Here’s an interview by PBS Newshour’s Margaret Warner in which she explores multiple allegations concerning election fraud in the recent Afghan elections. It’s an excellent interview, and I think it illustrates what makes me crazy about this issue. Her subjects are Peter Galbraith–former US Ambassador to Croatia and recently-fired head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)– and Assistant Secretary General Edmond Mulet. Galbraith has very publicly accused U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide of mishandling efforts to prevent election fraud and helping cover it up after the fact. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon fired Galbraith, claiming this was due to a personality clash between Galbraith and Eide.

The New York Times reports on the issue here.The Newshour’s interview transcript is here.

I am stupefied when I try to follow the politics surrounding election fraud. Shouldn’t an election boil down to some simple logic and counting? I know this is a drastic and naive over-simplification, but how can free elections happen when an assistant secretary general of the UN is hiding behind political sophistry?

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), was born 140 years ago today. Gandhi’s birthday is commemorated as a national holiday in India as Gandhi Jayanti, and is celebrated around the world as the International Day of Non-Violence. Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience to achieve equal rights for the Indian community in South Africa, and was later utilized in the fight for land rights for peasants and farmers, women’s rights, and India’s struggle for independence from the British. The use of non-violent civil disobedience has diffused across borders and has been an influential tactic in hundreds of movements worldwide, including the Black Freedom Movement in the United States. Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, less than a year before the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How have Gandhi’s principles of non-violence, as well as simplicity and economic self-sufficiency, influenced the ideal of human rights? Are they connected, for example, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s caution against the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism?

In Dharamshala and around the world, Tibetans and their supporters take to the streets to protest China’s 60th anniversary. Meanwhile, in Tibet, travel restrictions are in place that ban foreigners and journalists from entry between September 22 and October 8th. What human rights issues are at stake for the Tibetan exiles? Should the Chinese government violate the right to free movement to foreign travelers, even for the purpose of maintaining ’social order?’