Charles Recknagel is standards editor for RFE/RL.
As Georgia tries to impound ships delivering cargo to breakaway Abkhazia, Sukhumi has responded by threatening to destroy any Georgian warships operating off its coastline. The feud, which has the potential to escalate into an armed confrontation, poses tough legal questions for third parties. Should ships from other nations respect Georgia’s sea blockade? Or is Tbilisi acting out of bounds by treating any shipments to Sukhumi as smuggling?
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the "Great First of September" revolution that brought him to power. The week of celebrations come as Libya is reopening to the West and international oil companies, aided by their governments, are racing to invest in the country.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki came to power as part of the alliance of Shi'ite religious parties that dominates the government. But now the two sides are going separate ways, with Maliki appearing ready to tie his fortunes to a multiconfessional alliance.
Iran has been in deep political crisis for two months since the June 12 presidential elections. But the nature of the crisis seems to be changing with time. The first phase pitted hard-line conservatives against reformers who say Mahmud Ahmadinejad stole the election. But that fight is increasingly being overshadowed by a second one: a public battle between Ahmadinejad’s camp and other powerful members of the conservative establishment over how powerful he will be in his second term.
In Turkey, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has secured Ankara's backing for the South Stream gas pipeline project, which will cross the Black Sea through Turkey's territorial waters so as to bypass Ukraine. The pipeline is seen as a competitor to the EU's Nabucco project, which will also transit through Turkey and already has secured Ankara's approval.
The president’s first term was largely about completing the hard-line backlash, approved by the Supreme Leader, against the reformist camp led by former President Mohammad Khatami. And Ahmadinejad did the job thoroughly. But now Ahmadinejad begins his second term immediately after feuding with the supreme leader. At issue was Khamenei’s backing of conservative demands that the president dismiss a top aide.
The most-feared force that keeps protestors off the streets of Tehran is a shadowy group of men who wear street clothes and carry clubs and pistols. When they swoop down on a demonstration in cars without license plates, the police stand back and so does the Basij militia. The men literally get away with murder. Who are they?
A fresh challenge of Iran's disputed election by a key group of religious leaders comes just as hard-liners step up their attacks on the opposition. Is it part of a growing rift in the establishment brought on by hidden efforts to pick the next supreme leader and snuff out republican institutions?
The hard-line camp of Iran's ruling establishment has so far quashed a major challenge by reformists. But a much greater test may lie ahead. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is ill and a succession battle looms. The hard-liners are unlikely to leave the choice to chance.
Iran's supreme leader is nominally above factional politics. But Ali Khamenei has backed hard-liners in key battles with reformists, and conservative methods and determination to win the recent election might hint that a battle for succession has already begun.
Iranian state television has begun to broadcast confessions by some of the hundreds of people arrested in the protests that have rocked Tehran. The confessions follow a similar storyline: the protesters were provoked to act by VOA or the BBC.
Authoritarian governments often try to block public access to uncensored news during a crisis. But Tehran has gone a big step further -- jamming international satellite frequencies that normally carry Western government-sponsored newscasts in Persian.
The Iranian supreme leader's order for street protests to stop gives a green light to security forces to quash any further rallies. At the forefront are the armed ideological wings of the Islamic Revolution -- the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia, both of which warned even before the presidential election that they would not tolerate a "Velvet Revolution" in Iran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is delivering Friday Prayers in Tehran that come after six days of protest against Iran's election results. While it might not happen in this address, ultimately he will have to take a clear position on the crisis.
As reformists protest what they say is a rigged second-term for hard-liner President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, they are not just expressing dissatisfaction with the election’s outcome. They are exposing deep divides within Iran’s political establishment over the shape of the Islamic republic’s future. The central question is whether Iran should become a more modern, industrial society that is also more open to the world, or whether it should remain as it is now: conservative, closed, and with a stagna
Iran's president is known outside the country for his confrontational style. He dismisses UN resolutions as "scraps" and calls the Holocaust a myth. But when Iranians vote on June 12, their main interest will likely be how he has managed the economy.
The rapid approach of Iran's presidential election is raising passions among voters to unseen heights. Supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Musavi filled the streets of Tehran overnight in a direct challenge to supporters of hard-line President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, with some of the biggest crowds seen since the 1979 revolution.
Twenty years ago, on June 4, 1989, Chinese troops and tanks waited for nightfall and then attacked pro-democracy protesters who had occupied Beijing's central Tiananmen Square for more than six weeks. The crushing of China's democracy movement was so brutal, and so closely followed by television viewers in so many countries, that it remains one of the most vivid moments of recent history.
U.S. President Barack Obama came to office promising to explore ways to talk with countries hostile to the United States -- such as North Korea and Iran. That was in contrast to the Bush administration’s labeling them as parts of an "axis of evil." But will events such as Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests, and Tehran’s stepped-up rhetoric, allow Obama to begin his effort? Or will they push Obama to adopt a harder line, too?
This week saw an unexpected showdown between the old and current administrations over how the United States should fight terrorism while maintaining its own values.
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