A Region in Turmoil: How Far Will the Unrest Spread?

[FourScore]

A Region in Turmoil: How Far Will the Unrest Spread?
by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson

Morocco

Population: 32.3m

GDP: $91.7bn

King Mohammed VI

Notionally a constitutional monarchy, the Moroccan government has been accused of using the courts to imprison peaceful opponents. King Mohammed VI retains the power to dissolve parliament and dismiss or appoint the prime minister.

Criticising the monarchy or Islam is still punishable by law, but the private press has had some success in breaking taboos and investigating government corruption. There has been progress under Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi, who took office in 2007, but Morocco still endures high unemployment rates, especially among its younger population.

Tunisia

Population: 10.6m

GDP: $43.86bn

Prime Minister Ghannouchi

SNIP

...Accused over his decades in power of suppressing the opposition, censoring the media and detaining dissidents, Mr Ben Ali had nonetheless managed to maintain his stranglehold on power by providing a reasonable quality of life for citizens. But in recent years inflation and unemployment have hit the country hard, and people have baulked at seeing Mr Ben Ali, his reviled wife and extended family appearing to get wealthier and buy up holiday homes by the sea, while the people languished in poverty. It took the self-immolation of one desperate unemployed university graduate in December last year to set off a chain of protests. News of the dissent spread through Twitter and Facebook, culminating in the huge protests that forced Mr Ben Ali from power earlier this month. Since the popular uprising, the hastily cobbled-together government led by Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi has struggled to maintain law and order, with protesters insisting that the cabinet be purged of any remnants of Mr Ben Ali's regime...


SEE THE REST OF THE LIST: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/29-2

[azul]

1. Perhaps as far as repression and injustice extend,

in the form of international business interests trumping human rights.

The president of the US publicly said last night that it is a human right to stand up and speak out for grievances. Encouragingly.

What he is telling his authoritarian allies and monarch buddies, wikileaks and his employers, us, want to know. Have a vested and open-democratic right to know.

[social_critic]

2. Would be nice to see Cuba and Myanmar fall

Cuba and Myanmar have suffered for a very long time under terrible dictatorships. It would be good for those two regimes to fall.