:00:03. > :00:06.web. Go to bbc.co.uk/news and click on the link. There will be a full
:00:06. > :00:16.news bulletin at one o'clock. Now it's time for Dateline London, live
:00:16. > :00:24.
:00:24. > :00:28.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. If Julian Assange has
:00:28. > :00:33.nothing to hide, why is he in hiding? The British economy is
:00:33. > :00:36.creating jobs during a double dip recession - does anyone know why?
:00:36. > :00:39.And is the United Nations showing it has not given up on Syria? My
:00:39. > :00:42.guests today are Mustapha Karkouti, who is a Syrian born journalist
:00:42. > :00:48.based in the Gulf, Agnes Poirier of the French magazine Marianne, Henry
:00:48. > :00:50.Chu of the LA Times and Michael White of the Guardian.
:00:50. > :00:54.The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is a hero to many people,
:00:54. > :00:58.but he faces sexual assault charges in Sweden and has taken refuge in
:00:58. > :01:02.the Embassy of Ecuador in London. British law says he should go to
:01:02. > :01:10.Sweden to stand trial. What do we make of his refusal to follow the
:01:10. > :01:14.legal process? There is a conspiracy theory that if he goes
:01:14. > :01:20.to Sweden, it is the Americans who want them ticket into the United
:01:20. > :01:25.States and he will receive the light of day, like Bradley Manning.
:01:25. > :01:31.There are so many issues there, the Swedish allegations have nothing to
:01:31. > :01:37.do with what is going on and that Julian Assange is a feeling for his
:01:37. > :01:43.life if he ever gets out at the embassy in London. I don't know, it
:01:43. > :01:50.seems a bit mad. It has been two months and perhaps he will stay
:01:50. > :01:56.there for years. It is a prison sentence in a way. The Ecuador
:01:56. > :02:01.embassy sounds grand, but it is only a flat. He has takeaway
:02:01. > :02:08.dinners and lunches every day, he cannot exercise and he can say
:02:08. > :02:13.there for years. What Britain cannot do is to actually storm the
:02:13. > :02:18.embassy, even though they're used to be three police officers outside
:02:18. > :02:28.are now there are 50 of them. People are wondering if he will
:02:28. > :02:29.
:02:29. > :02:35.come out in a box. During the Cold War, we had all these cases, like
:02:35. > :02:44.the person in Hungary he stayed for 50 years in the American embassy. I
:02:44. > :02:48.they going to trade political people? There definitely is an
:02:48. > :02:56.element of the absurd about this. This is an Australian and national
:02:56. > :03:01.in Britain asking Ecuador for asylum so that he does not face
:03:01. > :03:04.extradition to Sweden. People have not focused on the fact that
:03:04. > :03:08.neither its Reagan nor Britain will extradite anyone to a country where
:03:09. > :03:14.there is a danger of the death penalty, which is what he says he
:03:15. > :03:21.fears. For at the USA to lay hands on him, it would have been far
:03:21. > :03:26.easier to do it from Britain. much easier to get people out of
:03:26. > :03:36.Britain. People say we hand people over too easily, but if he goes to
:03:36. > :03:40.Sweden, it is much more difficult to get him out. It was said
:03:40. > :03:45.yesterday, Sweden is being described by Julian Assange's
:03:45. > :03:49.allies as a close ally of the United States. I would have thought
:03:50. > :03:56.that description better fitted Britain. I was reading the George
:03:56. > :04:01.Orwell last night, writing at get out that the Spanish Civil War or,
:04:01. > :04:08.I warned my readers about might biases. He is entitled to say the
:04:08. > :04:14.USA won some, they want to throw the book at him just as they do at
:04:14. > :04:21.hackers in this country. We know Bradley Manning has been very badly
:04:21. > :04:26.treated. That much I understand. Having said that and admitted it
:04:26. > :04:32.might biases like George Orwell once as to in journalism, he is
:04:32. > :04:39.going to Sweden and he does have a case to answer of some form of
:04:39. > :04:45.sexual assault. You say you are suspicious of Julian Assange. Your
:04:45. > :04:52.paper published Tories on WikiLeaks, which you thought was a good idea.
:04:53. > :04:56.USAir berating what he may or may have not done with WikiLeaks.
:04:56. > :05:00.People who do great things are not always correct people. There was a
:05:00. > :05:04.background to the embassy thing. The reason they changed the law
:05:04. > :05:09.about getting into embassies was that a Libyan diplomat shot a
:05:09. > :05:14.London police woman dead on the streets of Britain at Margaret
:05:14. > :05:19.Thatcher had to let him go home, where he sellers. There is always a
:05:19. > :05:24.context for it these things. Yes, mine used it it it it. I thought
:05:24. > :05:30.the case build a guess what the United States was revealed to have
:05:30. > :05:33.done, was overstated. They said in private more or less what they said
:05:34. > :05:38.in public. It was the people we were dealing with who were
:05:38. > :05:43.embarrassed, who had a very different line in private. Beat
:05:43. > :05:47.that as it may, my colleagues find Julian Assange a very difficult man
:05:47. > :05:54.to deal with. There was a lot of tension in the relationship, which
:05:54. > :05:58.he tried to control. We have not mentioned the women who make the
:05:58. > :06:08.allegations. He's a very serious allegations and in any modern
:06:08. > :06:08.
:06:08. > :06:12.society you would expect them to be taken seriously.
:06:13. > :06:18.Yes, but there is this conspiracy Theory we're talking about. Will he
:06:18. > :06:28.be tried in court but that case or will he be handed over to the USA?
:06:28. > :06:36.There is nothing clear there. I was reading the media, everybody is
:06:36. > :06:44.engaged in at getting him out of the country. The Israelis managed
:06:45. > :06:50.to a smuggle people out to receive to -- revealed secrets of nuclear
:06:50. > :07:00.power, smuggled from Italy. He was lured from London to Rome by a
:07:00. > :07:02.
:07:02. > :07:07.lovely woman and there he was smuggled. There were unusual tough
:07:07. > :07:14.guys, but they're also very good at it. We're not going to storm the
:07:14. > :07:19.embassy and it was not really a threat. Will he be smuggled?
:07:19. > :07:25.No way. They had been negotiating for two months and the story about
:07:25. > :07:35.storming Embassy, that is not going to happen. Britain is not going to
:07:35. > :07:43.
:07:43. > :07:49.do this. The Ecuador Government will be very popular. I think
:07:49. > :07:53.Julian Assange is doing his cause no favours, by a aligning himself
:07:53. > :08:02.with the Government of a Ecuador, whose president is accused of
:08:02. > :08:11.cracking down on journalists. Also, the Julian Assange has been given a
:08:11. > :08:17.-- giving interviews on at Kremlin that Channel in Russia. This is
:08:17. > :08:22.where we need to be careful about the man. He would say, if the West
:08:22. > :08:27.shut you down, you go to the people who will give you a platform.
:08:27. > :08:30.Plenty of people will agree with him. I don't. Good news for the
:08:30. > :08:32.British Government - unemployment is falling - although the fact that
:08:32. > :08:35.it is happening during a double dip recession is puzzling economists.
:08:36. > :08:38.It comes as the US recovery may be faltering, and the Republican
:08:38. > :08:41.candidate Mitt Romney has picked a conservative who wants to slash
:08:41. > :08:51.spending and cut taxes as his running mate. Does anyone really
:08:51. > :08:56.understand how to grow the economy in these hard times? The Bank of
:08:56. > :09:01.England that made it clear their somewhat puzzled. Don't come to me!
:09:01. > :09:05.I read the financial pages every day and they're all thrashing
:09:05. > :09:15.around to. Paul Ryan has been introduced into the American debate.
:09:15. > :09:22.He is Clear that his record on cuts in Wisconsin is not as good on
:09:22. > :09:26.paper. Nobody knows. What has happened in Britain, extra jobs,
:09:26. > :09:32.the economy is flat, but the obvious explanation is the Olympics
:09:32. > :09:36.give us a psychological boost. A lot of people were employed in the
:09:36. > :09:41.Olympics in all sorts of ways. Alternatively, it might mean that
:09:42. > :09:46.the three-quarters of no growth statistics which we have had was
:09:46. > :09:52.not measuring activity. It is always a problem for economists.
:09:52. > :09:57.The nature of economic activity changes. A lot of it goes into the
:09:57. > :10:01.black economy. We do not know what is happening in Britain, but may be
:10:01. > :10:07.a flat line the economy is not as bad as we thought, because there is
:10:07. > :10:10.more going on than the economists can capture. When the look at the
:10:10. > :10:15.example of Britain and the rest of Europe, where there are deep cuts
:10:15. > :10:21.going on, all of these countries have gone into recession again.
:10:21. > :10:26.This should not be puzzling to was. In countries where they have tried
:10:26. > :10:30.stimulants, there is some buoyancy to the economy. It is puzzling when
:10:30. > :10:33.you have a shrinking economy that is creating jobs. If unemployment
:10:33. > :10:42.were to go up, then people would say that is what she learned at
:10:42. > :10:48.school about basic economy its. -- economics. Let's talk about called
:10:48. > :10:53.Ryan. He has really set the campaign alight, but those of us
:10:53. > :11:01.with memories stretching back for a year's Remembrance Sarah Palin did
:11:01. > :11:08.the same thing. John Makin picked Sarah Palin. It was great for a
:11:08. > :11:13.while, but then it fizzled out. was not fitted well enough and we
:11:13. > :11:17.saw the consequences of that. But Paul Ryan has strong intellectual
:11:17. > :11:24.credentials, a strong fan as a head on him and he has presented a very
:11:24. > :11:29.clear plan that is not necessarily consistent in his voting record. He
:11:29. > :11:34.has now or presented as a blueprint that is very different which says
:11:34. > :11:40.we need to cut spending heavily and we need to cut taxes. Again, we
:11:40. > :11:44.have tried that in the United States, with Ronald Reagan with
:11:44. > :11:49.heavy tax cuts. We ended up with a huge deficit, even bigger than in
:11:49. > :11:54.the past. It is not as though his plan is completely devoid of
:11:54. > :12:00.intellectual integrity, but he hasn't specified exactly where some
:12:00. > :12:06.of the cuts would come. Mitt Romney has made it clear that he is going
:12:06. > :12:11.to be the president and it will be his plan. Mitt Romney has
:12:12. > :12:21.outsourced his brain. There will be no cuts in Wisconsin, I can predict
:12:22. > :12:23.
:12:23. > :12:27.that. Paul Ryan's big intellectual point is that if you create welfare
:12:27. > :12:30.on benefits and entitlements for everybody, then everybody will
:12:30. > :12:38.complain when there are tax cuts, because they will think they are
:12:38. > :12:44.quick to lose something. That is the problem in Britain and France.
:12:44. > :12:50.I'm not sure the British economy is creating more jobs. People call
:12:50. > :12:53.self employed and also part time. You have the illusion that the job
:12:53. > :13:02.market is doing slightly better, but in the end, salaries are
:13:02. > :13:08.getting lower and so there is less money to spend. So that country is
:13:08. > :13:11.to the recession. Exactly. When you talk to people who are working
:13:12. > :13:17.part-time and do not know how much they will end the next week,
:13:18. > :13:21.because they cannot predict. short term, like the Olympics. So
:13:21. > :13:26.you have the illusion that everything is much better, then it
:13:26. > :13:32.has gone. And because of that uncertainty, you do not what take
:13:32. > :13:42.risks and you do not spend money. About cutting taxes, everybody
:13:42. > :13:50.knows you should increase taxes. Not everybody. Everybody in France.
:13:50. > :13:55.Higher taxes at the top goes without saying. But I am French. We
:13:55. > :14:01.are simplifying it. A right now it is so convoluted and those who can
:14:01. > :14:04.pay for it can find ways to get around it. I thought Francois
:14:04. > :14:13.Hollande had already had his honeymoon and people are wrong
:14:13. > :14:22.ready saying he is awful. Once you have your first hundred days, he
:14:22. > :14:30.hasn't been like any collapse a cosy, which for me is a good thing.
:14:30. > :14:37.And the famous 75 % top tax will actually only be implemented as in
:14:37. > :14:47.2013. But he is taking a few measures, but the real struggle
:14:47. > :14:51.
:14:51. > :14:59.So Britain can expect a huge influx? In your dreams! I think,
:14:59. > :15:03.maybe now, Mitt Romney were the better in the eyes of John McCain.
:15:03. > :15:12.People considered met Ronnie to be less intelligent. He made a
:15:12. > :15:18.statement to that effect. I think now, he has to get his house in
:15:18. > :15:22.order now. He has a good accountant. He can set up a budget, but it will
:15:22. > :15:27.also bring him, probably, the extreme right wing, bring them
:15:27. > :15:37.together, closer together. I am talking about the Tea Party. He
:15:37. > :15:38.
:15:38. > :15:44.does represent the views of the Tea Party. But would that do well, in
:15:44. > :15:49.the Guards to be called Brink No2AV I think he probably feels good with
:15:49. > :15:53.his choice. As some people have pointed out, it is maybe tactically
:15:53. > :15:56.smart at this point to choose somebody to the right at the party,
:15:56. > :16:04.but strategically is at the right thing when you have an election in
:16:04. > :16:11.November? I go to the Conservative press and see what they are saying.
:16:11. > :16:15.They say, this is brilliant, but. We like Paul Ryan, but. It has been
:16:15. > :16:20.said, he is a clever and decent man. He is making the Conservatives
:16:20. > :16:24.honest on tax, but I think that means the Republicans will lose him.
:16:25. > :16:30.And he is reinforcing an unfortunate truth already present
:16:30. > :16:33.in the electoral system, which is that we have very energised bases,
:16:33. > :16:38.few of look -- fewer voters who will swing either way. It
:16:38. > :16:43.crystallises the polarisation. it has been clear that Barack Obama
:16:43. > :16:47.is getting his retaliation in first. He is already fighting as if his
:16:47. > :16:55.life depended on it. It has been quite an unpleasant campaign
:16:56. > :17:00.already. Many negative adverts. He has succeeded, cleverly, in
:17:00. > :17:10.stamping an image on to Mitt Romney before Ronnie is able to create is
:17:10. > :17:11.
:17:11. > :17:14.on the Fosse. -- his own myth costs. In terms of British politics, the
:17:14. > :17:18.coalition which is to reinvigorate itself in order to become -- come
:17:18. > :17:26.up with some new ideas, one of which maybe in terms of social care
:17:26. > :17:33.for the elderly. The Government will help you out. Do you think
:17:33. > :17:41.they've really do need this coalition? But they are in a
:17:41. > :17:47.different place. The left wing Republicans, the Liberal Boles,
:17:47. > :17:52.have been marginalised. -- the Liberals. In the UK, David Cameron
:17:52. > :17:55.is chained by the foot to the Liberal Democrats. So yes, a
:17:55. > :18:00.sensible cap on health care provision is fine but it alienates
:18:00. > :18:05.the conservative base. A lot of what he does to placate the Liberal
:18:05. > :18:08.Democrats, who had a hard summer, alienated his days. That is his
:18:08. > :18:13.contradiction. He is trying to get elected with a majority government
:18:13. > :18:19.in 2015, get rid of those Liberal Democrats, have a proper
:18:19. > :18:23.Conservative government. He needs them in the meantime. He has a real
:18:23. > :18:31.dilemma. And Boris Johnson, who people think has had a good Olympic
:18:31. > :18:37.Games, apart from get high wire. -- getting stuck on that high wire. He
:18:37. > :18:41.said the Government should build a new airport, deregulate sectors of
:18:41. > :18:48.the economy, should introduce tax cuts. So already, but in that as
:18:48. > :18:54.the fight to become leader as the Conservative Party. It is seen.
:18:54. > :19:04.Isn't it? 18 months. The next general election. Boris's talking
:19:04. > :19:07.
:19:07. > :19:16.about London. A that's true, but it can damage... A he is a clever lazy
:19:16. > :19:19.fellow. Is that you epitaph? Let's move on.
:19:19. > :19:24.Kofi Annan has given up on his Syrian peace plan but the United
:19:24. > :19:33.Nations is - man has appointed a new envoy. Will it make any
:19:33. > :19:40.difference? How much longer can President Assad last? Do you think
:19:40. > :19:48.anew UN envoy can do very much? The same problems exist. The short
:19:48. > :19:55.answer to that is know. -- no, certainly not. The United Nations
:19:55. > :20:05.failed Syria and the Syrian people. Even before the Kofi Annan plan was
:20:05. > :20:06.
:20:06. > :20:12.announced. The plan itself also fell through, the moment and
:20:12. > :20:17.announced his resignation. -- Kofi Annan an ounce. What we are
:20:17. > :20:23.witnessing, the United Nations celebrating its impotence. We have
:20:23. > :20:27.seen that before. The Syrians are suffering like hell. You cannot
:20:27. > :20:34.imagine the stories I keep hearing from my own town and from Aleppo
:20:34. > :20:39.and Damascus, the totally horrific, children and say, nobody can go out.
:20:39. > :20:46.I am talking about the centre of cities here. Not the countryside.
:20:46. > :20:50.Inside the city itself. They cannot go out, they cannot go out to the
:20:50. > :20:55.back. They do not open the shutters. People are indoors all the time.
:20:55. > :21:05.There is no central government, which is trusted, any more in the
:21:05. > :21:09.country, at all. According to the last Prime Minister, who defected,
:21:09. > :21:18.President Assad controls only 30% of the country. That is a serious
:21:18. > :21:24.situation. Russia and China, the break on this. The UN has to do
:21:24. > :21:32.what it can do. It cannot do very much. As Kofi Annan proved, he
:21:32. > :21:37.could not do much. But I do find the situation quite intractable. In
:21:37. > :21:40.that it was barely a month ago, we thought that perhaps the
:21:40. > :21:45.assassination of a high ranking Syrian officials would be a turning
:21:45. > :21:50.point. It was not. I think any single action can be a turning
:21:50. > :21:57.point. A staff are rightly said the real turning point was when this
:21:57. > :22:02.all started 16 or 18 months ago. -- must have far. I think we made
:22:02. > :22:08.mistakes. If you compare it to Libya, straightaway, I think France
:22:08. > :22:14.was the first to recognise the free Libyan council as the legitimate
:22:14. > :22:24.power and not Gaddafi. We did not do this a Syria. I think we should
:22:24. > :22:29.have done. Especially as there were actually more coherent. It has many
:22:29. > :22:34.more friends. The Russians say we let them down of a regime change.
:22:35. > :22:41.Guard against your own biases. I think the Russians and Chinese have
:22:41. > :22:51.played as cynical and obstructive game. But they say, no, the West
:22:51. > :22:51.
:22:51. > :22:54.has been opportunist. And they are unleashing forces which... In Libya,
:22:54. > :23:01.you had a totally different situation. A transitional council,
:23:01. > :23:05.it was inside the country, they were in Benghazi. And Gaddafi was
:23:05. > :23:10.in Tripoli. So they had a Libyan territory to operate from. That is
:23:10. > :23:17.not the case with the Syrian National Council. They are all in
:23:17. > :23:21.exile. They have been recognised by Western powers will stop so what?
:23:21. > :23:26.Assad is still in the equation. We are still trying to negotiate with
:23:26. > :23:33.him. Perhaps he can step down or something. He should not be in the
:23:33. > :23:36.equation. The West has to persuade the free Syrians to be more
:23:36. > :23:42.inclusive, to include other people, including those who they do not
:23:42. > :23:46.like. So, the Russians should behave better. We saw that of the
:23:46. > :23:56.Pussy Riot trial. But Britain does not seem to care what world opinion
:23:56. > :23:57.
:23:57. > :24:02.is. -- but Putin does not seem to care. It is not fair, it is not
:24:02. > :24:10.only Russia and China. Also, the US, this is an acquisition going on
:24:10. > :24:16.between Russia and the US, over the package of things. All over Asia,
:24:16. > :24:23.Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Baltic, everywhere. So they need to reach
:24:23. > :24:27.some kind of agreement, some kind of agreement on division of roles.
:24:27. > :24:31.The Russians want something from the Americans, and the Americans
:24:31. > :24:41.are not giving in to the Russians. Meanwhile, the Syrian people
:24:41. > :24:42.
:24:42. > :24:46.continue to pay the price, as happened before. Britain's strength