The Real Story

Next week Iranians go to the polls to elect a new president. But how much of a choice do they really have? All six candidates are men, and all six have been chosen by the unelected Guardian Council. The members of the Council are selected by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has himself never stood for election. So how different are the views of each of the candidates and how much power will the next president have to set a new direction for the country? At a time when the world is looking at Iran following its nuclear deal with the west, Owen Bennett Jones and his guests discuss what difference this presidential election will make.

Photo: Woman voting in Iranian parliamentary elections 2016. Credit: Getty Images

Science has changed the world - it helps us live longer and more productive lives. It helps us communicate, explore the universe, understand our planet and cure our illnesses. It's so powerful a force that it has undermined confidence in religion and challenged humans to rethink their purpose. Yet some of science's keenest advocates fear that there is a problem with science, that there is something wrong with the way it is currently practiced and this at a time when science is under attack not just from old fashioned creationists but from people opposed to vaccination, climate change deniers and those who are suspicious it serves the interest of big corporations. So, are there fundamental problems with the way science is done today? Join Owen Bennett Jones with his guests this week discussing how science can live up to its promise.

Photo: Cancer research laboratory, Cambridge UK. Credit: Getty Images

Donald Trump came into the White House promising to tear up the US foreign policy playbook: Russia could be a friend, NATO was ‘obsolete’, and trade deals hurt American jobs. In his first hundred days has President Trump carried out his radical promises or is he beginning to sense the limitations of the most important job in the world? This week on Newshour Extra Owen Bennett Jones and a panel of expert guests discuss Mr Trump’s remaking of American foreign policy.

Is the increasingly autocratic brand of populism adopted by Hungary’s right-wing government becoming a laboratory for right wing parties around the world? Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s tough policy against Muslim migrants and his call to defend Europe’s Christian civilisation have put him at odds with the rest of the European Union. On Newshour Extra this week, Owen Bennett Jones and his guests discuss this Hungarian vision of an ‘illiberal democracy’ and ask whether what was once considered on the edge of the European right, is now becoming an increasingly mainstream ideology.

Highly sophisticated techniques to ‘micro-target’ voters, using personal data and demographics have been credited with contributing to the recent outcomes of both the Brexit vote in the UK and Donald Trump’s victory in America. Strategists involved in the forthcoming elections in France and Germany ignore these latest methods at their peril. But can techniques used in marketing to sell cars and toothpaste really be effective in predicting and then manipulating voters in an election? Join Owen Bennett Jones and his guests on Newshour Extra as they discuss what part micro-targeting will have in the politics of tomorrow.

How will President Trump's pledge to remove illegal immigrants and create jobs for Americans impact America's agricultural heartlands? Owen Bennett Jones and his guests are in the rural American state of Nebraska to discuss whether Mr Trump's trade policies could in fact hurt farming communities rather than help them.

Photo: Nebraska cattle farmer. Credit: Getty Images

The state of Minnesota is home to America’s largest Somali community. This week, Owen Bennett Jones and the Newshour Extra team are there for a special edition of the programme. In front of a live audience, Owen and his guests will examine the impact of President Trump’s executive order to exclude immigrants from majority-muslim countries including Somalia. Mr Trump argues that current immigration laws leave America vulnerable to domestic terror attacks by nationals from those ‘high risk’ countries. So what does this mean for the more than 150,000 Somalis who now live in the United States, many of whom are refugees from conflict in their home country? And what does the future hold for a migrant community President Trump has called a ‘disaster’ for Minnesota.

Photo: Members of the Somali community campaigning in Minnesota State elections, Nov 2016. Credit: Getty Images

South Sudan, the world’s newest state, faces a humanitarian catastrophe from famine driven by conflict. According to the United Nations many millions are threatened by severe food insecurity, with at least 100,000 facing starvation. Aid agencies are gearing up their efforts to reach some of the country’s remotest regions, but the presence of armed groups makes food distribution difficult. This week on Newshour Extra, Owen Bennett Jones and his guests ask why South Sudan, rich in oil and gas, has failed to live up to the aspirations of its people and what can be done to bring it back from the brink.

Photo: Child at an MSF malnutrition centre in Aweil, South Sudan. Credit: Getty Images

This week the UK’s parliament gave Prime Minister Theresa May permission to trigger the process that will take the UK out of the European Union. Two years of negotiations will follow. But what kind of deal should Mrs May go for? Hard Brexit that treats the EU like any other trading partner, or something much closer? On this week’s Newshour Extra Owen Bennett Jones and a panel of experts sift through the tough choices facing Britain over the next two years.

(Photo: Brexit Sandcastles. Credit: Getty Images)

Pakistan was conceived of as a country where Muslims could live free of Hindu domination and discrimination but was that the extent of the project? Was it meant to be a country in which Muslims could live safely or was the idea to establish an Islamic state? And is, in fact, an Islamic state the final goal of Muslims? Are there ways of blending the ideas of Islam with systems of government that do not take a view on religion and allow individuals to live their religious lives as they see fit? On this week’s Newshour Extra Owen Bennett Jones is in the Pakistani capital Islamabad to find out whether an Islamic state is possible in the modern world.

The guests this week are Zubair Safdar, Public Policy Analyst and Media Coordinator of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, Dr Soumia Aziz, Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Islamic International University, Islamabad, and Mosharraf Zaidi, the leader of Alif Ailaan, a political campaign that helps to address Pakistan’s education crisis, and also a columnist and former government adviser.

Owen Bennett Jones was also speaking to lawyers Asma Jahangir and Justice Muhammad Raza Khan

(Photo: Pakistan's national flag Credit: Getty Images)