sense of contrition and forgiveness all of that has started and so i don't but you know the mission on truth and reconciliation which also accused you of financing informing quote the warring factions in liberia's civil war the report said that people including yourself should be banned from occupying public office for 30 years. but then made that up to date on the west country maybe you forget that after that came out i won 2 elections because you ignored the recommendation that said i shouldn't be allowed to run around or no no no no no that went to court you see you don't have enough information for the things you say ok that's really unfortunate ok this matter went to the courts i didn't put it there it went to print court and the decision was taken you cannot visit glad you did not have the legal powers to be able to judge people given the

right of self-defense was in my case it was somebody else's case if you just take a little bit of time to understand the truth and the facts then you won't have to say some of the things you say. it's not true than that the recommendation was for people not to run for office for 30 years i just made that up. and you totally miss the point. we'll have to agree and disagree with the reports of people to look it up one last question you're one of the few african leaders to have led a peaceful democratic transition when you look at the state of democracy and some other african nations and see how so many others libya zimbabwe others have failed to do the same of have repeatedly contested elections what's your advice to those other african countries or other african leaders i think africa is so on the right track when it comes to democracy i think what we need is to make strong institutions to show that democracy. will. show

that participation of all citizens in societies by intense true active active collaboration to be able to achieve development goals maybe be a lot of those that. take away from the successes we've had for progress we have but i think the record is clear evidence is right to see ellen johnson sirleaf thank you so much for joining me on outfront i'm not sure if i thank you. well let's say i'm glad it's over. back in march president earlier ones ruling justice and development party or akp party suffered surprising losses in local elections across turkey including in istanbul and ankara for the 1st time in almost 20 years but the turkish president refused to concede and earlier this month the country's high election council announced a rerun of the istanbul mayoral election to be held on june 23rd so is this just

the latest step on the road to turkish or talk or see or is as his supporters say just protecting the integrity of the election process joining me to debate this from istanbul. a senior member of the ak party and its former vice deputy chairman for human rights and most of our senior fellow at the cato institute and contributing opinion writer at the new york times thank you both for joining me in the arena harun your party suffered significant losses in the local elections in march including in istanbul where your president used to be the mayor in a democracy many would say you're supposed to respect the election result not demand multiple recounts and then have a rerun of the whole election just because your candidate didn't win. you're just repeating the opposition. which are not true the election is going to rerun because there is an independent but the electoral commission made a decision to go to rerun for 2 reasons because number one is that there are

hundreds of people that point at the ballot box offices number 2 there are irregularities in what counting sheets which in the law clearly says that in these sort of cases if it's impacting the final result of the election it goes to iran and it's not the 1st time in last minute simple elections there are 14 minutes abilities that to rerun for similar reasons when you say irregularities voters in istanbul didn't just vote for mayor on march 31st they cost 4 different vote. in 4 different pieces of paper they were all put into the same all overlook before going into the ballot box but you're not calling for a rerun of all 4 vote how come the 3 are ok but one of the votes is irregular that makes no sense to me the reason is very simple math if you know the law because the difference the difference between the 2 candidates in istanbul metropolia in minutes ability is very small if you look at the local municipalities yes the is regularities are there valid for them as well but they are not impacting the final

result because the difference is more ok it's an independent body calling for a rerun and they were voting irregularities was the problem. well becky i think it's not that simple and i should 1st say this i'm really sad about what turkey has become it's my country we had a great accomplishment in the early 21st century we were the shining star of the muslim world unfortunately it devolved into a grim authoritarian scene in the past 6 years and lot of things have gone down refeed of speech independent press lot of things have gone down already what if least the elections were there at least elections were trusted and now with the cancellation of these stumble elections unfortunately now there are question marks about even the curious you have elections and the legitimacy of elections in turkey will be there even former president former former prime minister ahmed who are the people who built his party said that this is a this is really

a bad thing for our democracy there are independent scholars who don't see any reason illegitimate reason for the cancellation of the elections the elections are canceled on a technicality that there were not. people there more than 30000 ballots in a stumble in 200 of them the people who are the head of the team counting the ballots were not government officials they didn't used to be government official for decades this is a new law they keep people out the fact that they were not government officials doesn't prove any misty their own miscount it's just a technicality and that technicality is not used to cancel other elections across turkey in which the opposition lost the only place where opposition won which is istanbul the big most important place is not being canceled in the ruling party will have its arguments but other than themselves nobody in turkey believes this is fair however let me ask you this question you said earlier that i was just

repeating opposition talking points but it's not just the opposition who have been criticizing the rerun of this election as most of them went gold a former president of turkey a member of your party the ak polity. said that it costs a shadow over our democracy. former prime minister a member of your party has said it's course our fundamental values to be undermined and they also opposition members now look. first of all these 2 gentleman are founders of very respected senior politicians of our party and we always when they do criticism. of of course they are open you're open to give their opinions we hear they are opinions they are able to make their criticism indeed this is what makes that party a very democratic party and they are making this decision based on law not someone else's comments i mean maybe they made an unpopular choice to go to repeat the elections but it is same time this was the right decision according to the law to

be fair to their u.k.p. doesn't the fact that they're not demanding reruns in places like adarna or messire and where they also lost to the opposition doesn't that maybe suggest that there is a genuine objection they have in istanbul because they're not asking for reruns across the board across the whole country other no they they're not asking for a rerun on korea as well which they just i think it is stumble is the most important thing in the scene secondly there is a really close call i mean they lost a very small margin but the mere fact that elections are rerun in turkey when the ruling party thinks that they're not helpful that's a stain on our tomorrow and the fact remains that the act party did lose to the opposition in other cities throughout turkey how do you interpret those losses are they a referendum on president rule on the evidence of dissatisfaction from the turkish public with the ones rule number of people have made their decision for the general election last year for president this significant event. so into

a pretty thing because it's a pool of action results as a general election would mislead us it's wrong that's not correct and even if you do the math if you look at the general popular vote a party still want 53 percent general votes in this election and i saw something on that. there is no doubt the president on and they keep he's still popular in turkey there's no doubt about that the problem is the rest of the country is being demonized by the propaganda machine of the government in turkey the problem we have is a very divisive rhetoric which considers one political line illegitimate and the other one is really so i'm not saying that the president ought to get only started just going to this list of a turkish i'm not but to be fair you're not based in the u.s. where you're working at a u.s. think tank you write for the new york times many would say the u.s. is a country where the president diligent mises the opposition doesn't treat all sections of society equally and that many in token you for this many in turkey would say we're being demonized by the west is always

a reference or to an alternate empire and there's a western media bias against us i want to say to that there is polarization in the us to a very venomous polarization and i actually see some of the populist narrative i know from turkey in the u.s. politics as well today in the hands of the present and some of you know borders but in the u.s. there are institutions there are certain checks and balances when president trump passes a muslim ban a judge can stop that in turkey that judge would be in trouble himself in the u.s. 2 there is independent media president president trump calls it the enemy of the people that term doesn't become an indictment to put a newspaper journalist in jail in turkey the problem is that populist wave which is now all across the world is so strong and it's crushed institutions so let's also have to very little. so we have a very version of populism in the us i see other problems as well in the western

democracies. i see other problems as well i mean i think it is it is not unfair to say i got him a job or we got our new community has become nothing but a propaganda machine for the government the 90 percent of the turkish media has become like that i mean we are all in. absolutely i disagree with this point and it makes no sense whatsoever where did you get this 90 percent. number it doesn't it doesn't reflect the reality and you very well know that if you if you work if you are complaining about the media ownership by a few businessmen this is a common from for many countries for example rupert murdoch in dk has more than 50 percent of british media but you never claim that that's a big that becomes a problem for british democracy. and most of us father himself is the opposition opposition journalists in turkey criticize the government several times and i read them these very respected senior journalists are you telling me that most are you telling me that most of your father is just keeping his bush's in because he never

criticize the government. i didn't say under per cent of the media is controlled by the government i said almost 90 percent of the media is controlled by the government and my father is in that 10 percent right now that's wrong there are other people respected people journalists yes who say that's my group things even though there are people ever criticizing the government in that 90 percent they lose their job one of them is chemistry who just was fired from you nischelle fact we all know this let's be honest in turkey media owners several several media holders you very well know how their newspaper is every let me finish in turkey big people like murdoch you referred to they had to sell their newspapers which were bought by people who were friends with the government they transformed those newspapers they fired the editors reporters and columnists who are critical of the government let's be honest about this we have not let's be honest if you could have

if this is the will you can say how they are letting go of the honest let's be honest that who reacts. you know your board members that are in regard to having transformed our room will you concede any of that or are you saying there's been no change in how all of the loads all of that all human rights groups have pointed out the lack of media freedoms the media consolidation the record number of arrest of journalists and taking out jails more journalists than any other country the world and you deny all of that it's all just we're just imagining all of. these accusations have no basis 1st of all changing changing ownership in the media is that is the zisha that those businessmen can make we have nothing to do with those decisions and also if you have to be more specific they have it they have it out on the bridge for example he left and he went to the times because his line wasn't really a matching with the guardian like a david around of in terms of being arrested have detained in the united states you know that many many journalists have been arrested and detained in turkey so it's

not a very good analogy. that you know there's a 100 of thousands of people academics judges the last thing you do that you build up of the are all being detained you know that come on you know that tens of thousands of people have been detained in turkey you're not denying that and i'm very glad you brought that up and i think i'm very glad you brought that because i now have a chance to clear that up 1st of all in most of us own words into to need to 1018 when he was speaking brussels he said from his own words he's clearly said that the golan is called the religious cult they had a big power on broken see the military the police did to sherry and media and education and those guys later on try to overthrow an elected government these number of journalists that you give are nonsense one of them are in jail because he actually published a sex tape of leader one of them is in jail because he's he murdered this what about all of them. in her mouth is these a lot of problems as well turkey has time times more of that and unless we don't

even acknowledge that those problems exist turkey will not go anywhere better guys we run out of time her and most of all we'll have to leave it there we're out of time apologies that was very lively and that's our show up front of we're back later this year. in 2012 al-jazeera traveled to iraq people here are definitely scared to speak on camera they're saying that if they talk to us they think they'll be arrested down the line to take the pulse of a country ravaged under us occupation some of these graves are completely destroyed it's one of the most holy and sacred sites in all of iraq turned into a battleground between the mighty army and the americans rewind returns to iraq after the americans on al-jazeera. stories generate sounds of headlines with different angles from different

perspectives. on just long standoff with international borders is finally separate the spin from the facts. in this information from the. protesters complained about the reporting of police violence the sensational of the demonstrations with the listening. populism on the farm on the rise far right parties make major gains across europe but the center holds on to its majority in greece prime ministers see a process called for early elections after a defeat of his left wing series the party in the e.u. election.

for the bacteria watching al-jazeera live from doha also coming up. we're not looking for regime change i just want to make that clear u.s. president donald trump changes his rhetoric on iran as he discusses trade and security in japan plus how a shortage of emergency services in afghanistan is putting the lives of millions of people at risk. thank you for joining us provisional results in the european parliamentary elections show pro europe centrist parties have suffered heavy losses the liberals and the greens have made gains but is so far right the populist spontaneous that saw a surge in support delivering some of the biggest election surprises in france when the most well known faces of the anti immigration current marion le pen came out and. just ahead of president a man in my course party represented the pro e.u. center in the lection in greece prime minister alexis tsipras has been forced to

call for snap elections after his left wing syriza party lost to the conservative new democrats will have more on that in athens in just a moment and its deputy prime minister material salvini secured the largest win for the far right his lead party became the biggest in the country and rome is where we begin our coverage of some of been job it is there for is so the far right did better than expected in italy osama what is behind it. well we've seen that they've gained about 33 percent of the vote which is up quite to quite significantly from the 6 percent that they got in 24 years they have been riding on this wave of an anti immigrant sentiment with a declining economy and people being fed up with the traditional faces that they've been seen in politics here in italy we've also seen that in a year his coalition partner the 5 star movement has dropped down significantly as

well from its popularity and it's gotten somewhere close to about 20 percent of the water official results are yet to be announced but we've seen jubilation in the league party which is led by a. mere emmanuel sorry which is led by the league party and it is also been a buoyant victory for them here at home because it is going to shake up politics internally in italy is going to because they won't be as reliant as they were on the coalition partner what this means across europe is that selvi me is also leading an alliance of far right leaders from hungary to germany and he's been aligning himself with all of these leaders and it will give him the boost that he had projected that he is going to be leading these parties into a new europe although they're not significant enough to hold any ministries yet but this is the the biggest number that we've seen off far right parties going into the european parliament and. prime minister of a.c.n.

a head of their party is holding a news conference right now live from milan where seeing those pictures what is the next course of action then. well he's indicated that he is not going to be interested in any ministry that doesn't want to shake up the power structure so it feels that he wants to stay on the outlines trying to disrupt the process off the european parliament has said that he does not want to the status quo to continue so to speak he's been saying that to his voters as well as all of the leaders in the far right across europe and that's where his support base is going to come so his force of action is going to be what he has stated that he wants more a national independence from the european union he doesn't want to leave the union but he wants more if we want to put it he wants to put it in the 1st he wants more italian. independence he wants to bring down the deficit the fiscal deficit that

europe has tightened its grip on and he also wants an independence policy how much of that is he going to be able to achieve remains to be seen but it is going to be a year as experts have been seeing off but. we've been riding on this populous we are told and he is going to take that into the european parliament is about thank you for that osama bin javid live for us in rome in the u.k. meanwhile nigel for russia's new party has won the most seats as the public expressed their frustration over the deadlock on how to lead the european union by probably main parties combined one around the same percentage of support showing britain remains deeply divided on bracks it has more from london. nigel farage has done it again 5 years ago his ukip party scared david cameron into calling a referendum on britain's e.u. membership now his new brics it party is on course to win big in the u.k.

as unwanted here appear in elections the intelligence i get is the crux of how he's doing pretty well the lib dems main side and doing reasonably well but it looks like looks like you don't want to think with the rest of the. as the hours passed the bracks it party tally of m e p's grew and grew leaving the traditionally dominance of labor and conservative parties far behind it's an astonishing feat considering this party didn't exist before april the 12th leave voters have severely punished the tories for to resume a failure to deliver bracks it remain voters have deserted labor over it's a vase of attitude to a 2nd referendum consequently the liberal democrats have done very well as have the greens what we're left with after the election is an electorate looking all new lives go home at least are the remains are one that's very skeptical of the 2 big parties and one that clearly wants to let the political parties involved issues in

westminster know how they feel nigel farage with his message that britain has been betrayed by its complacent politicians found the daughter victory wide open britain only voted in these elections because marches last minute breaks a deadline extension required to the tories barely bother to campaign and astonishingly spent the run up to the vote dethroning their leader labor hardly showed much more effort there's a lesson here for the tory leadership hopefuls competing to replace to reason may end as a lesson that will concern anyone who's worried for the sense of ground of british politics the next leader of the conservative party may well be thinking that if he or she is going to. pull back any of the voices that they just lost they're going to have to you out fire nigel farage will reach alan's al-jazeera london and live now to athens in greece where john psaropoulos is for is john that way the prime

minister has called a snap election after a severe defeat for his theories the party how did this happen. well for many reasons mostly promises that weren't kept pre-election promises to end austerity and 2015 simply did not come to fruition as you remember that was the year in which see these came to power but was forced instead of ending the policies to sign on to a new bailout loan with new austerity conditions attached or stairs he began to and really in this election season when cities passed a few tax cuts through parliament just a couple of weeks ago ahead of these european parliament elections as sweeteners for the versus. the 2nd reason is that taxation has been onerous throughout this period and in many ways worse than it was the preceding conservative administration there have been good results from that massive primary surplus that puts any concerns to rest that greece will continue to pay and service its loans and that is

this a place in international money markets again but the cost of that has been very high at home and thirdly i would say the deal over north macedonia that went down extremely badly with especially in greece's macedonia and serious regions of the north the conservatives have taken a skeptical stance towards the us agreement and say that they will not allow the north macedonia into the european union unless changes are made to that agreement and what do the results stand mean for the future of greece john and the future of places relationship with the european union. it doesn't bode badly for the future of the greek relationship with the european union because the conservative. democracy pelosi being the party that brought greece into the night in the 1970 s. and 1981 ultimately. is the party that cost itself is the pro european policy.

the leader of that party promises to have a very good relationship with the great the greater powers in the european union but he does vow to make it easier for people to do business in greece he wants to bring corporate tax from 29 to 20 percent over 2 years he wants to create $700000.00 jobs over 5 years he wants to bring the current week growth rate of about one and a half percent to 4 percent he believes that is greece's potential and he wants to bring back half a 1000000 greeks who've left this dying job market. economies back and he promises to do all of this within his 1st term more or less so when when a greek political leader promises to do well for growth and for businesses he's really appealing to the broad base he's not appealing to multinational corporations there are very few of those here in greece 95 percent of employment is generated by

companies that are really high street shops they employ fewer than 20 people greece is still a small and medium enterprise economy so that has resonance with the productive classes because they are the ones who have borne the brunt of the austerity period of the last 8 years they're the ones who've been paying the high taxes and the salaries in the social security contributions they are the ones who have created last night's result john thank you for that john psaropoulos reporting there live from athens now into the world news and donald trump says he's not seeking regime change in iran on the 3rd day of his visit to japan the u.s. president reiterated his willingness to have talks with the iranian made this and to do a nuclear deal way that tehran. and i'm not looking that hurt iran at all i'm looking to have iran say no nuclear weapons we have enough problems in this world right now with nuclear weapons no nuclear weapons for and i think will make a deal i think iran again i think iran has tremendous economic potential and i look

forward to letting them get back to the stage where they can show that i think iran i know so many people from iran these are great people it has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership we're not looking for regime change i just want to make that clear there is wayne he has more now from tokyo it was a wide ranging media conference given by the u.s. president donald trump and japanese prime minister shinzo a bit talking about north korea trade and iran in fact donald trump compared north korea to iran he has spoken several times in the past about the economic potential he believes that north korea has he said the same thing in that media conference it bout iran he said that the u.s. is not looking for regime change what they are looking for in iran is a country without nuclear weapons he says that he thinks that iran wants to talk and if they do want to talk then the united.