BBC news 2009-06-13 加文本

BBC 2009-06-13


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Hello and welcome to the latest global news recorded at 02:00 GMT on Thursday, June 12th.I am Mark Wittico with a selection of highlights from across BBC World Service News.

And coming up, America’s top commander in Afghanistan warns that the violence there is the worst since the Taliban was toppled from power.

Iranians prepare to vote in their bitterly-fought election. We hear of their hopes for a new political order.

The people are tested for civil liberties. They are deprived of the basic liberties.

And football’s biggest star: Ronaldo takes the free kick! Vow! What a fantastic strike by Ronaldo.

But is Ronaldo worth $130 million? We asked the fans and the experts.

But first after 3 weeks of mass rallies and a bitterly-fought campaign, voting in Iran’s presidential elections could be getting under way in a few hours time. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces 3 challengers, Mohsen Rezai, Mehdi Karroubi and the man most observers see as his main rival, the moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet is in Tehran covering the election. She’s been asking people who they intend to vote for.

Mr. Ahmadinejad gives power to nation, Iranian nation.

But Iranians tell me that he is not a very good economic manager.

I think he is good. When he came to government, he made a lot of enemy. Because they were very rich, they took out their money from economic income.

All your friends around me, so many young people I meet tell me they are supporting Mr. Mousavi because they want greater freedom in their life. Are you alone among your friends in supporting Ahmadinejad?

No, we have a lot of friends. If you stay in Tehran(他发成了Islam), at night you can see them, by, sure by motorcycle, because all of them, they are not rich people.

But others are voting for Mr. Mousavi.

Since Ahmadinejad came to power here, he has created lots of restrictions for us. He has created the special units of police forces. And they arrest us, they put us under arrest because we, I don’t know we wear short sleeves, we hold hands with our girlfriends. We are sick and tired of these restrictions; you know that people gone crazy. We were actually waiting for this moment. You know, Khatami came to power, he promised lots of things. He didn’t live up to his promises. We were terribly angry. We’ve paid heavily for that. Khatami just stepped aside, he left this alone. I know this thing might happen with Mousavi as well. But this is the unity we are creating under his umbrella. And with this unity, with this guy, you know everybody is out there, I hope, after the election, we get something that we all deserve.

But whoever is elected, how powerful is the president. After all, there is a supreme leader Ali Khamenei who has as his title suggests supreme power in the Islamic Republic. So what is the power structure exactly in Iran? Well, Michael Axworthy is Director of Exeter University’s Center for Persian and Iranian studies.

The constitution of Iran is a mixture of, as it were, elected and non-elected elements. The president is elected by a popular poll which is what’s going on at the moment or about to go on. But there are non-elected elements, including the most important office, which is the office of the supreme leader, currently Ali Khamenei. And other non-elected bodies, notably the Guardian Council, also have important roles in the constitution. The Guardian Council in particular is responsible for vetting candidates before they are allowed to stand for election.

So the president himself, can he decide things, for example, the direction of foreign policy or the way in which oil money is spent, are those things in his gift?

In theory, they are more in his gifts than anyone else. But in practice, decisions like that are taken collectively by a leadership circle organized around the supreme leader, and in particular, foreign and security policy is decided in that collegial way by a body called the Supreme National Security Council.

Well you say that’s decided collegially, but if there’s a dispute, if say, the president thinks one thing, the Supreme Leader another, how is that resolved?

Good question. It’s, all I can really say, I’ve never obviously participated in such a meeting. What happens is that the supreme leader has the ultimate casting vote, as it were. But he will only take a final decision once he’s got an impression of how all the other members of the leadership circle, how they feel about it. You can’t view the supreme leader as in some way a dictator really. He doesn’t behave in that way.


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