Archive for Europe / International
Ed Davey condems Tory alliance with “extreme right wingers and homophobes”
A follow-up to Wednesday’s post about the Conservative MEPs’ alliance with Valdemar Tomaševski, a homophobic Lithuanian MEP, with Ed Davey now commenting:
This is yet more evidence of the shameful way that Cameron has taken the Tories out of the centre-right mainstream of European politics, and allied them with a lunatic fringe of extreme right wingers [...]
Moldova update: what happened after the ‘Twitter revolution’?
Back in April I blogged about how Twitter was being given the credit for helping to fuel a revolt against the Communist government in Moldova. The protests were against the conduct of parliamentary elections, won by the Communists.
The protests secured new elections in late July, following which a non-communist government has just been formed:
Moldova’s four [...]
Stephen Fry pokes fun at Euro-myths
Here’s the “Call my Euro-bluff” section from an episode of QI I stumbled across:
The internet campaign of an Afghan Presidential candidate
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:
With only around 1.5% of the population having access to the internet, it may look as if the role for online campaigning in the next Afghanistani Presidential election is rather limited. At least one candidate though is hoping to demonstrate otherwise in the run-up to voting on 20 August, with a second round if necessary [...]
Get the Lib Dem European manifesto on your iPhone
The party’s manifesto for the European elections is also available as an iPhone app. If you have access to an iPhone or iPod touch you can view it. Go to apps store and search for Liberal Democrats. The app is free.
And don’t forget, you can also get the party’s TV broadcasts (PPBs) using our iTunes [...]
In other election news … breakthrough for female representation in Kuwait
Last week Kuwait’s 50-seat Parliament was up for election and, for the first time, the victors include women. Four of the sixteen female candidates who stood were elected, including Massouma al-Mubarak who has been the path-breaking female politician of Kuwait.
Back in 2005, when women were given the right to vote and to stand for Parliament, [...]
TheyWorkForYou goes Irish
Excellent to see that an Irish version of www.TheyWorkForYou.com, the website which makes it easy for people to find out what their elected representatives get up to, is now up and running and being tested: www.KildareStreet.com
Best of luck to all those involved.
Better news from Afghanistan and Pakistan
An update on two of the the trio of stories I blogged about earlier this month, all relating to the treatment of women.
In Afghanistan, the controversial law which would have severely curtailed the rights of women, for example by requiring married women to get permission from their husbands before leaving the house, has been shelved.
Meanwhile [...]
How Twitter is fuelling a revolt against communism
Two days ago the Communists were declared victors in Moldova’s elections, triggering widespread unrest as people claimed the elections were rigged. Twitter has played a key role in organising the protests, as The Telegraph has reported:
Organisers used the social networking site Twitter to rally opposition to a Communist victory in legislative elections
At [...]
“Women Erased in Israel, Flogged in Pakistan and Restricted in Afghanistan”
The New York Times headline neatly wraps up three stories about the at times grim, and in the photoshopping case verging on farcical, struggle for women’s rights across much of the Middle East:
On Friday, The Associated Press reported that Israeli newspapers “aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers” digitally manipulated a photograph of the new Israeli government, [...]
