Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, presently the UK Government’s Middle East Envoy, says change is now inevitable in Egypt. Here, Blair raises the question being asked by analysts and observers worldwide: How will that change ultimately take form?
Kazakhstan’s constitutional council has rejected a referendum to extend its leader’s rule until 2020. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has been head of Central Asia’s largest economy for over 20 years. The 70-year-old leader has a month to appeal the decision. However, in his state of the union address last week, he said that should the vote be rejected, he would stand for election in 2012.
While much of the world’s international media has focused on the popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East, there have also been demonstrations in Asia, where the Thai government is again under increasing pressure from thousands of street protesters.
An examination of satellite images of Cairo shows the sheer breadth of the city, and this Al Jazeera report outlines the precise locations of violent protests and street demonstrations that have spread across the Egyptian capital during recent days.
“The people want the regime to fall.” That has been the rallying cry as street demonstrations continued yesterday in Cairo, with thousands flooding into the streets in defiance of a government ban to protest President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-old rule.
A trial involving the son of a minor official accused in a hit an run accident in central China has attracted national attention, according to this Al Jazeera report. The trial sparked public outrage and an internet campaign calling for justice when the accused son brushed off the incident, telling authorities that his father was an official in the government.
An audiotape given to the al Jazeera Arabic network, supposedly recorded by Osama bin Laden, specifically targets France — saying the country will ‘pay dearly’ for its policies in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
This video, reportedly taken by an eyewitness to the deadly terrorist attack at the Domodedovo airport outside Russia on Monday, appeared on YouTube Monday afternoon. Initial reports indicate 35 people were killed in the bombing, with 152 others injured. The video depicts the immediate aftermath of the bombing, showing a smoke-filled area of the airport and the bodies of victims on the floor.
Senior Arab officials are refuting the veracity of leaked documents showing that Palestinian negotiators agreed to make a string of once unthinkable concessions with Israel. A cache of thousands of pages of confidential Palestinian records, leaked to al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian, began emerging over the weekend.
Two blasts hit the eastern Ukrainian town of Makiyivka on Jan. 20 and authorities were bracing for possible further attacks after unidentified attackers left a note at one of the explosion sites demanding millions of euros from the government. Ukraine’s security service is not ruling out terrorism. No one was hurt in the blasts.
Appearing this week before The Iraq Inquiry, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed his belief that former U.S. president George W. Bush was set on regime change in Iraq straight after the 9/11 attacks. The Iraq Inquiry, also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, is the ongoing British public inquiry into the United Kingdom’s role in the Iraq war.
Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao held a joint press conference on Jan. 19, 2011. The first question from the press, on the issue of human rights, comes at 16:45 in the video. Both Hu and Obama commented on a wide variety of issues, including human rights. “China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights,” said President Hu. “At the same time, we do believe that we also need to take into account the different and national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights.”
Military bands and a 21-gun salute were part of the welcome for China’s President Hu Jintao during the first White House state visit by a Chinese leader in 13 years. U.S. President Barack Obama, however, wasted little time touching on the sensitive subject of human rights in China.
Iran has successfully test-fired an upgraded surface-to-air missile authorities say is aimed at protecting the counry’s most sensitive areas. The test was carried out near a nuclear facility in the central part of Iran. This video, from Russia’s government-owned English-language television station, features an interview with Victor Mizin, a political analyst at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations.
Tunisians are glad that President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country amid massive demonstrations last week, has been ousted, but they are keen to see the country up-and-running again. However, confusion reigns in many banks and official departments, there are still protests on the streets of Tunis, and the current caretaker government is in a precarious position.
Exiled Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has made a surprise return to the county, adding to the country’s turmoil. In this NewsHour report on the development, Gwen Ifill speaks with NPR’s Jason Beaubien about possible implications of Duvalier’s return.
The Obama administration still says it will begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan in six months. But a recent visit to Afghanistan by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden raised questions about how long the U.S. military will actually stay there and some analysts say there are benchmarks that Washington and NATO should consider in determining the length of their mission.