Daily News Channel
Iranian presidential challenger Mir Hossein Moussavi’s hometown of Tabriz is Exhibit A for his supporters as they argue that last week’s election was rigged. Official results from Friday’s polls show that the city and its surrounding province, dominated by ethnic Azeris like Moussavi, voted to re-elect hard-line incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It’s a result many observers of Iranian politics find incongruous but just one of the things that have raised eyebrows among Western analysts.
The government of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez heightened its battle Tuesday against the only critical private broadcaster left in the nation, launching a fourth investigation into the Globovision network. Two officials with Venezuela’s Conatel agency, which regulates the nation’s telecommunications, served the papers at Globovision’s station in Caracas
Move Along, There’s Nothing to See Here, June 16, 9:12 p.m. IRT The Financial Times reports that “Iran on Tuesday banned journalists working for foreign media from leaving their offices to cover protests in the capital.” Wire services also announced that due to the ban on their photographers covering the demonstrations, they were forced to relay only images from official Iranian sources.
Iran’s government Tuesday banned foreign media from covering rallies in Tehran being held in the wake of last week’s disputed presidential election. The decision comes after video footage emerged showing violence at demonstrations in support of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi. Moussavi has contested the results of Friday’s election, which showed an overwhelming victory for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
North Korea and its nuclear ambitions are expected to be a key part of discussions as President Obama hosts the South Korean president Tuesday. Obama is to meet with President Lee Myung-bak in a closed-door session at the White House on Tuesday morning and then share a working lunch
North Korea’s state media released a "detailed report" Tuesday claiming that American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee entered the country illegally in order to record material for a "smear campaign" against the reclusive communist state. It added that the two women “admitted that what they did were criminal acts … prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it.” Ling and Lee were sentenced this month to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea
To the leaders of the Republican Party, a public health-care insurance option is a “non-starter,” the first step on a slippery slope to socialized medicine; in the eyes of the American Medical Association , it could “restrict patient choice”; and for President Barack Obama, as he put it Monday during his speech to the AMA in Chicago, it’s an essential part of any health care reform package that will “put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans.” With all the hand wringing over a public plan, you could be excused for thinking there is already a specific plan on the table. There is not. But that hasn’t stopped House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle from turning a public plan into one of the most contentious issues being debated inside the Beltway, one that could potentially make or break the passage of landmark health care reform this year
North Korea and its nuclear ambitions are expected to be a key part of discussions as U.S. President Barack Obama hosts the president of South Korea on Tuesday. Obama is to meet with President Lee Myung-bak in a closed-door session at the White House on Tuesday morning and then share a working lunch
With an apparent political coup in Iran by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters over the weekend, the ruling mullahs have dispensed with all democratic pretense and joined the ranks of traditional dictators in the Middle East. (CNN) — With an apparent political coup in Iran by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters over the weekend, the ruling mullahs have dispensed with all democratic pretense and joined the ranks of traditional dictators in the Middle East. The hardliners in Tehran, led by the Revolutionary Guards and ultra-conservatives, have won the first round against reformist conservatives but at an extravagant cost — loss of public support.
As protests continue over the disputed presidential elections in Iran, we asked two analysts to explain the background to the controversy.