Democracy

On a recent Friday morning, a classroom of teenagers at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School broke up into small groups and spent an hour not answering questions about Albert Camus's "The Plague. " It wasn't that the students were shy, or bored, or that they hadn't done the reading. They were following instructions: Ask as many questions as they could, and answer none of them. The kids wrote in rapid fire on sheets of butcher paper. "Why is everyone acting normal when people are dropping dead?"

The top U.N. envoy in Libya said Thursday there are positive signs that the country is moving toward democracy but longstanding tensions have escalated into armed conflicts, detainees are still being tortured, and there is rising discontent among former revolutionary fighters. Less than seven months after the end of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year dictatorship, Libyans are increasingly exercising their freedom of speech and have a strong desire to be consulted on national issues and a determination to hold their leaders accountable, Ian Martin told the U.N. Security Council.

THE FIRST three words of the preamble of our Constitution are "We the People. " Two years ago today the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission upended that promising vision. Corporations — which do not have mouths, minds, or consciences — won a "free speech" right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. The court cast aside a century of law intended to prevent the biggest, richest corporations from controlling our elections and government.

A Vietnamese-American pro-democracy activist has been arrested and accused of terrorism for allegedly trying to sabotage liberation celebrations commemorating the end of the Vietnam War, state media said Sunday. Nguyen Quoc Quan, 58, of California, was detained April 17 after arriving at the airport in southern Ho Chi Minh City, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. He is accused of planning to hold protests for Viet Tan, a banned U.S. exile group, during this week's May Day festivities and the April 30 anniversary of the fall of the former U.S.-backed South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, to the...

YANGON, Myanmar - Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the home of Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday for a meeting that was both personal and formal as two of the world's most famous female political figures discussed the sudden signs of reform in Myanmar. The meeting between the secretary of state and the leader of Myanmar's long-persecuted democracy movement - unthinkable just three months ago - was another sign of the stunning change afoot in Myanmar. "If we go forward together, I'm confident there will be no turning back from the road to democracy," Suu Kyi told reporters afterward at a press...

WHEN I saw the headline on the Aug. 3 editorial "Sign of a maturing democracy," I knew one thing immediately. After watching the congressional clown show over the past month, it certainly wasn't referring to the United States. Sure enough: It was about Turkey. Burt Shnitzler Bolton

JEFF JACOBY makes an important distinction between public-sector unions and their private-sector counterparts. But he overlooks a larger truth. It was the existence of strong unions in all sectors that created a robust middle class. It was only during their heyday that wealth was equitably distributed. Public-sector collective bargaining is the essence of democracy - not its antithesis. Walt Gardner Los Angeles

WHEN PROMOTERS of democracy depend on the steady hand of the military, the balance is always uneasy. This approach may have reached its limits in Turkey, where the military's longstanding role as the guardian of secular democracy has now been decisively rejected. After decades in which the armed forces were the ultimate arbiter of politics, Turkey's popularly elected civilian leadership has now taken control. The military has, so far, accepted its demotion. Though the Islamic flavor of Turkey's government makes some Westerners nervous, the extension of civilian control should be seen as a healthy sign.

WASHINGTON -- The American public has doubts about whether the Bush administration policy of promoting democracy internationally will make the world safer, according to a poll released yesterday. A poll conducted by the University of Maryland found that just over a quarter, 28 percent, of people surveyed said they think the world is safer when there are more democracies, while more than twice as many, 68 percent, said democracy may make life better within a country but does not make the world safer.

MOSCOW -- President Bush and President Vladimir Putin offered conflicting assessments of democracy in Russia yesterday, just two days before they are to meet for discussions about global security issues and the fight against terrorism. At a news conference with European Union leaders in Brussels, Bush made clear his intention to challenge Putin on recent actions, including restrictions on the press and Moscow's treatment of neighboring Baltic countries, that US officials view as harmful to democracy there.

French film director Luc Besson's biopic of Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee) has won an unusual endorsement. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she watched the movie, "The Lady," as she flew to the military-dominated country in December on the first trip there by a U.S. secretary of state in 56 years. She said: "It was a moving experience for me and I think it will be for you. " Clinton was speaking before a screening to a select audience in Washington, attended by Besson and the movie's star, Michelle Yeoh, who plays Suu Kyi. Clinton said it was...

In many ways, Thailand is a beacon of high technology, with a huge computer-component industry and a vibrant online culture. But when you log onto the Web in its capital city of Bangkok, sites often load excruciatingly slowly. It's not for any lack of broadband access. It's because over the past five years, the Thai government has instituted firewalls and blocking policies that have strangled Internet speed. The country currently bans as many as 100,000 websites for posting content allegedly offensive to the Thai king.

BAMAKO, Mali - Under intense pressure from the nations bordering Mali, the junior officer who seized control of the country in a coup last month signed an accord late Friday agreeing to return the country to constitutional rule. The announcement was made only hours after separatist rebels in the country's north declared their independence, a move that further complicates a crisis that began March 21 when a group of disgruntled soldiers began shooting in the air at a military base, located just miles from the presidential palace.

THE ARTICLE "Romney's defense budget target is lofty" (Page A1, March 19) notes Gallup's finding that "only 54 percent of those surveyed believe the United States has the world's leading military. " What? I have to ask the other 46 percent: So, who has the stronger forces, then? Russia? China? Maybe North Korea? No other nation comes close to what we spend on the military. Democracy only works when voters are well informed. What does the Gallup survey say about America today?

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Friday it will resume military aid to Egypt, despite the nation's halting progress toward democracy, adding that national security interests favored the release of $1.3 billion in military aid. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waived a certification requirement imposed by Congress that would have held up the annual aid package. The waiver was "designed to demonstrate our strong support for Egypt's enduring role as a security partner and leader in promoting regional stability and peace," the US...

THE FAILURE of political systems in democracies to produce fresh candidates is a worrying — and dangerous — trend. Many people around the world look at the US Republican primary race with a sense of disbelief, and wonder: Are these the best candidates the greatest democracy in the world can produce? Of course, the United States is not alone. As the French presidential election enters its last weeks, the level of debate is causing some to cringe, but so is the sense of deja vu: President Nicolas Sarkozy has been in politics for decades, as have all his challengers - Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right...

HONG KONG - Thousands of Hong Kong residents marched to the Chinese government’s liaison office yesterday demanding that Beijing grant full democracy to the semiautonomous financial hub. Chanting “One man, one vote to choose our leader’’ and clutching signs reading “Democracy now,’’ the demonstrators set off from a crowded street in the heart of the Central financial district. Dozens of the protesters tried but failed to breach a police cordon at the Chinese government compound.

CAIRO -- Egypt's best-known democracy movement has switched causes and is now focused on demanding an end to the country's peace treaty with Israel. The campaign by the Kifaya group is a sign of how the war in Lebanon knocked momentum from democracy efforts and left many reform activists deeply resentful of the United States. Over the past two years, Washington has made promoting democracy a key part of its Middle East policy. But now reformists accuse Washington of supporting Israel in its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas, which wreaked widespread...

In a wide-ranging talk about the Internet and government, Al Gore urged the techie crowd at South By Southwest to use digital tools to improve government. The former vice president sat for a conversation with Napster co-founder and Web entrepreneur Sean Parker on Monday at SXSW in a flashy tete-a-tete that drew an audience of thousands at the Austin Convention Center and more viewers via a live stream. "Our democracy has been hacked," said Gore, framing Washington gridlock and the effects of special interest money in digital terms.

RE "DENIAL in Sri Lanka" (Editorial, Feb. 29). The Globe calls on both sides in the recently ended Sri Lanka war, the government and the Tamil rebels, to acknowledge crimes committed in the conflict. But the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are a terrorist organization. It is unfair to equate a democratic government with a terrorist organization in calling for investigations. Shenali Waduge Colombo, Sri Lanka