Torture, Inflation and Tension in Zimbabwe

In 1980 the existence of Southern Rhodesia, a British colony, was terminated and an independent country was formed. Its name was, and still is, Zimbabwe. Twenty-eight years before nowadays, a national hero contributed significantly to the country's independence and became its first president. This national hero, Robert Mugabe, is still alive which is nothing out of ordinary. What is out of ordinary is, he is still president of the country. In other words, he has been the first and the only president of Zimbabwe so far.

For today's political conceptions, such lengthy tenure is called dictatorship. Today's world hasn't heard of a country's most influential political position being occupied for such a long period of time by a person who turns out to not be a dictator regardless of how good the people live. However, without proving anything and just talking in general only, every statement is weak and not worthy of being paid attention to.

Without having read any books about the situation in Zimbabwe, I endorse the media's statement that it used to be one of the most powerful countries in Africa and that it has been technically ruined so far. The media sometimes tends to intentionally or unintentionally control, and thus distort, our idea of what is happening where and why. This time, however, there is no place for any doubt.

Economists know their job and their research is not based on hypotheses that everyone can make by just a snap. And, according to their research, for the last fifteen years or so Zimbabwe's economy has not only been in huge recession, it has also reached a devastating inflation of over 100000%, the world's highest, and it keeps growing every day.

Zimbabwe's economic situation is such that almost each of its citizens is billionaire not because Zimbabweans are as rich as Bill Gates is, but because the country's currency is so devaluated that Z$10 billion are times less valuable in Zimbabwe than $10 dollars are in the U.S. As a result, seeing a Z$10 billion banknote on the street without noticing anybody making a bare effort to grab it is not unusual, not to mention the fact that people die of hunger and AIDS and other illnesses.

I remember reading on the BBC's website about a Zimbabwean woman who complained of her salary being so insufficient that she could not buy anything besides a chewing gum.

Moreover, supply of goods in general is so scarce that entering a grocery store in search for food is next to ridiculous.

This is the result of Robert Mugabe's rule. The wretched condition of the economy started in the mid-1990s. Until then, analysts point out that Zimbabwe's economy used to be one of the best ones in Africa.

As a result of the hopeless situation in Zimbabwe, people want change. They want it even more desperately than Americans, who vote for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, do. There can't be a debate whether or not the Zimbabwean people need change: there is outrageous 80% unemployment in the country, not to mention the humiliating life expectancy of 37 years and, last but not least, absence of democracy.

This absence of democracy is often seen in beating up of opposition leaders and supporters. MDC, Movement for Democratic Change, leader Morgan Tsvangirai ran for president in 2002. He lost in a contest that international watchdogs called rigged. It was believed that Morgan Tsvangirai won the elections but Robert Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, rigged them. Mr. Tsvangirai has even been charged and acquitted with plotting to assassinate President Mugabe and was beaten severely by state police security forces.

Despite the uncomfortable conditions in his patrimony, Morgan Tsvangirai continued fighting. He decided to run for president again in this year's elections which started two months ago. Since then there is still no result in terms of who the new president is.

In the beginning there was a dispute between Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC), MDC and ZANU-PF. According to MDC, Mugabe had got 50.3% of the vote whereas ZANU-PF and ZEC pointed out that he had got less than 50% of the vote which calls for walk-off general elections for president.

There were several tortures toward MDC supporters reported so far in Zimbabwe, some of which resulted in death. The government's aim was clear - vote for Mugabe or risk jeopardizing your life. This was what MDC and the world community feared in the beginning, and unfortunately they turned out to be right. Mr Tsvangirai even received death threats as a result of which he went to South Africa, a country part of whose poor population, mainly Zulus, embarked on scaring away foreigners such as Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Nigerians and others who occupied jobs that they would occupy.

The run-off general elections for president in Zimbabwe are going to take place in the end of June and they are extremely important for the country. Having Mr. Mugabe as re-elected president of Zimbabwe will most likely bring the country to greater inflation, poverty and possibly isolation from the rest of the world with few exceptions. Having Mr. Tsvangirai as elected president may not necessarily bring change but vague future is way better than predicted failure. However, no matter what the final result of the run-off elections is, it will not be as genuine as it should be thanks to Robert Mugabe and his party's interior politics of fear.

South African Unrest the Result of the Overall Tension in the Region

Africa - a continent where many wars have taken place and where many wars still take place like the one in Sudan. I have never been to Africa but every time I read something about this particular continent, it is either connected with lack of democracy, or with poverty and meager chances for a positive change. A good support of my statement is that all of the ten poorest countries in the world are located in Africa and also that most of the countries in the list of HIPC, that is, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, are African.

The countries in the list of HIPC are so heavily in debt that they can never return the money they were given by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other organizations. Moreover, the money and any other kinds of international aid do not make a great difference because of corrupt governments, unequal distribution of basic needs among the population and so on.

What we see nowadays in Africa, its southern part in particular, through the media is the result of all this chaos. Lack of basic needs such as food, huge inflation of over 100000% in Zimbabwe, central governments' irresponsible attitude toward the different issues and last but not least - high percentage of unemployment - inevitably lead to desperation.

This desperation reached its peak, or at least I see it as a peak, about a week ago in South Africa which is, in my opinion, one of the most stable countries in the Dark Continent despite difficulties that it experiences. According to BBC, unemployment rate is 30% in South Africa and there are 3-5 million foreigners mainly from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Nigeria of 49 million people as total population. Not surprisingly, the unrest is caused by the poor unemployed South Africans. Mobs of them managed to commit several murders of different kinds, thefts, rapes of women, shoplifting and destruction of shops owned by foreigners, robberies and other crimes all of which are specifically targeted to foreigners, especially to the ones who come from hopelessly impoverished Zimbabwe.

Both of the sides, that of the South African xenophobes and that of the foreigners, make points that are worth hearing by the world community. I will begin with the foreigners' situation. They come from different countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Somalia, Tanzania, Nigeria and other countries and they occupy jobs that some South Africans seek. Of course, they do not come to the Rainbow Nation just to deprive local people of job opportunities in the latter's patrimony. In fact, I see almost no difference between those foreigners and the ones who come to the United States and Western Europe from Eastern Europe except for the difference in salaries being given. This difference is greater in Africa than in Europe and the United States.

Even if we ignore the fact that the situation in Zimbabwe is worse than we have ever expected, the money a Zimbabwean could make in South Africa for a single day is worth the money the same person could make in Zimbabwe for a year or even more than a year. I remember reading what a Zimbabwean woman in Zimbabwe said in a news website about a couple of months ago, that is, days before the elections there which aren't over yet and which I will analyze in another article.

She said that the money that she made for a month was enough for a chewing gum only. Adding the fact that one in four Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe has a job makes it unthinkable to assume that they wish to remain in a country where if you are not member of the ruling ZANU-PF party, you are deprived of certain privileges there called basic needs throughout the world.

There are similar problems in Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia and other African countries. I do not think that those foreigners are to be blamed for taking jobs from South Africans, neither do I think that South Africans are to be blamed for anything different from the violence that they have caused for the last seven days or so.

After all, they are citizens of the country. I am a strong believer of the statement that a country's government should take care of its citizens in providing them with basic needs and job opportunities to begin with. Without reading too much about the situation in South Africa, I can't help but think that Thabo Mbeki's cabinet has not provided its citizens with as equal job opportunities as possible compared to what foreign citizens find.

As a result, some South African citizens begin to see themselves as foreigners in their own country. It turns out to be that recent days have reached the peak of their dissatisfaction. Since they cannot change their fate peacefully by having their country find jobs for them, they do what every mass does - cause chaos and kill those foreigners who occupy jobs that they believe they would occupy: a means of frightening the foreigners and making them want to leave the country. The poor and jobless xenophobe South Africans are really starting to reach their goal. Some Zimbabweans in the Rainbow Nation really want to go back to Zimbabwe despite the serious situation in their patrimony where Robert Mugabe's iron grip continues to strangle the local population.

What should be done in order to not just eliminate this chaos but prevent tension in the future as well? The first thing that Pretoria has to do is tighten customs control of the borders. That does not necessarily mean that the government should build walls like the federal government of the United States does to its border with Mexico. Mobilizing customs officers could turn out to be enough.

Then, the least the South African government could do is deport illegal immigrants just like Spain did 2-3 years ago when there was a great influx of Senegalese people packed on boats heading to the country's southern lands. Politicians' campaign sponsors may happen to not be pleased with such move most likely because of their hiring foreigners as cheap tax-free labor. However, it will very likely lead to the country's interior security which is one of the most important issues in every country.

Besides, in my opinion, politicians and campaign contributors could arrange a certain decrease of taxes and at the same time hiring Zulus and other rioters for a minimum wage officially whereas paying them a little bit more unofficially. You may think that this is fraudulence toward the country but I see it as one of the few paths to eliminating the current problem for a very long time. This possible fraudulence could be eliminated in the long run but calculations are rather complicated in terms of how and when it will be eliminated. It does not depend on South Africa only but on the region's events, gas prices and so on.

In general, I believe that tightening control of the borders - especially the one with Zimbabwe, and sufficient decrease of income taxes and property taxes should solve the problem in the Rainbow Nation. Of course, I do not say that this is the only path to solving it but that is what I think that Thabo Mbeki and his administration should do along with the legislature's support.

Serbian Elections Evaluated

Today's general parliamentary elections in Serbia were crucial for the country. Everybody who has been following the issues in the Balkans knows the meaning of this statement. It is not another cliché statement about elections in a country - Serbian citizens had an abundance of parties to choose from with three of them being the major competitors but only two paths for the future.

Those two paths lead to exact opposite directions - either east to Russia, a Serbian ally, or west to the European Union, whose majority of countries has already recognized Kosovo's unilateral Declaration of Independence. Predictions were that Tomislav Nikolic's Radical Party would win the elections and form a pro-Russian government along with possible coalition partners one of which was believed to be Vojislav Kostunica's Serbian Democratic Party.

Despite those predictions, however, President Boris Tadic's Coalition for a European Serbia have won the elections with a substantial lead: 39% to 28.6% for the Radicals and 11.6% for the Kostunca's bloc. It is still unclear, however, which party Boris Tadic is going to form coalition with for the sake of a pro-E.U. government. What is clear is that he is not going to form coalition with Tomislav Nikolic, and Vojislav Kostunica also rejected a possible alliance with the Coalition for a European Serbia. The two leaders are planning on forming a government with the Socialists who have been announced to have had 8.2% of the votes. This has been the Socialists' best result since the end of the Slobodan Milosevic's era.

Meanwhile, President Boris Tadic's Coalition for a European Serbia hopes that the Liberal Democratic Party will reach the 5% barrier so that the latter has representatives in the Serbian parliament. The Liberal Democrats, the only party that accepts Kosovo's independence, is close to those 5% and if they manage to reach it, it is very likely that they will try to form government with the Coalition for a European Serbia. Contrary to expectations that Boris Tadic is going to recognize Kosovo, the Serbian President denied such claims saying that he would never recognize Kosovo as an independent country.

The current political situation in Serbia reminds me of the last parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. Three years ago the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, could not form government with the Movement for Rights and Liberties, NMRL, and a triple coalition between the two parties and the then National Movement Simeon the Second, NMSS, had to be formed accordingly by the NMRL having been given the chance by President Parvanov. A similar scenario in Serbia may come true.

What conclusions are to be drawn from the elections in Serbia? Radicals threatened that voting for the Coalition for a European Serbia will be equal to recognizing Kosovo because of President Tadic's having signed a pre-membership agreement with the European Union last week. According to them, signing this agreement is technically a recognition of Kosovo - something that Boris Tadic completely denies. And it turned out that the Serbian people believed Mr. Tadic. They chose the path to the European Union instead of the one that leads to Russia. That does not make them traitors, neither do they recognize Kosovo.

The results are unfortunate for Russia. Another country's people prefers the West at its expense. Whether or not Russia is going to continue its good relations with Serbia is not entirely clear. I think that those relations will not deteriorate at all, neither will Russia change its position on the Kosovo's status for another conflict in the region is not beneficial to any country.

In terms of Serbia, in my opinion it will never recognize Kosovo - at least not until there are 100% Albanians there. A good example is the fact that despite the U.N.'s disapproval, they organized local elections in northern Kosovo where the majority is Serbian. Those local elections also caused demonstrations by Kosovo Albanians in Pristina but those demonstrations did not stop Kosovo Serbians from choosing their local leaders for the first time since the United Nations have taken the administration of the disputed territory.

Overall, I see a bright future for Serbia. By Serbia I mean Central Serbia and Vojvodina. Kosovo is another matter that I believe will not be resolved for years to come.

The Two Sides of the Coin About Hillary Clinton's False Remarks on her Trip to Bosnia

About three weeks ago, Senator Hillary Clinton made clearly false statements about her adventures in Tuzla, Bosnia. She went there twelve years ago to meet with the American troops who were on a mission regarding the Serbian-Bosnian conflict. Her false story can be listened to on Youtube and can be read on different websites as well. The media showed the video which revealed the truth about the then First Lady's visit to Tuzla.

Even the most fanatical supporters would see that there was no "landing under sniper fire", that there was a greeting ceremony, that she and the people accompanying her never "ran with our heads down" and that they were never told "to basically run to our cars" as she stated on March 17, 2008. Bottom line is, should we criticize her the way the media did or should we acquit her because she did not recall well what was happening in Tuzla the moment when she said those misstatements in front of the whole nation on C-SPAN.

I am going to present you the possibility of acquitting her first: Hillary Clinton undoubtedly made a mistake - something that she confessed later in her defense speech. Neither she, nor Former President Bill Clinton ever tried to deny the clear incoherence between her statement on March 17, 2008 and the facts.

However, we all happen to have false memories and we all make mistakes because we are human beings. In fact, it could be not Mrs. Clinton the one who has to be blamed for being exposed telling us false accounts, but the media. Senator Obama is ahead in the Democratic race in so many aspects: he is having a slight lead in the popular vote but it is a lead after all; he is now receiving more money for his campaign which are in some aspects twice or more than twice as much as what Hillary Clinton is currently receiving as contributions; and last but not least, now the media is so infatuated with Mr. Obama that it does not appear to be paying as much attention to his slips as it is with Mrs. Clinton's. Barack Obama did not receive the same amount of criticism about his past connection with Rev. Wright as Hillary Clinton is receiving criticism about her giving false information about herself right now. No wonder if there are people who have already forgotten about his past connections with Rev. Wright and, even more, with those of Antoin "Tony" Resko which connection Senator Obama himself called "a bone-headed mistake". If we do not need a president whose memory does not serve him or her right, then we do not need a president who might make bone-headed mistakes.

Now let's look at the other side of the coin: It is a general truth that the purpose of every statement a candidate for a political post makes in their campaign is to ensure them votes. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and whoever you might think of, do not tell us, the people, stories about their lives or promises about bright future so that we could relax and know that things will get better. They tell us that stuff because they want us to vote for them, this is out of question. Let's compare the two presidential hopefuls' stands on the issue whether or not the troops in Iraq should be withdrawn. More specifically, let's compare which one of them is talking more about it.

Doubtlessly, it is Barack Obama the one who is more willing to talk about the war. The freshman senator, unlike Senator Clinton, never voted for it so he can afford it. As a result of this advantage, he is in a better position to attack her on this issue because of her vote of approval of the war in 2003. As to Senator Clinton, she can do nothing but talk significantly less about it than her opponent and more about health care and her experience as a former First Lady which give her a trustworthy appearance before the American voter. Notably, it is her bigger experience what she wanted to further expose before the voters by talking about her visit to Tuzla, Bosnia.

Barack Obama can't talk about such experience because he doesn't have it. Spending part of your life in Indonesia is not what this experience is all about. Having met with leaders of other nations gives a candidate a significantly bigger boost than this and Hillary Clinton knows it. Part of her electorate might have chosen to vote for her eventually because it is sometimes speculated that Barack Obama is too young and too inexperienced to be president of the United States of America. Unfortunately for her, her advantage in terms of more international experience might gradually thaw away after those false statements.

Having given false statements about her stay in Bosnia, Mrs. Clinton is facing the challenge of returning the confidence that people have in her. Doing it alone, however, could lead to failure.

Not surprisingly, her husband Bill Clinton came in help. He said of her defense: "A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995." First of all, Mr. Clinton, I am not sure whether she immediately apologized for it. If anybody thinks that my remark lacks evidence, go to Youtube and watch what political analyst Keith Olbermann's reaction was to her misstatements and, more specifically, observe the part where she clarified what she was saying on Saint Patrick's Day for Philadelphia Daily News. Look at the date: March 24, 2008! I doubt that a week later is an immediate apology.

Besides, she mentioned her experience in Bosnia more than once. Apart from Saint Patrick's Day, she also misremembered this part of her life on February 29, 2007 in Dubuque, Iowa and on February 29, 2008 in Waco, Texas. So it is not like she made a mistake once - she made the same mistake three times. Besides the fact that this is a sign of bad memory, this goes to show how weak of a team she is having. Couldn't they realize that she was not telling the truth right from the beginning? God knows what they have been doing all those three and a half months.

Her misstatements are also not exactly in accordance with what was written in her book "Living History" according to which the ceremony was cut short because of reports of snipers in the hills. And while her book's records seem a little bit more trustworthy, judging by what CBS showed of her trip to Bosnia, it makes me rather reluctant to buy her book - who knows what else there would turn out to be wrong or partially wrong.

Let's return to her reaction for Philadelphia Daily News! She said "I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this eight year-old girl and also I have I can't, I can't rush by her, I have got to at least greet her so I greeted her, I took her stuff and I left. Now that's my memory of it." People would assume that with what Mrs. Clinton said for Philadephia Daily News, she further worsened her image because it was still not the truth and would therefore ask themselves "Why couldn't she and her team look at the video provided by CBS News and try to formulate a more trustworthy story and therefore wash away the shame?" Well, I personally believe that they actually did it. In fact, I believe that they did it several times and her reaction was one of the best of the possible reactions.

Take into account her last sentence: "Now that's my memory of it." By her false statements about her trip to Bosnia, people's ordinary reaction might most likely be to start to doubt of her candor. This sentence is there so that Senator Clinton could restore their belief of her candor. Isn't a person candid when they justify their misremembering a story of their life with a similar story but still a false one? Think about it. Thereby, I find Keith Olbermann's statement in regards to her reaction for the Philadelphia Daily News that "Senator Clinton appears to be a little fussy on the facts" a little bit irrelevant of a person of his caliber. I think that in his attempt to show firmness in his comments, he went too far - he was too hard on her, harder than he could possibly be.

And last but not least, returning to the former President Bill Clinton's defense of his wife, I do not completely agree with the Jed Report's reaction on its website on his statement that "I think she was the first First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone". It mentions former First Lady Pat Nixon's visit to a war zone of Vietnam in 1969 as an evidence that Mr. Clinton is also not as trustworthy as he appears to be in his statements. Well the people from Jed Report seem to have disregarded the "I think" part in their report which I find as a weakness.

Despite this, I agree with their reaction to his statement justifying his wife's age. Bill Clinton said "And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too." First of all, they point out that none of her misstatements about her trip to Bosnia was at 11 at night. Honestly, I did not see a concrete evidence such as a clock on the TV screen, for example. However, I do not beg to differ because judging by the atmosphere around Hillary Clinton in those three speeches, I doubt whether the speeches were said at 11:00 at night.

Nevertheless, I completely agree with what they said in their P.S.: "It's even worse that you're blaming her age for her Bosnia lies. If you think she can't tell a straight story at 11 P.M. at night, what's she gonna' do at 3 A.M.?" If you, Mr. Clinton, are blaming her age, what can we say about John McCain? If elected, he is going to be the oldest president in the American history. The U.S. presidency is a very responsible position and if he or she happens to forget something because of exhaustion at 11 P.M., what if he or she gets a phone call at 3 A.M.

Don't get me wrong - the U.S. president is a human being, not a machine and could forget something, but misremembering a whole story is more than that to me. Besides, Senator Clinton might have made a lot of trips and the huge number of trips could therefore be the result of her forgetting some of them. However, trips like going to a warzone to meet with your troops are trips that should have remained in a former first lady's mind.

What if she deliberately made up this story so that people would vote for her? Some people might find this preposterous because, after all, the media in the United States is rather strong and they make a lot of research. In fact, they even find misstatements made by Senator Obama. However, as you can see in my analysis, even the media in the United States does not make thorough researches.

So what if she secretly hoped that nobody would ever notice that she was not telling the truth about her trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, assuming that she knew the exact story? If it is true that she had those secret hopes, then I must point out that she and her campaign team have significantly underestimated the attacks from the media since its existence.

Overall, I reckon that with her false story, Senator Clinton's campaign might go down thus narrowing her lead to Senator Obama in the key state of Pennsylvania a week and a half before the state's primary which will be held on Aprill 22. However, I do not think that Mr. Obama should feel good about it because it might hurt the whole Democratic Party. In fact, in my opinion, the only winner of this situation is Senator McCain because, while the two Democratic hopefuls spend much of their energy arguing with each other other, he will most likely save enough energy for the general elections and be more convincing to the voters as a whole. And this is the last thing the Democratic Party would want.

Democratic Race or Should I Say Democratic Mess

The Pennsylvania Democratic primaries are approaching with three and a half weeks remaining to make any difference in Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns. This northeast state is considered a Clinton's territory when it comes to the question who is going to win it. What is important, however, is what percentage of the 158 delegates at stake goes to the two presidential hopefuls. Right now Clinton is trailing Obama with more than 100 delegates and it undoubtedly matters how many more delegates than Obama she will get from this state.

Of course, in order for a candidate to win a state in the primaries, endorsements are extremely important if not the most important. Hillary Clinton already has the endorsement of Governor Edward Rendell, while Barack Obama has recently received a key endorsement - that of senator Robert Casey Junior. Contrary to his intentions not to endorse any of the two Democratic hopefuls until right before the primaries, Senator Casey decided to do that. In a news conference after his public announcement, he explained why he had decided to endorse Obama saying the following: "For a long, long time I was not only neutral but an undecided voter. That changed recently. I believe in this guy like I have never believed in a candidate in my life except my father." Those are strong words. Not only are they strong, but one should be rather naive in order to fully believe the Pennsylvania senator. How come somebody, let alone a U.S. senator, be an undecided voter and then all of a sudden starts to believe the person they are going to vote for so immensely that they compare the latter to their father? Actually, it is possible for an undecided voter to make their decision as a final one but I do not believe that the person they are going to vote for turns out to be so trustworthy to them that the only person they believe is more trustworthy is their father. What I mean is, you cannot be undecided yesterday and today be more decided than most of the decided voters. At least that is how I feel about it.

Some say that the reason why senator Casey decided to endorse Mr. Obama instead of Mrs. Clinton is that in the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination, his father Robert Casey Sr., who was then governor of Pennsylvania, was denied a prime-time speaking position which outraged many of the state's conservative Democrats (governor Casey was a pro-life Democrat and supportive of gun rights).

It makes sense but I doubt that it was decisive. In politics people do not always make decisions because of past facts. Sometimes there are more significant reasons such as better relations and more benefit. Who knows what Barack Obama promised to give Senator Casey in return - endorsements are not always issued because of what the endorsers say in front of the people! Senator Casey is popular among Catholic voters, people who usually vote for Hillary Clinton. This is not the first time that Barack Obama has tried to steal part of her electorate. Days before Super Tuesday, February 5, he received the endorsement of a white woman such as Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. White women are another group that prefers Senator Clinton to Senator Obama. With her endorsement, he most likely sought more women to become part of his electorate.

In my opinion, the Democratic race resembles a mess. None of the two candidates has locked up his or her nomination and, except for the Black voters who mostly vote for Barack Obama and the Latino voters who mostly back Hillary Clinton, in every other group of voters it is not very clear which of the two is more popular.

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton recently said that even pledged delegates can switch votes at the National Convention. That is true but she should not rely on it. Honestly, I doubt that she really relies on it. Instead, she is trying to convince people that the race is not over yet and her chances to win the nomination are as good as those of Senator Obama. Some might say that if some of the delegates switch votes at the National Convention and thus elect the candidate with fewer delegates won, then this is not democratic. I rather disagree with such claim. First of all, it is the American people that founded this system of delegates. Second of all, primaries are between members of a party, that is, primaries do not elect an official but a party's candidate. And finally, if not only superdelegates but also delegates having switched their vote are decisive in electing the less popular candidate, if in such a close race we assume that there is a less popular candidate, it will be very likely that this candidate will later lose the general elections because of the party's loyal electorate being in disgust as a result of the events at the National Convention. I strongly doubt that the Democrats will risk losing the presidential race for a third consecutive time. That is why I believe that Hillary Clinton's words must not be taken seriously. Instead, they are just one of her attempts to narrow Obama's lead in delegates by making people believe that voting for her will not be a pointless vote.

However interesting the Democratic race is, Republicans find more benefits in it. Senator John McCain has already started his campaign for the general elections with an ad that can be seen on his website. Some people may argue whether ads are really important in this presidential race. I must say that they are very important because if you go to the CNN website and look more thoroughly at the primaries and caucuses results, you will see that senator Obama's voters see importance of campaign ads to be very big. Perhaps that made them vote for him and if this hypothesis turns out to be correct, then in the general elections ads may turn out to be decisive as well and senator McCain is already ahead in this aspect. Could this mean that the next president will again be a Republican? We are about to see this in November.

My Impression on the Current Events in Tibet

Tibet is located in southwest China. The people who live there are of different ethnic groups but as many might infer, the Tibetan culture is predominant in that region. There are Tibetans outside the territory of Tibet as well. As journalist Adrienne Mong has pointed out in her blog on the MSNBC website, in Aba Prefecture, neighboring Sichuan province, half of the people there are Tibetans. This makes, according to her data about the net population in Aba Prefecture, about 420 000 people.

The unrest that is happening in Tibet is already known worldwide. Leaders such as U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican presidential hopeful senator John McCain have urged the Chinese government to stop the unrest. They have also claimed that there are human rights abuses committed to Tibetans. Not only are they firm in their conclusions on the events in Tibet but some of them, like the European Union leaders, have also threatened the Chinese government to boycott this year's inauguration of summer Olympic games in Beijing if it does not eventually get along with the local population. From this aspect, the unrest in Tibet turns out to happen at probably the wrongest time possible. This year's Olympic Games may give bad image to the host country. As a result of this, there could be less income from foreign attendance despite the fact that unrest is far away.

Judging by the current events in Tibet, I get the impression that the Chinese government has not been adequate in its actions toward that region for a long time. On a slideshow in MSNBC about part of the Chinese history, what I read on the last slide immediately grabbed my attention. On this last slide, the reader realizes that there was unrest in Tibet in 1989 and Communist leader of China Hu Jintao ordered martial law in order to deal with it. When there is martial law ordered in a territory, that means that the military has more control and more rights on it and can prescribe more severe punishments than laws do there. No people likes to be under martial law and this may urge bigotry or, if there already is bigotry, it may further develop it. Martial law allows the military to abuse their powers and abusing your powers on somebody will very likely cause this person to hate you more than ever and try to get rid of you ruling him or her.

Apart from the martial law ordered in 1989, if we look at what BBC wrote as information about the conflict, we see that the Chinese central government wanted to centralize the power so much so that it could elect more heads of institutions by itself only. The election of the Dalai Lama does not make an exception. As far as I judge by their reaction, the Tibetans worship the Dalai Lama more or less the same way the American people worship democracy and depriving them of choosing his reincarnation is like depriving U.S. citizens of electing their president. I am absolutely sure that there would be unrest if the U.S. president happened to be elected by anybody but the people of the United States.

In my opinion, the strange thing is that the Chinese government, after imposing itself so much on its people's life, assumed that there would be no limits on their influence on anything there. That is why they were willing to determine the Tibetans' cultural leader.

It looks like even in a communist country there can be harsh protests and unrest regardless of the cost. What unpleasantly surprised me was Beijing's efforts to give false information by anouncing a surprisingly low number of people who have died so far. According to the Asociated Press, the Tibetan government in exile has said that 99 Tibetans have been killed - 80 in Lhasa and 19 in Gansu, while the Chinese government has claimed that there have been 22 people dead.

This is interesting - two sides saying different things about such a conflict. Which source is more trustworthy: the Chinese central government, or the Tibetan government in exile? Here, I think that many people will believe the Tibetan government in exile rather than a communist government as the Chinese government is. However, I do not claim anything before I make sure it is true. On MSNBC's website I opened Adrienne Mong's blog where she described her recent trip in Tibet. In her article, she mentions that on Sunday local residents, from Aba town, informed her of eight bodies having been left outside a major monastery with this number having risen up to 16 by the end of the day.

If the local residents and the Chinese government were correct at the same time, then outside Aba County there would be no more than 6 deaths. This is quite irrelevant, isn't it? Adrienne Mong said that it was hard to verify the information without traveling there so there is still a possibility that what she was told was false. On the other hand, how could everybody say that the Chinese government is correct in this situation?! The fact that there are people in hotels in Tibet who, after having given information about what the Chinese army do there, are afraid to say their names for fear of being harassed by authorities is enough to make us suspicious of Beijing's claims. It looks like what to Adrienne Mong was reported is way more likely to be true.

That's how I see what is currently going on in Tibet. After all, the Tibetan government is in exile right now. No government is in exile for no reasons.

As a whole, in my opinion, if the Chinese government wants to solve this issue as soon as possible, it should give Tibet autonomy. To me, giving autonomy to a subordinate region is a threat to having this region seeking independence in the future. However, this time I doubt that the Dalai Lama's demands of "genuine autonomy", as cited by MSNBC, could one day turn into independence from Beijing. Besides, autonomy has to be given for the sake of the country's stability and also for the sake of the Olympic Games this year. After the Olympic Games, they may establish a strategy on what to do with this region in order not to lose it one day.

Primaries and Caucuses So Far

Roughly two and a half months passed since the beginning of the presidential race in the United States. Most of the two major parties' candidates quitted it before the Iowa caucuses, right after them, or after two or more states having cast their ballots, whether primaries or caucuses. It has been a rather interesting contest so far both in the Republican Party and in the Democratic Party.

Although Republicans already have one of their candidates locked up his nomination, Senator John McCain (R - Arizona), this race did not lack passionate polemics between the candidates such as the one between Mr McCain and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. The two accused each other of being liberal. This is the first time I have ever seen this word being used as an insult but it did not amaze me because I know that Republicans are conservative and being liberal is not typical of their party's platform.

Super Tuesday contributed to a new scandal among the Republican presidential hopefuls right in the beginning when it appeared that former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee had won West Virginia, a winner-take-all state, with about 99% of the McCain voters having voted for him thus contributing to his win with 52% versus 47% for Mitt Romney and only 1% for John McCain. After his failure on Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney felt obliged to quit the race and later endorse John McCain for the sake of the party's unity. Mike Huckabee remained in the race until its informal end after the results of the elections in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island which were sufficient for the Vietnam War veteran to eventually lock up his nomination. There is still another rival in the race, Ron Paul. Nevertheless, John McCain is technically the Republican presidential candidate in the general elections having won more than the required 1191 delegates for the Republican National Convention. What remains unclear is who is going to be his running mate.

While Senator McCain can afford to take a rest after having locked up his nomination, on the Democratic side tension is still high. In fact, it has constantly been high especially between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Most of the democratic voters do not even know that there is a third candidate, former senator Mike Gravel from Alaska, but this is not important at all. On March 11 Obama won the Mississippi primaries and now his lead in delegates has increased. Now the difference between the two in terms of delegates is more than 100 to Mr Obama before the pivotal Pennsylvania primary on April 22 where 154 delegates are at stake. Besides, Florida and Michigan may have primaries, this time at stake, through e-mails and hypothetically if Clinton wins both of those states, Obama's lead may shrink which will give Hillary Clinton bigger chances to eventually get the nomination.

What impacted Mrs. Clinton's trailing in the race in my opinion? I believe that she did not manage to play her cards well. First of all, in her attempt to attract the voters, she tried so hard to satisfy them by saying exactly what they want to hear that she frequently changed her stands on the issues. For example, when already resigned governor Spitzer wanted to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, she was with him. Then she changed her position on this issue right after Mr. Spitzer changed it. It can be inferred that she wants the presidential post so badly that she is ready to do anything for that.

Second of all, she acted as if she was already president of the United States. This may be a good tactic in order to impress the voters but it may turn out to be a bad one because of some people's getting the impression that the particular candidate is too arrogant and hypocritical.

What made an even greater impact on Senator Clinton's trailing was her husband's playing the racial card in South Carolina where Hillary suffered a great loss mainly because of the black vote there which was 50% of the registered Democrats. About 83% of the African Americans in South Carolina voted for Barack Obama and after the state's primaries the black vote for him increased to around 90%. In my opinion it is Bill Clinton's relating Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson that further separated African Americans from his wife.

A fourth factor was money and endorsements. Senator Obama got a pivotal endorsement from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius in order to attract female voters. Meanwhile Senator Clinton's having been endorsed by Mr. Spitzer might turn out to be negative for her after his love affairs with a "petite brunette".

As to money, according to opensecrets.org, Barack Obama got almost twice as much as Hillary Clinton on January 2008, $36 060 927 and $18 884 127 respectively.

Overall, it looks like things go well for the Obama campaign and very bad for the Clinton campaign. It is still a close race between the two not only in state delegates but also in the popular vote where Clinton leads by a very small margin.

What if the two eventually run under the same ticket? It would be extremely interesting and at the same time difficult to figure out whether it will be good or bad for the Democratic Party. According to results posted by MSNBC, about 6 out of 10 Obama supporters approve of the two under the same ticket whereas about 4 out of 10 Clinton supporters approve of such option. However, if you have watched CNN in the evening of March 11, the results in the Mississippi primaries show that Mrs. Clinton got more support in mainly Republican areas. So, in November, with Hillary Clinton on the ticket either as a presidential candidate or as a vice-presidential candidate, the Democratic Party my benefit by stealing the Republican electorate from the Republicans which will most likely lead to a broader electoral college and eventually being victorious for the first time since 8 years.