the cost of war as cloudy information rolls in on both libya and syria on mainstream networks r.t. get syria we'll have reports from both both countries you won't see on those. few numbers out today showing a gloomy growth rate for the american economy so are we back in a recession well if you are ben bernanke you look at long term view things were ok but is there really as rosy an outlook. for january twenty fourth to some people who can produce. and you will see you are going to need the floor will be like i'm going to see the war and still today nothing generates as much excitement as apple

products but with steve jobs stepping down is this the end of an era. that evening it's friday august twenty sixth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and your watching r t well fighting rages on in libya and amid stick the united nations is urging all sides to avoid acts of violence u.s. officials are saying there is no place in a new libya for revenge attacks and reply reprisal meanwhile british tornado jets are firing cruise missiles at colonel qaddafi's compound in his hometown this even though nato claimed it would not help rebels gadhafi down now if the tide continues to turn in libya our chief correspondent reopen ocean has the latest from tripoli take a listen. duffy still remains the go number one for the rebels and since the beginning

of the aeration here in the libyan capital tripoli we've been hearing numerous reports and we've been hearing numerous statements by the rebels by the leaders of the rebels that they know could up his whereabouts first as you remember they've announced that they've catch captured. his son and then it turns out that he actually hasn't been captured he hasn't been detained or at least has been released so we cannot say for sure what's happened was it turned out to be you know not true then we've been receiving information that the rebels know where gadhafi is here in tripoli and they live inside but they've corners khadafi and they spin headlines on many international news channels for quite a while but it actually didn't end with any concrete detail and concrete a success and today you as well we are receiving reports that the rebels have flooded the streets of tripoli trying to hunt down khadafy in one of his district

in the south of the city. known as abu slim. has always been stronghold of his supporters but actually we we this information has been confirmed and we still have no sign of khadafi actually. apparently and definitely this battle is far from over and we saw while driving from the tunisian libyan border to the capital tripoli difference a lot from what we used to see here in june and july when the western part of the country had been controlled by gadhafi forces. flags. waving everywhere and all the buildings all the walls covered with graffiti saying arabic english and french are welcome to you leave they are welcome to freely. it's also everywhere in ticket office. so it's complete it's just absolutely different

country absolutely different. picture and trademark rebels. pick up tracks of what we used to see in benghazi in the u.s. and parts of the country before kind of a symbol of the fight against the regime here now everywhere so we can definitely say that. for the smallman place part of the country is actually in the rebels' hands meanwhile reminders of the recent battles everywhere we've seen many bandon tanks burned cars there on the road there are many many checkpoints on the road to tripoli like we've seen at least twenty of them with the gunmen welcoming everybody with celebratory shooting but actually we've also got a feeling that the rebels are the only people left in libya because the cities

we've been driving through looked at vans and actually go cities we've been many many cars loaded with personal belongings and we've seen lines along lies at the border from the part of libya towards tunisia so people are fleeing this country and that's clear because it's not safe here sue and politically there's quite unclear what's going to happen next so as you can see situation on the ground is very complicated and the rebels are now facing many many problems. litter is of the rebels have repeatedly been talking about elections and constitution changes but actually that's that's not easy. it's not easy that was our to correspondent maria said ocean a in tripoli meanwhile in syria our correspondent says the country could be headed to a libya scenario r.t. correspondent reena glue she is in damascus she told my colleague in moscow why she thinks it could be a libya scenario and first she spoke about the latest protests. thousands of people

have taken to the streets in syria this has become sort of a friday custom for the past five months for people after their friday prayers to come out on the streets and protest their regime from what we know so far is that the majority of the protests have been happening in remote districts of syria not particularly in the mass this itself although there have been seven arrests there as well today and yesterday for example most of the protests with up to two thousand people out in the streets have been taking place in cities bordering. in cities in regions bordering syria is. syria and turkey of course you have to remember that on thursday the most prominent political cartoonists in syria has been severely beaten by armed men now it is assumed that those men who were from. the government allegiance groups and of course that has spurred

a large wave of protests the cartoonist is now in hospital and of course a lot of people are saying that this has been something that the government has been doing but of course the government is saying that. the crackdowns which they have been carrying out with thousands of people people dying in the process the reason for the crackdown is the government says it's because there have been armed groups infiltrating syria from a very southern countries including places like iraq or saudi arabia and they save those armed groups are behind are behind those from protesting against the change of the regime now we did speak to some people who would not talk to us on camera who did say that fortunately there is some grain of truth to that that the armed gangs which the government is talking about have sort of developed this strategy of when they come behind the protesters who are protesting. the current regime and

they start shooting and then the armed forces the police. starting to shoot back as a result you have these protesters who are stuck in between a rock and a hard place and they're the ones dying and this is this is what's happening according to those people who have been to the protests and also pointing to the policeman who did not like i said who did not want to talk on camera so in fact the situation in syria is very volatile it's basically hanging by a thread because unfortunately and this is the cries of for change of governments amidst the cries for reforms to be implemented unfortunately there is also as experion violence which is starting to come up and is starting to shine through unfortunately there has been a lot of religious tension in the country as of late and this is a country which is not used to that so what we're facing right now at this point is is a pos is the possibility of a feud another libyan scenario breaking out in this middle eastern country and i would r.t. correspondent arena on the ground in damascus so what will the blowback of what

we're seeing in libya and in syria be and who could benefit because of the big questions that emerge that i want to bring up with have they asked the bar he joins us now from asia times he is with us in brazil thanks for being here so first i kind of want to start with libya i want to start with what we've seen the last twenty four hours we see british tornado jets firing cruise missiles it off his compound in sirte even though the coalition said that it wouldn't assist the rebels and hunting khadafi down now the british defense minister defends this new question to you is it a violation of the u.n. resolution that nato was operating under what the u.n. resolution has been for the first five months in fact but look very important breaking news for you so just confirmed a few hours ago and guess who is the top military commander as we speak so give you and me. i would but i am going to guess i'm going to get it going to

have something to do with the united states no no name is do hakim bowl. and he is an al qaeda yes it. back ok the lead lottery thing on your what are you saying eric write this down for. let's get the story straight. this is the guy who are again eyes to the birds in the southwest mountains southwest of tripoli the office of last saturday he was the military commander of this offensive so he was working in connection with the guy who came from misrata to the shores of tripoli nato will gartman become perry special forces the british are scarce etc but how did this guy shoulder up in the west and very very mountainous so we have to backtrack to nine eleven he was trained in afghanistan he was an al qaeda asset part of a very hard core solid fist islam missed libyan group called islam

mr levy and group exactly true they did for the french effect and he was struck by the cia after nine eleven he was friends with sarkar when he was captured in the lesion two thousand and three he will score today in bangkok where i lived at the time you know one of those extremely rendition cia prisons in bangkok he was sent back to the libyans he made a deal with saif al islam in two thousand and nine he was released and now he's the military commander of trip candidate a star he is the military commander who are in the transitional national council and like yes yes yes so your correspondent and you tripoli could get this story in the next few hours or self you know what we will continue to follow the latest on a lot of the case any different messages where your sources are. they are good they are good they are connected with jihadists you know so i had to get information

from pakistan from you know iraqi people to reconfirm it in or i can say almost for sure with ninety five percent certainty this is the guy and i'm going to if i'm going to write an article one day about this effect explaining how he ended up in this position and people. to check that out but back to the question is if this is really the case the united states has been working with the transitional national council we know that the cia have been in the country so yeah they would have to know this right of course they have to know it but it may be working together from the start because it all sounds sort of big as you know police call gerda this is a place that most libyans that were part of the jihadi training camps in afghanistan they came from this part of of libya that's why people in tripoli they look at syria and i can do see a bunch of country bumpkins in it and this is true this is sort of the other

respondents a leader can see by themselves as well and they also see a bunch of soffit you hobbyists but from the beginning when the whole february seventeenth movement was hijacked by the beetle powers by the u.s. but a military defectors from tripoli everybody was working together including the salafi jihad and that's why we don't know what's going to happen next and now you're saying it could look at the forces all right and it sounds like you're saying they are taking the lead but. as i think what's interesting we're seeing british planes that are that are bombing start we these are you know u.s. drones that we know of what yes what is the is the obama administration distancing itself from these rebels we've heard secretary of state clinton to say hey guys are what and i'm paraphrasing say hey what's with the revenge like don't go out killing everybody now. anything effective oh the restrictions are extremely barriers because because now even reuters is really stories of mesic risible suds and so

they this was on the cover of the york times as well right so this mean so getting that the obama administration is distancing itself from the entire complex yes it definitely is not it now they're saying look this is a. war in conjunction with me we have nothing to do with it it's not true obviously because all the surveillance satellite information the best qualified information comes directly from the pentagon the need to. be seen in the people's right and then give you and then you mention a sardinian step on your time that you mention the reports that are coming out that don't look make the rebels look so bad there's been reports of slaughter gadhafi supporters and what looked like a tent city they look like activists is that the mainstream media have characterized these rebels as liberators now these reports challenging us how are the rebels going to preserve their image in the united states who are they going to to look. look it's impossible the legal system there to mention the beginning of

our report can you would you give me two is the civilian infrastructure in city which is a room of typically big city and these bombs are so smart that circus civilians are not going to be touched i or anybody can do something like this no one can listen to one and i just we're almost out of time but k. street lobbyists they've been hired to represent that there is a shell national council so that money that they're the transitional national council is is looking to unfreeze of the libyan assets and get that to come back to washington and the farm of lodging right there which is good to people but sort of going to launch a war to be lauren so it's more of give a get together bunch of rebels somewhere maybe. for instance we're more. moral why war is going to be on the front page of every. speech as legitimate right if you've got to have the dough though get it out looks like right up at eight thousand

dollars a month for one lobbyist was the cap. or all right well thank you for being on the show thank you for the news that you broke here and we'll look for your report on monday and hopefully get to talk to you about syria saying that was asia times correspondent pepe escobar. all right back to the united states i mentioned money but what about money in the u.s. where is the u.s. economy headed and what are u.s. leaders do want about it but if you look at the numbers it looks like the economy is certainly not going up out today number show that the u.s. economy barely is growing it grew just zero point two percent barely any in the second quarter of two thousand and eleven this is down from what was first estimated and the economy for the year if you if you draw those numbers out it's supposed to grow one percent this year that's down from first estimates of one point three percent so this all adds to a list of facts worse than expected news that have economists such as nouriel roubini saying we're headed into a recession if. what has some economists who come on this show saying we're already

in one now these growth numbers out today are the kind of news that would put pressure on the federal reserve or the u.s. government to do more but lo and behold inventor named his highly anticipated speech this morning in jackson hole he actually didn't announce more quantitative easing many analysts were looking for that here's what he did say at jacksonville he said the federal reserve does have a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus we will consider continue to consider those and other pertinent issues including of course economic and financial developments at our meeting in september which has been scheduled for two days instead of one to allow for a fuller discussion so he kind of postponed any kind of action but is this really a good or a bad thing and more alarming to perhaps are bringing these positive economic assessments he said in his speech for example financial markets and institutions have already made considerable progress toward normalization meanwhile we have seen

bank of america stock tanking and getting a five billion dollar investment from warren buffett to assure people that they're staying afloat is this a sign of what's to come to answer all of these questions not answered renee he's the i spoke with karl denninger of the market ticker i asked him first if it's a good or a bad thing and bernanke he is not announcing more positive easing right now here's what he said. well quantitative easing two didn't work objective lay the only thing it did was listed prices and now all of the increase that we got over the space of eight months came off in about three weeks so all we ended up with is a temporary sugar high in the stock market and higher gasoline prices higher gas prices are bad from a consumer point of view not good so i don't see why the market would be looking for him to do more of what hasn't worked or why he wouldn't engage in more of what hasn't worked it doesn't make any sense well who benefits from that because there are a lot of people that are saying that it's like needed and that when it does come it

will be too little too late but the benefit of that there really isn't one and that's the problem is that you add things to the balance sheet you basically make the federal reserve balance sheet larger this supposedly puts more money into the system. that changes in monetary supply and credit supply has shown up but it's not producing the expected increase in economic activity because there's too much debt out there in the private sector and people are unable or unwilling to borrow you cannot boost the economy with easier lending when the problem is if people have too much debt so then is this bad out of bullets to do anything about the situation the economy of them. they can gauge in what was called in the one thousand fifty's and sixty's are for ration twist which would be an attempt to drive down the longer in the bond curve in other words make borrowing for longer periods of time cheaper the

problem was doing that is that banks exist and survive on what's called the interest rate margin or a net interest margin mihm and that is essentially the spread between short term rates and long term rates so if you flatten that out you destroy bank profitability and right now the banks are capital challenged even though they all claim they're not as we saw with bank of america in this little game that they played with warren buffett this week and that's a question i want to ask about bank of america why you pointed out in your blog that they would have gotten as good as terms from warren buffett as they would have gotten from the fat so why wouldn't they just go to the feds and that money. they could borrow that money from the fed for a twenty fifth of what they're thinking or in buffett why would you pay twenty five times more six percent as opposed to a quarter percent for money that you supposedly according to the management of bank of america you don't need that doesn't make any sense and contrary to promoting confidence i think it sounds an awful lot like what happened in two thousand and

eight when everybody ran around and said we're well capitalized we don't need a money and then three weeks later they blew up are you scared that more banks then bank of america are not capital i don't have enough cash i'm ted thank. real problem especially in europe is that you have a lot of institutions that have exposure to sovereign debt greece is trading at this point on their time your bond is if they've already defaulted and haven't paid when you have a fifty percent effective interest rate that's not an interest rate anymore that's the market telling you that there's been a default and that's the recovery that you created on that instrument so essentially the question becomes how much of this stuff is sitting on people's balance sheets and what is the last and until we get honest answers to that question we're not going to know where these banks are a question we don't have an answer to but and lanky i think is the big problem that karl denninger you think the problem for the market ticker that is out there now

someone who has done a good job managing money despite the turbulent economic times this guy steve jobs at apple it course resigned as c.e.o. this week but he started back in one thousand really with a very different vision of a different world or is it a snap in. january twenty fourth at the computer working from things macintosh and you'll see why nineteen eighty-four rim like nineteen eighty-four. well fast forward to two thousand and eleven he led the company to be known as one of the most innovative and rich earlier this month apple has more cash on hand than the u.s. government did to pay its bills that was during the debt ceiling debate now after that it came out that apple's market cap was seventy five percent of the entire

european bank stock index now the success of apple is credited largely to the vision and the unconventional tactics of jobs he's known for selling dreams and set of products and telling people what to think and his words this is why he says it's really hard to design products by focus groups a lot of times people don't know what they want and tell you show it to them now he was also not just for his vision but for public confrontations and outbursts and many were publicly documented unless the tech world is writing his departure as marking the end of an era so does mark the end of the visionary model and give rise then to what a rising mediocrity but earlier i spoke to declan mccullagh he is correspondent for c net news and i asked him about jobs a legacy he actually worked for jobs at one point at the company next that job started and i asked if his formula would yes about the visionary stuff that we hear

all over as he's departed but it's also about you know the the the more controversial stuff to the the public fights and the outbursts there's always that. well i don't know if you can have the kind of visionary c.e.o. mentality i want to keep in mind a visionary c.e.o. is all about how you make your mercury a power base that steve jobs and sometimes i think the package if you want someone who is an early design for really all that then you're going to have some tough words to go along with it and i look at the office that maybe i mean who's the opposite it's the wal-mart mimi's the bomb or the temper of you that he throws chairs there's a there but he's never managed to be what the job is this is treason a nikon he's going to left out will went into the wilderness created next computer or something too far ahead of its time ago since the first time but then but it

came back he would have brought the next knowledge back so when the late ninety nine he's been praised by his wonderful company that we know and love today our product or just returned it was really the step for us and people who are thinking back on how long what sort of an outside the world's most i work most valuable company abilene you met you mentioned not as much about him as a visionary as that kind of in your current role side that you get through it but he was also at the same time really successful at being the c.e.o. of an established mature company i'm running it well it's a very unique blend why does that work for him but not for someone as c.e.o. like say the former c.e.o. of hewlett packard who they've known for going in and retooling the business revamping it bringing it a lot of success but he had to resign because of his mercurial you could say side. well there are two types of c.e.o.'s great. ones who founded the company

and then they create markets but they may not be as well suited to running a company once the markets are a bit more mature and then others as a hired gun c.e.o. who is good and who are brought in well. but company is large enough in the market is mature enough and so just was kind of both in a way for him in ninety nine i may be sorry i didn't see was recruited john sculley who was a because as an executive there was a night in the us to help a favored sugar water or even change the world and they brought on a scully and it turned out not to be maybe the best choice is theirs. apple apple knew someone who could do both sound create markets and then run the company when the market was large enough and so apple sauntered out for fifteen years before the brains the jobs back and so i think jobs learned a lot the problem you militate i went aboard for some hours been one thousand days and then he went on to a great other great company under bush it company and that's been the that's the

same apple again a course but it is. a job dead with the c.e.o. as h.p. did when he had been able to stay. well if you're going to give the fountain so you have zen come back and created the most valuable work that most valuable company in the planet if you're going to that person a lot of leeway what bridge and so. who are you know the most is how much of the success of apple was tied up or tied in with the job the man the personality the management style of the ability to rise rise audiences versus the other executives and tens of thousands of people who work there because of both the need for a couple to help them with so visionary but when it comes to you know operating system update that was my i phone works well enough different stuff on network with the engineers doing so it's close but there was some of the thought it's all about

being people hire hired who he hired turned high rollers a little but what i'm getting at too is you see with h.p. for example and with jobs that apple models of a c.e.o. who achieved business success and also had a side that was not pleasing to society or corporate governance that side that was at best not politically correct and at worst in the case of h.p. guy you know he had it and by the way it was believed an alleged that he had a personal relationship with a contractor receives improper payments so is are those asides that come with someone who's able to achieve a lot of success at the level of pay apple someone who is a visionary and conceptual but also you know kind of a jerk. well i think there's different people for different personalities and i wouldn't link them like that but i mean is this is or isn't a broader question though it's that i'm a politician says well if you have

a certain amount of money as a part of our own you that you then think you can maybe do things that are socially inappropriate or take advantage of others because with bill clinton and then in turn there's i think john has resisted this relatively well as per there's when when we've heard stories about big government solar aerial minutes about i want to change that and if you don't fix this problem with the design of this hardware software then you're going to fire me no this isn't really using his authority this is actually what i think what the board wants him to do he's a c.e.o. people are ok with people like jobs resigning and with people like that former c.e.o. of h.p. being fired with those kind of visionaries and their shortcomings as well as leaving these companies are we going to see a rise in mediocrity. i hope we need to think that for over a when you have boards who are hiring c.e.o.'s who are less willing to take risks.