Full Coverage: Democracy

31.01.2006 Sandra Pernar, Deputy President of GONG association received the Council of Europe Award for its “First Time Voter” Project, yesterday in Strassbourg. “First Time Voter” is a project implemented by GONG for six years in a row, at Croatian secondary schools. Over 100,000 high-school students have participated in the projects.

31.01.2006 While the Union Budget is being prepared on a war-footing, Finance Minister P Chidambaram comes under pressure from both the Prime Minister's Office and the office of the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, to enhance Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) to take care of the social sector.

30.01.2006 in terms of democracy, Nepal is probably the worst of all 42 countries in which ActionAid works, according to the organisation's chief executive, Ramesh Singh, himself a Nepali.
* OneWorld UK Guide to Nepal

27.01.2006 The diplomatic ‘Quartet’ on the Middle East congratulated the Palestinian people on holding free elections, while emphasising that armed activities stand in contradiction to the democratic process.

27.01.2006 Ben Terrall examines Haiti’s coup regime, human rights abuses, the sham of planned elections and the complicity of Washington on a military and diplomatic level.

26.01.2006 Hamas politicians--who appear to have won a surprising victory in Wednesday's Palestinian parliamentary elections--say they are inspired by, but not in lock step with the group's militant core. Though considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and Israel, Hamas is also known at home for providing social services.

26.01.2006 Brazil's president Lula is not coming to this year's World Social Forum, being held this week in Venezuela. He has a lot of work to do at home to prepare his beleaguered party for November's elections, and his role as champion of Latin America's left may be usurped by one of three local colleagues: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, or Bolivia's Evo Morales.

26.01.2006 Palestinians streamed into more than 1,000 polling stations on Wednesday in the first parliamentary election in a decade, one that will determine the shape of future prospects for returning to peace talks with Israel.

26.01.2006 The Zapatistas launched an armed rebellion in the Chiapas region of Mexico over a decade ago; now they're on the campaign trail with the recently launched "Other Campaign." As Mexico's 2006 presidential campaign gets under way, the Zapatistas are crossing the country in an attempt to mobilize the millions of disenfranchised indigenous and working class people.

25.01.2006 Next Friday the USA Patriot Act extension will expire and Congress will have the chance to reinstate protections of your privacy. Before then, your representatives need to hear that you want your privacy back, says CodePink, which is organizing a massive Congressional call-in Wednesday, January 25th.

25.01.2006 The pressures of occupation and poverty are undiminished, but the Palestine election is an opportunity for activists to promote a vision of change, finds Eóin Murray.
* Also, read OneWorld UK's Palestine Guide

25.01.2006 from e-Parliament:
How many electrical items in your home are on standby all the time? Count them; the number may surprise you. And the amount of energy that these things guzzle over a year might surprise you even more. You can download a Parliamentary Tool Kit, produced by the e-Parliament Climate and Energy Network, to help get standby power down to 1 watt or less.

25.01.2006 The Palestine Society of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London has invited all Palestinians in the Diaspora to participate in symbolic elections on the actual date of elections to be held in the Occupied Palestinian Territories on 25 January.

24.01.2006 The resounding victory of Michelle Bachelet as Chile’s first woman president represents an important social advance in a country where women are often treated as second class citizens. But few observers see the Chilean elections as reflective of the leftward trend taking place in much of Latin America.

24.01.2006 Reporters Without Borders today condemned the censorship and police violence against journalists which have accompanied the Nepalese government’s crackdown on the opposition’s efforts to stage pro-democracy demonstrations in the past few days.

24.01.2006 Opposition to continuing Pakistani occupation of parts of Kashmir is rising, says a rebel leader in exile. ''An All Parties National Alliance has been formed to press for the rights of people in what Pakistan likes to call Azad (Independent) Kashmir but we call Pakistan Occupied Kashmir,'' Shaukat Ali Kashmiri told IPS.

23.01.2006 The targeting of human rights defenders, political leaders and journalists in Nepal, and the arbitrary use of preventive detention orders, have been condemned by a leading Asian rights group following the break-up of a pro-democracy rally in Kathmandu at the weekend by army and police authorised to shoot and kill.
* OneWorld UK Nepal Guide

20.01.2006 The editor of a monthly news magazine in Nepal was among the victims of a wave of arrests of opposition activists ahead of a planned pro-democracy rally in Kathmandu today.
* Government detains activists to foil rally
* Secretary-General calls on all sides in Nepal to resume dialogue and halt violence
* Two GEFONT trade union leaders arrested

20.01.2006 Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has bowed to pressure and agreed that a constituent assembly would adopt the new constitution, as demanded by civil society and the opposition.

20.01.2006 A statement by the Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) says that over a hundred persons have been arrested in a serious escalation of repression in Nepal.