entirety here. the clip includes a segment with ac/dc playing in the background and local villagers wearing bright orange godaddy hats. no surprise animal rights activists are all over this. the people for the ethical treatment of animals has given parsons its first ever scummiest ceo of the year award. this was a premeditated execution of an elephant so that it could be filmed and he could use it to publicize his company. this isn t about feeding villagers. that s why he handed out his godaddy company hats to these villagers while they were butchering the animals. reporter: it might seem odd that a ceo of a successful web-hosting company is doing this during his vacation time. but parsons, a former marine and decorated vietnam vet, makes no apologies. in fact, he says in the video, of everything i do, this is the most rewarding. parsons says he s helping the villagers by scaring away problem elephants that trample their farming fields and at the same time he s providing meat to
gorani. she s watching this unfold in iman, jordan. where does it look like the unrest is heading right now? reporter: well, in syria in particular today, several days, the president addressed the nation in a speech in the parliament building in damascus. despite knowing the risks they were facing. protests broke out across the country, wolf. and this is something we haven t seen before. it s not the size of the demonstration in syria. it s the fact that we saw protests in places and in locations we haven t seen before. including a suburb of damascus where we saw most of the reported deaths. we are now able to independently authenticate the video. we re not able to independently verify if figures. but from all the sources we ve been speaking to, today was extremely deadly day in syria. despite having promised some level of reform through governmental reprieves promising
they would look into lifting the state of emergency in place for 50 years, security forces cracked down heavily. people still on the streets of the cap top there. you know, hala, some of the middle east analysts here in washington, americans who studied the region for a long time, have suggested to me that perhaps president bashar al-assad is afraid if he makes any concessions, that will be seen as a sign of weakness and his enemies will pounce. you ve studied syria for a long time. i wonder if you think that s a credible analysis. reporter: some analysts are saying the opposite. if he come out on wednesday and looked the syrian people in the eye instead of addressing
the impoverished people. the voices not being heard from are the villagers. if you ask them is this a good thing, is this a bad thing, they would tell you absolutely it s a good thing. reporter: what parsons did is not illegal. but peta, in a letter, points out there are other ways to shoo away the animals, including beehives on poles and low-cost fences. and why make a video of it? animal rights activists are urging people to boycott godaddy.com. the company s competitors are now offering cut-rate deals to godaddy s customers to switch to their sites. but parsons is not one to shy away from controversy and he insists this is something that is helping the villagers protecting their crops. this was his sixth trip to zimbabwe, the second trip where he shot an elephant, and he says he plans to keep going back next year and the year after that and after that, wolf. here s another question. he made the video. why did he decide to post it online? reporter: honestly-e says he didn t
saying it was impossible for the government to pull out of the towns that he says the opposition is told they have to do as part of a cease fire. on the surface at at least we re not seeing it. i am talking to people that say there is some kind of diplomacy going on. but to be perfectly honest, wolf, it s hard to see it at the moment. but certainly there appears to be some kind of space opening for diplomacy when we re hearing this talk about possibilities of a cease fire. wolf? in the last day or two have the authorities in tripoli let you and your fellow journalists out at all? have you got to see anything, and if you have what are you seeing? reporter: we have been out, but it s been carefully controlled. friday is the day of prayers. today is the day when we re most strictly controlled and not let out of the hotel close to prayer time even to go to nearby stores when they reopen after prayers. what we re seeing here is a continuation of what we ve seen