All Blog Posts from World Watch

It was a shining moment in Philippine history – the 1986 People Power Revolution, a bloodless coup that toppled the 20-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

I was five years old then, and knew little about the historic event that the whole world watched with wonder. The world admired the Filipino people, and in particular, a woman in yellow, a self-described plain housewife named Corazon “Cory” Aquino.

She led the revolution, the culmination of a battle for freedom that was her husband’s advocacy. It was a battle she won, and a victory that gave us back our nation’s democracy.

The events that transpired in the past five days are a testament to how much Filipinos appreciate what Cory has done for the country. Last Saturday, the former president of the Philippines, a worldwide democracy icon, succumbed to colon cancer.

Since then, there has been an outpouring of love and gratitude from Filipinos. As word spread about her death, people went to her home to pray in silence for her; some left flowers, notes, and cards. The whole city of Manila, gripped with grief, was adorned with yellow ribbons and banners. And even before her remains arrived at the wake, people started lining up to pay their last respects.

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Iran's state-controlled media are waging an all-out propaganda assault to cast post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic as a futile attempt by "the West" to interfere.

It has been a classic one-two punch from Iran's hard-line rulers: first they hit on the streets with batons, tear gas and arrests of opposition leaders. Now, in the newspapers and television broadcasts, they're striking with their own version of the truth.

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Like everyone paying attention to the epic political power struggle going on in Iran, we'd heard there was to be an opposition rally in the afternoon.

Then we heard there wasn't, because it had been declared illegal by the Interior Ministry. Anyone who marched could expect to face the riot police and their truncheons… or worse.

Then, suddenly, there was. The word flowed in digital streams from cell phone to cell phone, computer to computer — and, of course, from mouth to mouth.

Now. Come. Everyone. We're marching from the University to Freedom Square.

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What a spectacle this election is. It has galvanized young people and polarized the country.

Two main candidates – President Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative, against Mir Hossein Mousavi, a mild reformer. In admittedly unreliable polls, they are neck and neck.

Mousavi's organizers hope he'll also benefit from a big protest vote — politically-cynical Iranians who wouldn't normally bother to turn out, but will make the effort this time to cast a ballot against the President, whom they loathe as an evangelizing rube.

The wild enthusiasm of millions of 20-somethings for Mousavi has been moving to watch, but they are probably in for a big disappointment, even if he wins. He bills himself as a "reformer". But what he means by "reform" and what many Iranian young people mean by "reform" are worlds apart.

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For years now scholars — and many journalists — have been describing it as a weekend massacre, a massacre in Beijing, the "Beijing massacre" or the "crackdown" in Tiananmen, but not a "Tiananmen Square massacre."

"Tiananmen massacre" is a phrase that still has currency, but it does tend to be used a lot less now in careful accounts of what happened there.

In the actual Square, we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a "massacre" had recently occurred in that place.

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This first-person account was filed by CBS News London cameraman and editor Brian Robbins, who shot this video:


Just after midnight on June 3, 1989, my soundman, Hiroshi Iizuka from CBS News Tokyo, and I arrived at the Beijing hotel side of Chang An avenue.

We could hear shooting. A large group of students and civilians at this corner of Tiananmen Square were facing lines of soldiers.

We could see burning vehicles on the Square and we tried to approach discreetly, but were told the soldiers would certainly shoot.

As we contemplated this warning, far ahead of us, a lone student walked out and gave a "V" sign. Soldiers raised their guns, a blur of people ran in front of me and my soundman pulled me down sharply as they opened fire in our direction.

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U.S. Marine Corps Maj. General John Kelly is on his second tour as a commander in Anbar province. He calls the security improvements in what was once Iraq's most dangerous area, "stunning, just stunning." That's one major hurdle out of the way, but Iraq's provincial elections this weekend will be a key test of how stable the country's young democracy truly is.

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