A federal judge has ruled that the Georgia Institute of Technology had materials in its office to support gay students that amounted to unconstitutional support for some religious groups over others. […]
The ruling came in a case involving a range of issues over speech codes and support for religious groups at Georgia Tech — issues that mirror those being raised at other public colleges and many of which were resolved in earlier rulings or agreements between the parties in the case. The new part of the ruling, however, focused on a set of materials used in the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students.
The case was filed on behalf of two Georgia Tech students, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that has sued many public colleges accusing them of violating the rights of religious students. The portion of the suit about Safe Space argued that materials at the public university were effectively religious in that they endorsed some faiths over others — and that these materials were as a result unconstitutional. Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed.
The materials in question dealt with issues that may be faced by religious gay students, or by gay students challenged about the sexuality by people from different faiths. One passage cited in the ruling says that “historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.” Such attitudes have led some religious groups to declare “that homosexuality is immoral,” the group’s materials state, while others “have begun to look at sexual relationships in terms of the love, mutual support, commitments and the responsibility of the partners rather than the sex of the individuals involved.”
There are certainly valid issues here, but I doubt that the protests are doing Tibet, China, or the Olympics any good whatsoever. Imagine if all that energy were directed in constructive channels.
NPR: Tibet Protests Stir Chinese Nationalism
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET
All Things Considered, April 18, 2008 · Internet death threats and attacks on property greeted at least one person’s efforts to mediate between protesters on opposite sides of the China-Tibet issue. The official Xinhua News Agency is urging Chinese to harness their nationalistic fervor for constructive ends.
“Mrs. Pelosi has gotten her way. With her repeated rejection of the Free Trade Agreement, congressional Democrats are favoring the economic interests of a few U.S. unions and are sacrificing the general interests of Colombia under the pretext of protecting a union minority - the alleged victims of a State that has abandoned them. Read the rest of this entry »
Has U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘defied law and discipline,’ and ‘challenged U.S. government’ protection’ of the Olympic torch relay? These are just some of the latest charges being leveled against Pelosi by the Beijing regime. In this article, published in the strictly-controlled state run People’s Daily, her recent efforts to have legislation passed denying U.S. officials the use of public funds to attend the Beijing Olympics, “have left people amazed and speechless.’ The author, a scholar at Shanghai’s Fudan University, concludes, “This American stateswoman repeatedly asks other nations to abide by the law, but she herself interferes when her government makes security commitments. … Ms. Pelosi will only discredit herself and her own image if she persists in embarrassing China.”
By Shen Dingli*
April 14, 2008
People’s Republic of China - People’s Daily - Original Article (English)
The ongoing Olympic torch relay has drawn tremendous attention and the enthusiastic welcome of countries and peoples around the world. But there has also been a number of discordant voices, among which is the noisome U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Read the rest of this entry »
Has the spectacle of the Olympic Torch relay, first introduced by Nazi Germany in 1936, hijacked the Olympic tradition? After the mass protesting in Paris, London and now San Francisco, and due to the ‘dubious’ Nazi origins of the Olympic torch relay, this editorial from the NRC Handelsblad of The Netherlands opines, “Four years ago, the torch, which had to go from Olympia to Athens, traveled 48,466 miles. And this year is no different. … This is megalomania. … IOC Vice President Gosper has called for the trip to be restricted to the direct route between Olympia and the organizing city. This won’t deter future demonstrators, but there is a lot to be said for a relay of more modest dimensions.” Read the rest of this entry »
Is there a hidden hand behind the anti-China protesting of recent weeks, other than of course the much maligned ‘Dalai Clique?’ Indeed there is, according to Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry. According to a statement, in part published in Venezuela’s El Universal, “The manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States, that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule.”
Translated by Miguel Guttierez
April 8, 2008
Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)
Caracas: Today, the National Government has denounced a campaign of “infamies” launched from the United States against China over the Tibet incident and said that it anticipates the success of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Venezuela will give its absolute support to realizing the event in Beijing, and will be sending its largest delegation ever to an Olympic Games.
“Consistent with the principle of brotherhood among peoples in their battle against all forms of imperialism, the government expresses its full and unreserved solidarity with the government and people of the People’s Republic of China as they confront the relentless and systematic campaign of infamies they have been victimized by during the past few weeks through the major mass media companies,” it said.
The “manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule,” it added.
Will it be possible to persuade Western governments and public opinion that China is the victim of Tibetan ‘running dogs’? In this op-ed from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po, published before the voyage of the Olympic torch began, Hong Kong television commentator Dr. Qiu Zhenhai explains how the Beijing government can turn the public relations battle in its favor. Far more reasonable - even to the point of admitting error on the part of the Chinese government - the key, according to the author, is to understand the flaws and contradictions in Western thinking and to mount a massive new public relations campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Soul-searching over the passage of the Olympic Torch through France and through the West in general has reached a fever pitch, and the question on the minds of many is: As justified as the protesting in London, Paris and now San Francisco may be, what good will come of it?; and will it help those who today suffer under the iron fist of Beijing’s one-party dictatorship?
Yves Thréard writes for France’s leading newspaper, Le Figaro, “Olympism, its values and symbols were put to a bitter test yesterday in Paris. It was predictable given the opposition that the Beijing Games have encountered, especially in France. The passage of the torch looked perilous. In the end, it was more than that. In a word, it was a fiasco. … The relay by the unfortunate French athletes transformed into a way of the cross which was marked by the boos, jeers and whistles of angry crowds.”
But Thréard goes on to warn, “Beijing’s government will use the pandemonium in London and then in Paris - and soon in San Francisco - to further strengthen its ruthless dictatorship. … if we want these Games to serve the cause of the Chinese people, the best thing we can do is try to engage them once we are there. We must find a way.”
EDITORIAL By Yves Thréard
Translated By Kate Davis
July 7, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (France)
Olympism, its values and symbols were put to a bitter test yesterday in Paris. It was predictable given the opposition that the Beijing Games have encountered, especially in France. The passage of the torch looked perilous. In the end, it was more than that. In a word, it was a fiasco. Read the rest of this entry »
With the Olympic torch bound for San Francisco, what is the significance of the protesting that beset the torch’s route in Europe? Olivier Picard writes for France’s Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, “It’s an absolute disaster. A symbolic defeat, politically, ’sportively,’ diplomatically and historically. During this black Monday of the Olympic adventure, everyone lost! The legend, the athletes, China, France, the government, the police, the protesters and even Tibetans. The route if the Olympic flame has become the Way of the Cross for the players and spectators of this event that was meant to be festive.”
Picard concludes, ‘It is a spectacular humiliation for the athletes which alone summarizes the spirit of the host country, which is concerned only with its own prestige. Far from being moved by the protests in the West, it will now reinforce its iron fist over a competition that from the outset, it sought to manipulate. The trap door is closing again.’
Yesterday, a graduating Senior from a high school in Richmond, TX filed suit against the University of Texas - Austin. Her complaint alleges that she, as a white person, was denied admission to UT due to race-based admission policies.
Texas’ state university system — like many around the country — has been trying to improve minority representation on its campuses for a very long time, with varying (and imho, fairly minimal) success. Simultaneously, there’s been resistance to (and resentment of) racial considerations in admissions.
Obviously the issue is contentious, and there have been a number of lawsuits affecting admissions policies all around the country. The most recent of these (Grutter v Bollinger) opened the door for UT to re-introduce race to its admissions criteria for students not automatically admitted via the 10% Plan (more on that plan here).
The lawsuit alleges that had there been no consideration of race, the plaintiff would have been admitted. Therefore, she’s asking to be re-evaluated for admission. Furthermore, the complaint contends that the prior criteria (pre-Grutter) were working well enough — that there was no need to change the policies — and so they’re seeking to overturn the university’s current admissions criteria.
Fascinating all the way around, and while it’s important to me as the parent of a child in the Texas system, it’s potentially relevant everywhere in the U.S..
I’ve written more about the suit, and the evolving demographics at UT, here.
The Phelps Family Ghouls (the ‘God Hates Gays’ Baptists who picket funerals) may lose their property to the courts as a consequence of their hateful actions.
A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.
A lien is a legal hold on property, making it collateral against money owed to a person or entity. It can keep the owner from selling the property or transferring title to the property.
The $5 million penalty is the result of a lawsuit filed against three of the church’s principals by Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by church members.
The senior Snyder contended the picketing caused emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
Westboro Baptist members regularly picket funerals of members of the U.S. armed forces, contending the deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s support of homosexuals.
The impact that Martin Luther King had in the United States is well-known to us. The effect he had on the rest of the world less-so.
Referring to the 1958 Montgomery Bus Boycott boycott, Enrique Dussel writes for Mexico’s La Jornada, “It was a routine ‘event’ that would launch Martin Luther [King] into history. Such ‘events’ are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the ‘water war’ or the ‘gas war’ that ended up toppling two Bolivian governments, what began small ended up having a huge impact. … Dr. King became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations … and was was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing.
In describing his growth into a global leader, Dussel writes, “Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize. … But there is more. His discoveries led him to accuse his own country of being the cause of misery to other peoples. In 1967 he led the ‘Poor People’s March,’ which lifted the issues of racial and economic injustice to the national and global level. He reached out beyond the poor of the U.S. to those of Africa, where the slaves originated, and to Asia and Latin America.”
Dussel concludes, “It seems as though he had overstepped the limits of allowable criticism. … And so on April 4, 1968 (the same year as the May unrest in Paris and Berkeley, and the October Massacre in Tlatelolco), the life of Martin Luther King was cut short.”
By Enrique Dussel*
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
April 4, 2008
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
Forty years ago on April 4th, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis! It’s an anniversary that provides food for thought.
Martin Luther, an Afro-American from a Baptist community, was born in the midst of economic depression in 1929. As his father was a pastor and having obtained a doctorate in Boston [Boston University, in systematic theology], he took charge of a community of believers in Atlanta, Georgia [actually, it was in Montgomery, Alabama; the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church]. The struggle for the civil rights was picking up, but it was a routine “event” that would launch Martin Luther into history.
Such “events” are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the “water war” or the “gas war” in Bolivia, what began small ended up toppling two Bolivian governments. One shouldn’t dismiss “events” that could develop into storms - an issue exposed by Alain Badiou in his “Being and Event,” and which Walter Benjamin referred to as “now-time” in regard to the arrival of the messiah.
In this case, the “event” was the simple fact that an Afro-American woman, tired after finishing work, refused to give up her bus seat to a White person who wanted to take it, as the established custom and the discriminatory laws of the south dictated. The woman preferred to have the bus stopped. The police were summoned and a full-blown confrontation ensued. But the best part is that the other Afro-Americans on the bus not only got off, but they declared a boycott of the bus company. The controversy spread. The local pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations. Meanwhile, every Afro-American in Atlanta began to walk to work, sometimes over long distances and for days or even weeks.
The bus company sued the movement because it went into bankruptcy. King was accused in a court of law and found guilty of causing economic damage the company by holding the boycott and had to suffer incarceration. All this had the effect of raising the social pressure, and the young, 26-year-old pastor was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing across the country for the fight against racial discrimination.
In 1956, a law was decreed to end racial segregation in the United States (which is not the same as making it a reality), and slowly but surely, Afro-Americans began accruing political clout. Martin Luther’s leadership continues to inspire, not only in his native state, but across the country. Reflecting on Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of “non-violence” (which was inspired by the ancient Jain school of Indian thought), he began a true strategic struggle against racism in the United States, a phenomenon as old as slavery, which was established in the 17th century. Martin Luther was arrested again several times. While “non-violence” isn’t a universal principle, it’s a strategy that works in a country that respects the rule of law (for the powerful, of course, not for the poor).
It was August 28, 1968 when he delivered his most famous speech before 200 000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Gradually, the Atlanta preacher [Alabama, actually] began to realize that that Afro-American people had been discriminated against since the dawn of modernity; since the onset of European slavery that involved over 15 million Africans. It was a terrible kind of oppression, and yet it was an oppression that went unnoticed by French Revolutionary and Enlightenment thinking. Then Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Is there any hope at all that the West will do more than pay lip service to the plight of the downtrodden Tibetan people? Le Figaro’s Beijing correspondent Mével writes, “China has erred on Tibet. The West deluded itself about China - and the Tibetans are likely to pay dearly if their illusions lead them to expect more than dust in the eyes [a show of support] from the democracies.”
Analysis by Mével
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 26, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The powerful Communist Party machine certainly didn’t foresee this. Beijing wants to make the Games a showcase for its brilliant success. But at the start of this Olympic season, propaganda needs have forced a drawing of the curtain. Chinese television cut off a live broadcast of ceremonies in Olympia, Greece [the lighting of the Olympic torch WATCH ], depriving the images to hundreds of millions of spectators and signaling that support for the Games is far from unanimous. Read the rest of this entry »
Barack Obama ended his speech yesterday with the story of a young white woman who worked for his South Carolina campaign.
In a discussion of why they were there, Ashley Baia told volunteers that when she was nine years old, her mother was stricken with cancer, lost her health care and had to file for bankruptcy and that she “convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
“She did this for a year until her mom got better,” Obama said, “and she told everyone at the round table that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.”
When it was the turn of an elderly black man to explain why he was there, he answered, “I’m here because of Ashley.”
That experience typified his campaign, Obama said: “’I’m here because of Ashley.’ By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough…But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger.”
Obama had told that story when he spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Martin Luther King’s birthday and, for an older observer, it resonates with the story Dr. King told in his last speech in Memphis the night before he died…
It has become quite common in some parts of the world to wonder whether American democracy continues to be head-and-shoulders above Russia’s. But according to Patrik Etschmayer of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper, Russia’s recent presidential ‘election’ and America’s ongoing presidential race should put any such chattering to rest. Etschmayer writes in part, ‘American democracy undoubtedly suffers many shortcomings, like voting machines that can be manipulated, smear campaigns, and the fact that apart from the two parties, there is virtually no chance for a candidate to establish him or herself. But American democracy is not yet completely ruined. Last weekend however, Russia’s took another step toward self-imposed dismantling and its rebuilding into a Potemkin democracy - only a facade.’
By Patrik Etschmayer
Translated By Ulf Behncke
March 3, 2008
Switzerland - Nachrichten - Original Article (German)
The world media and election observers are all in agreement: Russia’s presidential elections were a farce. The Russians held an election without a choice, and the President was chosen by his predecessor Putin, who as prime minister will keep his new “boss” Dimitrij Medvedev under his thumb.
Some still hope that the Putin saga will play out again with Medvedev. Because even the strongman from Moscow was initially regarded as a predictable, weak president - merely a stooge in office. But today the arrangement is quite different. At the time, Putin took over from the sick, alcoholic Boris Yeltsin, Read the rest of this entry »
Those who were perplexed, annoyed and/or enraged by Mrs. Obama’s statement that “for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of America” may want to take a look at HBO’s contribution to Black History Month, a documentary about Joe Louis.
Called, without irony, “a credit to his race,” the heavyweight champion was exalted in 1938 for beating the exemplar of Nazi Germany, Max Schmeling, but never accepted as a true American. Decades later, when playing golf in San Diego, he found excrement in the first hole.
As a white child growing up in the Harlem ghetto, I saw how little of the pride that Michelle Obama now feels was within reach of its black residents. Movie placards in store windows would read “Gone With the Wind with Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen,” followed in smaller type by “Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.”
In the 1950s, it took a Supreme Court desegregation decision to let children who looked like Michelle Obama go to school with those who didn’t and, in the years afterward, they were beaten in the streets for marching with Martin Luther King for the audacity of wanting to exercise their right to vote.
One of the most disturbing questions that Barack Obama’s candidacy raises is this: What if he were murdered? If Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and was gunned down before November, what effect would this have on the presidential race? In this uncomfortable op-ed from Mexico’s Excelsior newspaper, Francisco Martín Moreno outlines what he sees as the danger to the United States and the rest of the world if this were to occur. He writes in part, ‘A violent dispatching of Obama would leave the road to the White House paved for McCain, with Mexico and the rest of the world having to deal with four more years of Republican nightmare … If Obama wins, he can lose his life … Shouldn’t Hillary, just in case, accept the vice presidential ticket?’
By Francisco Martín Moreno
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
February 22, 2008
Mexico - Excelsior - Original Article (Spanish)
I must confess that when Barack Hussein Obama publicly expressed his desire to enter the race to become the next occupant of the White House, I didn’t believe he had the slightest chance of achieving that goal, primarily because he was an illustrious unknown besides being a man of color in a country characterized by racial discrimination.
Having analyzed his career and learned that he had been elected senator from the state of Illinois with 70 percent of the vote, and that in Congress he promoted conventional arms control, a law to prevent electoral fraud, another to reduce global warming and still another to prevent nuclear terrorism, I noted in this brilliant legislator the profile of a bold politician who dared to embrace complex issues in a country surprisingly militarized, conservative and religious. Obama is in favor of concluding the Iraq War. He sees through the lies and abuses. He courageously denounces them. This means danger…
The reason I fear for Obama is that despite his being an extraordinary Democratic leader and a notable promoter of change in the United States - a nation that apparently no longer wishes to greet the dawn with news of another bombing attack on a new country at the behest of George Bush - in spite of all this, and even if he manages to win his party’s nomination, goes on to beat McCain in November and becomes the next president of the United States, he could be brutally assassinated, as happened in their time to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X . There’s no reason to kill a McCain - not for his skin color, nor for his political career, nor for his personal name, and it’s impossible to associate him with the Muslims that arouse sop much prejudice in post-Sept. 11 America …
Martin Luther King was without doubt a major political leader in the United States, even more so he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize as a result of his efforts to secure basic political rights for people of color in his country. His example spread across the world. Martin Luther King’s goals - which embarrassingly took until the second half of the twentieth century to achieve - were so people of color would no longer be socially segregated, so marriages between Blacks and Whites would be permitted and people of color would no longer be segregated from Whites in shops, restaurants, hospitals, buses and trains. And for these reasons, Black children would no longer be obliged to attend separate schools, and finally, denying Blacks the right to vote in the southern states due to illiteracy would no longer be tolerated. He altered this pathetic realty. He created a new world. He made his dream real …
Martin Luther King’s life was cut short in April 1968, making it clear that in the United States, certain segments of the population would never agree to accept equality between Blacks and Whites, to say nothing of the possibility that a Black man could ascend to the White House …
Additional proof that some sectors in the United States reject the Black penetration of society at large was the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, also a man of color, a Muslim minister and a tireless fighter for African-American unity.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated coverage of the U.S. elections from around the world.
February 19th, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
Five perilous days have now passed since those treasonous House Democrats decided to hold the U.S. hostage by refusing to cave in to President Bush by questioning the telecom immunity provision in the FISA renewal bill.
Unless there is yet another vast mainstream media cover-up, there have been no terrorist attacks on our fair homeland although the president, his minions and a host of fearmongers in the right-of-center blogosphere warned that the Duplicitous Dems were leaving Uncle Sam with his hands tied without the Protect America Act provision of the FISA bill being renewed.
This, of course, was complete rubbish since:
* The Republicans could have voted to extend the PAA provision instead of running off for a 12-day recess and whining to their constituents about Nancy Pelosi’s calumny.
* Existing warrantless domestic surveillance can continue for up to a year without extending the PAA provision.
* And if that isn’t good enough fer ya, domestic wiretapping rules would in any case revert to the original FISA, which requires the government to obtain a warrant from a special court.
As the Week of Living Dangerously is tick ticking on with nary a national hangnail, some pundits have begun changing their tune.
February 18th, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
Having been eligible for the draft and an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam since I was 18, 1968 was the year that I turned 21 and finally was old enough to drink and vote, which I did in that order and with great enthusiasm.
I had a front-row seat for this year of great change — including antiwar protests, the King and Kennedy assassinations, and the coming of age of the civil rights and women’s movements — but nowhere were those changes manifested so powerfully than in the presidential race that year.
This presidential election year also is shaping up to be one of potentially great change, which begs the question:
Were the changes of 1968 more important than the changes of 2008 could be?
That is a difficult question because America and the world have changed (there’s that word again) in myriad ways over the last four decades, so for the purpose of trying to tease out an answer, I’ll reframe the question thusly:
Were Americans individually and the nation generally better off in 1968 than in 2008?
Thus framed, the answer to that question is a big fat “yes,” and so the answer to my initial question is that the changes of 2008 — at the very least the much anticipated end of the Age of Bush — may indeed be more important.
Since we’re looking at year versus year through the prism of presidential politics, it should be noted that there is an obvious similarity and two obvious differences.
The similarity is the looming presence of costly and unpopular wars in both 1968 and 2008.
The first difference is that unlike 1968, the U.S. today is the sole superpower, has an unprecedented global reach and is the subject of profound loathing abroad, notably among the people whose most radical elements can do the American homeland harm.
The second difference is that in 1968 most of the opposition President Johnson faced was from within his own party over his stewardship of the Vietnam War, which prompted him to opt out of running for reelection, while in 2008 President Bush has gotten a free pass from most of his prospective heirs apparent, who dutifully worship at his altar although he is extraordinarily unpopular and is the chief reason the Republican hegemony in Washington is coming to such an unceremonious end.
February 16th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
On Monday (February 18) morning, 64,000 polling stations will open in Pakistan’s 272 constituencies. Polling stations are thought likely to shut at 5 pm local time, and counts will be completed some two or three hours later. So will the elections be fair?
“On a scale from terrible to great, it’ll be somewhere in the middle” is what Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said when asked about the possibility of fraud. For The Guardian Q&A on Pakistani polls please click here… For the CNN Q&A please click here…
Recent opinion surveys show the opposition poised for a landslide victory amid disenchantment with eight years of military rule under President Pervez Musharraf, according to the Associated Press. “Although Musharraf is not up for re-election, he could face impeachment if the opposition wins a two-thirds majority in the legislature. Opposition politicians fear the results will be manipulated in hopes of assuring the ruling party enough seats to block any impeachment.
“Last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch questioned the election commission’s impartiality, saying it has ignored complaints of harrassment against opposition candidates. On Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, Delaware Democrat who is head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States should consider cutting off military aid to Pakistan if the elections are rigged.” More here…
Sushant Sareen, an expert on Pakistan, says that “after 1970, Pakistan has never ever witnessed a free and fair election. There is no reason to believe that the February 18 elections will be any different. The stakes for Pervez Musharraf, his cronies (the Pakistan Muslim League and allied parties), his patrons (the Americans) and perhaps also for his erstwhile core constituency (the Pakistan army) are so high that the luxury of a clean election cannot be permitted.”More here…
Mr Wajid Shamsul Hasan, a senior diplomat and former Pakistan High Commissioner to London, says“numerous sources from the Pakistan People’s Party’s monitoring unit, with information collected from every region, confirm that systematic election rigging is already under way by President Pervez Musharraf’s party workers. Already 25 million voters have disappeared from the electoral rolls. Perhaps as many as half the polling booths have been closed in key areas, making it almost impossible to vote. So it certainly is an uneven playing field.” Read the rest of this entry »
![[El Espectador, Colombia]](http://worldmeets.us/images/markpennclintonstlc_elespectador.gif)
‘NO SMOKING’
