10/08/2013 Dateline London

bulletin of news at the top of the hour.

Now on BBC News, Dateline London. Hello and welcome to Dateline

London. Anyone remember the Cold War? Obama says no to a summit with

Putin. The Palestinians and Israelis, are they serious about

peace talks? And how to handle the cyber bullies. My guests are Dmitry

Shishkin of BBC Global News, Agnes Poirier of Marianne, Yasmin Alibhai

Brown of the Independent, and Mustapha Karkouti, who is a

Gulf-based writer and broadcaster. The United States has called off a

planned meeting between President Obama and Vladimir Putin, citing a

host of reasons, but with the decision by Moscow to grant the

fugitive intelligence analyst Edward Snowden a year's stay clearly in

everyone's minds, President Obama suggested Mr Putin's Kremlin has a

Cold War mindset. How serious are the problems between the two

countries? You have just come back from

Russia? I have, I spent ten days on holiday there. How is it been seen

by the Kremlin? People are not too bothered by what has happened, about

not coming to see Vladimir Putin. I do not think that lots of people

will get frustrated by this summit but taking place. Increasingly since

Putin got re-elected, he start aim to much attention to what the West

has been saying about him, knowing that he is needed by the West on so

many different fronts that they can do whatever he wants. It started

with Russian retaliation, by the Russians prohibiting Americans for

adopting Russian orphans. -- from adopting. And then there is the

thing, what to do with Snowden. Once Obama decided not to go, the

reaction was, well, Obama behaved as though he was a small child, he

threw his toys out of the pram. He took offence, and the Russians do

not like their enemies to be weak, and this was seen as weakness.

can be quite dangerous thinking, this sort of thing. It could be, but

in the past, Obama did not attend Vladivostok, although he was not

officially scheduled to go, but it was gradually happening. Across all

these issues, we will still have Russian Corporation. We have seen

Sergei Lavrov meeting with John Kerry. There will be lots and lots

of different fronts were Russian cooperation with the West is needed,

Iran, Syria, lots of things. This is one of these extraordinary moral

multiple dilemmas. All the stuff that goes on with Vladimir Putin and

the Russian attitudes to gay people and all of that. These are things to

oppose, but at the same time, when Snowden gets refuge there, and

Snowden has done the world the big service, let's face it, by exposing

so much of the stuff that America did not want the world to see, I now

find, which side are my own? The land of the free, the leading nation

of the free world, is actually extremely not free. It does not want

to be free. It upset me about her American Obama is. Obama is an

American first and last. Yes, he is also black, but that also struck me.

In terms of the freedom argument, it is an argument that has been heard

by the Economist last week, about liberty being rather stake and the

Statue of Liberty not looking healthy on the cover, are using that

the United States, since 9/11, the balance has shifted in favour of

security? It is not even since then. If you look back in the days of

Kennedy, it has always been a society that spies on people. Martin

Luther King was spied on endlessly by all the agencies. It is not a new

part of the culture, but with new technology it reaches a whole new

level. I wish they would just stop saying that they demand that leads

the free world. Vladimir Putin makes no such claim for Russia, is that

what you're seeing? I do not want to defend him, because I just cannot

tell you what I think of Britain. can go back to Napoleon. -- what I

think of Vladimir Putin. He had a secret police. Snowden is not Kim

Philby. We talk about the Cold War, because we love the Cold War. The

atmosphere, it was simple. It was black and white values. Look at the

success of that film, Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. It was great

for that time. Today is shades of grey. Obama does not look that

exciting any more, especially when we know how much Civil Liberties

have been incurred. Russia, obviously, we know is on a thorough

TV and resume, yet they are giving asylum to that guy who has no

rootless. One thing about Snowden, the important thing about that,

Snowden, in the eyes of the Americans, betrayed the American

system, but more importantly, even in the eyes of Vladimir Putin, who

is a former KGB agent, he is a traitor. Vladimir Putin does not

like that? Irrespective of who he betrayed. This week, we have seen

what has happened in Yemen, the closure of embassies in the Arab

world. That was based on a simple wiretap of Al-Qaeda leaders, which

is said to be the justification of all the spine? Yes, that is what

makes the whole story more interesting, that we need a lot more

than one Snowden, more than one in the world, if you like, because that

is a lot of information which is hidden that we do not know about.

The good thing is that he revealed a few things. During the Cold War,

things were black and white, now it is shades of grey. But it is

surprising the way the Obama administration reacted. Certainly,

one has to be fair to Obama that he is under right-wing pressure,

Republican pressure and all that. Congress would have gone crazy.

Absolutely. But the way he approached it is really not

convincing to me. Vladimir Putin is playing Obama. It is not the other

way around. Is that how you see it? It is evident that during Soviet

times, the Kremlin was more interested in dealing with the

Republicans, because they always knew where they stood. Democrats are

not quite clear where they are, and representatives of the American

administration, almost by default, are required to raise issues about

human rights, but the Kremlin does not a attention to that. It will be

interesting to see what will happen in the next few months about Sochi.

Russia always finds itself shooting itself in the food in trying to do

something and then reacting and trying to pre-empt the Western

opinion, but with Sochi specifically, nobody is sure that

Sochi will be boycotted. Stephen Fry, the real leader of the world,

has spoken! Unlike the Pope, he is not

absolutely infallible! He more adored. It is interesting to note

that bidders will cooperation between the US and Russia on several

issues in the region, Iran and South Korea. But with Syria, they are

fighting over that. It is like chess. We have Snowden, and we must

tackle Syria and the human rights and the Winter Olympics. The party

has not stopped since the Second World War. Let's move on.

Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians usually begin with very

low expectations and generally these low expectations are met in full.

But Secretary of State John Kerry is bringing the two sides together

again next week in Jerusalem and then later in Ramallah. What hopes

should we have, if any? I do not think it is very hopeful. We have

been there before. This is a John Kerry game, really, more than

anything else. They give it the title of peace talks, but it is

really about John Kerry. He's trying find something for his role as

Secretary of State as his predecessors have done over the last

20 or 30 years. But it seems that Obama is allowing him to do it his

way. If it works, Obama will certainly chip in, he will clinch

the result at the end. If not, it will be John Kerry's failure, on his

own. It is likely Rubiks cube of diplomacy. If you could get this to

work, lots of other things would fall into place. Yes, it is worth a

shot. If you look at the entire Middle East, it is a mess,

everywhere. The Americans have failed if you read in the Middle

East, I'm speaking about the Arab spring and all that, Iran,

absolutely. The West has to do something. I do not think we should

be too cynical. Peace is always worth a try. It is. This is not the

Oslo agreements, 93, when all the people in charge of the Palestinian

side were terrorists. Now we have Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,

but it is interesting, because Hamas is alone. It has severed ties with

Syria and Iran. They have put all their chips on Mohamed Morsi's

Egypt, but he is not here any more. The Egyptian army has been

destroying the tunnels that keep the Gaza Strip alive. Perhaps Hamas will

be brought to the negotiating table. If you are sitting in Israel looking

at what is going on around you, you may think that no one really good

time to try to do something? I do not know. I think it is worth

trying. John Kerry has been seven times? Six times. He is there in a

way that Tony Blair was not. Given a similar task. I think he wants to

make his name, but the Israel we are looking at is also very different.

Not only is the Middle East very different from whenever we have been

going on with this play that never ends, but Israel is in a very

different session. It must know that the old way is gone. At the same

time, there are newer things happening, like the EU decision.

That decision to withdraw or withhold money, nearly �1 billion,

for all the academic research and grounds that they used to hand over

to Israel, because of the settlement issue. These are new pressures.

Israel needs to have a new sense of reality. I will get home and home

will be buzzing with lots of people who hate what I am saying, but

Israel cannot carry on ignoring the changes around it, for its own sake.

I entirely agree with you, Yasmin, but you still have a Prime Minister

in Israel with a short-term vision. He has not changed. He has not

improved, to look at the future, the next 15 years. No, but Israel has to

be good at survival. They are unnerved by this EU decision. It is

one thing for me not to buy an avocado, it is quite another thing

when money is withheld for serious research. I wanted to say that

Russia can intentionally, we must not forget, the Syrian situation is

much more important for Russia in this particular part of the world.

To gain something from Syria, they might give something in the Middle

East process, for example, by influencing Hamas, by using their

own powers. But the wider point is that to start the negotiations, we

have seen so many over the last several decades, but the key

questions are the questions that need to be negotiated at some point

in time, the status of Jerusalem, access to water, the status of

refugees. We have seen those negotiations at a much more advanced

age, rather than now. I think this is a John Kerry initiative. It comes

as some prominent women campaigners have received death and rape threats

anonymously on Twitter. How should cyber bullies be dealt with? You

have had a bit of this too, have a new? Yes, I seem to stand for

anything French in the UK. Any pro-Europe, prorepublican, but that

is OK. I don't get death threats. I had some very nasty, when I defended

Roman Polanski from America, came all of this very unsavoury rape

threats. But I think there is one thing. People should not be allowed

to be anonymous. If it is their picture, Lycos, like journalists,

we'd talk sometimes for publication with all our names, and we pay

attention. We think twice before we tweet. They should do the same, and

they would. They do in real life. One of the puzzles about this, if

someone phoned you up anonymously, and put the phone down, but people

engage on Twitter with people who are anonymous, who choose to be

anonymous, . And its virtual for them, so it carries no consequences.

This is not real, so we can play this fantasy of being someone else,

and they should go and see a shrink. This is where they should go.

think there are several layers of the story. It is about the means of

technology, not the abuse itself. This was happening when we were all

writing letters and it was possible to write letters. Now, the world a

smaller, everyone is using that technology to do exactly what they

want to. You have the opportunity to block the users who don't do the

right thing, which I did in the past, but another thing is that if

you ask anyone to become -- everyone to register under their own

username, with a credit card or however, how else are you going to

make sure they are real people? The other side of Twitter, the upside,

which we have been discussing in the last year or two years, is about the

Arab Spring, galvanising civil rights movements, all that kind of

stuff stop how do you make that happen when everybody is not

anonymous? Well then, what is the answer? Perhaps there is no answer,

because if some people are just abusive... I think you are right. In

my mind, this tragic death of the girl and the abuse are two separate

things. They are sort of linked by technology and the modern world, but

I think they are to be separate. We need to discuss them separately.

About cyber bullying, it is exactly another form of bullying which

happens. This girl could have been bullied at school, but the school

has at least some kind of infrastructure to stop that, and

that is why you cannot really stop it. But it is very different from

school bullying, which is very bad. What happens is, I get a lot of it,

so I don't look at it any more. And then I panicked, I wake up in the

middle of the night, because somebody has said to me, how do you

survive all this? And I think, I wake up thinking the whole world

hates me. It becomes a kind of phobia. You could become agoraphobic

because you don't know how many people are out there hating you. At

one time, it was just e-mail, but I had to have police protection, I had

to have those mirrors to look under my car. Because you are getting

specific threats? Yes, and they even arrested some people. But that

almost seems manageable now compatible this going on, and I

think maybe we do need to have buttons, and I am very pleased that

the companies have withdrawn advertising. From ask FM?Yes. And

if any companies down responsible for being irresponsible...

advertisers will go to another site. Anonymous questioning will

spring up there immediately. Yes, so there needs to be a button, some

kind of system. A 13-year-old girl was in a TV programme last week.

Really, she should be Prime Minister. She had worked out a whole

system of how you can have immediate response button, a red button.

you block IP address. But even if you block somebody, you can still

write it, you just don't see it. One of the interesting things is how few

people actually follow the lunatics on Twitter, particularly. It doesn't

get through to very many people, but it is still hurtful. You cannot stop

it immediately. But you need to start doing something, regulating

the whole procedure, regulating the whole system. International

regulation, because a lot of those organisations are based elsewhere.

You have to regulate internationally, on the UN level,

and introduce legislation. But some of it is either fair comment, even

if it's stupid. I mean come on this panel, you would get everybody on

this panel, you are far right wing as you far left wingers, according

to the prejudice of those regular tweets, so you just have to write it

off will stop but it is personal, it is really wounding. Words can really

win, and I am pleased I going to beat prosecutions. They have

apparently got one of the guys who has been allegedly tweeting the

historian Mary beer. They will be more prosecutions. The enemy at the

moment is not these sites, but the libertarians who, every time we talk

about regulation, talk about censorship and freedom and they have

got to just stop and think about what kind of society we all want to

live in. I take your point. These things can be trivial, and you can

laugh at it sometimes. But here you have a case, the young, beautiful

girl, 14 years old, was driven to committing suicide. That is quite

serious. It is about education. I think it should be taught in school.

You have got history lessons I don't know whether you should have how to

behave on social network. Think it is a wider question about the values

in society generally. I think bullying is a whole, someone is

doing it, there must be something catastrophically wrong in the family

of those, or the way they have been brought up, to allow the bullying to

happen. But there is also a bigger question. Particularly in Britain, a

lot of this has been directed at prominent women journalists. Male

journalists get it, but obviously not rape threats. It is trying to

get women to shut up, is that fair? Yes, to Exeter public space, if you

like. But I think we would be wrong to think this is only directed nine

men against women. There are many women out there who are also doing

extremely nasty things. There is one website were a daughter of a friend

of mine who already had eating problems sort of found this

anorexics website and nearly died because she was so obsessed with

this site which told her to eat less and less, how being an anorexic was

the way to be. There is no education. It was then an

attachment. But to pursue the libertarian argument, you said that

maybe ludicrous information, but there is a lot of ludicrous

information out there, so what are you going to do? Say you are not

allowed to say this? Or save to children, look, there is a lot of

rubbish out there, be careful. you have an eating disorder,

education doesn't help. In Moscow, I was talking to NX bit about

specifically the racial hatred and about intolerance the web and

everything. The most widespread images that troubled Russian social

networks specifically is pictures where you either have some sort of

approval of something against people from the Caucasus, or those people,

those things generate hundreds of thousands of shares, likes all I

kind of thing. There is something wrong with this... I think the

lesson about your behaviour online and about tolerance, you need to be

tolerant irrespective of where you are. But you have to behave online

the same as you do in real life. you are anonymous, you can do you

like, unless somebody is going to take the time to find out.

Road-macro also, have you ever tried, because I have, to take

something out of YouTube or out of the infinite, something that you

haven't authorised? It is impossible. Organisations just pass

the buck. It is based somewhere else. Oh, we have no authority. They

don't reply. You threaten them, and they say, they send an automated

answer. It is just the far west, the wild West. The wild West, but also

many of these companies seem to do quite well, but they are not

actually run in the same way as Apple or a big company. They are

actually quite small. There is space there for a lot of people to make

money as easy as picking up fruit from trees. It is a new world. We

are just learning how to deal with it, not only the kids, but thinkers

and all of that. Things have to be really speeded up. Bullying has been

there before technology and will be at the technology. I remember 55

years ago at school, children, of five or six years old, a gang of

children almost drove a child to the point of insanity. He had to go to