Focus Iraq: a background to this week’s elections.
Iraqi Goran Supporter. Photo: Al-Jazeera
In the year 2003 Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. They were part of an evil alliance, dubbed “the axis of evil”, and they also supported the Al-Qaida terrorist network. These familiar arguments were provided by the world’s only superpower, The United States of America. The US invaded Iraq in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein, their former ally, and to install a new democracy that would pave the way for a new democratic Middle East and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two elections have so far been held in Iraq, in 2005 and in 2010. This article discusses the political structure of Iraq leading up to the elections this week.
Further reading;
Al-Jazeeras Interactive website on the Iraq Elections
The Swedish Newspaper DN.se Q&A
The Swedish Newspaper DN.se listing of the parties and alliances
When in October 2009 the Ugandan MP David Bahati tabled a draft bill proposing a harshening of the country’s already severely punitive anti-homosexuality legislation, the international community was outraged. Or so the media said. Sure enough, official communications from Europe and North America spoke clearly in terms of alienation and disgust - at the November Commonwealth Summit in Trinidad and Tobago, Canada’s and the UK’s respective heads of state, Stephen Harper and Gordon Brown, were so scathingly critical that the Ugandan MP Kassiano Wadri told a Guardian journalist that “if Uganda is to be expelled from the British Commonwealth, then let us go”. On the same note, Sweden, then holder of the EU presidency, threatened to cut off development aid should the bill be passed. It can be debated, however, whether this Western response can really be titled an international outcry. In fact, a closer look at legislated - and, more importantly, implemented - gay rights world-wide presents a rather bleak view from a humanitarian angle.
A diary written by Sailor Lucas Le Provost of the COP15. One of the numerous ships navigating amidst world politics.
On the 1st of December, the European Union’s new treaty, the Lisbon Treaty, entered into force. Appropriately enough, a lecture on the implications of the new Treaty was held in Lund the following day by Mr Henrik Norinder. Mr Norinder, who has a background in European and Swedish Constitutional Law and who has specialized in Competition Law and Internal Market Law, teaches EU Law at Lund University and is an associate at a law firm. During the lecture Mr Norinder gave a brief background of the Lisbon Treaty and highlighted some of the innovations in the document that from now on will constitute the legal basis for the EU. The lecture ended up in a discussion about whether the Lisbon Treaty could be seen as the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’.
Climate change is moving up and up on the international political agenda. At the time of writing, thousands of diplomats, journalists and activists - including myself and a hundred other young liberals - are preparing to enter the arena of the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Special editions of newspapers and features on television make it seem as if we are having an event ahead of us similar to the world football championship.
