The Guardian (Continuación)

MundoÁfrica

As protests against authoritarian rule spread throughout north Africa and the Middle East, I've been asked whether similar pro-democracy protests could take place in sub-Saharan Africa too.

At first glance, the conditions appear ripe. Many sub-Saharan Africans also struggle daily with the consequences of poor governance, stagnating economies and dehumanising poverty, and rampant violations of human rights.

It's difficult for an outsider to know the local reasons why people in any society finally decide they've had enough of their leaders and rise up against them. It's also dangerous to assume that revolutions occurring simultaneously have the same root causes. But certain factors do help explain the volatility in north Africa and the relative quiet to the south – and why that may not persist indefinitely.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

For those familiar with Latin American politics, the notion that Muammar Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela seemed absurd. Certainly, Chávez and other leftwing Latin American leaders have seemed embarrassed and uncertain how to respond to the events unfolding in Libya. But Chávez has not given explicit support and it is an awkward moment for many governments. In any case, Gaddafi has much better friends in Africa and had some good friends in London as well.

It was interesting to see British Foreign Secretary William Hague bring Chávez briefly back to the centre of attention in Latin American politics. Because, for better or worse, Chávez is much less important in the region than he was a few years ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaEconomía

Public debt is at the heart of the eurozone crisis. Greek public debt, already very high for years, has grown extraordinarily since 2009. Irish public debt has escalated once the debts of private banks were added to it. Portugal and Spain threaten to go the same way. Similar trends can be seen in other European countries, the UK not excluded.

Common patterns usually have common causes. The global crisis of 2007-9 resulted in huge costs, partly due to rescuing the financial system, partly due to falling output and rising unemployment. In the eurozone things were made worse because the common currency had weakened peripheral countries, giving rise to large current account deficits.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

On Monday the second round of negotiations to establish an international arms trade treaty (ATT) began at the United Nations headquarters in New York. These negotiations, and the need for better regulation of the arms trade, could not be timelier.

The courage displayed in the popular uprisings across the Middle East and north Africa over the last month has been fascinating and inspiring. But the shocking retaliatory brutality, especially of the Libyan government, has rightly provoked outrage across the globe, and it is a difficult idea to stomach that for years the previous government sold defence equipment, like teargas and crowd control ammunition, to an unsuitable regime like Gaddafi's.…  Seguir leyendo »

For Middle East democracy, send in the geeks

ReflexionesNuevas TecnologíasMundoOriente Próximo

When the Berlin Wall fell, the western response was swift and obvious: send in the free-market economists. Soviet Communism was a system structured for failure that had left a group of governments and citizens in need of political and cultural tools, as well as knowledge of markets and the institutions they require to function.

Professor Jeff Sachs, the economist, was dispatched to Poland and across the former Soviet Union (FSU). Funding streams were brought online and bright students from the eastern bloc attended Harvard Business School and learned about how markets work. There were also parallel democracy building programs established. Partnerships and exchanges proliferated and the Soviet-era systems were transformed to engage and contribute to the global market economy.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Describing a pro-government demonstration in Bahrain last week, Michael Slackman wrote in the New York Times that it was an affluent crowd, very different from the mostly low-income Shia who were protesting against the government. "The air was scented with perfume, and people drove expensive cars," he said.

While local and international media talk repeatedly about Bahrain's sectarian divide, demonstrators on both sides insist there is Shia-Sunni unity. So what, exactly, is going on?

First, some facts. The majority of Bahrainis – about 70% – are Shia, and the majority of pro-reform/anti-government demonstrators at the Pearl Roundabout are Shia. It is true, also, that Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni royal family, and that the majority of participants at pro-government rallies appear to be Sunnis.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

In the 1990s, one could only whisper Hosni Mubarak's name. Political talk or jokes were avoided in phone calls. This year, millions of Egyptians fought for 18 days against their ageing tyrant, braving the police troops firing teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. People in Egypt have lost their fear, but it did not happen overnight. The Egyptian revolution, rather than coming out of the blue on 25 January 2011, is a result of a process that has been brewing over the previous decade – a chain reaction to the autumn 2000 protests in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada.

Mubarak's iron-fist rule and the outbreak of the dirty war between the regime and Islamist militants in the 1990s meant the death of street dissent.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

From across North Africa to Wisconsin, activists are navigating a new terrain of global protest and relationships with their governments. Whether in ousting old tyrants or dealing with new allies in office, the example of Bolivia holds many lessons for social movements. An illustrative dynamic is now unfolding in this Andean country where the movements hold sway over the government palace, and the leftist President Evo Morales says he "governs by obeying the people". But sometimes, the people don't give him any other choice.

The day after Christmas last year, while Morales was away in Venezuela, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera announced that, as a way to cut government spending, subsidies on gas would be slashed, resulting in a roughly 73% price increase for Bolivians.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

"Kiss my mum goodbye for me, and tell her that her son died a hero," said my friend Ahmed, 26, to the first person who rushed to his side after he was shot in a Tripoli street.

Two days later, my friend Ahmed died in the hospital. Just like that.

That tall, handsome, funny, witty, intellectual young man is no more. No longer will he answer my phone calls. Time will stand still on his Facebook account for ever.

An hour before he was shot, I called Ahmed. He sounded at his best. He told me that he was in Green Square in the heart of Tripoli, and that we were free.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

The freedom fighters who have been met with the most brutal, inhumane and criminal antics of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi come from all sections of Libyan society. Gaddafi has tried to win over some Libyans by promising them immense riches, on one occasion even physically showering them with bundles of cash. However, the people now control the major part of Libya – with new groups, tribes and leaders disavowing their links with Gaddafi and announcing their stand alongside the revolution virtually every hour.

While Gaddafi's partial grip on the capital Tripoli remains in place, people now realise that they have passed the point of no return: either topple him or be killed.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesIslam y Mundo Árabe,

British citizens facing great danger in Libya have a right to expect more than David Cameron's shambolic, incompetent government gave them last week.

All of us have the right to expect a more coherent and principled foreign policy than the one on show: trying to pretend a trade mission for defence manufacturers and other businesses is a "democracy tour" really doesn't cut it.

But the wider truth is that all western governments are profoundly challenged by the chain of events that began, 10 weeks ago, with a young Tunisian man setting himself on fire in anger and desperation.

The central assumption of the durability of long-standing and unpleasant regimes has been swept away.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOceanía,

In recent weeks visitors to Christchurch described the mood as optimistic, energised since the earthquake of 4 September, determined to rebuild. We were used to hearing about aftershocks; Cantabrians were used to toughing them out. And then this – shattering the fantasy that surviving one tragedy somehow exempts you from another.

It feels like much longer than a few days. There is, in general, what a friend calls a belief shortfall. For those of us not in Christchurch, not experiencing aftershocks day and night, not bereaved or homeless or without electricity and water, there's the weirdness of the mornings, waking to realise it's still happened.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt took us all by surprise, and have still not played out. Libya is the least transparent country in the Middle East at the best of times. Just now, with most communications down, it is truly a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Disturbances started on Wednesday, apparently triggered by the arrest of a lawyer and human rights activist. This was the warmup to a planned "day of rage" on Thursday, commemorating a demonstration in Benghazi in 2006 in which a dozen or so people had been killed. On Friday there were already funerals of protesters, and midday prayers at the mosques as usual provided a springboard for demonstrations.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

Hamburg is Germany's most English city. The wind blows from the North Sea, its buildings look like London townhouses and moments of extreme joy and despair are usually handled with a stiff upper lip. Sunday's celebrations among the city's social democrats, however, were atypical of its famously reserved citizens. Winning 48% of the vote in a key regional election, the SPD reached an absolute majority, something it hadn't managed in nearly a quarter of a century. In the Berlin headquarters of Angela Merkel's CDU the news was received with pale faces. A loss in Hamburg had appeared inevitable for some time, but the crushing nature of the defeat was a blow nonetheless.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, ,

The latest military commission trial at Guantánamo Bay opened the door for the defendant's release in a few years. But the continued use of indefinite detention and lax rules on hearsay evidence still plague the system. These puts enormous pressure on defendants to plea-bargain to avoid the dangers of going to trial in a process that is tipped against them.

On Tuesday 15 February, Sudanese national Noor Uthman Muhammed pled guilty to conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism for the role he played at the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2000. The charge carried a possible life term, but under the terms of the plea agreement, secret until last week, he will be released after 34 months.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Cyber activists in Bahrain have declared Valentine's Day a "day of wrath" in the kingdom. It is also the 10th anniversary of a referendum in which Bahrainis approved a national charter promising a new political era after decades of political unrest.

Organisers chose this date to signal their belief that the authorities had reneged on the charter's promise. Taking a cue from the protests in the wider Arab world, their stated aim is to press the authorities on their political and economic grievances.

The day of wrath's Facebook page passed 10,000 supporters within a few days, and a declaration in the name of Bahraini Youth for Freedom is being widely circulated online.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Naturally, I would prefer to see more positive headlines about the "big society", but I am very upbeat about the torrent of newsprint expended on this subject.

For too long, our country has failed to have a proper debate on how we can make our society stronger and give people more power. Now it is happening. And not just in the thinktanks of Westminster and newspapers of Fleet Street. The big society has been a topic of discussion on a wider basis – from being on the agenda at the General Synod to being debated in front of a live television audience.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

"NGOs don't mobilise people, desperation mobilises people," said a Cambodian land activist as he related the experience of Boeung Kak villagers who were driven off their land by their own government to make way for corporate profiteering.

Such stories were abundant from all corners of the world this week at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. The forum, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, attracted representatives from civil society organisations, social movements and unions from more than 123 countries. Present among them were land rights activists and small farmers, who came to relate and decry the unfettered grabbing of their land.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

As the past fortnight has underlined, Egypt occupies a leading role in one of the most vital and volatile regions in the world. However, this great country has been ruled by an autocratic regime for more than 30 years, and left riddled with corruption, poverty, inequality and insecurity. With millions condemned to live in squalor, astronomical unemployment rates, political suppression and absence of basic freedoms, the Egyptian people have been seething with anger, frustration and discontent for years. Thousands of political dissidents have been dragged before military courts and sentenced to years in prison despite civil courts ordering their release. Elections were rigged on an unimaginable scale – forcing Egyptians, and especially the young, into a state of utter desperation.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

It is almost a century since the state borders that today divide the Middle East were drawn up. The shape of the region was negotiated behind closed doors and imposed by colonial powers without consulting its people. The impact of those deals still haunts the region and, many would argue, plays a central role in its instability.

Some of the states that emerged from the carve-up later championed independence and social development, while others adopted a conservative stance. But almost without exception they maintained a monopoly on information and communication, underpinned by control and censorship of the media. For many years dissent, criticism or even limited exposure of what was going on behind closed doors was crushed with the argument that "it is not the right time" and "we are in a development and liberation battle".…  Seguir leyendo »