Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    January 16, 2012 3:01pm-3:31pm EST

3:01 pm
tackle poverty and he begins his pursuit of the russian presidency. welcome it's midnight here in moscow when i was kevin zero in our top story at r.t. than the arab league is divided over a qatari proposal to send troops into syria chooses president has warned that it could mean violence flaring up across the whole region the emir of qatar is leading the calls for about syria to put a stop to the ten month long fighting there he was also a key player in the arab league's role in opposing colonel gadhafi is rule in libya meantime syria's announced an amnesty releasing prisoners jail during the uprising complies with the arab league peace plan which syria accepted in november. first reports from damascus. free at last strings of people leave the syrian prison in the arms of
3:02 pm
a think family and friends. loved ones who haven't seen for many months prisoners delighted i'm relieved to. hear this prison on the outskirts of damascus these are the prisoners even slated for release this evening you can see the signing on this is being seen by some of the arab league observers here. this is part of the amnesty announced by president assad of it of course for everyone he's now being released from detention questions being asked that he why they were detained in the first place. i've been in prison for four months i was accused of weakening national security i didn't protest they brought me here by mistake the honesty is a good step i just hope it includes everyone. i had some weapons i had inherited from my grandfather and was accused of bearing illegal weapons i've been here three months when people heard about the. amnesty they were
3:03 pm
ecstatic they never thought this could happen. here in the city announcement follows calls for. our military intervention in syria the. un general secretary. president of the bloodshed the age of tennis the rule in the arab world. some critics feel these statements risk inflaming in a highly volatile situation the amnesty shows that syria is trying to find a political solution rather than a security selection and that the country is succeeding in implementing the plan agreed by the arab league the move has been described by some opposition groups as being little more than a just. listen to me when all political prisoners are number one the rest said since the beginning of the crisis have been released then the amnesty will have been affected but the answer is c. does not consider this the start of a dialogue but you know if you. just you. can just freeze
3:04 pm
over the coming days but outside the prison walls people in the country. in a situation. in which. they serve. in the us just. a few times correspondent pepe escobar points out that the arab league itself mostly consists of oppressive monarchy so the pressure on syria has got nothing to do with worries about democracy. don't forget that all these rejean sorrow doctor sees that the local populations have no possibility at all for that sicko expression some of them their own populations like in the case of the rate seventy percent shiite population they're treated as second rate citizens and now we have the persian gulf water peace trying to teach the world lessons on the mockers like the whole sink the whole scheme is sampson lukey upsurge to starts with so can we imagine if we had what we seen in syria inside easter saudi arabia
3:05 pm
for it's. all because no calls for democracy no calls for deposing the government like qatar is saying nowadays imagine not not only imagine look at what happened sobering since the beginning of the pro-democracy protests in manama almost a year ago there were oppression was total would help from saudi arabia and the emirates so the same persian gulf monarchies were are saying now to the world we must intervene only behalf of people in syria they would smash their own people in any possibility of an arab spring in any of the six special go mark. if you'd like to get more perspective more news from syria you can visit the blog of artes international correspondent sara first. while you're there to do stories you may be interested in it's the big story the week a one of them anyway the point person for the titanic they're calling it get the latest information on the rescue operation that's taking place off entirely that
3:06 pm
ship capsized over four thousand on board also lashing out over a thousand demonstrators as we've been reporting causing mayhem in rest angry at the government the latest wave of austerity cuts watch the video along with many others and all you tube channel. as a rather the west step up their war of words over the islamic states nuclear program the u.k. is refusing to rule out taking military action foreign secretary william hague also spoke of his confidence that an e.u. and bugger want to rein in oil will be in place by the end of the month is over bennett reports from london. iran's oil exports only make up one percent of britain's oil imports the most in europe is italy with seven percent of it's all coming from iran so there's a lot to play with there which will severely damage iran's economy however iran has taken steps itself threatening to block the straits of hormuz which is a crucial oil shipping lane so whilst the iran oil embargo won't have any
3:07 pm
detrimental effects on britain's economy or europe's really this play by iran definitely could because a third of all seaborne oil trade goes through those straits and that could increase oil prices and have a detrimental effect and severe consequences on already fragile western economies the u.s. has already said that any such move from iran will be considered an act of war and the question is though how far is each side willing to go here so for now it's just a threat. the u.k. says it will continue to pursue a diplomatic attack i.e. increasing sanctions with the hope of bringing iran to the negotiating table after talks over its nuclear program stalled a year ago but that tactic has been tried for the last year hasn't seemed to work the tactics have actually seemed to encourage this dangerous game of brinkmanship each side countering the other's threat with one of its own the stakes getting higher and escalating each time so this mention of military action still being on
3:08 pm
the table is really the latest play in this complex game of brinkmanship over bennett our correspondent in london as international pressure mounts against iran there's already an ongoing guerrilla assault on the islamic state says london based political analyst chris bambery. we've also seen the killing last week of the fourth iranian nuclear scientists that operation assassination carried out in tehran and there is a dirty war being waged in say the ran against against the nuclear program not just the killing of the nuke or scientists but attacks bombing attacks on bases killing a military per person l. the israelis have been prepared to take credit for these attacks and i'm sure that more side is involved in my mind there is no question in americans must be involved in that committing millions of dollars to destabilize in the reunion regime there are going ethnic groups along the borders of iran to carry out attacks on attacks
3:09 pm
on the country we nor board israel and america are recruiting agents are in kurdish iraq and i'm sure that britain is trailing along behind that given as britain's historical role. we're always interested in what you think about the stories of the day today we're asking what you think the on the radio exports is really all about go to our t.v. dot com take your part of the latest global weather hold sway tellings over a third of you say it's a strategy that will not benefit the e.u. in the long run as you can see there come a close second opinion that around simply finding new buyers words oil but a quarter of you believe it's an empty threat that means nothing and ten percent. down a bit from the level last i think it's a move that will scare around the compliance goldline still plenty of time to avoid . but while europe considers the next step in the standoff with iran the us media is already deep in a conflict of its own. story two options bomb iran or let iran get
3:10 pm
american journalists are accused of once again hyping up tension between washington and its next enemy to win public support. here russia's prime minister said that his campaign plans for a third presidential term this year writing on one of the country's leading newspapers putin voiced his vision for russia's future and addressed issues raised by opposition parties and he's a really good reports. well in a lot of ways this was a statement which was directed as a response to the existence of statements made by the opposition leaders during the protest has been president has pointed out that russia has already gone through an abrupt and very drastic change a very similar to a revolution during the collapse of the soviet union and that brought the country down into decline essentially into shambles and it took a very long time to get out of the dire situation but russia has succeeded in doing that as with which and in fact the education levels went up employment has also risen over the past fifteen years the overall is standards of living for eighty
3:11 pm
percent of russians have increased there's also the emergence of the middle class says it's dull comprises up to thirty percent off the population russia where is during the soviet times that number was significantly smaller so let me put it has borne essentially people in his statement to be wary of that of the statements and slogans of which sound very lucrative may sound very lucrative by the opposition leaders but he did mention that as such as such an abrupt change in the governmental system may have diarrhea effect on the country and he did talk at length about the situation the very much improved situation which the country finds itself right now but of course he also mentioned that some some problems do remain on the table there is the very well known problem of corruption there's also a lack of civil society overall in the mindset of people also unfortunately from ten to eleven percent of russian population still live below the poverty line that is also something that needs to be taken care of and of course of the country's
3:12 pm
dependence on natural resources oil and gas something which needs to be slowly taken step away from there's of course the progress into the high tech world and creating more jobs in that sphere also talks more about creating civil society and contributing more to charity and of course he'll see talked about russia a becoming a major and being a major player on the global political arena. a russia has served as a bridge between the east and the west for centuries as it has a lot of experience in that area and of course also is a major contributor to g. eight g. twenty and the united nations and the role of these organizations is something which also should be taken into account and he also basically underlined this statement by saying that the country has to come out of the post soviet europe that that period is over and not just for russia but for the world as a whole so more global and a new approach to the situation not just in the country but also in the entire
3:13 pm
world should be taken. that article by vladimir putin's available feeling full as well on our website about to go home if you want to study a bit more length. the credit ratings agency started a pause is downgraded the european bailout fund news comes as european markets stayed relatively calm throughout monday despite a wave of credit downgrades across the euro zone it slashed the credit scores of niall e.u. countries on friday including france which lost its aaa status and austria too but the other main ratings agencies fiction moody's say they'll maintain france's top rating for now there is no panic about sixty your leaders but at least publicly french president nicolas sarkozy said the downgrade will not damage his policies or through financial analyst for the man bill told me that u.s. based credit agencies are losing the credibility. of the role that the u.s. based radio agencies have played since the greek crisis erupted in december all nine has been what many people here see as
3:14 pm
a brazenly political role so i don't think they're the independent agencies that they portray themselves to be many times when it comes to the interest of the wall street banks the so-called gobs of money banks like goldman sachs or others they tend to be rather lenient and when it comes to the interest of european institutions they tend to be rather aggressive which leads many europeans that i talk with to think that the rating agencies are simply an extension of the u.s. political apparatus of the treasury and wall street standard and poor's has played a rather late and aggressive role in this whole raveling of the europeans euro crisis since december of zero nine so people here are beginning to get used to it and if anyone loses in the end it's going to be the credibility of institutions like standard and poor's and moody's. as a rare in the u.s. in gauging the deepening standoff america's mainstream media are being accused of
3:15 pm
fueling the fire sanctions over two rounds nuclear program on uncertainty in the gulf have provided news outlets in the state for the platform to speculate over the likelihood of war and result he's got a chance you can reports next it's not the first time american viewers have been led to believe that conflict is inevitable. try to options bomb iran or let iran get the bomb with tension between iran and the west as high as ever for a host of hardline speakers on us mainstream media seem to be pushing the audience to believe that war is inevitable and the better way to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons is to attack its nuclear weapons program directly although experts say war with iran is far from being inevitable i don't think that we are very yet that is to say at the precipice the media are already preparing the grounds for it some five misinforming the public the new york times wrote that the international atomic energy agency said iran's nuclear program has a military objective but that's not what the i.a.e.a.
3:16 pm
reported the watchdog said he ran might have the technology to develop a nuclear weapon if it wants to or here's another public misconception due to a lack of information it would be saying to the iranians you to open up those facilities you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes in fact i ease spector's have already been in the country monitoring iran's nuclear facilities when you american people here information over and over again and sometimes it is often these subtle subtleties you are not providing the context of the i report or not putting in some of the doubts back in two thousand to two thousand and three about the iraqi w m d programs that kind of slanting of the news does have the effect of altering how the american public use in issues in the u.s. mainstream media have proved to be cheerleaders for war in the field jeff cohen was a senior producer of a popular t.v. show before the iraq invasion he says they were under pressure from their bosses to
3:17 pm
root for because their owners benefited from it it was a constant pressure campaign. to make sure that the pro invasion voice was dominant jeff cohen says not much has changed in u.s. mainstream journalism since the iraq invasion there is no doubt that mainstream media are crucial in this idea of settling this idea that the u.s. is going to be on a per actual war media analysts say since the intervention in libya u.s. media have been instrumental in making americans get used to the idea that washington will continue to intervene militarily in foreign affairs i worked at newsweek and as well as a.p. and other major u.s. news organizations and the and what i saw especially in a place like newsweek was this idea that the media was actually part of the establishment that it was it was it was that the american people were to be guided
3:18 pm
more than even informed it seems most american media are so used to talking wars that went after a decade of the inconclusive war in afghanistan the white house announced the necessity to negotiate with the taliban you have to have a political solution at some point the message and the words political solution came out a somewhat alien peace talks with the taliban it's come to this tell us more about these proposed peace talks and that may sound a little weird to some of our viewers it seems that words political solution don't belong in the u.s. media can be larry two main reasons one moring and second some very powerful people are behind a kind of trigger happy pro-war journalism too many times in history the media did the bidding of war profiteers we can go back more than a hundred years and look at how the american public was primed for war with spain over cuba media tycoon william randolph hearst falsely hyped up the story that the
3:19 pm
spanish sunk an american ship when in fact it's something because of a coal bunker explosion it was then that hearst told his illustrator in havana. you furnish the pictures and i'll furnish the war more than a hundred years on the phrase still found relevant but it doesn't have to be that way and some argue political solution although not popular words in the media vocabulary is better then war and death i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . to world news headlines in brief first to pakistan where the supreme court charged the country's use of killarney with contempt raising the possibility of his prosecution the proceedings were initiated for failing to carry out the court's order to open a corruption probe against president zardari it only has been told to appear in court on thursday. violence erupted between rival militia groups in the libyan city of god leaving at least three people dead and around fifty injured clashes began with the local military council the mother of the tribe had over members accused of
3:20 pm
aiding colonel gadhafi the fighting's included the use of rockets and machine guns sporadic violence in libya continues even after the eight month long civil war which resulted in the deaths of thirty thousand people as well as the street killing of one with. a car bomb in the iraqi city of mosul skilled at least ten and wounded several others the last time the sort of residential complex which houses displaced cheer muslims it's the latest in a string of bombings targeting the country shia majority which is left a hundred forty people dead since just last month. the u.s. projects its influence all around the world but it's troubled that republican presidential candidates are trying to use to woo voters right now american foreign policy scholar john feffer explains next that. actually very little to choose between those vying for the top job in the white house.
3:21 pm
thank you for joining us on our team thank you for having me on the show. let's start with the g.o.p. results in iowa do you think they indicate an ideological divide among the g.o.p. well i think in general the g.o.p. has a consensus certainly a consensus on economic matters they don't want government interference in the market if you look a little closer to some foreign policy issues there's a little bit of a difference with ron paul obviously being the outlier wants to scale back the u.s. role in the world the rest of them one way or another taking more hawkish positions
3:22 pm
than the current obama administration so there's a general consensus there too so i don't think there's a lot of differences between the republican candidates i think in a general election we of course would see the republican candidate move toward the center in order to get as much of the center and independent votes as possible right now during the primaries they're pretty much going to be clustered around the same kind of positions and they're running against the obama administration and there isn't a lot of difference between them. seen their positions which hurt their position in some countries like iran right now way which is the hot spot what role do you think they foreign policy play in their campaign right now to be honest foreign policy doesn't play much of a role in part because the obama administration has taken foreign policy off the table certainly national security issues it's very difficult to run to the right of barack obama on foreign policy after what he's done the killing of osama bin laden
3:23 pm
the expansion of drone war in pakistan but it's also difficult to run on the left either around him because of course he's ending the war in iraq they still criticize him but it doesn't really get them a lot of leverage or a lot of interest from the media you know the red meat issues for the republicans are going to be the economy and some cultural issues as well foreign policy as herman cain said i don't know where back to back a back to stand as i mean that unfortunately is a popular position in the electorate here in the united states a kind of will for a willful ignorance of what's going on in the world and yet that might harm their position on local issues i mean when they're talking more when they're talking iran they seem to be connecting the foreign policy with. here at home they sometimes do and you know they're always trying to make a point connected to the economy whether it has to do with reducing military
3:24 pm
spending or increase in military spending ultimately it's got to come back to what we call pocketbook issues i mean what americans have in the last couple of elections voted on that is jobs you know the employment issue whether they have houses general kind of feeling about the u.s. economy in general or our g.d.p. or trade balance and so forth those are going to be the key issues at the end of the day for the republicans of course they have to appear presidential so they have to tell. about foreign policy but they know that's mostly for show i mean when they really want to appeal to voters they really have to grab the ball once and they kind of mean it's not going to get any better well that's hard to say i mean even economists have difficulty predicting what's happening with the economy we've seen a slight improvement with the unemployment rate i think for the president the most important thing is perception if americans feel that the economy is getting better
3:25 pm
they tend to overlook the numbers. but they don't want it to look better now as long as obama still president. the republicans yeah oh absolutely. the breaux publicans have been doom and gloom i mean this has been their bread and butter during the campaign if they can make it seem as though the world is getting increasingly worse they themselves will be superman who comes in to save the situation relations with countries like north korea countries like china russia seem to be managed differently under. different presidents how do you think that's going to change now well president obama made a big point at the apec meeting and why to say you know we're we're making the pacific pivot you know moving away from the middle east and we're going to focus more on asia. in some sense be wishful thinking because of course the united states has a certain limited range in terms of foreign policy opportunities it basically is still
3:26 pm
in afghanistan still has to deal with iran and pakistan still dealing with the aftermath of iraq still dealing with the arab spring in the aftermath there it's very difficult for the united states to make a pivot like this so it's more of an aspirational pivot it's what the obama administration would like to do and so it's made a couple of gestures by putting some more marines in australia by saying that we're going to kind of focus more on china but whether will actually see some concrete changes it's going to be very difficult beyond you know what the obama. ministrations already done a modest opening to burma a very very modest opening to north korea the president doesn't have a lot of political capital that he doesn't want to waste it initiatives it might appear from republican critics to be appeasement so appeasing china appeasing north korea peace in burma he doesn't want to get into a situation in which he there's officially now especially in the lead up to the
3:27 pm
elections where either congress or the republican candidates can say we told you we told you this guy likes to sit down with dictators we would have none of that if we were president does that mean that the u.s. is changing its strategy in that region and no i think the obama administration is pretty clear trajectory for the last three years it's tried to extricate the united states from the worst kind of legacies of the previous administration primarily in iraq but also looking ahead in afghanistan but at the same time dealing with what has been considered a key issue and that is counterterrorism and the perception that democrats are weak on national defense issues and so the president has been very careful to say hey you know we will go to war if necessary and we will use force when necessary so i think this balance will continue for the remainder of his term thank you very much for joining us in our.
3:28 pm
when an uncomfortable question leads to a grave accusation the world who is more is you know far away. the president who isn't supposed to hide anything. or it's someone asking him why do you make a secret out that when the powers to be suppress the voice of those who think different. when you get experiencing very serious problems off of the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three if you put it from a book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were often be seen up and humiliated in public and one of the attempt to protect property puts life in real danger is that we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living i have gone to the original sit all the papers. at them legalized the
3:29 pm
ownership rights on the basis of companies freedom becomes just a stage prop. mission free critique should be free. for charges free. arrangement free. three stooges free. old free broadcast morning videos for your media projects a free media. time. to
3:30 pm
live from moscow our top stories the arab league at loggerheads calls for intervention in syria other members warn it would lead to region wide on rest meantime damascus has announced a general amnesty for political prisoners in accordance with the peace that. the u.k. ups the ante against a run pushing for tougher oil embargo. london says it will take military action in the persian gulf if the islamic state carries out its threats.

29 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on