oD Plugs

About ten days ago, India kicked off what Kanishk Tharoor at openIndia calls "the world's biggest exercise in democracy". Reuters has the colourful detail:

What has gone wrong for the left? In a recent column on the Open Democracy website, Tibor Dessewffy, a Hungarian commentator, argues that “fears of terrorism, and subsequent anxieties caused by immigration and the sustainability issues of welfare and social systems, [have] brought the progressive left under increasing pressure”.

New: openDemocracy on the Thai crisis

Blog posts on the day as a whole were written by Entangled Alliances, Tony's Blog (part 1 and part 2), Richard's Kingdom, Cafe Babel London and Tony Curzon Price.

“* a huge demonstration and riot in Guzhou province, southwest China. As many as 30,000 people mobilised in response to claims that police had covered up the alleged rape and murder of a teenage girl; cars and government buildings were set on fire (see Li Datong, “The Weng’an model: China’s fix-it governance”, 30 July 2008).

Open Democracy News Analysis Tony Curzon Price on "Modern Legitimacy" 9 hours ago

see Li Datong, “The Weng’an model: China’s fix-it governance”, 30 July 2008

Dealing Calmly With Revolutionary Iran Iran: Aspiring Regional Power & Revolutionary PowerFred Halliday has given us a good background on Iran:

Twitter and Networked Conversational Politics: Convention on Modern Liberty

I want to draw attention on an article on "open democracy" Gaza: the "new war" by Mary Kaldor, who analyzes some aspects of the Israelian war in Gaza. In Gaza - anything to demonstrate for or against? I re-iterated why I sided with the Israeleans in all the conflicts since the foundation of the Jewish state. I do not change position on this and I am still appalled seeing self declared left wingers in Europe or the United States waving Hamas flags and a burning Shield of David.

Roundtable: Research Architecture

Li Yulan, a painter living in Beijing, finds herself in a worrying situation. She lives in Songzhuang (ÂÆãÂ∫Ñ) village, an artists’ community located within the borders of Beijing municipality, but outside the city proper. Now, the contract she signed five years ago when purchasing her home has been declared void by the local court. The court order also demands that she leave her home within ninety days.

These two examples just scratch the surface of the boycott battles that took place in China's Year of the Olympics and are occurring again during 2009, its Year of Anniversaries. Thinking about this range of dizhi duels inspired me to write a piece on dizhi of various sorts of boycotts playing out in and affecting China, past and present, for the excellent British openDemocracy website, which has carried some of the best online coverage of recent PRC developments, ranging from the Tibetan unrest of last spring to the circulation of a dissident manifesto known as "Charter 08". Here's an excerpt from that piece, which opens with references to some Chinese intellectuals calling for a boycotting of PRC state television (to draw attention to the distortions and lies that it broadcasts) and one Beijing law school calling on its students to dizhi Charter 08. I'm offering up an excerpt from that piece here for two reasons: I'm hoping that doing so will provide some context for readers of this site as tey think about the latest news from the PRC and prepare for stories likely to come out of China later this year; and that doing so will encourage some readers of this blog who aren't yet aware of openDemocracy to bookmark that site as well as the Huffington Post:

MEXIDATA . INFO

Latin America News Review This blog is intended for those who want to read press articles that contain unique insights --as well as information that is often hard to find-- about Latin American politics, economy and society. I compile news articles on a regular basis and occasionally include my own analysis. Comments are always welcome. I hope people find this site useful.

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Hugo Chávez: Tides of Victory [The referendum victory of Venezuela's president is founded on an extension of the understanding of democracy that has both national roots and regional parallels.]Hugo Chávez: Tides of Victory February 20th 2009, by Julia Buxton - Opendemocracy.net