World Review

[HTML_REMOVED]The Paraguayan political free for all[HTML_REMOVED]

Despite allegations of widespread corruption in Sunday's municipal elections, Paraguay's Colorado Party swept the polls, winning 75 percent of all offices up for vote.

Following the victory, President Nicanor Duarte fired Chief Army Commander Gen. Jose Key Kanazawa along with 58 other military and police officers. According to the Associated Press, Duarte simply described the firings as "normal in the institutional life of the military."

The AP reporter Pedro Servin said he believes the story of the firings begins in December 2005 when the minority parliamentary parties united in refusing to grant promotions to some 300 Army officers.

Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based think tank Council of Hemispheric Affairs, recognizes the importance of military promotion and believes the issue needs to be seen through the lens of Latin America's military politics.

"Let us suppose that you appoint a Lt. Colonel to be commander of the Army [HTML_REMOVED] every member of the army with a more senior rank is then forced into retirement," Birns said. "So there are all sorts of tactics that are used throughout Latin American and certainly Paraguay to hobble the strength of the military."

At the end of the day it seems clear that Paraguay is a country slow to change. The ruling Colorado Party has been in power for half a century, and the prospects for democratic political change look bleak.

"A country like Paraguay inches ahead," Birns said. "Paraguay is a fictitious democracy. It's a foe democracy. It's a prime setting for a Machiavellian world."

[HTML_REMOVED]French stick their nose in Rwanda[HTML_REMOVED]

The streets of Rwanda's capital Kigali were filled with anti-French protesters following the Rwandan government's announcement to cut off diplomatic ties with the former European colonial power.

A decision last week by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere to formally charge Rwanada's President Paul Kigame with murder has heightened emotions in the small central African nation. In response to the accusation, Rwanda's government closed a French school, radio station and the French embassy, forcing the ambassador and his staff to return to France.

Rwanda's ambassador to the United States, Zac Nsenga, believes the diplomatic breakup has been brewing for quite some time.

"This is long overdue," he said. "France has not been cooperating with the international tribunal," the UN court established to try criminals responsible for the 1994 genocide. Nsenga, like many Rwandans, holds France, at least in part, responsible for the genocide.

"They are saying the one who shot down that plane is the one who caused the genocide," Nsenga said. "They trained the guys who did it."

Ian Williams of the New York-based group Foreign Policy in Focus agrees about the peculiarity of the French government deciding verdicts on the role of the current Rwandan government in the genocide.

"One of the reasons why there's incredulity is that of course the French government was up to its eyes in supporting the regime that lead to the actual genocide," Williams said.

The event might also signal a larger trend in African affairs, the decline of French cultural and political influence on the continent it once ruled a huge portion of.

"In this peculiar Gaulic view of the world they [the French] saw the rebels (Kigame and the current government) ... as a sort of Anglophone fifth column eroding Francophone Africa," Williams said. "For the French, this is a matter of wounded pride ... in a big way, that this is the one that got away. That might well be some of the motivation behind this."

[HTML_REMOVED]Turkey basks in Europe's spotlight[HTML_REMOVED]

Turkey has made headlines this week by playing host to Pope Benedict XVI as he visits the Islamic crossroads country that historically has separated East from West for the past 2,000 years.

Benedict took the opportunity to change his position on Turkey's entrance into the European Union. The pope had previously opposed Turkey's acceptance on religious and other cultural grounds, but during a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Benedict changed his stance.

"We don't have a political role but we wish for Turkey's entrance to the EU," Benedict said to Erdogan, as reported in The New York Times.

Benedict was met at the airport by Erdogan who was on his way out of town along with many other Turkish politicians who thought it best to avoid being around for the tense visit. For the past week thousands of Turks have taken to the streets to protest the pope's arrival but the pope's announcement seemed to have a calming effect.

Professor Resat Kasaba of the UW's Jackson School underlined the importance of the Pope's visit.

"It think it's very significant," Kasaba said. "He had an image of being closed-minded, and people compared him unfavorably with his predecessor John Paul II. But I think he repaired some of that, it looks like he had some good meetings."

The central issue concerning Turkey's entrance to EU had little to do with the Pope. Cyprus, the Mediterranean island south of Turkey, was invaded by Turks in the 1970s, and the island's inhabitants have debated the status of the territory ever since.