freebird video for your media. free media r t v dot com. load thanks for joining our team at half past the hour i'm karen taraji with your headlines afghanistan sees a surge of violence as eight nato soldiers and top afghan peace negotiator are killed in the last three days the escalation of columns as foreign nations increasingly consider pulling out of the conflict earlier than planned. a cousin of britain's queen elizabeth reportedly gets hot for a million dollars and financial support from a fugitive russian oligarch there are now questions over how bodies because of ski's cash was used and what he expects in return. syria says it's being

targeted by a terrorist alliance of al qaida and foreign back to groups as a jihad of scroope at mit's thursday's twin blast in damascus that killed fifty five and a series of deadly suicide bombings is deepening fears that extremists are driving the country's deep sect sector areas of. the difficulties in establishing the truth and troubled arab nations is what we focus on next as we get insight from media monitor sharif nashashibi of the. today i'm talking to sheriff nashashibi who's the chairman and co-founder of an organization called media watch it's an independent nonprofit what stolk which works towards the independent and objective coverage of arab issues in the british media sharif nashashibi thank you very much for talking to us today now let's start

by talking about the arab spring in general how much diversity have you seen in media reporting of what's going on. well i think through me the major issue has been the difficulties which the media face and reporting the arab spring. in all the countries where there have been protests and regime change that have been very strict kind of attempts to stifle media coverage to stop journalist getting in. to stop them doing their work once they're in. i think that's been that's been the kind of overriding factor that the commonality between all these countries is that it's been very difficult for the media to cover and that has meant a reliance on citizen journalism on opposition movements and things of that the problem with all that is that it's difficult to verify all these things so a lot of a lot of what's going on is based on hearsay on sources whose.

you know news and opinion is a connoisseur to verify. and this is a real problem and i think it's ironic because the the governments that are. experiencing these protests constantly complain that the media are relying on opposition movements to get their news but that's because the government stopping the media from going in and doing the job themselves but that does presumably mean that it has been very diverse in terms of who is reporting and what that reporting has it presented a range of the point yes it has i mean just like in any conflict there you know you are witnessing a propaganda war between the various opposition movements and the governments fighting. both doing their utmost governments have really stepped up i mean the media freedom record has always been very bad in that region but is really going up and not doing these the arab spring. but also the opposition movements have been very adept at using social media. to get their point across.

certainly there has been misinformation on all sides and again this is not something. new and conflict but the social media has played an incredibly important role because the mainstream media has been unable to do the job properly because of all the restrictions and the physical dangers of so this is really kind of star kind of facebook and twitter was that you know if you look at the populations of these countries a lot of them are very young they're quite good at using these social media outlets and the much more difficult for the government to control so in a way the governments at times of strife in the media is actually shooting themselves in the foot because they are they are giving opposition movements the ability to use other means which are more difficult for the government to control and yet there have been a lot of underreported issues haven't there is these conflicts of progress racism in libya the feeding of the syrian armed opposition by by foreign governments the

entire revolution in bahrain really yeah the problem is is that media due to budget constraints and other factors that really they are a kind of one story machine so you'll have you'll have a flashpoint somewhere in the media will focus on the flashpoint and everything else kind of falls off the radar and then when that incidents over they will move on to something else so this is necessarily any conspiracy the media's. enabling but it's you know they're just unable to cover more than one big story at a time. so yes you know bahrain has been has been overlooked until now the grand prix has been happening and then once that was being worked out something else was was not being moved so this is a problem and because there is so much happening in the arab world right now i mean the spring is just as a fact of so many countries it's impossible for the media to give all these incidents the coverage they deserve and they do all deserve the same amount of

coverage and we seem to get a picture in the western media of the uprising as the opposition always being right and the government always being wrong but isn't the situation actually much more complex than that. well i mean i am not a spokesman for the government or the opposition i think if you look at various countries i think opposition movements have gotten things wrong i mean the you know there have been credible like he's oceans of misleading. and propaganda but likewise the governments have done exactly the same thing i think if you look at the on balance it is the governments that are wrong because these springs these revolutions wouldn't have happened. you know people have gotten fed up with the fact that they cannot express themselves freely they cannot live in democratic systems they don't have the basic human rights and this is been going on for so many decades of people who just simply had enough to the point that government's proposing reforms was too little too late and the violent ways in which the

governments put down these protests meant that any talk reform was was pointless but does this revolution by its very definition a not gain a sort of impetus all of its way into the even if the governments in these countries are offering credible reforms that this sort of this revolution continues nonetheless yeah but this happens when when governments are either do not react in a new way to the revolutions they don't listen to them or you know what we see in these countries is governments trying to propose enough reforms to try and placate the revolutions without actually meaning that those regimes will give up power and people now see through this and they're like these are just cosmetic steps thing this is a problem if the if the demands of these revolutions were met early on and in the sufficient way it wouldn't maintain the kind of momentum and there's been a lot of talk about democracy but recently you wrote about an electoral law which has been introduced in tunisia egypt and libya

a law which says that anyone who's been involved with the old regimes in those countries can't run for election now is that democracy no it's not a. and i was very vocally against this because i think what these electoral laws are doing in a way just the same as what those regimes that was barring candidates from running and that that is inherently antidemocratic. you should give people the choice. you should be able to gauge the level of support that the officials from the former regime has had if they don't have any support then let them fail electorally rather than make them political martyrs and if they do have significant support then it is unwise and dangerous to alienate sections of the populations that that support those candidates so you know democracy is not a case of you know. you know only allowing people to be elected who you want to be

elected you have to listen to the will of the people and i think it is you know it is you know this is a whole mark of the performer jeems to say well these people are not allowed to run you have to vote for the for the people that we have that we let you vote for so i don't think i think this is very dangerous. since i wrote that article i see libya has passed another law that parties based on religion are not allowed to run which i find very strange because libya is almost unanimously sunni muslim so i find this is a very odd thing to parties to run on the religious basis people should have the choice if they want to vote for parties or the then fine the danger again here is that you're going to make political martyrs out of these movements that feel that they should. have parties represented by religion and they're going to be driven on the ground and this could create the kind of instability. and extremism that wouldn't occur if there if people are allowed to express themselves the only way for these

transitions to go smoothly is if you have as much of the population as possible the feel that they are in franchised if you disenfranchise them even a small section of population it can be really dangerous if you look at iraq i mean . the wholesale exclusion of a section of the population led to catastrophic what happened in iraq lessons and all being well and you talk about the will of the people and let's talk specifically about syria for a moment there's sort of movements in some international news networks where experts are claiming that syria the syrian people do want an international intervention have you seen any proof of that. well there's different forms of international intervention i think there is there is a consensus that you know they don't want foreign troops in syria where you have disagreements now is whether whether the opposition should be armed or not or whether there should be safe passages in corridors and syria that's where the debate is i don't think i don't think anyone wants foreign troops on the ground

it's mainly about arming the opposition and i think. the problem i see i understand the concerns of people are with arming the opposition because there isn't that kind of accountability you know you don't know what how those weapons will be used who will use them against who you who they'll use and you don't really know who these people are right in syria no but the problem i feel with with not arming them is at the moment you have a government army that is not on the any arms embargo it is allowed to bring as much weapons as it wants and into the country and we've seen shipments of weapons coming in and you have an opposition that is you know if they are armed they are very lightly armed so what i fear is that those who are against arming the opposition kind of almost fueling the imbalance because the government can only if it wants to can only get stronger militarily and the opposition will only have a finite amount of weapons to fight with isn't the solution not then an international blanket international arms embargo for both sides i would think this

would be a better option it's a less dangerous than the militarized further militarization of the revolution but unfortunately given the viewpoints of various parties and security council i don't think that will ever happen russia and china will not agree to an arms embargo on syria not just because they're allies but they are suppliers of arms to the syrian government so that what happened. this is my worry is that the disagreements on the security council you know they are emboldening the government to act in the way that it's acting and this is i think will only. fueling increasing desperation among the opposition movements in syria and now you're seeing you know car bombs and things that you want seeing before all right what's the future particularly for reporting in north africa in the middle east particularly with islam escaping power and as a result of these uprisings it has improved i don't think the rise of islamic parties in those countries necessarily has a bearing on the levels of press freedom it's early to tell because you know

a lot of these countries because they're never been press freedoms it's this is a process that's going to take some time to build institutions to try to train journalists properly you know to to allow just journalism to function in the way that it should and it never has in those countries so it's difficult. where things will stand but i think i think it's it's headed in the right direction whether the little so there was a different matter but i think the important thing now is that people under this are acutely aware of their rights and how long they've been denied them and i think it will be much more difficult now that the genie is out of the bottle to put it i can't. thank you very much. my married mother did not like we're going to become. he was afraid. and she was very coldly. she filled. our lives frankenstein's monster.

we don't have the problem but every. effort is made by the palestinian or in the european side to negotiate in to the violent attacks against israel which i have no fear of war call the. song goes you have no. calling the leader of the state of israel one of the main terrorists in the world. we are supposed to be seriously examining history but you mention a few words about jewish culture lapidary and people gets so upset this is i'm sorry to say it's

a form of emotional blackmail. afghanistan sees a surge of violence as a nato soldiers and a top afghan peace negotiator are killed in the last three days the escalation calms us foreign nations increasingly consider pulling out of the conflict earlier than planned. because one of britain's queen elizabeth reportedly gets a compliment in dollars and financial support from a fugitive russian oligarch and there are now questions over how old buddy is but is off since cash was used and what he expects and return. syria says it's being targeted by a terrorist alliance of al qaida and foreign backed groups as a jihad as group admits thursday's twin blast in damascus that killed fifty five

a series of deadly suicide bombings is deepening fears that extremists are driving the country's deep sectarian that's. next andrews here with the latest sports. hello there thanks for watching and these are the headlines frantic finished our tax national second the last champions league spot from tier sky in every match again to the russian football season. while the blue of manchester is celebrating after city beekeeping three to you to be crowned the english champions. and it's how great that is the moscow is the russian powerhouse of the euro league final by single point two million people. first a football and spartak of one tune a locomotive in the moscow darby to finish one is up in the russian premier league

and capture the last remaining champions league spot the red whites the pro-gun other capital side into second courtesy of that when czech defender matic suki noted spartak first from a corner midway through the first half and arjun does a double digit lead five minutes before the break aiden mcgeady assisted in both goals spartak secured a berth in the third qualifying round of europe's top club competition. while sport like also needed t.s.r. to lose it twice former champions through being in the army men played into their hands as they squandered a one dollar lead to lose three one in cars and because you get on the put the business in front there right before the interval but it was all routine after the restart substitute nelson valdes grab equaliser after less than ten minutes on the pitch and got these guys in ease with first of the rebound to give the home side the lead eight minutes before time. and the term provider minutes later to set up

a brawl man. group being denied to discard the champions league next season rubin finished six but will join in the euro europa league play off after lifting their maiden russian cup on wednesday. elsewhere and she. also heading into the europa league despite a two new home defeat at the hands of champions any first alexander who could of been on the air show of his cross right after the break and then booed off the sisted in subcultures who sees lego petersburg side completed their title defense on a high. and a last gasp goal from informs of his image which gave fourth place the number one draw than the home side stop school a senior to rule re-opened after ten minutes of play and they clung on to that lead but missed him of each cell which draw deep into injury time the balls the midfielder was first was first denied by the woodwork there but kept his car to find the back of the band net so this is how the top of the table finish semi were

already champions and for the second year running and they joined in the champions league by spar thanks to scale piece hitting angie and russian cup winners through being go into the europa league locomotive band complete the top eight while in the bottom half of the table rostov have dropped into the relegation play offs after a late two one defeat it siberia of finally open for the home side after fifty seven minutes then head to break a month they missed a second half penalty for ross stuff but they still levelled matters with five minutes to go dimitri could have changed their heading home but again lacking x. pass to throw ross stuff are life line and they went all act in search of a crucial winner but instead they can see the penalty deep into injury time and alexi whatever because sport kick consigned them to the playoffs two one two already relegated tom of could join them in the first division should they also lose their playoff double header against sinead. and in other games there was a three three draw bottom side spot it now drawing there with of.

correct story yet of drew one one with the volga for one spot and now i say got that three three draw with krasnodar. so this is how the bottom half the table finished. already relegated rostov joined for good in the playoffs while chris have yet of survived to play in next season's top flight. while over in england two goals in three stoppage time minutes gave the city a three two win at home to ten man q.p.r. to hand them their first top flight title for forty four years on a thrilling final day in the premier league one one after fifty five minutes q.p.r. captain joey barton was sent off for violent conduct but rangers still took the lead through jamie mackie and that's how it's stupid ninety minutes gone until late goals from. where city clinching the title on goal difference for manchester united

he won one sunderland are still single third place with a three to win it west brom tottenham beat full and so you neil i'm finished fourth newcastle a fifth after losing three one at everton swanzy liverpool their one nil after danny graeme's late strike chelsea. blackburn two one knowledge defeated aston villa to neil wigan try and three two against rock bottom wolves who will be joining season in the championship by bolton after they could only draw two to stoke but the day belong to city. does not this is the final like these. but it is a. very broad for my players because the idea that they want to go in the. reward for the reason they want to do with. organized gave. it a passable now to small scale have just missed out on their seventh year league title losing by single point tool in p.r. in the final and the ball to scar took nearly through here does each is with the

three points from him making it twenty five thirteen in the middle of the second quarter and the army men led fifty three thirty four in the third and seemed to be well on the road. to victory but a fourteen point run brought the limp your cost side back into it and the turning point saw two years scars. missed twice from the free throw line with nine points and seconds left and his team by just one point and then limply orchestrates down the other end got the ball to your just put into this and he did the rest. did post twelve points and ten rebounds for ts but the defeat denied the russians a seventh european crime. was disappointing to the last. great game in the fourth and fourth of all of. them was not really wants. to start saving ourselves fourth quarter because it's not fourth quarter you know we do have momentum that's why we want to do. the ice hockey world championships russia have

extended their one hundred percent winning streak to six games after a tuner win over the czech republic in stock alexander what is your gain i've been for russia less than a minute in before top score you get e-mail connected to second on a power play for his seventh gold russia top group b. remain the only unbeaten side at the tournament while the usa thrashed finland there five nil to overtake the co-hosts and go second in group. meanwhile russia's walkers are showing full ahead of the olympics they took a clean sweep of the team on the world cup on home soil russia taking a one two in their women's twenty kilometers with. beating reigning world in a limb picture. by almost a minute in an hour and twenty seven minutes and thirty eight seconds while surrogate won the men's fifty k. ahead of compadres eagle rock in china will be the major threat to russia in the sport at the lympics in general and beat on the break. of to take gold in the men's

fifty k. russia's world and olympic champion validating porch and finishing down in ten. in formula one past mountain ardo has clinched. his maiden victory after winning from his first ever pole position at the spanish crown pray the venezuelan was overtaken by financial along who started second on the wing lap but the williams driver would still back into the lead after the second pit stop while former seven time champion michael schumacher crashed out yet again after running into the back of bernie sanders car but maldonado hit top form on the barcelona track debate along by just over three seconds can be reichen and took third for it was williams first richly since two thousand and four maldonado's nineteen when. you say they'll be happy because they did the science fair slop. better start than me but i want to see us doing that piece. i think is

my my first my first big three you can imagine where they feel. to him now intended for federer came back from a set down to beat thomas burdick in the midriff open final after novak djokovic rough on the dial had been knocked out on the blue federer is the clear favorite to lift the trophy although burdick wasn't going to roll over having beaten the swiss tee times already this year and the world number six broke his opponent in the second game before taking the first set six three. however federer then broke twice in the second level of the match and finally six five in the third he converted his fourth match point to claim his title and record equalling twenty eight masters prime he also leapfrogs an adult in the world rankings to go to number two. down almost the whole time and finally got the break in the third and

he broke back and things got really tough again but. it was tough conditions obviously as we know slippery and stuff that i could have lost in the first rounds of this is always special winning a title seven five in the third you know when things get tough and mazing and i'm very happy and serena williams is the women's champion she thrash world number one victoria as a rank in straight sets two players had never met each other on clay before and the open champion as a ranker was our fifth title of the season however the belorussian was totally outplayed leads in the first set six one and williams then went on to clinch the second six three to wrap up victory in just over an hour the former world number one smash fourteen aces along the way on route to her second crown of the year after also winning charleston last month. i'm funny man has won the place championship gold richest event the american picking up one point six million

dollars after two shot victory over scotland's martin lead gave himself a three shot cushion after reading this part in on the sixteenth and even though he went on to be the next was cool and collected come the eighteenth and sunk a regulation path of victory this win things him up to six in the world rankings luke donald missed the chance to actually mcelroy as number one after finishing in sixth place. so that's all the sport. got more fuel to your ass next. well. science technology innovation all these developments from around russia we've got the future covered.