Charles Recknagel is standards editor for RFE/RL.
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.
The U.S. dollar fell to its lowest level of the year on May 20. But the timing of the fall was strange indeed: it came just as U.S. officials said the U.S. economy is stabilizing. So why is the dollar in retreat?
Iraq has been struggling to boost oil production and agree on how revenues should be shared among the country's different regions. Now, a new dispute over how oil is to be exported from the Kurdish autonomous region is again raising the question of who ultimately controls the northern oil fields.
Turkey says there are no signs that a massacre at a wedding ceremony in southeastern Turkey was a terrorist attack. Instead, it appears to be the result of a feud between two families. But because both families are tied to the government-controlled Kurdish paramilitary force, the Village Guards, the events also raise a larger question -- the wisdom of arming citizen militias as a force for stability.
Turkey and Armenia say they have agreed upon a framework for normalizing their relations. The announcement provides no details as to points for discussion between the two sides. But it comes at a time of great political sensitivity as both Ankara and Yerevan -- for very different reasons -- worry their recent progress toward rapprochement could be in jeopardy.
Speculation has been rife that Turkey may be close to reopening its border with Armenia and restoring the diplomatic ties it broke over the Armenia-Azerbaijan war. But Ankara's desire to include progress over Nagorno-Karabakh could signal a more go-slow approach.
U.S. President Barack Obama has wrapped up his visit to Turkey, spending his final hours in Istanbul speaking to Turkish students in the kind of roundtable forum that has become one of his trademarks. The event was informal but may have helped underline one of the main points of Obama's visit to this predominantly Muslim country: to improve the image of the United States.
There is widespread speculation in Turkey that the country could soon reopen its border with Armenia. The suspicions are heightening with U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Ankara. Turkey closed its border some 16 years ago. Why is it suddenly such a priority to make peace now?
U.S. President Barack Obama has arrived in Turkey for the start of a two-day tour. It is his only visit focused on a single state, and his only stop in a predominantly Muslim country before he heads home later this week.
Tax havens have become an increasingly big part of the world's economy. In fact, so much money goes to tax havens, and so much financial speculation takes place with that money, that tax havens are a major factor behind the global financial crisis. The leaders of the G20 are due to consider how to crack down on tax havens when they meet on April 2 in London.
Turkey's efforts to deprive the PKK of bases in northern Iraq may have reached a watershed moment with Turkish President Abdullah Gul's visit to Baghdad, which ends March 24. Ankara looks set to strike a deal with the self-rule Iraqi Kurdish region whereby the PKK must disarm or leave the territory. The deal would also open the way for Ankara to officially recognize the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, despite its former reluctance to do so.
Iraqi farmers have suffered through two years of drought, watching as their wells dry up and dust and salt accumulate in their fields. Aid from the central government and the Red Cross might help them survive the crisis, but Iraq's overuse of water resources means it will remain vulnerable to drought for years to come.
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