http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php World and US politics en-us Nucleus CMS v3.22 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=224 Paris bus

2 Public Buses Torched in Paris Suburb
Police deployed 4,000 reinforcements as marauding youths torched at least two public buses Friday, the anniversary of the deaths of two teenagers that ignited weeks of riots in largely immigrant housing projects across France.
--> more]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=224 Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:57:19 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=216 Barack Obama
Barack Obama

About Barack Obama
Barack Obama is a 45 year old United States Senator from Illinois. He was born in Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. a Harvard-educated economist of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, an anthropologist. Baracks father is a black and his mother is white. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His mother then married an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six years old. Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii under the care of his maternal grandparents. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, where he graduated from high school in 1979.

Barack studied at Occidental College then transferred to Columbia University. Received law degree from Harvard University magna cum laude, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for term beginning January 3, 2005. Obama became a Christian, breaking with his father's Muslim faith, and joined the Trinity United Church of Christ.


Obama on the issues --> go

Obama senate website -->go

Book Excerpt: Barack Obama
From the senator's new memoir, The Audacity of Hope? --> go

Tag: Barack Obama
]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=216 Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:58:18 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=209 Sani Abacha
Nigeria recovered $458m found in Swiss bank accounts linked to the country's late military dictator Sani Abacha.

Nigerian leaders 'stole' $380 billion
More than $380bn has either been stolen or wasted by Nigerian governments since independence in 1960, the chief corruption fighter has said.
--> more]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=209 Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:25:48 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=199 Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez

Chavez suffers setback in bid for Security Council seat
Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who has based his political appeal partly on waging a personal vendetta against the "imperialist" United States, appeared last night to have been thwarted in his efforts to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

About the UN Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is the entity in the United Nations in charg of maintaining peace and security in the world. The Security Council has a lot of power since it's dresolutions must be implemented according to the United Nations Charter. The Security Council is made up of 15 member countries, five permanent members and ten temporary members. The permanent five are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. These members can Veto any resolution. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms. Members are voted in by the UN General Assembly by regional. A new president of the Security Council is appointed alphabetically on monthly basis.]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=199 Tue, 17 Oct 2006 08:23:40 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=191 Mother and Child in North Darfur
Mother and Child in North Darfur

UN 'missed' Darfur crisis signs
Early warning signs of ethnic tensions in Darfur were ignored years before the catastrophe unfolded, a damning report on the conflict claims.
--> more]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=191 Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:53:01 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=189 Attacks by Islamists on Thai soldiers
Attacks by Islamists on Thai soldiers - from Spiegel Magazine

Islamists are worldwide

Migrant beheaded in front of daughter in Thailand
Suspected Islamic militants beheaded a Myanmar migrant worker in front of his teenage daughter in the most gruesome of a spate of attacks in Thailand's troubled south.
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Tag: Thailand , Islamists



]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=189 Sat, 14 Oct 2006 11:53:04 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=183 Tibetan refugee shot dead by Chinese soldiers
Tibetan refugee shot dead by Chinese soldiers - Photo: Pavle Kozjek and explorersweb.com

Murder in the mountains
A mountaineer has posted a photograph of the teenage Tibetan refugee nun shot dead by Chinese soldiers in front of dozens of climbers on the Himalayan slopes.
--> more]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=183 Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:06:11 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=182 Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya

What killed Anna Politkovskaya?
The contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya, the 48- year-old independent Russian journalist known above all for her articles on the war in Chechyna, can already now be accorded the status of a historic killing. It will enter the history of the Russian state as a monstrous but sadly logical event
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The closing of the Russian mind
...Politkovskaya was one sign - the largest - that Russian media had not returned to pre-Glasnost Soviet days. She could still publish and travel, unimaginable for a critic in Soviet times. But the mass media - above all television - has ceased to reflect oppositionist voices, and makes little attempt at objectivity.
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About Anna Politkovskaya


Tag: Anna Politkovskaya


]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=182 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 12:18:00 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=169 Kim Jong-il
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il

About North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is an East Asian country occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its government defines itself as a Communist-led democratic multi-party state of the Juche political ideology, although in practice, it is thought to function as a dictatorship. North Korea is often referred to by global media sources as Stalinist, isolationist, and authoritarian. The government's Juche ideology demands absolute loyalty from the citizenry. It uses repressive central planning to implement its economic and social policies. Its ideological stance on issues such as the mass line, the role of intellectuals, and the source of revolutionary fervor mark North Korea's government as different from the Leninist Soviet Union or Maoist China.

Economy
North Korea, one of the world's most centrally planned and isolated economies, faces desperate economic conditions. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment and shortages of spare parts. Industrial and power output have declined in parallel. Despite an increased harvest in 2005 because of more stable weather conditions, fertilizer assistance from South Korea, and an extraordinary mobilization of the population to help with agricultural production, the nation has suffered its 11th year of food shortages because of on-going systemic problems, including a lack of arable land, collective farming practices, and chronic shortages of tractors and fuel. Massive international food aid deliveries have allowed the people of North Korea to escape mass starvation since famine threatened in 1995, but the population continues to suffer from prolonged malnutrition and poor living conditions. Large-scale military spending eats up resources needed for investment and civilian consumption.

North Korea Map
North Korea

Population:
23,113,019 (July 2006 est.)

Government type:
Communist state one-man dictatorship

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$1,700 (2005 est.)

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 71.65 years (USA 77.85 years)

Area:
total: 120,540 sq km (A little smaller than New York State)

--> more from the CIA Factbook
--> more from Wikipedia

North Korea's Official Website

photos fron north Korea


Tag: North Korea , Kim Jong-il


]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=169 Mon, 9 Oct 2006 10:41:51 -0400 http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=160 Georgia
Georgia - original map

War in the Caucasus?
...America may be lurching toward something it carefully avoided throughout the cold war: an armed confrontation between a U.S. client state and Moscow on Russia's own border.
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‘This is ethnic cleansing’ – Georgia
THE tiny former Soviet republic of Georgia accused Russia of ethnic cleansing yesterday after the Kremlin cut trade, transport and postal links and began to investigate children with Georgian names in Moscow schools.
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About Georgia
Georgia is a country in Europe to the east of the Black Sea, most of which is located in the South Caucasus. It shares borders with Russia in the north and Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the south. It has a population of 4,661,473 as og July 2006. Politicallty Georgia is a democracy with a parliment whose members are elected via popular vote. Economically its main economic activities are agricultural their main produce includes grapes, citrus fruits, and hazelnuts. There is also mining of manganese and copper.


About Georgia from the CIA Fact book

Country profile: Georgia


]]> General http://weeklyecho.com/blog/politics.php/index.php?itemid=160 Sun, 8 Oct 2006 10:36:41 -0400