'Illegal' and 'irresponsible'. Those are the words of the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister who condemned Catalonia's leaders for Sunday's controversial secession referendum. Tens of thousands of Catalans turned out to vote. That led to violent scenes in some parts of Barcelona, when Spanish national police - sent from outside the region - tried to shut down polling stations and confiscate ballots.
In Madrid, the central government said police acted with 'professionalism' and in a 'proportionate way'. So, what does the future hold for Catalonia and Spain?
Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam | Guests: Enric Martinez-Herrera - Political Analyst; Luke Stobart - Barcelona based writer
The right-wing AfD party made big gains in Germany’s federal election with racist and anti-Islamic slogans. In the state of Saxony, it even emerged as the strongest party. DW reporter Maissun Melhem travels to Dresden to explore why.
The political parties make their election promises. But many voters, it seems, are running out of trust. People need clear messages, says Jutta Almendinger of Berlin’s WZB. She’s studied the hopes and fears of the German electorate.
The African nation of Namibia found itself in the news last week after President Trump mispronounced its name during a speech at the United Nations. Trump’s reference to the nonexistent Nambia left many observers confused as to whether he was referring to the Gambia or Zambia or Namibia. White House officials later clarified to say Trump meant to say Namibia. During that same speech, Trump congratulated African leaders for helping make his friends rich. We find out more from one of Namibia’s best-known journalists, Gwen Lister, who is in Paris to speak today at UNESCO. She is the founding editor of the independent newspaper The Namibian, which reported critically on the apartheid South African regime. During the 1980s, she was jailed twice, and her newspaper’s office was destroyed by arson. The building was later firebombed in the 1990s after Namibia became independent. Gwen Lister has since become a leading advocate for press freedom. She is a founding member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which gained fame for publishing the Panama Papers, which exposed how the world’s rich used tax havens to hide their wealth. Gwen Lister is speaking today here at UNESCO to mark the International Day for the Universal Access to Information.
For decades Germany’s industrial Ruhr region was a Social Democratic stronghold. In some districts the SPD used to win 60 percent of the votes. That vote has been cut in half, and the far-right populist AfD party has made inroads.
Nonagenarian holocaust survivor Horst Selbiger recalls his childhood in Nazi Germany. He sees the rise of the AfD as a continuation of the Nazi tradition.
As we broadcast from UNESCO in Paris, we speak with Tarja Halonen, who was elected in 2000 as Finland’s first female president and served until 2012. Her election came about 100 years after Finland became the first European country where women were given the right to vote. In 2009, Forbes named Halonen among the 100 Most Powerful Women in the world. Since leaving office, she has become a prominent advocate for gender equality as well as transparency. She spoke today to mark the International Day for the Universal Access to Information, and we asked her about the country’s cost-effective healthcare system, which she says has given Finland "a lower infant mortality rate, better maternity care than the United States."
As we broadcast from Paris, we examine political turmoil in France, where it has been less than five months since the centrist political figure Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen to become France’s youngest president ever. While Macron won in a landslide, opinion polls show most French voters now oppose how he has governed. On Saturday, leftist opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon led up to 150,000 people in a protest against Macron and his attempt to rewrite France’s labor law. Meanwhile, human rights groups are criticizing Macron for pushing a new anti-terror law that would make permanent key parts of France’s state of emergency, which went into effect after the 2015 Paris attacks. "The situation in France is highly volatile, both socially, economically and politically," says our guest Yasser Louati, a French human rights and civil rights activist.
It is the only country in the world where women are banned from getting behind the wheel of a car, but not for much longer, nine months to be exact. King Salman is allowing women to legally drive for the first time from next June.
The royal decree removes a cornerstone of Saudi conservatism. Some conservative voices are accusing the leadership of 'bending the verses of Sharia'. While rights activists are delighted that Saudi women are finally being allowed to do what's entirely normal everywhere else.
But will the royal go-ahead accelerate existing tensions in the Kingdom? And is it a major step towards gender equality in the male dominated society?
Presenter: Sami Zeidan | Guests: Eylem Atakav - Senior Lecturer, University of East Anglia; Yasemin Saib - Saudi activist; Rothna Begum - Women’s Rights Researcher, Human Rights Watch
Tourism industry leaders from around the world are in Qatar to celebrate World Tourism Day. The number of tourists worldwide is expected to rise to around two billion by 2030, and sustainable tourism is a major concern for delegates. ¶ Qatar wants to attract five-and-a-half million visitors within the next five years, despite a blockade by neighbouring countries.
