Word: rulings
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...conviction that they are not alone and engaged populations outside Iran in an emotional, immediate way that was never possible before. President Ahmadinejad - who happened to visit Russia on Tuesday - now finds himself in a court of world opinion where even Khrushchev never had to stand trial. Totalitarian governments rule by brute force, and because they control the consensus worldview of those they rule. Tyranny, in other words, is a monologue. But as long as Twitter is up and running, there's no such thing...
...When Deng Xiaoping led China on the path to reform 30 years ago, one of the key declarations he made was that the country would be ruled by law. Since then, China has made dramatic headway in developing a legal system, but the application of law has been choppy. In recent years a small group of independent lawyers across the nation has been attempting to force the state to uphold human rights. The lawyers have been subject to arrest, violence and even, in the case of one prominent advocate, disappearance. But this month's apparent disbarment of the country...
...economy pulsed throughout Tehran. People were not just discontent; they were punching-the-wall furious. Dismissing opposition to Ahmadinejad as a north Tehran phenomenon, limited only to affluent urban areas, is insulting to the millions of middle-class Iranians who have suffered the most under his tenure. As a rule, affluent Iranians aren't much affected by high inflation and unemployment. As the foreclosure crisis in the U.S. has shown, it is people of modest or low income who feel the pinch when an economy falters...
...spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted on state TV as saying the recount would be limited to voting sites where candidates claim irregularities took place. He did not rule out the possibility of canceling the results, saying that is within the council's powers, although nullifying an election would be an unprecedented step...
...much as some Iranian conservatives may wish otherwise, the Islamic republic has never been able to seal tight state rule over society: it is a sloppy authoritarian state with elements of democracy. Iranian democracy may not be recognizably Western, but its dynamic seeps into the highest echelons of power, even if it is embodied in an instinct for consensus among a clerical élite with diverse opinions. It is a dynamic that even Khamenei has to answer...