Friday, June 12, 2009

In tonight's programme

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FRIDAY 12 JUNE - 22.30 GMT - BBC TWO
Presented by Kirsty Wark



From Kirsty Wark:

It was the apology of the week.

Today the former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said a big sorry for the manner and timing of her resignation from the government last week on the eve of the European Elections - and for wearing THAT witty brooch with the words Rocking The Boat.

Is this all too embarrassing? So what has brought this on? Was she under pressure? Is her political career over?

All this and more - and perhaps even Hazel Blears herself (in a manner of speaking) - on Newsnight.

Ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's major foreign policy speech on Sunday we look at a key area highlighted by President Barack Obama in his Cairo speech - the settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The US president says Israel must stop building settlements, but now the settlers are trying something new.

They are taking over large areas of land and planting vineyards. We will be previewing the speech and our reporter Tim Franks has been visiting the new wine-growing area.

And it has been an extraordinary presidential election in Iran, with televised debates and outspoken views about women's rights.

This afternoon the polling was extended by an hour with the Interior Ministry predicting the turnout to top 70% as hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces fierce competition from amongst others the moderate former PM Mir Hossein Mousavi.

We hope to be live in Tehran with the BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson.

Do join Kirsty for all that at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

And here's Martha Kearney with what is coming up on Newsnight Review.

Could anything have been more dramatic than the political events of recent weeks? Tonight we'll be discussing how art, theatre, literature and polemicists have portrayed crises of leadership and democracy itself.

We begin with the great master of hubris and nemesis, Shakespeare. So many of his speeches seem to suit the current crisis:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries."

I wonder if David Miliband will ever regret not standing?

We will also be looking at Hogarth's corrupt elections cycle, Anthony Trollope's masterpiece and two great TV dramas - A Very British Coup and House of Cards with their authors Chris Mullin and Michael Dobbs.

Do join Germaine Greer, Andrew Roberts and Tristram Hunt for tonight's Review.







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