he has struggled with growing political scandals and criticism over its policies well in taiwan train drivers have been paying tribute to the victims of last friday's rail disaster. oh. you can see that i sounded their horns and memory of the 51 people killed in that crash another 200 were injured that accident was the worst disaster of its kind in decades and highlighted major infrastructure flaws and also resulted in the resignation of taiwan's transport minister. and again this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. to the u.k. says he has been locked out of the embassy in london by there is no oil for the military and thus to kill us all men recently broke ranks with the generals calling for the release of aung san suu kyi he appeared with

a spokesman for the british government not to recognize the military's envoy here. feel free that you can government where continue to do most of their rejection of the as a lawful military regime and the support for both working to bring democracy in myanmar. he's trying to walk in the middle ground but there is no doubt which is the right side the military council has been nearly 600 people including 40 children. they have adept at during the day. 1000 the united nations reporter for human rights. didn't mind that action likely to meet the legal death for the prime. humanity when europe's medicines agency says it's still overwhelmingly confident and astra zeneca in 1000 vaccine even after finding it may cause blood crossing in very rare cases some governments have moved to

restrict its use. meanwhile india has confirmed a record of more than 126000 new coronavirus cases on thursday the country is struggling to contain a 2nd wave of infections that. 6 southern african leaders are currently meeting in the mozambique in capital maputo to address the growing violence and instability in the region the latest in a series of attacks by iceland armed groups has forced thousands of people from their homes the southern african development community has called those attacks an affront to peace in mozambique and the entire region the u.s. has agreed to withdraw all remaining combat forces which were deployed to fight against eisel but talks with iraq's government haven't settled on a timeline some soldiers and coalition forces will stay there to train the iraqi army all those the headlines i'll be back with more news here on al-jazeera after the string do stay with us. vaccines a promising path out of the pandemic but implementing the greatest inoculation in

history is testing the global community around the world already a clear gap is that between rich nations and poor ones when it comes to vaccinating their populations from the geopolitics to the pure economics the misinformation the latest developments what's going on here is very different for a start the faxing comes in the form of the nasal spray special coverage of the corona virus pandemic on a. day on the string should. be used in video games how do you react to that question really influence how you watch today show we are going to be looking at a controversial video game that's based on a very controversial war take a look at 6 days in fallujah. was well prepared city buttressed

waiting for us to go all the way to. the city and everything else you have to search. and you have to go out every insurgent. 3rd it might be times. it was the bunkers they would build houses. you were going to be all quiet and then they would open up on you shoot your own walk. down that door and there's a sense really. the only fellow if you survive. so that game 6 or was originally to be released in 2009 the criticism shot. down it is that this how it is being developed but should it be your thoughts you

cheaper way to jump into the comic section and you can talk to i guess let's say hello to the guests hello to yes seen hello to ramey hello to rebecca essien tell everybody you are what you think welcome to the street. thank you for heaven knows my name is c.n.n. commonly known as narcy the founder of iraq of the medium based out of montreal canada and i am a proud iraqi it's a happy rami welcome to the stream tell everybody. on this wind i'm a half touch of attitude egyptian game developer i'm also an industry ambassador who focuses on under-represented few points of marginalized people nice to have you had iraqi television where you are what you day. and the back on time. video game journalist a reporter currently working with i.g.n. with a background in specifically business journalism and how games get me good to have you all right let's start this debate is the debate immediately yes seemed you were

watching that trial and you were shaking your head why. i mean you know for the last 20 years of my life but let's say for the last 30 years and in the gaming industry games about iraq i've come out and dehumanised the life and commodified iraqi death and this was just you know the sort of the tip of the iceberg for me to be in the position that i'm in and have access to social media a group of friends of mine in their iraqi community who are also creatives and gamers i'm by no i'm not in the gaming industry i'm more in the music and film industry we came together to start a petition against this game coming out as you mentioned it was cancelled before for the similar reasons and. you know there are games that are based on the parity of reality or games that are based on artificial cities but this game itself is based on a true conflict that occurred in the world and people die due to it you know many many families were displaced due to it as well as soldiers they came back from that

with incredible levels of p.t.s.d. so this is not a game you know hashtag is iraq is not a video game this shouldn't exist and it shouldn't be something that people play to trivialize. a real life event it's a toxic imperialist perspective that has continued and been present in media for as long as i've lived and we've just we've had enough enough is enough i wouldn't know what i think is really what is really striking about this game in a think a reason the lot of people see it as as different is that everything you're seeing said is true so far the games industry at large has had their worst i don't want to call the respect but the decency to at least create district tional arab country and it's this mix of stereotypes this mix of the human ization where they can't even set the games in the real countries but in a way when you're talking about something as traumatic and as devastating as war or this fake we call it a rob a stunt like in the industry is actually sort of

a boon because at least it's not even those do human eyes and even though it's offensive it's not directly touching any real people that died right the 6 days of fallujah very explicitly says this is about a real city and then. they exceed the market is ready we're going to talk about the history of this conflict great that's what they're seeing the reality is they're not doing that it's the same old same old it's about american heroes going to an arab country and bringing freedom and liberty and then talk about it made their soldiers. that's how you know it's very let's have a look at the web site rebecca to come straight for this is what the website everybody can follow along 6 days dot com 6 days in fallujah is a video game about the real experience useful marine soldiers and iraqi civilians for al qaeda in the 2nd battle for loser in 2004 and look at this this is interesting when we originally and out 6 days in from in 2009 we learned that some

people believe gang shouldn't tackle real life offense to these people that have game seem more like toys than the medium capable of communicating something. we disagree yes seen i see you i hear you all here is are with the website. i disagree yet again this game is told from the perspective of the occupier it's told from the perspective of the oppressor right it's not you know when you're going to see iraqis in this game i can almost guarantee you there actually is in this game are going to be translators that run around like like you know parrots to the american soldiers and tell them where the people are hidden in order for them to get them there's no empowerment of iraqis in this game or a positive representation of iraqis it's not in the trailer it's not going to be in the game and this is just another selling point for them and i totally disagree i don't think that is let me let me let me let me let rebecca to get into the back of this is some of the you think covering this control of

a scene and the fact that they can come back almost like it's a phoenix risen from the ashes how did that happen. there's a lot to unpack there and i i mean i think you see in and around me definitely had it so that you know as you said i have been reporting on this. boken to various folks who are part of the arab game deaf community you know folks with various ties to their 3 hood it's their family or culture or you know anything else and yet kind of a common criticism and concern from those people is that this is specifically being told very explicitly u.s. militarist it perspective and that criticism stems from the fact that when it when this game was 1st announced back in 2009 it was being developed by a studio called atomic games it was being published by konami and atomic games is being run by someone who is that the concept behind this game came from the people

who were making simulators for it the u.s. military training centers and it was inspired by ideas that you know marines that they were working with have it has these connections to the u.s. military and they have said you know they have made public statements now that there is no connection the u.s. government is not funding it in any way but that is still where you know we're godless whether that's true or not that's still where the seed of the idea came from and that was one really big criticism is that you know regardless you know it's claiming to tell this very the what it says is a true story you know an accurate representation of how things were in fallujah but you know it's doing that while having you know it at its deepest roots that this tie to a government that you know people are concerned has reasons to skew the story in a very cynical way. and i think it's not just a hand out it's also in terms of what the game is doing it's doing nothing new it's a game about u.s. soldiers going into a country and shooting things only this time it's really like the 1st time the game

was council you have to imagine this game wasn't necessarily counseled by arabs who had if we didn't have a voice and we don't have a voice back we don't have a voice right no right what you assume is doing is the largest opposition we can muster to this game. the reality is that the game was cancelled because the veterans opposed to it. the game was counts and because people that fog the war opposed to not the people who were victims never get us there never talk of oh i was i think your support so i got that let's get right to supplement romney's point really i think it was it was canceled back then because konami the publisher which is a primarily a japanese publisher so the opposition to the game and they pulled funding and they refused to publish an opposition now it is sort of risen again with a new publisher that is run by the person who wanted to make the game in the 1st place and so i want to push out some because well so much to talk about and it's

extraordinary it's a video game that's got us talking about it but here we are this is who i'm ana. is talking about. as the basis for a video game yes in respond off the back of this video call me when we talk about the war until you show we're talking about something that is very real and her if it demonization of muslims that confines us to an extremist narrative in mainstream media is nothing new and consequently people have become immune in the sense of taste to killing especially the killing of muslims can they do games through the true cost of human war the absolutely can because games by their very nature a low people to inhabit another person's subjectivity and empathize with their perspective however in the case of sixty's influence it's engendering sympathy with an unfair result in the murder of innocent iraqi civilians and was don't write a board and so we talk about the human cost of war and yet repeatedly feign that

it's trivialize and go to for a natural in the washes ashore cities that were committed. yes i mean go ahead at this point i'm going to show a petition that you're very much involved in stop hiawatha the games and victoria from normalizing the mass murder of iraqis you're saying go ahead. let us not lead ourselves and spin this into just being a video game this stems from the. the lack of accountability for america's role in the war in iraq in an unjust war that was built on a lie 1st of all where over a 1000000 people died that's one secondly they released the trailer of this game on the week of the 18th anniversary of that invasion and that's insult to injury that's not a mistake let's not be such rick ourselves and think that's coincidence there's no such thing as coincidence so i'm sorry they want to paint it however they want to pay to and they want to spin it in the media just as they've been trained and just as rebecca mentioned you know that the elite devon the head of victor of studios

who is peter tattoo was involved in the making of game design for soldiers to train for war so don't tell me that the template wasn't there for him to create this game it's all just you know they didn't even want to come on this show so i'm a call them nothing about it workout routine half a day they're not here on the show to debate with you but they did send a statement. you can debate with a statement all right so i've got a little bit of a quote here we're going to from the sop and this is what that tour a saying while fewer than 15 percent of young people and western nations familiar with the battles for fallujah more than 150000000 people as a military shooter last year we've got a. powerful way to put it well it's about important topics to many more people that's what fits or have a saying that's what they sent us to the stream ramey you say i'm a game developer right like i believe in the power of video games and i believe in

the power of video games to communicate very difficult topics war has been tackled by a polish game studio in this worst mining incredible game about being a civilian in a war zone german developers of games like spec ops the line about the trauma of being an aggressor in a war this is not what they're doing is they're not bringing knowledge what they're doing is they're removing all its historic mission is the fact that they say that this is a well. it was just starting to appear in the city as a result largely of u.s. actions in the region but that's left out that's revisionism leaving out war crimes because they couldn't find they say they've interviewed these 26 iraqis to get their perspective right but they also say is this that we just between these 26 iraqis they didn't find anybody who could tell them about war crimes and that's why they're not in the game how did you feel to these iraqis then because every iraqi that i talk to from fallujah can tell me about the things that happened tell me about the crimes that happened that can tell me about the the things the awful

things that happened in the city so now this game randomly from 26 iraqis to just know nothing about i haven't heard anything that's that is not so easy just like. yes i have. it it seems like they they seem to be preempted it with this common and then also with the statement you showed on the website earlier they seem to be presenting an argument that oh well. as if people are saying that video games cannot portray serious events or video games can't their toys they can't be taken seriously none of the people that i've spoken to are arguing that you know you know i spoke i spoke to game developers they spoke to people who you know worked on things that are very you know emotional and moving and you know talk about you know real life experiences what what i what i understand people are asking is that you know people who make these things do so you know with consideration and care and responsibility for the subjects they're tackling as a government is i want to put some of the you cheap comments to them because this conversation is split people are watching you and. they can't decide which way they

forward on this debate let me put this to you this is from county we not months of real life i that's meant to be a form of entertainment should be reasonably bound handle that and just very briefly i mean i think it's a challenging topic right i think it depends on who is making it and what they're what they're making and what they're trying to say and how they're thinking about the issue and i think that i think in the people that i spoke to you know all pretty much universally said you know volusia the 2nd battle of pollution is as a result of that that has ben that still has you know many people who are suffering from the after effects to this day and it is it is being it is it is already. the target of so much as is rami said in a revisionist history and now we have a group of people with a clear stake in telling a very specific perspective on that story who are trying to turn it into a video game and you know if you criticize them then you're saying video games are toys and can't tell serious strains that let me bring in some more you change

everybody wants to talk to on a few gas quick to mayor here i feel like games like this fuel racism i feel very uncomfortable with this yes see. i think it's beyond racism it's the continuation of the american military industrial complex it's the. and the dehumanization of brown and black and iraqi people and ask them from the same place it all stems from an imperialist concourse of the world so at the end of the day if you want to go that deep we can get into colonization but i think in this specific case the reason we started this petition was because this didn't happen too long ago there was no justifiable reason to enter iraq in the 1st place and for you to create a video game and profit us that death is an issue at the end of the day peter touted a reasonably good say they get so they can say whatever they want but it and he says you know there's a quote from him where he says we're not asking players to commit atrocities in the

game are we effect of lee sanitizing offense events by not doing that as a matter of fact you are said to them by letting people control a real life event in a video game where civilians died while you were fighting your enemy so robbie a comedy night can i share this with because your game developer and we spoke to another game developer about maybe the focus of a lot of these games and video games that revolving around fighting and war the focus is in the wrong place it's very western focused this is what malachi is suggesting let's have a look at have a listen. i think quite frankly there's plenty of other shooters out there that kind of cover the soldier's story and do it quite well and to varying degrees and i just feel that. as as a game player myself the games that i know i should probably more important more interesting quite frankly sell the story are the people the ground you know how what where does war mean for suppresive being an innocent member of the human race

who is going out by the day net effect and by war to me that's a much more interesting story to be explored and it's a shame that the sixty's infusion does not appear to focus on once that the thing the thing you have to understand about 6 days in fallujah is that it didn't have to be this way 6 days in fallujah could have been an incredible document an incredible doctrine of the war showing the perspective of the people the of the americans that invaded the country this if anyone's that lived in the city the people that far in the city you could have that you can make this a document that could show you the viewpoints and make you understand each of the sides of the story to start reading that's what is going on wild so i mention this war of mine which is an incredible example of a game that is about the civilian side of war and it shows very powerful you that you can absolutely tell that story now by making this a 1st person shooter only they know you can only represent the people with the guns

and then if you only represent the people of the guns you know they end up making a shooter the question i have about this game is the entire marketing is sort of built around this one moment of 2 u.s. soldiers at a door and they're going to open the door and they don't know what's behind the door and tempted has repeatedly referred to that as that's sort of like the emotional crux of the game that tension to the point that they want to deliver that feeling so much that they are not actually depicting falutin to know they're but in fallujah together like lego blocks randomly it's not the real city and these are not the real people they've turned us into computer code that randomly shuffles. together and randomly shuffled that's how important use respect to fist him what i might do why don't we see the other side of the door because that's where and that's a feature is a feature of the game is called procedural architecture so we play it the it's like oh i view it that way for who and what you haven't because the architecture changes and then he comes back again sometime theme on the end of the. u.s.

soldiers like actual real people who they are directly at them and their actual true stories into the game but we if they have done that with iraqis who are there we have not yet seen it that would be much scarier going to play right you going a 70 game play and you do you really really are empty house that was the only real trailer does have to iraqi civilians at the end very briefly to make a single point in the in like less than a minute in a 6 minute trailer and you know they include a scenario where you are fleeing the city as an iraqi civilian as well but again when weighed against all of the over 100 u.s. soldiers who were interviewed and spend spoken to for this and all of the other you know the very very heavily skewed u.s. perspective. that's the big one i think if again i think i may say if if i may just this point so ironic. this this was an illegal occupation of

a country it's not a video game i dare peter to victory or or microsoft sony play station or valve or steam to address this which they have it they have a responsibility now more than ever the media that we create that we put out into the world that we consume has a role in the way history is told and the way people are. growing up in this world let's see what the world yes something occurs something occurs to me and that is this game is not out yet and we have seen this before people raving and raged about something that hasn't been seen we have basing this conversation on our ethical conversation should real life offense be used game a fight that's the ethical conversation we can have a conversation but picking apart a game i want to i want to bring in paul here because paul makes a point i'd love you to react to it romney is the game developer. and play that

clip. before it even releases pretty startling the discussion probably because what you're looking at is a situation where people are calling the sense of this game without understanding the developers are claiming. the game is over voices of iraqis they've interviewed 26 iraqi citizens who were. living in the area during the conflict of so if we cancel this game before release is your sense really creating an issue where you're not encouraging discussion around the topic if the game comes out and it happens to be misrepresentation of what happened in iraq than deserves every bit of criticism it gets put before it even releases is jumping the gun a little bit. i'm sorry if i knew. that but so too thought 1st thing as a game developer when you make a game you have to start from

a place these are these incredibly complex things to make this is not easy you can change course half way through what peter time to says what the focus of the game is has been set for years games don't get developed in weeks they don't shift direction in weeks was very clear is these 26 voices that they've interviewed clearly are filled right because otherwise these war crimes these missteps these atrocities would have mentioned the 2nd thing is the censorship discussion because i don't get the point this game is intentionally censoring the real life experience of victims of war or people that have died whose families have died if buried their families in a soccer stadium in the city that's being censored by the united states of america by a company with the largest media output in the world with the loudest voice we can censor in america there's no way for us to censor how do we censor citizen fallujah

how is the possible that entire game is censorship i guess the more i have one more for full for just you've got 30 seconds and it says a very quick thought what should happen to phil scott rebecca. i mean i don't feel i don't feel super comfortable you know answering for myself i don't have nearly as much of a stake in this as so many other people do but i thought what should happen to. i would say that people who are in charge of making this game need to very seriously consider the criticisms that are being thrown at it and that criticisms that move on running right have wonderful sound so it's a rational i mean what happened to this guy in a sentence the game will come out it will come out there's nothing we can do this should never happen again. i don't buy it and you shouldn't either. yes senor rami rebecca thank you so much for really explaining why 6 days in fallujah being developed as a video game is problematic and so watching everybody each of us that is here call

it's a c m x type a cavity. the story of one of the most successful p.r. campaigns in the u.s. . study after study has demonstrated that israeli perspectives dominate american media coverage what part of this can you get through your thick head that is hamas a terrorist organization the only thing that you're going to say is what we want and if you don't say it we're not to let you speak it would be very hard for ordinary americans to know that they're being deceived the occupation of the american mind on al-jazeera. talk to i'll just read.

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ahead of earth day on al-jazeera. what's most important to me is talking to people understanding what they're going through here and i just we believe everyone has a story worth hearing. the order . diplomats loyal to myanmar's military john to seize the embassy in london a lock the ambassador out meanwhile inside myanmar the crackdown continues reports of 11 more people being killed by security forces and a prominent celebrity detained. hello there i missed on the attain this is al jazeera life and also coming up our review has reinforced the risk of this.