopes for new loans, Argentina no longer thinks it needs to be ‘good’ anymore and can therefore go on a leftist populist tantrum that will be sure to set them back for decades.

Argentina’s stock market tumbled 4.5%, in the world’s worst performance of the day, and its currency slid in value to ARS3.02 to the dollar. This is not a sign of confidence.

According to investment bank Barclays Capital:

Besides the removal of Finance Minister Lavagna, President Kirchner made three other strategic changes that underscore a foreign policy that aims at strengthening ties with Venezuela. Specifically, President Kirchner appointed:

1) Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Taina to be the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. Taina was responsible for organizing the Americas Summit in Mar de Plata and he is the son of Jorge Taina Sr., Argentina’s former Ambassador to Cuba;

2) Argentina’s Ambassador to Venezuela Nilda Garre as the new Minister of Defense; and

3) Juan Carlos Nadalich as the Minister of Social Action, who is close to the former Minister of Social Action, Alicia Kirchner - Sister of President Kirchner and now a senator for the Province of Santa Cruz.

With the exception of the departure of Lavagna, the other appointments were the result of vacancies that followed the congressional posts that former ministers won after the sharp success of President Kirchner in the October congressional elections.

What a bunch of charmers! Here is what Goldman Sachs had to say:

President Kirchner decided on Monday to replace Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna and appoint the former head of state-owned Banco de la Naci????n Argentina, Felisa Miceli, as the new Economy Minister. Ms. Miceli is due to take office on Thursday.

In a press conference, outgoing Economy Minister Lavagna said President Kirchner had asked him to resign to inaugurate a “new stage” in the management of the Argentine economy. In his resignation letter, Mr. Lavagna said he was submitting his resignation attentive to the president’s desire to “introduce changes” following the parliamentary elections (held a month ago).

Government sources told the local press that the president’s aim in replacing Mr. Lavagna was to build a “more compact” government team … one fully aligned with the president’s ideas. It was reported that President Kirchner and Economy Minister Lavagna had disagreements lately about the future course of economic policy. The relationship between the two men had reportedly deteriorated over the past few weeks.

We provide a brief overview of the new Economy Minister. The new Economy Minister, Felisa Miceli, has already been part of the government as the head of Argentina’s largest public bank, Banco de la Naci????n Argentina, since 2003. Before that, she was the Ministry of Economy’s representative at the Central Bank (2002), an economic consultant in the 1990s, and a member of the Board of Directors of Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina’s second-largest public bank) in the 1980s. She entered the government in 2002 as a member of Mr. Lavagna’s team and fully endorsed the policies of the outgoing Economy Minister. Since then, she became politically aligned with President Kirchner and reportedly built a good relationship with the president. She maintained a low public profile, focusing on technical rather than political issues. For this reason, she arrives at the Ministry of Economy as a politically unknown figure for most Argentines. In past press interviews, she endorsed a tough stance in negotiations with the IMF, downplaying the potential economic impact of breaking with the Fund. She is seen as a strong advocate of income redistribution policies.

Comment: It is still not clear what the “new stage in the management of the economy” that Mr. Lavagna mentioned will entail, but we view the replacement of Mr. Lavagna for Ms. Miceli as a negative development because we believe it raises the risks that the administration will adopt a more interventionist, heterodox and populist economic policy stance.

With the appointment of Ms. Miceli, it looks like President Kirchner does not want to have any politically autonomous figures in his cabinet (Mr. Lavagna was the only exception up to now). What this means is that the administration’s decision-making would be more centered on the president and his close aides, whom we see as more prone to taking interventionist and populist positions in economic matters than outgoing Minister Lavagna.

Our impression is that a tougher stance is likely to be adopted in negotiations with the Fund, or that there may not be any negotiations at all. In turn, the government’s stance in negotiations with utility companies will likely remain tough and its position of not negotiating with holdout bondholders will likely remain unchanged. As for monetary policy, we believe the weak peso policy will be maintained and that the government will likely resort to controls, taxes and micro regulation to reduce inflation. One big question is what will happen with the fiscal policy stance and the government’s attitude towards growing salary hike demands by labor unions.

If we are right, this would be bad news for the consolidation of Argentina’s economic recovery and asset prices in general. As for the peso-denominated debt in particular, we believe inflation risks will remain high, which means that they will remain as an attractive investment alternative for the time being.

Absolutely atrocious.

The Argentine bloggers share the same opinion as the investment bankers, with a Spanish-language roundup here:

EL OPINADOR COMPULSIVO’s Luis pointedly says ‘I told you so’ and shows that he did forecast this change awhile back on the political logic of it. He says that because Kirchner manages all affairs with his wife for the benefit of his little friends, a cabinet shakeup was inevitable. He has a roundup which I have summarized below, and sinisterly calls it the ‘Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.’

BLOG BIS’s Ruben calls these bozos ‘the team of champions’ and notes that it’s the second time Kirchner has run thorugh one of these so-called teams. The press is focusing on Lavagna’s exit and he thinks that’s overdone (as I do - Lavagna sucked, too, if truth be known). He notes that the old team is headed to the legislature and the new team is headed from the legislature to the executive, showing the unique interchangeability of politicians and the executive branch in Argentina, something he notes with disgust. He says that the worst of the exits was Foreign Minister Bielsa - then notes that with his replacement, he won’t be deprived of good material to kick around. Meanwhile, Pampuro is a dolt and has a long history of involvement with Exocets and the Six-Day War. He notes that Nilde Garre was the Argentine ambassador to Venezuela and was probably in the pay of Chavez, as well as a Chavista by nature - the impact of this will be profound and worrying, he says, as there are a lot of Caracas-Buenos Aires military angles. Then, there is Kirchner’s sister who got an appointment. All and all, it shows that this crummy city machine government is about to take over the great Argentine nation and run it like thier personal fiefdom

SINE METU’s Guillermo notes with disgust that all of a sudden Lavagna is being blamed for all that is bad in the country and Kirchner is saying he stands for all that is good. Meanwhile, there is a lot of trash talk about the exchange rate - something he notes ruefully as lots of change where nothing changes.

ARGEPUNDIT’s Isidro notes that new cabinet appointee Jorge Taiana’s great distinction was to have organized the Summit of the Americas earlier this month, a summit famous for its shop-trashing anti-American thugs. ‘God help us!’ he adds. Meanwhile, he’s also had the ‘honor‘ of running into the Caracas ambassador, Nilde Garre and says she’s a brute.

LA OPOSITORA’s Nadia has a photo of Nilde Garre, the Buenos Aires ambassador in Caracas, and notes the news accounts that say the new cabinet will be loyal to Kirchner. ‘Are you preoccupied with fighting inflation? We don’t need more drama, how about some economic growth!’ she says in boldface. She doesn’t like Taiana, either, and cites the guy’s thuggish youth and past associations. In short, she sums it up as a government of terrorists.

BUENOS AIRES BLOG ’s Mauro has a big tanking stock and currency chart and a discourse on the economic mess this new crew is making.

NUEVA MAYORA’s Rosendo has a long professional-looking analysis of the change, saying that the cabinet change parallels that of Menem getting rid of Cavallo ten years ago, with Cavallo going out denouncing corruption. (There is much more well worth reading but I have gotten tired, so if you can read Spanish, dig in)

UPDATE: Reuters has an excellent roundup of reactions here.

Falsifying elections is a tough job, so you need just the right authoritarian government to do it. Armenia was another country on the list to do so this weekend, with a constitutional referendum that, despite polling places being nearly empty all day, reported a relatively high turnout. But given that the opposition simply boycotted the referendum, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if a “yes” vote actually did occur, from what I can tell, and the specific amendments — like giving more power to the parliament, granted the judiciary more independence, and giving diasporans citizenship — sound like the first step in a long process of democratization that will eventually get out of the government’s control.

The best coverage is going on in the Armenian blogosphere. Blogrel is in the business of all things Armenian, and the referendum is the hot topic right now. Also, New Eurasia’s Armenia blog is chock full of reports, statements, photos, and more. Armenia Liberty has a press roundup of newspapers in the country.

Hey, why is only President Putin and his entourage of ass-kissers dancing? That’s because the first parliamentary elections in Chechnya since 1997 were held on Sunday, in what the dear leaders over in Moscow are hailing as the last legal step toward restoring the region. It’s all a flash-by cinematic sequence for those watching in the West, while on the ground the situation continues to deteriorate with democracy nowhere in sight. Officials are inflating turnout by the double-digits, the winning candidates were all hand-picked by the Kremlin, and it seems like the majority of voters were Russian soldiers. Doesn’t seem like the everyday Chechen will look at this as a real election, huh? Der Spiegel gets it right.

Meanwhile, the Russian public and the world at large continues to be fed government-approved information. Most newspapers, even the respectable ones, aren’t read widely at all. Since the vast majority of Russians get most of their information from the television, and because the Kremlin controls all of the major television networks, it has a monopoly on what people know. So while everyone thinks that things are beginning to go back to normal, the situation actually continues to deteriorate because Chechens themselves don’t have faith in the legitimacy of this new regime.

The consequences of an illegitimate government in Chechnya after so many years of anarchy will only further the region’s disintegration. Rebel attacks are occurring more than ever, criminal gangs are holding people for ransom, and Russian soldiers still kidnap, torture, and kill civilians. Does anyone really believe that the people of Chechnya really voted in favor of the same man who commandeered the destruction of their entire land only half a decade after the fact?

Information is scarce, but there are always a few very good places to look for it. The Checnya-SL list is always full of news, as is the Prague Watchdog and Chechnya Weekly. If you’re looking for a big amount of blogging on the subject, always keep your eyes on A Step At A Time for the latest.

I managed to watch some of Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the trial of Saddam Hussein. While he was in power, it was known that he was a semi-literate thug, albeit an exceptionally cunning one. He was reportedly frustrated by his inability to converse with other members of the Iraqi elite on equal terms because he couldn’t speak grammatically. This was certainly on full display today. It is hard to say how it would have sounded to a native speaker, but I thought that he came across as mentally dishevelled, using lots of non-standard Arabic vocabulary. This would be highly abnormal for an educated Arab in this context.

Al-Jazeera also showed these really pathetic, forelorn-looking shots of Saddam’s co-defendants in the dock. These men of power in the former regime looked like they didn’t know where they were. Al-Jazeera immediately then went to two interviews, one a defense lawyer for Saddam in Baghdad who went on and on about the illegitimacy of the trial of sayyid al-ra’is (Mr. President). They then shifted to an interview with an attorney in Amman, Jordan with something called “Organization for the Defense of Saddam Hussein” or something like that, and he said the same thing. They then showed pictures of crowds in Tikrit carrying Saddam’s picture, and then interviewed a young man there who criticized the trial. They then went to a commercial break, and then came back and interviewed a spokesman for the State Department, speaking in English with a translator, who just went over the standard boilerplate “This is another important step…” So it was basically Saddam the Arab Champion v. America, like in the 1990s, except now Saddam is the underdog. Sort of an Arab nationalist equivalent to Rocky V.

I couldn’t handle any more so I switched to Sawt Lubnan (The Voice of Lebanon) to listen to their daily broadcast (they have a 25-30 min. recording each day). It was refreshing; one of the briefs included a Lebanese activist railing against Syria’s stooges in the country, including President Emil Lahoud, who she called on to admit his “culpability” in the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

As an aside, the State Dept. spokesman speaking in English, Adam Early, is someone who I have heard speak Arabic before and he sounded okay, but I guess that he felt he couldn’t express himself fully and so used a translater (or was instructed to do so by his boss). I have to say that it is pretty lame for the State Department, four years after 9/11, not to have people who are genuinely fluent in Arabic and can speak lucidly without translation; imagine if every foreigner who came to America used a translator, what kind of attention they would get. I’m not saying this to down Mr. Early, I know as well as anyone how hard Arabic is to learn, and my own speaking ability isn’t entirely fluent either, but then again I’m not a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, and their resources are certainly sufficient for them to send people to live in an Arab country as long as it takes to become fluent. I mean, it isn’t like Arabic is an unimportant language or something. There are only 22 countries for which it is an official language, and a few of those are important to U.S. foriegn policy as I recall.

Kirk H. Sowell, Arab World Analysis.com

I have now posted my Middle East Week in Review news bulletin. News briefs for the week deal with issues in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Iran and Chechnya.

Lots of election news this week, although some of it is “election” news. Democracy watchers may want to focus on the news on Qatar, for they are now announcing elections to parliament for the first time, pursuant to their 2003 constitution. The democracy news was less appealing from Palestine, where convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti won a landslide victory in an internal Fatah primary; from Egypt, where the price of a vote seems to be going up, where the Mubarak regime’s thugs graduated from knives to machetes in their efforts to “get down the vote,” where the democratic opposition was virtually wiped out while the Muslim Brotherhood flourished; and from Chechnya, which underwent a Potemkin village-like election in which an outright majority of the registered “Chechnyan” voters were reported to be Russian soldiers.

Reuters has the first report here. The lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key candidate won over the bring-back-the-death-penalty candidate from the incumbent party. This is considered a suprise upset for the challenger who is said to be slightly more left-leaning, though I am curious about the name of his party ‘Liberal’ - which, internationally, means Libertarian. More to follow…

UPDATE: A bit more from Boz here.

UPDATE: Boz has a good roundup of the event here. And this interesting commentary here:

After independence in the 19th century, most Latin American countries ended up with a two party political system. The two parties were nearly always the “Liberals” and the “Conservatives” and the main differences dealt with the how the nation worked with Europe and the role of the Church in the country. Not really an economic or a social divide as we would see today’s right and left (and because of who was eligible to vote, both parties represented a rather elite group of people).

Over time, some of the countries retained the party names and labels through simple political intertia, but the parties evolved in all sorts of different directions. In the same way the “Republican” and “Democratic” parties here mean something completely different today than they did in 1860 (or for that matter, 1960), the party ideologies have evolved on a country by country basis in Latin America.

The Liberal Parties in Honduras and Colombia are center-left (although they are both far from the radical left); the Liberal Party in Nicaragua is quite conservative in my opinion. Using the “Liberal” or “Conservative” label in those countries is more of a statement of historical value than it is a statement about left or right.

This article will discuss the recently concluded Cairo conference of “national reconciliation” mostly as it was seen through the Arab media. The result is perhaps best summed up by Al-Hayat’s headline on Nov. 22: “Cairo Conference: A Pass on American Withdrawal and Agreement on the ‘Legitimacy of Resistance’ and Rejection of ‘Terrorism’.” According to the same article, the final statement provided that Iraq sought “the withdrawal of foreign forces according to a fixed timetable, and the immediate establishment of a national program to rebuild the national security forces with regard to training, weapons and numbers on a peaceful basis, empowering them to project its borders and to exercise control over its security…” Although this conference was only meant to be in preparation for a more conclusive conference set for February in Baghdad, it nevertheless represented an attempt to compromise as far as the government could with the Sunnis and still maintain the state’s right to defend itself.

It is of concern that the conference legitimized so-called “resistance,” but, according to al-Hayat, it also rejected wording sought by Sunnis which would have explicitly sanctioned “resistance… in the shadow of the occupation.” Moreover, statements from leading Shia officials made clear that they interpreted the Iraqi “resistance” to be the current government and its fight against the insurgents. The fact that joint U.S.-Iraqi operations have continued this week makes clear that this is precisely their interpretation of what was agreed upon, to the extent to which there really was any agreement.

The final section of this post will focus on the campaign for parliament in December, which is finally shaping up. Based on current reporting, it seems that Iyad Allawi’s non-sectarian approach will likely increase his party’s representation, and it may even bring him back into leadership of the government, or at least put him in a position to have more leverage as part of a new coalition government.

An Ominous Beginning
The beginning of the conference was overshadowed by accusations of the use of torture against the Iraqi Interior Ministry after U.S. forces discovered that members of the Badr Organization, formerly the Badr Corps, the armed wing of the SCIRI, leading faction in the Iraqi government, had abused several Sunni prisoners. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh downplayed the accusations, emphasizing that those held in this case were terrorists who had murdered innocents, and asserting that there were only seven genuine cases (Al-Hayat). Nevertheless, Sunni leaders called for an international investigation, and the incident left a pale over the proceedings. Al-Hayat also reported that Arab League General Secretary Amr Musa deliberately aimed to lower expectations by emphasizing that this was a preparatory meeting.

This is an excerpt from a Radio Liberty report:

…Arab League Secretary-General Amr Musa invited about 100 Iraqi leaders to the gathering. Eight Arab foreign ministers, members of a special working group on Iraq, will attend the weekend meeting, along with envoys from the United States, Europe, Iran and the United Nations.

Yahia Said, a researcher on Iraq and other transitional nations at the London School of Economics, said it is important for the Arab League to appear to become more involved in building reconciliation in Iraq…

Shi’ites have been skeptical of the conference from the start and have strongly opposed participation by Sunni Arab officials from the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein or from pro-insurgency groups.

Musa traveled to Iraq in October — his first visit since Saddam Hussein was ousted in early 2003 — and encountered sharp criticism from Shi’ite leaders, who said the Arab League was acting too late to help in the Iraqi conflict and had failed to condemn attacks by Sunni-led insurgents…

Neither Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of SCIRI, Iraq’s dominant faction, or Moqtada Sadr, the leader of the militant faction among the Shia, attended, and Prime Minister Jaafari, a member of SCIRI, blocked Sunnis tainted by Saddam’s regime from attendnig, and these factors combined to cast doubt on prospects. For further reports in English prior to the conference, see Radio Liberty reports Iraq: Sunni-Shi’ite Tensions High on Eve of Arab Conference and Iraq: Resistance Ready to Talk - But Only With the U.S.

Reactions & Continuing Operations
The final result of the conference was reported with each side giving its spin on the true meaning of the final statement. Al-Quds, which normally has a strong anti-American bent, emphasized that the conference “recognizes the right of resistance” and “demands a fixed timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces.” Its front-page article actually contained more information than the Al-Hayat article linked above, including that the statement demanded a reduction in Iraq’s debt from other Arab countries, and encouraged them to become more involved diplomatically. Yet it failed to mention that the conference specifically rejected language legitimizing “resistance” against American-led forces in the country.

Prime Minister Jaafari, by contrast, presented to the result as an endorsement of the current Iraqi government. As reported in Al-Sharq al-Awsat on Nov. 22 (”Jaafari: The Nationalist Resistance is the Leadership of Iraq Now,” by Haydr Najim), Jaafari stated that “the nationalist resistance is constituted by the protection of the wealth of the country and its exploitation without exposing it to destruction… it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the children of its people through this trial and does not target them or expose innocents among them to danger… ” Jaafari mocked insurgents who called themselves “resistance” by asking rhetorically “where was this resistance” during the time of Saddam Hussein? “The resistance, they are now the leaders of the country.” This last statement was a veiled reference to the fact that Jaafari’s group had opposed Saddam and had been forced to leave the country, suggesting that they, once in resistance outside, had now returned to lead.

Meanwhile, joint U.S.-Iraqi operations have continued. With Operation Steel Curtain drawing to a close, coalition forces began moving on Bayji Island, a terrorist hideout on the Tigris north of Tikrit which had apparently gone untouched previously. Iraqi forces took over control of a forward operating base in Tikrit from U.S. forces there. (Threats Watch) Terrorist attacks continue against civilian targets, while Reuters reports that Sunnis are looking to correct past mistakes by participating in parliamentary elections in three weeks.

The Compaign’s Major Trends
A Nov. 22 article in Al-Hayat delineated the campaign strategy of the major parties (”The Sunni Lists Focus Their Campaigns in the Western Regions and Allawi is the Only Competitor to the UIA in the Shia Cities,” Arabic-proficient readers should note that I’ve lost the precise link, but the article was written by Khulud al-Amri). The article reports that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which is the ruling party, has focused its efforts on cities where the Shia are the majority, as well as cities with a mixed Shia-Sunni population, and that they face competition in these cities from the

liberal faction which is led by former prime minister Iyad Allawi which has begun to move with greater freedom than the UIA in Sunni cities like Mosul and Tikrit because of the presence of Sunni candidates on his electoral list representing these cities, while the Kurdistan area remained closed, reinforcing the Kurdish list.

The report further notes that Salih Matlik, head of the Sunni Front for Iraqi National Dialogue (which participated in the Cairo conference and agreed to the final statement with reservations), has confirmed that his organization is focusing on the cities of the Anbar, Kut, Mosul, Tikrit and Baquba. He stated that the Shia areas in the south were effectively closed to them, arguing that the sectarian character of the current leadership made it difficult for parties from other parts of the country to make inroads. However, the article quotes Azat Shabandar, an advisor to Allawi and his Iraqi National Front, as emphasizing that both central and south Iraq were open to them, as they had no ties to any specific religious school of thought, and that their diverse list was able to openly campaign in most Iraqi cities. The article concludes by dealing with warnings from officials about the giving of gifts for votes or the use of violence in the run up to the election.

This election, then, is likely to shape up somewhat differently than the one in January - the Sunnis will do better, and have more representation, Allawi’s group, which had 14% before, will likely do better, and the UIA, while likely to still receive the largest share of the vote, will come in well below their 48% of the vote they received last time (this impression is also based on polls I have seen in previous reports, which showed UIA support slipping). Since the Kurdish parties will likely do about as well in absolute terms, their percentage of the vote will likely drop somewhat from the roughly 25% they achieved previously.

The Final Analysis
If the discussion of the implication of the Cairo conference were a lawsuit over the meaning of a contract, the likely conclusion would be that there was no contract at all. For there to be a contract, there must be mutual agreement as to specified terms. Here it seems that in regard to the key terms there is complete disagreement as to their meaning - the insurgents and the government both think that they are the “resistance.” I’m sure there is agreement on some of the other issues - all Iraqis, no doubt, would like to see other Arab countries forgive debts taken out on their behalf by Saddam Hussein, and there has been growing concern among even anti-American Sunnis about Zarqawi’s practice of targeting Iraqi civilians. Yet there should be no question that our Sunni opponents, whatever they call themselves, are criminals. American forces are the allies of the legitimate government of Iraq, and those who attack them are terrorists. It would be like as if an American gang from Chicago were to attack and kill foreign soldiers invited to the United States for some purpose considered important by Washington.

This is not to suggest that compromise with the enemy is impossible. The illegitimacy of an enemy’s cause does should not preclude negotiation as long as the end result is their disarmament. Jaafari has strenuously resisted including former Baathists in the government, and it is understandable why he feels this way, but the approach advocated by Allawi - as well as some U.S. military officials - of integrating former Baathists into the new system is necessary. There is a certain level of culpability which cannot be forgiven - essentially those with discretionary authority over the killing of innocents - but culpability for wrongdoing is spread so wide within the Sunni minority, due to how much the regime depended on them, that a refusal to grant a partial amnesty would be an obstacle of peace. We are already hearing now more indications that Sunni insurgent groups are seeking reconciliation. This is surely the way forward if they are acting in good faith.

Kirk H. Sowell, Arab World Analysis.com

- 15,000 people protesting incredible election results in Azerbaijan tried to set up a permanent demonstration, but we quickly beaten down.

- Police in Egypt are arresting hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members and preventing people who would vote for them from entering polling stations. Knife and gun fights are ensuing.

The big but unsurprising news out of China is that — golly gee! — the government tried to cover up the huge chemical spill in the Songhua River that has closed down water supplies for nearly four million people in the city of Harbin. The International Herald Tribune reports on the timeline of events and how the government was finally forced to act. Similarly, the Washington Post describes the political fallout caused by the coverup.

Environmental destruction due to the fast pace of industrialization and lack of regulation has been a big issue on the minds of the Chinese people for a long time and is likely one of the biggest movers of public unrest nowadays. The riots that are spreading through China have been a hot topic here at Publius when they really flare up, and over and over again they are over the same issues. Environmental problems and corruption by local officials definitely top off the list.

I find it very believable that it was local officials who tried to cover up the whole disaster, though of course I do wonder if there was any collaboration with higher-ups. But as the facts emerge, it looks like corruption has once again played its hand, and just as China’s problems continue grow, so do the options available to the everyday Chinese person to vent their frustration against the government.

Last year, at least three million people joined in over 58,000 protests, an increase of 15% from the year before. Meanwhile, people withdrawing their membership from the Communist Party is breaking 15,000-20,000 people a day. Corruption is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Chinese government itself is expecting social unrest to hit stage red by 2010 if nothing is done. People are taking to online message boards and text messaging because they fear talking bad about the government out loud, and engaging in massive public protest when they have no last resort but to do so. There’s strength in numbers, after all.

The problem for the government is that its unaccountable top-down power structure inherently prevents it from reforming quick enough to deal with issues; meanwhile, problems continue to be covered up by local officials who take bribes in exchange for their silence. It’s important to realize that this is more than an isolated event, and even more than a trend dating back to past the SARS coverup. This corruption is an epidemic that is quickly leading to the discrediting of the communist government in the eyes of the Chinese people themselves. What happens when 2010 rolls around?

This Sunday, Nov. 27, Honduras holds its presidential election. This is an important election because it’s seen by some analysts as the bellwether of how the all-important next 13 months of elections go in Latin America. Will Latam swing further left or move right with these elections? Honduras is expected to give some sort of indication.

But to read Boz’s writeup - and he’s the only one I know covering it (and doing a nice job) - along with all his links - suggests that this isn’t some great argument about Left and Right, it’s more a conglomeration of local issues, culminating in the one that really bothers people: Personal Security. The Hondurans in my own neighborhood in El Norte (and there are a lot of them) say you can’t go out outside back in Honduras, it’s just not safe, and this seems to be a justifiable voter obsession.

Both candidates say they will create more jobs, presumably to give Honduras’ crime-inclined something to do. Fair enough. But then personal security intrudes. The more right-leaning one connected with the incumbent party wants to reinstate the death penalty; the more left-leaning one wants life imprisonment.

But making it a right-left battle isn’ta good way of characterizing things: The problem with calling this a contest between left and right, is that the Catholic Church - which is influential in Honduras - says ‘no’ to death penalty. That’s not just the opinion of the lefty Cardinal they have in Tegucigalpa, whom I don’t like, it’s an opinion that pretty much extends into the conservative gamut of the Church too.

So, people who are very devout won’t pick the conservative guy, never mind their politics. Maybe this is a contest of how Catholic Honduras is, rather than how leftwing or rightwing? It all comes down to local politics in the case of this country.

Bellwether? Maybe just Opening Bell is a better way to charactarize it. People vote based on a combination of little things and by what’s important in their immediate lives. Read Boz’s analysis here.

Costa Rica is the one nation that has yet to ratify the CAFTA free trade pact with its Central American neighbors and the U.S. Six other nations have, including Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and - after a bruising domestic battle - the U.S.

But Costa Rica has not.

The fact that Costa Rica’s a more advanced economy, like the U.S., might have something to do with it. The three weakest economies of the CAFTA alliance - Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Nicaragua - passed the pact with the highest margins of victory, signalling their knowledge that free trade helps the very poorest countries the most of all through its new jobs, its increased efficiencies and its attraction of new products and new investments. That’s the beauty of free trade.

But the margin of passage was very thin in the U.S., just two votes. The smokestack unions as well as their allies among the sugar, grain, and other agricultural subsidy cartels - err, I mean, lobbies, - here were determined, vengeful and bitter, fighting like rats to make sure free trade never happened. They almost succeeded.

The situation seems to be parallel for highly educated, advanced Costa Rica, and their free trade pact ratification with the U.S. & Central America has hit a snag due to - again - trade union pressure and business cartels intent on preserving their privileges at the expense of free trade.

Guess who we’re hearing from now in Costa Rica?

Shouting ‘Yes To Jobs’ - the people themselves of Costa Rica have taken to the streets to demand free trade, in a vast demonstration of support! These are the people we haven’t heard from in the media coverage - until now - and now that they are too numerous to ignore. Too often the only coverage out there was of anti-free trade rentamob demonstrations. This time, things are different. Costa Ricans have stepped forward to demand free trade!

As up and comers like El Salvador advance in this world with their free trade strategy, Costa Rica’s highly competitive people are making it clear that they don’t intend to be left behind. The train leaves for the enactment of the pact on Jan. 1, but the Costa Ricans have two years to get the pact passed. Do they want to lose two years? Doesn’t sound like it to me.

Source: The Tico Times

Here is a news roundup:

ASSOCIATED PRESS reports that 5,000 demonstrators marched in the streets of San Jose, saying their march was a bid to create jobs. There have been anti-free-trade pacts, but this is the first one that’s pro-free trade. Most of the marchers were factory workers and other kinds of workers, anxious to have more jobs created (note: this sounds a lot like this Bolivian free trade demonstration we covered here).

VOICE OF AMERICA says that the marchers wore special white t-shirts and came from many different sectors of society. Their march follows an anti-free-trade demonstration a week earlier.

THE TICO TIMES reports that the size of the march was estimated between 18,000 and 35,000, in the largest demonstration for free trade in Costa Rica’s history. It was a party scene, with salsa and reggaeton music blasted away at the event. The reporter says other reporters told him the march was smaller than the anti-free trade march the week earlier, but given that Central America’s press is leftwing and in the pocket of news cartels, I am not sure I believe that. Also, anti-free-tradesters said the workers were coerced but the organizers denied that, saying the charges insult the intelligence of the workers.

UPDATE: INSTAPUNDIT has found an incredibly good blog called THE COLOSSUS OF RHODEY that tells us the real deal on Costa Rican sentiment about its shiftless, powerful, trade unions who run the place and thus Costa Ricans’ feelings about free trade. Thanks, Glenn! The Colossus writes:

I can tell you that the average “tico” (what Costa Ricans refer to themselves as) is pretty darn fed up with the monopolies that many sectors of the country have embraced. The largest, ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, or Costa Rican Institute of Electricity) single-handedly runs the power industry and virtually all communications (telephone, Internet). Tales of absolutely brutal customer service, non-caring employees and constant strikes and strike threats have made the calls for privatization louder over the years. One of the most common anecdotes I’ve heard time and time again was people going to the main ICE office (quite close to where my in-laws live, by the way) to either pay or dispute bills, and having to wait interminably — sometimes for almost an entire day — while the ultra-unionized ICE employees fulfilled their “contract” to a tee: breaks seemingly every 15 minutes, drinking coffee and/or reading the newspaper while people wait in line right in front of them, and disappearing to do some “chore” after every second or third person in line is served.

The rest of it is really good, too, so read the whole thing.

DAILY PUNDIT promises some insight too, soon as his computer is fixed, so keep an eye on his fine blog today, too.

Hugo Chavez is meddling in more than just Bolivia. He’s got a northern front and that’s the U.S.

Using the good offices of willing dupes like Congressman Bill Delahunt and Congressman Jose Serrano, he’s delivering cheap oil through their offices in return for their support in U.S. Congress. Next time Hugo Chavez invades a small country or throws a dissident in jail, he won’t have a thing to worry about in Congress because he’s got his own U.S. Congressmen in the bag with cheap oil. It’s a truly disgusting subversion of democracy and democratic revolution, both in the U.S. and in Venezuela.

Investor’s Business Daily has an editorial showing the abysmal role Chavez’s helpers are playing here, along with notes about their efforts at spin control here and Pedro Burelli has a magnificent piece showing the extent of the Kennedy family’s involvement and its implications for democracy in Venezuela here.

Christian Science Monitor has some hagiography on Hugo Chavez’s own house organ, Telesur, insisting that it’s — no, really — full of professional journalists. It cites as proof the Telesur chief, the creepy, rat-like former Chavez shill and spokesman, Andres Izarra, a man who was suddenly forced to leave CNN a few years ago, and on very murky grounds. The one who, when he was Chavez’s shill, used to read off journalists’ names at Caracas press conferences to say just how much he didn’t like their reporting. That one.

Extolling Telesur’s questionable leadership is something Telesur tried to do when it first announced its launch. It was bad propaganda then, and it’s bad propaganda now.

Telesur’s a hardcore leftwing state-financed news organization managed by a Uruguayan Marxist named Aron Aharonian who once worked for the excreble Prensa Latina, the Cuban state news organ. Don’t tell me there was any independence in that! The Monitor misleadingly cites ONLY the guy’s ‘professional’ past at UPI, conveniently forgetting to mention that this guy just came off a gig shilling for Fidel Castro. This guy is one of the operational leaders of Telesur!

Here’s something the Monitor needs to get straight: Just because someone works at a professional news organization doesn’t make him a professional journalist. Just ask Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair. The news industry is loaded with fabricators and shills, people on the take, and people who expound a point of view. Point of view is fine but not when it pretends to be objective. The one thing the recent media scandals teach us is that individuals cannot be judged by their organizations.

So did the Monitor convince anyone that Telesur was loaded with professional journalists? I don’t know. But they sure didn’t convince me. I already know some of the Telesur staff, and, as ‘professionals’: Sorry, Christian Science Monitor: No, They’re Not.

Maybe the Monitor was slaggy on the question of professionalism because it is unable to distinguish professionalism itself. This is evident in the Monitor’s sourcing. It’s annoying that that bona fide lie about ‘professionalism’ was declared as fact in the article by an anonymous single staffer there who was identified as a U.S. citizen. Who is this person and why weren’t they identified? What was to be afraid of?

I suspect the U.S. staffer is a Sandalista of longtime leftwing ties, long enough to pass the Cuban-style vetting process all Telesur staff undergo.

There was no need to let the U.S. citizen remain anonymous in an article like this. No need at all! The story, and especially the parts from him, were unchecked propaganda extolling the ‘professionalism’ of the Chavez-owned network. Something like that has to have a name on it. Otherwise it’s just more government propaganda derived from an agenda. I am stunned that an unnamed source of this caliber was allowed to remain ‘anonymous.’

If anyone knows the name of this unnamed U.S. source, let me know and I will publish it. Meanwhile, I have unusual resources of my own and trust me, I will find out!

UPDATE: Media bias favoring Chavistadom is getting to be a problem. Alek Boyd has much more on a separate incident involving the anti-American BBC here.

It looks like the courts in Chile may finally be getting their man once and for all. General Pinochet, who overthrew the Soviet-funded communist government and served as president until he stepped down in 1990, has been charged by the court for abused of human rights during his rule in which more than 3000 people were killed.

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - One day before his 90th birthday, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was under house arrest on Thursday and facing tax fraud and human rights charges in his toughest legal situation yet.

On Wednesday, Pinochet was placed under house arrest and charged with tax fraud, forging passports and documents, and incomplete reporting of his assets in a case involving an estimated $27 million hid in foreign bank accounts.

Pinochet was about to pay bail in the tax fraud case on Thursday when a separate judge put him back under house arrest and charged him in seven disappearances that are part of a 1974 human rights case known as Operation Colombo.

Judge Victor Montiglio’s ruling said Pinochet should face trial in seven “permanent kidnappings,” the term Chile’s legal system uses for people who were arrested by state forces and are presumed dead but whose bodies were never found.

Montiglio did not set bail for Pinochet, whose family is planning a birthday party for him at his Santiago home on Friday.

“Without a doubt, this is the worst birthday he could have from a judicial standpoint, this is by far the most delicate situation he’s gone through,” political scientist Ricardo Israel said.

When I saw the first charges of tax evasion being shown on the news yesterday, I was at the airport with my best friend from Chile and whatever we were drinking came right out of our noses. It instantly became the topic of conversation, although by conversation I mean things like, “Wow, didn’t see that coming.” This could be the first time that Pinochet is actually tried for human rights abuses. Given that he is 90 years old, and his mental capacities are questionable, the trial will undoubtedly hold more symbolic than practical value. While many acknowledge what Pinochet did for Chile to become what it is today, his conviction will be an utter rejection of the methods — the kidnappings, murders, and torture — used to secure those goals. It will solidify the anti-totalitarian Chilean mindset that has developed over the past 15 years.

But I think that most analysts who say that Pinochet has been totally discredited because of the money laundering investigations are wrong. Of course, those whose families were directly affected by the kidnappings and torture always saw him as discredited, and now most people who live in the cities — especially the urban elite and growing middle class — have begun to withdraw from any possible defence of his character. However, that hardly represents a very large portion of the country’s population.

Just drive an hour away from Santiago out to Los Andes or San Felipe and you’ll know what I mean. The same story is told elsewhere outside the city. One time I was at a bar in Los Andes and was treated by a young woman to a ten minute anti-communist diatribe that was frankly quite funny but also revealing as to the mindset of the workaday Chilean. While the nobody wants a return to the dictatorship, and communism has certainly been discredited for a long time, most people are still unwilling to give Pinochet up.

As scary as that potentially sounds, I wouldn’t worry about it much. It’s a slow process that is a long way coming, but it’s coming. Chile has been moving in the free-market, balanced direction under the centre-left Concertacion alliance while the right, many of whom are affiliated with the former regime, have begun to distance themselves completely from Pinochet. Though some might think this indictment could be politically motivated with the presidential election coming up in December, the state of politics in the country is looking very healthy. I would go as far as saying that Chile is perhaps the most stable, most prosperous, and most free country in Latin America right now.

The rift between Poland and Belarus continues, with the leading Polish newspapers blacking out their front pages to protest censorship in its less democratic neighbor. Could you imagine the papers here in the U.S. taking such a stand?

WARSAW, Poland - Poland’s two leading newspapers blacked out large sections of their front pages Wednesday in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighboring Belarus.

The main pages of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita looked as if a censor had taken a black marker to them, with most text and photographs crossed out. Amnesty International, which led the protest, wrote at the bottom of both front pages: “This is what freedom of speech looks like in Belarus.”

Amnesty also ran an advertisement in Rzeczpospolita calling on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to observe human rights treaties protecting freedom of expression.

Pajamas Media hosted another one of its blogjams, where in this case the editorial board members discussed ways that the company could be more “bloggy” and overall revolutionary in its approach to media. Well, after reading the whole thing, I have one big suggestion that I think the editorial board should take into account when revising how it provides content. Since I wasn’t part of the blogjam, it’s going here.

Don’t takes news from Xinhua, which you may or may not know, is the official state news and propaganda agency of the Chinese government.

Google News does it, and it really betrays the quality of what they’re trying to do with their service. It is understandable that Pajamas Media might use the AP and Reuters for its news feeds, because although they generally suck to no end, they could never reach the depth of disinformation that a state media source does. Last night I was looking at the website, and four times out of five the source was Xinhua. If you want to be a revolutionary media company, and assuming you’ll still be using news feeds, you need to start by being more careful with your information.

Update: The response. Thanks, Roger!