you mentioned cctv. the chinese budget for this kind of thing has been variously described as $7 billion to $10 billion. cctv and the others. rtv, al jazeera, all these new players. i'm obviously very intrigued by president bollinger's idea of an american world service. to some extent we are what you might call the roots of one. i think, if i could, i'll just lay out for a minute who we are. i think a lot of americans don't really know, what is voice of america? it's still there? i thought the cold war was over. that's what a lot of the people say to me. it's still there. you know what? we are a source of -- as close as you can get, objective journalism. we reach over 140 million people a week around the world. in 43 languages. we do training of journalists. we set up fms in africa. we stand for freedom of the press. we condemn violence against any journalists, including one of our own who died in january in pakistan. we try to report the truth and we try to explain america to a sometimes rather befuddle

>> lots of people are going to work for cctv because they got fired from cnn. but look, you can't -- it is what it is. nobody made up the chen guangcheng incident. and no amount of pr can back-pedal out of that. and china can sell itself as a benign soft power on the world stage, but if they're not doing it at home it's not like they're going to fool anybody. part of the jonai idea of soft power is america is a democracy and we have a good story to tell. but china has a bad story to tell. it's not a democracy. and you can't sort of make up what isn't there. so i think they've taken huge gigantic black eyes this year. >> the question i'd like an answer to is what is it like in asia right now? how is china perceived, whether in immediately adjacent countries or further afield? the south china sea disputes must rankle the philippines, malaysia, vietnam -- >> everybody. >> i don't see how -- i don't know how you get around that in terms of exerting soft power. but that's what people read in their papers. you're basically insisting that an island that's 100 kilomete

you mentioned cctv. the chinese budget for this kind of thing has been variously described as $7 billion to $10 billion. cctv and the others. rtv, al jazeera, all these new players. i'm obviouslry

. >> this is cctv footage that the police released because they want to find this guy and they actually have a lot of calls. once people saw this video, people started recognizing who this person was and now the police do have a person of interest. they have not made any official charges, but they have an idea about who this guy is. i think people are so appalled by this behavior, whether it was a political statement, whatever kind of statement it actually was. world war ii veteran. >> the symbolism behind it just merits it just being left alone by everybody. just let it represent what it's there for. >>> when we were first introduced to corky about a month ago, everybody was just heartbroken over his condition. his back legs are twisted kind of like a corkscrew sew can't use them. you see him pulling himself around. he was a stray. he was found by cat's cradle. they said we got to take this cat in and they ended up finding somebody to do his surgery. >> so he's playing with toys and he is now living at a home with some other cats. corky looks like he's doing really, really well. >> the

he was last seen on this cctv footage out shopping in 2010. despite failing to turn up for meetings at work, he was not reported missing until this call one week later. >> one of our members of staff is missing. >> mi6 says it is profoundly sorry for the week-long delay in reporting gareth williams as missing for work. by the time police came to gareth williams' flat, it meant he had been dead for over a week, meaning his body had been badly decomposed, making it difficult to be certain of the cause of death. >> only a few tiny traces of anyone else's dna were found a lawyer for the family says those who specialize in the dark art of secret services had been involved or had subsequently been involved. there were questions on whether mi6 had passed all relevant material to the police. could the clues lie in gareth williams' private life? his visit a few bondage websites in which people were tied up. why he lived in this house -- his landlady had found him tied to his bed. he told her he just wanted to see if he could get free. for gareth willia

and most recently to date the defamation of the al jazeera english correspondent by a cctv host. i'm just wondering if you could look a little bit forward and tell me where you see the advantages and disadvantages for local journalists and also for foreign correspondents in china. do you see them relating to one another? and pulling the authorities or do you see sort of a divide there? what are the pluses and minus that's you see in that duality? >> well, one interesting fact is that still chinese citizens cannot work as reporters for foreign news agents. they can work as information gatherers but not fully fledged reporters. but your thoughts. >> i remember the first prize that we gave, or one of the first was to libby rosenthal of the "new york times," who had been amazing reporting about aids in china early on. and her reports had been translated into chinese and read by -- in the internal party better information newsletter kind of thing and had had an effect on the chinese leadership and helped to inform them because reporting in china was not so good and they didn't have as

there is a surprising cameo in this documentary airing on cctv.hey were walking behind two police officers in shanghai in march. there is a freeze frame for you now. this is not clear if they were. >> and word of california national parks being the smoggiest in the nation. sequoia national park is home to the biggest and oldest living things on earth. scientists say it has ozone levels similar to that in los angeles. pollution is rising in san joaquin valley. scientists say it's damaging pines and redwood seedlings. >> there is a winter ski season not exactly stellar so this memorial day, people are moving on. there are empty ski slopes being left behind and there is the other big atrack. that, of course is lake tahoe. >> and there is a typical memorial day. 30 degrees and snowing on saturday. and there is 60 degrees and sunny today. memorial day weekend is the start of the travel season in places but here in tahoe it's still considered a preseason of sorts in part because of the weather, today, sunny skies did bring out a number of people. there

. >> reporter: a day after this cctv video was shot of williams, he stopped showing up for work. it took over a week for his mi-6 coworkers to report his disappearance. because of the delay, the body severely decomposed, making cause of death impossible to determine. the coroner now says it was either asphyxiation or some unidentified poison. the coroner knocks down the wildest theories. no clear connection to williams' visits to bondage websites or the $30,000 worth of high-end women's clothes found in his bachelor pad. >> this is a gift to the conspiracy theorist to have an unexplained death under any circumstances, of course, gives rise to huge amounts of speculation. >> reporter: the head of mi-6 apologized to the family for the delay in reporting williams' disappearance, but it doesn't seem to have helped. >> our grief is exacerbated by the failure of his employers at mi-6. >> reporter: now mi-6 itself is under suspicion. the coroner says investigating british intelligence services is a legitimate line of inquiry. so the few questions seemingly answered by the coroner have o

in the past couple of works the cctv has been beating the drum beats to war with the philippines. and and, you know, people i talk to like the guy who had had a lot of -- the dumpling shop baker who had a lot of sympathy for chen guangcheng and watched porn. said we have to go to war, we have to defend our sovereign territory. it doesn't look like soft power when you're in a china watching. >> do you think in china that the media had has a effect on the way people view the world, or are things up and down and just unpredictable? are we making progress in the sense of the great problem with media to inform? >> within china? >> yeah. >> i mean, we get asked -- we can ask the question about america as well. i hate to think of the answer. [laughter] >> i don't think i know the answer to the question about china. [inaudible] >> the answer about china? >> you mean is the foreign media making a big impact. >> no, is the evolution that the media to be more open providing more information, has it actually had a good effect in sort of enlighting society, helping society. >> definitely. i wo

>> not the people that are going to work for cctv. but look, it is what it is. i mean, nobody made up the guangcheng incident and no amount of pr can back that up. china can sell itself as a benign soft power on the world stage but it they are not doing it at home it's not like it will fool anybody. part of the idea of soft power is that america's democracy and we have a good story to tell but china has a bad story to tell. it's not democracy and you can sort of make up what isn't there. so i think they have taken a huge gigantic black eye -- >> the question i would like to know the answer to is, what is it like in asia right now? how is china perceived, whether in adjacent countries or further afield, the south china sea disputes must rankle malaysia, vietnam. and you know i don't see how, i don't know how you get around that in terms of deluding soft power. basically insisting an island that is 100 kilometers off of an island is actually chinese. i don't don't now how in the other would work. >> really there is no sign of soft power. for the past couple of wee