In this June 2009 post-election edition, EUX.TV moderator Raymond Frenken sits down with Lisbeth Kirk, editor of EUobserver.com; Swedish freelance journalist Teresa Kuchler; New Europe editor Alex Koronakis; and Stafford Wadsworth, editor of Meuse Rhine Journal.
Together, they analyze the impact of the European elections on the EU process, the new composition of the European parliament, including the Swedish Pirates Party and the potential impact of Dutch right-wingers of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party; the chances of Jose Manuel Barroso’s second term as president of the European commission; and other issues that will appear on the European agenda in the coming months, such as the new Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
This program was recorded on Tuesday 9th of June 2009 in the Berlaymont studio of the European Commission in Brussels.
Unsolved murders of women in Guatemala leave relatives feeling betrayed feeling betrayed by the government taskforce having limited success in finding the killers.
Four days after Iran’s disputed presidential election, the Islamic leadership said on Tuesday that it will conduct at least a partial recount.
Iran’s media said that seven people were killed in Mondays protests held by supporters of the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. The demonstrations represented one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s Islamic government since it came to power three decades ago.
Mousavi’s supporters held another peaceful rally on Tuesday, as did thousands backing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Geneive Abdo, a fellow in foreign policy at The Century Foundation, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the recount, how the protests will play out and the long-term impact on the Iranian political landscape and Iranian-American relations.
Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered in the streets here on Tuesday for a second day of mass demonstrations protesting the official results of Friday’s presidential election, unsatisfied by a top government panel’s agreement to conduct a partial recount.
As the political tumult grew, the Iranian government instituted tough restrictions on foreign journalists, formally shutting down their ability to report on the unrest on the streets. Press credentials of journalists temporarily in the country to cover the election were revoked; journalists stationed in Iran were required to get explicit permission to report beyond the confines of their offices.
Reporters Without Borders said that security services had moved into some newspaper offices to censor content and that four pro-reform newspapers have been closed or prevented from criticizing the official election results.
The result was a dearth of initial photographs and video of Tuesday’s enormous opposition protest, which began on Valiasr Street, a major thoroughfare, and headed north. The tens of thousands of marchers — perhaps more — gathered without the help of text messaging or cell phone service, relying on word of mouth and internet social media platforms such as Twitter.
A senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, used the Internet to issue a public letter supporting the peaceful demonstrations and excoriating the government for “declaring results that no one in their right mind can believe.”
Ayatollah Montazeri, a relative liberal who has often criticized hard-liners, is one of a growing number of influential clerics questioning the election results.
State television, meantime, turned its attention to a counter-rally by an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 people in support of the declared winner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those demonstrators stayed to the south of the much larger opposition protest.