CNN is reporting that the Kenyan government has suspended all live broadcasting in the wake of the violence that has swept the nation since
Mwai Kibaki's was pronounced the president yet again with narrowest election margin in the nation's history. Kibaki's opponent,
Raila Odinga, has accused the government of "doctoring" the results.
It's a scandal that the government has suspended the right of the media to record historic events. Fortunately, we live in an age when our even mobile phones have cameras and hopefully this technology will prevent the stifling of the voice of the Kenyan people.
Source:
CNN.com
Photograph: PTIAs the country he aspires to lead explodes in to violence and anarchy, Imran Khan was on holiday in Mumbai working on his tan.
The Weekly Tribune reported earlier that Khan held
Pervez Musharaff responsible for the assassination of their political rival
Benazir Bhutto. Between his manicure and aromatherapy treatments (
I jest), Khan took a moment to call for Pakistan's opposition parties to unite against Musharaff.
Source: rediff.com
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki flew to London for what he claimed was a routine check up. However rumors persist that the true purpose of his journey was to seek treatment for symptoms of depression. According to the
Los Angeles Times, two of Maliki's aides denied that he was suffering from "exhaustion".
Would it really be so strange if Maliki had the blues? His government is in a seemingly perpetual state of paralysis and Iraq has been teetering on the brink of civil war for the duration of his tenure. Worse still he has to grin and take orders from a sneering sociopath who's frail heart fails with him less regularity than his conscience.
Sources:
latimes.com,
huffingtonpost.com
Ban Ki-Moon has had a hectic first year as Secretary General of the United Nations. He has travelled a staggering 215 000 miles and visited 39 nations. But in the face of climate change, genocide in Darfur and harsh criticism for UN, Mr.Ban is finding that
Kofi Annan is a hard act to follow. Reuters
Patrick Worsnip reports:
"Ban, 63, is seen by U.N. staff as a workaholic but has suffered from communications problems, his fluent but strongly accented and at times clumsy English contrasting with the suave and eloquent manner of his predecessor."Source:
Reuters/Yahoo!News
Bradley Brooks of the Associated Press has reported that 2007 has been the deadliest year so far for US troop in Iraq.
"The second half of 2007 saw violence drop dramatically in Iraq, but the progress came at a high price: The year was the deadliest for the U.S. military since the 2003 invasion, with 899 troops killed."
Source: AP/Yahoo! News,
Before returning to Pakistan, former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto had endeavored to bring her own private security team with her but they were denied entry to Pakistan by the regime
Pervez Musharaff.
According to Bhutto's U.S. representative
Mark Seigel:
"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad. In fact, she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection, but they were denied by the government of Pakistan."
If Ms.Bhutto had left that security e-mail anywhere else but in the inept hands of CNN's
Wolf Blitzer, Musharaff would be in jail by now.
Source:
huffingtonpost.com
From
Huffington Post:
"Two suspected suicide bombers died Sunday when they prematurely detonated their bomb near the residence of a senior leader of the ruling party in eastern Pakistan, police said.
The men were on a motorcycle and were not far away from the residence of Ijazul Haq, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, in the city of Bahawalnagar when their bomb exploded, said Zafar Abbas Bukhari, the district police chief.
The blast was the first suicide attack in Pakistan since the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday. Her killing triggered nationwide riots and raised doubts on whether parliamentary elections on Jan. 8 can go ahead as planned.
Haq was not at home when the attackers struck.
Haq was minister for religious affairs in July when the government launched a military operation against a militant-linked mosque in Islamabad, killing more than 100 people.
Bahawalnagar is a deeply conservative city in the eastern Punjab province."
Imran Khan has finally made his first official statement since the assassination of
Benazir Bhutto. Khan called for
Pervez Musharaff to step down and told
CNN IBN:
"I hold Musharraf responsible. He was responsible for security. After the first blast, she (Bhutto) wanted an independent enquiry. There were big doubts if it was a suicide bomber or a bomb blast. Whenever there is an attack, we blame it on al-Qaeda. How do we know who is responsible? She should have been given more security. How did these people get close to her when Musharraf knew she was a target?"
When asked how he judged
Benazir Bhutto, his former political rival, Khan was uncharacteristically gracious and described her as "a very courageous woman. She knew the stakes and the threat she faced. She was under no illusion that she was a target. I haven’t seen anyone else as courageous as that."
Sources:
CNN IBN,
CNN is also reporting that
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his father
Asif Zardari will succeed his mother Benazir Bhutto and that the Pakistan People's Party will indeed participate in the parliamentary elections on January 8th 2008.
Bilawal, speaking at a press conference, said:
"I am thankful for the CEC (Central Election Commission) for imposing their trust in me as chairman of the Pakistan People's Party."
"Like all chairmen of the PPP, I will stand as the symbol of the federation. The party's long and historic struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor, and I stand committed to the stability of the federation."
Kenyan elections chief, Samuel Kivuitu, read out the results of East African nation's tight presidential race on local television and announced that the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, has been re-elected. According to Kivuitu, Kibaki beat his opponent Raila Odinga by 231,728 votes.
Odinga, who, prior to Kivuitu's surprising announcement, had a a narrow 38,000-vote lead. Mr.Odinga accused Kibaki of rigging the elections and said "This government has lost all legitimacy and cannot govern."
The closest presidential race in Kenyan history outraged citizens who felt that their democratic system has been tampered with and their rights rudely snatched from them by over-ambitious politicians. Riots broke out among Kenyan voters leaving 14 people dead.
Source: Associated Press/Yahoo News, cnn.com
Zarar Khan of The Associated Press has just reported that Benazir Bhutto's 19 year old son Bilawal and her husband Asif Zardari have officially been chosen to succeed her.
Bilawal is a student at Oxford while his 51 year old father is the former environmental minister of Pakistan. Young Bilawal made the following statement:
"The party's long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor. My mother always said democracy is the best revenge."
He was greeted by cheers of "Bilawal, move ahead. We are with you."
Khan also reported that the Pakistan People's Party will contest the upcoming elections, effectively "ending the threat of a wholesale boycott by Pakistan's political opposition as the key U.S.-ally struggles to transition to full democracy after years of military rule."
Source: Associated Press/Yahoo News
The government of Pakistan seems to feel it's expedient to add outrage and confusion to the
volatile climate among their citizens since the assassination of their former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto. A collection of geniuses in the government came up with the bright idea to claim that Bhutto's death was actually a
coincidence and not a result of the suicide bombing that killed twenty of her supporters at that fateful political rally. As
The Weekly Tribune reported earlier, government officials have suggested Bhutto was killed hitting her head on the sunroof of the car when she ducked to avoid the assassins gunfire. The official government report conflicts with eyewitness accounts from news correspondents at the scene and even Bhutto's political advisor,
Safdar Abbassi, who was sitting behind her in the car when she was killed. Dr. Abbassi told
The Sunday Telegraph:
"I saw her: she looked as though she ducked in when she heard the firing. We did not realise that she had been hit by a bullet."
Photos and videos of the event plainly contradict the government's peculiar claim that Bhutto's death was an accident and not a murder. It may seem odd to any sane individual that the Pakistani government would insist on this absurd fiction. But if the government can get away with the official declaration that Bhutto's death was not murder but was in fact an accident then the legal ramifications shift rather dramatically. The state is fully aware that an accidental death would be deemed an unfortunate tragedy for which no one is culpable beyond the crazed fanatic who was captured on film firing his gun at Bhutto before he blew himself up.
Source:
telegraph.co.uk ,
guardian unlimited
Time Magazine is reporting that 19 year old
Bilawal Bhutto, son of
Benazir Bhutto and her husband
Asif Zardari, is likely to be named her successor. The news comes from a senior official of the
Pakistan People's Party who told Time that Bilawal, a student at Oxford, will probably be named party leader.
The idea of a teenager leading an unstable nation with nuclear weapons is unsettling to say the very least. However, the PPP seem determined to turn the tragedy of Bhutto's assassination in political capital so that they can seize power in Pakistan. In the absence of Benazir skillful political prowess, the wisdom of this is questionable. Her son, Bilawal, however bright he may be, cannot possible be equipt to bring stability to Pakistan. Untried and unexperienced, young Bilawal runs the risk being little more than a puppet whose strings are pulled by unseen forces. Considering the country they would have him govern is in turmoil, this just doesn't seem like a very sound idea. Can a teenage boy be expected to tame the
Taliban, bring to
Osama Bin Laden to justice and wrestling with
Al-Qaeda simultaneously? Can a teenager realistically play the dangerous and delicate politics required of anyone would lead a stable Pakistan when quite possible that his favored frame-of-reference are Battlefield and Grand Theft Auto?
I more than understand how grief and anguish can affect one's judgment but nevertheless one must hope that the PPP pull themselves together and elect someone more appropriate to bringing stability to troubled Pakistan.
Source:
time.com
Things are looking up in Sierra Leone.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has pledged to support the newly elected government ''as the country continues to move towards durable political stability and sustainable economic development." He commended the people of Sierra Leone for ''for exercising patience and restraint during the tallying of the vote,''This was the second democratic election held in post-civil war Sierra Leone since 2002.. In the 47 years since Sierra Leone was a British Crown Colony, it's bright promise was dimmed by years of dictatorship and corruption. But newly elected president, Ernest Bai Koroma has promised: "My government will spare no effort to adopt zero tolerance on corruption and mismanagement of state resources. We know how high your expectations are and that you have suffered for too long,''
Hope rolls high in Sierra Leone on the heels of the second successful election. Pro-democracy activist Tinga Seisay applauded the work of former US President
Jimmy Carter and
The Carter Center who monitored the 2002 election. "The Carter Center has done incredible things all over the world but in Sierra Leone, they helped create a new political trend in which every citizen has a voice in the future of the country." said Seisay,"I hope others will follow in the footsteps of our progress."
Meanwhile women in Sierra Leone are striving to achieve more representation. According to
Diana Konomanyi, regional chairperson of the All People's Congress: "In our own society, women are meant to be in the kitchen. There is no way to allow a woman to stand in front of a man to take decisions and make decisions,"
Sierra Leone has committed to create policies to end discrimination against women and establish targets for women in government. They've got their work cut out for them but with female President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson showing everyone how it's done in Liberia, the goal of women in leadership positions is not so distant after all.Sources: cartercenter.org, modern political thinkers, newyorktimes.com,
ndtv.com, voanews.com, un.org
I'm sure many of us are quite baffled at how many journalists these says are happy to fail in their duty to check their sources and be thorough about their work. James Wolcott eloquently counts himself among the disgruntled:
Mark Steyn, bearded demographer and seasoned raconteur, tries to distract his fellow Cornerites from their psychedelic freakout over the Huckabee Huckaboom by gesturing broadly to a column in a Pakistani paper decrying the murder of a Muslim teenager named Aqsa Parvez by her father over her refusal to wear a hajib. Of course, the mere horrific, tragic details of the case don't suffice to satisfy the indignation appetite of the average conservative ideologue--they must also present the opportunity to take a carom shot at liberal activists as if they were somehow complicit in such crimes through their craven inaction. So when the column author, Dr. Farrukh Saleem, rails, "Who will take the honour out of these killings? Who will expose the horror from under the hijab? Who will protect women from the laws of men?," Steyn can't resist smirking:
"Well, don't look to NOW and the other western feminist groups. In staying silent, they endorse "second-class sisterhood" for Muslim women."
Is that really so? Is that really true? I asked myself with maiden innocence. I decided to put Steyn's contention to the test. Employing the keen, relentless investigative skills that made me the hero of Watergate mythology, I limbered up my fingers, took a meaningful sip of seltzer, and Googled, "NOW honor killings," and, faith and begorrah, here was the first fucking thing that came up:
"NOW Supports Legislation that Denounces 'Honor' Killings and Violence Against Women
Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy
10/8/2007
The National Organization for Women is proud to support H. Res. 32, denouncing the practices of female genital mutilation, domestic violence, 'honor' killings, acid burning, dowry deaths, sexual slavery and other gender-based persecutions. We commend Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) for her work on this resolution, and we say it is time for Congress to take a stand for the health and lives of girls and women everywhere.
The United States must call strongly for the protection of the millions of women who will become victims of stoning, stabbing, maiming, forced suicide, beheadings, acid throwing and many other cruel punishments with the false justification of "family honor." Further, we must condemn the worldwide epidemic of domestic violence, and the rape of civilian and military women as a common weapon in war."
I sometimes get the sneaky suspicion Steyn isn't interested in ascertaining the available truth, that he's just "phoning it in" for his fans. In this season of hope and blear, I regret that such suspicions should mar the holiday spirit that makes possible such Hallmark classics as A Grandpa for Christmas, starring Ernest Borgnine in a role that Fred Thompson would find congenial were he not already semi-occupied.
Further adventures in factchecking can be found at Dennis the Peasant's thatch cottage, where he asks the musical question, "Can You Guess Why James Lileks and Gates of Vienna Are Alike?"
Answer: "Well, when it comes to Sharia finance, neither of them have a fuckin' clue."
Now you might think, "Sharia finance isn't exactly a topic bursting with holiday cheer," but as explained by Dennis le Peasant there's actually fun to be by kids of all ages at the expense of these nervous ninnies:
"...it's clear that neither James Lileks, professional journalist, nor Baron Bodissey, fearless counterjihadist (whatever the fuck that is) could be bothered with getting their facts straight before wailing the wail of impending doom before the sinister forces of The Muslim Menace?. Then again, as neither Lileks nor the Baron have any grounding in Sharia law, banking systems or international finance, it's completely understandable that they'd fuck this story up from top to bottom. After all, these are men who are far more interested in stoking the wellsprings of their own paranoia than actually coming to an understanding what actually does, or does not, constitute a credible threat to either themselves or us."
TBogg, settled into his new blog abode at Firedoglake, extends credit to John Podhoretz--it's a Festivus miracle!--for sussing out the actual events behind Mitt Romney's latest ad, an ode to his own decision making and corporate heroics. It occurs to me, after seeing and reading about the Romney ad, that if George C. Scott has been a powerful CEO commanding the resources to set a search party into motion, he wouldn't have had to shlep to all by himself to the neon hell of Los Angeles to rescue his daughter from sleazy porndom in Hardcore. But then we would have been deprived of the dark comedy of watching Scott's tormented patriarch impersonating a porn producer and auditioning porn-stud sleazeballs. Just because Mitt Romney unwittingly employed illegal aliens as landscapers doesn't mean he'd be comfortable interviewing prospective porn studs in their slingshot thongs, so we should beware of drawing parallels.
On a related note, Roger Ailes, after careful, forensic examination of the spatter pattern on a noted neoliberal's carpet, boldly announces his exclusive findings.
Source:
jameswolcott.com
Right now Kenya is very reminiscent of the state of Florida after the 2000 US election in which the result was a toss up between George W.Bush and Al Gore. Sadly for most of the world, Mr.Bush had his Dad's cronies call the election in his favor but how Kenya chooses to settle it's own election dilemma remains to be seen with both candidates claiming victory. Will it be Mwai Kibaki or Raila Odinga? Stay tuned for updates.
2007 began with the thuggish execution of
Saddam Hussein and ended with the appalling assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto. The Pakistani government now claims that Bhutto was killed by
hitting her head on the sunroof of her vehicle and not by bullets or shrapnel as was previously reported. You know you lack credibility when you have to back up an official government report but
offering to exhume the body of your former leader less than 48 hours after she was lain to rest. How macabre! But then again, Pakistan has distinctly macabre tendencies these days. Who can forget Bhutto's bloody homecoming or the beheading of journalist
Daniel Pearl?
In the aftermath of Bhutto's assassination, US Presidential hopeful
Senator Hillary Clinton stated the obvious on
CNN:
"I don't think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all,"
According to
Carlotta Gall of the New York Times, Clinton suggested "an investigation along the lines of the ongoing international inquiry into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister
Rafik Hariri. This adds to the pressure placed on the Bush administration to intervene, although their ability to gather evidence (remember the non-existent
Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction?) is sketchy at best. Why Bhutto was encouraged to return to Pakistan at all in this political climate mystifies me but I'll chalk it up to yet another one of the wonders of US foreign police under
George W.Bush. The jury is still out on whether her death, which her supporters call her "martyrdom", will accomplish anything save the further destruction of any hope of bringing democracy to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Bhutto's political opponent
Imran Khan, who withdrew from the election prior to her murder, has been uncharacteristically silent. Even Khan's socialite ex-wife,
Unicef ambassador
Jemima Khan who once described Bhutto as a
"kleptocrat in an Hérmes scarf" has not commented on her assassination. I imagine the Khans could lend some rather interesting perspective to this historical event. Especially in light of Bhutto leaving a damning security e-mail with CNN's
Wolf Blitzer, who true to form, bungled and marginalized her message in which she is plainly pointing her finger at Musharraf from beyond the grave.
