much so we don't want to say the wrong things or we don't want people to think that we say the wrong things despite being shamed as nazis by the media and politicians are right and far right movements are still winning people over in this once liberal nordic state but these parties are showing they will confront current migrant policies head on be it for better or worse great notion our t. is reporting from sweden. the us has declassified nearly six hundred pages of private conversations between former american and russian president bill clinton and boris yeltsin they took place between one thousand nine hundred three and one thousand nine hundred nine when yeltsin left office election question nato expansion and the future russian president vladimir putin were among the many topics they discussed our correspondent regard you have comment now that we're at rock bottom in terms of relations between russia and the us it's bad

now we pine for what they were backward presidents could talk frankly joke laugh heck even collude for elections bill for my election campaign i urgently need for russia alone of two point five billion dollars i'll check on this with the i.m.f. and with some of our friends and see what can be done those were the days when you could funnel billions to get your pals reelected real friendship right there clinton even helped yeltsin with a heart operation their wives now in the yeltsin and hillary clinton visited each other shopped together unfortunately it wasn't very equal friendship nine hundred ninety six the united states was strong russia was in its knees crime corruption stagnation it seemed to get the rule or end of every deal. it remains

a mistake for nato to move eastward nuclear and conventional arms cannot move eastward into new members to the borders of russia i've told you no one is talking about a massive all out accelerated expansion two years later nearly a dozen european states were invited to join nato the czech republic hungry poland bulgaria is still in latvia lithuania romania slovakia slovenia so yeltsin tried everything he even begged them. let us have a verbal gentlemen's agreement we would not write it down in the statement that no former soviet republics would enter nato i cannot sign any agreement without such language especially ukraine consider what a terrible message it would be worse still organized against russia but there's a line across which we won't go pleading didn't work so we'll turn tried warnings

russia will pull out of the agreement and consider it now and void i know what a terrible problem this is for you but i can't make the specific commitment you're asking for not even complaints could get through. you are conducting naval maneuvers near crimea it is as if we are training people in cuba how would you feel it's unacceptable to us the spite of all that they remained friends even joke together three months of the pre-election race has taken its toll i feel somewhat tired i saw the picture of you dancing with the girls in the band and you looked wonderful i'm disappointed that no one sets up events like that for me in my campaign they were frank so frank in fact that there generals would get a little nervous yeah they discussed ditching their nuclear briefcases what if we were to agree giving up having to have our finger next to the box and all the time perhaps we could agree that it's not necessary for us to carry the chima down chick

well i'll have to think about this all we carry of course are the codes in the secure phone yes you and i are the only leaders you have to do this mr president given the responsibility of your office and president yeltsin's it makes more sense for the two of you to have these devices with you at all times it was simpler in those days the world was younger and no one knew what the future held for example would the united states pull out the viewer up. the u.s. is not in europe europe should be the business of europeans russia is half european and half asian so you want asia to sure sure bill eventually will have to agree on all of this i don't think the europeans would like this very much not all but i'm a european moscow is in europe and i like it you can take all the other states and provide security to them i would take europe and provide them security well not i russia will bill i'm serious give your up to europe itself europe never felt as

close to russia as it does now good days good friends and then yeltsin just up then left leaving behind a successor that clinton was sure he'd get along with shortly you will have a meeting with mr putin i would like to tell you about him so you will know what kind of man he is he is a solid man who is kept well abreast of various subjects under his purview and he can easily have good relations and contact with people who are his partners who will win the election boots and of course he's a democrat and he knows the west he's very smart he's tough he has an internal ramrods and he will when you do business together strange to think that most of the issues problems they discussed in those days are still the main themes of today nato expansion and encroachment european security trade and loans what's changed is that russia's grown up turns out it's much harder being friends when you're more

equal. a passenger jet overshot the runway and car fire in southern russia in the early hours of saturday leaving eighteen people injured including three children the boeing plane operated by airlines was unable to land for more than half an hour due to adverse weather conditions and sochi airport when it finally did touch down plane skidded off the runway and into a river bed ok. in sochi it was more. a modification of a boeing seven three seven operated by you it's a major russian airline mostly focusing on domestic flights will it make to a landing attempt here in the airports sort of the first one was apparently hampered by the strong winds as you see it is all nice and sunny right now but it's night there was a vicious thunderstorm here downpour of rain and lightning bolts were going off literally every few seconds so the landing conditions were nowhere near good or

perfect in that sense on the second attempt when the aircraft finally did touch the landing strip that was when things didn't go where they should have to basically the aircraft rolled past the end of the runway the pilots couldn't bring it to a stop one of the short of it plunged into a river court file on one of the engines or one of the wings of the left wing is reported to have been completely burnt down and now it is somewhat of a miracle i should say that there were no casualties when it comes to the people on board of the plane and there was one death though and that is one of the airports work is apparently the man was one of the first responders on the scene of the crash and he was trying to help people get out of the burning plane and the word is his heart just couldn't really take it apparently he died of a heart attack on site so what is happening now of course the investigators are

looking into what caused the would cause the tragedy with the tragedy was it the weather or was there a human factor involved too also with the russian transportation authority will be investigating and looking into how the airline is operating and how the airports here in sochi is operating but so far of course the most important thing is that nobody on board of that plane died. there is now a call for webber retail giant amazon to be taxed to make up for low wages and poor working conditions of its staff in the united states senator bernie sanders says some employees at the nine hundred billion dollars company are paid so little that they qualify for food stamps or to use american has more. the story of the american leftist movement bernie sanders is at war with amazon the world's largest online retailer accusing the company of not treating its workers sparely it is important to take a look at the power and influence that the answer is that all over this country

amazon employees pay wages so low that they're having a real hard time getting bar to go forced the upon pacs play upon the programs and you know who pays for those programs. this isn't just empty rhetoric either sanders announced that he'd be introducing legislation that would require these big corporations to cover all federal benefits their employees receive from the government like food stamps and public housing if they can't pay them a living wage he's also encouraging amazon employees to speak out one former employee claims she was forced to work with an injured foot was like a something there was a loud crack i really feel it was an injury she really we don't see anything here flights not stolen or anything just goes to it just so the surgeon supplied you through fish your fish it's either finished your shift. cliff face at one time however amazon c.e.o. jeff bezos presented himself as an employer who truly cared about his employees and

the environment they were working at i'm very proud of the culture that we have with him so if you're giving great customer experience. there's the only way to do that is with happy people and now amazon has issued a response to sandra's criticism something that doesn't happen very often urging employees to write to the senator and prove him wrong senator sanders continues to make inaccurate and misleading accusations against amazon we are encouraging all employees to take senator sanders up on his request and respond with their actual experience some did respond positively to the senator's tweets but that didn't change his mind he called on amazon to publish info on the number of employees it hires along with our. early wages and benefits amazon says its median salary in the us is just over thirty four thousand dollars around what jeff bezos makes every ten seconds now imagine how much money he's made in the time i've taken to report this story. on to syria now where the russian defense ministry says

a terrorist attack on the ancient city of palmira has been thwarted the ministry said it had information that the militants two of whom were killed in a shootout with government troops in a town thirty six kilometers to the east were trained by instructors from the united states comes on the back of the u.s. secretary of state accusing russia and president assad of escalating the syrian conflict might pump aoe also said civilians there would bear the brunt of the offensive against terror groups or to spoke to the syrian foreign minister about the fight against joe harvests in his country oh oh. first of all the international community should recognize that it leapfrogged is a syrian territory and this syrian government must regain full control of it secondly as president assad said our priorities liberate it live by that peacefully

which we prefer or use in the military thirdly it is clear that. is listed as a terrorist organization by the united nations to protect. have opened and humanitarian corridor it has been open for two weeks and we have already received hundreds of families on these bases and i can say that if military action is considered necessary it will be only. that those groups who are in favor of a settlement deal should voice their position and me their commitments in terms of for reconciliation. has been a haven for rebels and their families evacuated from areas retaken by the government almost three million people currently live in the province and the tense situation there has led to the west and russia exchanging strong rhetoric after the u.s. and its european allies warned syria against using chemical weapons in italy. syrian

armed forces have no chemical weapons and no plans to use them there is no military necessity for it it is not enough for the russians to a said that the syrians have chemical weapons sensible people will not be used militarily use this means to draw the fire of three powerful countries upon themselves the russians are claiming and this one other groups are stockpiling chemical weapons and planning an attack and you know i think that is more false flag type reporting talking to be as is enough for when you try to play the blame they try to put the onus on other groups and we don't buy into that give them the chemical weapons provoke asian which is being prepared is aimed at keeping them we believe these egotistical unilateral political games counterproductive. investigative journalist rick sterling says western nations don't want to see the highly trained foreign terrorists in syria returning to their home countries

elements within the united states and nato for that matter want to prolong the conflict they basically want the syrian government to let the terrorist a and it looked province we can just imagine what might prompt a a would say if there were thousands of terrorists in oregon and washington states in the united states they wouldn't have any patience at all for that the situation is complicated right now it's difficult because there are thousands of foreign fighters there these are trained terrorists with a lot of battle experience and they've been supported by the west they've been supported by the gulf by including including turkey and none of the countries that have supported the terrorists want them to come back to their own their own countries of course and it's kind of hypocritical for my pump aoe to criticize syria for trying to expel terrorists from its own its own territory. and that does

it for me i'll be back with headlines in about thirty five minutes you're watching our national. leave. him alone to me not a rich and rich. people as a levels from somewhere you. are given by the community of. people we are abused and you know the road look out for me all

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of welcome to worlds apart for decades russians house both left and despair that the inadequacies of their systems are also struggling to accept this same kind of criticism from foreign theirs and when russia decided to hold a mirror to the west only imperfections including by a set. this child it turned out western tolerance to criticism is even vulgar why is it so difficult to communicate pointing out what's wrong with one another well to discuss that i'm now joined by tony cab and a former diplomat and the author of a book called return to moscow well mr cavanaugh it's great to have you in the studio thank you very much for your time and happiest charlie a day thank you very much. now when you say australia in the russian context it conjures up an image of a beautiful faraway land with bright blue sky beautiful beaches with friendly

people who spent most of that time surfing and i know it's a typical but i think it's a nice mental picture to get you through the long russian winter but i suspect when you say russian there's trial and context. the associations are probably not so positive are they. they can be quite negative unfortunately we've been fed a diet of cliches about russia. russia is still very much seen through a post soviet lens. of success the strike to the soviet union and somehow or other images of. stuff in the country of extreme cold discomfort of rudeness of the kinds of things that unfortunately still linger on and you wrote the whole book to address some of those negative stereotypes and i think you have

a very unusual take for a western or former western diplomat. when it comes to russia because. i think there's a lot of understanding there's also a lot of compassion in your book and i really appreciate that but i will want to ask you whether you ever felt that you are giving this country an easy pass i don't think i think that the majority of the content of my. book deals with the sometimes very disagreeable parts of russia's history i've got a chapter on the leg museum i've got a chapter on the jewish museum of tolerance and i and i talked very frankly in those two chapters of some of the black spots in russia's history and i think what i felt as a former professional diplomat for thirty is that i was an ambassador to poland and to gamble idea that was my last postings. i felt i had

a certain responsibility to my own society to say look we are being fed. bad fantasies about russia the real russia is not what we're being told about. i want to go and i want to see what it's like and my process of disenchantment from the western propaganda machine against russia it really began pretty much in interest thousand and fourteen with the events in ukraine and the way in which they were being reported now i hope we will go into the ukrainian events a little bit later on into the program but. you mentioned the this negative image of russia and russia is definitely not an easy country it's a very complex society it's sometimes a very contorted country and i think we the russians are the first to you know and experience that and i think that actually goes to the very notion of russian patriotism it's loving russia is it's

a bit like caring for the disabled loved one you know the disability you hate them but you love the person all the more because of that and that is actually i think the most moving part of your book for me that you accept disability rather than the typical western scolding that russia is not good enough but what i thought find even more troubling is that that's cold ing that irritated russians a lot if you years back now seems acceptable because it essentially dick rest into the open bigotry why do you think this lack of compassion not even the lack of basic decency towards this country has become so does your mental conditioning and mutual propagandizing to the point where people come to believe each other if they keep telling each other that's good you know if you if you repeat laws often enough they become the truth and when you've got people in time media communities who constantly read. prince and each other with attitudes and opinions that really have

no basis in fact unfortunately fulfill turn to will to fulfill certain reality takes hold and i found when i decided to come to russia i was confronted by my friends and my colleagues in canberra which is the government center of australia with all sorts of illusions once you get outside moscow people will be stuffing better not get sick in moscow you think in russia you won't be looked after properly all rubbish but the point is these have become general beliefs and i felt as a former ambassador whatever authority i still had and whatever credibility i still had. i wanted to put it at the service of writing a book that would encourage a better understanding of russia now i wonder. whether this issue of portraying russia always in a very negative light is also connected to the west's own south perception because

in your book you're afraid. liberal interventionist as a driving force behind many of the west or america's adventures and we i think it's impossible not to agree that many of those adventures created more harm than good and yet they also produced very little in the way of south for selection to what extent this insistence on portraying russia as really ugly is predicted on the need of the west to see the south as invariably good despite all its recent policy blunders yes i think you're absolutely right. it's very important for the west and i laid however you define that military diplomatic political media that. believe in their own objectivity they have to believe in it but it's not just objectivity it's some sort of eternal goodness. the other side being all

the way. in the wrong. well yes although i'm not sure that a very many people would talk about being good and evil i mean that's that's a moral concept in the west but it's become a many many of these speeches are forced implications you constantly hear these theme of moral superiority drawing you know making i think this is a recurring theme in many of the present obama statements and in many of the statements by british politicians that they could be no moral equivalency between for example russia and the west where in fact why would you even think about equating anyone morally everybody makes mistakes everybody has his own or her own difficulties why would you need to compare anyone on the moral basis yes well i find that really very strange and limited thinking on that because to me russia is one of the most morally conscious countries in the world i mean the country that produced the story if. it's all about morality it's all about what is good what is

evil this is something that preoccupies russians in a very noble very noble sort of way on the other hand i see the west my own country australia which is the small satellite of america not so much as a country that is sort of moral sense of itself but a country that believes in its own pragmatism we we we like to pretend that we are totally realistic when we're not the lucian's in your book here i think the lucian's in your book here i think very eloquently explain the russians have this deeply ingrained fear of war which comes back to our losses in world war two and perhaps even before that and i think you can easily make a case that russians sometimes overplay those fears those insecurities or security concerns but i wonder why do you think people in the west have lost out fear because this intimate treating all those in interventions especially in foreign.

lance very casually without any concern for the people there for tell own. wellbeing because you mentioned the issue of pragmatism but what is still pretty much about going into libya or syria well i think that's a very good question because to my mind war and entertainment have become good in our culture and we've children grow up playing playing war games on their computer this war has somehow been domesticated as entertainment. the major hollywood film industry. films about war. remember the way george bush when he wanted to declare victory. over saddam hussein's iraq he went to an aircraft carrier and put on the boat much eckert and like tom cruise but look at the way you package that i mean he was basically making a little. and so i think russians on the other hand the war is

a dreadful reality for them this this this wonderful new tradition of the much of the poke to russians this there's nothing funny about war it is serious and i'm sure that russia will get to extend your question little bit i'm sure that russia will be the last country in the world to abandon its nuclear deterrent i think russia will be the last to give up nuclear weapons because russia regards nuclear weapons as the bow walk against invasion or war by a superior coalition of speaking about this affair superior outside coalition force as those tensions that we've been discussing came to had in ukraine in two thousand and fourteen and in your book here try to explain both russian and western thinking in great detail and there is this popular view in moscow that as painful as the ukrainian rupture was and it certainly was and is for russia russia is playing it a great cost for the kind of decisions that made in the ukrainian conflict there is

also believed that the rapture. how to prevent a much bigger conflict between russia and nato that if russia didn't act. moment back in two thousand and fourteen the nature would continue pushing across its border and there would be no other way to escape that direct confrontation how much do you crave at that oh very much so i mean there was a sort of a rehearsal for crimea some years beforehand and in georgia of course went under a lot of american encouragement of the saakashvili government but very provocatively towards russia and a couple of ethnic parts of georgia and you know and i think i forget the name of that number when the current dutch and russia drew a line that russia moved in with support for the local local governments local if the groups and drew a lot and that was

a dress rehearsal if you like. ukraine became the real thing because for many years before the the overthrow of the case which government for many years before two thousand and fourteen there was all kinds of encouragement being given to nationalistic elements in the crowd and the russian element by the united states and by certain european countries do you think they actually understood the seriousness of encouraging those kind of forces and the kind of reaction that they may provoke in russia where they understood and simply didn't care i think the latter i think they didn't care i think it was you know whatever we can do to encourage the build up of of anti russian opinion in ukraine is worth doing whatever the risks because ukraine so important strategically so important economically and if we can prise it away from the russian world to the nato world it would be worth spilling some china breaking some china and spilling the sort of

on the way so i think they underestimated the seriousness of the elements new crown . and russia had to draw a line somewhere in ukraine as if you get thrown in georgia what if they if they they've helped a very small part of ukraine i mean. it's been done it pretty small amount of territory what five percent of ukraine they they've helped crimea carry out an act of free self-determination and they did it under enormous provocation if they hadn't been the most. they would not have been the warden at least mr kim and i could argue that the west did similar things in other countries but as western officials would reply to that there is no moral equivalency anyway we have to take a short break now but we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned.