the chairman of the b.b.c. trust recently said he thought covering the referendum was the biggest challenge that the b.b.c. had ever faced. i think it has a difficult challenge and i'm not sure that it's getting it right at the present moment. broadcasters by nature usually and out in five more balanced newspapers newspapers don't have to be balanced nor should it but broadcasters have to be very careful to be balanced but the b.b.c. finds scotland a challenge because so much of what they report for example in the network news that goes right across the u.k. and viewed this broadcast internationally they report for example scandals in the health service in england as if they were the scottish health service which is run quite separately education difficulties in england as if they were educational scope which is run totally separately so they find it really difficult and really feel the challenge today of trying to differentiate the debate and the position of scotland from the position living would only be that

right right and star on b.b.c. . and then i was at work so you take a well known person and you trace their genealogy and then you find you know the different points of history that are interesting and that you can have find documents to support a story and there's always a story every family has a story or two so how do you how does it work how do you find the person you trace you're going to trip well i mean we have people coming to us now who are interested in doing it and then we meet with them and find out what are you interested in knowing sometimes they don't know anything at all and whenever you find out be happy with and sometimes there's a family rumor about something you know or it's a little story we used to my wife is mormon and the mormon church as a gift to be yeah i did my genealogy they got me back to great grandfather i saw the boat they came on yes terence yeah all the passengers who were on the boat pictures of the boat yeah that in that sense my grandfather yeah it's hard i mean just what he what

why do you think the b.b.c. banned strange fruit?ow except that the song is trouble, and when the b.b.c. would have banned it, the british were all over africa. i suppose; i never thought about it before. i suppose it was analogous to the problems that the song had in france, which-- i mention that the song was translated into french-- a very good translation, actually-- and meeropol tried to get it recorded in france. and he got a letter back from his french publisher, saying-- you know, this is in 1953 or 1954-- saying, "the french have their own problems "in algeria and indochina. "they don't--you know, "they're having their own trouble with colored people. they don't want to hear this." you know, why was this song not played in south africa? it's the same thing. meeropol writes this incredible song. what else does he write? what becomes of him? he is sort of red-baited out of his school teaching position. he was examined during a kind of mccarthy-like set of inquiries in the early 1940s, and he leaves teaching. he goes to hollywo

the ruination of this economy yes ok so you bring up this breakeven point and this article in the b.b.c. talks about it because this morning the shares are at over seventy six cents and that is well above the price of sixty one p. that chancellor george osborne regards as the breakeven level so he has his own break even level which is a lot lower than what the real fact is because the government actually bought the shares at an average price of seventy three point six p. during lloyd's twenty point three billion pound bell out at the height of the financial crisis but the average market price at the time was sixty one p. so they book the difference as a loss and put it on to the national debt exactly the national debt continues to go higher in this country because of number a. or that george osborne regards as a breakeven number it's not a number that is mathematically accurate just like the c.p.i. or inflation number in this country is not mathematically sound it's a number that osborne regards or mark carney the new bank of england chair will come in this week and start talking about

his partner guardian columnist grin glenn greenwald here's miranda describing his attention to the b.b.c. . in most of them citizenship and then i was kept in a room with six agents coming in and now it's an ostomy about everything my whole life has. to do live and they took my computer my video games my mobile phone and memory everything to know miranda says authorities told him that he was being question under schedule seven of the terrorism act of two thousand that is a powerful british law that allows the police to stop and question travelers at u.k. airports and ports for up to nine hours in order to determine if they are a potential terrorist miranda was travelling through london after a trip to berlin where he spent time with laura poitras she is the u.s. filmmaker who worked with glenn greenwald on the snowden stories and the video you're looking at the guardian newspaper it funded this trip now the white house says the u.s. was not involved in the questioning but was alerted by british authorities before miranda was detained for more on the potential fall outs of this latest epi

you know the usual suspects are still attacking him calling him a fugitive even the b.b.c. of return to calling him a fugitive rather than a whistleblower so there are still those people attacking the messenger not actually looking at the bigger a bigger issue here but it has created the debate it has raised awareness and for that we have to be thankful to edward snowden for his bravery. but you're right it's not going to stop but at least we've been we're now informed and we can actually start doing something about it ourselves but it's going to take a huge amount of grass with the grassroots campaigning to actually bring this to a halt. i think if people think about it logically it's not actually in most countries interest to have their communications intercepted in this way i mean even the law of the telecoms companies like british telecom here in the u.k. i don't think there's going to be many people that would trust them anymore because they've obviously been complicit in this obviously all these companies have to bide by lawful incept laws but they've got above and be

hunting him down in the congo i was up to going up the congo river to find out what he was up to for b.b.c television and his latest caper is banging the government of argentina if you remember years ago argentina financially collapsed around in the year two thousand. that a an agreement was worked out in which argentina would pay actually people say argentina defaulted never paid now argentina cut a deal that it would pay when its economy recovered and several banks j.p. morgan city bank and others have made a killing because in effect they got stock in the economy of argentina argentina base the banks a percentage of their growth in their g.d.p. so they've literally got banks of stock in argentina three percent of those bonds just three percent fell into the hands of all the vultures singur cinder now nearly two decades later is in court saying no i don't want that deal that was that everyone accepted twenty years ago i'm not going to accept that i want a mint flom these bonds plus penalties plus multiple fees and in effect he wants something in the order of two thousand percent profit o

the police to basically detain anyone for up to nine i was in question that but miranda had told the b.b.c. that he was not actually asked questions about terrorism but in fact questions about the activities of guardian journalists with regard to and this is a story is he also talked about what exactly happened at that detention they were threatening me all the time in saying i would be prudent jury which i didn't cooperate they treated me like i was a criminal or someone about to attack the u.k. it was exhausting and frustrating i knew i wasn't doing anything wrong so there's already been an outcry from politicians understandably journalists but also from the independent review were out of the terrorism the legislation here in the u.k. he said he wanted to get. to the bottom of this said david anderson also said he wanted a briefing from the home office and scotland yard as far as the home office is concerned and they said that david miranda possessed highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism and also the challenge of those critics to think about condoning the leaking

assad regime without the backing support of the united nations security council now he was speaking to b.b.c. radio four s today programme and he said that the united nations security council has not been united on syria and has not shouldered its responsibilities on syria and on the question of whether it was possible to act without complete unity on the united nations security council he replies oh dulcie yes it is now no firm decision has been taken on what the response will be or indeed when it will be but the timetable if you like for the next couple of days is this prime minister david cameron has cut short his holiday and he'll be returning to london and then on wednesday he's going to be chairing the national security council meeting and it's going to be there that you'll have all the key decision makers and after that meeting on wednesday you can expect that we'll have perhaps a clearer idea of exactly what the plans will be moving forward now we're still not talking about direct intervention here so no boots on the ground in syria what is being discussed the is a more limited form

defense secretary chuck hagel had told the b.b.c. in an interview that the u.s. is set to act instantly should president obama order a military action against syria another report coming from the us is from n.b.c. which cites sources within the u.s. government that an airstrike is possible as early as thursday and let's look at the international law surrounding this possible intervention we know that up to until this point a military intervention has not been possible because there has been no international agreement at the u.n. security council however countries like turkey britain and france are indicating that it could still be possible even without at the u.n. the french foreign minister lost by blue said so that in some circumstances it can be bypassed by international law as defined by the u.n. how exactly that will be interpreted we'll have to see as it gets clearer in the next few days and what we're bringing to you right now are reports from the various sources and outlets that of the parties and the parties involved but what's clear really is that there

to spain when he talks to the spanish government incidentally he's the state broadcaster here the b.b.c.'s main present just brother mr paxman and the talks are going on but of course there are other serious issues related to tax because gibraltar is a tax haven. but the way understand that gibraltar is a british territory and london is of course expected to protect the rights of the people living there isnt it. that's right and gibraltar's growth around eight percent g.d.p. shows it's doing a little bit better quite a lot better than the economies of britain or spain that's because it's fifteen percent of its g.d.p. comes from online gambling it's not even part of the european union customs union and thousands of companies register their fake registrations in effect to avoid taxes it's like and some people comment is like some sort of gangster island which britain wants to protect for itself of course other people are saying that both of mariano rajoy. and his government ministers they want to avoid they want to create a distraction from the disastrous economy that now exists in spain

conspiratorial nonsense that we've all had to become so familiar with but if this new reporting from the b.b.c. in the wall street journal is correct that may not have been the only conspiratorial nonsense radicalism that was at work here i mean really pick your poison right i mean it's the protocols of the elders of zion which temporal insight and i have also apparently had a nice copy of the protocols of zion or it's nine eleven truth or it's what a lucky soul to nidal hasan there's always been an appeal to this neck or ties in conspiracy theory radicalism which almost always butts up against justifying violence just wow so according to maddow conspiracy theories are almost always used as justification for violence and. the brothers were not radicalized by islam alone but were also by conspiracy theories namely those regarding nine eleven of course she forgets to mention that dzhokhar himself allegedly said that u.s. foreign policy was the motivating factor behind the attacks but i digress then maddow compares and we're all lucky teachings to people who aren't satisfied with the official nin

defense secretary chuck hagel had told the b.b.c. in an interview that the u.s. is set to act instantly should president obama order a military action against syria another report coming from the us is from n.b.c. which cites sources within the u.s. government that an airstrike is possible as early as thursday. to total knowledge of leader of ukraine the permits party of the euro m.p. he told us the british government made up its mind about interfering in syria long before the alleged chemical attack came about. from the very start it's been the british government particular shape of william hague and indeed david cameron himself who throughout the entire international community have been the keenest to get involved in syria you know whether it's arming the rebels or now as we see today a build up of warplanes in cyprus preparations for cruise missile attacks this government the british government has been the keenest of anybody to intervene in syria because government made their minds up and that's why you've got the build up in cyprus today part of it's being r

worm and suddenly you know the whole world is we want to be moderate interest well that feeds on the b.b.c. is a state of the titian they support this idea of the cult of ours and it's crazy and i mean we have the expression an englishman's home is his castle and there is this obsession with only one it's natural to want to own land everyone wants to do it it's the you know it's an obvious form of well. they're on their same interest. allow people to get on the so-called ladder is in exchange for other policies that are highly detrimental foreign policies that are that their mental domestic work policies that are detrimental so people are training their civil rights all the c.c.t.v. cameras in britain this most surveyed country in the world you just mentioned land for a citizen how many c.c.t.v. cameras for citizen or something like we are more in london than anywhere else in the world yet for every time there's at least one or two cameras it is growing exponentially so they give that up in exchange for lower rates and a housing bubble that's always always without fail crashes well one of

also talked about the fact that i mark carney the charlatan bank of england governor i was lying on b.b.c. all week he says that the bank will keep rates at zero point five percent unemployment gets to below seven percent not even milton friedman the god of neo liberalism said there's no connection between employment and interest rate on the draw and think about friedman is the thing you could do you can't discard all the some really good stuff and there's a lot of it which is absolute rubbish what tony saying with that announcement is stance is he's saying to his mates get hold of a load of this cheap money and speculate about how with it because this is going down this ship going down you might as well have the last hurrah right and the people who are suffering so-called are doing so because there's been a wealth transference from one portion of society to another force has been a wealth transfer and this has been a transference of wealth from the masses to a few speculators and now he also talks about carney never mentions libre regaining the i s t a fixed rate gang the amount of fraud

it was good to be here i saw you on newsnight yes i was on these i discussion about savings on the b.b.c. flagship discussion programme quite extraordinary i was struck by one of the guest francis coppola who made an extraordinary statement she said putting money in the bank is not a good use for a bank. yes what of course if it will save us did what the banking wanted and take the money out of the bank what would happen then to interest rates i wonder if i could sign it i would spinal knows capitalism is based on capital that all comes from the earnings of workers to put their savings in the banks it is for capital for capitalism that's right so those are this woman francis coppola saying don't put your money in the bank so therefore all money for consumption all money for investment and all money for corporate expenditures is essentially borrowed from the bank of england that's when the bank of england has little largest balance sheet in its history it's over three trillion pounds that's why the u.k. economy is at the biggest debt load in its history you know that and so i know the two

defense secretary chuck hagel had told the b.b.c. in an interview that the u.s. is set to act instantly should president obama order a military action against syria another report coming from the us is from n.b.c. which cites sources within the u.s. government that an airstrike is possible as early as thursday sort of so there was a void the decision on syria has not been made yet but really there's little doubt to them that assad forces were behind the alleged attack at the will be a response is go live to your counties miniport. again marina i asked this question last night but it's really more come out from the white house to back up their assertion that the assad regime was responsible here what the united states is saying as of tuesday is that the question isn't if chemical weapons were used in syria but rather how washington will ultimately respond that those comments are coming from white house spokesperson jay carney who had a press briefing on tuesday said that president barack obama and his national security team are still deliberating on how the admini

than their white peers but it's perceived differently and i think you also have to look at simply b.b.c. sort of implicit our unconscious bias that all of us carry when you're dealing with i mean you're talking about the medical profession there's a long history of black people dealing with the you know the medical institution in this country and being treated as guinea pigs being treated as experiments but also being seen as not human or seen being seen as different from white patients in which they're the means for treating them is different and so that. when you look at a black patient you see there they're suffering differently or you see that them not suffering at all now michael knowledge has anything like this ever happened before to a fifteen year old child where his or her heart condition has absolutely nothing to do with their behavior that to my knowledge absolutely not now do you think that all of his media attention it obviously vikki mentioned before that it played a large part in the hospital's decision to put stokes on the transplant list do you think without the media a

detain somebody for up to nine hours and question them but according to miranda had spoken to the b.b.c. and said that he wasn't asked about terrorism he was asked about the activities of guardian journalists where the n.s.a. story is concerned he also talked about what happened during that detention period . they were threatening me all the time in saying i would be prudent jail if i didn't cooperate they treated me like i was a criminal or someone about to attack the u.k. it was exhausting and frustrating i knew i wasn't doing anything wrong. now what this story does continue there's already been an outcry from politicians and understandably from journalists but also from the independent a reviewer of the terrorist legislation here in the u.k. david anderson he had said that he wants a briefing from the home office as well as scotland yard now the home office for its part have already released a statement about miranda's detention at the airport they said that he possessed a highly sensitive stolen information that would help with terrorism and in fact we have the home office also see

defense secretary chuck hagel speaking to the b.b.c. about the department of defense's preparedness device to say the options are there the united states department of defense is ready to carry out those options and if that would occur it would occur also according to asian with our international partners. now these latest developments are in response to a chemical weapons attack that occurred outside of damascus on august twenty first the united states and its international allies say it is undeniable that syrian president bashar al assad and his regime launched the attack now speaking from damascus today syrian foreign minister walid them so that he rejects quote utterly and completely that syrian armed forces have used chemical weapons u.s. navy destroyers have already been moved closer to the shores of syria since the chemical attacks. however according to a reuters poll intervention in the sovereign country is quite unpopular with americans forty two point one percent of americans do not think we should intervene twenty eight perce

ground i think most people around the world would say it's too late even the state broadcaster here the b.b.c. was moaning about how obama didn't come and see david cameron at the g. eight recently as if that's even comparable but even here the idea that a sitting united states president won't have a one to one meeting with his nuclear counterpart because let's remember all those nuclear missiles that the americans deny pointed at russians right now as we speak all right thank you so much for giving us your thoughts on this hour's artist contributor talking to us from london. and let's now turn to the other stories that we're following for you here today on r.t. the united nations has launched an investigation into the reported slaughter of kurdish civilians by al qaida affiliated groups in syria that comes from a common made by the u.n. to r t four hundred fifty kurds most of them women and children were allegedly killed in the north east of the country has the details. according to various reports at least four hundred fifty people have been killed by the on their front in north eastern syr