Indonesians head to the polls for the country’s third parliamentary election in 10 years on Thursday, in what is expected to be a largely peaceful vote.
The exception may be in the northernmost province of Aceh, where attacks on supporters of the leading local party and mutual suspicion between former independence fighters and the military are threatening a still fragile peace. A large security presence is planned for election day in Aceh and in the resource-rich province of Papua.
By most accounts, democracy is flourishing in Indonesia, no small feat considering its history of political violence and the turmoil that followed the downfall of Suharto, the country’s longtime authoritarian ruler, in 1998. Indonesians have mostly embraced the democratic process, and an energetic news media faces few restrictions.
The parliamentary election on Thursday will be the first in which Indonesians will vote directly for a candidate rather than a political party. It is seen as an important gauge of the country’s democratic reforms since the ouster of Suharto.
More than 38 political parties are vying to win at least a fifth of the 560 seats in the national Parliament, or 25 percent of the popular vote, which under new election laws would allow them to put forward a candidate to challenge the incumbent, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in the presidential election in July.
Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s president, announced the military was on the verge of wiping out the Tamil Tigers. Is Asia’s longest-running civil war really near an end? And what are the human costs of the latest fighting? A cessation of hostilities doesn’t necessarily mean an enduring peace.
Jordan, home to thousands of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees who fled their homes in search of a better life, have ended up living in appalling conditions.
Al Jazeera’s Nisreen el-Shamayleh reports from the Jerash refugee camp where she met two families devoid of any hope.
Jordan is generously hosting some 500,000- 700,000 Iraqi refugees in spite of its limited natural resources and small size. Iraqis now account for more than 10 percent of the total population. Between the Iraqi refugees and a long-standing population of Palestinians, Jordan now hosts the largest number of refugees, per capita, of any country on earth.
Iraqi refugees in Jordan face serious hardship. Although the vast majority are not confined in camps, most are denied legal status. The only way for Iraqis to obtain a Jordanian residency card is by placing more than US $100,000 on hold in a special account.
Without a residency card, the refugees do not have the right to work and most lack access to education and heath care. As a result, many refugees—even middle class professionals like judges and professors—have little ability to earn money to feed and house their families. The Jordanian government has deported a number of Iraqi refugees back to danger in Iraq, in violation of customary international law. In some cases the deported refugees had registered with the UNHCR and obtained asylum-seeker cards. In January of 2006, Jordan closed its borders to most Iraqi refugees.
Bolivia’s government believes that a renewed demand for lithium, a metal used to make batteries, could play a crucial role in lifting the country out of poverty.
Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo reports from the Salar de Uyuni region, where half the world’s lithium reserves can be found.
Here’s another report from Channel 4 in the United Kingdom:
According to the United States Geological Survey, Bolivia has the world’s largest reserves of lithium. The USGS estimates Bolivia’s accessible geological reserves of lithium resources at 5.4 million tons. Chile, by contrast, has 3 million, China 1.1, and the US, some 410,000 tons. For Bolivia, the hope is that lithium will do what silver, tin and natural gas failed to do.
Tension is building in Georgia as protesters prepare to take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Opposition leaders blame Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer, for the disastrous war with Russia last year and say he cannot lead Georgia because of his poor relationship with Moscow.
Al Jazeera’s Matthew Collin reports from the capital Tbilisi.
The current anti-government protests in Thailand are the latest development after years of political instability. Al Jazeera’s Azhar Sukri looks back at the turmoil of the last three years.
In an attempt to show the continued strength of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, tens of thousands of his supporters massed in central Bangkok on Wednesday and demanded the resignation of the government.
Wearing the red shirts of Thaksin loyalists, the demonstrators streamed into Bangkok throughout the day from his political strongholds in the rural north and northeast and by early evening the police estimated the crowds at 100,000.
The demonstrations were the biggest challenge to the four-month-old government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who took office after a pro-Thaksin government was dissolved when a court ruled that the governing party had engaged in electoral fraud.
The protesters gathered in front of the prime minister’s office and outside the home of Prem Tinsulanda, a former prime minister who is a top adviser to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The protesters accused Mr. Prem of orchestrating a coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin in September 2006 while the prime minister was out of the country.
Mr. Abhisit said on television that the police and army forces would avoid confrontations with the protesters but that the government would respond with force if necessary.
“There’s a group of people wanting to create chaos, but the government will do everything to restrain them,” he said. “If there’s rioting, we will have to do something. I can affirm there will be no violence starting from the government’s side.”
In Iraq, another bombing threatened security and raised new fears of violence between Sunnis and Shiites once American troops withdraw. The bomb exploded in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing seven and wounding 23. It is the third straight day of violent attacks and comes one day after President Obama made a surprise visit to Iraq.
Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, speaks with Daljit Dhaliwal about what will happen in Iraq after U.S. withdrawal and how the Iraqi government has dealt with Sunni-Shiite tensions.
Once a symbol of American industrial might, much of Detroit now stands in disrepair and decay. Sebastian Walker reports from Detroit.
One of the more amazing statistics about Detroit is that in 1950 Detroit was the fifth wealthiest city in the world. Today, it does not rank in the top 1000.
The National Organization for Marriage is airing this ad on television telling lies about marriage equality. Fight back at End The Lies.
The general argument of the ad is that the push for marriage equality isn’t just about rights for same-sex couples, it’s about imposing contrary values on people of faith. The examples they cite in the ad are:
(1) A California doctor who must choose between her faith and her job.
(2) A member of New Jersey church group which is punished by the state because they can’t support same-sex marriage.
(3) A Massachusetts parent who stands by helpless while the state teaches her son that gay marriage is okay.
The facts indicate that (1) refers to the Benitez decision in California, determining that a doctor cannot violate California anti-discrimination law by refusing to treat a lesbian based on religious belief, (2) refers to the Ocean Grove, New Jersey Methodist pavilion that was open to the general public for events but refused access for civil union ceremonies (and was fined by the state for doing so) and (3) refers to the Parker decision in Massachusetts, where parents unsuccessfully sought to end public school discussions of family diversity, including of same-sex couples.
All three examples involve religious people who enter the public sphere, but don’t want to abide by the general non-discriminatory rules everyone else does. Both (1) and (2) are really about state laws against sexual orientation discrimination, rather than specifically about marriage. And (3) is about two pairs of religious parents trying to impose their beliefs on all children in public schools.
The real facts of each case are:
The California doctor entered a profession that promises to “first, do no harm” and the law requires her to treat a patient in need – gay or straight, Christian or Muslim – regardless of her religious beliefs. The law does not, and cannot, dictate her faith – it can only insist that she follow her oath as a medical professional.
* The New Jersey church group runs, and profits from, a beachside pavilion that it rents out to the general public for all manner of occasions –concerts, debates and even Civil War reenactments— but balks at permitting couples to hold civil union ceremonies there. The law does not challenge the church organization’s beliefs about homosexuality – it merely requires that a pavilion that had been open to all for years comply with laws protecting everyone from discrimination, including gays and lesbians.
* The Massachusetts parent disagrees with an aspect of her son’s public education, a discussion of the many different kinds of families he will likely encounter in life, including gay and lesbian couples. The law does not stop her from disagreeing, from teaching him consistently with her differing beliefs at home, or even educating her child in a setting that is more in line with her faith traditions. But it does not allow any one parent to dictate the curriculum for all students based on her family’s religious traditions.
Lithuania, a nation of more than three million people, was the very first of the former Soviet republics to declare its independence from the Soviet Union.
During the 50 years of Soviet occupation, Lithuanians cling to their language as a not-so-quiet form of rebellion. Today, as Worldfocus correspondent Daljit Dhaliwal and producers Sally Garner and Ara Ayer report, they want to protect it — not from an occupying force, but from other languages.