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6. februar 2005
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Maybe we can interpret this as an itsy bitsy tiny bit of progress:
Election time in the Riyadh region has invigorated the quiet capital, where the first phase of the municipal polls will be held on Thursday.
True, voters can elect only half the municipal members while the rest will be appointed by the government; women have been banned from running and voting; but the ballot is a concrete, if tiny, step in a reform process no-one had expected in Saudi Arabia. Plus, for the first time there are forums - daily meetings at candidates’ HQs - where people can discuss social issues away from the eye of religious authorities.
If the Saudis get the taste for voting for their local leaders, it will be interesting to see what the answer will be for the obvious demand for national elections.
11:56:13 AM 
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Mark Steyn's columns are always a must, and his latest on the UN scandals is especially so.
If Paul Volcker's preliminary report on Oil-for-Food dealt with the organisation's unofficial interests, the UN's other report of the week accurately captured their blithe insouciance to their official one. As you may have noticed, the good people of Darfur have been fortunate enough not to attract the attention of the arrogant cowboy unilateralist Bush and have instead fallen under the care of the Polly Toynbee-Clare Short-approved multilateral compassion set. So, after months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan managed to persuade the UN to set up a committee to look into what's going on in Darfur. They've just reported back that it's not genocide.
That's great news, isn't it? For as yet another Annan-appointed UN committee boldly declared in December: "Genocide anywhere is a threat to the security of all and should never be tolerated." So thank goodness this isn't genocide. Instead, it's just 70,000 corpses who all happen to be from the same ethnic group – which means the UN can go on tolerating it until everyone's dead, and Polly and Clare don't have to worry their pretty little heads about it.
Somehow I missed the little oddity that the UN Human Rights Commission has set down a working group to decide the agenda of its annual Geneva meeting this year. It consists of the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. The UN is so corrupt it is beyond parody.
11:11:17 AM
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The UK's Telegraph praises Condi Rice for bringing morality to realpolitik:
When Europeans talk of "stability" and "constructive engagement", what they often mean is doing deals with dictators. A case can, of course, be made for such an approach. But, whatever else it is, it is not ethical. Miss Rice, by contrast, talks without embarrassment about exporting liberty.
"There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy," she says. "Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles."
How, then, has America allowed itself to be seen as interested chiefly in oil?
Because Europe sees the US as through a mirror.
I know it's a cliche, but I honestly think Condi has more balls than any politician in "old Europe." This is what they are going to find out.
1:35:38 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.03.2005; 01:29:51.
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