getting back to the normal way of living but syria is still on fire with hundreds of thousands crying out for help my guest on the show today is the woman put knows how to make the victim's life at least a little bit better mr valery a march the u.n. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. well yeah there are now british politician and civil rights activist during the last decade various top officials in the british government was most recently a big u.k. high commissioner to australia earlier the leader of the house of lords or secretary of state for international development in the cabinet rather he was the first black woman to occupy such a high position as analysts work much in africa and the middle east tackling complex she was appointed the u.n. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs nearly two years ago.

some awesome welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us so well my first question is about your recent visit to syria as far as i understand you visited syria in march two thousand and twelve on behalf of the u.n. and you tried to persuade the syrian government i'm quoting the words to allow access to all parts of syria to help people affected by the civil conflict well has any progress has any progress been made since then and what's the problem in accessing other fraid of something i mean not letting us we have made some progress but it's been slow after my physics the syrian authorities agree that they would lead and assessment mission to try to find out exactly what the scale of the problem was we accompany them with colleagues from the organization for economic cooperation the oh i see we identified at that time that we thought about a million. people needed help the i.c.r.c.

the international committee of the red cross and red crescent societies have now said themselves that they think that that figure has gone up to about one point five million since that mission we have been negotiating with the syrian authorities to agree on a response plan the areas that would be looked at and through whom would we get that aid to people on the ground we've made some progress we're getting food to about five hundred thousand people we have managed to get health and other supplies delivered to some people some through the authorities but from my own perspective it is still painfully slow there are lots of people who may need help and support and we need to get more people on the ground the syrian arab red crescent are doing a great job but their capacity is also being stretched everyone is trying to get aid into the country using them well as you mentioned you first just to meet the

number of people needing help as one million that was in early march that was in late march late march so april may in two months you just say it's it's one of the half million wildly so does that mean that the situation is catastrophic i mean i mean like fifty percent more people in need within two months or so is going to be millions but at the end of summer of nothing nothing nothing is done our colleagues from the red crescent red crescent societies who have been able to be more active in some places than we have they are saying it's about one point five million obviously leave also isn't an estimation or is a growing this is why we think it's growing but of course we're not able to go in and do the kind of detailed assessment that we would wish to there's no doubt that the security situation has deteriorated we've all seen. we're all extremely

concerned by the escalation in the violence it is people it is families it's communities who are it's you know civilians it's children who are in the midst of this violence and our message has consistently been to everyone involved in this violence that it is people who are getting hurt the violence has got to stop that the political negotiations have some aspect or some prospect of being successful and in the meantime let's get the help to the people who need it well in the united nation nations announced recently that the arab league mediator coffee and no one is urging syria's government to accept the u.n. conditions for expanding the distribution of humanitarian aid to to roughly one million syrians what he's basing it is based on your estimate based on our number so what are these conditions that the u.n. that coffee and stocking but first of all from our perspective of course it's very

important that everybody who needs help gets that help it shouldn't matter whether they're in a government controlled area or in an area which is being controlled by the opposition that's very evident secondly it's important that we're able to have a mix of international and local staff who are able to help to deliver aid it's important to protect syrians themselves some in the volunteers of the syrian are pretty close and have been doing a magnificent job but we need to have a mix of people on the ground to make sure that we get the balance of skills right in terms of what we need to do we've now been able to agree that seven international ngo going isolations that are in country will be able to deliver some aid but as i say these negotiations have taken a very long time and in the meantime there are people who need help who are receiving it well let's hear more on the situation in syria now in a report from spotlight. zillionaire demeanor. after fifteen months of unrest in

syria violence there has only been escalating according to the red cross one and a half million civilians and now we need divergent humanitarian assistance they find themselves hostage to the conflict they don't want to be hard off yet happy i live alone four rockets hit my house one of them completely destroyed my bedroom i couldn't get anything from there i have no terrorists in my house and my arms but the house has been destroyed. the problem of people losing their homes however pales in comparison with the loss of life the world was shocked by the news of one hundred civilians massacred in the village of houla just two weeks later another massacre to the lives of seventy eight people including women and children witnesses and survivors of atrocities are crying out for help but there's. nobody help us why. we are on the books not

turning out here since the conflict started tens of thousands desperate people have fled their homes in search of security the international humanitarian community is eager to get to those who remain trapped by the fighting after weeks of negotiations the syrian government agreed to allow nine u.n. agencies into the country they do when continues to call for unhindered access. what's totally to the subject of conditions well the u.n. says that the deployment of the humanitarian aid there is a very slow because of the conditions of the baskets so what can you say that these can or what are those conditions what what are these conditions about i mean the damascus ok. our team in country have been negotiating on a number of things one is as i say the importance of. being able to to go and talk

to anyone that we need to get the aid to anyone that we need to secondly that it's important that all aid is not channeled through the syrian arab red crescent they have capacity but that capacity is being stretched russia itself for example sentences made that had to be delivered through the syrian arab red crescent the international committee of the red cross red crescent societies they're sending in aid that is being delivered by the syrian arab red crescent they're doing their own work on the ground we from the u.n. are also using that capacity so there comes a point where that capacity is so stretched that they're not able to do it or we've asked that international organizations as well as u.n. organizations themselves are able to scale up the numbers of people we have in country we've had some difficulties getting visas for example agreed so that we can get those people in quickly so these are the kinds of administrative hurdles that

we're facing in terms of being able to scale up that effort though the reason why i'm asking about these conditions stuff because i've been trafficking myself to use and i was a helicopter pilot distributing aid you need the opium back in eighty four eighty six you remember that found in-situ and all of its rationing and i know i can witness that ninety percent as we saw it from the government here of the american way which was massive was sold on the couch as you know it was just so to people in the market it never came to people that were in need but what if it came to the it was sold to them so so do you do you see things like that happening today i don't think it changed dramatically well what we're trying to ensure all the time is that the aid does get to the people who need it and that's why you need the people on the ground who are able to deliver it but also you need the people on the ground who are able to monitor and. ensure that it is going to the people who need it the

worst it talk about millions you have enough people know the area well this is what we're seeing here and this is what we've been seeking to go she to get more people in on the ground who are able to deliver that aid as i said the world food program through the syrian arab red crescent it's been magnificent what they've been able to do their numbers are now up to five hundred thousand people that are being fed we estimated that a million people needed help it's not just about food there are people who are totally traumatized by this conflict they need support there are people who are not able to get health care you know lots of people are now displaced from the parts of . syria where they used to live we need to be able to give them support the families that perhaps they're living with me to support so it's not food is one part of it health care is a big part of it shelter people need to have somewhere to live. and of course there

is another aspect of this which is refugees there are a lot of people who have crossed the borders into neighboring countries and they also need support well if you would allow me were what i would say according to my only experience is that the main catch about that aid is that you have to deliberate inst very small quantities to the specific places and what they usually do they make drops off of large quantities of stuff and when it's a large quantity it gets into the hands of people who make money on it and what will this is how it happens did you have a look at people that are ready to work on the ground with these small quantities what with two capsules i mean. two tents and willing to do to do that to the people that they did a couple of things we did our assessment right we did out well we did our assessments in seven different areas where now negotiating with the syrian arab red crescent to be present in. for different poems all the countries so that you can

use them almost as hard to get those supplies out when you look at humanitarian aid in the way it's distributed in other parts of the world i mean we've had some difficulties for example in the past in somalia where in dealing with some parts of the country where you had groups like al shabaab in control there were some issues about there actually taking the aid and communities sometimes when you deliver the aid to them. communities and having to hand that pay back over to groups like. that's why you need the people on the ground not just to deliver it but also to help to monitor where it's going says. u.n. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief spotlight will be back shortly after the break so don't go.

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is easy to. see. the plane. welcome back to spotlight i'm al gore and of and just a reminder that my guest on the show today is vi there are mass u.n. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator but you have seen the situation the result of the fighting on the ground with your

own money as you were able to witness it is it as awful as any african war that we that but i've seen that we sometimes see in good films or is it not exactly what would you say well i'm always very careful about making comparisons because i think that these situations are about what is happening in a particular country and we have to remember that for those people in that country it is a terrible situation and what i saw. when i was there in march i thought was inexcusable you had a part of homes which had housed fifty to sixty thousand people which was completely destroyed there was not a single building left. which had not seen some kind of element or else where i was. shown in the news as bad as shown in the news and i myself filmed it and the people that i have showed that short film to have been

shocked there were buildings that were completely destroyed there were buildings that there was very clear evidence of heavy shelling of mortar attacks there were pavements on the road which had clearly been ripped up by tanks and there were very very few people left a couple of families who had come back to try to get what they could from the home that they used to live in a few men in the street talking to me about what they had witnessed in baba amr in the previous twenty six. days it was shocking to see. you mention refugees as the big problem well as far as i know about half of those who left the countries are children and youngsters well did they leave the country together with their parents or they lost their parents left them behind where the parents send the kids away what's the situation i mean we have families it's a lot of women and children who have been inching women and children who have left

so very often the ban stay people of course try to protect their property or the little that they have left what we've seen are increasing numbers of refugees crossing the border for example into turkey but also you have a situation where a lot of people cross the border for example into jordan the jordanian authorities tell us that the numbers in jordan and now over one hundred thousand not all of those people have registered formally as refugees they cross the border they go and stay with someone they know or they try to integrate into the society in jordan the numbers are significant are they over to leave freely i mean by the regime by the by the neighboring countries or are they free to cross the borders in the neighboring countries have been incredible they have all kept their borders open even though

a large inflow of refugees into any country in the problem is particular challenges and there are stories from some of those who have crossed that attempts have been made to prevent them from crossing at different points in the last few months is there a safe place inside syria any place where people can go without emigrating and feeling well at least safe where is there such a place where the country they have they have been some discussions about whether or not you can have safe zones or humanitarian corridors that would allow. people you know to move from one area where conflict is going on into another area you may recall for example that when homes was facing you know a particularly bad period in terms of the conflict the international committee of the red cross suggested that they should be a two hour pause to enable people who had been injured to be removed to allow

bodies to be moved to enable health care to get in that was not agreed it's very difficult to see how you can set up those kinds of safe zones or corridors because they need to be guarded in some way we need to know that if people go there they will be safe the worst thing would be if people went there and then there was some kind of attack so without a security council resolution from the united nations agreeing that you could have external forces who could make that say it's very very difficult to set that up do you at the end of the day i mean every day every day you could come back home well i don't want you to watch television read a book do you have an impression that you're satisfied that today you say i did my job or you know you get a feeling that you know what i mean very long right like you can do what you will what you want to do that that that the situation is stronger than you are on feel dissatisfied and i worry i worry

a lot about the people that we're not able to get to about the people who are you know going to bed hungry the people who are feeling unsafe. aren't able to go to bed at all the people who want to protect their children and don't feel able to do that people who just want to live a normal life and not able to do that as a result of a conflict that they did not start but they are caught up in the middle of so what you're saying is good today the situation is stronger that your personal will be authority of the united nations or is it not well. well while for this is important you know if if if very important because for me the situation requires the different sides to come together to sit down and try to work through and come to a political resolution for the good of syria and for the good of the people of syria we're not seeing the commitment to that which is what the plan calls for and which i think the whole international community wants to see at the same time on

the humanitarian side which is what i look after people around the world want. people who need the help able to get it i'm not able to sit here and say to those people to look the people in syria in the arc and say i'm able to do that for you there's a whole host of other things that are stopping us doing that to the extent that we should and that worries me one of those things that are stopping you well well well first of all there is the overall security situation secondly there is the fact that we are not able to get all of the people on the ground delivering the aid that we need to third is the fact that the negotiations with the authorities on the syrian side are going more slowly than i would push so there are a lot of different factors here which are having an impact and which mean that the people who do need that help aren't able to get it because the reason i'm asking

you is that for me it's very important that you look like devoted people like you even though you're dealing with pain and with death you should at the end of the day you should you should smile and know that you did everything you could be because if not it means it means that the war is stronger that evil is stronger than good and this is bad and i mean. we are doing everything we can but that is not enough if everyone around you and if the conditions and circumstances in which you're doing that don't enable you to deliver at the top of your capacity i do not feel that we are delivering at the top of our capacity for a whole variety of reasons you're here i'm going to show you get you getting certain help some advice some some some support from from the russian government from the foreign ministry from the russian government and russian diplomats in

syria in geneva or in new york have all been incredibly supportive and helpful of our humanitarian effort i am sure that that will continue and i've already in the meeting that i had today actually thanked the russian authorities for that for. the u.n. observers mission in syria has reported recently or quite a convoy of its vehicles was was dark it was struck by a blast and improvised explosive device and shot out and so we saw those pictures on television in the town of her and she couldn't other humanitarian war workers are really at risk in syria while two different things one is these are the un observers who went in under the kofi annan plan to observe a cease fire what we see in the last few weeks when they first went in the violence did go down what we see in the last few weeks is continuing escalation in

violence so it's extraordinary difficult situation and what we've also seen is that those u.n. observers have themselves come under direct attack this is extremely worrying in terms of our humanitarian workers who have been delivering aid and support and so. orting the syrian arab red crescent we have not seen them directly targeted however if you look at what's been happening to humanitarian workers across the world who are operating in some very difficult conditions and i'm extremely worried that over the last few years or more and more of them have been targeted more of them have been killed than at any time more kidnapped. one of the principles that we expect to operate under as humanitarian workers is respect for humanitarian principles that we are allowed to go anywhere we need to because our job is to help those

people who need the help we're not political we're not there saying we're for this side or for another side those principles really need to be respected thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest today on the show was valerie hamas u.n. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief called and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have your say on spotlight or have someone in mind for you think i should interview next time to drop me a line and al we're not add a t.v. are you and let's keep spotlight interactive movie back with more comments on what's going on in and outside russia until then stay on r.t. and take care thank you.

the final round of egypt's presidential election is underway put many a leftist and chanted by the choices before them with no constitution and dissolved prob. bureaus future is on the line as greeks is set for a king vote between the left and the right. voters are choosing whether to back austerity or take a different option which may lead to an exit from the euro zone. and moscow denies the pentagon's claims that a russian military cargo ship is carrying weapons and troops to syria. welcome this is r.t. it's four pm here in moscow right now my name is kevin owen and first it's

a tough decision for egyptians as they vote for the country's next president in the election runoff the choice is between was the brotherhood candidate mohamed mercy and feet to barracks last prime minister the ballot comes after the country's supreme court dissolved parliament saying the debate now face an assembly appointed earlier to draft a new constitution thousands of people chose to point hope and vote saying neither candidate represents the egypt that they were fighting for in last year's resolution kyra based human rights activist new ownership of the choices and inspired. there's a very very big chance that mass protests arise in the case that either pacifi or morsi win because sadly many people see that both of them do not represent the revolution obviously which is a worse candidate simply because he represents the mubarak regime that that destroyed egypt for decades but there is the muslim brotherhood are also losing huge amounts of popularity with every day because of their political.