twenty ninety second news reports i spent forty five years following three families and castro when you watch the revolution and you watch these people age and you learn a lot about cuba and i think it is also very obvious in your film that this kind of motional involvement that you develop with your character has also allowed you not so not only gain trust but actually gain unprecedented access to some of them including fidel castro you go the extra mile to show him as a human being rather you know a historical figure the way you show came up to really how you remembered him. that's the way i remember him fredo a trusted me. and with you that he considered me to be a friend and. took the risk. in my camera into places it had never been before into his bedroom into his kitchen. taking his shirt off

for me. and he is not a bullet hole but is this it's a feel that nobody had ever seen even the cubans had never seen a feel like this before but i've seen some reviews especially in the american press and they were very very critical of. the reviews that i saw i saw there were about three weeks after the really right wing people who obviously i don't think you've even seen the film decided they didn't like it but up to that particular point of resetting the review was positive positive positive outlook and i think the accusation of the claim that some of the review writers made was that you were. way too friendly and not critical enough but pam how did you i was there some very very critical moments in this film special period in cuba when the economy collapse when the soviet union fell. and they withdrew their support in cuba the negative impact on the cuban economy was like an eighty five percent contraction of their economy no electricity no transportation food shortages and because the people trusted me

the people who are suffering i film things that the cuban people never filmed and that nobody else was filmed and so. the room reviews that i saw understood that. more gratifying was it and i still get them today the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails from all over the world especially from cubans and because i think you cheated really as a human being rather than you know a foreign they're coming into their country and passing judgments about how flawed various systems really is and i think this is what many people experience in western journalists including in this country when somebody comes to your house to your country as flawed as it may be and tells you you know how flawed do you really are and i tried really hard to be honest. the. most gratification i get is when the cuban say that when their children ask them these are pro castro nandy castro

when their kids say mommy daddy what was the revolution like they're going to take my film out and show them my film now to quote this famous saying by a british historian lord acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and i'm not sure you would put it in quite those terms but. i think being in power for so long as fidel has been in power and being hunted for so long because i think he survived more than or around six hundred assess a nation at times that would change your personality have you noticed any character changes in him over time well i think i was the last journalist. the last american to be with fidel before he died. and he was always very open and friendly with me i think in terms of his relationship to the united states. he had a he needed a strong defensive posture because the aggression focused on him was really really very severe i think it hurt the revolution and i think that the revolution needed

to be more flexible and he to be more flexible with the human rights that needed to be more flexible economically. and. to some degree pushed into inflexible position that he didn't come out of you saying it was a matter of. personality aging or was because of the pressure that his country was subjected to i think it's both. i think it's very very important to have a very very strong feedback loop when he was young was all over the island he was playing baseball with everybody. you know he certainly could do that towards the end. but every country needs to be corrected my country really needs to be corrected and you know that's the that's our work that's the work of false reporters some people say we're not patriotic. i would like to say that maybe that's quite

a high form of patriotism when you point out the things that are wrong with your country because you want your country to be better well i agree with you but i think it also depends on how you say it because i think sometimes and that's my personal issue of the day american journalism and american or western criticism in general is that sometimes critical things being said to put people of countries down rather than show them deficiences in their systems and i heard you say in some of the other interviews that you believe that cuba was never really given a fair chance to run its social experiment to the fullest do you still believe that i sure would have liked to seen that happen you know when the revolution began free healthcare free school housing guaranteed jobs literacy campaigns that taught everybody how to remove the we were fighting for these things in the united states at that time and the fact they were going on in cuba was very

very exciting. but there was always so much tremendous pressure economically politically militarily against the regime you know would have been let the cubans experiment so we don't have to try this if it doesn't work we can look down there and all gosh it didn't work in cuba let's forget about having universal health care . but they never had the chance the problems that the communist systems in general is that while they are striving for bigger things they tend to forget about the little comforts of life and i think you put it well in one of your interviews when he said that it's good to have free education and free healthcare it's also nice to have a hot shower shower in the morning if cuba hadn't been pressured so much if it hadn't been sanctioned so much do you think they would have figured out how to provide both to their population you know that they had internal debates they were about the economy and sort of the individual is a i don't think they were resolved i think is one of the reasons why che guevara

left the country because he was in conflict with some of the other people that have more power internally and the tragedies will never never know cuba is now in the process of having a pistol transition of power and the united states department of state has already described it in pretty derogatory terms. well they said it wasn't free it wasn't fair it was dictatorial in nature. they also believe that this is not really a change of power after all and you know just a change of a figure had but. there's no way of knowing what i'm going to ask you at this point of time. given their way of making it an educated guess but i'm going to ask you still. how do you think the relationship it's been transamerica and cuba under this new president is going to develop over the next few years how do you see it i would like to see it continue on the path to normalization that was started in

the previous administration i think it was healthy look at the block. caden the animosity for fifty almost sixty years did it change the regime in cuba no it was a completely unsuccessful policy if you get in your car to go see your bush every day in your turn to key in the car doesn't go any place when you get in that same car every day for fifty years no you go to the metro you take some other route to this the united states had a talk about cuba's inflexibility we had a really inflexible policy too there was totally unsuccessful cause a lot of suffering on the day united states can afford to be inflexible when it comes to little neighbor now and then my answer is no point. the going. to the retrogressive miami community that is every day more and more a minority unfortunately that's back and forth again the last administration realize that the majority of cuban americans want to normalizations the normalised

and when you normalize you can talk. and i want to tell you from my experience in cuba when the united states use sugar instead of a hammer things change in cuba in the way that the united states wanted them. we're like i can't go backwards fast enough in the future to show you what what's going on in cuba now. it seems that in order to protect lection prospects in florida there is a little bit of a game that's being played with a very very very reactionary cubans who are disrespected more and more every day by the cuban community i've seen some western commentators compare this new president make l.d.s. now to now. and i know that you visited the soviet union during its reformist years of glasnost and perestroika which as inspiring as they may be now in hindsight it ultimately led to the collapse of not only the system to the soviet system but also

the collapse of the country do you think that's likely a likely scenario for cuba if the new president indeed pursues the reform or gender or if he doesn't so that was a question that i was asking myself and i was very very curious because of the half a century that i spend cuba because of my love for the cuban people i wanted to observe this firsthand but i didn't want to observe it from the back of the pack and so i had. asked the cuban government to allow me to come inside as they were making their deliberations as they were passing the power in to observe this basically like a fly. and. they don't answer me i have a choice but to be in cuba or be here in moscow for some very important thing this past week and i chose to come here to moscow instead of going to cuba well we are very happy it's to welcome you here in this country but for the time being we have

to take a very short break we'll be back in just a few moments states in. mexico as a financial survival guide stacey let's learn about fill out let's say on the troika and your theories on greece banks of the fight well st john thank you for being. on the story that's right if you looked at slavery. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first woman top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest greed in truth

to stand down lose reasons you just need as the right questions and demand the right answer. question dear. welcome back to worlds apart with jon alpert the american journalist and documentary filmmaker mr alfred just before the break you were saying that you had a choice of either going to cuba or coming to moscow and each owes most to and i know that you have something under the table to show as i do have something i have my my my props here if you see this yeah and i can see the name of legendary russian hockey player just last fifty seven days why do you have it if you look at

this and obviously we have your name here as well but still so so when i was growing up. i didn't want to be a journalist i can tell you how i became a journalist but it was completely accidental my dream was to be a hockey player. but my reality was that i still don't get i wasn't good enough. i was always very enthusiastic but in one town that hockey player but my friend i'm working with on a number of projects one is the first and last hockey game ever on the north pole can you skate really and you've got a year because next year around this time it basically to call attention to environmental crisis of the north pole and also this sort of political tensions the arctic countries the vatican. there's one more a can remember what it is they're all getting together. i usually do political

journalism and i think. right off the bat i can say that this is unfair and usually experience to have russians and americans doing anything constructive because from my experience the only big but it's good that you guys can do something in the in the current environment and i think so and you've been to war and i feel. that because of our shared experience and because i'm looking in your eyes i can tell that. when when you go to war as a reporter there is something that happens inside you and it changes you as a person and it compels you more or less for the rest of your life to look for other ways to resolve issues you visited a number of floor zones but did the one that you remember the most would be a your coverage of the day first gulf war for which you were actually fired from and b. c. . it was clearly and correct me if i'm wrong you were specifically fired because

you sell and it's a billion deaths all inflicted by the americans that was clearly an act of censorship but i think from my experience at least censorship in different come countries. realize in different patterns have you figured out how it works in the united states. you know it's affected me in different ways i've had the misfortune of being blacklisted twice i was blacklisted for public television not for war coverage but for a documentary about health care because the documentary pointed the finger at the sort of greedy financial interests that were keeping americans from getting the best health care. that was it for public television. but the sort of interesting thing about the united states is that sometimes the door opens and door closes and the door open to n.b.c. and i was the only independent reporter to work for any of the course on networks i

had total editorial control of my reports which is i have more editorial control than anybody here at r.t. has i think there were a number of circumstances general electric which is. a big powerful country company a company that has a lot of military industrial interests bought and b.c. and from that moment. the gangplank was out for me but i think that i may i may be mistaken but judging from your previous interviews i think it was more specific you went to iraq who filmed the shit is that where you were not supposed to sell me you managed to smuggle it into a back into the united states in your socks you brought it to the n.b.c. executives and what did they tell you. that every time i go to the third world i make trouble for them and they're tired of it but if you actually look at the footage what was the problem with your behavior over the actual material that they have here and in fact. the regular news staff was devastated by this

and they had all supported me they had seen the footage and were proud that somebody from their team had gotten this despite saddam's attempts to censor me you know we had three babysitters there were three pages of rules and regulations we broke every single rule they tried to kill me on the way out of the country put a gun to my head and spent five minutes trying to pull the trigger to kill me and i got the stuff back and everybody was proud of me and what was there what was on the there was on film i mean basically the smart bombs were not smart this was what we were being told in the united states during the war that this was the first bloodless war in history the first scientific war in history. and let me tell you when any country believes that they can make war not hurt people they become even more dangerous and so it was crucial to show these reports to the american did you actually show it to the american people when they should have seen it during the war one of the tragedies of the war and it's it's studied in journalism classes

there were a number of hand wringing retrospectives about the way in which the press had not fulfilled its duty to the country during the war and they didn't well you know what's interesting to me is that americans like to use the examples of the first and second iraqi contains as something that they regret but i think. i think has been repeated recently for example the united states military has just taken over the city of. isis used to claim as its capital it was taken by a very very have the aerial bombardment. practically no building is left standing in that city they're independent reports of thousands of corpses rotting under the rubble and they're still very very little if any coverage on the american that's for x. doesn't that suggest that the system that you encountered baghdad is still in operation these days i can't talk about that because i haven't been to syria i

can't talk about those reports because. i don't watch the news. when i spend my whole day doing what i'm doing i'm i don't know about you i want to watch a hockey game on t.v. i don't think i've watched merican cast in twenty years. but i didn't even watch my own reports because as soon as i finish with my own reports i was on an airplane going to the next war so i can't comment about that i thought that the way in which the press was treated during the second gulf war because i was embedded for two months in baghdad was respectful was honest and was transparent and it was the three hundred sixty degree difference from the first gulf war first gulf war. the press was treated like a bunch of dogs in the alley you've been to numerous war zones but you decided against going to syria or for that matter to libya why is that why didn't you want to go there. make

a calculus. before i decide to go someplace i would like. i'm happy to take a risk and happy to risk can say i'm happy but i will risk my life if i think that the report that i make is going to change something. and that's the sort of sophisticated combinations of things want to have to be able to get to where i want to go i have to be able to operate with some degree of freedom people's minds have to be flexible enough so that if i come back and i say listen this is what i think the truth really is that the listen to me and i need an outlet and i don't have any of those conditions. when i stop working for n.b.c. i began to do documentaries and sort of let's get on the plane the bells ringing over in syria i'm going to be the first person in the front the first person back in those days i could beat anyone in the world sure you're good but i could beat you but documentaries is different and documentaries is a long slow or thoughtful process and and there are only so many places that you

can show them and we basically make one documentary every two years every three years in the case of cuba to be forty five years the conditions and i felt bad you know because in order to take this risk you have to believe that there's something about the way in which you see the world that is important for other people to know otherwise it's insanity to go to these places and you have to have that burning. burning burn inside you so the first couple of times wars happened without me. like you had to tie me to the mast because but i didn't have any place to show it you know you weren't there but they were. a lot of coverage of both the syrian and libyan conflict and it was. very much split along the ideological lines because i could see the reports of my western colleagues for example from libya voice with their own this same year in the same building working

at you know from the same desk but they would show something totally totally different i mean the reality that i wouldn't even recognize and i'm sure they would say the same things about my reports we are now in the age of propaganda war a supposed truth post-fact do you think you could even adapt to this kind of working environment i did pretty pretty good in egypt so i was in the square in egypt for the revolution. it's pretty good film it played on h.b.o. we didn't win the oscar but we got on the shortlist for the oscar awards and so made a film from i don't know if you appreciate. like my type of way of doing things it was a quintessential film the way in which we do it very well received so. there's the opportunity to still do exist and you know it's also our responsibilities as

reporters to. try and be as honest as possible to not have an agenda. when there's lots of forces pulling us this way and points out what the it's not about having an agenda i think from what i see at least i think many western reporters they come to cuba or they come to syria with the preconceived notion of what that country is and they do their reports from the balconies of the hotel we call them balcony buzzards a little whatever i mean. things to get more things in there they stay the same so you know this and. the first report i ever did for n.b.c. . was the first time i'd ever been in a war zone and i was up in lang's on vietnam the chinese were on the hills shooting at anything that moved and i like a moron i'm walking down the street there with my vietnamese buddies in the church church so you know what i did. everybody else runs for cover i

grab the microphone and i do with the end up because that's all it ever. existed and so i said i'm telling them what was obvious i'm here i'm lying son that people are shooting at me and my name is john alpert and i'm working for n.b.c. news i looked at that and i said you know what that's the last stand up on their feet i never i never did another one i was so ashamed of myself because all i was doing was copycatting you know they all wear the same clothes they wear the trench coats in the winter they wear the safari suits and they walk around with briefcases and question what the heck is in their briefcases you know what it is speak up and they spend the whole day waiting for the sun to get into the right position they've got somebody standing there with the tray to reflect and they're there on the balcony well i think so shame on them and here awards to people who go do something different and it's and it's not just american reporters seen the russian reporters i've seen people like this all over the world and there are good reporters from every single country who will get dirty and will

try to understand what the people are doing well i. definitely on that i just. a minute left and i want to ask you perhaps a philosophical question but still i think much of the global tensions still centered around those concepts of freedom democracy tyranny development human flourishing and what always strikes me is how differently they are interpreted in different countries what freedom means to an american is very different from what freedom means to a cuban or to a syrian or even to russians for that matter do you think difference is a genuine do you think we will absolutely be able to drive. you know some common understanding of what freedom really. i think it's always good to have differences. but we can't let those differences separate us and what we need to do is. even even though we might look at the wall. differently we need to. walk

through the world holding hands and talk to each other about our differences like we're doing here today will be a big you know mindful of being branded as a kremlin sympathizer because i think in this day and age even appearing on this network may get you in trouble getting to anybody who knows me knows that i've always been my own person and people have respected me for that that's why they invite me to come back time and time again and that's why this project about the first and last hockey game at the north pole which has been forced by the united nations that's the other well i certainly would together and i'll teach you how to skate you want how to skate well but i'll teach you a well i will definitely try my best but in any case i hold that we can discuss your next project let's say in a year's time in this very studious thank you for being here today i invite our viewers to keep this conversation going on our social media pages as for me hope to see you again same place same time here on worlds apart.

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weeks. elliston is getting international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos a member of the commission you like to meet these isn't my cup of tea is going out

the study hall maybe. john without a doubt. the only palestinians who gets the most hopeful is jerusalem counterparts i don't think there is some of those ruined the vision to know only could do this. and though it is often at that age the heart of this lady is the most out of the yard i don't know if you can give him a doesn't seem to do more than it was also don't put this off. was.

a development from the hague on the alleged chemical attack in the syrian town of duma with russia are inviting local witnesses to testify the incident was staged. in that havel or in the basement and then heard someone outside scream go to hospital we were scared they started to pour water on me i don't know why they did this of on the phone and as professionals we saw that there were no symptoms suggesting chemical weapons had been used. pressure monson castoff from its regional rivals amid claims that dubai based company commissioned a film linking the gulf state to terrorism to justify sanctions. that's not even a dolla facebook's technology chief tells british and these.