The Whirllwind of Revolution - The Aftermath 1 The Refugee Crisis

Looking back at what has swept the North African coast in the last three to four weeks, one wonders at when the phenomenon will finally blow itself out and allow the world to take stock. To quickly review, Tunisia was the first nation to be swallowed in the path of this nation devouring whirlwind. It's people demanded that their president stand down and he ultimately had no choice but to do so. After three weeks of clinging on it was reported that his prime minister resigned yesterday. As Tunisia was crumbling, protests started going off simultaneously in Morocco,Jordan,Libya,Algeria, Bahrain and Egypt. The largest Arabic nation on the planet was the next to catch fire, protesters going head to head with armed soldiers and eventually carrying the day when their sit-in protest in Tahir Square pushed Mr Hosni Mubarak out of power after ruling for 31 years. Like a smooth relay race it became a choice between Bahrain or Libya. The Crown Prince in Bahrain being a more humane individual that most of his fellow rulers decided after clashing with protesters and forcibly using the Armed Forces to eject them from the Square they chose to occupy, heeded. International advice and decided to dialogue with the opposition after allowing them to reclaim the Square from armed occupation.

I guess he decided that he had a lot more to lose if he continued to go head-to-head with popular opinion,not so the most infamous terrorist leader on the planet Colonel Muhammar Ghaddafi who collected the baton from Egypt and almost immediately went on the offensive killing anyone and anything that got in his way. We have been at it for almost two weeks now and it has ballooned into a full grown refugee crisis. The media had live footage of thousands coming through both borders this morning Libyan-Egyptian and Libyan-Tunisian they were of all different nationalities.

Stuck in nation where things are not functioning at 100% because of the turmoil there too that has yet to settle. So it is fast growing into a crisis of which if not looked into soon promises to make breaking news of it's own. Developed nations have been hospitable in evacuating their own nationals alongside any others who needed to leave. But the real question is what happens when all these evacuations cease. The military ships and Hercules C130 planes that stand as a beacon of hope. Make their final trips to Tripoli and Malta? Scary withnthe kind of things we hear happening inside Libya in Gadaffi controlled territory.

The international community is awash with various kind of sanctions from creating trade blockades to enforcing no-fly zones,and they are just as determined that this time Ghadaffi has come to the end of the last of his several lives. This time they are telling him there is no where to. With assets worth £1 billion seized and frozen in the UK alone things are looking bleak for the "Strongman of Libya". The UN have a job to assist the NGO's who are already on the ground helping with the developing refugee crisis. And they need ton move soon.

The Whirlwind of Democracy - The Bahrain Experience

It started as the next relay after the the Whirlwind of Democracy sweeping the Arab world claimed its first scalp in Tunisia it was overlooked briefly because Egypt one of the known giants was on the edge,it has now become history that last week Hosni Mubarak gave in under immense pressure after over thirty years of iron-fisted rule. From the look of things they are still basking in what is the new found euphoria of what power comes with the realisation of what democracy means literally - people power.


This morning the beginning of the Formula 1 Grand Prix season seems to be under serious threat because of the present political situation unfolding in Bahrain at the moment. It seems that the military unlike their colleagues in Egypt are more intent on killing of as many of their citizens who chose to disobey instructions to stop protests and return home.


Yesterday it was Libya in the news and Col Ghaddafi who undoubtedly holds the record for the longest single rule in Africa was facing down determined protested who too were proving determined in the face of reprisals from law enforcement. It doesn't get any better as the flames of protest sweeping North Africa especially the Arab World do not seem to want to die. Protesters everywhere tasting blood in Tunisia and Egypt believe now the war can be one anywhere if organised,structured and planned properly.


The thing that most of these governments have not planned for is organised protest with the new intervention of Social Media, the twitter and facebook options have been put to unbelievable use in the last two Arab developments. The interesting comment however being made is that no two protests are unfolding in exactly the same way.


Today marks the moment of truth. In the capital three young men's funerals iare going to be attended by individuals protesting their deaths at the hands of the military yesterday. There is the pent-up anger of muslim faithfuls that will spill out onto the streets after Friday prayers. It does'nt look good.


Even though Washington has asked for the government to show restraint, it doesn't look that anybody is ready to listen. Is the Whirlwind of Democracy on the verge of claiming another scalp?

Future Political hope vs Daunting Economic reality

I have been taking a careful look at the political landscape in both the United Kingdom and the United States viz-a-viz what they hope to achieve within the ambit of limited economic resources,and to tell the truth it does not look promising.


Mr Obama has been in office for a little over twenty-four months and as much as it seem that he has been able to achieve on the political front the economic  reality of the slow recovery from the recession keeps on staring him and his team of economic advisers in the face. I will give him an A+ for his dogged perseverance though.


Across the Atlantic his friend of the "special relationship" Mr Cameron is having it equally as bad he might have pulled a tiny victory from the bankers this morning by putting a permanent tax that is supposed to raise something within the region of an extra two billion pounds towards cutting the deficit. I would give him and his team of economic advisers an A- in what they have been doing to try and turn the economy around.


But when you look at the signs, they do not bode well for either of them. Mr President and Mr Prime Minister both have increasingly growing unemployment figures every month, evidence shows that growth of both economies are slowing down and no wonder too. With the big brother attitude of having to help bail out everyone else who needed help in the Recession. 


The only thing these gentlemen need is every ounce of their ability as statesmen to pool economic and political force and somehow pull off the impossible in the next few months. With Strikes,Protests and Demonstrations about everything from wage freezes to proposed tax cuts the next few months are about to become very very interesting.

Confusion in the Ancient Citadel of Knowledge

We enter into the second week of pretexts in Cairo,the capital city of Egypt. The resolve of the people has not dampened one bit. They agree to reforms,they agree to orderly transition of power, but they are sticking to their guns. Mr Hosni Mubarak must leave office. He has resigned his leadership of the ruling party believing that to be enough of a concession to his people to allow him to stay in office until the next elections in September.

Listening to him speak on national television,you begin to wonder wether he is inhabiting the same planet as the people he is suppose to be ruling. Reports claim that at least 300 people have died in the last fortnight. And several hundred have been injured in the ensuing protests. The underlying issue that makes this all so sad is that nothing seems to make sense in Egypt anymore. Since the Army have said that they will not fire on their citizens their role has been reduced to peacekeeping between the factions of pro an anti-Mubarak protester who last weekend turned the Tahir Square into a war zone.

Civil normalcy seemingly returned to the capital today with banks opening and businesses trying to get back to the everyday routine of trading,but the restlessness is still there in the air as the protesters refuse to quit from the Square. They were photographed sleeping between the tracks of tanks occupying the Square just to ascertain that they were not corralled into specific places at the behest of the authorities.

It seems no one has the answers, The international community are asking Mr Mubarak to do the right thing(as if he understands the meaning of the sentence even if it was spelled out to him clearly in egyptian) meeting between the government and the coalition of the opposition have not brought forth anything tangible,yet America is praising Mr Mubarak for the concessions he has made so far(Mrs Clinton I think you need to choose your words a little more carefully). Short of Mr Mubarak leaving the government completely which he says will amount to the whole system collapsing in chaos,I do not see any way forward out of the confusion that has engulfed this ancient citadel of knowledge,so sad.

Retributive Justice - Storm on the horizon of News International

It seems that all being said and done all is not well at News International. Over the past few days what Rupert Murdoch the larger than life figure that sits atop this huge media empire has been seeing as a slight irritation is fast turning into something else.


Both owning and overseeing the day-to-day running of one of the fastest selling tabloids in the United Kingdom,has a way of taking its toll, especially if there is sufficient reason to believe that method by which the information that has been making such racy headlines,thereby sending circulation figures through the roof in recent years, was not gathered in what one considers an ethical and acceptable manner.


Heads have started to roll thick and fast in the last few days and the interesting issues is the harder the organisation does everything to kill this story, it is fast becoming the proverbial "bad penny" that has an uncanny knack of popping up in the wrong place at about the right time.


The erstwhile Director of Information to the Prime Minister has not had it easy in the last few weeks,he has had to resign from his second job because he alleges he did not have full knowledge of what his subordinates were doing at his former job,very interesting


Interesting to see how many more people are going to end up in the firing line,since the Metropolitan Police have decided to revisit the investigation with an injection of fresh evidence. 


It looked like the Business Secretary had well and truly ended up with egg on his face after it was alleged that he had fallen out of favour with the Powers that be,due to his attitude towards News International intentions to add BSkyB to their trophy chest.


Mr Murdoch had better remember the interesting adage saying " That those who live in glass houses should not throw stones".......I have a funny feeling that we have not heard the last of this story.

The Expenses Scandal - The Aftermath

Last week the Expenses Scandal claimed its first proper victim meaning that someone is due to start a jail term after being convicted of fraudulent inflation of expenses on two residences that had been already fully paid for. The interesting issue that I wish to pick up on is that corruption in party politics is something that is not limited to developing nations alone.


It has been believed that it is only nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia can be cited for corruption in politics and the press always have a field day in reporting the different cases of graft that you find in successive government that rule in these developing democracies.


One then believes in a developed democracy that in a situation where people come to power in a situation where the have extensive holdings financially and speaking by principle should have no reason for graft whatsoever. But then it became the most unbelievable of suprises to see what our esteemed occupants of the Palace of Westminster had to reveal.


The Telegraph dedicated months to the revelations of the Scandal and it played out like a real-life soap opera over the better part of eighteen months and still hasn't finished yet. Giving us chapter,act and verse of the whole charade on felt like all things political nothing would come of it. Reforms would be the order of the day, a lot of those proven to have "stolen" something were allowed to keep some of their ill gotten gains if they nice gave something back.


And after the biggest names in Westminster at the time, the "royal family" of the then ruling Labour Party escaped censor and went into the night with their golden handshakes, intact one felt that would be the finale. Only for us to hear a whisper here and there that criminal proceedings had been intiated against serving parliament members concerning their dealings with said scandal.


Whatever the continent or state in question as long as the democracy is ruled by people, there will always be graft of some form taking place,though unacceptable it has quietly become the order of the way things are done. It might be a state of affairs properly documented in the developing world as their so-called "shame" but it is has now officially arrived at our shores and we should expect alot of it.

The Haitian Disaster - The Baby Doc Dimension

Fast forward and rewind, if Mr and Mrs Ben Ali of Tunisia decide to revisit Tunisia in about a quarter of a century from now should they be welcomed back by anyone? What gives the likes of Baby Doc Dulvalier the emboldened courage to return to a nation that he plundered and pillaged with impunity twenty-five years ago. Glad to know that after a quarter of a century there are people around who remembered the dark deeds he committed, the innocent lives he took are still asking for him to be prosecuted.

Thinking about it as all fiendish dictators,Baby Doc believed that reeling from the effects of a devastating earthquake even a year on the sensibilities of the people would be dulled to point of vulnerability, and he would be welcomed like a hero. As ever arrogance usually personifies people of his ilk and character. How dare he swagger into the country under the noses of French authorities who claim they had no knowledge of his final destination until when they had boarded and the plane had departed.

At least France had the dignity not to grant the Ben-Alis asylum when they fled Tunisia but then they still hold whatever integrity they have left in question when you think of how as colonial masters they helped to spawn these evil monstrosities who they largely refuse to cut to size unless absolutely necessary.

It remains to be see what Baby Doc really wants to do with his second coming to Haiti but one has a pretty good idea that he sees a potential money tree looming again with all the international investment expected to go into the rebuilding of the infrastructure of the country and it was too good a gravy train for him to be able to pass up. I would like to postulate the theory that the law of retributive justice is about to deal Baby Doc a master stroke of fate. And he will still rue the day that he decided to return to Haiti to make fresh pickings instead of living out his days in a quiet forgotten existence in exile.

That said it still amounts to a disaster of different proportions when you think that someone with no moral conscience like Baby Doc who should be treated like a war criminal is walking around breathing the free air of his nation as if nothing really happened. This is a travesty that should be looked into and redressed. If not the international community who are giving us the impression that they are in Haiti to rebuild it and make things better than what they had ever been are laying a dangerous precedence for what former dictators can and cannot do. Justifying the wrong because it is easier to sweep the whole issue under the carpet and get on with the business of rebuilding instead of righting the wrongs of the past.

The foundation that they choose to bulid on is very shaky and I wouldn't be too surprised if it came crashing down around them some day soon. For Haiti this is a disaster that simply adds insult to a festering injury.