where a tsunami waters have been surging into the region now the tsunami of this currently underway has been caused by an eight point nine magnitude earthquake that struck one hundred thirty kilometers off of japan's pacific coast and you're looking at live pictures and all of refinery there that is a blaze because of the earthquake now it's reported that the first wave has also reached russia karylle island stupid north that's reportedly are around a meter high now in japan around twenty two hundred people that is have reportedly been lost away by the tsunami that's again a currently under way with several others a missing japan's island six earthquakes as powerful as this have ever been reported here you're looking at the latest pictures of what has happened when the tsunami hit water cars ships being a swept away in the north east of the country now it's reported that aftershocks will continue for a month now that more aftershocks have already been recorded as

a point by earthquake hits around two forty six local time that's in the middle of the afternoon here again you can see the effects of the tsunami that's currently fifteen in the northeast of the country the a prime minister and a lot of commerce already sent troops an organized group to go to the a quake hit areas to offer support although they're having a bit of difficulty confirming the damage right now the winds are still unfolding you still have the tsunami that is under way and here are pictures. of the national guard class or any h.k. the office of any scale as the earthquake the point nine earthquake struck this afternoon in tokyo. military. well let's go to walter and news about colonel gadhafi forces retake key areas from rebels but local sworn that media exaggeration is stoking

a foreign intervention page so is moving its week closer to libyan shores and wrong to pull out military action which russia refuses to support. well of course we'll bring you more in the developing story in japan as well as libya but first peter lavelle's next to me the crosstalk that's based on his best debate what's at stake in the ongoing crisis in the arab world if you stay with us. bringing you the latest in science and technology from. the future. keep.

following and welcome to crossfire computer lavelle the new middle east in the making as the west gotten past its focus on security over democracy in the region and has the west particularly washington learned anything about the process of change in the arab middle east over the past three months. can. you discuss the events in the arab world i'm joined by a belak slifer in cairo he's a professor emeritus at the american university in cairo in paris we have so i had my job he is a professor of middle east studies at the american university of paris and in washington we cross to rich galen he's a republican strategist and former press secretary to dan quayle and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all right gentlemen this is crosstalk i mean you this means you can jump in anytime you want a bell i'd like to get you to see you in our cairo first we just heard that nato is

still thinking about a no fly zone over libya it's going to take a little bit more time to think about it but they are thinking about it so if that in mind the events that have gone on in the country that you're in right now in egypt tunisia and what's going on in the gulf has american foreign policy adjusted in western foreign policy adjusted enough to the changes that are occurring in the region well in a rhetorical level they haven't just rhetorical the president united states has spoken out very much about sympathy with the urge for. overthrowing with oratory and regimes having democracy and the actual middle of the action. you know doing some relief work for the. libyan help please gyptian expatriate workers get out of libya but they have not been certainly are not playing a leading role in the thing in standing by this new movement the presence of the first would recognize the national council of the libyan insurgents who are

fighting gadhafi not the americans and the french had spoken out very clearly in favor of a no fly zone and the americans have said we'll stay on the table everything's on the table although the secretary of defense was very negative in his remarks about it just a few days ago so i would say rhetorical dotted but in terms of actual in terms of x. action practice no i don't see any alterations are let's go to paris the out if you irregulars ok i was going to paris real quick here then if i can ask you a lot of people are looking for a conspiracy theories and what not and what's going on in the these movements in the in the greater middle east in the arab world specifically here but one could also say the americans and western capitals really don't really have much of an idea what to do. no i definitely agree with the fact that what's happened in many arab countries surprised everyone there is

a reversible phenomenon now due to urbanization to the fact that there is a large youth population in the region aspiring for freedoms for democracy for dignity the role of communication and of social virtual connections through a twitter facebook you tube and many other facilities i think there is something new now and the accumulation of years of this partisan aren't just operating with the. with the wall of fear being destroyed by all these peace people in the public places in the streets in their sense of humor and i mean the in their determination to hand with the last decades of this partisan and corruption in the arab world the western capital are just behaving or are reacting slowly even if hopefully they will continue welcoming these kind of changes and trying to build the new relationships with the arab world but in what concerned i think the

reactions are slow the good quality of the qaddafi regime is not faced by very firm positions and clear messages and i think the knife no fly zone should have been discussed weeks ago as much as other things should have also been discussed and measures should be taken more and more to end with these attacks on his population which we're in washington what do you think about that is washington reacting quickly enough is it understand the processes that are going on here is a valid point and. you know this can't everybody flat footed but for a lot of regional specialists they would have said we told you so. well everybody can say that now but i mean you know in a hundred years they that young man and said himself on fire in tunisia may you know go down with with the guy that shot the archduke ferdinand is as this as a spark that nobody thought was going to be a spark but nobody nobody saw this all coming anybody i want to see the writings of people who said this was going to happen six months ago or months ago i don't

believe it but from the u.s. point of view there's a couple of things and i'm not speaking for all three hundred million americans i'm speaking for one. on the one hand i'm not sure what the national interest is to the u.s. in interfering in in what's going on in libya. the much less i mean you need to watch to institute a no fly zone it be interesting to see under what authority the they do that there is we may not like the government but there is a government there on the other hand i think there is not one movement going on if you look at what's going on across in bahrain that is much i think more a sectarian issue between the shias and the sunni's than it is. a rebellion against an autocratic government which is not frankly well that are but i thought it authoritarian although there is a obviously a an economic difference so so i'm not sure this is all one movement i think they

were are people are taking advantage and i use that in a positive way taking advantage vantage of the situation as they find it to try to effect change it to their benefit but what's going on in libya is certainly not at all by the same as what's going on in state a question of though if i go to you in cairo again i mean we just heard national interest and presumably american nationalist interest me for the last four years america had a narrow national interest of having dictators in the arab world and now that is coming to an end so i kind of go back to my question there i mean america's never. been really prepared for any democratic arab world because they never thought about it or never really want to destroy it i mean if it but i don't think that's correct if you go back to the bush doctrine i mean he specifically and we've heard a lot about the bush doctrine in the past invasions of countries illegally up to a dollar go ahead you know exactly i mean probably different we can only target anybody money variance or was that he saw another dollar go to his doctor who was

going to fall into the insert in cairo and we i mean i wish the action was specifically aimed at trying to promote democracy is he still that was drug free even if he cited for sale ok the dollars go right ahead well i wrote what you're asking for added what do you think a no fly zone is this using force i think i mean the answer no fly zone of dollars please go ahead ok. the the the difference that's what's so strange and odd about this is that we went into iraq. number one under. false pretenses right. you can argue well we didn't know that they were false but they were false and we winning despite the hostility of the entire arab world unlike nine hundred ninety one when we were part of a lot of lions with syria morocco egypt all contributing troops it was an alliance with the arabs to save kuwait you know to liberate kuwait from saddam hussein from

the into iraq from iraq when saddam hussein in one thousand nine hundred one already and that had a broad arab police the arab states were backing us now we in it went directly invading. iraq after nine eleven we had the whole arab population the arab street as you would want to say the arab public opinion was against us and not a single arab state sit alongside with us and yet we intervene there now here you have libya on the other hand we are arab sentiment i would say just judging from egypt in the fact that i see libyan flags been sold on the streets now as the living in flags i mean the old libyan flag which has been resurrected by the insurgents as a symbol against the flag that gadhafi introduced and i see them being sold everywhere now in cairo is funny because i've said yourself be nice to see me get a libyan flag and i have a feeling that the insurgents have massive support especially among the young people who constitute the majority of the arab world now and and yet i am the only

one who are they going over to help out here are young egyptians going to get in cars and four and going over to help out where they have been running medical supplies and one pair of these are a hundred hours earlier in the dark side of the world that's a different issue but what if they are so well we're aware of this let them let them prepare yourselves and we have their chance to do it again we have a guest in paris then if i go to you one of the reasons what i'm trying to get at this question is that because. the west has a dilemma in dealing with this issue because it's because i can see the pros and cons of all of this but at the same time because the western because you could see other people in the arab world saying see they're determining outcomes again and that's why it's the legacy that is that creates a lot of inspiration hearings. i did not hear everything that was said because they were. ok but. i think there are sort of clear

clarifications that are needed we cannot put everything together to think about how they and leave egypt and saying that each is different and just simplifying issues as was done i think in the hay in that there are definitely vertical divisions in the society between the shia and the sunni but this is not the only reason for what we are seeing today there is a democracy deficit in bahrain and all serious studies show that in yemen there are also some vertical divisions that are not confessional between sunni and shia that could have some tribal aspects between the north under south but also there is a great democracy deficit the huge one in libya today what is happening is not a civil war or just a movement of rebellion that is using violence against the regime and there is a. very this particular and criminal regime in place since nine hundred sixty nine and that has been involved in many crimes inside libya and outside libya personally

i'm not asking and i'm not interested in an american clear position or the french people cause we are talking about the u.n. system about the international community that has the legitimacy and has the obligation to intervene in these kind of situations and the governance of the double standards of the bush administration or of the obama administration or of the french administration of most of the other brightness nations who are also all out of administrations also have their own double standards i'm saying that in the real politics definitely this exists but the united nations should have based on its bylaws based on the regulations on resolutions on the international humanitarian law and geneva conventions and there are set of things that are that have been marginalized for decades i think this is a crucial moment to bring them back and we have to jump in here gentlemen we're going. sharp break and when we come back we'll go to reggie after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the uprisings in the arab world stay with r.t. . the slums keep the still

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welcome back across i'm going to come to mind you were talking about the changes going on to meet their own. mother. and the stirrup leather. but first let's see how the russians view the events in the arab world. so the political crisis in the arab world had been shaking the world for almost three months people in the streets of the arab capitals protest calling for democratization of their societies still many believe demonstrators mostly express public this content rather than clear klitschko goals the russian public opinion research center all citizens what drives their own rest in the region forty five percent see poverty unemployment and hunger and the root fourteen percent believe people are dissatisfied with long ruling leaders thirteen percent say rigidity of authoritarian regimes inflames the people and eight percent think it is all because

of corruption however the political implications of the protests should not be underestimated as it is not clear what role extremist forces played in this terrible intriguer peter. ok richard to go to you and me before the break you want to jump in there so you have an opportunity to do it right now go ahead where i want to talk a little bit about that my friend in paris is love for the u.n. if they could i think the gadhafi regime has been so horrible for so long and i agree it has been horrible for a long time then we're we're have the other arab states been we're of the other the across the magreb and through the middle east the african union know everybody wants somebody else to do it they're not only there but the u.n. is allowed libya libya to have a seat on the on the u.n. human rights council for lo these many years just the other day they probably got around to suspending them from it but the u.n. is is is it's fine to have it we pay a lot you pay a lot everybody pays

a lot to keep it there i think it's fine to have it but anybody who thinks that the u.n. can somehow solve these kinds of fast these kinds of brush fires that spring up around the world that have any kind of impact is reading a different history than i've read here bill if i go to you in cairo maybe reacted . riches said there well where was the consensus against the cycle regimes where most of the regimes were paid off by washington so i guess that's why there wasn't much of a consensus there maybe now we have an opportunity for a new government's new peoples to be able to speak the will of their own people on the ground and things might be a bit different i think we all hope it will be go ahead well i think what you can say is that we are. not. protest against and that is our outrage is prior to this regimes that she had something in common with them and i don't think it's us funding because some of those regimes didn't have us funding when needed and it's egypt that was the is the one that's been drawing

tremendous money from the united states but certainly not other countries like nigeria you know but they all shared together was authoritarian systems and a demographic problem of young people for whom is no work because this is not been the great concern and you know all those issues that the russian public mentioned are interesting because they are all true and they all intersect there's a connection between corruption and the fact that you don't have a viable economies going and the lack of north oratory and system which makes the corruption that much easier and sold in all of the reasons they mention including the first reason which is power we forget that that this all started as a a protest of a combination of poverty and police brutality the poverty that crosses university graduate high school graduate over in tunis. and then his in his stressed ration with the police not letting him make a simple living selling lettuce and tomatoes in the street hours and the same here

what preceded the tar here years square and we've lost sight of this because so much attention has been focused on the political but what preceded your square revolutions if you want to call it was the fact that there's been tremendous unrest in the industrial cities of egypt outside of cairo which have been broken out brutally strikes were broken up brutally and the youth movements that may touch here the most important one april sixth movement was precisely in alliance with that working class movement against social injustice of the lack of a decent minimum wage. the fact that social services under the neo liberal economy will have been undercut ferment. slee in the last five minutes or so the russian public has a very very good understanding of what's going on here and if i go back to you and paris here where do we move forward because i mentioned something i think is very very important here because the media is limited resources are limited people are

obviously focusing in on libya but all through the region things continue to boil think things continue to change and where do you think it's going i mean because again we like to call people these people are democratic forces and all that and we saw that and in egypt because it was very well televised but i mean they can say it's really right now against oppression what is the next step is they continue. yeah two things first one if i think the argument that we heard from our friend in washington about the fact that you and system is another history similar to what our despotic regimes used to say when we're talking about human rights about universal values they would say if you believe in this you are in another track of history i think international law you and sister you understand you shuns are the only legitimate to make an isms that article denies universally unfortunately however the other guns of some super powers and at the same time the refusal of many arab states and third states and european states and everywhere to accept them

and to respect them all the time and much unlike the un system it is a moment now a crucial moment to bring back to international relations the legitimate and legal mention that it should have especially in a world where more and more powers are emerging and it needs some new equilibrium to be said as for the region i think the beginning in libya how do you explain libya being a member of the un human rights how can you say how can you excuse that i mean that that's just beyond you will live because definitely this is absolutely there are other states as well like levy are who are a dictatorship in which their pay. system is for everyone and i like and i also started thinking ask richard question how should you know rich and if i can answer quickly sorry and then i explained finish in the region that the violence. there are also states that violates you and result you shuns through occupation and

colonization like israel in the region most arab regimes are also datasets and they have in the past their seats and they you and these are problems that should be now then within this new historical moment where more and more countries are joining democracy and universal values and leader today what should be done and in the arab region in general is in order to allow for a political democratic process to happen. it is to look at it see this need to support all those who are involved and that's to give it some time to be tolerant towards it and not to classify it from the beginning whether it will become an islamist or not these are serious challenges of course but we can with lots of opportunities now we can open new doors and allow the new voices to emerge and to play a crucial role and i think if this is not the will of the legislators the big way i'll give it a big bad united states the big bad united states is still sold the sole supporter of the military in egypt i believe that's correct to one point three billion u.s.

dollars a year it has been forever if we stop that funding what do you think happens in egypt you know we're not asking for something without having fun things out because the military council is supporting and supporting the popular movement this isabella speaking from cairo nobody's asking americans stop that funding i think let me strike eighteen or in a hurry ways i merely actually think paris. go ahead and go ahead there are no i didn't say that so you always understood what i said about i had no i'm talking about rick saying nobody about you know egypt military being the beneficiary of united states funding and and yeah they are and no one would ask them to stop it now because and particularly now because the military is supporting the revolution and is in line with this democratic revolution but the point i want to make is this i think both in hearing relevant remarks from both paris and washington in the sense that in a ideal world yes definitely it should be the united nations that should be acting

in this crisis but the fact remains that you have a security council which is the the body that he would have to authorize no flight and that's what we're talking about no flight we're not talking about boots on the ground the libyans want a new light zone because it was a no fly zone they can get food delivered they can get there they can keep a libyan air force from attacking them and you can get medical supplies dropped is they now declared a government which means that legally recognized planes can probably even land they're not asking for boots on the ground in the woods and not asking for american european arab troops on the ground they want to level playing field that they have a living level playing field i think we're going to see a new regime in tripoli but getting back to this so on one hand yes would be great if the u.n. would act but we know where you have a security council where there are two countries china and russia who were less indicated they opposed the free flight zone and they have vetoes so it has to be

some other international body or an arab like it could be the arab league i wrote an op ed that was published here in cairo just three days ago telling on each on the train how viable is that idea because i've heard that too and it would make sense because it's the region looking after itself maybe for the first time the arab league could make sense. yes i agree it now what you need is a country to play a leading role in demanding that the arab league acts like that and obviously that country should be egypt by all means egypt has just had a revolution of its own the army is is is he's acting sympathetically towards it it would seem to me that it's egypt that should be demanding now at the arab league immediate arab outlook and of course egypt would be the country that could best facilitate it because egypt has a very good air force that if i'm going to be a parent i know we're almost out of any time if i go to paris or what about that idea instead of looking to the great powers to solve the problems of the region

because a lot of people say they were the fall to the root of some of the problems in supporting you cagers you could you could you have a lot of if you have the region itself start policing itself yeah. first and i'm not i don't blame the others on the problems of the region i've always said and i've always written that most of our problems are also a product of the dysfunctioning of many aspects of our societies to which would add to the interventions and the foreign issues about to go back to that the problem is that as in the. before even in the region there are still many democratic governments in the arab region who would not see. a rationale or who would not justify the no fly zone because they consider that it is not that bad if gaddafi can stay for a lie so that this movement would start in the view and would not reach countries like syria like other places that see this is

a very very explicit images are running out of time gentlemen the international community thanks to my guest today in cairo paris and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are t. see you next time and remember across a couple. of .

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