:00:00. > 3:59:59There's a full bulletin of news at the top of the hour. Now on BBC News
:00:00. > :00:27.Dateline London. Hello and welcome to Dateline `
:00:28. > :00:30.America's Secretary of State says the US may have gone too far on
:00:31. > :00:33.spying. Syria hands over its chemical weapons facilities ` but
:00:34. > :00:37.where is Iran now on its nuclear programme? And Britain's energy
:00:38. > :00:43.companies on trial ` but is David Cameron turning less Green? My
:00:44. > :00:46.guests are Vincent Magombe of Africa Inform International, Nazenin Ansari
:00:47. > :00:54.of Iran's Kayhan, Catherine Mayer of Time Magazine and Alex Deane of
:00:55. > :00:57.Conservative Home. US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that
:00:58. > :01:00.America may have gone too far on some of the spying activities made
:01:01. > :01:11.public by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Meanwhile the
:01:12. > :01:14.journalist at the heart of the affair, Glenn Greenwald, says he has
:01:15. > :01:16.many more revelations to come. Has lasting damage been done to
:01:17. > :01:40.America's spying capabilities ` and the reputation of the Obama
:01:41. > :01:47.administration? It is being taken seriously, but not for the reasons
:01:48. > :01:50.you might think. It is a lot more to do with the way this is being
:01:51. > :01:58.managed than the fact that the spying took place. All the evidence
:01:59. > :02:02.suggests that people do accept an amazing level of intrusion of
:02:03. > :02:07.producing these days if they think it protects them. What they don't
:02:08. > :02:15.accept is an incompetent government that is not looking after them. It
:02:16. > :02:23.seems to go all the way up to the top, although the denial may be
:02:24. > :02:30.beyond possible, it may be true. The worst of it is, it does look as if
:02:31. > :02:35.it's true. John Kerry is taking on an interesting role in this
:02:36. > :02:40.government. You saw a little remark he made in the London press
:02:41. > :02:49.conference, entirely shifting the ground on Syria. You are now
:02:50. > :02:56.seeing, because we do not know how well the government is planning
:02:57. > :03:05.things, you wonder if the government is exercising banana skin diplomacy
:03:06. > :03:12.or splat are. What he is now saying may again create all sorts of
:03:13. > :03:16.unintended consequences that may be helpful, which is one of the funny
:03:17. > :03:22.things that has happened before. They have an off a lot of work to do
:03:23. > :03:28.to win over the governments who are upset by what they have been doing.
:03:29. > :03:38.Because Angela Merkel does not see the funny side, among others. Some
:03:39. > :03:44.of the responses in Burlington, they are absolutely spitting tacks. They
:03:45. > :03:48.are spitting tacks because America is still presuming to tell them how
:03:49. > :03:56.to run their economy and telling them off or to driven. They are
:03:57. > :04:05.saying, you have had the government shutdown for weeks and we have had
:04:06. > :04:10.to deal with the consequences. It now turns out that Angela Merkel,
:04:11. > :04:21.who sends a lot of texts, has been having everyone of them looked at. I
:04:22. > :04:26.must start by saying I am completely shocked that European governments
:04:27. > :04:29.are finding this quite shocking. They say they are finding it
:04:30. > :04:35.shocking. Whether they be find it shocking is another masterful Op I
:04:36. > :04:42.say that because you know where I come from, Africa. We knew about
:04:43. > :04:48.American spying and that the raw end of the consequences for a long time.
:04:49. > :04:51.When Americans spied on Germany or France, they're not going to kill
:04:52. > :04:58.the President in that country as a consequence. In Africa, when you
:04:59. > :05:02.look at people who are supposed to be great leaders, they have been
:05:03. > :05:11.killed is through American spies in the early 60s. All these types of
:05:12. > :05:18.things. In later years, someone like Edie in was brought to power with
:05:19. > :05:22.the help of British spy agencies. So as an African, I am not at all
:05:23. > :05:28.surprised, but I am shocked but others find it shocking. Of course,
:05:29. > :05:39.there has never been any spying into or out of Iran. It is like eating at
:05:40. > :05:43.the bar on the international scene. Everybody loves it, likes the
:05:44. > :05:48.taste, but nobody wants to admit when it comes from. There has been
:05:49. > :05:55.recently this understanding between Europe, the United States,
:05:56. > :05:58.Australia, New Zealand and Canada will top they are all sharing this
:05:59. > :06:09.information and intelligence. What is interesting from this discussion
:06:10. > :06:12.is that number one, the American president has very low popularity
:06:13. > :06:15.ratings and it is not because of the spying, it is because of the health
:06:16. > :06:20.care reform and because there hasn't been any good new news story.
:06:21. > :06:26.Everything he has pointed his finger on has been a disaster. Look at
:06:27. > :06:36.Egypt, Syria. But I think there is a silver lining in all of this, and
:06:37. > :06:53.that is Glenn Greenwald. He has been able to get $50 million to start his
:06:54. > :06:59.own media website. So journalism is OK, but the rest of the world isn't.
:07:00. > :07:08.Independent journalism. So there is money for that. The Washington Post
:07:09. > :07:16.is now diverted his attention. David Cameron has been largely as silent
:07:17. > :07:20.as a Prime Minister can be. You don't want to criticise your
:07:21. > :07:32.most important ally. You want to find out if you would information
:07:33. > :07:36.has been accessed. As far as Germans are concerned, they take their
:07:37. > :07:40.privacy very seriously, for good historical reasons. Especially
:07:41. > :07:45.Angela Merkel, who grew up in the East. I welcome John Kerry's
:07:46. > :07:52.remarks, opening the door to discuss this. But the Americans went far too
:07:53. > :08:00.far. Let's be clear. The people thing to themselves, they are doing
:08:01. > :08:11.this to my head is state, what protection do we have for our own
:08:12. > :08:15.information? The Americans are spying on supposed allies. I don't
:08:16. > :08:21.think I would mind someone spying on my head is date, depending on which
:08:22. > :08:30.Edwards date. If you turn this look at the people who talk this, Edward
:08:31. > :08:34.Snowden and others, they had great luck in trying to spy on the
:08:35. > :08:37.government systems. I wish tomorrow they can do that African
:08:38. > :08:42.governments. The corruption they will find, how they kill people. And
:08:43. > :08:48.the Iranians government, you would agree with that? Basically, I want
:08:49. > :08:54.to spy on their negotiations to see what is going on. No one knows what
:08:55. > :09:00.is going on full top my point was not about whether this is OK to pry
:09:01. > :09:03.on governments, my point is about governments spying on other nations
:09:04. > :09:11.and using that moral high ground which Americans need.
:09:12. > :09:16.If you look at what is coming out, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, even
:09:17. > :09:25.the United States, have been using their embassies. I we not being a
:09:26. > :09:32.bit naive? It has always gone on, but the technology has changed. It
:09:33. > :09:35.is absolutely true that one of the reasons people are not nearly as
:09:36. > :09:38.outraged about this as the campaigners on this issue would like
:09:39. > :09:43.them to be is because everybody has assumed that that is what is going
:09:44. > :09:50.on and a lot of people really don't mind about it. A lot of people would
:09:51. > :09:55.say that is why they pay their taxes. To bring it back to the
:09:56. > :09:58.government stumbles in the United States, that is why people are
:09:59. > :10:01.linking it to the health care reforms. They are saying, you have
:10:02. > :10:06.these resources and you are unable to spy on people across the world
:10:07. > :10:10.and you cannot run a website? Let's move on. Syria ` according to
:10:11. > :10:14.the outside experts ` has complied with demands that it hand over its
:10:15. > :10:16.means to produce chemical weapons this week ` though destroying the
:10:17. > :10:20.weapons themselves will take many months. It comes as talks on Iran's
:10:21. > :10:23.nuclear programme continue. So how far is the most dangerous region on
:10:24. > :10:31.earth becoming possibly a little less dangerous? The moves in Syria
:10:32. > :10:37.have been broadly welcomed. Yes, but if you think it is becoming more
:10:38. > :10:42.stable or less dangerous, that is aspirational. What is happening in
:10:43. > :10:48.Iran at the moment, as far as the nuclear negotiations are concerned,
:10:49. > :10:57.they will restart on the 7th of November. A day after the
:10:58. > :11:01.anniversary of the siege of the US embassy. It will be interesting to
:11:02. > :11:06.see what will be the reaction on the streets of Iran full top only
:11:07. > :11:14.yesterday, all the Friday prayer leaders around the country started
:11:15. > :11:20.criticising not only the United States, but also criticising the
:11:21. > :11:24.talks. So Friday prayer leaders doing that all across the country
:11:25. > :11:29.means one thing, that they are getting their notes from the supreme
:11:30. > :11:39.leader 's office. Why this change of heart? Why, when we thought we would
:11:40. > :11:44.get three to six months. I think it is the insecurity Iranians feel
:11:45. > :11:51.inside. Only last week, there was an attack by rebels from the Pakistan
:11:52. > :11:57.area, killing Iranians ordered guards. Two Kurdish people have been
:11:58. > :12:02.executed in Iran. The state of siege within the security services in Iran
:12:03. > :12:08.has increased. Whether that will affect the nuclear negotiations are
:12:09. > :12:11.not, that remains to be seen. But it is a general rule that countries
:12:12. > :12:15.where the government feels under threat or week for some reason,
:12:16. > :12:21.either economic league, tends not to be in a position to make deals. This
:12:22. > :12:25.will be a big week, seen from the Iranians position, it is a big leap
:12:26. > :12:33.to take will stop of course. Seen from the Syrians, things look
:12:34. > :12:38.different now. I think your question to us was, has it become less
:12:39. > :12:44.dangerous? I think it has become less or vertically or press as a
:12:45. > :12:48.regime. I don't welcome this regime for one moment, but the dangers
:12:49. > :12:53.posed either rebels have grown significantly. This has gone from
:12:54. > :13:07.being an internally signed conflict within Syria to one that draws
:13:08. > :13:12.elements from outside. We're told over 70 journalists are missing in
:13:13. > :13:16.Syria. Two years ago, it was the regime you had to feel if you would
:13:17. > :13:19.report. That is not just the case any more. The rebels are capturing
:13:20. > :13:27.reporters and holding them hostage or worse. The danger from the
:13:28. > :13:35.oppressive regime has lessened, but the danger in the region has not.
:13:36. > :13:40.You could see giving up the chemical weapons may be a way of securing
:13:41. > :13:44.your future. Great move from President Assad. He
:13:45. > :13:49.has nothing to lose in terms of the Pirate he has. He has enough
:13:50. > :13:54.conventional weaponry to dominate the scene. He doesn't need the
:13:55. > :14:01.chemical weapons. He also has the opportunity to shame Western powers
:14:02. > :14:05.and individuals. There is a reason we had a pretty good sense of what
:14:06. > :14:09.was there in Syria, because we have the sales receipts.
:14:10. > :14:17.You didn't need to bug telephones, you had the receipts. I am a
:14:18. > :14:21.campaigner for democracy in my country. The big Bob is when all
:14:22. > :14:29.these international by mentions come into Lake, like we're seeing in
:14:30. > :14:36.Syria. We forget the bigger story, which is the relationship between
:14:37. > :14:40.Syria and the dictator. Everyone is praising him, because he has made a
:14:41. > :14:45.great move. He may have made a great move in terms of chemical weapons,
:14:46. > :14:55.but his oppression of the Syrian people is not going to end. My worry
:14:56. > :15:01.is that whenever we have all these international players coming in in
:15:02. > :15:08.our liberation struggles, things get muddled up. Now we have to judge the
:15:09. > :15:13.dictator in the eyes of America and the world and what they say about
:15:14. > :15:18.the chemical and is. People have been struggling in Syria to try to
:15:19. > :15:22.liberate and have democracy. I also want to mention one thing which is
:15:23. > :15:26.very, very troubling for us in Africa, these double standards of
:15:27. > :15:31.Western countries or international organisations and so on. Here you
:15:32. > :15:37.are, you want to blast Syria out of that, or Gaddafi, because of the oil
:15:38. > :15:45.and so on. I am here, I come from Uganda, I have to mention my
:15:46. > :15:50.dictator, Idi Amin. Not Idi Amin, I'm sorry. I say him because we have
:15:51. > :15:53.suffered a lot to dictators in Uganda, but other current dictator
:15:54. > :16:01.is the greatest friend of America because he is fighting in Somalia
:16:02. > :16:04.for them. He is a big man. This type of double standards is undermining
:16:05. > :16:09.the capacity of us simple people to fight for our freedoms. I think the
:16:10. > :16:14.Syrian people will very soon discover they can't do anything once
:16:15. > :16:18.the man has satisfied the West in terms of chemical and and so on. The
:16:19. > :16:22.whole story of democratic campaigning will have to stop. I
:16:23. > :16:31.think there is a series of excellent points. Look what is happening in
:16:32. > :16:36.Iraq. Iraq is, I'm afraid, absolutely falling back into total
:16:37. > :16:44.chaos again. A lot of what you just said, everything about Iraq was gone
:16:45. > :16:49.about, as we now know, for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way, without
:16:50. > :16:53.an eye to how it would play out. Nobody knows how it will play out.
:16:54. > :16:55.Although I think a lot of people had honourable reasons for doing what
:16:56. > :17:00.they did, those honourable reasons have come back to bite them. There
:17:01. > :17:04.was always a lot of cynicism and double standards, and that has
:17:05. > :17:08.continued to have repercussions throughout the world when we are
:17:09. > :17:13.talking about any kind of intervention. It is one of the
:17:14. > :17:16.reasons people stood back from Syria and let it get so bad that it came
:17:17. > :17:24.to a point where intervention was not really going to work anyway. So
:17:25. > :17:27.bad that polio outbreaks in 2013, a disease that we thought we had got
:17:28. > :17:34.pretty much under control as a world, people being killed by
:17:35. > :17:36.conventional weapons, people finding living conditions appalling.
:17:37. > :17:42.Sometimes in the rich world we forget that. And another piece of
:17:43. > :17:46.news not exactly in that region, that you have had the drone strike
:17:47. > :17:56.that took out the Taliban head just at the point where negotiations were
:17:57. > :18:04.at a critical stage. In Pakistan. Sorry, in Waziristan. If you think
:18:05. > :18:09.that these strollers strikes are necessarily the way to conduct these
:18:10. > :18:13.operations and diplomacy, you need to look at how that looks on the
:18:14. > :18:18.ground. You have the collateral damage and, secondly, a kind of
:18:19. > :18:22.warfare that appears not to involve any danger to the people inflicting
:18:23. > :18:26.those strikes. Again, there is the assumption of we know what is
:18:27. > :18:30.right, we can act as God and do this. I am not saying it is always
:18:31. > :18:34.wrong, clearly there are arguments for it, but you have to understand
:18:35. > :18:39.the way it looks in the countries it is happening in. At home, David
:18:40. > :18:42.Cameron rebranded the Conservative Party by giving it a green tree logo
:18:43. > :18:47.and talking enthusiastically on green issues, but with written 's
:18:48. > :18:51.energy companies effectively on trial, are there signs that economic
:18:52. > :18:55.realities are making the Cameron government less green? He has talked
:18:56. > :18:59.about green levies on electricity bills, this is the hottest political
:19:00. > :19:05.issue, domestic league, at the moment. Is he becoming less green? I
:19:06. > :19:09.think the leadership as a whole is becoming less focused on
:19:10. > :19:12.environmental issues, that is unquestionable. I think that is down
:19:13. > :19:17.to the economic situation dominating the debate, people are looking much
:19:18. > :19:21.more at how numbers work than before. Secondly, the voice of
:19:22. > :19:25.scepticism is becoming very important within my party and the
:19:26. > :19:30.donor base, so there are many people in and around the leadership who
:19:31. > :19:34.have always been sceptical about the environmental movement, particularly
:19:35. > :19:38.about the claims made about the capacity for sustainable energy to
:19:39. > :19:44.provide energy in the short term and also the harm caused by global
:19:45. > :19:48.warming. Some voices have been successfully mounting a campaign
:19:49. > :19:51.saying we should not be to how shirt about this and we have to
:19:52. > :19:57.concentrate more on the cost of living. But Labour's position has
:19:58. > :20:03.also driven it, Labour saying they will cap energy prices. We have just
:20:04. > :20:05.had energy prices leaping up by an average of ten per cent. Those
:20:06. > :20:11.things are not and connect. If you think there is the possibility of a
:20:12. > :20:14.Labour government, it is a very strong possibility, the logical
:20:15. > :20:21.thing to do is put your price up before it happens. In war, political
:20:22. > :20:27.terms, you could say that whatever you think about whether or not you
:20:28. > :20:30.can cap prices, that is a win for Miliband because he can say, look at
:20:31. > :20:36.the evil Conservative Government letting prices go up? Even if you
:20:37. > :20:41.buy the case that people don't think about businesses within economic
:20:42. > :20:45.terms. If this is need to make a profit to invest, generate more
:20:46. > :20:52.jobs, the entrepreneurial and keep this is going. We need to keep the
:20:53. > :20:56.lights on. That argument is becoming stronger in the Conservative Party,
:20:57. > :21:04.that we should be on the side of those trying to keep the lights on.
:21:05. > :21:08.Do you think the Tory party effort was actually green, was this a real
:21:09. > :21:14.thing? I am really curious. In the very early days of Cameron he was on
:21:15. > :21:22.his bicycle with a limo following, that became a kind of symbol for it
:21:23. > :21:29.being green washing as opposed to deeply felt. I think that is a fair
:21:30. > :21:37.question, but there is a significant and genuine commitment to the
:21:38. > :21:40.environment. There is a strong narrative around concerning things,
:21:41. > :21:46.I like my garden and the countryside, in conservatism. Right
:21:47. > :21:51.up until March when energy prices were spiking, people were struggling
:21:52. > :21:55.to keep the gas on. I wonder if there is a wider point, which is
:21:56. > :21:59.that environmentalism has been something which you think about in
:22:00. > :22:04.good times, and you can afford to think about it, and that is about,
:22:05. > :22:13.can I keep the gas on and heat my home? As an immigrant in Britain, I
:22:14. > :22:20.see a lot of these things, these trees symbols etc, as great symbols.
:22:21. > :22:25.I agree with you, somebody has to do the hard economic of what these
:22:26. > :22:29.companies are doing, but as an immigrant, somebody staying in
:22:30. > :22:33.Britain as an immigrant, I think that, really, we have to accept that
:22:34. > :22:43.the Conservative Party is the party of rich men... OK, let me put it
:22:44. > :22:49.this way, the party of business. You are trying to guard that role that
:22:50. > :22:54.they can put up prices because they need to provide electricity and so
:22:55. > :22:57.on, but just go down to immigrant communities in this country, and not
:22:58. > :23:01.just immigrant communities, because you can say, you come from outside,
:23:02. > :23:08.that is your problem. Not you, that there is a general feeling in this
:23:09. > :23:11.country! If you go to most poor people in this country, they are
:23:12. > :23:18.struggling, even the middle classes, they can't pay the bills. Why is
:23:19. > :23:23.this company telling me... ? The Government position was not that
:23:24. > :23:27.week think prices should continue to go up, it is that we don't think we
:23:28. > :23:32.should cap energy prices so we should look at removing green taxes
:23:33. > :23:38.from what is driving up prices. That is just semantics. Prices can come
:23:39. > :23:42.down if you lose some of the tax on top of energy provision. If the
:23:43. > :23:45.government starts cutting tax on energy providers, the clamour for
:23:46. > :23:55.the price to come down on your gas Bill will be... In Scotland, the SNP
:23:56. > :24:00.says that if they win the referendum next year, they will fund green
:24:01. > :24:04.levies differently. It won't come out of your electricity or gas
:24:05. > :24:13.bills, it will be general taxation. We will still be green but pay for
:24:14. > :24:17.it more progressively? Certainly, Cameron, Hague, everybody, they
:24:18. > :24:22.voted for the climate change act of Mr Miliband. As far as the question
:24:23. > :24:27.of whether they are green or not. Whether anybody is green or not, I
:24:28. > :24:33.think most people nowadays, you talk to them and they care about green
:24:34. > :24:42.issues, about recycling, but how to pay for it is another question.
:24:43. > :24:45.Where, I think, Mr Cameron might also... He suggested, let's create
:24:46. > :24:50.more competition with the energy companies. There would be more
:24:51. > :24:56.energy companies. I would be more reserved, keep my reservations about
:24:57. > :25:01.creating more companies and more competitions. At the end of the day,
:25:02. > :25:04.every time there has been more privatisation we have ended up
:25:05. > :25:09.paying more. We have about 30 seconds, there is political
:25:10. > :25:15.consensus that the energy market in Britain is broken. I don't know if
:25:16. > :25:20.it is broken, we need to expand and liberalise more. I would not say we
:25:21. > :25:29.are party for business, we are party for markets. We produce enough hot
:25:30. > :25:35.air in Parliament... We have to get fracking now. We have to be energy
:25:36. > :25:40.independent. Fracking, we should do a proper discussion on fracking, but
:25:41. > :25:44.we have run out of time. We will be back next week at the same time with
:25:45. > :25:48.plenty of hot air. You can comment on twitter at @gavinesler,
:25:49. > :26:15.#BBCDateline. Goodbye. A big night for fireworks displays
:26:16. > :26:17.tonight. If you have one planned, particularly in England and Wales,
:26:18. > :26:18.the weather may play