· June, 2006

Stories about International Relations from June, 2006

Belarus: Chavez to Visit Minsk in July

Hugo Chavez plans to visit Belarus at the end of July, reports TOL's Belarus Blog: “Finally, the two outspoken haters of U.S. will meet. I am sure they have a lot of things to discuss, and I assume some spicy joint anti-Washington statements will be made during the visit.”

DRC: France-Based UDPS Member Released

  29 June 2006

UDPS Liege announces (Fr) that “French authorities have come to their senses and freed (…) Yves Muko who was arrested Saturday 6/17/06 at Roissy Charles de Gaulle [airport] by the French police. Through his freeing, French authorities acknowledge the righteousness and nobility of UDPS’ struggle.” The party “nevertheless condemns the...

Bangladesh: SWIFT in the US

  29 June 2006

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying on why the recent controversy about NY Times is as relevant to the developing world. But, what about Bangladeshis living in Bangladesh? It turns out that SWIFT is quite the marketing tool in Bangladesh. Banks regularly tout their membership in SWIFT to demonstrate...

North Korea: Test-fire fears

  29 June 2006

As fears increase that North Korea will go ahead with plans to test fire a long-range ballistic, North Korea Zone blogger Barry Briggs looks at the situation in ‘Why Haven't They Launched?,’ in which he writes: “if China can prevent the launch, the US will refrain from direct action; which...

Poland: Troops to be Relocated from Iraq to Afghanistan

  29 June 2006

The beatroot writes that 500 Polish troops are being transfered from Iraq to Afghanistan: “This will be a much more dangerous mission than the one the Poles got involved in, in the quiet area of central Iraq near Babylon after the invasion to oust Saddam.”

Why No Mention of Slavery in African and Haitian Fiction?

  28 June 2006

Why is there so little mention of slavery in African and Haitian Fiction? That is the question that Togolese France-based blogger Kangni Alem addresses in a prolific and well-thought out blog entry. He deplores that African fiction does not count more passages on the different waves of slavery that have...

Armenia: Vigil Photos

Onnik Krikorian has photos and a brief report on a candlelight vigil in Yerevan in support of the current US Ambassador to Armenia, who is being removed after publicly calling the 1915-1918 masscre of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey a genocide.

T&T, Venezuela, Bolivia: Emails between friends

  28 June 2006

Trinidad-based blogger Jeremy Taylor reproduces an e-mail exchange — real or fictional? — taking place between himself and a former US embassy operative friend. The topics at hand: Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and blogging. Here are parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Russia: Four Diplomats Killed in Iraq

Four Russian diplomats were taken hostage and killed in Iraq, one more died shortly after the attack. Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog writes about the lack of coverage of the incident and posts a link to the video of the execution. Sean Guillory writes about the connection between these killings...

Serbia: Search for Mladic, Not For Karadzic

  28 June 2006

Balkan Ghost of Finding Karadzic reproduces an article by Nedim Dervisbegovic on the neglected search for Karadzic: “Pressure on Serbia to capture Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic keeps rising, but his wartime boss Radovan Karadzic seems almost forgotten.”

Suriname, Guyana: Khan's mother protests

  28 June 2006

Propaganda Press publishes a photo of the mother of fugitive businessman Roger Khan, a Guyanese national who was recently arrested and jailed in Suriname following a drug bust, protesting her son's treatment at the hands of the Surinamese authorities in front of the Surinamese Embassy in Washington DC.

Belarus: The Language Issue

In a perfect world, languages would be nothing but a way for people to communicate with each other – no language would be considered superior or inferior, children would be encouraged to study as many as possible. In the real world, however, languages are being used as political and ideological...

News 21 team in Korea

  27 June 2006

News 21 team, formed by a group of students from University of California with the interest of reporting US military abroad, is now visiting South Korea. GI Korea Blog helps summarize the trip.

Colombia: The UN's data on Coca-Growing

  27 June 2006

Adam Isacson explains why the recently released Andean Coca Survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime is required reading for anyone wanting “to know about drug-crop cultivation in Colombia and the rest of the region.”

UN Human Rights Council & Presidential Election

Several bloggers wrote about the presence of Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran chief prosecutor, in the Iranian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. A few bloggers tried to find out why Iranian government sent such a representative with a very poor human rights record. Some other bloggers try to...

Algeria: China, America, and the Arabs

Nouri Lumendifi writes about officials speak Arabic. Nouri says that the US can compete with China in the Arab World. All it needs to do is get in the ring and change some time honored traditions like staffing embassies with people who can speak German or Italian but not Arabic....