A minute of silence to me as an american what they think about the events of 945. Terms of. Its justified i dont know i think its tough to believe people for the mistakes of history i think the use of the atomic bomb was unacceptable there was no reason to do it. Welcome to the weekly here on our to international where we bring you all the latest news on with the biggest stories from the week that was. Theres been a tense standoff in the lebanese capital amid an outpouring of grief and anger over tuesdays deadly explosion Security Forces use rubber bullets and tear gas to break up crowds calling for justice. We went to Martyrs Square to sort of gallows for those who did this to our country today will hang losers and we wont lead a single government ministers. A Police Officer was reportedly killed in the clashes and more than 700 people were injured according to local Emergency Services some demonstrators reportedly trying to break through a barrier blocking a street leading to parliament and a number of arrests were made. A massive blast hit the port area on tuesday killing at least 158 people the citys Health System has been overwhelmed by the disaster numerous city buildings have been damaged and thousands of locals have been left homeless. I know all of a sudden we found the boom everything turned over our hands but i turned around and i was hit by something in my right hand people screaming kids screaming but if i saw it and i saw today. The devastation here in the lebanese capital is very massive the blast was felt at 10 kilometers away from the border where it took place i believe this is going to be a sleepless night for the lebanese and a very sad 9. 11 years army and Fire Fighters have been still trying to put off the fire which is still until today burning through a the remains of the warehouses rescue workers are still trying to take to the rubble to find the remainder or the the missing individuals they are all addicted to fight of. The week. As russian rescuers are getting down to well what they have been flown in here for i want you to just look around and let something sink in about the sheer and ultimate demolition power. Find this explosion we are in the very epicenter as closes villian can get and this is the very 1st site where russian rescue is searching for survivors. Amid all of havoc you can still pinpoint the telltale signs of peoples panic of their rush to leave the area as they were caught up in the bluster but as people ran hundreds of thousands found out they may have no longer a place to call home the look of course is going to be just used cars are going to suffer. There. Are you flew with he said. Who visit the. Lebanon already home to syrian and Palestinian Refugee camps now may need a camp for its own people with over 300000 displaced by the blast. We are standing on the doorstep of Martyrs Square as you can see behind me the ambulances are still gushing in and out now these demonstrators to express their dismay over what they say is poor handling of the lebanese government of the aftermath of tuesdays a explosion. They say they are going to stay here until their demands are met also at the same time we know that in. The district of sheffield east of beirut protesters have managed to storm into the Foreign Ministry. We are climbing back to the property to approach these building belongs to the people of. Testers have turned up at least Foreign Ministry is this in addition to torching a number of buildings. Seems like this last became the final the straw that broke the camels back if i may say so and it seems like all the all the work that the volunteers had previously done yesterday the day before yesterday it has speed done by todays action we had time to speak with angry. Or sad we lost the country we lost beirut we have people. Who didnt find. We have family members we dont know anything about the people who will daily go back to the streets they will daily uske for the justice we need the justice doesnt deserve this and we would if you is what happened to us lebanon had already been going through its worst financial crisis in years inflation is soaring and almost half of the population lives below the poverty line around a 3rd of working age adults are unemployed mass protests against corruption and the dire state of the economy have been sweeping the country since last october a blast that destroyed the countrys main port has only aggravated the situation on saturday demonstrators put up gallows in a location where people were hanged more than 100 years ago and at the Ottoman Empire protestors raised cardboard cut outs with ropes around their necks depicting lebanons Prime Minister and hezbollahs leader as well as other officials in response to the surge and civil unrest Prime Minister hassan doubt has called for an early election he says that corruption was to blame for tuesdays tragedy and lebanons information minister has announced her resignation saying the current government. Has failed to live up to the lebanese peoples expectations. For more on this lets bring in journalist chris hedges youre very welcome to the program as you are saying aside from the information minister 4 members of parliament have also resigned in the wake of this tragedy will that do anything to calm the unrest. Well not if october 2019 is an example because you had a wave of mass antigovernment protests that exploded across lebanon with the crowd chanting. You know all of them must go. On jani. And they all they did is reshuffle. Essentially government position this is really the culmination of i would call it lethal in the glass on the part of dysfunctional lebanese government. Protests in 2019 stance of blue sparked by a proposed tax on whats that but they were really the result of. Cumulation of years of frustration over a failed Public Sector and rampant corruption that has sunk lebanon in 86000000000. 00 of debt that you know the kind of warlords and nepotism that seized control 30 years ago with tame control and 30 years later lebanese still dont have 24 Hour Electrical Service unless of course youre wealthy then you have your private generators they dont have proper water distribution they dont have proper sanitation they dont have a reliable rubbish collection. And all you see in lebanon along the seafront are these endless construction sites wrecking these luxury high rise and so. At the same time of course now you know the currency is as you mentioned been devalued by more than 80 percent banks have limited withdrawals at the same time that the rich are the bankers of smuggled an estimated 6000000000. 00 out of the country salaries and life saving. Have evaporated overnight and the government and its one of the reasons why you see these private aid groups and even state aid groups refusing to allow the government to distribute aid because theres no transparency so the government want to agree to the transparent necessary measures to unlock a loan from the i. M. F. So this is just the culmination a very catastrophic culmination of. An absolute dysfunction failure collapse of Good Government responsible government in lebanon. As youre saying the country has already been undergoing political turmoil for several years now what a new election actually have the chance of changing much this time around. It depends who controls it i mean you know the. There were massive demonstrations i mentioned before in 2019 or we shuffle in of the government but it didnt do anything to dent the you know catastrophic mismanagement and wholesale corruption that has characterized the lebanon i would say for the last 3 decades i mean you know one of the things. That they havent been able to do is even address the corona virus virtually no wave was distributed to the lebanese population which is destitute and academic free fall there before the blood. Banks closed for weeks on end resulted in massive layoffs public suicides. People are on the street reduced to bartering their belongings for basic necessities and this just goes back years 2016 the government stopped collecting the trash in beirut and you had meandering rivers of garbage snaking its way through the citys hillsides the stench was in the air for months while fires swept through lebanese cedar forests and the Fire Fighting helicopters were useless because the government hadnt funded their maintenance and so what were seeing and i think you know your reporter the report you just did out of lebanon was good in illustrating this is a complete frustration i would give there hanging nooses i dont think that that the kinds of reformist policies that were proffered in 2019 of going to work. Chris we dont have much time left but i want to ask you about the anger thats been directed at hezbollah people who are raising mock gallows in beirut like you are saying with a cut out of the hezbollah leader being hanged to what extent are people questioning the groups huge influence in the country well its important or that hezbollah controlled the port. And there was a very corrupt operation. And so. You know i think that that there is been a great deal of frustration with hezbollah which has carried out political assassinations in beirut and elsewhere and stack the government with its own qadri who have enrich themselves at the expense of even their own base but the epicenter of financial power and control in beirut itself was the port which was controlled by his mother. Journalist and author chris hedges thank you for joining us on the program today thank you. Lebanon isnt the only middle eastern country gripped by public unrest some 15000 people took to the streets of jerusalem on saturday night they gathered outside the residence of the israeli Prime Minister denouncing corruption and the governments handling of the pandemic. After Midnight Police ordered the demonstrators to go home forcibly removing those who refused to leave but you know who is facing charges of bribery fraud and breach of trust the Prime Minister denies any wrongdoing at the same time unemployment has soared as a result of coronavirus restrictions. You still had voting is underway in belarus where present lukashenko is hoping to extend his 26 years and power story and more after the break. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to us from the world of politics or business im show business ill see you then. Welcome back well russians are casting their ballots in the countrys president ial election today Alexander Lukashenko is seeking a 6th term in office hes being challenged by political newcomer. Arches in the Hawkins House the details. Well the cue to cast their votes here in about a Russian Embassy in central moscow has been going around the block for quite some time now crowds of approximately 2000 that have been waiting in line its been all very calm and peaceful quite a contrast though from whats been happening in the roof itself of the record civil rights and the tensions of complain is that activists even some reports of the internet blackouts problems with Internet Connection in some parts of the country. There has been no Movement Clause or was there any violations of the law or just follow the rules in any talk of reprisals would disappear if you violate the law we will respond she has not yet we have been responding mildly so far but i want to look at shannon who has held the post of president in belarus since 1904 hes won multiple elections with landslide victories a lot of the time he faces though his biggest challenge to date there is this content in belarus with the political situation and he faces a reinvigorated resurgent opposition led by sfard lawyer. Who took up the banner of the opposition after the arrest and detention of a husband surrogate back in may now shes won the endorsements of other opposition candidates shes promised to hold free elections and rallied tens of thousands of supporters to the streets. Its been 75 years now since the u. S. Dropped the atomic bomb on the japanese city of nagasaki came just days after the bombing of hiroshima on the 6th of august attacks led to some 200000 civilian deaths but people continue to die years after the tragedy to severe burns radiation sickness and other injuries. Mock local you know it just. Kind of war now as if you know much the words emits a sin must die for you are you more bull or took up or need to guy night. I get the meat on this and. Get it cold while you must be. Out and jerk saying. You care havent you cares you cant i want you to have to share every matter. How does your. Change your question that. I had to cut down at my desk when i get out. Of a on you had to. Guess and sheena to have a candidate for dinner and have commissioned. Me. Memorial events have been scaled back this year due to the pandemic but small ceremony still took place in both cities affected by the tragedy during the commemorations japans Prime Minister was joined by the few surviving witnesses of the attacks they marked the blasts with a minute of silence. The u. S. And japan are forever linked by the tragedy heres what people in new york city and her must say about the bands of 1905. Take a drastic measure here and there like to say i feel like i havent learned much about. It just the u. S. Japan and just. The multiplicity more positive result for people like barbour maybe pearl harbor they had to do with the u. S. Response to coral or were. Were. Fixing our terms of. It justified our no i think its tough to blame people for the mistakes of history he was Something Like that catastrophic should go like an apology were like but im pretty sure im not for reparations im native american beef think im going to get any thats not going to happen its not going to happen but it just nice. I thought she was when my mother was 7 months pregnant with me the atomic bomb was dropped my cousin was also an atomic bomb survivor and died of leukemia after 75 years im still very sorry for those who died. When i think the use of the atomic bomb was unacceptable there was no reason to do it and the military situation was utterly hopeless for japan perhaps it wouldnt have taken much longer for the water end would have been over without the bombings and the war between japan and the us its a shame the us hasnt apologized to japan for the bombings. Its very important to see it out loud to emphasize what the real purpose of the hiroshima bombing was if we keep silent the propaganda war when. The atomic bomb didnt just change the Political Landscape but the cultural one as well artist ask a teller takes a look at how the deadly blasts help to form the Popular Culture we can so on a daily basis. There are moments in history in our memories so powerful they have shaped our culture tragic but defining of the mushroom clouds been away over the japanese cities hiroshima and nagasaki. For decades the us suppressed almost all footage it was only in the 1980s that color images sought by the us military posture be released to this day the material has never been shown in its entirety. But out of the unimaginable suffering roy whos a new pop culture in america the devastating release of radioactive particles change the countrys take on comic books and superheroes spite of the fantastic full the incredible hulk all derived from exposure to radiation. Weve never seen anything even close to your levels of exposure you survive an event like. The superhero we smelled better than ever steel which will surely. Leave it in the us atomic power was mostly about heroism and influence but japan how different take associations were instead made with destruction and mutation take up a new killer mutant rampaging through the streets of tokyo to city payoffs a kind of crisis powerless before us. As relations between countries change so to to the movies to follow in king kong. At pitt battle between the japanese and us pop culture icons atop mount fuji is defeated. Around 10000000 went to watch that film in japan and it remains the most watched in the cuts in a series to date but it turned out japan had a knack for shaping our childhoods from hello kitty in a room and they were as much hits a brought out so. I couldnt get enough of them it didnt matter if i could see the wires and the seams in the costumes and the least moving when the words didnt it was so fanciful and imaginative it whats japan was at the forefront pop culture and technology from the Nintendo Game console to the last possible cassette by sony. Its mainly the kids of america saying this is great weve got to have one boys in this country between the ages of 8 and 15 not having a nintendo is like not having a baseball bat to prime continued success for me its its pop culture like minder im animate some say that creates a sorting out that from nothing is from the anxiety paid trip thats why you can spot in 1005. 00 but teenagers in the u. S. Who consume the poverty and colorful characters and stories dont see this front see is being created to escape from the darkness of tragedy. Thousands of healthcare workers have rallied across the u. K. Demanding a pay rise and recognition for their work during the coated 1000. 00 pandemic National HealthService Staff feel snubbed after the government announced last week that 900000 Public Sector workers would get salary hikes the measure is meant to reward workers on the front lines of the fight against kobe but it did not include the majority of and they just staff as a separate deal had already been negotiated 2 years ago we spoke to some medical professionals at a march in london. Ever since we had in may depend on me and weve had b. C. Incredible time working with the dying and struggling weve been separate for our families we just want some recognition for what we actually did and what we feel like we deserve over the last 1015 years let alone well it wasnt too long ago that we were talking about nash if he were surviving on charts but our nations in fear trying to have a stop just because it came in j