If al Qaeda is responsible for last week-s deadly bombing in Madrid which killed 200 people, could its militants claim to have caused the political upset which replaced the Conservative Party Prime Minister with newly elected socialist leader Jos- Luis Rodriguez Zapatero? Although Jos- Mar-a Aznar was expected to maintain power, there was growing perception that he sought to exploit the bombings by blaming the Basque separatist group ETA. Today, Zapatero declared Spain-s participation in the war in Iraq a total error, and said that if the United Nations did not take control of Iraq, that Spanish troops would return home on June 30. Guest host Jim Moret looks at Spain's political shake-up, and its implications for the United States with journalists and a former Pentagon official. - Reporter's Notebook: Astronomers Find New Planetoid
School children may soon have to learn about a tenth planet after scientists discovered the solar system-s most distant object. Sedna is eight billion miles from Earth and more than three times farther from the Sun than Pluto. Mike Brown, the planetary astronomer who led the CalTech research team that discovered Sedna, introduces us to the shiny reddish planetoid named after the Inuit goddess who created sea creatures of the arctic.
Guest host Jim Moret has had an extensive career in both local and national television news reporting over the past 20 years, including nearly a decade at CNN. Recently, he appeared in the film A Mighty Wind and the TV dramas The Practice and The West Wing. A member of the California bar since 1981, he is currently a visiting professor at UCLA in the Department of Communication Studies. Spain's Conservative Party (in Spanish)
Spain's Socialist Party (in Spanish)
Pingree's article on Spanish election upset
Monitor story on Spanish investigation into responsibility for terrorist attacks