and the time magazine person of the year goes to the protester from egypt to the u.k. the us to libya unrest has spread like a wildfire around the world so who are these protesters and why are some treated like heroes and others like villains. and speaking a protest that looks like the u.s. is moving right on down its checklist of foreign enemies next stop syria or bashar al assad is clinging on to power we'll ask if syria is on its way to becoming a libya to point out. the solution to the uprooting penguins who grew up in the

body which we're getting along with the opposite sex sort of covering fluff and not real news as protests happen around the world leave it to the mainstream media to miss the real headlines looks like these outlets are more concerned with getting the story out first and getting it right. putting up their guard for us sure likes to tell the idea of a nuclear free world but it isn't practicing what it preaches so ten years after the u.s. pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty with russia what's up with disabilities apapa see. it is wednesday december fourteenth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you watching our team. well let's begin with the person time magazine deems as person of the year for this year two thousand and eleven there

were whispers it would be steve jobs but no this year time chose the protester had an interesting visual for the protester but in many ways this choice really makes sense from the arab spring to the crisis in the euro zone to occupy wall street the protester has come to embody what much of two thousand and eleven has been about fighting either violently or not for change so we want to take a look at a few of this year's protests we see significant and examine what they've resulted in and talk about what connects them and what sets them apart let's begin with egypt and more specifically the mass protests in tahrir square now the reasons ranged from widespread poverty to anger at the thirty year reign of egyptian president hosni mubarak protesters most of them peaceful came to embody the arab spring positive are to step down the protests was embraced by the american media and government alike but fast forward to today after months of military rule

egyptians voted propelling two parties to power the formerly banned muslim brotherhood and their more radical religious brother in the salah fees raising the very real prospect of a conservative theocracy emerging on to libya now where the country split in half between moammar gadhafi loyalists and those who the west dubbed rebel fighters in the midst of this civil war the u.s. and nato forces stepped in with airstrikes and aid for those who offer who oppose gadhafi never mind that many of them were islam is and had ties to al qaeda a national transitional council was formed and in october colonel moammar gadhafi was dragged into the street and brutally killed now you don't hear too much about libya now but the fight continues there with near daily battles between factions jockeying for power. as spring turned into summer a twenty nine year old man in tottenham england is shot and killed by police and

investigation later revealed it was a mistake a peaceful protest of following that shooting turn into what much of the western world referred to as riots and to be sure over the course of a week more than three thousand people were arrested five killed and several stores buildings and cars were vandalized the mass media was full of talk of mobs greed and a lack of moral compass but little was said about anger frustration and a loss of faith in the system. then came a movement that is still ongoing occupy wall street it started with a group of a few hundred gathering to protest the corruption of a system in which the one percent or most wealthy and powerful in america make the rules and the other ninety nine percent lose out occupy wall street spread around the country and around the world here in the us harsh and squares were occupied by peaceful protesters for months they were met with police brutality in the form of cover spray tear gas and rubber bullets and the mainstream media who called them

dirty hippies with no clear message just a few days ago we saw protest in russia people who expressed anger about the recent elections there that landed the united russia party back with the majority of power the us media covered it as the arab spring on russia's shores reporters gushed about a resurgence of the liberal opposition completely ignoring the very ugly nationalist and anti semitic leading among many. and finally on to syria where protests are still ongoing now you hear a lot of talk on the mainstream media about the protests and about the five thousand people who have reportedly been killed but there's little mention that this is actually part of an ongoing civil war protestors there are armed and are battling the government the divide very much along sectarian lines sunni sunni's versus shiites most recently a former official with the f.b.i. is reporting u.s. and nato forces have already landed just outside of syria and are planning to train

the militants to overthrow the regime regime of president bashar al assad critics say this move will fuel the civil war and give an excuse for a future intervention so we want to delve a little deeper into this there were of course many many more protests this year but let's focus specifically on these and to do just that earlier i spoke to asia times correspondent pepe escobar to start off i kept it nice and simple i asked him what is a guy into rear square and a guy in moscow have in common take a look. it's very hard to make a synthesis of the global movement in fact this is now occupy the world but basically this is the beginning of the end of neo liberalism as we know it durable capitalism financial capitalism and the people who are proving this are not they're not even the one percent they are there's zero zero point one percent in fact i guessed seven billion so this is

a movement of the seven billion most of them are young and most of them are connected and a great deal have a very good education as well so in moscow into rear square in bahrain in some streets in latin america or even in hong kong or even in asia as well they are all fighting for the same saying we want to fight for another world is possible this is something a kind of slogan that came out with the world social forum then years ago but the world social forum never became a movement the world while movement it took to these or any took terrier square for the movement to go to europe to madrid and then from madrid to the u.s. and from the us it went all over the world in fact so this is the new generation it's the educated but it's also the excluded to people who are not part of these banquets which you know we are living in a becher's bank with all of us in fact are in iran's veil the rolling stones in the

sixty's and my first reaction when i saw occupied was this is the new may sixty eight well remembered that make well here we actually have a when you saw the front cover of time magazine i don't know if you noticed it not only is the president there a protester but it is a woman who has his face is covered his head is covered looks like you know perhaps he's coming from an arab country what what do you think about the fact that they chose this visual to end by oh if a protester. at least at this time to head off for that time magazine concept and for the execution of i've never been a fan of time magazine i was more rolling stone so you know what i mean anyway my first impression was this is a woman in the rain and she was in front of the poor around about in the rain she's an educated shiite woman like some some i mean called i was in contact with some of

them in fact she was probably arrested off towards her movement is going nowhere because the repression was or rendez did not only destroyed the poor roundabout which was the graphic symbol of the protest movement in bahrain that they evaded mosques they arrested doctors so the repression in bahrain which is the untouchable in terms of western media we cannot we can't talk about libya we can talk about syria now a days but nobody talks about their reign anymore any my view this was one of the strongest protests of all the arab different arab strings and then repression which was coordinated between the g.c.c. countries and we direct intervention by saudi arabia proved to all of us that the saudis are at the top of the counter revolution against these protests and you know a you mention syria and you say you know it has been covered and it has to an extent but not very much is certainly more than bahrain but on one hand let's talk

about the coverage of syria on one hand there's this talk by a lot of western media this need for assad to step down that the need to protect the poor citizens in syria it can sound at times i think and and a lot of people think like the pre libya rhetoric on the other hand you know russia and china have already vowed to veto any sort of u.n. security council resolution so break this down for me on kind of the two sides with where we are right now in with syria well this stakes in syria soar much higher compared to libya because this is a. don't wreck its act that direct clash between the u.s. and nato on one side and russia and china on the one you know on the other side much more than it was in libya in libya russia and china and even to the other breaks and germany as well they said ok maybe this is not the red line yet let's give them the benefit of the doubt i mean the french the brits and the americans they knew will happen the country was destroyed not in an iraqi style extent but

this most of it destroyed the infrastructure was destroyed in syria you cannot do that because first of all they're going to have to fight the real army even if they're not very competent but they are battle hardened there's been two wars in the middle east the syrian army it's a smaller country there's more population you cannot simply landing invasion is out of the question because the it will go all over the place the repercussions to turkey to jordan to iraq to saudi arabia so nato plan is to foment civil war and that's it's like it was exactly what they were doing some of us broke a few weeks ago this story that there's a command and control center in southern turkey and i'll see bill edmonds former f.b.i. whistle blower in her website she broke an amazing story this week which was not picked up by american media off course because there's a gag order you cannot talk about these things they are troops now at the syrian jordanian border and these troops are clearly from iraq where obama standing is

that the war is over no it's not over now it's a counter-insurgency war in iraq this war will go on for a long time because the u.s. does not want an iraq there is supposed to rent i want to listen for a moment i think it's important you brought this up that there are troops that have been seen right along the border there and i want to take a minute and listen to secretary of state hillary clinton meeting with the syrian national council last week. ok obviously a democratic transition includes more than removing the assad regime. it means setting syria on the path of the rule of law and protecting the universal rights all citizens regardless of fact or ethnicity or gender. so i mean you already mentioned forces said to be along the border there what is going on in terms of the state department and what what's being planned

sort of behind closed doors from what you understand. look when it's time to disagree with pivotal what hillary clinton just said but what she didn't say is the real story and watch it didn't say is we want to bring this regime down we went through gene change but we still don't know how to do it so made to a splendid fact is to subsequent track it's this civil war basically to turkey and the turks which is the simpson that a lot of us have been discussing over the past few weeks what would you start is a must they're all they have a foreign policy that implies they won't create any problems with any of their neighbors this is their foreign place for the past eight years in fact and now they're creating a plumber who had direct neighbor the castle it's free trade agreement between turkey and syria they're losing money you know people in turkey who do business there to losing money it's you know it's shooting yourself in the foot the effect

and they're trying to please they don't with being at let's say at the forefront of a war because of their own interests as well they would love to set up for instance a kurd area inside syria so kurds you know not the idea would migrate to this whole tone of this area inside syria and turkey would get rid of their kurdish problem this is good politically crazy it's not going to happen because the syrians would never allow it the only way to do this between fayed syria and nobody's crazy to you know in the middle of a transatlantic crisis it cannot make financial and moral cultural nobody is going to invest in that new land war in the middle east have a way that we've gone from libya bahrain and syria now let's let's talk a little bit about saudi arabia i want to talk about a story very few people have heard anything about

a saudi arabian woman and her sixty's was recently beheaded they're charged with a crime. of sorcery now authorities who who arrested her say that she had tricked people into thinking that she could treat their illnesses charging them hundreds of dollars per session now you may remember a little while back while in iran when there was talk of a woman being stoned to death for the crime of adultery the public outcry was immediate and widespread and the story absolutely dominated the cable networks. to germany and. outcries against the imminent execution of shock you may muhammad. a forty three year old mother of two convicted in two thousand and six of committing adultery in iran so this is part of a clip from c.n.n. this story was all over the mainstream media when it was a woman in iran that woman's life ended up being spared in part a result of so much outrage so

a simple question for you where was the outrage for the saudi arabian woman. well deadstick graphic metaphor for anybody who cares to look at it of the double standards by the us and nato iran is a full they're evil they're part of the axis of evil and how to solve they are our bastards so we cannot criticize them this story of this woman in fact it goes way beyond what he has been leaked if you if you follow the saudi arabian press nobody even talks about it the b.b.c. tried any trepidation and some saudi bloggers are some middle eastern brothers are advancing what i sink is the moral lesson what really happened she's a faith healer but she is a woman she is poor she is in the lowest rank of social strata in saudi arabia and because she is a healer and she was having some success she was in fact going a guest is a very but your article society male dominated and the clerics in saudi arabia had

to do something because their power was being undermined but this is very complicated to explain to a western audience who want to do a three paragraph strike so nobody talks about it and the case is in iran the second a case it was amazing remember travelling in the middle of it to leave immediately villages in front of the preface sure you had huge photos of saki may so we have to free her from those crazy people in iran those crazy ayatollah it's not because we in the west simply we refuse to understand the other according to their cultural background according to their beliefs and we only criticize one side of the a on their side of it is the shiites in general be day in iran iraq has been a lot allows in syria but they soon as they get away with literally murder as they got away with murder in iraq for

a long time and just like the house of solid and al khalifa but they got away. learned that repressed in their own. by the world repent they were almost out of time i really quick want to touch upon there has been some alternative media that has covered the story and one of the main reasons that they point to is not only the cozy relationship i guess you could say between the u.s. and saudi arabia but also a multimillion dollar effort by p.r. firms here to keep the saudi image in good light just real briefly can you talk about that absolutely. the saudis day have they can hire some of the best p.r. firms in washington prince turki will was he is a washington man he knows that all the decision makers bipartisan effect do you really and they prefer to speak farsi they don't dress with this suit and tie western style their style you know their rhetoric is much more complicated because

it's lost in translation so if this is simply so simple so straight to the point but he makes a lot of difference ari sr it says is lost in translation so i would suggest them to hire a p.r. un-american p.r. serum as well and you're right this will go up as a times correspondent pepe escobar in south paulo brazil a lot to talk about today and we do appreciate your insight there let's turn now to the mainstream media coverage of the recent post-election protests in moscow as artie's honest aasia turkana reports and some outlets here in the u.s. have been setting their eyes to some of the obvious details while inflating the others and doing the exact same thing with protests here at home. double standards in journalism were once embarrassing they are now increasingly mainstream here is u.s. media coverage of post-election protests in moscow there's a lot of chanting a lot of fun and places it is a good night crowd here is coverage of protests continuing for sri month right

under their noses at school the crowd is the bomb they are disorganized they look funny when the protesters nobody seems to know demonstrators in the u.s. presented as a margin of american society is truly based in the end of his fruits of american politics they told me in russia flags of truly radical nationalist groups right behind this interviewee and this one ignored and this sea of them present on the ground unexplained when you have the news media you know. the russians. and down american the many that are still under way to go get a job treating protests at home and abroad differently these days seems to be a trend of protesters against foreign countries particularly countries that are economic or political rivals to the united states are always good protesters in our

country who are against the american system are usually bad that's the construct that the media begins with it isn't a party american mainstream media channels took at least two weeks to catch up with and then undermine the occupy wall street protests across the us all you have to do is take a shower and i get a job the only way archie has been on the ground since day one this is the beginning of occupying wall street crowd say they're going to be here until their demands are heard showing the hundreds of arrests and tear gas used against the protest. largely ignored by the mainstream media here now and he's kind of less than lethal weapon for being here. during the our very process this is seen as an unacceptable crackdown on protesters our teachers also cover demonstrations in moscow what can easily be called moscow biggest protests in twenty years. as well as showed the arrests that took place in russia less than some of the same

television which everyone expected would not be allowed to cover the protests are covering protests and showing a commitment to the story which is quite remarkable while others were not even committed enough was to commit to a crew on the ground in moscow he logan is following the developments from london he joins us now with more candy what can you tell us usually the skeleton crew that they have at their moscow bureau you know spend all their time with each other or local bars they're not down on the street this could lead to knowledge painfully thin on t.v. screens. are going so far as to show protests out that are not russian quickly the most americans seriously could not find russia on a map so you know when you when you're dealing with that audience a producer is going to say well you know. we can't the people are too stupid to understand this stuff anyway while some mainstream media outlets continue to pick

and choose approaches to event coverage according to your graphic location and political gain it becomes increasingly visible to the naked eye that selective facts are not really facts at all and set which are going to party in new york. well this week marks the tenth anniversary of the u.s. withdrawal from the ballistic missile treaty in two thousand and one ten years ago the bush administration withdrew from the treaty a cornerstone cold war agreement which limited the superpowers ambitions to beef up their nuclear arsenals by guaranteeing that neither would develop the means to defend against a missile attack so we want to talk about what this step has meant for global security and also about the more recent push by the us of establishing an anti-ballistic missile shield that russians considered a threat to their security president dmitry medvedev you may remember just recently said its creation would lead to russia pulling out of the start treaty so to dig deeper into all of this i spoke earlier to senior fellow at the independent institute ivan eland and i started off by asking him in his view how the u.s.

pulling out of the treaty ten years ago has shaped that period of time take a listen. it's mainly political at this point because the u.s. missile defense the national system doesn't work very well they've kind of accelerated the deployment of it before it's ready so the national system is not really affected anything much because the the russians have plenty of warheads to counter and now there's a new issue in that the missile defense system that they're building in europe to that's designed to counter iran well the russians of course are suspicious that this may be directed at them. probably isn't but it's a it's a political problem for them because it's in their backyard and i think that's interfering with the relationship so it's more of a political issue i think than the actual threatening of russians to turn at this

point because the systems are just not that good. let's go first to to pull out from the treaty i want to know if there has been besides the u.s. and russia if there had been global consequences of that pullout from the treaty around the world if other countries have been affected by that sort of split well i think it it's a political symbol that the u.s. is not. really concerned about reducing on off ends of arms defense of arms and often of arms are really linked especially between russia and the u.s. because you don't want to threaten the other side's often said missiles with defensive missiles so defensive weapon sounds you know and provocative but actually defensive systems can be very provocative so i think this is a message to other countries really the united states and russia are the only people that have the technology to do this now so it's mainly in a military issue between them but it's

a political issue by showing other countries that were not serious about disarmament now of course the start treaty was a positive. between the two countries in the reset in relations as a lot of people write and i think that nothing should be done to to damage that and i think this quest for missile defense it has really been a republican issue but now is creeping into both parties are afraid to touch this for electoral reasons but they could i mean your average voter is not going to vote on whether there's a missile defense or not they're going to vote on the economy so this is a it's a political issue because ronald reagan really resurrected this thing in the eighty's and it's been a republican party. issue to fulfill his legacy even though the system is vastly scaled down and doesn't even resemble what he had originally. proposed space based

defense grandiose scheme it's down to land based systems now that i've been around reagan is the sweet heart of the republican party these days but perhaps that's why his ideas and his eye things are being resurrected but but i do want to talk about this missile defense shield that you say it's in europe russian leaders are worried that it is aimed at them that it is a security issue for them you say it's not but they do have a right to be upset about it but people who argue against that they say you know what there's plenty of missile defense shield all over europe there's plenty in israel why the distinct location then if russia shouldn't be worried well i think the location probably has to do does have to do with iranian missiles but the real problem is do we really need this at all that is to say the united states and europe i mean iran's missiles are a threat but we deterred maoist china from. using nuclear weapons in chairman mao directly threatened to nuke the united states now iran has never done

that and iran may stop short of getting a nuclear weapon and be like japan where the. they can assemble this at the last minute so we don't know where ron is going so i think the threat can be deterred i mean the u.s. has thousands of warheads and it protects europe what you can argue with should be done and but nevertheless does with the stars and the warheads so iran is not going to watch an attack on the united states probably because it'll be incinerated it's entire country will be incinerated with a small portion of the u.s. arsenal so i think this defense system is really unnecessary and therefore it's an unnecessarily provoking the russians as well and speaking of relations between the two countries let's talk about something that happened even more recently and that is the elections that took place in russia there was a lot of different you know ways that there's a different perspective that a lot of to ripple had based on the results of those elections based on the

protests of those elections we saw senator john mccain tweet that the arab spring was knocking at russia's door. there's been a little tension you could say between the two countries based on the elections there do you think this will have any. you know effect on the relations between the two countries well i think it already has there's been harsh words between secretary of state hillary clinton and blatter mir putin about this issue and even if you're for democracy in the spread of human rights as i am used to i still question whether we need to go in a very public way and tell other countries about that jimmy carter tried that and he got pushed back the chinese clamp down on dissidents other countries did when he mentioned perhaps it's better to talk about these things privately if the u.s. has concerns rather than be the aggressive public defender of democracy and human rights. that was senior fellow at the.