Can you fill in the blank?

______ “has extended controversial emergency laws giving the security forces broad powers to arrest and detain people without charge. Parliament agreed another two years of the legislation on Sunday. ”

“But opposition groups said the law failed to combat terrorism and was used to violate the rights of [citizens].”

“Many opposition MPs came to the parliament session wearing white and black sashes saying “No to the emergency law”.”

“The government is drafting anti-terror laws to replace the emergency law, which had been due to lapse at the beginning of January.”

“[The Prime Minister] said the government would not use the legislation other than to protect “the citizen and the security of the nation and to combat terrorism”.

I’ll give you a hint… it’s a country.

Where is it? Europe? North America? Africa?

Give up?

It’s Egypt

Isn’t it wonderful how freedom and human rights are sweeping the Globe?

The BBC has posted an excellent resource on their website. It’s a map of Iran which details it’s population, ethnicity, major cities, and infrastructure including roads, nuclear sites, and oil and gas fields.

Go check it out. (Broadband connection required… or it may be slow).

And remember… “Persian” is not the same as “Arab”. Also… the word “Caucasian” is derived directly from how people have historically described people from this region of the world (and still do in Eastern Europe and Russia mainly)… the “Caucus” Mountains…. including Southern Russia (Chechnya), Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Iran among others.

If you are a longtime reader of my blog (I don’t know who exactly would qualify? :)) You might remember that I started my blog largely in response to my discussions with “LT-SMASH”. I’ve been in the odd Blog War with him as well.

So, yesterday, when he pronounced on his blog that newly minted White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was an avid reader of his and other “milblogs”.

Well, all I could think was… “Damn, 3 degrees of separation from the President of the United States himself? That ain’t bad”.

There’s more of a likelyhood of Dubya hearing about or *gasp* reading one of my blog posts than many of my own relatives.

Ha.

God Bless the Internet.

A military coup in the US obviously is not going to happen. There is no stomach for such a thing, and the US military has a strong, proud tradition of knowing very precisely where it stands in the Order of things.

That said, it is also written into the US Constitution and political landscape that the military has a clear voice so that, when things are amiss in the Civilian administration, there are avenues the Military can take to effect change and make it’s feelings known without upsetting the civilian democracy.

Michael Reynolds in his Center Line column, spells out very clearly how the Military is using every tool it’s chest to try to shake up the Pentagon and dump what has been one of the worst Defense Secretaries in the history of the United States.

I don’t think anyone can be happy with a situation where uniforms are publicly attacking suits in the Pentagon. The generals who have called for Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation — eight at last count — are all retired. But there is little doubt that they speak for a large portion of the officer corps.

…

Faced with a Secretary of Defense who simply does not know his job and shows no inclination to learn it, and a President who will, from arrogance, stubborness and a degree of sheer meglomania, disregard common sense and competent advice — who will even disregard the law and the constitution rather than consider an admission of error — and faced with losing a war, what exactly are the unforms to do?

…

I think they do just what they are doing. They send forth retired officers to warn the ultimate civilian authority — the American people — that something is rotten in the Pentagon. They talk to sympathetic Senators and Congressmen, as they clearly have done with Congressman Jack Murtha. They talk on background to the news media.

The first ones to go in military training are the ones you can’t rely on. The ones who are weak minded, incompetent, unpredictable, or self-centered. The Military is the ultimate team sport, if one player puts his well being above all the rest, then he becomes fatally dangerous to the rest of the team. It sounds like the “team” is about to expel one of it’s players.

Latin America is often completely forgotten in the Mass Media, and thus by most people living in Canada and “the West”. Yet as the decades have gone on, Latin America, from Mexico and the Caribbean to South America, has gained strength, econmically, politically, and even militarily.

The BBC has an excellent ongoing series on Latin America and it’s tendency recently to elect leftist governments.

In the news lately have been elections in Haiti, Peru, Chile and Bolivia.

Today, Haitians elected representatives in their Parliament as well as two Vice Presidential posts. Turnout has been very low due to violence, and dissatisfaction with the UN operations (in which Canada has played a major role). It appears Haitians think not much will change in their country after the vote. Unfortunately, they’re likely right. The President, elected in February, has promised to grant former-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide the right to return to the country that he fled after violent uprisings in 2004.

In Costa Rica, Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias will be the next President. It seems not because of his policies as much as because he is “untainted” by recent political scandal. He support CAFTA, the free trade agreement with the US. This will likely sound very familiar to Canadians.

In Peru, voters will likely be going back to the polls for a runoff vote. The leftist, Hugo Chavez-esque candidate, Ollanta Humala, will likely be up against a female conservative candidate who favours business and increased ties to the US. It is expected that Humala will win with support from the 50% of Peruvians below the poverty line.

In Bolivia, it has been widely reported that the new President, Evo Morales, is best buddies with both Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. With a picture of Che Guevara in his Presidential Suite that’s not surprising. And while he’s feeling “padlocked” by pesky laws in his country, there is no doubt he will be changing things for Bolivians. Hopefully in a good way, but definitely in a way that will not jive with the current US Administration policies.

Latin America has power, in the form of oil and gas exports, military exports, drug trafficking and as a source of massive immigration into the US. The fact that these countries are, for the most part making moves that deviate strongly from the right-wing US Economic and Political Hegemony that has control Latin America for so long is something that the US will have to recognize and address at some point.

The BBC has an excellent Q&A with Otto Reich and Noam Chomsky on US-Latin America relations.

If Humala wins in Peru, then leftist, largely populist, leaders will have taken power over the entire South American continent save for Ecuador (which has an interim government), Paraguay (which is still ruled by the former dictators party), and Columbia (which is completely dependent on US support in its civil war).