>> france 24, a different take on the news.

>> hello, you are watching france 24. time for a quick round up of all the latest international news. police in tunisia say 40,000 people have gathered in tunis for mass opposition demonstrations. they are calling for the end of the islamist-led government. all were feared an imminent attack, the u.s. has evacuated embassy staff out of yemen, a flying them on board a military plane. calling it a coup, senator john mccain becomes the first u.s. representative to call the ousting of mohammed morsi in egypt a coup. in iran, the new president says he is determined to resolve the

impasse with the west over iran's nuclear program. he has signaled that he is ready to sit down for negotiations. orion officials have flown to spain to discuss the future of the convicted child rapist and spain. he was refused bail. he was pardoned in morocco to public outrage. stay tuned for more. >> welcome back. we are discussing the world terror threat. our guest is president of the observatory of the black gulf and mediterranean seas. a fellow and researcher, a

specialist on afghanistan, pakistan, and al qaeda. joining us is a fellow on the middle east. thank you for staying with us. from hartford, connecticut, we have scott bates, president of the center for national policy. and by satellite from london, he was just speaking at the first debate, he is with the henry jackson society. thank you for being with us, all our guests. is yemen, which is attracting all the attention right now, really the most dangerous of all the al qaeda danger zones? on a scale of one as very dangerous, how dangerous is it?

>> it has been dangerous for a while. the big problem in terms of terrorism and counter-terrorism is to work from this glamorous approach. we need to go past that. yemen is a problem, but you have a big, important attack every week in afghanistan. we would be talking about it if syria was not at the top of the priorities. syria for a while was important. now we have begun to talk about women. before that it was afghanistan, -- now we have begun to talk about yemen. we cannot just focus on one country every six months. >> the longstanding president

regime, he was ousted. did that make matters worse and exploit? >> i will just say that when you look at afghanistan and when you look at yemen, it is extremely important. al qaeda needs to have a lack of rule of law or authority to appear. otherwise is too weak by itself to have any influence. >> the issue of al qaeda at exploiting the gaps, where do they go next? that is the question. clearly, the french operation in mali was to push out the islamist incursion or the insurgents.

al qaeda is obviously very present among that group. there is talk of mali becoming the next afghanistan. you think that situation is possibly already there? >> it had some positions that were already there. as you look towards even north africa, you see some element coming in. we started our discussion before were on the air with algeria, it is very strict and kills terrorist directly without negotiating. you are seeing some elements in egypt and -- terrorism and terrorist groups fee of countries that do not have the rule of law. they do not have an infrastructure and a government

providing services, for example. radical people stepping in to fill in social services that the government should be providing. when there is a loyd, you have these terrorist groups, non state organizations that do not adhere to any of our international agreements, that are under no obligation, legal obligation, to fulfill any thing. they are very dispersed and very disorganized, which makes it much harder to combat. >> you mentioned the provision of things such as social services. the taliban are stepping in and seeing the need and applying in that sense of very clever tactic. hamas is doing a similar thing in gaza, of course. let's turn our attention to syria and the situation there.

miriam, i hope you can hear us. the reception was not very good for us so we will see how it goes. in terms of what happens next in syria, did you see al qaeda really exploiting what appears to be a bit of a void there? >> al qaeda has been exploiting the arab spring and its aftermath. also the economic difficulties which help the recruitment of the organization. al qaeda has benefited from the american engagement, which was clear from the obama strategy today, particularly in iraq.

making it a priority with a lot of various organized networks between iraq and syria. we have a number of weapons and fighters going back and forth between the two countries. and what i would also like to say regarding the strategy of al qaeda, i think the way the organization is structured is very important. if it is beyond the central command, it is important to act in a very autonomous way. it is clear in the case of al qaeda in iraq which has merged

last april to wage a common jihad. the ultimate objective of the organization is to inject the islamic faith. the western president, anything that has to do with the west is perceived -- to the realization of this ultimate objective. so he decided to close the western embassies, which is understandable. generally over the last year there were renewed attacks during this period. >> thank you for your tweets. saying how is amazing how

terrorists in tents in the desert have the power to shut down u.s. embassies. that was allen's response there. a spring in scott bates over there in connecticut -- let's bring in scott bates. a. they are about the unpredictability of these groups and reinforcing what miriam is saying about how they act as always with the same kind of fame. >> what miriam has hit on something very important. he is trying to reassert some relevance are central control. he is trying to demonstrate he can still throw a switch and make something happen. it will be very interesting if this comes to nothing, that will clearly expose the real capabilities of al qaeda central

at this point. the tweet that just came in as important, which is that the u.s. has to find a way to calibrated responses rather than shutting down 20 embassies. i would say that would value american lives very hallehighly, absolutely. everybody that serves in those embassies knows the risk and they know the job they must do. the president did a good job say we have to recalibrate the war on terror. the second part of that is willing to say this threat will exist for a couple more decades. it is a potent ideology that will always have adherents. we cannot guarantee total security. we can guarantee our response and we can guarantee that we won't be swayed from our role in the world. that comes with risks. no president, no leader in any

country can guarantee total security. david cameron cannot do it. things are always going to happen, yet we can control our reaction and our policies. in that way, we will always be al qaeda. >> the question of the islamic veil being banned in public places. this is an issue that affects many muslim faithful in france. it is an issue that reverberated around the muslim world. the thing may be france was wrong to take the stance it took? >> it is supposed to target -- it is for social and political reasons.

if we truly want to make sure there are no tensions between committees, try to strengthen the interfaith groups that eist. try to give people some freedom. let freedom blue and people will make choices by themselves. maybe one generation will wear the bergamurka. we should be careful about imposing laws that sound good at an internal level. it was already a hot issue for the french working in south asia. they became targeted because of that. when we play these kind of

political games inside a country for no real reason -- again, we talk about the university level. that means we are talking about adults making their own choice. i am not a big fan of the burka myself. i understand that people wear it as a way to express their own religious choices. we should not try to impose laws on people. never works well. >> you can wear what you like in the u.k., of course. let's bring in bolivia, joining us from london. -- let's bring in bolivia. you can wear a burka in the uk. they are very liberal about these things. that did not stop the attack on the london transport system back in 2005. it seems that a matter what happens, these type of extremist will always find a way to

express itself and binderies and for expressing itself. >> literally the ideology of restoring the western -- it is important in the month of a lot of jihad this. if you look at europe, spain is the main prize at this point. if you were to think about a country that could be targeted for ideological reasons, then spain obviously would be the first one. but i agree with you. they will always find a reason to attack us. but at this time, it is reece -- it is true that as far as the wherewithal and the operation of capacity, is easier to attack in yemen and to attack in london, at this point. but the issue is really about al qaeda getting ground in yemen, getting route in libya. the one country did not mention earlier when you talk about

north africa, libya is the biggest country as far as al qaeda, most of the upper terrace -- most of the operatives are not in the libyan desert. libya is one of the largest stockpile worse in the world. weapons are all over the place. yemen and libya are the two hot spots for the coming months. >> maybe there was a point to having muammar gaddafi in power. he could keep a lid on these things. that is how he served in the west in some way. >> some of these dictators that there were to keep a lid on it, even in the former soviet countries.

the strong man, the hit man was there to keep a lid on things. i would like to go back to benghazi in follow up on what scott bates said. the highest literacy rate compared to what you have on both sides is in libya. was keeping people down and pork. if i can go back to the point, what scott said earlier about benghazi, i think we have been gauzy as an example. the new fbi director coming n has asked -- we have been gauzbi as an example. the overreaction is shutting down the 21 indices, probably there is a reason. they said the chatter was higher, at center, but i would like to follow up on what scott

said as well. the u.s. provides an enormous amount assistance as well, saying they provide $3 billion in health assistance in economic development $2 billion, and humanitarian assistance, $1 billion. it is interesting to see which countries received this aid. afghanistan is the first on the list with $3.90 billion. pakistan with $3.1 billion, israel, $3 billion. we said we would not give them the eight because of what is going on in egypt. then you had saudi arabia stepped in and give them a big envelope. these are factors to consider, too, as the u.s. -- as ramadan finishes tomorrow. they obviously have reasons to do this.

maybe they would rather be safe than sorry. >> scott, i understand you were itching to join in that conversation as she was speaking. go ahead. >> i agree. i think that benghazi has put everyone in the united states on alert that there are still dangerous groups out there. it just points out as you mentioned, u.s. foreign aid is tilted to a few nations in the region. we need your read calibration so we are seen as being on the side -- average people that are aspirational in the region. if we tie ourselves to any one leader, i think over the next 5- 10 years, they will come and go. the movements are going to change. no one has a lid on anything.

we need to remain engaged and spread out our assistance a little bit and talk to a lot of people in the region. that will entail a lot of risk for all of us, yet at the same time, longer term we will have better intelligence, better knowledge of the region and be able to base our reactions more on fact and less on fear. >> let me bring to all the latest from someone calling themselves roughneck 36. who else thinks the recent terrace is based -- is just propaganda to justify the nsa spying program? let me throw that over to the panel. does anybody believe this could be a counterplay to justify what has been said and done about edward snowden? the first person to speak will get the floor.

>> >> is this something that comes to mind. >> i want to go back to the u.s. at some point. it would be a clever way to do it. you can have a real threat and at the same time you can overreact. to make people understand it is not done by a big bad government that wants to control everything, but it is linked to a real threat and real issues and real interest from an american point of view. >> the europeans will be involved for their own

interests. we should not criticize the u.s. for doing something we would like to do ourselves. >> france has been engaged in similar activities and may be gone a little bit further. maybe people were surprised by the scale they were. people i know said we know this was going on anyway. is that something that might have occurred to you, that what was revealed by the nsa and the edward snowden affair really did not shock you? >> not really. if you really look at what is been happening the past few weeks, there have been signs of a al qaeda really ramping up, and i am talking about the jailbreaks in iraq, in libya and pakistan, for us they were signs that al qaeda was backed in the action in getting 500 of the main opera tours from iraq out, 1200 in libya, and pakistan a

handful of 100. then within three or four days, there comes a tape. all these were signs that something big was on the back burner. the fact that there have been so many operatives going around is telling us at this point that this is just the beginning. we are going to see much more in the coming weeks and months, possibly attacks in iraq and syria, in libya. i think this is just the beginning and has nothing to do with the nsa scandal. >> de see the al qaeda reach, the attacks going beyond that, going to other countries, going to the west? i don't want to mention countries just in case to give someone an idea, but you know what i am getting at.

>> indeed, there is troublesome intelligence regarding countries not far from us, as far as the risk is concerned. obviously spain that i mentioned earlier could be one of them. there were incidents a few weeks back, really a little bit of what could happen. european security officials are very much monitoring what is going on in the region and i suspect that everybody is on high alert at this point. >> it is because of economic and political instability, when you see 50% of the use in spain -- of the youth in spain, and even in italy or greece, these are countries closer.

all of it is coming through turkey, for example. 30% of the inflation coming into europe is through turkey. there is a southern border, mediterranean border there really is unstable, and publicly as well. look at the scandals going on. >> is that top of detachment, the unemployment, the social deprivation. these are the things that al qaeda has traditionally been able to tap into. >> what will happen in one month or two months is very interesting. we need to continue to work, we forgot about libya. we should not have forgotten about libya. we should focus every single day about libya. what is going on in afghanistan and pakistan are more important.

we have a tendency to want the afghan government to look like switzerland. we need to focus on how to help them to stabilize their country. if afghanistan looks like bangladesh in the next 10-20 years, it will already be a success. let's try to help them help themselves. >> i don't think we have solved the world's crisis, but we have had some lively opinions. we have crashed through a number of issues regarding al qaeda and the united states. i would just like to thank all our guests for joining us this evening. miriam, thank you for joining us. we had olivia, thank you for

your opinions. a pleasure having you. and scott bates joining us from hartford, connecticut by skype at the center for national policy. thank you. >> thank you for watching and responding. stay with us. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

hello, and welcome to nhk "newsline." it's now 8:00 a.m. on august 7th a wednesday. i'm ross mihara in tokyo. iran's new president hassan rowhani opened the door to negotiations. at his first news conference as president. he says he's determined to resolve a dispute over the country's nuclear development. rowhani says work has begun to build relations with iran's neighbors and international community.