elections
Egypt: After a year of military rule, what next?
Tuesday 25 January 2011 has become enshrined in Egypt’s history as the ‘day of rage’ when people took to the streets against the tyranny and oppression of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. As we approach the one-year anniversary of that day we will be joined by a panel of Egyptians to discuss the hopes of that day and the challenges that lie ahead.
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 24 – 30 October
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 24 to Sunday, 30 October from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt This week begins and ends with big trials, with German businessman Gerhard Gribkowsky’s high-profile corruption trial kicking things off in Munich on Monday. The former BayernLB risk manager is accused of accepting a £28m bribe […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 17 – 23 October
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 16 to Sunday, 23 October from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt The UN Human Rights Committee session opens on Monday in Geneva, with the situation in Iran on the agenda for the first two days. Meanwhile, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 19 – 25 September
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 19 September to Sunday, 25 September from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt Anders Behring Breivik, the man who admitted to setting off the 22 July bomb in Oslo, killing eight people, before killing 69 people on the island of Utoya, makes his first public appearance at Oslo […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 12-18 September
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 12 September to Sunday, 18 September from ForesightNews By Nicole Hunt The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meets in Vienna on Monday, with Iran likely to be high on the agenda following last week’s report expressing increased concerns over ‘undisclosed nuclear related activities’ […]
Ivory Coast: a watershed for African democracy?
Now that defiant former leader, Laurent Gbagbo is in custody and Alassane Ouattara has been installed as the duly-elected president of Ivory coast what are the lessons that can be learned if an election is disputed in the future in Africa? There has been a considerable amount of discussion about the implications of events in […]
FULLY BOOKED Zimbabwe 2011: An Opportunity for Change?
Zimbabwe’s leaders have been locked in a shaky power sharing coalition since opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as Prime Minister in January 2009. President Mugabe is now pressing for fresh elections in 2011, despite MDC leader Tsvangirai saying that they could not take place without reforms and constitutional review. Join us at the Frontline Club with a panel of experts to discuss what the coming year holds for Zimbabwe – could there be a fair election, or will violence and intimidation again escalate?
Armenia: An online revolution in the making?
Opposition Rally, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian 2007 Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have captured the attention of the world’s media and also encouraged and inspired other movements elsewhere, albeit in much bloodier ways as this week has shown in Bahrain and Libya. Not to be outdone, opposition groups in […]
Germany’s grand colour coalition election
It’s supposed to be a Superwahljahr – a super election year in Germany. Yes, we’ve seen many elections of the state and city variety, but you could hardly describe the campaign leading up to Sunday’s general election as "super". And why? Well your correspondent wonders if anyone in Germany is potentially excited about casting their […]
Kirchners On the Ropes
I waited and waited and waited last night for Argentine strong-man Nestor Kirchner to speak. Just after midnight, I joined the general flow of people towards the door. All was quiet at campaign HQ. That boded ill for the country’s ruling party. Things, obviously, had not gone well at the mid-term polls. The scene couldn’t […]
Armenia: Political prisoners freed, reported live via mobile
It was for times such as this that I decided to follow the example of fellow Frontline Club blogger Guy Degen by getting myself a Nokia N82. After sitting at the Yerevan Opera uploading images taken with a Nikon DSLR, but transferred to my phone’s memory card so I could ftp them via free wi-fi at […]
Iran Election: links on media coverage 2
The same deal as yesterday but today instead: Al Jazeera English Journalist uses Twitter to get commentary on Iran. BBC Changing the website to green was NOT a gesture of support to the protesters. Director of Global News says UGC offers authenticity to BBC coverage. Have Your Say team interact with Twitterer. Jon […]
Student protest outside Iranian Embassy in Yerevan
Following Friday’s disputed presidential election in Iran and clashes on the streets in Armenia’s southern neighbour which have left several people dead, Iranian students studying in Yerevan again protested outside their Embassy. Alerted to the small protest which eventually attracted about 50 people by Twitter, it also provided another opportunity to put the Nokia […]
The ‘Obama effect’ and Hezbollah’s election tactics
Newsflash: It is possible that people can make up their minds without help from Barack Obama. Especially in the Middle East. So it’s particularly odd that after Lebanon went to the polls and reelected the ruling March 14 coalition, analysts in the UK and US are heaping praise on the American president for seeing off […]
Sharek961: Lebanon monitors its own elections
With just three days to go before the elections here, Beirut’s airport has been busy receiving observers from across the world – the most high profile of them being former US President Jimmy Carter. But one new project is hoping to reinforce the teams from the US, the EU and the Arab League by enlisting […]
Armenian opposition: Down, but not out?
Roads into Yerevan were reportedly blocked yesterday ahead of the first opposition rally staged after Sunday’s muncipal election, the first to indirectly determine the mayor of the capital in 15 years. Even so, that shouldn’t have made much of a difference in terms of attendance figures in a city with a population of well over a million and with […]
Waiting five years for a five-minute chance
This recent blog post by an Iranian blogger “cautiously speaking from inside Iran” sounded to me so familiar that I wanted to share it with you: As you might know, private television channels are forbidden by the law in Iran. In general, power-holders are really touchy about any media that could challenge their authority. […] […]
Update: Who is who in Iran’s elections?
Well, two days ago, when I wrote a post about upcoming presidential elections in Iran, I should have guessed it – I was stepping into a mine field 🙂 Ethnicity was always a very sensitive issue in Iran, and my speculations about ethnic background of Iranian presidential candidates received some feedback from my Iranian readers […]
Election time in Iran
I admit there are two things in Iran that we, Northern Azeris envy – the first is cheap petrol and the second is free an fair elections. No joke! Yesterday, American news magazine Time started one of its articles with this paragraph: The presidential candidate was greeted last Monday at the airport by a jubilant […]
Mobile reporting from Yerevan municipal election rally
Finally a real opportunity to put the Nokia N82 to the test. Deciding to quickly pass by Yerevan’s manuscript museum to see if the 13th Century replica ship blocking the entrance to the main venue for the opposition to stage its rallies had been removed, I wandered into what can only be described as a swarm […]
Paper ballot boxes, minor clashes, and another assault… Yes, it’s election time in Yerevan
No sooner does the ruling Republican Party of Armenia inform journalists that there is no mutual hatred or enmity between political forces contesting the crucial municipal election to determine Yerevan’s mayor on 31 May comes news of some minor clashes between opposition supporters and the police. Oh, and did I mention an albeit aborted violent […]
Nationalist party quits government, prepares for municipal election
Nothing is ever simple in the South Caucasus, and no sooner had world leaders hailed a ground-breaking announcement from Armenia and Turkey that might set the scene for the normalization of relations between the two estranged neighbors, than nationalists throughout the region became agitated. Here in Yerevan, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashanktsutyun, for example, […]
Nationalist party quits government, prepares for municipal election
Nothing is ever simple in the South Caucasus, and no sooner had world leaders hailed a ground-breaking announcement from Armenia and Turkey that might set the scene for the normalization of relations between the two estranged neighbors, than nationalists throughout the region became agitated. Here in Yerevan, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashanktsutyun, for […]
‘Cabbage Revolution’ Wilts
Under stony skies, a dirge-like ballad droned from the speakers outside the Georgian parliament: an appropriate soundtrack for the seventh day of opposition protests in Tbilisi. A series of opposition leaders was greeted by polite applause as they raged against Mikheil Saakashvili, the president who has refused to offer them his head on a pike. […]
TS Satyan: A life less hurried
"I have begun to despise politicians and their ways. At my age, I don’t want to photograph any of them unless Barack Obama visits India." As India goes to the polls at the start of its rather overwhelming general election, the words of TS Satyan, a revered photojournalist who has spent his life chronicling […]
‘Cabbage Revolution’ Wilts
Under stony skies, a dirge-like ballad droned from the speakers outside the Georgian parliament: an appropriate soundtrack for the seventh day of opposition protests in Tbilisi. A series of opposition leaders was greeted by polite applause as they raged against Mikheil Saakashvili, the president who has refused to offer them his head on a pike. […]
Azerbaijan passing through referendum
On 18th March in a nationwide referendum aimed at amending country’s constitution Azerbaijan went to ballot box to decide whether to remove two-term limit imposed for holders of the Presidential office. The referendum, especially changes proposed for lifting presidential term limits from constitution stirred much controversy from the very beginning. In January, in my Frontline […]
Live tonight – Kenya one year on
You can now watch the event here. We’ll be discussing Kenya at the Frontline Club tonight one year after the violence that followed the elections. We start at 7 pm GMT/11am PST Tue 3 March and as usual, if you can’t make it to the club in person, you can join the discussion live on […]
Undercover Zimbabwe film wins award
An undercover film shot in Zimbabwe by Shepherd Yuda, a prison officer, and smuggled out of the country has won the best news programme category in the Broadcast Awards announced last night. The film followed the story of vote rigging during the 2008 election, Zimbabwe: The Stolen Ballots, a world exclusive broken on the guardian.co.uk […]
The Vultures Start Circling
So at first glance this story in today’s Standard seemed a bit weird. Six months after post-election violence hit Kenya and when a new coalition government is still finding its feet, Kenya’s political heavy weights start jockeying for position… The post-Kibaki alliances started taking shape, on a day coalition partner ODM readied for its own […]
