everything about my knowledge basically and this is all legal absolutely legal yes when you bareback with the internet you bareback brother. hello and welcome to walt a part of the u.n. peacekeeping budget has never been larger a good number of the race missions around the world keeps on growing but the prospect of global peace seems to be more lucid than average is preventing voice still the best strategy for keeping peace while to discuss that i'm now joined by. the u.n. undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations mr let's sustain you very much for your time when you are the fourth frenchman in a row to hold this position i wonder what is it about the french diplomats that

gets them selected so often for this role i don't think it is. a problem i mean just the secretary general sort probably that was a suitable person for the job but you know it's all about doing the job done that is what it's about so you don't think that the french diplomats bring anything special to the table in this regard i think maybe experience because well professional diplomacy. and that sort of job i would say well speaking about experience and professional diplomacy you're worth for your friends diplomatic service for a number of years before joining the united nations and forgive me for saying but some people would find the french and gauge went into world affairs not always conducive to peace and what i mean here is in a french role in the suez crisis is. in the

a wand and genocide more recent gauge ment's in iraq in libya in mali some would say even the recent sabotaging of talks with iran and i'm not going to ask you on the french policy is i know that you wouldn't comment but i would like to ask you how challenging did you find that transition from being a french diplomat somebody who has to defend french policies to being an international official who has to defend peacekeeping because some would argue that these two objectives may be at odds sometimes well on the first part of your comment let me just remind you that in mali early this year france had not intervened we would know of a potential afghanistan right in the heart of afghanistan of africa and very close to europe so i think france is a country that can take its responsibilities and live up to them but mr let's us i think some would argue to that point that if france didn't intervene it wasn't so active in intervening in libya may not have had the malice situation later on oh i

don't think there is direct connection there is a problem in libya that is clear but again go back to three years ago two and a half years ago it was not just from sit was a number of countries who thought that. khadafi. come to the end of his. time in that position and that the atrocities that were committed needed some strong reaction from the international community and that by the way was a subject of two resolutions voted at the time by the security council no i think when you look at the world you see the number of problems number of crisis that call for a special sense of responsibility in particular the permanent members of the security council and indeed all those. those resolutions voted upon

by the council usually vote unanimously which reflects the consensus of the international community i think that's totally true but at the same time i think many experts foreign policy experts would point to the fact that if it wasn't for very close association between the libyan administrations the gadhafi administration and for example sarkozy administration gadhafi may have may not have stayed in power for so long now when you were a french diplomat you were quoted as saying that france will take whatever action is necessary to meet its defense needs and in and of itself it's not a controversial statement we can hear it from president putin from president obama from president assad probably from president along but isn't that ultimately the boot cause of many international conflicts these days that the countries believe that their defense needs and our security concerns outweigh everything else no

because i think it's been consistently the case for several decades that also countries live by values amongst the foremost use of the needs to protect the people to defend the civilians to defend human rights and this has become increasingly a problem in the world community but also a reflection of the present terms that what's maybe you could have lived with or tolerated twenty or twenty five years ago nowadays you simply cannot it's a very interesting point and i would like to pick up on that the before we go there and i know that in one of your interviews you said that the nature of modern peacekeeping has changed dramatically in recent years and if previously peacekeepers were present only concerned with monitoring peace deals in a post conflict environment nowadays they are increasingly asked to operate in a high risk by. while the violence is still raging i wonder why do you think that

is is it because he intervene earlier on maybe because the nature of conflicts changed i think there are many aspects to your question yes the nature of the conflict is changing increasingly no we do not face a situation where there are two states face to face there are situations where it is non-state actors who create the problems look at the armed groups in the eastern part of the democratic republic of congo are we to stay motionless when these people have caused over almost twenty years four million people killed millions of displaced and refugees tens of thousands of women raped tens of thousands of children recruited as soldiers or slaves no i think this is reality and also i think there is an increasing expectation that we should go in situations

where previously you would never have gone last year we were asked to go to syria with a mission of observers to observe a ceasefire which let's face it never really existed and after a few months we decided to call it a day because i could foresee the moment when we would have killed many killed it was actually a miracle that nobody was killed in those. fightings between the army and the opposition groups even mali we have non-state actors we have jihadists we have transnational organized crime drug dealers people dealing with. human beings and they are transnational that's even a new maybe a new phase but this is the reality of the twenty first century i would like to dwell on base idea of early intervention that you alluded to. those are the lives

ever at the bigger disaster i know that the land was heavily criticized for its inaction in rwanda in its inaction in congo and that may be one of the reasons why i felt the need to intervene so swiftly in libya and that intervention as you mentioned was authorized by the un security council it not only allowed to regime change in that country it also how to significantly deteriorate the security station not only in libya but all around the region that your own department had to create additional missions to mitigate the threat and before we go into the specifics of that of that mission i would like to ask you about this idea of the united nations acting preemptively is it an efficient way doesn't create more problems than it solves because you know look at clip it's not a pretty picture. i think intellectually one cannot disagree with that prevention

is always better when you look at the recent period maybe only one situation where preventive diplomacy really worked it was in macedonia. in the ninety's so desirable as it would be more often than not. the international community takes time to react people take time to make decisions we are facing exactly the situation these days in the central african republic where everybody agrees that there is a military and disaster in the making that things are getting very ugly confrontation between religious denominations more and more terrorists j. heard this also probably get involved so the sooner we can get involved i think the better well bring it back to the same point in syria in libya rather the united nations acted fairly quickly faster than in many other conflicts. they have of the

un peacekeepers i presume that the main issue that you're concerned with is preserving peace and peace while being something very general could be objectively measured in terms of the number of people being killed the number of people being abducted the number of people being sent to prison without trial the number of people trying to leave the country and on all those parameters libya is much worse off now than it was even three years ago you can you can't really argue about because it's recognized by all and yourself parading in the country and by the country's current government itself. well we have to ask this question of what is the best strategy of preserving peace because as you said in some countries the world community waited too long and too many people were killed but in this particular case it acted too quickly and still a lot of people are suffering yet obviously in libya it was not a matter of peacekeeping it was a coalition of countries who thought that enough was with enough that huge number

of civilians were about to be massacred and that action was needed and they got a sort of a green light from the security council but it was never never considered that this should be a place for united nations peacekeeping so we're talking about two very diffuse thing is still have the mission there and they the goal of that mission is a political mission not a peacekeeping mission it's very different it's about mediation good offices trying to mitigate some of the problems you know mine action because there's a lot of explosive ordinance around it's about trying to work to consolidate the regime of human rights that would be more compatible with what one would expect it's about strengthening the rule of law but it's not about peacekeeping has never been but all those objectives that you

mentioned how do you really achieve them in an environment where militia groups and i know that from your previous operations in africa militia problem has always been on the top of your agenda and in syria this is really taking to the extreme because militias are part of the government and if you want to strengthen the government you strengthen militia but that doesn't lead to you know good governance at the end so how do you really do that practically and well i think it's about several things coming together you see peacekeeping is off to zero. two for fundamentally a political process it's about supporting an agreement which exists or which is emerging or which will emerge hopefully between two protagonists in a political crisis this is why in the case of syria obviously one would hope that u.s. political process

a political solution emerge and we might if it is so decided come in to support the efforts of stubbornness vision of the country mr lott says we have to take a short break now but when we come back the united nations security council has been locked over syria for over two here is but as the government militarized opposition closer to talks what are the chances of a peacekeeping mission in that country that's coming up in a few moments on worlds apart. when you're followed around when you are being investigated because of the whims of someone this is the beginning of the end of your freedom. to use a new teen lee intercept american citizens'. text messages you know.

the polls text messages so you just. see everything about my knowledge actually basically and that's all legal absolutely legal yes when you bareback with the internet you bareback with big brother. you know the playing. field and big spirit travels with the flame from its place in greece. join james brown for an elemental and a big journey around russia and beyond. where i.

play. choose your language. because you know if. someone. chooses the the consensus to. choose the opinions that invigorating. choose the stories that entire life choose to access to your office. welcome back to worlds apart and we're discussing the challenges of maintaining peace with the u.n. undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations her ladsous mr let's says. before we start discussing syria i would like to ask you about one recent d p k o mission of the one in mali and i know that in some of your previous interviews you

referred to the side that the french government was fighting against in mali as quote extremists and jihadists but i never heard you use the same language in either the libyan conflict or the syrian conflict and i wonder why is that did you believe that those groups in those countries are categorically different in terms of their gender or methods of operation we don't have operations peacekeeping operations there in libya or in syria present in mali have to deal with the reality and indeed when you look at the people from. an islamic maghreb people of mucho i think it's one has to agree to this they are extremists and they have the closers of connections when they are not the same persons also trafficking in cocaine and human beings also hostages and the like but i know that you also travel to syria i

think you were in damascus mr mistakenly you were in home so you are asked frequently about your views on the. on the station there and i think series after all you know a conflict of definitions how we define certain groups and how we define i would not disagree that there are jihadists active in syria of but there are also opposition groups who are nationalists who are in. of the muslim brotherhood you've got i believe no it's more than two thousand two position groups in total but it's a complete music and i think you have the whole spectrum of ideologies of beliefs or agendas that are so that's is something you know would of course agree with i know that you were the first high ranking u.n. officials to describe the conflict in syria as a civil war it happened back in june two thousand and twelve and the syrian foreign

minister was very unhappy that they even put out a statement saying that it wasn't a civil war and what was happening in syria is a war against armed groups that chose terrorism do you still hold that view that what we are seeing in syria is a civil war i was not expressing myself as a lawyer i was expressing myself as a witness and you know to quote the american phrase when it looks like a duck when it walks like a duck when it talks like a. what is it if not a duck and i think nobody would disagree no it is the huge drama look at the number of victims look at the situation in the whole country i think nobody would disagree that it's. one of the greatest tragedies that we have in the world today but you do understand that when you describe a conflict as a civil war. it not only has certain legal implications for

both sides but it sort of puts those two sides on equal level in terms of the legitimacy of the struggle and i think the united nations. has treaded this issue very carefully over the last two years and resisted both french and american attempts to legitimize the militarized opposition and legitimize the means of that they have chosen for probably very legitimate political aspirations so i think when you refer to the conflict in syria as as a civil war you're actually breaking the ranks with your own boss bank and one who was very careful on that issue i think there comes a time when one has to call. the thing what it is you know and let's face it you know the problem is how do we get over this huge problem i know that you actually looked into that issue your department has developed some contingency plans and you

said before that the implementation would depend on the political breakthrough it now seems that there is a small chance for a political breakthrough do you think that chance could be increased through the participation of the peacekeepers and if so what form that participation could take it the other way well you know what we can say as of today. syria is not a theater for potential peacekeeping right now because of the level of violence because of the absence of civil peace peacekeeping means exactly what it's called you know we have to be there when there is a peace to keep to serve to help along there is no such thing at this time so the first thing the first imperative is to get political process and the political solution of the ground and this is worry such hopes high hopes are placed indeed

geneva two but even if there is some sort of temporary ceasefire of the life that we had previously it would still be a very dangerous my absolutely and it cannot be i think there would not be agreement to have what we call a chapter seven operation it would be something short of dirt in an environment which would undoubtedly be dangerous worm which would call for quite a substantial quantity of heavy equipment protection armored vehicles and all that well all this will have to consider when we come to that now you may dislike my next question but i will risk asking it anyway i spent quite some time in. syria and often staying in the same hotel as the u.n. personnel some of the previous missions and what struck me really was how. a perhaps if they are about their own security and what i mean by that is that

sometimes they would spend days and in a luxurious hotel in the gym by the pool without living the promises of that hotel and when they did go out there security would be indeed very tight there it would involve what our kids and i think. in some way would significantly limit their exposure to both sides of the conflict and obviously none of us has a death wish but as a journalist at least i can tell you that you know if you want to accomplish anything if you want to bring the story you have to take calculated risks and my question to you is whether you think. that your department may need to adopt its policies on security and its approach to the efficiency of your operations if you indeed want to have a lasting impact well three comments first people are not deployed for the sake of

being killed they are defending peace they do take risks unfortunately every year we have dozens of people killed but when the situation becomes you know so volatile so dangerous you will not take the responsibility to to expose deliberately people who do you very disproportionate risk if there are no sound they're already there and those missions they don't come cheaply. for peacekeeping operations has increased this year again and it's around seven point five billion dollars and we are in in a time of austerity so i think it's a legitimate question to ask what are we getting from those peacekeeping operations what you're getting is the example you refer to say we're not sure. or many many civilians who was saved because our people went into harm's way to simply pull them out from a very difficult situation that doesn't make the headlines getting three hundred

people out of her school which is being bombarded by either side by the way negotiating one or two hour truce and pull them back to safety that is a sort of thing they've been doing and they've been doing as i said with no casualty which was very fortunate but milot me tell you with significant psychological effect and i took special measures afterwards to help those from countries where it is not sufficiently incorporated in this national system to provide them with the services of appropriate psychological counseling so no i think i maintain our people do take risks. sometimes quite a lot but they would not go and throw themselves deliberately into a totally explosive situation because that would be unreasonable not many of our

viewers know that but many peacekeepers themselves come from very volatile places bangladesh nigeria ethie all p.-a rwanda pakistan and only i think four point five percent of peacekeepers came from the european union the last of the one percent found the united states and yet it is primarily western countries that will the lot of power at the un security council that authorizes u.n. mission diffame is it fair shouldn't all countries sign that people in harm's way proportionally if they go all of the united nations i thoroughly agree with you that this is no satisfactory solution i do not think it's sustainable and since i took up the job over two years ago. i've been talking to all countries especially from the northern hemisphere to tell them look realize that many of you are heavily engaged in afghanistan with that by the way should change in two thousand and

fourteen with the pull out so please do come back to the united nations peacekeeping we need you i told that to defense ministers of the european union i told that to. others and that's what i came oso to moscow for to show the russian federation and country from the collective security treaty organization that we need that we need commitment we need the engagement men women and also their equipment now speaking about their equipment i was surprised to learn that some of your missions use unmanned aerial vehicles drones for monitoring for example your mission in this town congo if i'm not mistaken and you argued previously that it's a very efficient way of monitoring now given what we already discussed the security concerns and the cost of having peacekeepers on the ground isn't that

a way for your department to go i mean we could get a much better quality of monitoring for less money without putting people on the ground do we need actual peacekeepers in all those dangerous places i think first it has not happened it's going to happen in next a couple of weeks that we have the first no no it's an armed drones surveillance only flying over the congo and i do hope that in the future we can do that in other missions but being aware of what's happening being able to get pictures of people moving where the bad groups refugees or sort of where you get much better information but then you have to act and this is where the peacekeepers have to. intervene especially when there are difficult humanitarian situation of the refugees being. pushed the wrong queue raped whatever this is where the

human capital of peacekeeping kid comes into play mr lott says this is all we have time for it really appreciate your candor and if you like the show please join us again same place same time here on worlds apart. still in oregon is suing nike for one hundred million dollars claiming that the company failed to include a warning on its air jordan stickers that they could be used as dangerous weapons after he used his own pair to beat. another pimp this from the pacific northwest bill gates continues to pimp out your privacy and data to the n.s.a.

and many other forgot to spy agency want to give a few bucks. rather than use a sneaker deploys this company's software products including skype as a dangerous weapon against the constitutional rights of unsuspecting customers on the products. gates himself when he gets caught. on june sixteenth one thousand forty one we had a graduation party at school and the war broke out. the shops were. always full of goods. in september leningrad was blocked. one day mom went and saw the shelves were

empty. in november. two warehouses it was the main storage place for all the food in the city people eating the earth because it had small traces of sugar in it i tried to eat it as well but i couldn't. look at the lists incredibly heavy bombing. going here it was a direct hit on that very shelter and everyone was buried underneath. all of them. good lumber touring. to build a new. fortunately doesn't sound anything mission to teach music creation why you should care about humans and. this is why you

should care only. you're watching our t.v. tonight outrage over the deaths of children and another american. officials insist it was an operation to disrupt the insurgency we report. ok syrian opposition group refuses to take part in next week's peace talks as moscow brings together iran and syria as foreign ministers to try to help with the groundwork for the conference. spice hopes fading for germany and the u.s. on a deal to stop snooping on each other as the route of. leadership.