democracy

The Kingdom of Bhutan, for over a hundred years an absolute monarchy under the Wangchuk Dynasty, held its first elections.

"All things," Lord Buddha reminds us, "are ephemeral." The two Buddhist autocrats who saw their power eroded this week in South Asia might have kept this advice in mind. From his Dharmasala lair, His Holiness the Dalai Lama lamented helplessly as the violent protests in Lhasa -- and the crackdown by Beijing -- proceeded apace, not obviously affected by his pleas for calm. And Jigme Khesar Namgyel, son of the Scourge of Thimpu, watched his subjects vote for a national assembly for the first time, in a ballot he himself decreed, but that still diminishes his authority. MORE

The uses of diplomacy

Today Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for African affairs, rendered a grim assessment of the post-election bloodbath in Kenya, saying it amounted to "ethnic cleansing," but not "genocide."  This distinction is so fine as to be described as "Talmudic," except that it contains no ancient Hebraic wisdom or indeed any other system of thought. MORE