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Worldchanging.com's Emily Gertz discusses the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of blogs and mobile phones, referring to recent events in Burma and an activist project in Congo, among other things:

"In the world of online activism, expectations have not inflated to the level of a few years ago, when a wave of techno-utopian optimism swept the activist 'net that maybe a "technical intervention," that is blogging, could stop the mass killings in Darfur -- an effort which, on those terms, failed.

Still, could another such "failure," fueled by the dismay and anger about the Myanmar government's violent crackdown, undercut the momentum of mobile-enabled activism? It's a good moment to consider how networked communications don't -- and do -- help achieve human rights."

Link to full post.

My graduate thesis was about The Daily Show and its relationship to media and politics, and so I grew almost embarrassingly excited when someone in the house told me that Evo Morales (who is featured prominently in the Why Democracy? film Looking for the Revolution) had been Jon Stewart's guest last week. It's a decent 8-minute interview, and it's interesting to hear the crowd's positive response to Morales' various acheivements that don't jive so well with official US policy. The interaction between Stewart, Morales, and Morales's translator is pretty hilarious, too.

The story is simple. A newspaper, Mid-Day, had published a series of articles critical of a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Last week a ruling by the Delhi High Court sentenced four journalists associated with those articles to four months of imprisonment because it held that the reports amounted to contempt of the Supreme Court.

The Indian press protested that ruling and when the journalists approached the Supreme Court, it put the sentencing of the High Court on hold. [BBC story here.]

The Indian economy has been growing rapidly the last few years and necessarily requires enormous amounts of energy for it. As it is dependent on imported hydrocarbon fuels for its needs, it has an interest in those states which are potential energy suppliers. The stability of Myanmar is a matter of concern for India as it is considering investing US$ 150 million in natural gas exploration there.

As an economist with an interest in economic development, I have always been intrigued by the relationship between democracy and economic growth. That is so because I call two distinct places home: India, where I was born and grew up, and which is the largest democracy in the world; and the US, where I spent much of my adult life, attended universities and worked, and which is the most powerful and successful democracy in the world.

I confess that to whatever extent the idea of democracy is appealing to me, I am not overly impressed with the actual implementation of democracy in India. I am also not sure that granting universal adult franchise was the right thing to do at the time of India’s political independence in 1947. Democracy, it appears to me, is not just about exercising choice but rather it is about informed choice. I think that in India we have what I call a “cargo cult” democracy, as I have argued before on my blog.

After denying the existance of homosexuality in Iran in his speech at Columbia University in New York, bloggers and analysts around the world discussing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement.

Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled today that President Pervez Musharraf (the subject of the Why Democracy? film Dinner with the President) can run in the upcoming elections without giving up his position as head of the country's army.

Buzzvines opines that the decision contradicts the constitution and offers three possible explanations:

"1. The justices and their families were threated to get a favorable verdict
2. The justices will be making a lot of trips to the banks
3. The justices were first allowed to gain the nation's confidence by
the staged drama earlier this year so that when a preposterous verdict
was read the nation would accept the verdict."

On the other side, some commenters on Metroblogging Islamabad are hailing the decision as a sign of the Supreme Court's independence. And cyrilalmedia argues that this decision by no means the final one.

Meanwhile, most sources expect to see former PM Benazir Bhutto return to Pakistan on Oct. 18.

International politics is a funny thing. Where else could you group the world's most powerful leaders to discuss the most critical issues of our time and still have them not solve anything?

The most recent United Nations General Assembly meeting demonstated this with enough political squabbling to dishearten even the most enthusiatic Secretary-General. The usual suspects (Iran and Zimbabwe) were put the sword but did not take it lying down as Robert Mugabe did not pull any punches in his address (audio available here).  

Have a look at the The Gate blog for a description of the meeting's events or IOL for Mugabe's criticism of the United States and Britain.  

Their books both started a global debate around free market politics,
especially in the context of the Blackwater shooting in Iraq earlier
this month. Both books are high priority publications this year and
both writers are highly discussed these weeks: But what do bloggers
think about Alan Greenspan's and Naomi Klein's latest work?