GW Year in Review 2007

Ghana celebrates 50 years of independence in March. The Black Star nation started a revolution in 1957 being the first African nation to be free of colonialism, but not neocolonialism (thanks to WTO, IMF etc) which would come along in later years.


Burmese students and opposition political activists clashed with authorities over fuel subsidies. The protest demonstrations were at first dealt with quickly and harshly by the junta, with dozens of protesters arrested and detained. Starting September 18, the protests had been led by thousands of Buddhist monks, and those protests had been allowed to proceed until a renewed government crackdown on September 26. During the crack-down, there were rumors of disagreement within the Burmese military, but none were confirmed. Some news reports referred to the protests as the Saffron Revolution.


When asked about the treatment of gays and lesbians in his country at a lecture at Columbia University, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran we don't have this phenomanon. I don't know who told you this.”


An antiwar protester in Boston with the number of Iraqi civilians killed so far in the war on Iraq scrolled acrossed her face.


Approximately twenty thousand protestors gathered in Jena, Louisiana to show support for six black teenagers accused of beating up a white teenager. The fight was sparked by a number of racially-charged incidents in the town, of which the earliest that has been reported was when three white students hung nooses from a tree at Jena High School, after a black student asked permission from a school administrator to sit under the tree. The protest was described as "the largest civil rights demonstration in years." While many might argue if this is the "new civil rights movement," it is clear that America still has a racial problem that it wants to ignore.


Fidel Castro has grown more ill over the past year. How will Cuba prepare for the post-Castro era in 2008.


Former Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto was assasinated following a rally December 27 outside of Islamabad. While questions rise about who killed her, will the United States now refocus its attention back in this area of the world instead of Iraq?