:00:02. > :00:09.torrential rain. There is ongoing disruption to the East Coast main
:00:09. > :00:19.line. A full news bulletin at 1 o'clock, but now it is time for
:00:19. > :00:32.
:00:32. > :00:36.Dateline London live with Gavin Welcome to Dateline London. There
:00:36. > :00:41.is a big international conference on Syria and as the budget's you
:00:41. > :00:48.President comes to office, what can the international community do
:00:48. > :00:53.about Syria and does Russia's policy of non- intervention prevent
:00:53. > :00:59.bloodshed? I guess today are Dmitry Shishkin of the BBC World Service.
:00:59. > :01:06.Marc Roche of Le Monde, Abdel Bari Atwan or Al-Quds al-Arabi, and John
:01:06. > :01:10.Fisher Burns of the New York Times. How will the future of Syria be
:01:10. > :01:14.determined by fighting on the ground or well-meaning diplomats?
:01:14. > :01:19.After the shooting down of a Turkish aircraft by the Syrian
:01:19. > :01:25.military, how far can foreign powers keep out of this? What is
:01:25. > :01:32.your assessment of the situation on the ground now in Syria? Yes, there
:01:32. > :01:37.are so oppressions, brutality, there is a dictatorship, but the
:01:37. > :01:40.whole thing is concentrated on a oil and gas again. If you are to
:01:40. > :01:47.understand the conflicts in the Middle East, you have to look at
:01:47. > :01:53.this. Now we are having a cold war hotting up. The problems started
:01:53. > :01:57.when the West was supporting pipelines to go through Syria to
:01:57. > :02:04.Turkey and to the West. The Russians said to the Syrian
:02:04. > :02:08.Government, no you should not allow this pipeline to go these -- to go
:02:08. > :02:13.through these territories, or are you will get no support at all.
:02:13. > :02:19.That is why the Russians are very involved. They are using their
:02:19. > :02:26.vetoes to prevent any kind of sanctions against Assyria, any kind
:02:26. > :02:31.of economic blockade. That is the reason. Now, White had a meeting in
:02:31. > :02:35.Geneva? You have to understand there are contacts between the
:02:35. > :02:42.United States and Russia and the Russians believe if these oil
:02:42. > :02:50.pipelines pass through Syria to Europe, it will deprive them from a
:02:50. > :02:55.very strategic part. They are controlling most of Europe by their
:02:55. > :03:00.reserves and supply of gas. It is a veto again on this. How will a sort
:03:00. > :03:06.this out? The Geneva conference is very important. The Russians and
:03:06. > :03:11.Americans are talking about how to sort out the problems of gas. There
:03:11. > :03:17.is a Russian permanent naval base north of Syria. Once the
:03:17. > :03:20.superpowers are agreed on a formula, we will have peace in Syria. If
:03:20. > :03:26.they still continue to differ about that, in this case the bloodshed
:03:26. > :03:32.will continue. Yesterday 200 people were massacred in Syria by the
:03:32. > :03:37.regime because the regime is escalating their security solutions,
:03:37. > :03:43.hoping to sort out the problems before the superpowers intervene.
:03:43. > :03:49.How is this seen in Moscow? The Gas card is a very important political
:03:49. > :03:53.card, although many people in Europe are worried about it. A lot
:03:53. > :04:00.of people in Russia in the political elite do not have a
:04:00. > :04:06.strong position on Syria oppose saved. What I mean is that in Syria
:04:06. > :04:11.the Russian stance is influenced by it what has been happening in the
:04:11. > :04:17.Arab world since Tunisia in 2010. But if you take the situation
:04:17. > :04:25.further into the past, what happened in 1999 when NATO started
:04:25. > :04:30.bombing Yugoslavia, based on a regime change and they saw the
:04:30. > :04:35.revolution enjoy Jack and then the Ukraine. I do not think the
:04:35. > :04:39.economic reasoning is what is behind Russia's. Is it a sense of
:04:39. > :04:42.we are losing our friends and we want to hang on to them? That could
:04:42. > :04:50.be counter-productive because you are not going to make many friends
:04:50. > :04:54.in the Arab world if you hang on to them. I made the point that Russia
:04:54. > :04:58.does not have a robust policy towards the Middle East in the
:04:59. > :05:03.first place. Vladimir Putin tried to counterbalance his stance on
:05:03. > :05:08.Syria by visiting Israel last week, but it was a half-day visit and
:05:08. > :05:15.they were concentrating on opening a memorial to soldiers and they had
:05:15. > :05:20.nothing to discuss in Jerusalem. Russia sees the events in the
:05:20. > :05:27.Middle East and North Africa probably in the light of that thing,
:05:27. > :05:32.the intervention, the international community dealing with internal
:05:32. > :05:36.affairs and the same situation might happen in Russia. Whatever
:05:36. > :05:42.Western powers say, is it convenient to blame the Russians in
:05:42. > :05:48.a way because nobody wants to get involved? Barack Obama does not
:05:48. > :05:53.want American soldiers in an election year involved. I think it
:05:53. > :05:58.is quite instructive to read some of the speeches and articles
:05:58. > :06:03.written by the Russian Prime Minister, Sergei Lavrov. Having
:06:03. > :06:08.learnt for many years during the Cold War in Moscow I need no
:06:08. > :06:12.instruction on the mystery which governments in Moscow before and
:06:12. > :06:18.after the fall of communism were capable of. If you read what he
:06:18. > :06:21.says, no matter what mistreat they may be up to in terms of protecting
:06:21. > :06:27.their naval base or their principal ally in the Middle East, all of
:06:27. > :06:36.which is true, he talks about the black and white propaganda of
:06:36. > :06:41.Western media in picking our favourites. A lot of our media are
:06:42. > :06:44.attached to the rebel forces in effect, which is a self-inflicted
:06:44. > :06:48.wound by President Assad because he does not allow them to operate
:06:48. > :06:54.properly. We are beginning to discover that some of the rebel
:06:54. > :06:58.forces in Syria are fairly unpalatable people. There are up
:06:58. > :07:02.Islamic militants there, there is some suggestion of Al-Qaeda
:07:02. > :07:06.influence and vino the rebels have committed atrocities, perhaps not
:07:06. > :07:14.as voluminous in numbers of deaths or perhaps as widespread, but there
:07:14. > :07:21.is no doubt they are doing that. The other thing Sergei Lavrov
:07:21. > :07:26.pointed out that if you establish a precondition, you may plunge the
:07:26. > :07:33.whole country and the Regent in to still greater chaos, you may end up
:07:33. > :07:41.with unmanageable instability. Another Lebanon of the 1980s and
:07:41. > :07:47.1990s? Having spent years in Iraq and having come back to a posting
:07:47. > :07:52.here, I'm more and more have the sense that there is a seismic event
:07:52. > :07:56.of huge proportions occurring in the Middle East and we in the West,
:07:56. > :08:02.our diplomats and journalists, are like an exploratory party on the
:08:02. > :08:06.edge of a volcano in pit helmets thinking, maybe we can manage this.
:08:06. > :08:12.We should start from the understanding that it is not
:08:12. > :08:15.manageable. Certainly not by outsiders. Not by outsiders and we
:08:15. > :08:24.should be more modest in our ambitions. It is sad because so
:08:24. > :08:29.many more people will die. There you go again. Who is pushing for a
:08:29. > :08:35.sanction? It is Europe, the European Union, France and Britain,
:08:35. > :08:41.who have put the sanctions on the Syrian regime. The sanctions do not
:08:41. > :08:46.work very well because the Syrian leader is not dropping a lot and
:08:46. > :08:51.there are ways to get around the sanctions with the help of Iran. On
:08:51. > :08:57.the whole, the only positive thing that has been done these imposing
:08:57. > :09:05.sanctions, also putting diplomatic pressure on allies like Turkey to
:09:05. > :09:11.put all says sanctions on. On the whole put into action the framework
:09:11. > :09:20.that the UN is putting for a new regime change and a civil war,
:09:20. > :09:24.which is to get rid of President Assad and then have a election and
:09:24. > :09:31.all that process that we have seen in Somalia and a Afghanistan and
:09:31. > :09:37.Iraq. It is only Europe that has done anything. Europe would be a
:09:37. > :09:47.much better in to look good tour with Russia and the Americans would
:09:47. > :09:51.
:09:51. > :09:57.be a -- enter locker. When it comes to Syria, which the West does not
:09:57. > :10:07.understand, it has a lot of friends. It has Russia, Iran, Iraq, and
:10:07. > :10:09.
:10:09. > :10:14.Hezbollah and China. Syria is not alone. The second thing is we have
:10:14. > :10:18.two models of solutions. Either we have the Yemeni model which is a
:10:18. > :10:25.regime change by peaceful means, or the Algerian model which we can
:10:25. > :10:29.have a civil war, maybe 10 or 20 years, 200,000 people were killed.
:10:29. > :10:33.It seems and will now have that the Yemeni model is not working in
:10:33. > :10:38.Syria because in the end it is a regime change and Russia does not
:10:38. > :10:44.want a regime changed and they do not want to be checked again. We
:10:44. > :10:50.are heading towards the Algerian model it seems. It seems President
:10:50. > :10:53.Bashar al-Assad is determined to go ahead with his solutions and to
:10:53. > :10:58.massacre hundreds, maybe thousands of people in Syria, in order to
:10:58. > :11:05.keep his regime intact. It seemed as the Russians are backing him
:11:05. > :11:11.until the end. He is trying to move from defence to attack and shooting
:11:11. > :11:15.down the Turkish warplane is a very clear cut indication. It is a
:11:15. > :11:21.message to the West, I am not Colonel Gaddafi, I am going to
:11:21. > :11:24.fight until the end. You will suffer a lot of losses. It is very
:11:24. > :11:31.interesting about Russia's supporting them no matter what they
:11:31. > :11:38.do on the ground. Russia has had two really bloody wars in Chechnya
:11:38. > :11:44.where the same number of people were killed. It was always billed
:11:44. > :11:49.as an internal, a Russian affair and at that time nobody were -- was
:11:49. > :11:54.trying to change the regime in Russia. When you do the parallel
:11:54. > :11:59.about the volcano, I think a lot of diplomats both on the Western side
:11:59. > :12:04.and the Russian side found themselves on this volcano by
:12:04. > :12:11.surprise. The whole situation took them by surprise. All the Arab
:12:11. > :12:17.experts in Russia were brought during the Sixties, 70s and 80s,
:12:17. > :12:25.and their policies towards the Arab world was very clear. But that gets
:12:25. > :12:30.us back to Mohammed Morsi and Egypt. Again, there has always been,
:12:30. > :12:33.whether you think it is right or not, on the one hand you could have
:12:33. > :12:38.a national, strong man, or you are going to be faced with the Muslim
:12:38. > :12:42.Brotherhood or something similar. The election has produced a
:12:42. > :12:45.President who has been inaugurated from the Muslim Brotherhood. Should
:12:45. > :12:50.anybody be worried about that or should be congratulate the people
:12:50. > :12:57.of Egypt? There is a certain kind of predictability to this. Anybody
:12:57. > :13:00.who had spent some time in Egypt in the last 20 years knew how powerful
:13:00. > :13:05.the Muslim Brotherhood was, even though the civilians were repressed.
:13:05. > :13:10.They have now found an elected candidate and the first thing he
:13:10. > :13:15.does his demand the release from the federal prison in the United
:13:15. > :13:22.States of the man who was convicted and has been sentenced to life
:13:22. > :13:27.imprisonment for involvement behind the First World Trade Centre
:13:27. > :13:31.bombing. That is from a Western point of view pretty regrettable.
:13:31. > :13:41.We have to look beyond that and see what happened in Egypt's relations
:13:41. > :13:41.
:13:41. > :13:47.to Israel. Can we manage this? We cannot. The United States put $60
:13:47. > :13:52.billion into Egypt over the last 30 years. Again if you visit Egypt you
:13:52. > :13:56.can see how little impact for the good of the people of Egypt that
:13:56. > :14:03.money had. Are we entirely surprised when the Egyptian people
:14:03. > :14:12.have a choice to make that they choose somebody who is likely to be,
:14:12. > :14:22.if not severely constrained by the military... We cannot say, you have
:14:22. > :14:35.
:14:35. > :14:41.to have an election and if that I America invested millions in Egypt.
:14:41. > :14:51.What return of the Americans got? They got a piece from Israel for 40
:14:51. > :14:57.
:14:57. > :15:07.years. Israel is only 64 years old. 40 years of this, is rare was safe.
:15:07. > :15:10.
:15:10. > :15:19.Is it not safe now? Actually Israel is safe. If that revolution
:15:19. > :15:23.succeeded in Syria, or Syria turned to a failed state, Israel will
:15:24. > :15:29.suffer because a guerrilla war would be started to liberate the
:15:29. > :15:33.Golan Heights. Also Israel, because they enjoyed 40 years of peace and
:15:33. > :15:38.stability, they did nothing for the Palestinian cause. They never
:15:38. > :15:44.actually completed this agreement by implementing the two state
:15:44. > :15:51.solution. The other big story having a lot of impact in Britain
:15:51. > :15:59.this week has been the rottenness in some of our backs. This story
:15:59. > :16:06.about some people in Barclays fiddling LIBOR. We have become used
:16:06. > :16:15.to a certain culture in banks. I do not think any of us expected this
:16:15. > :16:24.degree of corruption? It is not just Barclays. Interbank lending is
:16:24. > :16:29.essential for everyone. It is the basis of the financial system. The
:16:29. > :16:33.banks have not learnt anything. Regulation, the Government were
:16:33. > :16:40.weak. The banking lobby is so strong that whenever the Government
:16:40. > :16:45.tries to limit proprietary trading, hedge fund Private Equity, their
:16:45. > :16:52.back four or because the banking lobby says, we will go to
:16:52. > :16:59.Switzerland. It is not like the American system, for instance, were
:16:59. > :17:07.politicians may have a bit of influence. It is blackmail. The
:17:07. > :17:15.Government are weak. The banking lobby, despite the crisis, have
:17:15. > :17:19.managed to amass great any attempts at regulation. -- emasculate. It is
:17:19. > :17:25.also American banks. The source of this appears to have come from the
:17:25. > :17:31.United States. I am not an expert on the banking system but I am a
:17:31. > :17:37.retail customer. Listening to what Mervyn King had to say yesterday
:17:37. > :17:45.about the shoddy and I think it's seat full practice of the banks, he
:17:45. > :17:51.was pretty angry. I thought listening to him your anger only
:17:51. > :18:00.response or echoes the Ankara if old -- her for so long for retail
:18:00. > :18:05.customers. Once upon a time the bank manager was your friend. The
:18:06. > :18:12.banks have long since lost interest in retail customers. They have gone
:18:12. > :18:17.into the casino business. I know the situation is much more
:18:17. > :18:24.difficult than that. Would do my mind the question is why as the
:18:24. > :18:28.Government of this country and other countries as well in Europe,
:18:28. > :18:36.which is imperilled by this... The Cameron Government is imperilled by
:18:36. > :18:39.this. There are such strong feelings. Look at Question Time.
:18:39. > :18:49.People are outraged. It surprises made that the Government has not
:18:49. > :18:53.
:18:54. > :18:59.moved more quickly. Where does Tony Blair work? Where does Peter
:18:59. > :19:04.Mandelson work? Former politicians going to banking. I can give you a
:19:04. > :19:08.list at the end of the programme. Senior Government officials will
:19:08. > :19:13.say they have to tread very carefully because, particularly in
:19:13. > :19:18.the 13 years of Labour Government, so much of the economy came to
:19:18. > :19:22.depend on the City of London and the financial sector. The Cameroon
:19:22. > :19:31.Government has said we need to be, manufacturing nation again,
:19:31. > :19:40.producing Weale things. -- real things. On Question Time the other
:19:40. > :19:47.day, we heard people say, let them go. I do not believe they will go.
:19:47. > :19:52.There are too many attractions in the City of London. We are almost
:19:52. > :19:59.to a time machine. You have derivative skins. In two years you
:19:59. > :20:08.will have something else. The Government is either too weak or
:20:08. > :20:18.incapable of dealing with it. 2008, we are flooded with scandals
:20:18. > :20:18.
:20:18. > :20:23.in the banking system. The bonuses, the inefficiency. Why the
:20:23. > :20:30.Government, which put billions into bailing out these banks, did not
:20:30. > :20:37.look at the root of the problem and try to reform the system? The
:20:37. > :20:45.customers are paying a heavy price. I never check my bank statements.
:20:45. > :20:50.But nowadays I am thoroughly checking them. If you lose trust in
:20:50. > :20:59.banks, there is a serious existential problem? Yes, another
:20:59. > :21:04.problem is that banks are to break. Look at Barclays. It does
:21:04. > :21:14.absolutely everything. The only solution that the banking lobby is
:21:14. > :21:20.
:21:20. > :21:27.resisting and the Government is afraid of, is... Protecting retail
:21:27. > :21:35.is warm where at least. In effect, make Pang Qing a bit boring and
:21:35. > :21:41.therefore safe? I cannot read a balance sheet. But I am perfectly
:21:41. > :21:46.sure that for Mr Diamond and his counterparts, it is Casino banking
:21:46. > :21:51.that matters for more than retail banking. Retail banking is the
:21:51. > :22:01.basis for the business in the first place. That separation, which beat
:22:01. > :22:08.
:22:08. > :22:12.Cameron, is moving towards, cannot, grow soon enough. -- cannot come.
:22:12. > :22:16.Whether bankers or not move does not matter so much, it is whether
:22:16. > :22:24.the people who invest the money do not want anything to do with the
:22:24. > :22:32.City of London? It is a bit like the terminal at Heathrow. The Civic
:22:32. > :22:36.aviation question in Britain. The parallels are there. I think
:22:36. > :22:40.becoming a manufacturing country again is really vital. The over-
:22:40. > :22:48.dependence see on financial services is not Barnet -- is not
:22:48. > :22:55.healthy. We have baled out, only the banks but we do not see and a
:22:55. > :23:05.good things happening. I want Marc Roche to Cal us there is no crisis
:23:05. > :23:10.
:23:10. > :23:15.in the European Union! The deal in Brussels? Fantastic. The markets
:23:15. > :23:24.are happy. We're in the process of refinancing or banks. Government
:23:24. > :23:29.and the process of getting their act together. Look at the
:23:29. > :23:39.difference in the economy in Europe at the moment, and the Anglo Saxon
:23:39. > :23:43.
:23:43. > :23:49.one. Europe is a great success. Portugal is bankrupt, Greece, Spain,
:23:49. > :23:59.Italy all bankrupt. Britain is bankrupt! Only Russia is not
:23:59. > :24:00.
:24:00. > :24:10.bankrupt. Are you surprised Harwell Francois Hollande has handled this?
:24:10. > :24:11.
:24:11. > :24:21.-- Halliwell. I thought, this idiot is coming, he is a socialist, he
:24:21. > :24:23.
:24:23. > :24:27.wants to spend. He is a very sensible, pragmatic man. The French,
:24:27. > :24:37.who said they believed to come to Britain, they have been gone for a
:24:37. > :24:44.long time. Is it going to last? Were the mark its wake up and
:24:44. > :24:49.revise this on one good morning? am not an economic expert put one
:24:49. > :24:53.despairs. There have been many false dawns. It is striking that
:24:53. > :24:57.since Mr Hollande became president of France there has been a sea-
:24:57. > :25:01.change in the way these things are viewed. They raised more emphasis
:25:01. > :25:09.on improving growth. They are a little more careful about the
:25:09. > :25:19.austerity measures. He has changed quite a bit. And he has given us
:25:19. > :25:26.
:25:26. > :25:33.insights into a novel family life. The French family life! This
:25:33. > :25:41.emphasis is a victory for the French voters, isn't it? Yes,
:25:41. > :25:47.because his policies are human policies, actually. Incurring
:25:47. > :25:51.growth means facing -- finding a solution to unemployment.