break. >> this is al jazeera america live from new york. i'm jonathan betz, with tonight's headlines. the united states is calling on the government of ukraine to hold immediate peace talks with protesters. it comes after a day of clashes between thousands of anti-government demonstrators and police in the capital kiev. protests have been going on for weeks and laws to restrict them are having the opposite effect. a video emerged of two men claiming to be the suicide bombers of last month's attacks. warning to tourists coming to the winter games will get a "present", vladimir putin insists that tourists will be safe. >> west virginia's water company is trying to assure people that

their tap water is safe. many are nervous and say the water smells. pregnant women are cautioned against using the water, and roadside water distribution locations are giving people clean water. >> the brazilian government says it watched president obama's speech about n.s.a.'s spying. brazil's president called it a first step. reports surfaced that u.s. was spying on the brazilian president. those are the headlines. i'm jonathan betz. "talk to al jazeera" is next. and you can find us online, go to aljazeera.com.

maybe i'm making -- maybe i'm putting myself down too hard here. i always love that. because in a way, that it's really not very well-known. exactly why this works as well as it does. i mean, there is so much studying to be done on the brain. you know in 50 years, i can well imagine this not being a situation at all. >> because the treatment is so general, the electrical signals

being sent to the brairc brain t a blank currents -- >> you aim for a person depending on his personality and skills, memory and word recall. so one person can have one target and another person, another. since i'm basically a verbal person, there is one to target for me that may be different for another person. >> and you were going to say? >> i don't think that the nerves actually produce dopamine. i think what they do is regulate the nerves' reaction, so that the shaking will stop. >> this is what happens when we're writing. now you'll know. >> boy here you are getting along the way you do.

perhaps your work will be more scientifically accurate than past. what are you able to do with deep brain stimulation than you weren't able before? >> i could do this. my hands would give me away and it happened instantaneously. >> you woke up and -- >> no, no, they turned the juice on. after the implant they wait for that to heal and then they turn the juice on. they you turn it honor and -- >> describe the moment. >> i can describe the us. >> you watching talk to al

jazeera. more with martin cruz smith in just a moment.

>> you're watching talk to al jazeera. martin smith, who's written a new novel, while on parkinson's. you were on a cocktail of medications. were they effective at first? >> i don't think they were particularly effective. and i certainly would have preferred to have just taken pills instead of having an operation on my brain. and another fact, this has had an effect on short term memory. so if occasionally i will blank out when you've asked a question, you're waiting for me to come to an answer, i'm sorting through empty file cards. there were words on all those file cards, on those index

cards. i can't find the word for index or file or card. >> it must be maddening. >> it is very mad nipping. i'm not coming up with the first word, the usual word you use for that, the usual phrase, i'll have to create another phrase. which no one ever used before so i occasionally it is a happyings impinge. >> you have in these tools that were available, that have disappeared, you have to relearn the language in a way. >> or remake it. sometimes when you remake it, it's kind of interesting. but more often than not you're struck dumb. really dumb. >> when did parkinson's first affect your ability to write? >> well, to a degree for ten years probably. but i've always been a spectacularly bad typist. >> that's too bad! >> so parkinson's wasn't that noticeable for a while.

but there came a time when i sort of banged my head against the wall in trying to bang the right keys. that is the point at which i didn't suggest -- ann said she would be willing to take dictation for the first time. although she has been my first editor and best editor. >> how did you summon the patience and the -- >> well, to begin with, i looked out the window a lot been sentences and then i devised a genius system of putting my new yorkers next to me and i just flipped through the pages while bill was thinking. but actually: the words came pretty quickly. and whole sentences. i was amazed. >> i would think as the scribe of someone who is trying to re-learn the process, there would be a terrible moment of watching and waiting for sentence that would then make

you self-conscious. i can see the situation imploding if it were handled the wrong way. >> offoh, it's full of the quuns anconfusion and mutual reluctan. >> i was amaze ed he could do it. he kind of did it right off the bat. the ideas would go right ton page without him being conscious of typing, right? and then to have that extra step in there, which is me. i thought was going to make it impossible. but actually, the write was just the same. and whole, beautiful sentences. >> wow! did that teach you something about the way that you write? i mean it's always -- >> taught me something about the ability to just put one's own life aside and engage entirely

in somebody else's work. so i would not recommend it to most couples. not couples therapy. >> no, i can see it going very wrong. >> but i love it. it's really enjoyable for me and i miss it when we're not doing it. >> and is the -- do you then say okay, read that back to me? i don't know what your process is like but do you edit as you go or do you try and get it all down in one go? >> i have a lot of difficulty leaving a sentence un-done or half-done and always have had. while i'm right at it, sitting side by side and sort of hovering over the screen. so i can plate much see what's going on. >> tilt the screen that way so he sees it as i'm typing. >> and then sometimes she would tilt it back. >> also walking behind me. >> tell me about the situation to then tell the world.

>> well what struck me was that the degree of defeat, sense of defeat in people who were in parkinson's. and people who die in complications of parkinson's. i want to know, in spite of the fact i might be foretelling my own obituary. but judge like right now, i'm just skipping a beat. little bit like a record, needle skipping a beat. so i have to go back and reconfigure what your question was. >> yeah. so -- and you -- >> and that happens to us when we're working all the time. >> sure. >> because i have to give it to em, then i have to remember it, what i said, then she'll-then i'll ask her to read that back.

all the time, acting as if i'm really thinking when in fact i'm just trying to remember. >> the pressure to act as if you're not affected are by it, must be very, very strong. that idea that you're going to pretend that everything's fine. >> yeah, and that's the way it is with other people who have parkinson's. it's in many ways a hidden disease, resisting it, they have to say to somebody else, oh by the way, i've forgotten your name, what is your name? i'm sorry it's the parkinson's. >> how big the is the blank spot that arises when you forget that moment? do you forget everything about what you're doing or who you're with or is it -- do you have a sense much i'm in this room, i know these people, i can't remember what we were talking about? >> there it is. it is the key, i know the door is there and i know the people on the other side of this door,

this key. >> but which one of these keys is it? >> yes. and so i know that -- other people have the same reaction and there was a sort of hopelessness that i felt about the situation. especially when the meds weren't working. and i -- and it struck me that other people had the same thing. and i was certainly not going to talk about it until there was a chance of saying something positive and worthwhile. people didn't know about deep brain stimulation. >> explain why you suddenly were able to tell the publisher. >> yeah, yeah. >> well i didn't want to tell the publisher, i didn't want a reaction from him that was mixed at all. i wanted to act simply as a writer submitting a manuscript to the writer.

i wouldn't say, by the way, i would have submitted something else if i could have remembered the words. i wanted a pure submission of the story. >> you didn't tell him until you submitted the manuscript? >> all the writer hopes an editor is going to say, well, good now that you've given me your reaction, i can tell you that i've got parkinson's and as we work a little further in the book this will become obvious. but i do not -- did i not want to be a writer with parkinson's. i just wanted to be a writer. but i felt i could do that better and could serve another purpose by letting people know there was this avenue, this way of fighting back. >> we have been talking with martin cruz smith and his wife

about his battle with parkinson's. we'll be back to talk about his life in the soviet union. ideas, invention, life. on al jazeera america >> translator: based on our medical records she was

>> welcome back to talk to al jazeera. i'm with martin cruz smith. and his wife emily. tell me about the inspiration for the victim in the latest novel, tatiana? >> there was a dominant figure in political reportage up to about six years ago, in the form of anna plutkovska. she was known for her commitment to the truth. >> and she was murdered in 2006. >> and murdered in 2006. and still a dominant figure in terms of how much you're willing

to commit to of yourself to tell the truth. she told the truth about the children in beslan, she did so at the war in chechnya. and in other instances where she knew that she was putting herself in harm's way. and accepted the fact that she would probably die, pursuing the truth. >> your work is full of mortal challenges to your characters. terrible things befall them. they are constantly dealing with taisterrible injury and challen. and the rest of it in light of what you invented for your novels did it change your perception of that stuff, experiencing it yourself? >> wanted to experience that sometime back i created a hazard

for my character, arketyrenko in which he had been shot mountain head and part of the tbult remainebulletremained in his sk. and then my eye followed to some degree with this operation. i have now got electrodes in my head. and i've got -- so that i have a kind of shadow of my bshe-i have become a shadow of my fictional character. >> will you continue writing? >> what else would i do? >> from here what does your prognosis look with parkinson's? >> what i'm hoping for is ten good years. but i know that when i get to those ten years i'm going to want another ten years. i plan to be as selfish as

possible. >> and is the deep brain stimulation something that will continue to help you as the technology improves? is that the hope? >> i wouldn't mind a new little implement down the line, they come up with a new line of cars all the time. come with a new line of martin cruz smith. >> one thing we have to keep remembering is the disease is going on and progressing. the deep brain doesn't affect the actual disease. >> it just keeps it at bay? >> it does just -- >> it deals with a symptom. >> the effect, it deals with the effects of the disease. >> it's not curing it, just holding it back? >> it makes it better. >> if we could have that -- >> that would be wonderful. >> when i'm fighting to hold onto the present. >> no. >> and it makes me feel better

to do something with -- the skill that i have is writing. if i can use that, in some way. and make myself available to other people who have parkinson's. and are afraid to talk about it. and if i can make a connection, then this effort is worthwhile. >> bill, emily expel thank you so much for being with us. thanks for being on talk to al jazeera. >> thank you.

>> hello and welcome. i'm phil torres here to talk about invocation innovations thn change lives. the intersection of science and technology. marita davidson, is a scientist, a meat substitute that claims to taste like the same thing. >> it does taste like chicken. >> dr. crystal dilworth is a molecular neuroscientist. what's the