a meeting of the minds on how to solve the world's financial problems sounds like a good idea right well not everyone thinks so many believe the i.m.f. and world bank may have had a hand in creating the crisis from the start. and creating the message of the internet opens a whole new world to and from america is there a double edge sword and is america ready for it. and what does it take to convince a country to go to war some say how come a lot more than what was given to invade libya so did president obama exaggerate the humanitarian threat to justify military action. and you're hired

from his famous hairdo to a t.v. show ma and a with model life and a small fortune could this man be the next u.s. president or is his time in the limelight just hate. it's monday april eighteenth five pm in washington d.c. christine friends out there watching our t.v. . well the international monetary fund and world bank wraps up its spring meeting in washington with fresh concern over a global financial crisis but as the institutions prescribe solutions critics argue it's those very policies that played a role in the meltdown in the first place argy financial correspondent laura lister reports. that.

as protesters to cry their capitalist policies. the international monetary fund meets and to prescribe or of austerity reflects on the state of world economic progress the recoveries and the way that an employment most countries seem to hark this worry over jobs comes as the greek labor unions announce fresh protests over i.m.f. policies they accuse of making their country's economic and job situation worse austerity measures public spending cuts tax rises and privatization part of the i.m.f. doctrine for debt crisis management is now imposed on greece a policy that has been forced on many developing nations for decades i think most western policymakers think that it's just imposing tough tough love mark by reliance on the free market and not on the role of the state the critics like economist gerald eckstein say hurt these countries and contributed to the financial meltdown just as leaders of these institutions brace for another we are one shock

away from a food crisis the financial crisis taught us that prevention is better than cure. we cannot afford to forget that lesson but a group of thinkers believe the curriculum is all wrong behind this very door the international monetary fund was signed into being world leaders decades ago and behind these doors and different group of economic and policy leaders have gathered together who believe it's outdated and needs to be rethought altogether calling for a shift away from western dominance and thinking we've really been looking at this through our problems in our lives and most of our countries have not been subject to iron man programs but even as some of those countries that have such as brazil as part of the brics bloc called for a greater say in the i.m.f. son don't see any real change in the works i expect that the next president of the

world bank will be an american in the next major the i.m.f. will be european broadly construed and that's the same prime without since those institutions were established despite the limitations to global economic effect of miss yes of course and that's a major limitation and major weakness of the government but again it's not going to change anytime soon a warning over what could be in the pipeline as the i.m.f. talks austerity with portugal to secure its debt crisis loan lifeline and an economically strapped egypt talks about getting billions in soft loans from the bank the more things change the more they stay the same lauren lyster r.t. washington and new hampshire well just today some on welcomed news however top government officials here for the stock market as well stan that standard and poor's issued a harsh warning saying they're keeping a close eye on the decisions made on the debt and the deficit and will re-evaluate america's credit rating in the near future unless washington shapes up and acts to control that red ink and at

a lower rate rating and therefore highest winter interest rates could be under consideration still for now a aaa rating remains in place but here's a sign that the s. and p. means business. when asked about this white house spokesman jay carney responded and said quote we believe the political process will outperform the s. and p. prediction. i know without all means are his loyalists or if you're we just want to report some interesting way in which they're used by the white house spokesman what do you think jay carney meant by the political process well i think he's saying that he thinks democrats and republicans can get together to deal with this deficit i mean this whole negative outlook has to do with the deficit and of belief that washington may not get it together there's very political timing that something a lot of analysts are saying coming out of this as we see this deficit debate go on very divided over partisan lines and really no answer as to whether or not it's going to be resolved in the deficit really is going to be tackled i mean we saw in your government shutdown just to get some kind of budget passed that kept the

government working so in that in that whole atmosphere that's kind of one of the reasons why some people are saying this negative outlook was issued and i think he's using very market oriented terms or say the political process will outperform these negative expectations certainly a slap on the wrist of nothing else but a very important one because the s. and p. has never done this before on the let's talk about significant this meeting that you showed in your report i am of the world bank talking about these policies and how this you know sort of has to do with the s. and p. rating well i think that there's a little irony that comes out of this the united states has been criticized for indirectly through the i.m.f. and shooting policies all over the world for countries dealing with deficit issues debt problems for prescribing austerity for prescribing public spending cuts that her workers hurt people hurt pensions hurt. all of the sorts of services that people rely on in countries of privatizing businesses which has the same effect it opens and that's the free market and it can really hammer the people that you know

all of a sudden electricity goes out because a private corporation is dealing with that raising taxes just putting them on a strict regimen to pay back their. it's and to get their debt under control meanwhile the united states runs these huge debts and deficits and doesn't ever prescribe the same medicine at home so i think it's interesting we're seeing this i.m.f. meeting where that's always some of the criticism in the policy is that they continue to purse cried for other countries but yet the united states isn't doing the same thing and now we're seeing you know come out and say hey you guys need to deal with your deficits and maybe some external pressure there and i think the average american might not really understand what i mean certainly we even saw in the stock market today that a lot of people know that this is sort of serious business when they say you know we're not going to lower the rating great quite yet but you need to really watch what you're doing the conversation the central conversation really here in washington over the last few weeks has been about the debt and the deficit talk about i mean i want you to make a prediction but based on what we've seen so far how does this play out. as far as

what's going to happen with the deficit with washington or as far as the actual ratings agencies in the credit i think as far as well they're both connected but as far as the deficit and what's done about it i mean there's two distinct plans for the ryan plan the obama plan some things in common what happens. i don't know i mean i think that's a really good question because as we saw within your government shutdown i mean what they ended up cutting was still only one percent of the deficit so i don't think that gives people confidence that some real real changes can happen especially when you have such a sharp partisan debate over party lines at the same time as far as this really affecting the credit ratings the credit rating of the united states this this warning this outlook i gave them until twenty thirteen so i think that there's a sense that you know there's still a little time and some more pressing issues that are playing out in the markets and people are more concerned over right now i mean we have more crises going on in the eurozone so even after this news the dollar still wasn't rallied it didn't take

a hit compared to the euro which is which is having some problems so you know some different issues going on there well we know that you'll keep an eye on all of it for a financial correspondent more or or less. and i do want to stay on this topic of the i.m.f. and exactly what its role is today in twenty eleven and we have a marshall with the center for research on globalization joins me now from montreal canada. i think. the i am asked the world bank was created back in one nine hundred forty four kind of finance reconstruction in europe and to develop the third world but let's break down the evolution of the need over the last half century what's changed in terms of what they were supposed to be and what they've become. and were actually really. specifically in one thousand nine hundred forty two it

sounds on foreign relations which is in the u.s. . during the war the state department. redesigned. the new world order in which america. the same up with the major institutions. which became which began the i.m.f. thank you and it's. latin america africa asia for the benefit of us and western europe. but that's not the way it was sold some ways it was sort of portrayed as you know these institutions looking out for the poor countries coming in to help and you just said it's actually benefiting the wealthier countries. we'll just. have to judge it. as. they do the international basis now while the i.m.f.

and the world bank in truth. we do see. all their action and other repercussions of their actions. created you look at africa latin america during the sixty's. independence movement. quite rapidly in africa. which. supported by. and this created of. money the western version to be. one hundred seventy nine. percent in the late seventy's and eighteen percent. all this money or the interest rates dramatically increased and this set off. throughout latin america.

asia is like the world bank and i.m.f. i mean. restructuring. and xander they're not just a restructuring their economies to try to pay back is that a lot of times they're restructuring the entire landscape of their country i mean you take these gorgeous rain forests in some of these third world countries places where certainly a lot of things could come out of and they're having to you know tear these down to build crops to make money to pay back that what do you make of all this and what do you make of the fact that you know the i.m.f. in the world bank had this meeting and they're talking about these policies and how to fix things when a lot of critics at least say they're the ones who caused this. i was louis may have a significant role in this. new law new institution like you pointed out we have to get a strong rain forest and a good culture and focus on what's exports and useful produce in cash like

in rwanda or response or export because this is where trade is something that weighs your magic we can conceive of action and you benefit benefit programs better but if you look at the informal arrow in africa europe empires controlling the response was done in the same way they make countries produce certain products for exports. and then making the country and on your emotions and other services to be dependent so the i.m.f. world bank and consensually the global and in south africa asia latin america western europe and north america which heavily subsidize their agricultural products export and in terms of today they're trying to do constituencies institutions that changed. but not only are they interested in europe to manage.

the so-called. but they're also transit integrate and advanced process of governance we meaning the emerging nations china and india and other nations into this institutional apparatus global governance bringing them to shoot again and it let's talk about accountability here i mean again these organizations i.m.f. world bank meeting about policies thinking ahead trying to figure out what to change the fact is from what i understand at least if you work for the world bank you're basically immune from any kind of legal action who you know who are these organizations accountable to in terms of making sure that they actually are doing what they say they're going to take. there are going to books you trace them and it's very simple to actually see who runs these institutions and you take the world bank you were right many of its residents and always. were somehow related to

the chief which is now. when you look at the second president in charge and right he was chairman of cheeseman have been he was chairman of the council and it's he was chairman of a trustee wrong. so the intruders they run these institutions aren't very well represented in actions and rhetoric or are you just have to sort of a bad sign. right under gavin marshall from the center for research on globalization joining us from montreal canada well tomorrow marks one month since the u.s. and european forces began airstrikes in libya president obama and leaders from france and great britain well they all said that the need was dire and that the mission was humanitarian based and would also be brief since that time nato forces have taken control but the weapons and the intelligence on the ground in libya are

largely from this country well some people say that this is a just war others say the justifications for getting involved were not only not good enough they were wrong paul and long those people alan cooperman a professor of public affairs at the university of texas at austin he's also an author and among his works this book the limits of humanitarian intervention. and alan i know that you've written a lot about this that and something that you said was that the u.s. involvement in libya is not only not preventing murder and suffering but that it's in fact causing suffering by innocent people and also prolonging the civil war in libya where is your evidence at this. well my my evidence is that the claim that was made by the obama administration that there was going to be a bloodbath that there was going to be even genocidal violence that he was deliberately intentionally massacring civilians my evidence is that there is no

evidence of that in the other cities that qaddafi has captured either totally or partially and the latest data comes actually from human rights watch and what they found is that the victims in which is the third biggest city in libya only three percent of the wounded are women and what that tells you is that the violence by khadafi forces is not indiscriminate it's actually quite targeted it's targeted at fighters because the fighters are male if the cut off you were trying to massacre civilians there would be thousands killed not a couple hundred killed in misrata and if you were indiscriminately targeting civilians then about half of the victims would be women and not three percent so my concern is that there was no bloodbath ongoing there was no bloodbath likely in benghazi and instead the civil war essentially was going to be over

a month ago but then nato intervened led by the united states and what that has done is sort of level the playing field it's prolonged the civil war cities in the center of libya on the coast have now changed hands two three four times every time they change hands they're shelling from both sides and civilians that are caught in the middle so we didn't stop a bloodbath but we are prolonging and perpetuating the suffering of civilians in libya in my opinion and then i've got point out here i mean you know it may be that some of these places that you point to that gadhafi forces do actually have a control in there's been targeted killings of these armed rebels but the fact is. can't ignore that this is a man who said in a speech on television you know that he was going to search every home and find people in their closets so you know unlike for example iraq and this false claim of weapons of mass destruction here you have a leader who is actually saying you know by the way i am going to come out and drag

people out of their homes and kill them and i know that you know this is something that obama pointed to in his speech in terms of why we got involved in libya let me play a little bit of what president obama said in there how do you respond. we knew that if we wanted if we waited one more day benghazi a city nearly the size of charlotte would suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and. the conscience of the work so again you know president obama pointing to this threat made by gadhafi himself do you think you the u.s. and france and great britain do you think that they should have just ignored to gadhafi as a madman. well i mean i think if you actually listen to a kid off he said he said that he would show no mercy to rebels but he said that he would show mercy if the rebels gave up the thigh gave up their weapons so he was very clearly saying he was going to target fighters he made clear he was not going

to target civilians he wouldn't even target rebels who surrendered so and he was clear about this so it seems to me that president obama exaggerated the threat he exaggerated khadafi said in fact misrepresented would could offie had said and so would you know with their pippin some killing yes there would have been some been some killing in benghazi but the civil war essentially would it ended the rebels were on the run they were not asked for a treat and the war would have ended in march and instead here we are in the second half of april and the war is ongoing and people are suffering every single day so as i say i don't think we stop the bloodbath but i think we have perpetuated the war and my rough guess at this point is that we've actually increased the net suffering to civilians in libya that certainly wasn't the intention and the only question for me then is you know why the obama do this did he get tricked by the

rebels who claimed that there was going to be a genocide or was he sort of in on that sort of a coconspirator exaggerating with the rebels the threat of a genocide in order to launch an intervention for other purposes you know of course it's hard to say that alan you know what would have happened could have happened i should have happened if the u.s. and nato forces in you know didn't get involved you know we just can't now because the fact is a month ago we did get involved but i know you also said that we should intervene no further intel to duffy's forces actually prove that they're going to match the curse of millions a lot of people would just find that claim a little rough to swallow to say you know let's wait until thousands of people are already killed her and how we get involved now that's that's. that's that's not what i say what you know my my argument is based on over a decades worth of research and research on the ground in bosnia in kosovo in rwanda i've also researched our for iraq afghanistan and what you find is that

rebels often use the same propaganda tactic they start a war that they cannot win on their own and the whole goal is to drag in the united states and its allies on their side and the only way to get the u.s. to come in on their side is to claim that the government is going to massacre civilians they did in bosnia and it worked they didn't cause it worked and so my point is if you're really trying to save civilians what you should do is not play the this rebel game you should say the rebels if you start a rebellion and the government responds by targeting rebels we're not going to get involved the only time that the west's and the international community should get involved is if the government responds grossly disproportionately if the government actually starts targeting civilians intentionally then the international community should come in to stop a bloodbath to stop a genocidal type situation so that was my recommendation is that so long as gadhafi is mainly targeting rebels the united states should not be intervening there and we

should be using the potential of intervention and say we would intervene if you start targeting civilians and that would deter khadafi from targeting civilians and the evidence so far as i could off it is not targeting civilians as i said three percent of the victims are women it shows that conduct the is targeting mainly rebels so certainly an interesting argument that make that you make an important too i think to bring up some of these historical references with kosovo involvement in bosnia that from that these places specifically get more violent because they want to the west to involve alan cooperman professor at the university of texas and at author and author the r r of the limits of humanitarian intervention thanks so much. well the us is competing with countries like china and russia for more than just resources they're also battling for influence but in a country with a foundation of ideals that includes the freedom of speech and also in the age of new social media the question is to what extent is the u.s.

government really practice what it preaches and especially with the explosion of information available on the internet quiz these freedoms of times be a double edged sword are these killing for it has more. the battle for influence over the international airwaves has opened a new front. page i'm afraid in america. better to win the web ideas that have to win in washington. establishment cause played. it's distributed right i think i'm saying every one of our government offices. ever since. the chinese government american international broadcasters do target china iran the middle east and other nations the voice of america and others but audiences are shrinking the baby jesus and others two thousand and ten showed that. one

percent. listen to the voice of america in mandarin just a decade ago american and british outlets dominated the international broadcasting market. but today's multi-polar world is reflected in its broadcast from china and its well cut to russia. international news if you're watching. this new media landscape has top officials in washington worried that u.s. broadcasters are losing influence we are in an information war and we are losing that war i'll be very blunt in my assessment al jazeera is winning. the chinese have opened up a global english language and multi language television network the russians have opened up the english language network i've seen it in a few countries and it's quite instructive critics say the diminishing audiences

are the result of the u.s. desire to influence rather than inform they're going to try to go into these countries and probably try to bind is basically a true propaganda arm rather than a news gathering and reporting outlet which is what archie al-jazeera and the chinese networks are going to be but when they look beneath for freedom of information abroad others have it silenced at home it's a propaganda campaign and right now we are warm and which you have global broadcasting during which to which you have from zero campaigning to have r.t. and al jazeera taken off american airways american taxpayers are helping to put right now at this time jihad t.v. on the air and investigative in congress for their role radicalizing we do think they ought to be expanded into looking at the operations of foreign propaganda channels like russia today on american soil we'd also like to look at al-jazeera even as americans increasingly turn to them for fresh your views and

real news as us for print media at their entertainment programming and sundry we open up these huge gaps because we're more concerned with reality t.v. and people arguing and people attacking the president than we are with having people on the ground finding out what the problem the problems are the quote war was the golden age of us international broadcast outlets like voice of america radio free europe the thirty years later the media and economic landscape has changed and voices have been added to the discussion from doha to paris to caracas the u.s. worry that it may not be the only one battling for the airwaves anymore here in florida r.t. washington d.c. the first in gears now comedian. mogul of a different kinds talking about donald trump love him or hate him the mainstream media is eating him up right now so is the limelight much part of a much bigger story say to. run for president or perhaps he just hopes to boost his

ratings earlier i spoke with amanda carey she's a reporter for the daily caller asked her how relatable a billionaire known for his beautiful lives could be to the american people. i don't think these are relatable that's my honest opinion and i don't know if it's his personal i guess background with his wives i mean that's not a huge issue i don't think you know if you look at giuliani. only a contender and he had issues there and newt gingrich is a contender. but whether he's relatable or not remains to be seen and he obviously has this huge following right now which is kind of are for several different ways but little i'm not sure yet i mean i guess we'll see what's your prediction on it in terms of why he's coming out there and talking about this run for president and being. are you the most critical of obama from you know accusing him of not being born here just you know saying a lot of different things i mean what do you think this is all about i think it's donald trump going into more himself i think he's selling himself and he's doing

a really great job about it and he has this sort of populist message that resonates with a lot of people as crazy as this can and it seems he's sort of this anti-government anti-establishment guy that says whatever he wants whenever he wants and you can read what you want to say and a lot of people appreciate that i think so far it was a good strategy just because it sort of drawn this this attention and it has sort of translated into poll results in the long term i don't think it will turn out to be that great but then in the long run donald trump in the sea is a credible anyways how do you think people from other countries view the potential trump candidacy i mean he said he could do so much he's a successful businessman he could have a lot of clout in politics and instead he chose this route that sort of you know. caused people to make fun of him and you know comment as credible candidate and i think people around the world.