Full Coverage: Democracy

29.02.2004 Operation Black Vote is a non-party political campaign to get black and ethnic communities more involved in British political life so they can achieve greater equality of opportunity. The campaign is supported by a broad coalition of mainly Black organisations.

27.02.2004 L'émergence soudaine de groupes armés occupant des villes haïtiennes depuis le 5 février a bouleversé l'analyse de l'avenir politique de ce pays. Avec ou sans Aristide, avec ou sans présence internationale, selon l'auteur de cet article, il est sans doute déjà trop tard pour une issue démocratique.

27.02.2004 Depuis que, le 4 octobre 2002, le roi Gyanendra a démis le chef du gouvernement Sher Bahadur Deuba et dissous le Parlement, le royaume du Népal reste plongé dans le chaos. Tandis que les principaux partis politiques exigent le retour du pouvoir aux mains des élus, les rebelles maoïstes réclament la fin de la monarchie. Dans ce pays qui figure parmi les plus pauvres du monde, leur mouvement est alimenté par la misère et la corruption. Après la rupture d'un fragile cessez-le-feu de sept mois, le 27 août, les affrontements ont repris.

27.02.2004 Nearly a quarter of the recruits inducted into the fledgling Afghan National Army have deserted the force, many of them citing low pay as the main reason.

26.02.2004

Voter registration © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

A widely recognized expert on Afghanistan, journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, stated unequivocally this week that the elections planned for June 2004 are ill-timed and should be postponed. The timing of the Afghan election has more to do with the Bush administration's electoral agenda than with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, he charged.

26.02.2004 Yasmin Qureshi has triumphed in her bid to become the Labour candidate in a north London seat, just days after she was denied the nomination in what many believed was a “stitch-up’”.

26.02.2004 A leading Afghan expert has urged postponing the elections, which are slated for June, because of lack of security and international funding.

25.02.2004 Des représentants de la Centrale unique des travailleurs (CUT) du Brésil seront à Montréal pour discuter des défis auxquels le mouvement syndical brésilien fait face. Organisée par la CSN en collaboration avec Alternatives et l’Observatoire des Amériques de l’UQAM, cette conférence aura lieu le jeudi 26 février.

25.02.2004 24 February 2004 – The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) may suspend the SCG membership in that organization if they fail to fulfill the obligations they accepted, said the Administrator of the Department for Strategic Planning Johan Friestedt. The latest CoE Report criticizes Montenegro for its failure to adopt European standards, inadequate reforms and failure to fulfill the obligations it accepted at the entry in the CoE.

24.02.2004 WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 24 (CSM) -- The US Supreme Court has given a green light for the government to conduct certain federal court cases in total secrecy. In a case with major implications for public access to the courts, as well as the war on terror, the nation's highest court said Monday it will not examine the circumstances surrounding a habeas corpus appeal filed by an Arab immigrant challenging his detention during the post-9/11 investigation. The proceedings were conducted under a government secrecy request upheld by federal judges.

24.02.2004 Si le Président Aristide a été élu avec le soutien et la faveur de l'immense majorité des Haïtiennes et des Haïtiens pour qui il représentait, en 1990, l'espoir de sortir Haïti de la dictature et de la pauvreté, on doit maintenant se rendre à l'évidence, ces temps sont bel et bien révolus. En réalité, on dirait qu'Aristide s'est donné Duvalier pour modèle.

24.02.2004 Reports that police had fired shots during an opposition rally at the weekend have raised fears that Malawi's upcoming May elections could be marred by violence.

23.02.2004 Elections held before January 2005 would be unlikely to have credibility, says the report of the UN team sent to Iraq to help mediate differences between leading Iraqis and the United States in a report released today that appears to put the UN mid-way between the positions adopted by the US and Iraqi religious leader Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.

23.02.2004 Washington’s continued insistence on sticking to its arbitrarily determined schedule could create "so many time bombs that could lead to unwanted results," warns Isam al Khafaji, an Iraqi national who served as an adviser to the Bush administration and member of Iraq's Development and reconstruction Council until last summer.

23.02.2004 As opposition forces led by known human rights violaters threaten to take over Haiti's capital and U.S. Marines are sent in to protect the Embassy, a UK-based solidarity group denounces indications that Haiti's most influential opposition leaders--with ties to the Republican Party--support the reconstituting of a Haitian Army reminiscent of the repressive Duvalier regimes. (See Analysis)

23.02.2004 After removing reformers from the ballot and muzzling the reformist press, Iran's religious conservatives won an unsurprising victory in the weekend's parliamentary elections. The question now is whether hard-liners or pragmatists will decide the country's future direction.

23.02.2004

Jean-Bertrand Aristide © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

Despite his failings, Jean-Bertrand Aristide is the elected president of Haiti and as such deserves support against an opposition composed of the country's elite, argues Yifat Susskind of MADRE, adding that the U.S. media is obfuscating the real situation in the country and Bush administration policies have bolstered the "opposition."

23.02.2004 Alternatives, en collaboration avec SPHR, reçoit à Montréal M. Mustafa Barghouthi, l'un des plus importants leaders de la lutte palestinienne, qui participe activement dans la construction d'une société civile palestinienne démocratique.

23.02.2004 Human rights abuses in Eritrea are often overshadowed by the never - ending border conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia. The 2004 Human Rights Watch Report highlights these abuses.

20.02.2004 Depuis deux ans, le Canada négocie, presque secrètement, une entente majeure de commerce international, soit l’Accord de libre-échange entre le Canada et l’Amérique centrale (l’ALEAC4), dont certaines discussions ont lieu cette semaine. Les vies et les moyens de subsistance de millions de personnes en Amérique centrale sont en jeu.