in hungary.ozens of journalists declined, including the journalist that wrote the piece that got his editor fired. >> the initial statement denied the dismissal was anything to do with politics. at the same time we had come under intensive pressure, pressure of a political nature. political pressure is not working through former letters or requests on a letterhead. it was an inform at way. you won't notice that your freedom was taken away. the news coverage changed - less edgy, pointier, friendlier to the government, more tabloid focused coverage. >> reporter: rtl, the company that was or was not targeted by the advertising tax has gone in another direction. it was known for its tabloid style heavy on gossip, light on politics. that has changed. after the government announced the advertising tax, the channel began to fight back. not with tech lawyers, but through journalism. >> one thing is true - that we have more politics in the main news, but the reason is mainly because our season is longer t

in hungary. [ ♪ music ] >> reporter: when hungary joined the european union in 2004, it was considered a poster child for media freed am among europe's new democracies. 10 years on the picture is different. many in the media blame the second coming of the prime minister viktor orban. >> viktor orban lost the election in 2002. and the lesson he learnt from the lost election was his biggest enemy, besides the opposition, is the independent media. >> you don't have to be critical or the opposition. if you try to be middle of the road, independent. that can cause you problems. >> hungary witnessed two major media protests this year. the largest was in october, when the government tried to pass the world's first internet tax, a tax on data. what it proposed would have made watching videos on youtube a money spinner for the ot government. protests from so big laws from solved. all media outlets were required to pay half of advertising revenues for the government. newspapers ran blank pages in protest.

austria-hungary was kind of a laughing stock. copy of the mobilization plan had been sold to the russians. various plans had been sold to the russians by the same man. so it wasn't really expected that they would be particularly competent but that's what the , germans wanted. that was the first real serious problem. not miscommunication so much as misunderstanding. when the austrians finally corner the kaiser back in berlin and just badgered him, and at first he actually said no. at first he said no, no, no, i fear european complications, then he finally said yes, we will stand with you come what may. in essence, the blank check. still what the germans thought , they were agreeing to is the austrians would make some kind of a move against serbia. didn't quite work out that way. four weeks passed, the austrians are dithering and delaying. finally on the 19th of july they hold the war council, this is in berthold's residence in vienna. the strudelhoff -- yes, that actually means the house of strudel, where they got together to plan

austria hungary was kind of a laughing stock. copy of the mobilization plan had been sold to the russians. various plans had been sold to the russians by the same man. so it wasn't really expected that they would be particularly competent but that's what the germans wanted. that was the first real serious problem. not miscommunication so much as misunderstanding. when the austrians finally corner the kaiser back in berlin and just badgered him, and at first he actually said no. at first he said no, no, no, i fear european complications, then he finally said yes, we will stand with you come what may. in es spence the blank check so cold. still what the germans thought they were agreeing to is the austrians would make some kind of a move against serbia. didn't quite work out that way. four weeks passed the austrians are dithering and delaying. finally on the 19th of july they hold the war council, this is in berthold's residents in vienna. the strudelhoff, yes that actually means the house of strudel, where they got together to pla

ambassador to hungary.he president's nominee got a lot of attention for being a bold choice and also a beautiful one. >> a soap opera producer just became the u.s. ambassador to the country of hungary. she's the producer of the tv show "the bold and the 3wu68" >> yes, colleen bell, a former of ""the bold and the beautiful"" producer is now the ambassador to hungary. and one assumes its evil twin, sergio. and sure, colleen bell has no experience with foreign service or special knowledge about the nation hungary. but folks, she was nominated for the most noble of all reasons, she contributed $800,000 to obama in the last election and bundled more than $2.1 million for president obama's re-election effort. hey, folks, that is just quid pro quo. you scratch the president's back, he appoints you ambassador of scratchbackastan. but the confirmation took a shocking twist when long time friend of this show since monday, john mccain, ripped bell on the floor of the senate. >> there is no it doubt that since taking o

they had a formal treaty of alliance with germany and austria and hungary.not join them, they went over to the other side. bulgaria was listed kind of again on the central powers with turkey. bulgaria in fact had fought turkey in both 1912 and 1913. and in fact they more or less quarrelled at the end of the war. one of the aspects of the end of the first world war is that in some ways the decisive breakthrough happened in mas dpoen yeah. -- macedonia. if you look at the military history of the thing, it was a bit accidental. the allies sent troops there because there was nothing going on and they were trying to impress the greeks into joining the war. it didn't work. in the end, they had to send troops to greece and depose the king to get them to join the war. they had troops pinning down and defending all of central5/wj eu against this allied expeditionary force in macedonia. they get screwed over by their allies where they don't get the promised to them. they get angry at the turks and the germans and more or less just give up the fight. they don't surrend

barely two-thirds of our population speaks it maybe the ambassador to hungary will help us. >> hungary's ambassador use to be a soap opera producer. she can not name the u.s. interested in the region. >> jon: maybe she can't name the interests in that region. she's a soap opera producer. she is ready to call off the daughter of a man with am tphaoerb. >>> who is illegitimately pregnant with the ambassador's son, fernando. all this on tomorrow's all my hungarian. hold on, i think we covered these peoples confirmation hearings and they were terrible too. there was a qualification they did have. >> they did raise a billion dollars for president obama's presidential campaign. >> jon: they are following in the footsteps of our nation's first diplomat. there you go. of course ultimately the senate was confirming ambassadors hand picked by the president. the white house's responsibility. yesterday it was time for the person holding washington's worst job to have a lousier job than usual. >> ambassador bell has the president's confidence she will do an excellent job. >> where does she get the co

the produce other of that show is now our ambassador, yes to hungary.e confirming colleen bradley bell to the position yesterday not without white house drama. how press secretary josh earnest handled being questioned on his qualification. >> where did the president get that confidence? in her confirmation she couldn't name a single strategic interest the united states had with hungary? >> she is certainly somebody has had her own distinguished private sector career. >> as a soap opera producer, right. >> somebody who obviously has succeeded in, you know in the business world. >> republican senator john mccain of arizona tried to put the brakes on her confirmation. >> i am not against political appointees. i'm not against, i understand how the game is played. but here we are, a nation that is on the verge of ceding its sovereignty to a neofascist dictator, getting in bed with vladmir putin and we're going to send the producer of "the bold and the beautiful" as our ambassador. i urge my colleagues to put a stop this foolishness. >> can not make it up. no

austria hungary was kind of a laughing stock.copy of the mobilization plan had been sold to the russians. various plans had been sold to the russians by the same man. so it wasn't really expected that they would be particularly competent but that's what the germans wanted. that was the first real serious problem. not miscommunication so much as misunderstanding. when the austrians finally corner the kaiser back in berlin and just badgered him, and at first he actually said no. at first he said no, no, no, i fear european complications, then he finally said yes, we will stand with you come what may. in es spence the blank check so cold. still what the germans thought they were agreeing to is the austrians would make some kind of a move against serbia. didn't quite work out that way. four weeks passed the austrians are dithering and delaying. finally on the 19th of july they hold the war council, this is in berthold's residents in vienna. the strudelhoff, yes that actually means the house of strudel, where they got together to plan

and you heard jonathan karl allude to that, talking about the central european country of hungary, she would be the ambassador to. >>> big diplomacy outside of the capital building. and there is speaker john boehner and a 10-year-old fighting brain cancer shared the honors of lighting the capital christmas tree. >> it's adorned with 10,000 ornaments hand made by school children from across minnesota. >>> and we have a sweet treat switch. a major change possible could be coming to the country's biggest chocolate maker. >>> and bad batteries, sounding the alarm about a major hazard on plains. >>> and busted by a real vet. an accused fake soldier is confronted in a now-viral video. the serious charges he c well, falling gas prices apparently have plenty of people in the mood to buy cars. november, the strongest month for car sales since 2003. gas guzzling suvs among the best sellers. the lincoln navigator up 88%. chevy tahoe, up 10%. some showing interest in the used hummer h1, about 9 miles per gallon. >>> hersheys is talking about changing its chocolate. wait. hear me out first. to repl

colleen bradley bell of california to be ambassador of the united states of america to hungary. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i don't usually object to appointments and nominations by the administration to various ambassadorial positions around the world. and i also understand that there are numbers of political supporters, financial supporters. it is a characteristic of republican and democrat administrations alike. and it's never disturbed me when i have observed nominees say to a caribbean country or maybe london or paris or berlin, being with being -- reward both financial or otherwise. but now we are at a point where according to "the washington post," modern presidents generally followed a 70-30 rule on ambassadorial appointments where 70% are career foreign service and 30% are political appointees. president obama has defied this historical bipartisan practice and in his second term a shocking 53% of ambassadorial nominees have been political. this brings his two-term average to 37, far more than any administration in the past

a lot of east germans were going to hungary and then hungary was letting them go through to austria. so the wall had in effect been circumvented, not breached, perhaps. it looks like things were going in that direction. of course gorbachev had gone to berlin in early october and said the policy for -- policy for east germany is set in berlin and not in moscow. which was a pretty clear signal that they were willing to cut him loose, that they were not going to use their army to maintain the empire in force in central and eastern europe, particularly respect to the gdr. so i think those events at least led me to think that it was very possible that it was coming but we didn't -- as far as i was concerned -- have any concrete sense that it would happen when it did. >> i would say it really was one event in a series. when we came to office, there was a ferment in eastern europe. we looked at that ferment and said we want to make this different than the earlier ones, berlin in '53, hungary in '56, czechoslovakia. we want to encourage it but at a level underneath that that will cause the s

poland and hungary as rapidly as they have moved did so only after years of evolution in their political, economic and social systems. east germany is faced with making the same kinds of changes, literally overnight. there is a misstep in east germany now, the results could be cataclysmic. hopefully, the east german mentorses in the kremlin who seem to understand how strong lit flow of -- how strongly flow the tides of freedom hopefully, they will counsel common sense on their east german colleagues. gorbachev, after all, has as much at stake in east germany as do the communist leaders. we should also be clear but pru dent in our own actions there is no equivocation in our goals. we want freedom for east germany and its people. we want today's announcement to turn out to be the real thing. we want the berlin wall torn down. and all other barriers to the free flow of people removed. and we hope that east germany's communist cleat will read the handwriting on the wall and cooperate in the transition to a new form of government as some of their recent comments suggest. but we should not do

ambassador of hungary.he senate just confirmed to a diplomatic post drawing bold opposition from republicans. >> i'm sure that television viewing is important in hungary but the fact is, this nominee is totally unqualified. >> what would you be doing differently from your predecessor? >> if confirmed, i look forward to working with the broad range of society -- >> obviously you don't want to answer my question. when they send a person that doesn't know the language, has never been to the country, has no familiarity with national security to a nation of this importance, of this importance, then, my friends, we are making a serious mistake. >> and joining us, the hill's editor-in-chief and national review's tom rogan. presidents for decades have been appointing professional and nonprofessional foreign service to ambassador posts. why is this one causing such a stir with republicans? >> well, it's the latest one, basically, and you have to wonder what the interview process is. do you speak the language of the

, and make loans to hungary. so, now there is a hole in the iron curtain. what is happening is east germans are going south through check shaq slovaca, to escape via back into west germany, a whole flow of people going down and up from east germany down to czechoslovakia, through hungry and back up into west germany, and this officers the east german regime. it seemses themselves bleeding to death. so the east german regime tries to choke off travel to hungary, and that only results in a new crisis which is refugees piling up in the west german embassy in prague. so the east german machine makes the decision too seal the borders to east germany entirely. this turns out to be a huge mistake. it turns east germany into a pressure cooker. there's a theory of life under dictatorship that helps explain while. according to theory if you live under a dictatorship you basically have three choices how to conduct your life. loyalty, exit, or voice. and what that means is either you can just be loyal and just put up with an

that she will not cover austria, hungary, and serbia. or essentially the entire balkan front. now she has her reason for this. she said it would needlessly complicate the story, lead to tiresome length and so on. it is true it's almost such an inexhaustbly complicated story you can see why she left it out. but she didn't just leave out the balkans. she left out the entire july crisis. if you read the book closely you'll notice she devotes only one line to sarajevo, and one paragraph to the entirety of the july crisis. so her book is not really about the outbreak of the first world war in terms of causation, in terms of the diplomatic narrative, in terms of the drama between the european capitals in july. she picks up only on august 1st, and unfortunately she actually gets one major date wrong. that is the night of 31 july 1914, it's a friday, and she says this is the night when the french government essentially president premier are woken up in the middle of the night by the russians, who have been given this ultimate imby the germans, desperate to see what france will do. unf

two years on, not much has changed and some countries' attitudes seem to get worse, including in hungary, where police video appears to show them blaming women themselves for getting raped. >> this woman was raped here by her ex-boyfriend. she try to forget, but now, two years on, those memories are just as rush and traumatizing as ever -- as fresh and traumatizing as ever. >> he told me he wanted us to get back together. we were supposed to be going for a walk. he was drunk. then he raped me. >> she could have reported the attack but had little confidence in the authorities. >> there was no point going to the police. they would not have believed me. and they wouldn't do anything anyway. >> that skepticism among women is widespread. only a fraction of sexual assaults reported in recent years have led to offenders being convicted. under pressure, the police decided to go on the offensive and ended up being offensive. a group of girls dress up for a night out. they dance and drink out the hall, practically an invitation to be assaulted suggest this public safety video. the film caused cont

a lot of east germans were going to hungary and then hungary was letting them go through to austria. so the wall had been circumvented, not breached, perhaps. it looked like things were going in that direction. gorbachev had gone to berlin in early october and said the policy for east germany was set in berlin, not moscow. they were willing to cut him loose, they were not going to use their army to maintain their empire in force to eastern europe with respect to the gdr. i think those events led me to think that it was possible that it was coming but we did not get a sense that it would happen when it did. >> i would say there was one event in a series. when we came to office, there was a ferment in eastern yufrp. -- eastern europe. we looked at that ferment and said, we want to make it different than the other ones. we want to encourage it. but at a level underneath that that would cause the soviets to crack down as they did before. we didn't know what that level was. what we tried to do was encourage the kind of freedom attitude without stirring up the soviet union. so the wall was

interests in hungary? >> well, we have a strategic interest in terms of what our key priorities? >> ambassador bell has the president's confidence that she will do an excellent job of representing the united states. >> where does the president get that confidence? in her confirmation hearing, she couldn't even name a single strategic interest the united states had with hungary. >> she certainly is somebody that, again, has had her own distinguished private sector career. >> as a soap opera producer. >> and somebody who has succeeded in, you know, in the business world. >> reporter: it's not just colleen bell. since re-elected, president obama has nominated big dollar donors as ambassadors to countries including france, germany, iceland and new zealand. they each raised more than $500,000 for his campaign. noah mamet was just confirmed tuesday. >> have you been to argentina? >> senator, i haven't had the opportunity yet to be there. >> reporter: now he'll get the chance. jonathan karl, abc news, the white h

. -- going to gry hungary. the wall had been circumvented, not breached. so it looked like things were going in that direction and, of had gone to achev early october and said -- policy for east germany is set in berlin, and not in moscow. a pretty poor signal that they were willing to cut them loose. that they were not going to use to maintain the empire in force in central and eastern europe, pparticularly with respect to the gdr. so i think those events, at me to think that it was very possible that it was coming, but we did and, as far have any concerned, concrete sense that it would happen with the dead. >> i would say that it really event in a series. when we came into office, there ferment in eastern europe. ferment and that said -- we want to make this than the earlier one in 1953 in hungary -- we that on a courage level with a have cracked down on before. we didn't know what that level to do was e we tried encouraged this kind of freedom attitude, without straying off. was -- the wall -- going over to s hungary from germany -- were all parts of th

. >> my question is regarding hungary. it seems like it's the new colombia or whatever, like the things that happened there right now are the things that you mentioned about colombia. so if you can shed some light on the situation and what's the road ahead for hungary? >> i would say colombia is the new turkey and erdogan is the latest member of the democratator club. hungary is an eu member, but the government there, the leadership has basically said, you know, we have our own conception of state interests, and we are going to emulate russia more than we're going to emulate the eu. and so you are seeing a real crackdown on media and civil society. there was a recent protest as i'm sure you're aware of a new internet tax, but is really interesting. no one was really reacting to all these threats and attacks on journalists, but when they started taxing the internet that got people out in the street, got people agitated. that goes to my point about linking the struggle for media freedom to the broader struggle for freedom of

now, during that period of time, germany and to a lesser extent its ally, austria/hungary started engaging in espionage sabotage operations here in the united states for a number of reasons that we can discuss during q&a. in addition, british intelligence was quite active here, trying to frustrate what the germans were doing during this period of american neutrality, the secret service, the justice department's bureau of investigation, which later on became the fbi and also the investigators of the u.s. postal service were very active trying to run down a lot of these espionage and sabotage and fraud cases but they did a lot of tripping over each other. so, secretary of state robert lansing, whom you see here, was concerned about this and provide posesed creating a special opposite to review the reports of investigators from different organizations, from different departments. he argued because of the diplomatic sensitivities involved, this new office should obviously be in the state department and furthermore the state department should receive on detail investigators from the postal serv

bill: from soap opera producer to ambassador to hungary.artha: the wife of the leader of isis now being held in custody or not? we'll tell you what we learned about that when we come back. martha: there is outrage and confusion over the new u.s. am bass dear to hungary. white house picked an obama donor who is a soap opera producer. the white house has not been able to explain given that fact she is still the person for the job. i'm martha maccallum. bill: i'm bill hemmer. the senate confirmed colleen bell. she helped raise millions for the president's reelection campaign. when asked how that made her qualified, press secretary josh earnest stumbled. >> i'm wondering colleen bell's qualify cases for ambassador? is it she was a soap opera producer and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the obama election campaign? why was she chosen? >> ambassador bell has the president's confidence she'll do an excellent job representing the united states and maintaining the relationship we have with the country of hungary. >> she couldn't na

goingof east germans were to hungary and then hungary was etting them go through to austria. wall had been circumvented, not breached, perhaps. things were going in that direction. had gone to october. nd said the policy for east berlin, not t in moscow. they were going to maintain easternpire in force to europe with respect to the gdr. me to those events led hink that it was possible that it was coming but we did not get a sense that it would happen it did. was one seriesre in the event. when we came to office, there yufrp.ferment in eastern we looked at that ferment and make it ant to other ones.an the it.want to encourage underneath that that would cause the soviets to they did before. we tried to encourage the kind f freedom attitude without stirring up the soviet union. the wall was s vacationers going over to germany were all parts of this overall thing they had in mind. >> you do something of cab rating the results that we saw but not lead to another soviet crack down. about your strategy towards gorbechev in particular, soviets in general, the diplomacy that led to th

. >> serbia and hungary are crying foul after russia stop building a pipeline through europe. >> these abandoned pipes in serbia should have been underground two weeks ago. part of a $40 billion gas highway. now a reminder of what serbia could have had. >> we lost a lot of money. we had planned to receive between 300 million euros just in transit fees. now we don't have any other way to earn that money. >> the south stream pipeline would have gone from russia, under the black sea and up through bulgeraire, through serbia, hungary and slovenia. now many are wondering what will come next. most of the pipeline was to come from russia, but serbia had counted on investment from other parts of the project like w we woulding. >> it's a definitely loss to young people who had an opportunity to use their skills. i hope something will come of it, although for now it is a severe blow. >> some in europe are blaming brussels for the stop of construction. it appears that it was in breaching e.u. law and cooler east-west relations are playing out. if russia was able to by plan thby pass the planned p

that she will not cover austria, hungary, and serbia. or essentially the entire balkan front. now she has her reason for this. she said it would needlessly complicate the story, lead to tiresome length and so on. it is true it's almost such an inexhaustbly complicated story you can see why she left it out. but she didn't just leave out the balkans. she left out the entire july crisis. if you read the book closely you'll notice she devotes only one line to sarajevo, and one paragraph to the entirety of the july crisis. so her book is not really about the outbreak of the first world war in terms of causation, in terms of the diplomatic narrative, in terms of the drama between the european capitals in july. she picks up only on august 1st, and unfortunately she actually gets one major date wrong. that is the night of 31 july 1914, it's a friday, and she says this is the night when the french government essentially president premier are woken up in the middle of the night by the russians, who have been given this ultimate imby the germans, desperate to see what france will do. unf

it is back in hungary.he price - $285,000. >>> and a reminder, there's more news and analysis on the website aljazeera.com. >> slavery in nepal has been abolished, by law. but behind the high walls of many city homes here, young girls continue to serve as slaves. known as kamlari, they are the daughters of indebted farmers, sold to landlords for little to

that a lot of east germans were going to hungary and then hungary was letting them go through to austria. so the wall had, in effect, been circumvented, not reached, perhaps. so it looked like things were going in that direction. and, of course, >> well, i can give you one specific example that illustrates it. when the wall was falling, in effect, we didn't know exactly what was happening. a press adviser came in and told the president, you know, you need to go on television. and we sort of hesitated for a while, but then they brought the press corps in around the president's desk in the oval office. >> and you were all seated? >> well, no, they weren't all seated, i don't think, because it was -- it was crowded in there. but anyway, the president described what we knew that it looked like the wall was opening but we weren't exactly sure. the first press question was, well, mr. president, you don't look very elated. we would think you'd be wanting to jump -- or dance on the wall. and he said, well, i'm not a dancing kind of person. but what he was trying to do was back us off so it would