that gives foreign investors pause. the murder of one journalist has washed away the veneer of change and quashed investor confidence. to see people to be allowed to speak. we need to make. the interest of a stakeholder never get priority over the kingdom the privatization process would mean saudi oil reserves will be up for scrutiny and to ramp those finances will be in the public eye. you go from running a business where you have endless resources and no oversight to one day having to register your company with the exchange and have to disclose every single number. the companies have over the last five to ten years every piece of cap ex every decision that's been made every partnership every single thing you've done is now in the public purview why. do.

i think you gain by. that. but if you're a private company this runs so well it's painful because you have answer a lot of question but not nearly as painful as after you take people's money. those saudi economists who dared to raise concerns about the prince's ambitious twenty thirty plans are in jail. you know that's not. enough that you had. a day before the murder prominent economist is samo samo was indicted on terrorism related charges his crime was providing analysis some of which explained that a high valuation of aramco could mean that the kingdom will not get any oil revenue for decades because all of it will go into

a ramp oh controlled by shareholders. in the beginning stages you have to take anyone's money because it is just disclosing to the exchanges here's how we run our business here's why you should be comfortable listing us you then go out to raise capital. and once you're taking someone else's money they own those shares and you're a company for the people by the people you know not a company for the management management or the or the king. and the transitions massive. that changeover from state control to a public listing which began in two thousand and seventeen is now shelved for years to come kia ram co executives have also left or been moved. so that process for a company like this probably a year and a half selling a tech start up for you have a slide presentation and some hope you have

a business that changes global markets for decades and decades it's a process that will be expansive. it will be intrusive and it will be transformative. saudi aramco places the kingdom's reserves at two hundred sixty one billion barrels of oil but that magic number with no real third party audit has remained more or less constant for nearly thirty years since the one nine hundred eighty s. there have been rising production changes in technology and no announcements of major oil discoveries in the kingdom but other oil giants such as shell and exxon have revised down their reserves during this period. if on average saudi production was at nine million barrels a day in the last thirty years aramco has pumped out nearly one hundred billion barrels without a dent in its two hundred sixty one billion reserves and the jury's out on how much

they actually have and what it's worth. looking at their reserves figures you know makes if you look too closely at it you start to wonder how it can stay roughly constant from year to year when they're they're producing an export and so much oil every year disclosure of the reserves it's a top secret in saudi arabia and i think that's a significant concern on the part of a ramp up executives they treat their reserves with kid gloves their duty is to get the most out of these reserves in the best way possible the reserve confidence will only be consistent with third parties verifying the information that's got to be done through a regulatory fashion that everyone's comfortable it can't just be something a company says and and hopes is the case you've got to verify. whatever other qualities god may have given the saudis he gave them a lot of wealth in the ground and that's not going to go away. so you want might

quibble over the over the reserves. you know the saudis have the ability to fracking really haven't even started basically. but would the possibility of higher reserves be enough for investors to finance or impose i.p.o. probably the biggest downside is the transparency that would have resulted around saudi reserves saudi oil reserves that doesn't change very much from year to year and really hasn't changed much over the past couple of decades it doesn't give much insight beyond the single number you know around two hundred sixty billion barrels if saudi aramco would have listed shares in the new york stock exchange or the london stock exchange the regulators would have forced saudi arabia to come clean on all of its reserves you know how much of that is proven probable or otherwise i think that's

a tough sell within the kingdom within saudi aramco and within the ministry and all the way up to the head of state i don't think so do you arabia is not trustworthy when it comes to their reserves i think their reserves are there but the capacity is another question the saudi aramco has never produced twelve and a half million barrels a day and has never come within about a million barrels a day of that aramco says that it can reach that level of capacity after a period of about six months of additional investment right so we can't just twist a few valves and crank up an extra two million barrels a day i can remember on one occasion. sitting in the office of of. minister petroleum who did not know that i understood arabic. when one of his hades came rushing in. and said we've got we've proved the reserves in this particular

new field they'd found and he said well how much is it and they said three billion barrels and he said oh it's too small cap it well that's twice the alaska reserve. if you had full access to to ramp those reserves figures and you know other inside details about its revenue streams and whatnot you know anybody with a smartphone could could second guessed saudi minister you know right now when the when the oil minister goes to vienna to speak in public at an opec meeting and you can see him surrounded by hordes of reporters each shoving their voice recorder in his face to catch a cold snippet of what he says about you know saudi plans saudi reserves saudi oil production. you know sod it saudi market strategy the world would be as quite as depended on the oil minister for information you know sort of on the walk the.

you know the secrets of what america was going to do also you know you put those those that information out there it's out there for everyone. we should just be dynamic in the response and the reserves matter because the reserves and output give saudi arabia the regional and international clout as the largest producer in the oil producing club of nations known as opec vacation travel lodging billions and billions and billions of dollars of industry get moved by opec. and opec being. a saudi driven organization they have to be meticulous the company is so good at what it does that that also brings its leaders a certain amount of political clout when it comes to opec and when it comes to other dealings with other countries a practice not a cop out and. really wants to stir belies the oil price at the some

extent then that is you need their power back i think is still embodied then to how then we can bring the good guys of the prize but it's. not the prize that benefits are going to prove himself and the prize that also benefited the producer and consumer. his studio for good within the comic organization with every system fundamentals focus on addressing the global markets needs a quarter reliable supply is petroleum saudi arabia is the keystone in opec it is the big dog it's the ringleader if you will within opec opec members maintain a little bit here and there no one has more than one billion barrels per day of spare oil production capacity that that i know maintains that that kind of level of spare capacity. at you know as as a policy that saudi arabia saudi aramco typically maintain you know

a million two million barrels two million barrels a day of oil production capacity that they don't use ok so no profit oriented firm would ever do this you wouldn't invest all the billions in developing oil fields and pipelines and storage facilities and production infrastructure and then just leave it dormant saudi aramco has done it at the behest of the sad state. and you know it's the key aspect in the saudi u.s. partnership the ramp those ability to bring more oil production online and its willingness to cut back at times and markets are oversupplied let's go to the crux of the the u.s. and saudi strategic partnership. saudi arabia if we broke with them i think your oil prices would go through the roof i've kept them down they've helped me keep them down right now we have low oil prices are relatively i'd like to see it go

down even lower. billions of dollars are treated at the world's largest stock exchange it's business as usual on wall street but like other exchanges around the . world also tried to sway saudi aramco to list in new york even the us president weighed in on his preferred medium of communication but the strict requirements remained a deterrent for the i.p.o. which was being called the world's largest offering it would be a double whammy for muhammad been so much to not get the two trillion dollars valuation and having to compromise on not listing on the world's largest stock market. you're the world's largest oil producer and you don't list in the world's largest stock exchange that definitely something i do definitely lesser access to capital new york is terribly complicated by virtue of the nine eleven hangover so i thought from the beginning it was quite you know it was

a nice thing to dangle before the americans but it was probably not going to come to us you know there aren't that many exchanges that can do this so london and new york were the two main ones that you know that they could really handle something like this both of which have pretty stringent transparency requirements new york's more so. london was signaling that it was willing to roll back. some of its transparency requirements and make a special deal for aramco the princes i.p.o. hit the brakes from a lofty two trillion dollar valuation to uncertainty about the size of saudi reserves from litigation risks to stringent requirements from stock exchanges but the reality was different from the political statements. i think the two trillion dollar number zero is significant for saudis but not significant for the rest of them are talking about a business that dwarfs almost every business in the us and p.

five hundred i would say two trillion dollars is a high valuation it's not unachievable when you look at what the size of it is whether it's a trillion trillion after two trillion. the scales all relative it's massive and so if you have a business asserting two hundred three hundred four hundred billion dollars a year there's a multiple put on it. and the market's going to say well even though you're a trillion dollar business give or take whether you're one trillion or three trillion is going to be dependent on your earnings and your decline curves and your gross strategy what type of growth percent is going to put on your business it's a huge number there's no question about it whether you look at the high level we look at the low level it's huge it's a huge i.p.o. huge company and so i guess what you're asking me is how do they expect to sell it i think there's enough money out there that can cover it but if on the

other hand the global economy should begin to tick down would then it's going to be a hard sell they would have to lower the price putting a line in the sand is is strong and smart from your own perspective but the market's going to determine what they feel comfortable about buying. your stocking that's worth what someone tells you it's worth but we hope so when my heart when someone announced the remco i.p.o. and he basically said we're looking for a valuation of two trillion dollars that's the largest valuation of all time for any company and that's of those for the whole company they were never talking about selling any more than five percent so it seems like they're looking to raise one hundred billion dollars which is a large amount but not that much so quick but the question is really is a ram co valued at two trillion dollars what are their oil reserves which is really

tends to be the bulk of what makes up an oil company valuation now we're also has a lot of other assets around the world not oil not upstream oil assets but they own shares in refineries in china in south korea they own oil storage facilities in japan that they own the largest oil refinery in the united states and they also have a lot of research and development things going on they've also got petro chemical and oil refineries in saudi arabia so the company is worth more than what they dig out of the ground and sell them but does that get us to two trillion dollars the answer also depends on what the price of oil is at the time of the i.p.o. and when they announced the i.p.o. we were in the midst of a very period of very low well prices so you can see i would be very hard to reach a two trillion dollars valuation in say two thousand and seventeen when the price

of oil was you know fifty or fifty five dollars a barrel. it's an indirect devaluation of the saudi economy which is reliant on a whim cup so it's not just a company with a proposed two trillion dollar price tag. there's a major problem with valuing the company. what is it that's being offered some slice of the overall company i guess but no direct ownership of any part of it how much are the reserves after all are they understated or overstated what level of efficiency does saudi aramco have in comparison with other oil companies. where is the future market. mohamed been so months vision was to take the money from the i.p.o. to revamp the saudi public investment fund which would play a leading role in developing non oil industries but that fund has already started

borrowing money instead of stacking up oil revenues the tens of billions expected from a ram code never arrived and global banks provided their first ever loan of eleven billion dollars the i.p.o. it seems to be from what people say was designed to generate cash for the public investment fund of saudi arabia which is designed to make investments for the future not to use for the saudi budget not to use for those kind of projects but really a sovereign wealth fund to rely on you know when oil is no longer important commodity here you have a company which has been deliberately nontransparent it's not listed on any market it has no shareholders other than the kingdom itself to which to report in saudi arabia is not a notably free press environment and it is not a democracy and accountability is uncertain.

again assume as you all would you both mentally resources and. why are they so poor the most of. which finally form a government. the toxic left essentially no where the more we would push them the more they push back we knew it was coming to question was do we sit down and wait for it to be surprised with a preemptive strike. until. i know i'm maryam namazie in london just a quick look at your headlines now the united states is suspending one of its main nuclear weapons agreements with russia and one nine hundred eighty seven intermediate range nuclear forces treaty the u.s.

says russia has consistently violated the terms of the treaty which restricts short in medium range and you can't miss south i hope that we're able to get everybody in a very big and beautiful room and do a new treaty that would be much better but certainly i would like to see that but you have to have everybody at here to it and you have a certain side that almost potential doesn't exist pretty much pretends it doesn't exist so all of us will get to have something that we all agree to we can't be put at the disadvantage of going by a treaty live with a what we do when somebody else doesn't go by that treaty. and all the headlines former ivory coast president long bag has been released by the international criminal court by bowen his former right hand man child good day were acquitted of crimes against humanity last month judges ordered their release on the condition that they live in a neutral country pending an appeal by the prosecution. six months on from the

latest ebola virus outbreak in the democratic republic of congo the world health organization says four hundred sixty people have now been killed have been seven hundred forty three confirmed cases overall since the virus returned last august's making it the worst outbreak in the nation's history response efforts continue to be hampered by violence and resistance from some traditional communities the un refugee agency has called on the u.s. backed syrian democratic forces to help civilians access medical care after news that twenty nine refugee children a died of hypothermia in the past two months i've been asked to designate a transit site where people fleeing war in harsh winter conditions can get life saving eight well in other news today katter is celebrating football history the world cup hosts have won their first major trophy beating favorites japan three one in the asian cup final the match took place against an uneasy background the tournament was held in the united arab emirates

one of four countries imposing a blockade on castle those are the headlines will have much more on all the stories we're covering in the news hour that's in twenty five minutes time do join me then i found. the kingdom is home to the most important religious sites for muslims but saudi arabia is a real source of power is its oil wealth and the remco converts that black gold into dollars and real. many academics experts and oil economist are the refused all riffling from speaking to us as soon as they heard it's about a whim co the kingdom's most potent economic firepower. the saudis can use oil as a weapon. opec did it in one nine hundred seventy three. they put an embargo and what happened to the price of oil. it shot up over one hundred dollars

a few years ago we saw oil prices tumble who created that it was the saudis. they flooded the market. why they wanted to put shallow oil out of business well it backfired. the partnership between the u.s. and saudi arabia rests on linked interests many of which have either disappeared or are now problematic they basic bargain that of. preferred access to energy in return for security protection but the united states is now the swing producer internationally for oil given fracking and we are an energy exporter not dependent on the gulf the support that the saudis provided by making american foreign policy how loud. except of all the muslims.

now the muslim world is so divided and the united states is so islamophobia that that bargain is gone. saudi arabia also controls of vast media empire for decades it's been tens of millions of dollars to lobby cultural institutions think tanks universities even government all to improve the kingdom's image that's jumped from ten million dollars spent in two thousand and sixteen to more than twenty seven million dollars today used to fuel a sophisticated saudi influence machine that money shapes policy and perceptions and it also covers up criticism of the kingdom much of this was revealed in twenty fifteen when wiki leaks published thousands of cable exchanges between saudi diplomats posted abroad and the foreign ministry. houston texas is an oil town. it's

a testament to saudi soft power and how big saudi money is securely invested in the us regardless of what saudi arabia is accused of even a local marathon here is sponsored by a ram come but whether it's nine eleven or the murder of the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi it all continues to cast a shadow over the kingdom's image abroad. in terms of jasta which is the law that was passed basically saying that for the say can sue the saudi government for the role and nine eleven. that has been put forward as a reason not to list on the new york stock exchange. i'm not a lawyer but it would not be a real concern at all evidence that at least that's available if the u.s. government has presented an declassified is not significant enough to probably convict or to get a. ruling you know to be able to sue the saudi so there's that but say it was.

then the question is ok so what kind of assets can you go after and if you're saying that aramco is an asset of the saudi government and therefore should pay well there's already a lot of aramco investment in the united states that they can go after they can go after motive of the largest refinery they have research centers all over there is around headquarters services company in in america i think that that's a convenient excuse to give but if they wanted to list on the new york stock exchange it's not really a significant barrier. motif as the largest refinery in the united states which goes through a whopping six hundred thousand barrels a day it's more than two thousand employees work near the gulf of mexico but this behemoth facility isn't u.s. it's a subsidiary of the centerpiece of saudi crown prince mohammed bin vision twenty

thirty he wants to expand the petro chemicals business instead of the kingdom's heavy reliance on oil sales. so influential in port arthur goodwill tiva security sent a policeman to stop us from filming they even called the police to hate us until the very question why journalists were filming their facilities. despite tight control over media and any opinion which doesn't fall in line with that of the kingdom. efforts to privatized had been a hard sell at home. with very little accountability of the ruling family radical changes are viewed with suspicion by many ordinary saudis. one of the major objections by people in the kingdom was their fear that the money would go into the pockets of the royal family rather than be used in a transparent way to provide government services to the people in other words waste

fraud and mismanagement are a concern on the part of the public concerned by foreigners i think the conference is trying to create an environment conducive to foreign investment but events things keep happening questions keep getting raised that make that difficult. geo political power is to is the exclusive access to information about saudi reserves they hold that information very close and they let it out and in dribs and drabs it's almost like the strategic ambiguity around the israeli nuclear weapons capability they release what they choose to release when they choose to release it that's a source of power very similar with the oil reserves in saudi arabia. this is not the first time reforms have been promised in saudi arabia or the first time when those promises have been left up by western powers and lauded by the media. since

the one nine hundred fifty s. the new york times which likes to be called the newspaper of record has given similar coverage to saudi kings and princes the media has given them titles such as trailblazers and performers similar to the current crown prince even the glitzy twenty thirty roadmap hints at promises. well the vision itself is hardly new this was largely drawn out i gather by consultants mckinsey in particular. and they were able to do that quickly because the ministry of planning in saudi arabia had all these ideas. there to be gathered up so the vision isn't new. the drive for change in the kingdom transformative drive was also not new in many ways i had been so many resembles his grandfather. places of

different methods of blows these united kingdom with tribal marriages bewildering number of marriages and divorces that brought different groups in the society and it into his family he conducted a war in the saudi south. which is on a sea of which took land from yemen and made it definitively part of saudi arabia he suppressed religious uprisings there are many similarities one could say and it worked whether the current drive will work or not is unknown and certainly not the first time claims of reform have been made in saudi arabia for example king feisal when he became king he made a lot of very important changes and reforms in saudi arabia that before that the government had been spending very recklessly and carelessly under king his brother king so it was reported actually that he would carry around in his pocket of the

budget and whenever he would see a minister say in the halls or something he would question that he would say how are you spending this money what are you doing with it so this is not the first time that the reforms have been tried probably every previous king in saudi arabia has announced it to some extent and there have been one of the key aspects i think that a lot of the reform plans always include megaprojects. and in my mind those mega projects never really pan out and so that's always something to be wary of you can hold up the ramp or i.p.o. is the key example of that but there were lots of other privatisations that would have really helped kind of. move saudi arabia's economy from various state status base to a much more diverse and vibrant private economy so for example they wanted to sell parts of the airlines of of different national companies and it really almost seems like they were birth is happening that the state is actually more involved in the economy as opposed to less involved and that i think is probably not

a good sign for developing a diverse and vibrant private economy but at the same time there are ships in. social expectations that have to occur in saudi arabia and so those changes i think a setting a year of twenty thirty is probably very. ambitious i think the saudis realize that the time has come that they must change the way they run the economy through the business otherwise what would happen in. iraq look what happened with iran look what happened with libya it's not too far fetched to think that that can happen with saudi arabia.

your money the gentleman a woman a year on the new york times that could tell you the good work done even though you know overall it's also the d.o.b. on the money that you should just not spotless but there were not this one with him hug the she kind of the time of them that are now that she come to help you know have a she can be just a you. did you look at the help. the ongoing mourning in yemen is not just creating global pressure but also a strain on the saudi economy in addition tens of thousands of foreign workers have been expelled from saudi arabia. the government's reduction in subsidies for fuel and utilities has become a burden it's had to borrow aggressively to plug the budget deficit. well the budgetary crisis is not new i did have a conversation with the late then crown prince abdullah later king abdullah who

made a real effort in the late ninety's had to institute a tax system other than that. and the conversation went like this i said to him you know i think you have a problem here because for example in the united states if i take a section of desert that's a part of nevada and i either invest my own money or i borrow money from a bank and i build an industrial estate a park and a related community and i don't doubt the government for anything the government still has to come up with all sorts of services police education and waste water management road maintenance even if i build the roads initially and so forth. and the same is true in saudi arabia if except even more so because at that time at least saudi arabia was heavily subsidizing electricity and water and other things

that people needed so i said you know the difference is that in the god every cent will come back in the form of increased government revenue. and so that the very the debt will be replaced by a stream of revenue that makes the government whole it enables higher level of service whereas in saudi arabia not one house comes back basically you have a sister and i said in which private prosperity impoverished is the government the opposite of normal economics. so i've said to people. i'll give you a real nigel it's a real parliament and a role in allocating tax resources but in order to do that you've got to pay taxes and he said i came very close to getting a consensus on this in the end i failed the merchants particularly in the western

province would not agree so it's difficult to to rationalize a big investments in a country that's already a hard sell for investors anyway because of you know the visa requirements and red tape and you know lifestyle issues in saudi arabia a lot of a lot of foreigners it's not a you know considered a great destination for you know second homeowners or for. foreigners who are looking to move their families and put their kids in the local schools you know they would go to dubai abu dhabi or doha to go to the region. so it's you know sat here has never been a real easy sell for foreign investment for the size of its economy f.d.d.i. flows there aren't proportionally as big as they are for some of the more open economies around the region. perhaps the biggest challenge to the saudi economy comes from the wave of change in the way the country is being run through the

muḥammad been so mom's pursuit of vision twenty thirty has upset the traditional order in twenty fifteen when i. think so and i ascended the throne in short order within a year old power was essentially transferred into the hands of his favorite son prominence of mine this destroyed the consultative tradition within the royal family and more broadly in the kingdom here you have a young man with great ambition drive imagination. determined to change things impatient and not willing to wait for consultation. so a lot of egos have been bruised a lot of interests have been shaken many people have lodged objections to this fundamental change in the constitutional order in saudi arabia this is before you get to things like. the added corruption drive which.

exacted huge amounts of money from the wealthy elite in the king of. kings on my will be the last king of his generation it had always passed from brother to brother to brother and it's clear even though there are still some living brothers are sons of up to ozzy's it has been decided that samadhi will be the last of that generation. the next generation there are a lot of princes there and a lot of them have a great deal of control and in certain segments of the economy and and of saudi society and there's always been kind of a balancing act that went on between these different segments of the royal family there been a lot of tensions produced basically traditionally in saudi arabia and the end goal fair of society is generally. the kang or the or the i mean here the leader has the same responsibilities as the sheriff in

a tribe there's really two responsibilities one is to. ensure that decisions are taken by consensus after consultation he proclaims a consensus does not. make a decision then imposes a second responsibility is to ensure that the less fortunate the poorer share of the wealth so it's a the government or the this case the leader must distribute arms charity to the needy the saudi state is built on these principles the first one has been badly compromise as power has been gathered into one man's grounds or perhaps to. the problem prince and his father the members of the family the ruling family who were previously consulted i feel excluded in many cases from the decision making process they would have all be and had to agree together on things

almost like different shareholders and it does appear that that process is changing i would be cautious of of saying well it's now different everything is different now it's a one man show that may be the image that they'd like to present to everyone but that doesn't mean that all of the other sources of power have necessarily been eliminated. that you know if enough brothers decide that. is not the right way that that couldn't be changed i think where it's too early to write off that process and to say that he has fully consolidated power. you know i think that we still are doing that that is what will send to you the five hundred thirty three million dollars five hundred forty five million dollars that's been a three year period from lucrative military contracts to support for each other's wars there is a special relationship between the u.s.

president the saudi king and muhamad been some old boys right right there but that special relationship has been under stress slick and i love the king solomon but it's a good thing. we're protecting you you might not be there for two weeks without us you have to pay for your village and. we filmed this during the period when the saudi government was officially denying that its agents murdered journalist jamal khashoggi the government later confessed to the killing of the saudi consulate in istanbul and admitted it was a premeditated murder. a lot of fingers are pointed at the crown prince for allegedly ordering the killing in turkey but the u.s. president still has unwavering support for muhammad bin salma i don't know if anyone's going to be able to conclude that the crown prince heard it but i will say

this i don't know i don't know but whether he did or whether he did he denies it vehemently his father denies it became very adamantly. the case remains open regardless of saudi denials and criminal sentences it risks the prince's grip on power for an investment vision twenty thirty and aramco i.p.o. . despite several attempts the remco and its subsidiaries did not respond to our request for interviews and finally. the killing of the saudi journalist that has put them in the spotlight and if they come forward and tell the whole truth of what happened then that will be a sign that they're really ready for a change if not. they may be faced with harsh. economic sanctions.

and if that's the case the market. seems to be saying well saudi arabia's economy is going to fall off a cliff on the foreign policy front the kingdom has flirted into a series of adventures none of which have turned out well it is stuck with a garrison along with others from the go gulf cooperation council in bahrain. where an arrest continues and shows no sign of abating. it is it has become. really battered by syria which has been a transformative situation in the middle east brought the russians back in is the major foreign player for example. saudi arabia is relationships with turkey have been badly damaged. by this it has. seen fit to

divide itself from qatar. and conducted blockade which again shows no sign of going away and rich essentially divides the gulf cooperation council irreparably and finally of course it is a gauged in a war in yemen with no clear objective that is feasible and no war terminations strategy. saudi aramco said failure to launch and the young leaders stumble from one crisis to another are directly linked there is an urgency to rush into things but also a lack of experience. that is really like planning for the growth of a nation. not the. you

see they've pulled back. because they recognize that this is a transformational moment it's going to take. a lot more time and energy to get into the realm of the public markets if they ever get comfortable they may never become for with i know there are elements within so decided who don't want to see that change and they feel that this is too much and too soon and too big and the pushback from the government has been they need to be dragged kicking and screaming into these changes and best is the way it's going to be i see that as a much bigger backlash than even the religious or conservative people is really unemployment and saudis not taking jobs or on they've made a big push to get rid of foreign labor in saudi arabia but the problem is that if you're not replacing that with saudi labor then you're not going to have. an

economy if people aren't taking jobs and unemployment remains high despite there being then you've got a significant problem and i see that really as the biggest threat to the changes they can make all the decrees they want but if people don't work of people aren't working and making money and they don't see that as a valuable part of their lives that and they're not going to pacify people with movie theaters. it's all to me a function of how fast they want to get to their group and goal which none of us know that the more they're in the street is obviously boyle what they need to be more open and that's to keep saudi arabia has to make it on its own or an extended never do and so far it seems to be having difficulty right now there's no substitute for oil so it's not going to go away in the short term you know the writing is on the wall and the saudis have have read it. the saudi crown prince is

adamant that he is the whole bonjour of change he may have the desire but what he can actually achieve with me is the big question. that. but. this was the media savvy prince's first public appearance three weeks after the murder of jamal khashoggi at an event widely referred to as davos in the desert.

hello again welcome back well here across parts of australia we're still that he had some very heavy rain and we're talking in queensland where over the last four days we have seen very heavy rain across the region flooding has been a big problem in townsville they have declared the city in a state of emergency because of the very heavy rain and the flooding unfortunately as we go through the weekend we're going to see more rain across much of that area actually we're going to be seeing probably at least another four hundred millimeters in the next seventy two hours because of the system down towards the south the heat is back on across much of the area melbourne it's going to be thirty five degrees here on saturday adelaide at thirty seven and it is going to continue to be quite hot across much of the region where cross north and south island of new zealand well things are getting better we are watching one system make its way up here towards the north these nets can mean when we see some cooler conditions particular here in christ church as we go through the weekend so for christchurch eighteen degrees is going to be a high here on saturday auckland at twenty five degrees there and then as we go

towards sunday a little bit warmer here across much of the region for fiji though it is going to be a rainy day if you are the temperature of twenty eight degrees and then very quickly across parts of japan we are going to be seeing some cooler weather few of the next few days tokyo is going to be mostly cloudy with a ten to twelve six. this is zero. hour i'm maryam namazie this is the news hour live from london coming up in the

next sixty minutes the u.s. to spend its obligations under a landmark nuclear weapons treaty accusing russia of noncompliance. reaction is former ivory coast president laurent gbagbo is released by the international criminal court. the indian government promises billions of dollars to help poor farmers but many say it's too little too late. and thailand deploys water cannon and drones to tackle its badly polluted air the activists say the real problem is government complacency. and are beautiful in doha with all the sport have won the asian cup for the first time offer a three one win over japan in the final that are more coming up later in the program. should.

follow the u.s. has announced its suspending its involvement in a decade's old nuclear missile pact with russia the trumpet ministration has accused moscow of violating the treaty and says it will end the agreement in six months unless russia complies with the deals terms coming out that reports now from washington. suspension of the historic treaty that has been a cornerstone of european security for decades for years russia has violated the terms of the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty without remorse the united states will therefore suspend its obligations under the n f treaty effective february second. the white house maintains the u.s. has adhere to the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty while russia has not in that time it accuses russia of covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a threat to european allies u.s.

forces stationed there the u.s. did not give specific examples of violations russia has consistently denied it's breaking the agreement but u.s. secretary of state says russia is in violation what's your response we're not going to approach this many times but they don't want to listen to green that was signed during the cold war by u.s. president ronald reagan and russia's mikhail gorbachev in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven most agree it's not perfect it did hold to the escalating arms race between the two superpowers u.s. president donald trump has long been a critic of the treaty. but friday he suggested it might be time to negotiate a new one we're listening to and here we should be the only one i hope that we're able to get everybody in a very big and beautiful room and there were no treaty that would be much better still there's concern the u.s. did not exhaust its diplomatic options and is trump pressures north korea to give

up its nuclear arsenal many question why he would relax any missile restrictions on russia it actually opens the door for russia to deploy more of these missiles and opens the door for a new european missile race some analysts have speculated the trumpet ministration isn't just we're. about russia. china is not bound by the treaty there is criticism it's been gaining military advantage deploying large numbers of missiles with ranges beyond the current limits there are now just six months for the agreement to be saved the united states is russian must destroy equipment in violation of the agreement or it will move ahead with a response designed to deny what the united states perceives to be russia's military advantage can really help at al-jazeera the white house well mark fitzpatrick is an associate fellow international institute for strategic studies he

joins us now from washington thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us first of all what are the right after this and all of the u.s. withdrawal from this i n f nuclear treaty could it ultimately lead to the development and deployment of missile systems that are currently banned under the agreement it could but actually not so much in europe because the united states currently has no plans to deploy any of these missiles in europe and america's european partners wouldn't want them anyway but the united states is more worried about china as was mentioned in your piece just now and there are some ideas about deploying developing and deploying new systems in asia in the future so that's one risk is an arms race including china the other is just the breakdown in arms control between the united states and russia that's not looking very good at all is that something that could potentially be avoided likely to be. well perhaps some sense of restraint possibly

on the part of the u.s. and russia in the absence of an agreement like this. well there certainly can be self restraint but it's much better to have a mutual constraint with verifiable limits and then use for talking to one another to overcome suspicions and disagreements like the disagreement over this particular system that the united states said by lated the i n f when the united states walks out there's only one remaining arms control agreement in place and that's to end in two thousand and twenty one president trump said he doesn't want to extend it so we're entering a period of great uncertainty at a time when russia is placing more emphasis on its nuclear weapons and the united states is also developing some advanced nuclear systems with so from what you would from what you're saying the consequences of pulling out of an agreement like this

are significant and fall ranging because you because this could affect whether the the start treaty is renewed that's going to expire in twenty twenty one and not is a key agreement in the sphere of oms can control reduction yes. yes you're right it. when the united states pulls out of one treaty like this then then you know russia may also pull out of it and and then neither side will be disposed toward entering into new green mints or extending this one is the only one left beyond two thousand and twenty one so that's that's an immediate problem and then we have the problem as i said with the china where the arms race between china and the united states will probably heat up as a result of this decision but does it come as any surprise we know that u.s. allegations of violations of this treaty have been in place for a number of years now it started under the obama administration and we know that

the trump administration president trump himself is surrounded himself with figures like national security advisor john bolton who have long believed that agreements like this constrain america's ability to respond to foreign threats right so so you're right it is no surprise given the. influence held by john bolton who doesn't like arms control agreements at all he's he's been instrumental in killing several of them including the the nuclear deal with iran the anti-ballistic missile treaty some years ago. and as you said the accusations against russian. lack of compliance are not just a trumpet ministration claim they go to the obama administration and all american analysts who look at this say yeah russia russia was violating it but it's interesting i don't i can't find any russians who agree with that so there's

a real division here between the united states and russia thank you very much for your analysis mark fitzpatrick associate fellow international chief is for teaching studies joining us there from washington happy to talk with you merriam. here at the news hour live from london more still ahead on the program as the un special rapporteur continues her inquiry into jamal khashoggi death a senior official says there's no hope his killer will be brought to justice. remembering the revolution thousands of iranians gathered to commemorate forty years of the republic and the man who founded it. and two more months in prison for the footballer waiting for an extradition request. peter will have that story and more in the sport. of form ivory coast president laurent gbagbo has been released by the international

criminal court by his former right hand man shells be a good day were acquitted of crimes against humanity last month but had been kept in detention judges ordered their release on the condition that they're live in an as yet unspecified country pending an appeal by the prosecution by boat was found not guilty of initiating a wave of violence that followed disputed elections in the west african country in two thousand and ten well as judges ordered their release jubilant supporters danced and chanting outside the court they say is innocent and hope you will one day return to ivory coast. this. prison that. we have a free. well geoffrey nice is a barrister who worked in the international criminal tribunal for the for me the

slavia in that the prosecution of former serbian president slobodan milosevic and joins us now from canterbury via skype thank you very much for speaking to us on the news hour so the judge has ordered by bo's release but it is on the condition that he lives in a country a so-called neutral country that hasn't been specified yet when are we likely to get some clarity on that part of the of the ruling you know are there how long that will take i was no advice seeing the particular conditions that the country will be expected to impose what one can reasonably expect that the country will be asked to police something like a residence notification of change of presidents i don't know they may be arsed to impose the wearing of something like an anchor it can be normative but the conditions will no doubt reset my record in light of the representation is made by both parties and they are going to go to find one of the countries willing to

release those conditions and once that happens will be released interact country but he won't be able to get back to the ivory coast. but the as you say the key condition here is going to be that this neutral country has to prevent bad bo from fleeing. correct just just in a way as an ordinary resourceful justice ministry operating in a country like ours has to ensure that there are conditions of care mechanicals guarantee that kept people can travel can achieve right but these days it's rarely easy to be pretty pretty controlling a people's movement to stress again if you use electronic means i don't know whether that's in the mind of the court at the moment why it why is this been such a complicated process can you. shed some light on the difficulties that have arisen and this yes i mean it's a it's the last bit is particularly our new show because first of all it.