tv France 24 LINKTV June 2, 2020 5:30am-6:01am PDT
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>> thank you for joining us here on france 24. if the u.s.s. presesident is threatening to deploy the military on american citizens if violent protests are not squashed. ththe protesests across multiple u.s. cities, in response to heavy-handed police practices after george floyd died while in police custody last week. >> no justice, no paste. -- piece. hundreds filled times square and midtown manhattan, calling for justice for george floyd, ahead
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of the city's first overnight curfew in more than 70 years. it is one of a dozozen new -- u. cities that imposed curfews. been in days ofas protests. >> unfortunate, people are out here looting, but you cannot tell angry people how to be angrgry. by nightfall, groups of looters began smashing windows and rating stores and midtown manhattan, exactly the scene authorities were hoping to avoid. according to a tally compiled by the associated press, police have made 5600 arrests nationwide since protests b begn last week, a number that will need revising. in washington, d.c., protesters gathered peacefully in front of
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the white house were dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets of the presidentnt could leave e ground. >> are you prepared to use the military against u.s. citizens? inhe headed for a photo op front of the so-called charge of the presidents damaged over the weekend. called himselfs the president of law and order and itit threatened to senend te military to states unless protests are brought under control. four police officers have been shot in the e u.s. city of st. louis after protests turned violent overnight. beennjured officers have tataken to hospital and their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. for now, it is unclear who fired the shots. to politicspoke professor curtis young on how donald trump is handling the unrest so far. ofessor young: it willll not go dodown well at all. donald trump has abdicated every semblance of leadership, and
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basically, he is pouring fuel on this dreadful event. look, we have been dealingith this since 1619. you know, it is reaeally interesting thinking about that -- it was 30 years after that, in fact, that hobbs started talking about developing a toial contract to put an end he said thihis poor, brutish ste of nature living at each other's throats.s. and what we created in america with -- which philosopher charles mills talked about eloquently is a racial contract -- how to create an america and exclude certain people from it? in americaof racism have been chained all of america, white, black, and otherwise.
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most presidents have understood this. trump is completely lost in this, and he is -- he has abdicated leadership. >> in other news, russian president vladimir putin is pressing ahead with a vote on constitutional changes that could extend his rule beyond 2024. the vote was delayed in april due to the coronavirus pandemic. a new vote will take place on july 1. we will speak to our chief foreign editor, rob parsons. why is putin in a rush to get this done? [indiscernible] askingcan hear me, i was why vladimir putin was in a rush to see this vote through? it seems like we have some technical issues with rob
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parsons. we will try to get him back later in the program. prosecutors in and stutumble hae issued warrants for the detention of 180 milititary personnel, accused of having links with -- who was suspected of being part of the failed coup in 2016. nearly 130,000 have been dismissed from their jobs. the lockdown in france has been relaxed further from today. travel restrictions within the country have been lifted, and bars and restaurants are reopening, but in the capital of paris s only establishmentwiwith outdoor seatating areas aree alallowed to reopen. earlier i spoke to france 24 -- honest people are about --outut and abouout on daynene. >> there are a few people out on the terracaces of the cafes and restaurants in the center of lais near the de placee
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republic, near where i am. the tables are not as close together as they usually are. they are being allowed to stretch a little further out. whichn see here, tables are being positioned on what are normalally car parking spaces in the city. these are some of the provisions being given to the cafes and restaurants that have outside space. they can stretch further out. obviously, no clients are allowed inside the restaurants, only outside, and at tables that are further apart. down restaurants that have been closed for well over two months.s. this is the first day that cafes and restaurants can open to the public for anything other than take away meals and drinks since march 16.. >> our people allowed to g go inside to use the restrooms? >> they are allowed to go inside
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to use the restrooms if thehey wear a face mask or a faface covevering. that is one of t t rules beieing put in place by the auauthoritis here in france. all waiting staff have to have a masksk on as well. it is not t quite back to busins as normamal, but from the customers i have been speaking to on the terraces, they say it is doing them a whole world of good to get back to their life, to sit outside and they feel like this is a big stage in france's reopening. earlier,old you russian president vladimir putin is pushing ahead with a vote on constitutional changnges that could extend his rule beyond 2024. the vote was delayed in april due to the coronavirus p pandem. for more, we go to chief foreign editor rob parsons. why is vladimir putin in a rush to get this done? changes to thee basic law of ththe constitutions being essential to what he sees
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asas his legacy. member, , these are the first mn changes to the constitution since 1993. this is a a big deal inn russia, and it is impoportant for p put. you hinted at it. in 2024, he is o out according o the present constitution because he has served two consecucutive terms. the constitution will not let him stay on any longer than that, but president putin, alall those who are around him anand depend on him arare very w worrd about t what might comome after thatat. because of the s structure of russian government, he says there is no mechananism for a chanange of government, makes ia very hierarchal system. underwew man that comes in ththe present syststem will proy want to build hihis own people araround him.. where would d that leave presidt titin? he is probabably very nervouous about thatat. ththis helps them get aroundnd t
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conundndrum. according g to this constitutio, the terms the presidentnt willl seserve will be reset from 2024, allowing him to ststay on until0 36, by which time hehe will be 3 years old. he is s putting in quiuite a few sweeteners -- social reforms, social measures whicich wi b be index-linked, and it will t take based on july 1 -- take place-based -- o ojuly 1. enormouse will be ann paradede the day b before it sts in moscocow and around d the coy as t the move willll be vevery president putin will be counting on that to make sure the refororm is put throug. the expectation is indeed it will b be. polls isation from the the majority is in favor. voteat is announcing this
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say about the attitude toward the coronavirus pandemic because on the one hand you have the lockdown in moscow which has been strict, yet thehere is thts nationwidede vote being planned. >> on one level it is very curious because they postponed the votes which should have been in april.. they postptpone the paradade bee but theoronavirus, thing is at the time they postponed it, the coronavirus in russia with much less severe than it is now. now we are seeing on a daily basis almost 9000 infections, and deaths are going up faster than before as well. the realal reason for this is politics. president clinton does not want to miss his chance. he has -- printing does not want to miss his chance. he has lost control. he cannot control the coronavirus. it is outside of his, political existence. while it has been out of control
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, things have been getting worse. the economy has been going downhill very fast. 60% of russian people say they have been finanancially hit by e coronavirus, by the lockdown. 28% of russian people say they are ready to go into the streets and prprotests if nececessary. -- presidentnton putin will be paying close attention to that, thinking i had better get this done now because things will not get better over the next few months. they may get worse. now is the kind to take this action. >> we will see what happens. thank you, rob parsons. countries in south america have begun to these lockdown's actions. the country has become the epicenter of the coronavirus endemic. the world health organization has exprpressed concerns sayingt has become an intetense zone of transmisission. mexico's president has announced the country's tourism center
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will be opening as the number of coronavirus infections stands at over 93,000 with the second highest deatath rate in latin america. the presidents has reopening the economy is vital for the well-being of mexico. brian quinn reports. presidentnt back on the road to p promote the launch of a new rail project he hopes will boooost tourism a ard cancun is s the country begins eaeasing coronavirus resestricts afteter two months o of economic shutdown. >> [speaking spanish] brian: it is part of a return to what the president is s callinga new normal with the country's automotive, mining, and construction businesses in the opening for business, but the covid-19 crisis is by no means over. while the government has
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officially listed -- lifted social distancing roles, it has urged citizens to maintain the measures and the so-called red zones cover nearly the entire country. on tuesday, mexico official virus death toll passed the 10,000 mark, latin america's second-highest after b brazil. total known cases have topped 93,000 with more than 2800 new cases recorded on monday alone. in the capital, some workers responded to the reopening with trepidation. >> [speaking spanish] >> the government estimates that roughly one million jobs seven lost during the covid-19 crisis, with the central bank projecting mexico's economy is set to shrink by 9% in 2020.
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>> thank you for watching. theello, and welcome to france 24 interview. today with this one of the living legend among war reporters, one of the most famous british journalists, john swain. thank you for being with a spirit you are here in paris with good nenews, finalllly aft2 years of being published, your translated inn french. this is "a river of time," an iconic book just around the world. it is translated in french now. first ask you a question because in the first i didyou are writing --
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not want to trade nostalgia. what do you mean by this? john: indochina capture the imagination of many around the and war changes p people, changes me, and i did not want to be nostalgic for the countries i was in, but they were going through the most horrendous times. even so, it is a place that stands apart and marks me very strongly and marks of the people, so in that sense one is nostalgigic. to say y farewell to inindochina?
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all your memories of -- as a young journalist being caught in indochinaor war in quits work - -- indochchina? jon: writing the book was a way to put into hardcovers my expenses in indochina as a young war correspondent, but it is also about coming of age, entering adulthood by confronting and horrific in one of the most exotic and before places in the world. you are very nicely using the ther, which is mainly mother of waters. as an analogy of sayingial, you are also
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it is not as i innocent as i it seemems. what do o you mean by that? one has a romantic vision of the river, and i traveveled long lengths of it not in china, but in indochina. i have seen it in its veracity in the border between laos and cambodia, and then it becomes more gentle -- the river flow, anyway. i have also seen that it travels through lands which were at time at war. the most horrific things were happening around the mekong and nice to see bodies of people that were massacred, a lot of them civilians. >> the book is an iconic book overseas. it was published overseas.
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the question is how do we explain why in france we were ?overing the indochinese war it took 22 years for it to be translated for the french public. would you say or think there was maybe in france and in the west particularly some problems to face bad memories because it is ,y the way, a war that we lost and it was quite difficult to address to the public these kinds of m memories? jon: maybe a little bit. the main reason it was not translated is my english publishers were lazy about trying to promote it in france, and i did not do much about it mymyself. i always wanted to be translated into french. i have a very strong attachment to france.
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moving into the f french, c cols of vietnam a and cambodia madedt even morore strong for me. -- yes,that ththeres to turn a tendency their back on the attitududes. >> the americans were not too eager to address the defeat in vietnam a few years later. veryno, the americans are bitter in belief -- defeat and magnanimous in victory, as we saw in the second civil war. >> you saw in the most somber you have beenents witnessing regarding the tragic events of the book, people from 75, goingaving after into the h high seas, the chinaa
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you as a wanted to ask reporter, how do you combine this with your memories, your heart, your spirit, because what you are describing is extremely violent. john swain, do you live with ghosts? jon: sometimes. less so now because i'm older, but absolutely. when i am confronted, for example, by photographs of southeast asian people, people from cambodia, vietnam, laos, in difficult circumstances, i am really, really touched because i know -- i can see in their faces what i saw in their f faces in 1972 1975 when i was there -- how they express fear, terror, hunger -- it is ready. it breaks my heart. experience when
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you are still young man built you or destroyed you? built me.nk it i am not the same person obviously, that i was all those years ago. you can learn from it said that is a bit tough -- learn from it. a bit tough. journalists are terribly privileged. i was very privileged to be seee at a young age, to sharp end.s at the and to see lots of suffering and terrific h humanity, human beins helping each other as well. that marks you. from thahat poinint of view i 't think it turned me into a cynic. >> back to the tragedy, i wanted to ask your reflection after
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wars aroundovering the world, it looks like history teaches nothing because we have the same issue in the indian still the main problems of corrupt governments, the lack of understanding of we need to do something by the ininternational community. what is your reflection? do you need to -- does not nullify what i did. it is disturbing that these things repeat themselves. i am not one of those journalists who belieieve they n change the world by y what they have written. i ththink that is incrcredibly pretentious, but i think trying to write what you see and what you feel as a journalist, because we are in a privileged place, and leading your readers as if they were on your shoulders so they can see what you see, and bring it home to
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them, i think has to be a good thing. >> there are some beautiful things you write in your book -- beauty intod this sadness. i would like to ask why you reconcile the violence, barbaric action you have been witnessing and the beauty out of it that you have been witnessing in cambodia. how do you reconcile it, or how is it possiblble? jon: i think humanan beings have to s sense to them. i think one of the things that i came away with his that human even in these places can behave disgustingly towards each other and they can be led very badly by people that encourage that, and that is what happened in cambodia. there is a f famous frenench expression -- cambodians always
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smile. they have a very beautiful the famous cambodian 19th-century said to french colonial officers you have to realize that cambodians i like water buffalo in the rice fields. they seem to bee very placid, bt if you provoke them too much, they go completely mad and they get very angry, and that is what happened. think your professional experience back to a few dickens s ago would bebe possible today? jon: i think largely not. journalism has changed so very much. i mean, now, , first of all, you cannot get away from the office -- you are a foreieign editor, r an editor -- you have a mobile phone with you.
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he is in touch w with you, askig you what you see, telllling you where to go. independence.one's i looked to wander around, report what i say. theof that has changed, and world in syria is very dangerous for western reporters to go to, but the same time, we lost in cambodia, more than 20 journalists in more than eight weeks. it is an horrific casasualty fischer -- figure. they were either killed or still missing. that figure has never been mashed, even in syria. and thatat was the khmer rouougo -- i have sometimes said they were the precursors of ices and not t from a religious p point f view, , or anything like that, t they were just psychopathic, and they killed anyone that .ncroached on their territory
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not to have publicity or sisthing like that, like i has done, but just out of a pathological hatred for them. >> this is the france 24 intervieiew. thank you for watching. bye-bye. healthhe worldwide crisis continues, the american constitution is being used as a strategic tool and how to respond to the decisions of scientists. the divide between republicans democrats is widening. >> president trump wants this nation to open again. he has been hijacked by doctors. worship, the right -- the virus is an excuse to keep people contained
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[streetcar bell clangs] man: if you agree that your mental capacity is completely fine, you say "yes." do you understand? second man: well, more or less. man: i know. it's--it's-- frankly, it's a little weird, i must admit, but this is the final form, so... charlotte hamlyn: david goodall is a long way from home. at the age of 104, he's traveled from australia all
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