Protests have broken out in most unlikely place on the planet: Singapore. Singapore is a “very tightly controlled city-state” that is also one of the wealthiest political entities in the world. The rioting began among foreign workers (remember the protests against Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia). The violence was precipitated by a traffic accident in which a guest worker was killed, but the rapidity of the violence suggests that there is a deep-seated resentment simmering below the surface.
A 19-year old Somali woman has been sentenced to 6 months of home confinement for reporting her rape to authorities. The journalists who wrote stories about her rape were sentenced to jail for crimes of “defamation and insulting state institutions.” The two men accused of the rape were not arrested. The non-governmental organization, Human Rights Watch, had criticized the Somali government for the similar handling of an earlier rape case.
The protest in Ukraine seems to be growing deeper and stronger every day. But the government is moving hard against the protests, dismantling the barricades and the offices of the opposition. Several news outlets lost the ability to report to the outside world today, so the information we are getting is sporadic and incomplete. But it clearly looks as if President Yanukovich is going to mimic the hardline approach to protests similar to those of President Assad in Syria. Such an approach would undoubtedly fail: European interests are too heavily entrenched in Ukraine to allow the country to fall into such disarray.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment