For all their ideological fervor, revolutions in practice tend to be fairly predictable affairs. More often than not, when the initial groundswell of popular discontent recedes, the best-organized and most ideologically cohesive political factions assume power and proceed to run the show according to their own preferences.
Law enforcement officials in China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines have launched a blitzkrieg targeting money launderers who have been swindling and blackmailing average citizens throughout Asia to the tune of millions of dollars.
Delivering her Nobel Lecture after a 21-year delay, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi offered a timely reminder from the front lines of struggle.
“To be forgotten,” she said in her October 16th address in Oslo, “… is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. When I met Burmese migrant workers and refugees during my recent visit to Thailand, many cried out, ‘Don’t forget us!’ They meant: ‘Don’t forget our plight, don’t forget to do what you can to help us, don’t forget we also belong to your world.’
On Wednesday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Brazil for his first state visit to the South American nation since 2009. The ostensible reason is to attend the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, a high-profile gathering of more than 100 heads of state taking place in Rio de Janeiro. But high on Ahmadinejad’s priority list is an important bit of diplomacy: reinvigorating the once-robust ties between Tehran and Brasilia. For Iran, Brazil is a potential economic lifeline in the face of mounting international pressure.
On Monday and Tuesday, all eyes will be on Russia as it hosts the third round in the troubled international negotiations now under way between Iran and the West over the former's nuclear program.