russians feel now an apology. on the. oh my goodness rob you know what the carbon are going to go to the hotel opened and outbuildings right along the boardwalk here. and irene really from livestock and toxic bones are showing drinkers in the streets to the mainstream media storm from the actual tropical storm you decide. to make onslaught of gunfire in tripoli there is a massive stockpile of raw uranium left behind so what kind of the end game will this chemical reaction trigger plus this how do you when the use of posted on you libya. getting

syria from the ongoing violence to the international community's reaction we will have the latest from syria and beyond on what appears to be tearing my country apart. the folks in washington to make decisions based on what's best for the country it's well know what's best for any political party or special interest so will president obama listen to his own advice or any other politician for that matter or will they continue playing games as the economic ball is thrown back into the administration's court we want to know where does the buck stop. at evening it's monday august twenty ninth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and your watching r.t. well you probably notice that hurricane irene came and went over the weekend five million lost power tragically. thirty two people died and seven billion dollars of

damage has reportedly been done but was it worth all of the hype and wall to wall coverage twenty four seven on the mainstream media cable networks over the weekend for what in new england didn't amount to a hurricane but a tropical storm did not produce devastating floods in new york city and in washington d.c. i can attest it was pretty much a nonevent no record rain nothing like that when calling us asked if a category five intensity debate was swirling around a category one storm well it's commentary like that that makes us want to play some of the highlights of the media storm isis this has the makings of a hurricane of our lifetime expected to gain that much more power oh crazy powerful than. my wife made me go through the emergency kit with her and yes i'll admit i was being a little bit of

a bad boy i didn't pay attention it's been getting worse every single minute it's not some sort of organic matter i guess trying to enter something. with sand and salt and i know you first heard it it doesn't smell great some are questioning whether this was overreaction if there's a bear out so you can go or i see it but i don't see anything to go on you're responsible doesn't mean the bear is going to get in there to get you but you should need to know that it's a loser. i navy our rocker but come on a competition for reporter a live shot including one with a guy standing in the hall net turned out to be wait for it ross. ok he may have won but all of this took the mainstream media away from other major news like for example the humanitarian crisis there our correspondent mary of an ocean i reports is going on right now in tripoli libya where she's reporting remember libya the country the u.s. has been blind drones over to vaca rebels and alst in colonel moammar gadhafi that's still going on and she has the latest on the rebels' firm stand against

gadhafi take a look we're hearing here in tripoli from the rebels makes their position absolutely clear there will no be any negotiations with gadhafi and all the can provide him they say is safety and trial the rebels' information minister. has said that if even if gadhafi personally calls him and asks when he will not never talk to him he has added to the rebels are not negotiating with the criminals and with the killers and prison not talks but as i had to fold in both old colonel very clear duffy is government spokesperson for the game has sent a message to the rivals about his readiness to hold talks with the rebels on forming the transitional government has even sad that gadhafi pauline's his third son saadi to lead these negotiations but we have to say that kentucky is not right now in a position to negotiate he's not in a strong position at all because the rattles are progressing quite well this

statement comes just a week after the assault on the libyan capital tripoli as a result they are virtually controlling most of the city they're actually right now controlling most of that can treat as well the situation here in truthfully i would describe these situation as humanitarian disaster the cheerfully council has said that from sixty percent to seventy. cent of all residents of the libyan capital don't have enough water and electricity. due to technical problems they say emphasizing this is not related to fight scenes on the streets the city indeed faces severe shortage of food and medicine as well and any tree city even here in. fear hotel where we are staying and where most of the foreign journalists are staying there is no water and this is day three day here in crete this so this region is very complicated and people are struggling. that was maria the notion in

libya now as everyone tries to assess what is next for the country the united nations reportedly has already drafted a plan it was leaked to my next guest matthew leave inner city press you broke the story now the report proposes two hundred military observers for libya to begin with a multinational force of two one hundred ninety you when police and also outlines plans for elections within nine months and an interim government before that but under what mandate and i think really is here to tell us tell us what gives that you thanks for being with us so first off what mandate is the u.n. operating under with this proposal for what a post conflict libya would look like. yes sure thanks a lot to i mean right now they really don't have a mandate that's what was found so surprising when i was able to get this document i mean when when the resolution one thousand nine hundred eighty three was passed which authorized a no fly zone in the protection of civilians in libya the u.n.

was assigned a role to somehow coordinate or at least receive notification of that they really advocated that role basically nato you know did what it wanted the french dropped in weapons in the mountains and then sort of i guess to sort of wreak either reclaim its lead or its relevance the u.n. under secretary general ban ki moon started this planning process but it's all been done behind closed doors he appointed a british diplomat ian martin to do it and the result is a is a document that doesn't present different alternatives that great basically presents one alternative which is it could easily have just been written in the state department or in the foreign office in the u.k. and this is the u.s. plan so what do they have authority to implement this because of course since the resolution one thousand nine hundred three with asked we've seen veto wielding members of the united nations say that nato has gone too far and gone beyond the resolution. sure that was said and as you probably noticed they didn't actually start the you know the dropping of weapons and unfreezing of funds the most recent

fight at the un has been whether un frozen libyan funds can be handed over to the national transitional council since there are not the u.n. itself hasn't recognized them yet and basically the u.s. the finance that and called them the relevant authorities but is providing them with the funds but i'll just i'll get i'll give you an example they don't they really don't have a mandate and in fact in some places this ten page martin plan says things like we can do this without getting a new mandate from the security council i.e. we can move peacekeepers from missions that already exist and put them in there we can send military advisors there was what there's one line where they just say they don't say this is controversial at all they say the security council's protection of civilians mandate implemented by nato does not end with the fall of the khadafi government and therefore nato would continue to have some responsibilities this is what i found surprising because that's a controversial statement that's a that's certainly the position of some countries but the idea that ban ki-moon would take that as his position without any equivocation is probably wrong so is

there any indication at the bite out would be behind that because as you mentioned you said that this could very well it emanated from the state department or you know the united kingdom foreign ministry so how did that happen. i mean i think the that the reason the you know the banking appointed this guy called ian martin is a long time british. u.n. official you served in that call and timor leste i mean i know him he's a nice guy but it seems like he wasn't clear on that that he sort of mistook kind of kind of. un the un wants to have a role in libya i mean there are various un agencies like even the un office of drugs and crime is in the report as wanting to send people and so is you n.d.p. so he sort of he sort of harness the energy of kind of bureaucrats that just want to be in the center of action and see it see livy as this sort of great opportunity only. even as careerist a sort of fourth for themselves but it ends up being an agenda that really takes

sides and i think that that you know ever since it came out they tried to deny they tried to say to me it's not a u.n. document now they said it's a working document but my own you know reporting among among the people to prepare it is not only is this document a sort of a a take it or leave it this is a u.n. plan even when the u.n. was purporting to try to mediate between the rebels and gadhafi government of the time the u.n. just showed up and said here's our idea and sort of like listening to all sides or who knows where the mediation could have been successful but they sent this guy called and it's sort of i think this is not a fine day for u.s. diplomacy or even handedness and what began to plummet at one time the african union with seen as providing a good solution for diplomacy in libya now we see that the african union is largely left out of this united nations plan is there a fallout from that or one that's expected. sure i mean there is i think the most in the most recent fight south africa for example took issue with this idea of turning over libyan money to the t.n.c.

at the same time i mean i think that they've kind of lost their p.r. battle in the sense that you know they went to great pains to say you know the they are not on the side of could r.t. that it's just a matter of following the procedures but the way the way many people within the u.n. see it and i think that they have some basis to say it is that the u.n. kind of uses the african union when it's convenient for example it's an african union peacekeeping mission in somalia because it's too dangerous for the other u.n. contingents but the the where the african union agrees with the u.n. there the african unity was given a lot of play but where it doesn't it for example in ivory coast where you know the french and other powers wanted to inforce a pretty close election result and through bad go out they just did it they didn't really get to give any space to this african union mediation same thing to put on libya now i know a lot of people that think the african union is you know should have been against go should be against gadhafi but the reality is you can't have it both ways you can't say that you respect the african union when they agree with you and then totally blow them off and they don't and that's. called

a double standard and you and i think a lot of really quickly we have i just want to keep this going. i want to know if it does effect the stage for you where for nato boots on the ground and do you think that that is the point. well this is i mean just to stick to the document itself it says that if things remain unsafe which apparently they are at least at this point that they could envision sending an unarmed military observers but actual peacekeepers and the document even says the two member states have been shown what capacity would be needed but i was lee trying i have a pretty good sense of the two are although i want to nail it down i'll come on you i think if we had their hands give us your hands one is i believe that one is france just you know a. thing of reference was was no mistake and so that's a european country that would be a controversial move but i think the reality is i step back and look at it to sort of procedurally the un is not supposed to be sharing its secret nation building plans with only two states so from the beginning when i first heard about the document i kept asking are you going to release it to the public to the libyan

people or at least the member states that supposedly control the organization and he said no but the but the document itself when i got it says that they've already shared it with two member states to get their members hated them die and so now yes i did i know it's a it's has the similar sound to it to an animal eating at thanksgiving in the united states that's not. all right there you have to take that one however you want without a u.s. or a u.s. and france. and you know. turkey is an animal and it's also the name of. the two countries this doesn't say that the two countries have said ok and i think that i really want to remain sort of as a reporter i want to say it's improper for the secretariat to sort of deal with member states selectively now you're saying it happens all the time it does the question that i have here is now that it's exposed in this document what are these member states going to do the problem i'm going to that you may didn't ask this but i'm going to say it anyway i mean is that countries like russia and china ok they were very suspect initially and throughout of nato's role for that reason you see

china saying we want the u.n. to be at the lead in libya now they see the document that shows that the u.n. is itself siding with nato at the same time they don't want to criticize the u.n. because it's to them it's an alternative to the nato and reality when you look at the document is is is you know the meet the new boss same as the old boss but we have to see how that plays out most of them are now looking at syria anyway so it's sort of you what happened in libya it happened some people get some jobs pick over the corpus get some oil contracts and you know it's sad because there's a. it's a really it's a real turning point to say like is this a new kind of regime change could the actual rebels actually have say or like they have been demonstrations in misrata against sort of operative foreign opportunists coming into libya but rather that they catch the the ear of the t.n.c. that's busy signing contracts i don't know that we'll have to see i certainly appreciate you are going to get what you have thank you that was matter in the end journalistic. meanwhile still

a lot of questions about just who these rebels are that matthew and i were speaking about they are in charge of libya now but no one knows exactly who is behind them what their motivations are or what will happen to libya's chemical weapons stockpiles will be hundreds of tons of raw uranium which can be processed and used in nuclear bombs also a rebel leadership that reportedly has all kind elements now maybe a scary formula and as our t.v. reporter laurette it sounds here's a case for why. tripoli a city in chaos there's constant gunfire both aggressive and celebration and on the outskirts of the capital stockpiles of chemical weapons nato know very little about the people who might come to power. tripoli so now if you've got this cache of weapons of mass destruction then again people really don't know what. and if this

is falling into the hands of people i mean the situation is potentially disastrous despite the heavy presence of rebels in tripoli a chemical stockpile appears still to be in the hands of what's left of good athletes government that's both good and bad news all around a series of meetings in two thousand and three moammar gadhafi agreed to allow weapons inspectors into libya the first step towards abandoning his w m d program in return for a normalizing of relations with the u.k. and u.s. he wouldn't use all move the material but now thanks in part to nato in support of the rebels he's on the back foot and may feel he has nothing to lose by disregarding that agreements cry victory or martyrdom will strike an ominous note to those who know his weapons potential given the violations of. national territory of libya by nato led rebel forces i think the idea that he would be beholden to

these types of these remains would be off the table at this point and certainly he was caught in a scene in early july and that he would be willing to strike out europe if tripoli was attacked so i think it's a fair assumption to say that if there is no capability that he would be looking at an option at this point in any way but the alternative rebel control of chemical weapons is arguably worse according to many some of the rebel factions have links to al qaida or a commentator abdel bari at once. the west got itself into this trouble now it has to decide how it will figure it out and the options attractive we knew that the majority of the people who are. extremists so the people who could be people are very mobile of i believe there. will be more program i think than. a few there are some indications nato is considering putting peacekeeping troops on

the ground in libya experts who are back could be seen by parts of the free libya movement as an act of aggression but having supported the rebel movement they too must now deal with the consequences even if that w d islamic extremists. and of course there's a question of what this all means for syria as this goes on in libya as we analyze what will happen in a post gadhafi libya there is an arrest and violence continuing in syria exact reports have been difficult to confirm it times for one because access has been limited to many of the foreign journalists there but amidst the conflicting reports we've seen come from the country artie's arena headed to the town of latakia and she dug up and tried to make sense of the evidence of unrest and fighting going on there. let's talk a special significance for syria and for the president bashar lasted his father is

from a village near the city in which the population is predominantly calibrate just like the rest of the province the protests began here in march of this here this is one of the main buildings this is one of the main squares in the city of latakia where the syria tell headquarters located on the right in the middle of its syria tell us a company telephone company which was owned by one of the cousins of the president and the protesters expressed their hatred towards the regime by looting the place and then burning it violence returned to the talking again just a couple of weeks ago i mean more than thirty lives and the government protests broke out in the sunni part of the city officials said they were battling with armed groups which they say have infiltrated the area now what's the story here the story goes according to the protesters according to the opposition answer majority of the western media sources is that there were a warship stationed right here in this bay and there were shelling the sunni part of the town which is all along the coastline right over there and the middle of

that part of the town is the palestinian camp but you have secured mine that's according to the u.s. administration who are obviously monitoring the situation there were no warships stationed in this space on the seventeenth of august or earlier on the surface it seems to be life as usual but i want to take a closer look signs of unrest come through so we got to the sunni part of the town and there are no signs of any fire coming from the side of the sea where i suppose we're just ships were there definitely signs of battle you can see by the bullet holes in the walls in the market. so. some buildings were damaged. some people unwilling to speak on camera views critical of the assad regime saying the government is to blame for failing to deliver and i've month old promises of. forms this they say force the people out of the streets storing up protests the reluctance of people to be

interviewed may not be surprising given that we were accompanied by unarmed military escorts throughout our trip from a talk in syria if i was r.t. meanwhile in the united states a different battle going on the one over the economy and today president obama tapped a new chair for his council of economic advisers this announcement comes just ahead of a big speech monday where obama is reportedly planning to unveil a jobs plan we don't know exactly what it will entail but here are some details these are by partisan ideas that ought to be the kind of proposals that everybody can get behind no matter what your political affiliation might be so my hope and expectation is that we can put country before party and get something done for the american people. yes well we know that obama is known for his hope however the american people don't seem to have a lot of it right now after two years of around nine percent unemployment and after

witnessing the political wrangling of the debt ceiling debate or gallup poll showed approval of president obama's handling of the economy after that drop to a new low of just twenty six percent of course that came after a battle that resulted in the country losing its aaa credit rating in part because politicians were unable to put country before party but unfortunately it looks like these very politicians are now the only hope for an economy teetering on recession that's africa reserve chairman ben bernanke he hinted there will be no new starter was there plans of action he said that in a speech friday for now at least they'll be meeting again in september talking about the economy some more now bernanke you tossed it back to obama and to congress for solutions instead that are fiscal he says fiscal policies are needed but he did say that the country would be well served by a better process for making fiscal decisions yeah that doesn't sound like brain

surgery or like you need a rocket scientist to figure that out but to help us figure out if it's even possible earlier i spoke with doug campbell he is former staff economist on president obama's council of economic advisers he helped prepare the president's daily economic briefing is also a ph d. candidate at the university of california davis to start off i asked him about obama's latest appointment of alan krueger and if we can expect a dramatic policy departure or more of the same here's what he said. both the key for me laurie is that of all the president's economic advisers so far alan krueger actually has been most of the strongest liberal credentials of any of them and i don't recall but even though christina romer and larry summers were good friends they often disagreed on economic policy and christina romer by the way was actually follow this kind of an economic moderate until until the debates of two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten when suddenly she found herself on the liberal

wing of the economic policy debates and the administration now the public are going this morning x. you know the key for him was whether alan krueger would have a voice within the administration so my contacts of the news are actually telling me that i went through as a great relationship with president obama so i think right alan krueger is a moment in history is as calm as it has arrived the question for me is how he moves forward and advising the president on a number of key policy issue right now and that will happen and that will likely have to wait and see but one thing that came out friday bernanke gave ben bernanke in his speech he didn't hand it more quantitative easing which a lot of people thought that he was going to instead he said that long term unemployment is going to remain a challenge have to be a priority but he passed the buck back to political leaders for fiscal solutions so is he right our fiscal policy is really the only thing to deal with the country's economic problems at this point. well let's let's just take it a step back really quickly so the problem right now is that we're in what

economists call a balance sheet recession right households borrowed too much during the housing bubble and since then once the bubble crashed they found out that they were worth much less than they thought they were at the time so what. but households all tried to do was to save a lot in this make that no one was spending so what the government needs to do is to find a way to help households. you know shore up their balance sheets the best way to do this is with this bill policy right. unfortunately i think it doesn't take an expert to know that. the fiscal policy given the current composition of the house of representatives this is utterly unlikely to pass congress right and so in short ben bernanke he was utterly wrong to try to pass the buck back right to presidents often get the blame or credit kind of unfairly for how the economy is performing the key though is it's actually the federal reserve which has much more influence

over the short term prospects of the economy than any other factor but doug so i but doug what would you say that they can do at this point because you know people such as nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz say hey q.e. two didn't work the money didn't go where it was supposed to it went overseas that liquidity went places where you can get a higher return on your investment so why would you do more quantitative easing when it hasn't worked. right so i would actually argue that it it has worked and that if you look at how prices respond in the markets to more quantitative easing to. how the currency markets responded every time quantitative easing has been tried it succeeded in lowering the yield on treasury bonds and succeeded on lowering the value the dollar to things which which need to happen are necessary and sufficient conditions for you can see for you something that actually has a number of options a disposal it could cut the just down three and cut the rate that the federal

reserve pays to banks on holding excess reserves at the at the fed. it could also use language in a more vigorous way to promise to hold rates to look at zero point two five percent through the middle of two thousand and thirteen no matter what for example there are a number of options it was or pads were so you so you don't buy it at the federal reserve as out of bullets as some people think not at all and you shouldn't either oh well well i don't think that ben bernanke is going to do anything right now if his speech is any indication on friday so is there anything that the federal government can do that is politically plausible given the lack of political will to to agree on anything when it comes to fiscal policy right well the key for me is to look and see how long krueger responds on three key policy fronts which don't necessarily involve a house of representatives the first is on housing the ministration can use this to

back to control over fannie and freddie to a while millions of homeowners whose mortgages are guaranteed by danny and freddie to refinance their mortgages and put more money in their pockets but helping households rebuild their balance sheets the second is on the. currency policy for the for the u.s. treasury showed a reverse and strong dollar policy and it should look at. i don't know how to get china to revalue their currency you know developing countries now are spending more than a trillion dollars a year to building up their board reserves in order to manipulate their own currency because of this but you could argue that's what the united states has done with quantitative easing with with lowering of i'd like a dollar as well right well the difference is quite as using was was aimed at domestic monetary policy whereas these these actions by china and other countries are just manipulating its currency so china while it's buying three hundred billion

dollars worth of u.s. treasuries each fiscal quarter has also been raising its domestic interest rates which kind of counteracts the stimulus and tax of keeping its currency rate low and sort it's completely beggar thy neighbor rates which it seemed like they did the united states policymakers attempt to make. changes that way or put pressure on but i have a feeling it might be largely political and we don't actually see that we're out of time to discuss that further even though i would love to but yes yes or no doug you really think that there is any physical solution that will be done right now if you had to make a prediction that would be dramatic i do not see this still solution anytime in the near future and i don't really notice creation would be well to look do well to look at other options it won't involve ok well that kind of big difficult but we'll have to see out play that we certainly appreciate you coming on the show that was doug campbell former staff economist i'm.