i think scenes the french president's rushed out of a parish theater under a hail of boos is furious protesters. resign and try to confront. rejects accusations washington routinely lied about america's longest war made by the top u.s. official overseeing afghanistan reconstruction. and 77 years since the end of the siege of leningrad one of will most appalling humanitarian disasters.

you're watching on c international great to have you with us. we'll start in paris where hundreds have gathered for the latest protest against the government's pension reform plans in some parts of the french capital clashes erupted between the police and demonstrators. i. i strike by public transport workers says chaos through the french capital for almost 2 months now despite the government's promise to compromise agreeing to drop some of the most controversial aspects of its reforms french parliament is due to debate the pension bill next month. present around you microns and huge pressure over the controversial reform and on friday night he was booed to see left of paris theater with people they're chanting match wrong resign some demonstrators against macro's pension reforms got past police into the hall and delivered their angry message.

was. it was. us i 2 i guess i protests is followed by khan's motorcades he tried to speed away the president was reported with his wife bridgette in a rare chorus courted by police motorbikes. journalist and political activist who have noticed my tone in the theatre and filmed him saying that the evening may be eventful after that he was arrested for quote being part of a group formed with the purpose of committing acts of violence is addressed the spot outrage meanwhile more than $100.00 protesters in the french capital block the entrance to the iconic louvre museum people have joined the union calls to demand the complete withdrawal of micron's proposals but there are still mixed public

feelings about the protests. tom coleman the filmmaker to you i'm happy that they're defending culture i left at 7 in the morning from additional on where i'm from to see the antarctic division chicks a patient but it's not a big deal because if they do not strike their want to really be along for as we know it so i don't mind the strike i'm actually happy i supported them. if someone would lend my hand i'm ready to break through the picket line because this situation is unacceptable i don't care about their pension issues. they are uniting and supporting each other reinforcing each other so that's why i'm here really is also called we are against it they should not be here picked in for an hour to strike to express their opinion very good but to piss off everyone all day long who comes to visit he comes from far away that's shameful what. we

understand the anger of the business is about this anger should be directed at the government who wants to force its pension reform project through we're not the ones that are standing in the way we're not blocking the public cultural service on the contrary we're fighting for a strong public cultural service where you look at the support of the population of the strikers we're very surprised to see the government maintaining its position is of extremism that is unacceptable for a democrat like me who voted for manual micro in the 2nd round of the presidential election against. the pentagon insists it has been nothing but on this after washington's own watchdog for afghan reconstruction accuse the military leadership of routine lives over progress in america's longest war artie's kelly morgan reports. common cynicism aside most people would prefer that those responsible for leading the country tell the truth and this is most

especially true when it comes to situations like war where the lives of the men and women in the armed forces are on the line well according to the special inspector for afghan reconstruction the pentagon has been lying for years the problem is there's a disincentive really to tell the truth we have created an incentive to almost require or for people to la there's an odor of mendacity throughout the afghanistan issue and i know congressman connelly has heard me talk about this years ago mendacity and who bruce now the department of defense was quick to chime in and dispute this congressional testimony here is the response the idea that there was some efforts to hide the truth the reality on the ground just doesn't hold water this idea that they were somehow missed statements i don't think that really joe's it has been roughly a month since the washington post published the afghanistan papers this is

a trove of documents from the office of the special inspector general showing a sensually among many revelations that the efforts of the usa against the taliban have been completely ineffective america's top military brass were clueless about afghanistan and had no real understanding of what was happening on the ground and no real strategy this is how one of the top military generals under the administrations of both bush and obama explained it would trying to do here we didn't have the in the would ruin the taking through the fundamental get up and distancing of the front and the stated objectives. in the military and the lack of understanding of the resources necessary internally the pentagon knew that the situation was bleak however that is not what was told. the u.s. public for years americans have gotten a steady stream of information claiming that there was progress being made in

afghanistan we helped liberate an oppressed people. and we will continue helping them secure their country rebuild their society and educate all their children boys and girls. that i set to defeat al qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild is within reach and we're doing a tremendous job. and as you know a big part of the job is. certainly the biggest. and we. we've got him down very low numbers wise lies and more lives the usa has been in afghanistan for 17 years now making it the longest military engagement in all of us history and despite the new revelations showing how bleak the situation is and that deception was part of the modus operandi for the pentagon it seems like top voices in washington still don't have an exit strategy. r.t. new york and lists told us the watchdogs revelations come as no surprise. we've

been told so many times by brian that we've now burned them or they're everything is going to get better in or stand that we've actually done in a circle and so on their merit explains a lot of people who are. informal and say sure we know responsible who work. for progressives there are errors there they don't want to jeopardize their careers are saying. it's not going well and we're not in progress i think it is definitely time for the united states to remove its troops we've been there 18 years so we have killed over 150000 afghans some of whom are colophon some of whom are you know various militia groups them in great majority are afghan civilians who only want peace here and there for 3 something they really haven't. the inspector general is speaking out after documents he tried to keep secret were leaked those

were the leaked after year after year after year of this same nonsense being repeated so it's possible for these things to build and steamrolled but the united states has a has a president who campaigned on ending this war it is now repeating the tired old lies that he's about to win it in a day which are not unique to this war they say they come with every war every occupation and there's not even been a requirement that a victory be defined nobody has any idea what it would be a victory is to continue losing for another year. 77 years ago today the red army broke the siege of leningrad with the blockade ended the year later the vast majority of victims in the city died not from bombing but from hunger and hypothermia god may have changed his name to st peter's to memorise the run they. was

was. yes when i was over me and my friend went to a store with food stamps there was a huge field and suddenly we saw a plane it dropped a bomb we were taught that if we see a bomb flying towards us you have to run in the direction of the bomb because that way it'll pass so view but we ran away we got away and kept walking suddenly i realized i'd left her behind she walked towards a fence i came up to check on her realized she was hanging on the fence already dead my friend what could i do i was barely alive myself some people helped me carry her home a good thing we weren't too far away from home because we're. tied

up buck and you know when my father died of hunger and we were going to bury him the weather was extremely cold it was about minus 36 or 38 degrees we owed thanks to our neighbor who constructed the casket for him and helped us to carry my father to the cemetery and the cemetery there was a chapel next to the chapel there was a pile of dead bodies higher than the chapel itself and every time i come to that place i still can see this pile of dead bodies in my head i still have this picture in my head. was. already after i buried my father i signed up as a nurse at the military field hospital once in january i came home from the hospital and my mother was lying on the bed hall for life but she said to me zoya i think i'm about to pass away i bought meat patties at the market and i think they're made out of human don't leave the girls alone don't marry to. young and don't cut your hair short after an hour she died.

she was that good very well they always said the russians will win our pilots corps she was shot down i remember they carried him in sheets she was all brown his skin was brown from bruising and we prepared a warm bath for him with medicine they lowered him into it and he exclaimed please save me i have to keep flying i have to keep fighting. but your. limit putin has also been taking part in commemoration events he laid flowers at the landmark stone monument at the nevski pier the chalk memorial site is the scene of fierce fighting during world war 2 it's believed the russian president's father was also injured.

during the war many lives in the city were saved by the simple tricks of a metronome. metronome followed by sirens was broadcast on the wall and a half 1000 speakers throughout leningrad a slow basement retreat a warm warm german bombers for on the way it became a symbol of resistance to the nazi raids on 2 attempts the start of the people to death row for national reports from the northern capital. leningrad known today as st petersburg was a main strategic targets for nazi germany and the fates they prepared for this beautiful city were still laid to waste by bohrman a town also starving its almost 3000000 population to death the horror of the siege

was hollow just became routine when you walk down the street many remember it or rather try to forget you come across dead bodies carried on sleds is all the time or dead bodies lying on the streets and at some point those the law they simply stop paying any attention to these horrific sights the appearance read i remember the 1st time i saw a corpse on the street wrapped in some rags at 1st it was scary but then people got used to it and just walked by i can see the bodies were just randomly dumped in the street eventually they took them away. their childhood was stolen by a merciless war gongs and hunger there was already too much for them there was something maybe even more terrifying as lack of food became too dramatic children as well as many adults often became

a target for nazi germany for hungry people so the word. thing was the hunger it was unimaginable at the factory they gave us just 200 grams of bread it was made from strange ingredients some a drop in the cabbage others burnt trooper i don't know how i survived and i think god saved my life when. people saw gold but even that's a couldn't bear it anymore the water supply system froze and collaged people hungry people freezing people they now * became just 2 people searching for war to everywhere including sewerage system. we went to get water on food with us ledges it was very cold there was a severe frost the river had frozen over but there was a hole and people were queuing to get water to drink people still wonder how we didn't die trink in this water to citizens during delivery shelling this side of

the street is the most dangerous says based on one of many similar across the city these warnings became a symbol of things are faced by residents of during the siege and still today they stay as silent reminders of those hairy ball days. in the arctic kingdom criminals with mental health drug problems could avoid jail under a new but controversial scheme will explain how to break the issue after the short break. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy confrontation let it be an arms race. and spearing dramatic developments only. i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down

and talk. the world is driven by shaped by our own personal. dares thinks. we dare to ask.

violent offenders with mental health or social problems in the u.k. could be given the chance to avoid jail if they successfully take part in a rehabilitation program most according to a report in the telegraph a so-called deferred prosecution scheme has been trials already in 10 counties and could now be rolled out nationwide with research indicating they've been a success participants have to do 4 months of rehab to help them overcome any underlying issues such as mental health problems or drug addiction they must not reoffend in that period on pain of prosecution but there are concerns the feelings of victims are being ignored. an important part of recovering from a crime can be the knowledge meant that the victim to wrong has been done we would expect the feedback a victim's involved in the pilots to be taken into account before a lot. different counties are included different crimes in their pilot deferred prosecution schemes most include different kinds of their 1st drug possession and 1st time offenses but some include more serious crimes such as assault domestic

abuse burglary and criminal damage let's debate this now with political commentator andrew walker and human rights activist peter tatchell welcome to you both gentlemen. you a fan of this game what do you see is that the positives or perhaps the flaws. well i think it's one of those schemes that is very interesting really offending rates but doesn't do a great deal for victims i think there has to be an element of ensuring that people don't we have found that has to be an element of rehabilitation but also there has to be a punishment for the crime and one of the concerns i've got about this scheme is on some occasions it does not involve admitting guilt and can actually make it quite hard for victims to access things like compensation so look i think we do get it wrong in the united kingdom in terms of the amount of rehabilitation and education that we give to people convicted of crimes or accused of crimes thought we don't do enough for victims i think that we need to be always mindful of the fact that if

you've been a victim of something like burglary it can be considered to be quite a severe violation of your home have you know something that you do want to see published. and what's your take on this p.t.c. more positives and negatives. well of course the criminal justice system has 3 main targets terence punishment and rehabilitation of those 3 the most important is of course rehabilitation when an offense has been committed because we don't want that person coming back into the criminal justice system we want to help enable them to get back as a law abiding citizen now this scheme does have some problems but it's very interesting that when it comes to violent offenders the likelihood of real offense goes down by 34 percent under. this scheme and the level of victim satisfaction increases to 75 percent which is way way way above the

normal average so i think clearly it does have some positive benefits and you know i feel for the victims of course and i've been a victim of violent assault on many occasions because of my human rights work but even so i do want to cure the patient. and rather than kill the patient. i'm doing the research into the pilot scheme suggests that it's pretty good when it comes to saving money is that justification alone to roll this out nationwide and that money could be put to good use somewhere else or is that not enough. will that is the concern that we've had in this country for quite a significant amount of time are we deciding what to do with people accused of very serious crimes based on financial concerns or who actually do what's best for the community look as far as i'm concerned one thing that we fail on is education within prisons david cameron when he was privatised out of brilliant idea to sell

all these very valuable city center prisons either tab to build new state of the art facilities that included education elsewhere or forcing the scheme never really took off but i do think that's important ports you know there has to be an element of punishment and i do disagree with peter when he says that we have militated has to be the most important part of criminal justice i think punishment needs to be the most important parts and if you have rehabilitation in education within that then fine but i just wouldn't if it was me i just wouldn't want to be in a position where i was a victim of violent crime and the person who committed it really got off scot free so find about education find about rehabilitation but we have to remember that policeman is important for victims as well. peter just to pick up on what andre mentioned. i know that you've been a victim of crime you said yourself and you would be ok with seeing somebody ability but what about other people who might be quite so forgiving imagine

somebody who may have been burgled and then sees the person who may have confronted them in their own home walking outside the home again a few weeks later having gone through this isn't there a danger that you know people will feel very upset at the prospect of such a scenario. although it is certainly possible that we have to consider there is allied skeen which have been going for a long time called restore to of justice where we have the victims consent and. the victim and the perpetrator meet usually physically but sometimes by video link to discuss the effects that the crime had upon the victim and also in some cases the whereby the perpetrator agrees to pay compensation or do some kind of community work related to the offense or if it was a race hate crime they might be required to do community work supporting black and ethnic minority organizations now in those schemes the success rate is very

very high. the victims that 85 percent of cases they felt satisfied with this alternative system and 78 percent said they would recommend it to other victims of crime so looking at it from the victim's point of view i think there are serious questions to be honest and this this kind of scheme deserves consideration and when it comes to the prison system. brandon prison in england which focuses primarily well punishment but also very strong on rehabilitation with counseling and support it's really friending rate is one 3rd of one 3rd less than the standard right so i think it shows that these alternative methods do have a better success phrase and there is obviously good for the victims and for the wider society. and over the ground in prison seems to be

a global problem and we got to the stage now where really countries have to try something different because it seems like nothing else really works. yeah well i think the 3 strikes and you're out of the 0 tolerance thing that we saw in the united states of america people being thrown in the louisiana state penitentiary for ever had so it turns into an old people's home in certain parts a lot i think that people accept that that's not a particular good idea one of the concerns i've got and i don't think the scheme necessarily resolves is the fact that many people in british prisons are unable to read all right now you know that makes it extremely difficult for you to come out of prison and get a job and i don't think any sort of justice deals with that if the reason that you are credible is because you can't read or write we need to deal with that problem but to be honest with you i would frankly this i would say to prisoners you're not eligible for early release from prison or less you enter an education program where

you learn to read or write because otherwise it's just a revolving door now you know that is not very addressed by this cave and i think the majority of justice idea is fine as long as there's a firm punishment involved as well i don't see why there needs to be an either or but i think you want your earlier questions you suggested that a lot of this might be about what they tried to do justice on the cheap and i'm extremely concerned that that is the real motivation behind this plot peter is there a danger that some already active abutting criminals are going to think this is my chance to break the law and i won't even have to pay for it i'll just go through this scheme not quite a get out of jail free card but i don't even have to go to jail in the 1st place god. well of course that is a danger and a risk but again i say to you that the results of this game and similar schemes for the sort of justice is that the reoffend. rate is much much

lower and that's a really positive gains or quite clearly it doesn't have the consequence that your talking about the other guy might make a point about is that. i think there probably should be a requirement for an admission of guilt because in some of these schemes the offender is not required to admit guilt and i think that's probably something that should be amended and also i do feel uncomfortable the way in which the scheme applies to violent offenses like assault and. you know i don't know saying it shouldn't apply right i think the requirements of the people going to the program has to be much much higher and we do need to recognise that of course 2 thirds of all prisoners in england have mental health and drug addiction problems and as andrew has mentioned unless we deal with these background causes disease illiteracy

and the inability to have the skills to go decent job and support once of unless we deal with these issues i think the bigger picture about reforming the criminal justice system to seriously reduce offending and to also ensure protection for victims it ain't going to happen under do you think another maybe potential benefit this could help with is reducing radicalization which is said to be a problem in the case prison system. well i think we're all concerned about the fact that people come in drug dealers into pretty prisons and leave his charities who are convinced that the message of these sort of extremists from the middle east is something to follow. how we dress i'm not sure but one of the concerns i've got is that we're putting people together who potentially can be influenced i think is the best way of putting it by these radical terrorists that are in prison look if what we have to do is porch. prisoners into some sort of

sultry confinement or take away from the general prison population i've happy to do that but one of the concerns i've got certainly with terrorism is that time and time again we see these people who are frankly calibers addicts who do a bit of drug dealing and they come out of prison as terrorists i don't know to what extent the just cause mental health problems and i can't do very much about that but i do think exposing them to travel hate preachers is something that ought to be avoided. generally it seems like you're in favor of this but what would just finally be the final word what was your major concern about it. was the you know it is being trialled in 10 police forces and i think that's a good thing and i know that the. police officials who oversee policing in england and wales are talking about extending it and i think that's a good thing and i think it should certainly only be done on a trial basis let's extend more widely and see if the successful results in these

10 forces is replicated then i think i'd be very happy with it but i do those points i mentioned earlier i think that's a fair question about whether i think the offender should be required to admit guilt and i think there also needs to be some kind of system where the victim very much is involved in the process where the the perpetrator hears the pain the victim and suffered understands the consequences of his or her actions and also where appropriate does some kind of restorative compensation to the victim or to a particular community or charity i think paying back to society is something we ought to ask of those who commit criminal offenses ok gentlemen really appreciate your time andre walker political commentator human rights activist peter attach some great points there thank you and i wraps it up more for you in half an.