Archive - Jun 12, 2009

• High turnout for Iranian election
• Iranian-Americans reflect on elections
• Counting numbers: How can Republicans bring voters back?
• "Fundreds" project aims to clean up lead contamination in New Orleans
• Fifteen years after the genocide, Rwandan combatants slowly join civil society

• Two suicide bombs target mosques in Pakistan
• High-level assassination rocks Iraq
• UN tightens sanctions on North Korea
• Aung San Suu Kyi trial delayed until end of June
• Constituents of NY Senate Democratic defector protest in NYC
• Congress passes tobacco bill that will grant regulatory authority to the FDA
• Sweatshop protesters in Orlando call on NBA to end deal with Russell

When lead poisoning is in the news, it’s usually because a child has been exposed to a high level of lead, generally from swallowing an object, like peeling paint.

But New Orleans has a different, and much bigger problem that exposes hundreds of thousand of people to low levels of lead poisoning.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, when soil’s lead content is above 400 parts per million, it’s considered hazardous. In New Orleans’ soil, the median lead content is 1000 parts per million.

In Washington, political researchers are still trying to figure out what to make of the two-thousand-eight election. But there’s one thing liberals and conservatives agree on: it was bad news for Republicans.  Tanya Snyder explores what the Republicans can do – if anything – to bring voters back to their party.

Iranian citizens in the US and across Europe have had the chance to cast their votes.  An estimated 2 million Iranians qualified to vote abroad, and in this tight election their votes may be crucial.

FSRN's Rose Ketabchi spoke to Iranian-Americans in the California Bay Area about their views on these elections and what the results might mean for their extended families.

Iranian voters went to the polls today to elect their next president in what has been one of the most hotly contested elections in Iran's recent history.

Conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is standing for re-election, but he's in a close race with Mir Hossein Mousavi, a reformist who was prime minister in the 1980s.

Polling stations were ordered to remain open for an additional three hours in order to attend long lines of voters. The massive turnout comes on the heels of fevered final campaigning which drew huge crowds into the streets.

This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. The central African country has experienced several periods of political violence since then, which have been fueled by poverty and ethnic tensions. FSRN's Tanya Castle spoke to former combatants who are now leaving the cycle of violence behind.