Sunday, June 16, 2013

Kuwait dissolves parliament (again!)

Kuwait's top court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of parliament and called for fresh elections, officials in the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab said.

Pic by Prasad (on Kuwaitup2date)

The Constitutional Court made its ruling after throwing out an opposition challenge to changes to the electoral system decreed by the emir, hereditary ruler of the oil-exporting country, head judge Youssef al-Mutawa told reporters.

The case has international importance because political stability in Kuwait, owner of more than six percent of global oil reserves, has traditionally depended on cooperation between the government and the elected parliament, the oldest and most powerful legislature in the Gulf Arab states.

Kuwait sits in a strategic position between Saudi Arabia and Iraq and across the Gulf from Iran.

The opposition case had questioned the constitutionality of a change to the voting system ordered by the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah.

Mutawa said the hearing had decided not to make a ruling on the challenge, in effect leaving the emir's decree unchanged. 

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall, Editing by William Maclean)

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

24th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre

This file photo taken 24 years ago shows some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese gathering around a 10-meter replica of the Statue of Liberty (center), called the Goddess of Democracy, in Tiananmen Square demanding democracy despite martial law in Beijing. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed by China's military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as communist leaders ordered an end to six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. (CATHERINE HENRIETTE/AFP/Getty Images)

Great photos of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests (but also of the horrible massacre that ended it)!


Censored in China: 'Today,' 'Tonight' and 'Big Yellow Duck'

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

The words’ today,’ ‘tonight’ and ‘big yellow duck’ are all banned on China’s popular Weibo, or microblog, as the state tries to ensure political calm on June 4, the 24th anniversary of the crushing of the 1989 democracy protests.
some of my earlier posts on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and democracy protests: 

Jun 04, 2009
June 4, 1989 ...I was 21 and just coming into my own ...just moving out of my parents' home, just taking on my own ideas about politics, religion, war, life, love and everything... since I was young, every time I had uttered even ...
Jun 06, 2009
Previously unseen pictures obtained by the Guardian show how the violence centred on Tiananmen Square played out in surrounding areas... Posted by William Andersen at 4:58 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to ...
Jun 04, 2009
meeting a former soldier that fired shoots in Tiananmen... ...very strange that I met this artist, Chen Guang, in the summer of 2007 at an art exhibit of the most shocking art that I've ever seen... I had a very difficult time with his art ...

Jun 04, 2011
China's 22nd anniversary of Tiananmen Square | Video | Reuters.com. Twenty-two years after China's infamous Tiananmen Square crackdown, not much progress on political dissidents.
Jun 06, 2009
Mike Licht said... Tank Man lives. New versions of this iconic image are all over the Web. Here, for example: http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/20th-anniversary-of-tiananmen-square/. June 5, 2009 at 4:57 PM ...
Apr 12, 2011
Ai Weiwei and the Artist's Role in China. Ai Weiwei in Tiananmen Square in 2009 (the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre). Ai Weiwei and the Artist's Role in China - Room for Debate ... 12 Apr 2011 .

Feb 10, 2012
-Tibet Post International. Hong Kong Residents to Hold Vigil Marking Tiananmen...‎ - Bloomberg. Tiananmen Square Anniversary: 22 Years Later - Huffington Post. Tiananmen legacy: Crush any hint of dissent‎ - Vancouver .
May 21, 2011
Ai Weiwei in Tiananmen Square in 2009 on the 20th anniversary of the massacre. Dear friends, Have you seen Mary Louise Schumacher's article: Should the Milwaukee Art Museum protest Ai Weiwei's detention? - Art City ...
Jul 09, 2010
In February, those artists joined forces with artists from another Beijing neighborhood to march down Chang'an Jie, a wide ceremonial avenue that runs past the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Chinese leaders are ...
Nov 28, 2009
But after 1989, and the silencing of protesters at Tiananmen Square, he had decided that “the world became different.” And so he returned to China in 1993, reckoning that one day he might face something like his father's fate.