bad broken nomics is causing violence spill over into the streets of athens so what does this mean not only for the e.u. but the global economy as well while some also see the us showing signs of societal collapse. and one of those signs a flashback to the eighty's with wilding random cases of assaulting strangers will take you to chicago where it's one example the windy city may be starting to blow over. and manning the post as the private sits behind bars his friend thinks the

government is on a witch hunt when it comes to wiki leaks we'll have more on david house's refusal to testify. this case between the u.s. and cuba is not fair because her son's cause was very noble and the cuban five sent to the u.s. to prevent terrorism in cuba so why is the man they were watching now receiving the key to the city of miami while they're sitting in prison. good evening it's wednesday june fifteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster in your watching our team now while u.s. lawmakers are trying to come to an agreement on the country's debt problem and still trying to decide on raising the fourteen point three trillion dollars debt ceiling which mind you the u.s. has already blown through in greece protesters are taking to the streets and opposition to their government solutions greek police have fired tear gas at

protesters they're trying trying to block the parliament building more than twenty thousand of them trying to prevent members of parliament from voting on new austerity measures measures so the country can get more bailout cash are to sara firth has been on the ground in the middle of the action and here's her report. the clashes between the police on the protesters still going to be something else in the states you can head to build a fire in the crowd you can see despite being told a long distance larry that was killed at a time. people have much a exactly most a lot of the blame of the police trying to find out that violence still breaking out. still by a lot of the people on the street the scene as he protested that with a gas mask on they really want anyone still that has been said that the people who . actually provoking the police the people still be back on the central slaven to you can take us to link sets off by the place they turned out to protest against

the proposal started by said there i guess about the economic situation has been happening because they want it and what we have is a weekend of the protests turned violent it till the end but you can see the big sales happening held in pakistan right at this very moment that is absolutely calles all the states the police all over the place we would like some sense of what it takes us to think that so i can tell you it's not a pleasant experience you absolutely can't upgrade the numbers of people who could not remember really quite. how some people. mistake to take five. minutes people really not see saw a little. bit so it's not the might say yes place a. vacancy right now and the police need to get a cut of the that's going to be another monitary got somebody to see that happen they. want.

oh i think i want to come nothing will. be something so you still coming right up. to coming ok. they. are on the bay street right now it's very hard to tell because even the places where they want to see this they say does not stop you on the streets right now we've got to find it but. you got to take us ok you got to go. find out the price i. know this i got the last number these people are actually crude like you the police he can see the good the black uniforms and that the laws he be trying to stop let's go back. to let. others take up like a guy go off right we speed up the road. that they got going up as we see the prices other places still cashing out the good but very hard to breathe. people who

are perfectly good you want to say so because we caught the box. i was our correspondent sara firth in the middle of the protests on the ground in athens now greece may not be the united states but both are facing debts they may not be able to pay greece of course has imposed spending cuts and you know a lot of people are talking about if this is the kind of cutting that the united states needs to do and to me my next guest is going to help us get to the bottom of that he's a professor of international economic law at chapman university joins us now thanks so much for being with us professor canova so we're seeing greece's reaction to austerity this is nothing new when they first passed austerity measures they did it with intimate the protests as well but i'm just curious obviously we're not seeing this on the streets streets of the united states and we may not but the united states is also facing spending cuts and i lot say that a lot needs to be cut from u.s. spending because the u.s.

has been spending far beyond its means as witnessed by the fourteen point three trillion dollars debt ceiling which the u.s. has blown through but can't agree to raise so in response to the u.s. debt crisis if there are immense cuts could this be the result in the u.s. do you think. well of course i think this could be the result almost anywhere in the world where there's austerity. greece has an unemployment rate of about sixteen percent i believe in the united states it's nine point one percent but then when you add in the underemployed the part time workers who want full time work and can't find the discouraged workers. people who have trucked out of the labor market it's probably more like one out of five americans so i think these kinds of this kinds of unrest in the street could occur anywhere where there's more sturdy and high unemployment right now we've seen unrest in spain for instance right do you think that's something that the united states lawmakers need to be mindful of when they're making cuts or do you think that the more dire problem is government

spending no i think it's one thing to say the u.s. has a trillion dollar deficit or one point five trillion each year but i think it needs to be put into some perspective what is the percentage of gross domestic product what is the deficit as a percentage of the overall economy greece's deficit is about ten percent of g.d.p. that's about what the united states is and that might sound high when we compare it to like the one nine hundred eighty s. or the one nine hundred ninety s. but coming out of the great depression after the one nine hundred thirty s. the u.s. had a deficit that was three times larger than today so just who is it that's saying that sovereign nations must turn to our sturdy instead of growth right now it really is a lot of financial interest such as the credit rating agencies which would have thought would have been discredited by their role in the financial crisis of two thousand and eight well and along lines of what you're saying you know many experts also say that you can't compare the united states and greece because they have very different economies they're very different sizes obviously however because bill

gross actually told the m.p.c. he thinks the u.s. isn't worth financial shape and greece as well as another indebted european countries when you add in the money owed to cover future liabilities fifty trillion when you look at what's owed for medicare medicaid and social security and the future do you agree with that. i really don't agree with that when you talk about medicare and social security going broke in a kind of liability set her own boat on it you still have to put it in the context of the unemployment situation in the united states there's almost thirty million americans who are not paying social security taxes or medicare taxes because they're simply out of were when you have thirty million people out of work in the united states social security and medicare will go broke really think that's the problem is we've been dealing with symptoms and not the root causes of the problems for the past three years it sounds like you're arguing that this has been a revenue crisis which is something that a lot of people do but we are not seeing major moves to add jobs we're not seeing

any kind of major hiring by the private sector in the pipeline or public jobs program so at this revenue crisis continues then according to your logic it seems like you know these medicare medicaid and social security could face more dire situation down the line absolutely and it's all because we're going in the wrong direction we've had three years of budget cuts in the united states now most of it's at the state and local level but when you aggregate all those state local cuts they've been tremendous we've been laying off government employees by the hundreds of thousands for the past couple of years since the start of the recession in two thousand and seven government employment at all levels in the united states is down by a quarter million so the idea that it's too much spending on public sector hiring is just a myth it's exactly the direction we need to go ok one thing i want to ask you just a little bigger picture because the euro zone has been a hotbed for debt crisis we've seen this in greece also portugal of course and

spain it had problems as well you know the e.u. is not the united states but this is a global economy we saw u.s. stocks tumble today on the news out of greece and it does according to analysts give a lot of concern about u.s. thinkers so how does what we're seeing in the euro zone affect the united states economy. but the two thousand and financial crisis should really teaches a lesson that these financial markets are interconnected and it fears a crisis where greece either to forte's or if not detected well if it's a technical default in greece down the road it will probably have a contagious effect on other european peripheral countries such as portugal and ireland maybe even spain and the reason that there's so much concern about whether a restructuring of greece's debt is deemed to be a default is that it would trigger the credit default swaps and it's mostly american financial institutions that have written those credit to forswear us that

ensure investors for in the event of it's a fourth of greek debt so those would be major losses for u.s. financial institutions wow and we've seen the toll that credit default swaps can can have on the u.s. economy and the path not to speculate what that would be but we've seen you know how it started in the k. thousand a panel crisis now you've been talking about unemployment you've been talking about the situation in the united states and while we may not see mass violent protests on the streets of washington d.c. for example today in response to u.s. economic struggles there are signs all around of the stress that this economy and people are enduring as a result and our own our team reporter anasazi a truck and a visit chicago recently president barack obama's hometown of course and what she discovered that he left behind for the white house is a city that has been to terri rating for quite some time and she paints a really vivid picture i want to show it to our audience. chicago at first glance a picture perfect city. but what happens with a sneak peek behind

a facade and of this postcard the gap between the rich and poor in chicago is extremely visible well off neighborhoods such as this one are just a hop and skip away from places where struggle is dense in the atmosphere. this is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in chicago filled with countless streets like this one where rows and rows of devastated homes hold thousands of people for whom every single day is a struggle. with doesn't live here is whole most people think that is all of chicago and that's gorgeous chicago but there is still an eighty five percent of the city that they haven't seen. one and raised in chicago sort he works several jobs to keep the city falling to its knees is a personal pain for him this is a neighborhood that was full of factories and industry and once industry died so did this neighborhood a pattern seen in much of illinois in the last decade over two hundred thousand

jobs in manufacturing went down the drain because especially tough for chicago's black community one in three african-american men in their early twenty's unemployed men like craig. overall african-american joblessness in chicago is over twenty percent more than twice the white rate there is no you know i don't care what kind of case you get some people just don't have. anything. over on the other side of the tracks a lot of drugs and a lot of people are turning to drugs a lot of a lot of people turn are selling drugs locals explain it's done here to get by robbery is also at a peak rather than go. on a good morning. anyway. for many it's a vicious circle. having peed for his crimes six months out of jail darryl bass is back where he started fighting for

a job for the government is. just a simple. service that's what they. seem to say one thing we do trickle down at the north is their hair when you use a record high bridge drinking chicago bulls the top spot in the u.s. . food pantries are working nonstop as hunger intensifies but supplies are short oh my goodness it's almost to the point was unexplainable but is. increasing. the manner of food for hunger in chicago because of the economy the in the way it is the number of families living in poverty now stands out in this down to forty five percent almost half the population many of those going hungry are kids one in three children in chicago are said to live below the poverty line i'm quite sure there are homeless children the building. staff know if they are not

over the last year income rates here have dropped by more than ten percent making it harder for entire generations of families to stay afloat so more in their store you know it's i'm proud to speak of stars from the kids and girls all the way up to our seniors you know and they have the same issues from young to old the hometown of the american president this filled with sorrow that's already too deep to ignore . chicago illinois now i want to bring you back into the conversation professor. not just on this report but on other reports we're seeing from chicago that it's not only the poverty but that we're seeing a resurgence and a very violent trend that shop in asia and back in the eighty's and i don't know if you recall any of these headlines but we have a few it was from what was coined at the time wilding and it was all over the papers it was basically a term to describe this very violent savage mob behavior and in this case it was

a gang rape in central park and it was describing this trying to. ogg violence that was described as sociopathic against innocent people at the expense of just innocent human beings and now out of chicago there are reports of what some are calling wilding this rash of violence is just right there by an editorial where he says this isn't flash mobs this is wilding tourists and residents have been attacked by mobs of use on buses beaches even on the magnificent mile which is where all of the nice shops are in chicago now it's being called the mug mile the mugging mile people being swarmed by mobs at retail stores shoppers being assaulted even mobs pulling people out of their cars and there was even a broader string over memorial day weekend of this kind of gang violence in boston nashville long island miami rochester and charlotte so i want to ask you first do you remember this whole wilding phenomenon in new york back in the eighty's yes i

remember it very well i'm from new york and if you remember well. so then i want to oh sorry i didn't mean to interrupt i just want to ask you know remembering and recalling that when you hear of these concerns when you hear of the these reports of violence and you know the economic situation very well because you know that's what you do does this concern you that we're seeing a start of this trying to get in there of course and you know for many years now and it has gotten worse in the last two or three years of course there are whole areas of the united states areas of cities where it's not very safe obviously this story that you're recounting here what's changed i suppose is that the violence the randomness of the has shifted from so-called bad areas of cities into very good areas of the cities it's as if there's very little concern for the well being of others and tries the. community i had

it sounds a little clockwork orange to you and it's very concerning i want to thank you for giving us your perspective on that and so much of the rest of the economic news that we're looking at today that was timothy kudo he is professor of international economic law at chapman university now in other news the wiki leaks the investigation continues a grand jury is investigating and today david house maybe you recall he's the founding member of the bradley manning support group network rather he's a friend of bradley manning and he was subpoenaed to appear before this grand jury in alexandria virginia today now private first class manning you remember is the u.s. government whistleblower he's accused of leaking u.s. diplomatic cables to wiki leaks and he could face the death penalty as a result of these charges of course depending on what the outcome is now house called for manning's freedom and in his testimony he pled the fifth he invoked his right to remain silent before this grand jury according to house he says this is a show trial not to curtail press freedom and r.t.

got to speak with him one on. and at the grand jury hearing he talked about the public reaction to the bradley manning case first take a listen but i think there's a groundswell movement happening right now in the us up just for example in boston today students that were never politically active and all standing up to support probably nothing to keep peace and protest this grand jury i think the u.s. government is frightened of what it perceives to be mass public support for probably manning it with the reason i think you should and we could be some states and i think that over time we're going to try to. influence public opinion by launching these tactics would chill the personal rights association and harass activists involved in this campaign. now one thing that he also made very clear is that he believes that the tactics the government is using and the manning case hail back to the pentagon papers investigation the tactics used that i want to play what he said. and i feel that is trying to use investigating as we keep peace to establish policies which will give the government broad censorship powers in determining how source information actually makes it to the head of the media i

think every american citizen who hears about this we keep its friends here in alexandria should be concerned because i for one don't want to wake up every morning and read only how glorious the u.s. government is i want to media in this country that is a free for us it is healthy for the states and this nixonian grand jury behind me is chilling the prospect of every day it's going to be now we also commented on his own treatment specifically including the warrantless seizure of as a laptop and also on internet freedom more broadly in general here's what he said. i think there is harassment going on and i said before in this in reeks of the next only in tactics being used and it pentagon papers destitution forty years ago we were entering an age where the internet has provided. an amazing potential for people to organize online but also an amazing outlet for governments to restrict free speech as well and it's going to take a lot of dedicated scientists and engineers standing up and actually ensuring democracy thrives on the internet before we can say that was david house founder of the bradley manning support network speaking to us today. now they're known as the

cuban five they are in prison serving life sentences in the united states accused of committing espionage conspiracy according to those five though their mission was to stop terrorism against cuba monitoring the actions of miami based terrorism groups actions of men like this this is luis posada could be a cia agent but some would call him a terrorist who's accused of bombing several cuban hotels and he masterminded the downing of a cuban bound flight in one thousand nine hundred eighty six they killed seventy three people yet he roams three free and he's actually being celebrated in america in fact this is the mayor of miami giving him the key to the city wall one mother of the cuban five prisoner antonio good otoh scuse me go ahead oh who r.t. interviewed one on one she is still pleading for her son's release earlier i spoke with a lawyer who is a panacea he is very familiar with that case because he actually worked on trying to get extradited to venezuela and here is what he said about why the united states

has not swapped the cuban five for example with alan gross an agent in the you know i did say u.s. citizen who has been convicted of similar charges in cuba here's what he said. well that's a question though the you really have to ask the nicest government why they refuse to do this but that really the united states should do this should exchange the cuban fire for alan gross because you see all of this animosity between the two countries is really a relic of the cold war and the cold war is now over it is time to move on president obama has said so in many speeches that he has given and cuba has said as much to present throughout castro has said the same thing in the only way that both countries can move on is for the prisoners of each country to be released in sent back to their native countries i'm sure that until you have it was mother who's

pleading for a son misses him very much we haven't seen him for over twelve years and i'm sure alan gross his family misses him very much so it's time to just return prisoners in get on with life and that is that it doesn't vaccinate and very much end and there are many claims that they can get in with bogus and that these cuban five are wrongfully convicted i want to play her claim her account of why that is but let's listen to it yet. purpose of the most painful thing was a judge tell my son when she handed down her sentence she said i have no proof i can provide any evidence because i don't have any however i'm finding you guilty regardless because i know you still have the intent of committing a crime you may have physically done nothing but you still had the intent of breaking the law. so why do you think that the cuban five were convicted they sit in prison meanwhile you know this article really runs free and is celebrated and in the case of the cuban five they were convicted for conspiracy to commit

espionage yet they had no class of white documents on them there was no evidence they tried to get classified documents and the only case where folks had been convicted on a conspiracy to commit espionage stories were not classified documents so why do you think that is why are they you know why are they not being traded why are they not being let out why is the united states not budging on them when we were miami in miami the the rules of life are inversed and you have terrorists like brossard rulers who are feeding those heroes in miami given in the heat of the city of hialeah and other people who should be considered to be heroes people who risk their lives which is the cuban five to stop the kind of clear arisen that's been waged against cuba for over fifty years from u.s. shores those logs are imprisoned and it makes absolutely no sense except that for political reasons u.s. politicians are loads to go against the extremist exiles in miami who have

money and political clout and other apparent that they are quite a lot quite a powerful lobby very powerful aside from that kind of backing up to what you said that the united think you know despite all of this despite all these maybe political cern concerned that they should be released why do you think the united states a mentioned the cold war you mentioned that we're past the cold war you know another country that the united. states is still falling and mending tensions with over the decades is of course russia and we saw the united states and russia negotiate a swap of agents when the whole scandal according to some broke a while back and they swapped agents you know the u.s. and russia did the why could they negotiate that but not this because there is no comparative political law be exiled russians who would oppose it as there is in the case of cuba you don't have the political block because you know it's not just the do you have money and political clout speech that miami please include

a rule in the presidential election that was lawyer jose ca to dia now as the united states continues its involvement in libya we've seen president barack obama say that the united states that he's not basically violating the repairs act because the u.s. is just supporting the nato involvement well it continues on the last but this is a very different involvement from that of another nation in the region offering after a violent military crackdown in that country against anti-government protesters last week fast forward and a crown prince was in washington meeting with u.s. president obama and secretary of state hillary clinton and talking about how they are reforming in bahrain how the crown prince says they're committing to political and economic reforms and that they are going to speak with the opposition political parties however this comes at the very same time that we know that the country is reportedly sentencing political prisoners to death reports that the government is keeping members of parliament and other political opponents in jail denying of

their trials there are reports of torture and beating in jail there are reports of forcing people to stay home from work that are perceived to be possible octave it opposition activists so does it sound like reform call for more earlier i spoke with michel chossudovsky director of the center for research on globalization and i asked him why the white house is saying things are moving forward with reform in bahrain while the reality on the ground appears to be different here's what he said . well essentially it is us. this was. approved by the white house. of us interventionism various possible worlds atrocities of. war theater. with the drone of the. tribal areas killing civilians. they've been committed historic career in the knees. this should come as no

surprise because it's ports terrorism terrorism in different parts of what it was. presenting humanitarian. or humanitarian aid which in fact is also free because you do not come to the rescue of civilians with . barlow's french mirage because let's talk about some of the interest because as hillary clinton secretary of state clinton clinton made no secret bahrain is seen as a very important partner and one of the reasons why that is that there is a naval base there the u.s. fifth fleet is stationed there and from what i hear from raney's while looking at the construction they believe that the u.s. is expanding its naval base there that it's growing that they're building upon it and they also say that the united states uses a u.k. air force base in bahrain to fly planes out of and use that base so i want to

ask you if you see those as being some of the largest interests in the region. when absolutely the whole if you look at it from a geopolitical perspective with the jets over the united states and its nato partners militarize it's militarizing the entire middle east and we shall. win is no exception there is a massive deployment of u.s. military might throughout the region and the gulf states partners in this process of course with saudi arabia. there participating in inflate and saying. we we have indications although no evidence that saudi arabia is also playing.