the desire for the best thing is hunger that drowns out our inner lives. the story of one man who returns whom after years of alienation. monks pass on or keep. seven thirty pm in moscow these iraqi headlights thousands gathering in cairo's tahrir square for mass protests planned as a final call for military rulers to relinquish power to a civilian government rallies that have seen egypt's most violent clashes since the fall of president hosni mubarak now entering week two. the arab league saying syria's ignored a deadline to accept foreign observers in the country and now faces further sanctions this as france seeks to set up a humanitarian corridor in syria

a move seen by many as a first step toward military intervention. conflicting sides on serbia's border with northern kosovo war and of a possible escalation of violence local serbs say nato backed forces are broken earlier agreements by trying to tear down a border barricade a move that led to fierce clashes. next cross talk with peter lavelle on the unfolding events of the arab spring and what the protestors real goals may be stay with us. i think it was. a low in welcoming cross-talk a little we knew tensions in violence but the doubt many of the hopes at the heart of the egyptian revolution is mubarak's military establishment angling to remain in power will next week's parliamentary elections be held and if they are will be seen

this fair and legitimate. cross-talk egypt's prospects i'm joined by rania al maliki in cairo she is the chief editor of the daily news egypt in haifa we have david because he is a professor of middle east studies at the university of haifa and in london we cross to karl charo he's a middle east blogger all right this is cross i mean we are all more my guest can jump in anytime they want but first marcia is egypt's revolution regressing well events are changing fast and it's hard to say right now but tension in egypt has remained unrelenting for more than a week now the country's health ministry says at least forty people have been killed and almost two thousand were injured in clashes between security forces and protesters calling for the end to the military's heavy handed the riot some of the fiercest since the ouster of president hosni mubarak last february has plunged the country into the kind of turmoil that market early days of the arab spring unquote

vision of the good things in those in charge in egypt would be well advised to take people's political demands and justify concerns seriously and to act fast to create the right environment for the upcoming elections so shot from but several political parties have already suspended their electoral campaigns while protesters say the parliamentary elections scheduled for tomorrow twenty eight will be meaningless unless the supreme council hands over a power play until they feel more. well mohamed time tally the man currently in charge of egypt and trust the public saying the staff did not want power. we will stick to the timeline of parliamentary elections followed by presidential elections in june twenty twelve and then the military will return to its barracks but only if the people want to and only through referendum. but the statement did little to placate the protesters who have contributed and the military leadership as the continuation of the mubarak regime there are claims that the military has

a record of abuses on par with that of mubarak's have been backed by organizations like amnesty international. but not everyone has joined the protesters the muslim brotherhood who are poised to clean them all see the upcoming elections are taking a wait and see approach in part out of here that the road could be moved and many in egypt believe that postponing elections could only entrenched military rule which in turn would further inflame the current instability one things clear is that the status quo is untenable well let's see about that i mean if i go to you first let's start with the conspiracy theories a lot of people saying that the current violence of this week and it's going on as we speak right now is something that the military actually wanted to have happen in the first place because they dream we don't want to have these elections because they're actually afraid of the outcome i think this is the biggest mystery it seems like this would be motive for them to postpone the elections but there is at the same time they're insisting on having the elections i mean this morning there was a press conference with members of. this gas and. the head of the

electoral commission and they were just voicing the plans that they've had in place for the november twenty eighth elections and it seems that they will not oppose the elections so at this point it is not really clear why this situation has been made to reach this head. to me i think this is just gross mismanagement which is characteristic of this cast since they first took over ok it's interesting karl maybe the military should get out of the business of politics but it doesn't seem that way because it seems to me that no matter what election outcome if there is the election the military is a net loser because everyone talks about losing political power but actually they will be the biggest. loser in terms of the economy because as is well known the gyptian military is so heavily vested in the economy that any kind of democratic election that reflects the will of the people will say hey it's that belongs to the

state not to the military it could be taken away from them yeah but what's threatening them at the moment is not only so-called democratic elections that might or might not happen in five days what is really a threat to the military rule over egypt now is that he awakening off their evolutionary sentiments among the people of egypt and that's what at stake what is at stake of the moment and many people especially in the west are scratching their heads or thinking but you have elections in five days why would you go back to this three it's well they haven't been paying any attention to what's been happening in the past eight months and what the military has been doing in terms of violations and excesses all aimed at maintaining its control and elections have they brought in let's say a victory for the muslim brotherhood would have actually strengthened the position of the military and that's why i think what's happening at the moment in the here and elsewhere in egypt this we forget is very very important in stopping that and saying very clearly it's time for the military to get out of the business of

politics completely if i go to david i think it's very interesting here is that the military me actually be carrying a page from mubarak's way of rule and being backed by the united states for so many decades is it saying to the people look it's so unstable whatever the election outcome is is it weird that your guardians of security were the guardians of peace all of this stuff going out going on and i tell you scariest is just chaos that you need which of course egyptians don't believe that anymore very few arabs in the middle east believe their governments are actually protecting them actually in most cases they still oppress them so the military is trying to have it both ways matey . well i'm not quite sure about peculation going all of the military code is a conspiracy through postpones elections i have derived it and i've written about it and have derived from the so many elections before in egypt thirty five thirty or forty years the real three the regime time and again i have had the

co-host of the most of brotherhood look to court dissipate in the elections with our provocation they have a dialogue about i'm not quite sure this is to asia right now because the situation immediately so severe is so frightening is so unstable a is so really a danger to the situation through the whole situation of the middle east so i'm not quite sure this is according to the situation but but let me tell you that about what we've seen this is a site we've seen from that how do you square this is really frightening because this is that this does not leave the progression to democracy to open society but simply to energy and the quickly when this go down to the streets bt doesn't mean

politics. is a much a careless and when there is chaos in the street and politics are doesn't work it means that the government has a has not get could no to rule the political reins and this is absolutely disastrous ok with me if i go back to you in cairo it seems to me that you know people are using the the muslim brotherhood one way or another saying oh oh well we should have the elections because we really don't want them to have so many seats in and in parliament and at the same time saying that you know the country isn't ready for democracy that we have to postpone their so you know again it's kind of lecturing the people because the people are going to vote voted a certain way and there are certain powers that be within egypt in iraq saying that would be the wrong vote the wrong decision. well i think we need to go back to why this crisis has emerged i don't think it has anything to do with elections and i think people are i think in general we're looking at the at the wrong picture where

we're tying it to the elections because the elections are so i mean they're going to happen in a couple of days but the issue is not about elections i think the explosion that started on saturday was a manifestation of the frustrations that have been building up and culminating over the past ten months there have been twelve thousand people subjected to military trials there have been reports of terrible abuses by the military police and by the police their trials of the former icons of the of the former regime have been dragging on and a way that has proved i think beyond a doubt to many people that they are not being taken seriously a lot of the police officers who were implicated in the killing of protesters during the uprising in january have been even released they're not even held in prison pending investigations or pending court cases and they've been released and they are intimidating the families of the of the martyrs so there's a whole combination of issues that culminated. on saturday when it exploded on

saturday when the police used excessive force with a handful i mean maybe not more than one hundred protesters who were families of marchers who decided to go to continuous that's and to draw attention to the fact that they have not been given any compensation and have been there have not been given any compensation for their you know or did get their given any medical treatment by the state since the uprising this is the real problem and the fact that elections seem to be taking place there that this happened right before the elections has just complicated the issue and the fact that it's been mishandled so badly instead that there is that there is a problem going on and what is happening now is a manifestation of all this frustration ok carol did you really. i believe the military when they say they want to get out of politics they really want to promote the democratic process because the military does have such a comfortable position in egyptian society i mean they have for decades that was

one of mubarak's ways to divide and rule they gave the military so many privileges of the military just to just can't fathom not ruling egypt. absolutely not i don't buy that for one second and the military class let's remember the rulers of egypt of the moment don't just resign the officers that came into power after mubarak left they are the same class the military class that has been ruling the arab republics for four or five decades and they have been all pressing and stifling the development of our societies so this is their very last stand and they need to go or they need to go for democracy to prevail and i hope it all breaks as i say and i fully agree with iranian had and i this is what to add them a very important point that many people onto this three it's when they're trying to prevent the possibility of stuff as it's called their superior council for the armed forces kind of establishing its a cell itself as

a silk road constitutional authority ahead of the coming changes in egypt and thereby kind of having an overall control of the political system so regardless of the outcome of the parliamentary and presidential elections it would stand with a lot of power but but that's the i just want to go back to what david was saying which i think are let me let you finish and we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on egypt state party. if you. think.

the mission of free. education free and fair. the charge is free from a challenge three. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media oh god heart tetons tom. i think. that's a big problem and global is the creation of the food system the global food system is not created to feed the people of the world it's created to maximize the profits. gernot trading the actual cash physical brain or trading promises for grain to be delivered a month or six months or twelve months or eighteen months in the future. for is

a body like like silver or gold that can be negotiated in order to some degree and . place. water. possibly it's not traded now but it could be in the future. can still. welcome back to crosstalk i'm here little to remind you we're discussing egypt's political quagmire. can. ok david and i could go to you in haifa i mean we've been talking about the disturbances in the violence of the last few days and going as we look towards the elections here but you know ever since mubarak has has left the scene it's really

the issue of social injustice that is not being addressed whatsoever as you know we see a lot of state workers getting a nice pay increase the army. everything the military hasn't had anything it controls in society change whatsoever and you just have the same social issues of the dictatorship of mubarak still exist under this military are one for the grunts the country and that's what really angry people well first of all this is not if the total picture through. authoritarian regime in egypt is a return to state from july twenty third nineteen fifty two and this is a brutal regime and the mirror is a regime is is a regime will not give up they will not give up in one thousand perhaps he's weak i don't know i haven't yet decided what is our character or was is but. they will not give out and the masses this is most important two things the first

the masses marching on the streets and the second is the power of the one in the in egyptian politics but mainly if you can say arab politics now about semes is marching on is it exists three they really do road toward democracy you are mistaken when they say who really did they if they don't mean liberalism or freedom western way what they mean is to less to please oppression of the ruler to be more completion that but not if they don't understand what democracy is as they don't understand what the girl is an easy western way now if i if i understand what's going on in the streets of cairo. and it's gone with the streets or in other arab states the way they don't they don't go marching positively two outs are so who our are. it institution because of a gay said to each of political goals i'm afraid they would say to would really

want is not a civil society but to lead a society the railroad risque do you run down with your promise a lot of stories and you brought up a lot of points to the young generation you that i would go into k. to generation you brought up a lot of right for me if i could go to you so what we just heard and we just heard what we just heard from david is that education saying basically arabs are just not ready for democracy they can't fathom the idea of one person one vote right and that's what i got from that i can i completely i completely disagree with that point of view i think it's it seems understand exactly what they want i think the airlines democracy they want rule of law they want. quality they want social justice and they want to feel that their human rights are being respected this is why people went out into the streets on january twenty first and i do not believe that all of the egyptians want a religious rule or islamic rule this is not what the what egyptians of all

political currents are talking about except for a fringe group of maybe salafist who are giving that discourse without really knowing what it means in general this is absolutely not true i think people and egypt know what they want exactly and have are still continue continuing to fight for it ok carl in looking at western media mainstream media covering these events here i can't help but feel that they say so where they're not ready yet they're not ready for their just as many going to college to ruminate on it sorrowfully going to go to cairo in london first or i still get this an impression that you know they you know look at all these disturbances maybe they should call off the elections because you know they won't have a are they likely when using the internet i mean i'm going to morrow says hey carl did you hear my question karl. yes yes i heard your question and i think there's a lot of anxiety in this that's reflected by what david is saying as well and i must congratulate him because he's doing his very best to kind of impersonate the character to an article zionist and he's carrying it out of a very very

a very successfully i mean what he's saying is utterly despicable about his procession of people which he threw it off as a comment like that as muslims they are not muslims there are muslims and christians in it and they're fighting for a better future the fact that he and others in israel and maybe in the west would portray it as some kind of decline and going back as a middle ages only to france this sense of anxiety about what they're calling garner but this is a very constructive sense of an arche if we don't like this diet form of politics in these we're writing off hundreds of years of kind of the history of western democracy look at the french revolution look at the movement look at all this movement that about direct democracy and going to the streets to get it to get your rights we cannot have a situation of parliamentary election and pretending to bring about democracy in this way when there's a coercive controlled by by the military so please spare us the stereotypes and

let's look at their reality of the situation on the ground which is about the real aspirations for change and i'm not going to accept any sort of dismissive denial of all right david you were going to reply and i agree i gave it a reply and there is there is a time delay so david would you like to reply to that. i like very much to react to release this is not to being the israeli look we have. seen us pull published in egypt thirty eight percent of the egyptian would vote for a muslim brotherhood for the win justice party twelve percent for the no less for the current a new party and. the pew research poll published in june two thousand and ten indicates that ninety five of the egyptian public would welcome an islamic politics eighty four percent support the death penalty for those who leave islam eighty two percent in favor of stoning people who could lead to adultery fifty four percent

justify suicide bombings fifty nine percent side is the most the fundamentalists and only twenty seven percent with the modernizers these are the the polls investigation done by american iranian katie site david thank you thank you for that of being israeli i'm sorry i have to say that my viewers with you haven't time delay here what is iran going to hire regard hire oh no that's a great way to go to cairo now please ok you did look like you agreed with what david had to say go right ahead. yes i don't agree with any of what he's saying and i think you should spare is also the polls that don't clarify the poll results don't clarify what questions were asked when you when you make these strange percentages this is absolutely not true and even if thirty eight percent of the people choose the muslim brotherhood does that does not necessarily mean that the muslim brotherhood represent regression of some sort or represent some kind of that iran style islamic rule or

a demand for that they are part of the fabric of the society and they will have to be incorporated like everybody else in the society although you know i've been covering the islamic movements over the past five years and my newspaper and everybody at this time is not islam is all believe that every single step there of the society needs to be involved in the political process so we are not and in any . way going to exclude anyone from this this mosaic there the situation now is as follows we are innocent and about to have elections and mind you most of the people in the here are not against having the elections now the fact that they are have been angered and have been driven to go back to the here because of the excesses of the ministry of interior and because the people have been killed. a few tiley will for no reason at all does not mean that we are against having elections and going through the process of the democratic process that will rid us of the army council ok and this is the situation we're in now carl

feingold you again looking at it's taking we could maybe change the angle here is the outside looking in a bijection situation in the election that the impending election i just can't help but feel that the the west particularly the united states would like to see the military stay in control of egypt in one form or another or over a very slow time period phased out because that's an ally that's a strategic ally it's not the status of egypt it's the egyptian military that's their ally right now and all of these fanning about. you know though. the the muslim brotherhood is going to take over and the fanaticism and all that but still you still that still see that in the mainstream here i just can't help but the west would like to see much slower change in egypt and other countries look at bahrain for example. absolutely i mean this is one of the most important a side effect if you like of the arab spring is it explores the decline in their west and particularly the american power to influence events in the middle

east has become and it's allowing all these other agents to kind of push forward and try to dictate their own agenda i mean they've just withdrawn from iraq that's that was a big retreat and in egypt they're kind of unlike other countries where you hear them being more vocal so you hear the american administration calling for change much more aggressively they've had a second chance and they've had a chance to rehearse what they could have said in the case of diarrhea and this influx of that because they have absolutely no nor kind of consistency they have nor real policy and they have not in direction and what they what they're hoping at the moment is somehow that the military would regain control and ensure a more kind of transition in favor of their own interests and are perhaps for that israel but what absolutely a kind of deserve is the lark actually the power to influence events and they are not any coherent and consistent idea about how to advocate change or or even kind

of maintain a consistent position of our democracy movement which in my opinion in making them lose a lot of credibility and also is weakening their position a lot the upside of as i say is for anyone who's interested in democracy and secular forms of practice in politics is that kind of weakening of external influence opens up great opportunities in our country is and i think it's an opportunity that progressive politics and parties have to kind of rise up to ok i just finished up in cairo because that's where the election is going to be in egypt is going to be held a few days it will be election be deemed after the fact is legitimate in fear do you think. i hope that they are managed that i hope this cast does one thing right is that they managed to secure these elections my biggest fear is that people will be too afraid to go out in the streets and vote and the next couple of days. is

that if the staff does this right and manages to secure the polling stations and manages to just see this happen you know him and his transparent way as possible then i think they should be deemed fair and and then they should be i'm hoping that they will be fair and transparent and they're just people are very vigilant they're all watching. me out the best for the election many thanks my guest today in london haifa and in cairo with make sure viewers for watching us here r.t. she takes time to remember.

didn't the. wealthy british style sun. rise. hi fred.