Since the ousting of the former President, he had been in close contact with the new authorities, who had pushed forward many of his recommendations.

Sanctions should not be applied as a punitive measure or used as a means of ousting the legitimate authorities of a Member State. By their very nature, sanctions should be temporary.

Its special nature derived from the fact that the United Kingdom had occupied the Islands by force in 1833, ousting the Argentine population and authorities established on the Islands and replacing them with settlers of British origin.

Ecuador could serve as an example in the future, both in terms of the important role played by the international community and because it demonstrated how a judicial crisis could become an institutional crisis and ultimately lead to the ousting of a constitutional President.

The Secretary General's good offices efforts have encountered considerable difficulties since the ousting of the former Prime Minister, General Khin Nyunt, and his associates in the fourth quarter of 2004, which resulted in a significant reduction of political contacts between the United Nations and the Myanmar authorities.

The first substantive issue addressed in the report (paras. 11 29) concerned his two missions to Ecuador, in April and July 2005, following the unconstitutional dismissal of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Electoral Court and Supreme Court and the subsequent ousting of the President of the Republic, Lucio Gutiérrez.

The perceived threat posed by the Islamic State has also caused the US to drop ousting Syria s Bashar al Assad, Iran s main regional ally, from its agenda. Indeed, the US has ended up indirectly allied with Hezbollah, a key Iranian proxy, which is fighting alongside Assad s troops against foreign jihadi forces.

Third, faced with chronic economic disorder and political instability, Egyptians increasingly lament the hijacking of the revolution, fueling mistrust of the country s governing elites. Empowered by their success in ousting former President Hosni Mubarak, and then sending the country s armed forces back to the barracks, many are readily returning to the streets to hold leaders accountable.

What is perverse about this is that every recent poll in Thailand shows that Thaksin remains wildly popular with the vast majority of Thais, most of whom live outside Bangkok. So, despite the ousting of two Thaksin proxies in a row by the court and the elite, Thais are likely to return yet another Thaksin loyalist if they are allowed to vote in an unrigged election.

Indeed, whatever resemblance events on Cairo s Tahrir Square bear to May 1968 in Paris and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it would be premature to proclaim that freedom has prevailed. Whether it does will depend to a large degree on how the West responds now, because what is at stake is not just the ousting of tyrants, but also the profound transformation and modernization of entire societies and economies.