Politics

We are about to witness a new and a rather unconventional contribution of the immigrant community in New York. This time it will not be with work and cheap labor, or with cultural art and entertainment, or even with food. It will be by resuscitating our old and paralyzed democracy. The state of affairs of our democracy is in general pathetic, and even worse at the local level.

The wave of protests sweeping the Middle East in the aftermath of the Tunisian uprising continues today in the two key U.S. allies of Egypt and Yemen. Thousands of Egyptians have taken to the streets in defiance of the government’s efforts to clamp down on the biggest demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak in three decades.

The protests that took place today in Yemen and Egypt have drawn inspiration from the uprising in Tunisia that forced the ouster of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The interim Tunisian government is expected to announce the dismissal today of all leftover cabinet members with ties to former President Ben Ali.

Russia wants an unambiguous answer from NATO over Moscow’s role in a European missile defense shield and will deploy nuclear weapons if no agreement is reached, President Dmitry Medvedev warned.
“Our partners have to understand that we do not want this to have some common toys that NATO and us can play with, but because we want adequate protection for Russia,” Medvedev said.

Thousands of people have rallied in the northwestern Pakistan zone in order to protest for the ongoing United States drone attacks that killed scores of civilians. On last Sunday, thousands of demonstrators at the Pakistani city of Peshawar, blocked a main road and several small ones helding a vigil to mourn drone attack victims.

Nose-flute player and human rights activist Dom-an hails from Sagada, Mountain Province, in the Cordillera Central mountain range of north central Luzon, Philippines. November 28, 2005, her husband Pepe was killed by rogue elements among the military. Transcending her plight she has opened her search for justice to similarly distressed people.

*Nepal’s Maoists have relinquished control of their 19,000 fighters to government control. The young fighters wonder what’s next! The assimilation of the former fighters into society is viewed as a crucial step in Nepal’s peace process. Everyone applauds the move as constructive and the way forward. But the real work has only just begun.*

Iran continued on Saturday nuclear talks with six world powers in Turkey and said it hoped to have an acceptable result, but it refused to discuss uranium enrichment and called for cooperation from the West. Iranian sources said the talks show a positive development, while on the first day the agenda agreed in December to discuss only global issues was respected.

As the Middle East Quartet prepares to meet on February 5 in the southern German city of Munich to end the agonizing deadlock in Israeli-Palestine peace talks, a high-ranking United Nations official has expressed “an extreme concern” about the precarious situation in the tension-ridden and war-torn Middle East region.

The protests that led to Ben Ali’s overthrow gained momentum after unemployed university graduate Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. He died earlier this month. Copycat self-immolations have followed in at least 4 other North African states. In Egypt, 52-year-old lawyer Mohamed Farouk Hassan became the latest Egyptian protester to set himself on fire following two others.