Domestic Politics Archive

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of two commentary articles written by members of the opposition to the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. This article is written by Ibrahim El-Houdaiby, a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The second installment will be penned by a member of the secular wing of the Egyptian opposition. CAIRO, Egypt — The latest escalation by the Egyptian regime against the Muslim Brotherhood has been widely portrayed as a conflict between a “secular” government and a religious-Islamist opposition. This is hardly the case. It is rather part of a larger conflict […]

The assembled contestants for the 2007 “Mrs. World” competition, a spin-off of the better-known “Miss World” contest, gathered in late-February in Gudermes, Chechnya, where they were feted by the republic’s guileful young President, Ramzan Kadyrov. Staged as part of an ongoing attempt by the Kremlin, and its proxy regime in Chechyna, headed by Kadyrov, to showcase the supposed “normalization” of Chechen society after 15 years of turmoil, the whole affair made for a quite an absurd spectacle. The collection of beauties, dubbed the “world’s most beautiful married women,” made quite an impression on President Kadyrov. As Chechnya’s acting president — […]

WAKEFIELD, England — On Thursday (March 29), the Scottish Parliament will dissolve ahead of an election scheduled for May 3, amid one of the most keenly fought campaigns in Scotland’s political history. It is an election that could have far reaching consequences for the 300-year political union of Scotland and England and the future of the United Kingdom as a state. Current polls show that the opposition Scottish National Party (SNP) is as much as six points ahead of the ruling Labour Party and within touching distance of its dream of power. Although Tony Blair devolved power to Scotland in […]

A quality common to any good story has become characteristic of Kremlin succession struggles — suspense. After Vladimir Lenin died, Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky vied for the leadership of the Soviet Union. After exile and assassination, Stalin emerged victorious. After Stalin, Lavrenti Beria and Nikita Khrushchev struggled for power. Again, after much backstabbing and another assassination, Khrushchev beat out Beria. While the political system has changed in name since those political tales played out, suspense is still relevant to Russia’s succession struggle leading up to 2008 elections. The main difference today (besides, hopefully, the lack of political assassination), however, […]

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The murderers of Norbert Zongo, editor of the weekly L’Indépendant, demonstrated particular cruelty in December 1998 when they shot up his body, and those of three companions, and then burned it. But they failed to eliminate memories of his journalism and the effect it had on people here. “We consider Mr. Norbert Zongo as our defender because he used to depict the government’s wrongs,” said Mandé Ousséni, an English teacher who was a student in 1998. Germain Nama, publisher of the fortnightly L’Evénement newspaper, described Zongo as Burkina Faso’s premier investigative journalist, full of passion, whose […]

VALENCIA, Spain — An outsize effigy of George Bush was burned here in the annual Fallas festival Tuesday, reflecting the president’s unpopularity in Spain, and the country’s continued preoccupation with its past involvement in the Iraq war. Every year in this Spanish coastal city, Valencia artists make hundreds of large, Carnival-type figures for the ancient three-day spring festival. But it’s hardly a carnival atmosphere, as the long Fallas weekend culminates with the figures being set on fire. Satirical themes abound, but the satire is even-handed: Pope Benedict XVI and Spanish Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero were also featured […]

The indisputable father of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, accomplished great deeds in a short period of time. The greatest of these was the ease with which he weaved secularism into the fabric of a Muslim society. With his tantalizing and audacious reforms, he marched post-Ottoman Turkey unwaveringly toward the West and away from its Eastern neighbors. Among other reforms, Ataturk replaced the strict Islamic Shariah law with Swiss civil code, abolished state religion, secularized school curricula, and discouraged the use of the veil among women. Turkey’s republican constitution, modeled after the French constitution, enshrined the country’s commitment to secularism, […]

HONG KONG — Hong Kong ‘s elections are shaping up with all the pomp and ceremony of a Canto-pop star singing numbers from a Looney Tunes cartoon. And the result is about as forgone as Bugs Bunny surviving a bullet from Elmer Fudd. However, this territory’s third attempt at delivering some kind of democracy since the British packed their bags and left almost a decade ago is drawing in a cast of characters that Warner Bros. would be proud of and breathing some much needed fresh air into a poll described by many as rigged. In one corner sits current […]

ACCRA, Ghana — The green, red and yellow colors and the black star of Ghana’s flag symbolized the rush of pride felt by many people here as their country celebrated 50 years of independence from Britain. Some sported hats and wristbands, while others wore t-shirts, emblazoned with the government slogan, “Championing African excellence.” A few even donned the flag like a cape as they enjoyed their Mar. 6 holiday, the date of founding President Kwame Nkrumah’s declaration of independence in 1957. The vibrant displays of patriotic fashion certainly pleased the eye, but they could not disguise the dissatisfaction with Ghana’s […]

Submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles are currently the United Kingdom’s only nuclear delivery system, and the submarines that carry them are nearing the end of their operational lifetimes. A serious debate has arisen in Britain over whether new submarines should be developed — and, by extension, whether the country should renew its independent nuclear deterrent. The U.K. currently deploys its Trident nuclear missiles on four Vanguard-class submarines, which are due to be decommissioned in the 2020s. In December 2006, the British government found that designing and building new submarines to carry the Trident force would take 17 years — in order […]

On March 2, Italy’s political crisis ended as rapidly as it had begun when the Italian parliament reconfirmed Romano Prodi as the country’s prime minister. By obtaining majority backing in both the Chamber of Deputies (by 342-253) and the more closely divided Senate (162-157) — Italy’s lower and upper houses of parliament, respectively — Prodi prolonged the tenuous life of his center-left governing coalition. The previous week, Prodi’s coalition government lost a key foreign policy vote in the Senate after the defection of two Senators resulted in the government’s falling just short of the necessary majority in that body. The […]

MADRID, Spain — How many people spilled through the streets of Madrid on Feb. 3, marching alongside relatives of Spain’s terrorism victims, as they protested concessions the government appears prepared to make in order to re-engage the Basque separatist group ETA in a no-fault “peace process”? Well, there were either 1.5 million or 181,200 people taking part, depending on whose police force you want to believe. That latter figure is courtesy of Spain’s National Police, which is controlled by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Interior Ministry. The claim of 1.5 million is from the Foro de Ermua, the group […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — A former paratrooper, President Hugo Chavez is used to battling his adversaries without giving an inch. This time, Chavez has his sights set on Venezuela’s food industry, which he blames for shortages that have left many Venezuelans without basic foods, especially beef, chicken, milk and sugar. “On the hoarders and speculators, I declare war,” Chavez said on his “Hello, President” radio show recently. He added: “If you don’t want to sell beef, don’t — we will sell it. But we’re going to take away the butcher shop, we’re going to expropriate the butcher shop, no matter how […]

TBILISI, Georgia — The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has voted in parliamentary elections its leaders hope will confer long-awaited international recognition, but Georgia’s president and the West dismissed the ballot and said results will not be recognized. Abkhazia’s status has become a sensitive issue between Georgia and Russia, which has given tacit support to separatists there and in nearby South Ossetia. Although the conflicts remain frozen, analysts say the region is a potential flashpoint as tensions mount between the two countries. Georgia accuses Russia of interfering with its internal affairs, while Moscow counters its southern neighbor has become increasingly […]