com, but the neighbors and family members insisted they were innocent, taken from their homes and executed under pressure venezuela's, defense minister by the me to do, you know, said the armed forces were obliged to defend that country from irregular groups added the human rights needed to be respected and that the events at the border would be investigated. the hello, i'm down, jordan del, how the top stories here, and i'll just 0 pulls of opened and crucial parliamentary elections that. yeah, it's prime minister abbey ahmed. first electoral test, he's under increasing international pressure with reports of famine and violence in the northern degree region. mama, the report some out is out the bus. millions of with your pin. went to pulling stations across the country very early in the morning. some of them from faithful i am local time, very came to cost the vote. the electoral commission of increase the number of

calling sessions across the country to avoid large cards. company that i'm particularly full, assuring is as little as possible of covered 90, but also to have them the voltage pulses. 37000000 people have registered to vote in the election. last is our record number. and many people are saying if that number of people have registered them, it looks all expectations of the voting. the vote upon us will be very high. of course, the elections i'm taking place in over the country that will not be taking place in 3 regions. the region where the government forces are fighting fighters from the guy people's liberation from prime minister. you have sent them the loss of november, of the region for us are tops if you can,

government forces. there will also not be take place in the so mighty region which had been which are so much as ability in the past. but now has some com. and then also in the hot region, the tiniest of, if you look yes, federal state. armenia is kind of a prime minister, has claimed victory in sunday snap parliamentary election. nicole pushing in call the election following last year's defeat in the war with as by john re challenge has more than a capital arrogant. he's claimed that his block, his party has a convincing majority. although he acknowledge not all the vote to be counted yet. and yes, the official does have, he does put him out significantly in front to the moment. what these are the result suggest is that many of those undecided voters in the end have broken for passion, the em. but this is a big but with 10 out of fewer than 50 percent,

less than 50 percent. that also suggests that better a good number of armenians and for whatever reason is this is because of the war or the tone of the campaigning. or the candidates themselves have decided to sit this election out. if these results are confirmed in the final highly suggest that the official mechanisms for settling a close contest would be necessary. now those mechanisms are coalition negotiations and if those fail a 2nd round of voting. so if it's not close, that won't be used, but it doesn't mean that this election isn't being contested. and rebecca cherry and party has already come out basically saying that it believes that there are been voting irregularity, significant voting irregularities in this election, and they won't accept any results until they've analyzed what those irregularities all exit polls in front suggests that the far right has performed worse than

expected in regional elections. french president, emanuel macros, centrist party also polled badly, but it appears the center right, has made games an advisor to jailed hong kong media psycho jimmy lies as the pro demarcus and use of apple daily were forced to shop in a matter of days. he said the company has no access to funds offered assets are frozen rounds and the nuclear power plant has gone into an emergency shut down for the 1st time. it's not clear what caused it ahead of the state. energy companies says the bashir plant may not be operational for up to 4 days. and brazil has become the 2nd country after the us to record more than half a 1000000 corona virus. death demonstrators in rio de janeiro placed roses on kopeck up on a beach, a member of the victims, brazil, record him on the 44000 cases in the past 24 hours. those were the headlines and he continues on al jazeera after the bottom line. thank you so much bye for now. ah, i am steve clement and i have

a question. biden's been telling europe and the world that america is back, but do they believe it? let's get to the bottom line. ah, us president joe biden is on a whirlwind tour of europe with a packed agenda. the menu is huge, including the pandemic and half a 1000000000 vaccines for the developing world. and then there is climate. iran afghanistan, nato cyber hackers in the future of the western lead order in the face of competition from china. oh, yeah. and then there's what i'm putting in russia to more importantly, buying wants to signal to europeans that the u. s. got their back after they listen to the former president, donald trump tell them they were insignificant and it would be every country for itself from now on a america 1st. but the rest of the world watch the events of january 6th. when some americans tried to overturn the results of their own election and they still see sitting american lawmakers denying that joe biden 15 months later. so who's to say

that washington doesn't do a total new turn after the next election? will america 1st be back and given all this can biden's, i'm not trump tour, restore enough trust and confidence in us partnership in leadership. fortunately, we're joined by people who have all the answers. bruce stokes, who had the transit atlantic research project at the german marshall fund called together or alone. and just came out with a major poll of american and european attitudes and matthew roach and sky director of the wilson centers. kennedy institute, which focuses on russia and europe, he's considered one of america's leading experts on russia. math, thanks for being here today. let me just start with, with president biden going into europe. what is europe expecting from this trip? what? how are they seeing america and president biden at this moment from your view? well, obviously, europeans have lingering concerns from the last 4 years. this is difficult period both in terms of the pressure on the traditional transatlantic relationship, whether it was trade, whether it was politics, whether it was security,

the message from washington very often sounded like if our way or the highway. ready there was quite a lot of 0 sum pressure and 0. so i'm thinking and of course i thought to reverse all of that, the message is not only we are back, but we're back. we're going to be partners. we're going to go back better and we're going to put the transatlantic relationship in america's allies and the values that we share at the very center of our quotes to the wider world in the set of problems . including, of course, russia, china, and transnational challenges like climate change, demick the president has to deal with. now you talk to national security and intelligence officials all over the world. you've got one of the cool jobs in washington. i talk to them occasionally, and i do know that at least during the trump administration, i would even say now that many of these players around the world in that are looking at the security of their country that are looking at intelligence playing out simulations. they're really counting on america less than they used to. will

america be with these nations in their dark days? is the big question and i guess i'd like to ask you, i know you're an american, you work for the federal government, but wouldn't you doubt america? after what we have just gone through, well look, i can, i can only speak from my personal perspective. i am, i'm very convinced by president biden's message that we are at the united states of america is back. because it's not driven by politics. this is not an optics thing. this isn't about winning an election. the election is over, it's one and it's done. this is about the american national interest. and if you, if you read the critical documents, administration has put out including the interim national security strategic guidance, which is essentially a national security strategy in miniature. the administration very clearly puts the importance of the central relationships in terms of benefits to the united states. i mean, it is a self interest, it approach and that should be reassuring,

because it is precisely that the interest that european allies were very concerned about in the trump administration, in the sense of dividing the united states from europe. but i think quite the opposite. divide administration has made a compelling case. it is better for the united states, for example, to engage with russia, to engage with china, to try to solve these transnational challenges like climate or the. if we have our european allies in our asian allies and other partners around the world at our side, that is far stronger in terms of an approach. not, i know, you know, russia well and we're going to get to that. but one of the questions you know, came out at a pew research center poll, is that many say the united states is a somewhat reliable partner, but they no longer see it as a model for democracy. russia, of course, has been involved, you know, as a metal or an american elections in that process. and they may see that as again. but when it comes to that broad issue of how important it is that other nations look to the united states as a model of excellence when it comes to, you know, immigration and inclusion, being

a security guarantor in the world. trying to help those in need around the world, standing for justice doesn't worry you that this, these pew findings demonstrate real european doubt in the solvency of american democracy. well, 1st of all, you know, i talk, you're going all the time. the message that i'm hearing very consistently is enthusiasm for reengage with united states at every level. obviously, you know, some of the reduced engagement has been the reality of that. and i'm someone who would literally be in europe, but 10 or a dozen times a year. and i haven't been for nearly. ready 3 years at this point. so i think, you know, in some ways the timing is fortuitous. the president is going to be the shark and of despair of the return to, you know, between americans and europeans. and that's all to the good. but the 2nd important point here is this is not about words, it's not about promises. it's not about abstractions. the president understands clearly and has said many times,

it's about solving problems that matter to people. so if you want to reassure european that the alliance that the transatlantic relationship is central to the way that washington and americans think about the world and the problems we have to face, start solving those problems and start doing it together. and so the white house message going out on this trip has been really consistent. it's the 3 feet co it. number one, climate number 2 are a challenge. europeans are acutely aware of. and number 3, china, and that is something you have increasingly, i think come to share, be american view that this is the central geostrategic challenge. our time. let me bring in proof stokes, and he's just put out some new data on the transit land relationship that the german marshall fund is publish. it's fascinating and bruce, i sort of see in the data a desire, a pining, if you will, for the old transit romantic relationship robust and real, but a wobbling us in a bit of doubt. tell us about your findings. well, i mean,

what we found in the german martial times trying to like trans survey was i a revival of faith in the united states. this was reaffirmed by the pew data that came out today that shows that the, the united states has returned in the eyes of europeans to the levels it was during the obama and faith in the us president has returned to levels of the above administration. so i agree with matt in the sense that i think there's an appetite both among publics in europe and among a lease and policy makers to find ways to cooperate with united states. now i would, i would caution all policy makers that you also hear from fellow policy makers in

europe. a hesitancy, a just trust of a nighted stage when we change, i think is, are legitimate concerns because we don't know what the future lies for the, the politics of the united states. you will be president, 3 years. nevertheless, the publics in europe are back and that should encourage policy makers on both sides of the atlantic to do it matters, talking about and that is working together to solve shared problems because they also ran a task force for the german martian fund. looking at what we could do together and we came to the same conclusion that matches weiss, which is if we want to re commit our publics to democracy and not to succumb to the temptation of authoritarianism, we have to solve the problems that our publics have. den affine as the problems

they face, and if the transfer atlantic relationship can work together to solve those problems . this will benefit the transfer european american translate relationship and it will benefit faith and democracy. but we need to solve problems for our people, and that's the major challenge we both face. well, let me, let me ask you both. here we'll go. we'll go to map mid bruce, but, but i'm fascinated by the fact that i don't mean to be mean about this, but, you know, brock obama when he came in was such a popular president just by being barack obama. he sorta won the nobel peace prize, right? the change in tone, you know, change an atmospheric, he won the nobel peace prize just by being himself. and you sort of wonder right now, so early in the, by the ministration, whether this honeymoon with biden is one of the expectations. so let me ask you the tough question. how could joe biden love this up? what could go wrong? and let me start with matt, and i'm going to just tail on that, you know,

latimer put, you know, the russians. i mean, this is going to be a defining moment at the end of the trip. so how could things go wrong? well, i think one very real possibility is that the meeting doesn't happen. so we're little less than a week out. i don't think it's by accident that the meeting with the tail end of a long agenda. you have ongoing crises in and around ukraine and delivers really egregious treatment of independent press and the opposition within russia. a lesson of only being the most famous case, but by no means the only one. there are more than $300.00 people that americans considered to be political prisoners in russia. you have americans who are in custody by the russian security state. and of course you have russian hacking that is ongoing, both private criminal actions and state sponsored cyber attacks. i mean, i think any, one of the not to mention traditional kinetic military is near misses when russian

jets over, by american ships are as nearby other american aircraft cetera. any one of these conspiring to the kind of crisis that would be a perfectly rational reason to say, you know, what now is not the time, but this made it ru something really hit me from your data that you put in a german martial fund. you know, it seemed to contradict each other, but would love to get your quick insights and i want to turn to russia. but, but you have a wonderful little pie chart of, of how american reliability is perceived by the nations you surveyed. now turkey is in there in turkey, is, you know, looked at, there's 23 percent mean right now there's not a love lost between turkey and apparently europe and turkey in the u. s. and the distrust it exists. but germany is only at 51 percent who believe americans reliable poland is all the way up at the top at 76 percent in this pie chart. but then you flip over to something else that really interested me in your study and

says, how involved should the united states be in the defense of security in europe. and there has been a 10 point jump between last year and this year in germany, 69 percent of germans think america should be involved more deeply in the defense insecurity of europe. so also a 10 point jump from 45 percent to 55 percent in france. so i guess the conclusion i have is the germans are saying on one hand, they don't really, you know, lot of my say 51 percent of americans not reliable, but they do have an expectation and want more. so what am i, you know, are those inconsistent, what's going on there? well, the, the reliability of the us, the numbers are a little higher in the pew survey. so, you know, every survey is a little bit different. we know from past surveys that germans expected america to come to its defense if russia ever invaded. although the germans were unwilling to go to the defense of their own,

after nato allies of other nato allies were defended. so there's little contradiction. the german perception on these things, but i think the real and that we can speak to this, i think the logical interpretation of why the germans and the french would would expect us to help support them militarily and want them to is what happened with russia over the last few years, and especially in the last year, the concern about russia seems to me, is growing in western europe. and that's why you see this change. well, let's jump to russia, matt. you had a very interesting article that just ran, i'll tell our audience, you can find it in war on the rocks. and in this article, it's sort of a comprehensive review of russia's portfolio in the world and the portfolio of us russian relations. and if i can, i think the bottom line to your article is take off the rose colored glasses and see things of the are and just realize business is going to be tough as you kind of

look at that and that potential that meeting one am i getting the reading of your article, right? and as you see things like ukraine as you see, things like cyber attacks and the solar winds attack. what are the best ways to maneuver that relationship between 2 really important leaders? when clearly i think they're going to be expectations and biden is going to, you know, try and achieve something. yeah, thanks very much, dear. so. so in that case, you know, the tagline really was just only reset your expectations that you know, don't have any illusions that this is going to be the kind of handshake signing ceremony. friendship reset transformation that many us presidents have promise on the relationship. ready with russia, the good news is the one person who needs to understand that understand perfectly. and that's joe by he has gone into this, sending a very clear message that the reason for him to meet with him is that he understand

that is necessary to try to put some guard rails on russia aggressive and stabilizing behavior. that's a great point. it's something that will be very reassuring and very welcome, i think for america, key european allies. but at the same time, at biden, is not introducing a laundry list of hoped for achievement in some kind of renewed us russian partnership. because you recognize that isn't going to happen. he's talking about a more stable and more predictable relationship. so how do you get there? i see a couple of major deliverables, neither of which is guaranteed but, but should be possible if this is a reasonably successful summit meeting. the indications are that could be number one is a strategic stability dialogue. the basic question here is having extend it the last major nuclear arms control treaties standing. that's the new start agreement for 5 years from this past january. so the last o february of 2026. what comes after it? right?

2026 is actually not that far away. and there are a lot of new issues, especially new technologies like fiber. you mentioned earlier that have a bearing on strategic stability that is on the risk of escalation to open war between the world. 2 are just nuclear power russian united at this number one. issue number 2 is, can we rebuild from some of the wreckage of the basic infrastructure literally as we speak, the russian ambassador is not in washington. the us ambassador is not a good embassy in moscow. and frankly, both staffs have been stripped down to a bare minimum. most conflict at this point had been shutter, were not able to do basic functions like system support services issuing be has, you know, the relationship is that it absolutely barebones minimum, worse than most of the cold war and rebuilding fanatic could be both both helpful and a realistic, clear, i goal for the british, let me ask you a question. we just scratch beneath the surface a little bit and look at not just the raw. you know what can go well,

but what some of the tensions are. one of them comes to mind is afghanistan. europeans are frustrated that america is talking about just leaving afghanistan with very little consultation with them. they've been our allies, you know, right there next to us in afghanistan. and they don't see themselves part of the equation. that's one to property, right, you know, the intellectual property right side of the kobe crisis, joe biden may be going over with half a 1000000000 vaccines to help give the developing world. but many europeans were critical of president biden's saying let's wave intellectual property rights in this area. they say that's the wrong way to achieve this. and you, you are one of the most knowledgeable people. i know on trade. joe biden still has not removed some of the trade provisions and sanctions provisions that would put, put in place by the trumpet, ministration. so how toxic are those lower level issues? and you think any of them will bubble to the surface during this, this trip? my guess is that on the terror acts that may get mentioned in passing,

but we have initiated a process of discussions of how we might be able to resolve that issue. so we've kicked the ball down the road. i mean, the real problem and that is, it's about over capacity, the chinese ability to protect deuce more than they can consume. and the fear by our domestic industry and labor force that they will export more to europe and europeans export more twice. and that's why we put tariffs on to europe, and there are ways to try to deal with this. what are called tariff quotas, that, that you might be able to, the europeans have to read it. that mean the reality is we can get the chinese to reduce their, our capacity. and after years of talking about this, the trump administration finally acted and politically, it's very difficult for joe biden to say to the steel industry and the steel workers were not going to afford you this level of protection anymore.

but you're right and are allergic issue with europeans for understandable reasons, but it's not at all clear how we resolve that on f. ganna. stan, i mean there's a little bit of pushback here. i mean, it's true from my understanding that we, we didn't negotiate with the europeans about how to pull out. we just announced it . and that the excuse given by the bible people is, well, they should have known what we're going to do because by and talked about it in the campaign. well, frankly, that's not the way to treat your allies. on the other hand, the germans in afghanistan had to be guarded in part by the americans because they couldn't guard themselves. so there's a bit of a which be here about what, what they expect should expect from us as we make decisions. and i think one of the issues you didn't mention is a question. what happens in the middle east?

because i did a series of interviews with, but are now current biden, administration officials before the election. and they all said to a person that we're going to get, we're going to continue to pull out from the middle east. we're going to follow the trump plant game plan on that. and we just expect to europeans to step up and tomorrow. well, that g, a map survey, ask your opinions if they wanted their country to do more right in the middle east . and the response was in the single digits among people who said they wanted to do 16 percent, 7 percent, 9 percent. and a 3rd said, no, we wanna do less. so there's expectations here of the americans that the europe ian can pick up. some of the birds in the middle east. right. that is not supported at all by european publics. now let me get one last question into you. and my question is going to be on russia. we know, and you know,

all of us have talked about what drives the foreign policy behavior of other countries. and very often it's rooted in domestic policy and domestic politics. don't usually give that much air time, but i guess my question to is, if we most wanted to influence vladimir putin in russia and put russia on a different course, that was more of a global contributor to peace and stability. what would you do? you know, it's a great and it's a very timely question, steve, not only because of the found it, but because this years, the 100 anniversary boundary soccer up, the great soviet nuclear scientist adventure of the soviet hydrogen bomb and dissidence. and one of his main messages is, was and still relevant today that a country that abuse the rights of its own citizens is inherently going to be a threat to world peace. so the good news is, i think providing ministration understands that there is a linkage between the way that recruitment and the kremlin behaves towards people. and the way that russia poses the knighted states and our allies in the world. the

bad news is we have limited instruments to change behavior at home. essential calculus is we can impose as much pressure as we're doing is quite a lot of pressure that we can there are things to get our own house in order, in terms of not letting dark all of our money into american markets can do that. we should do for moral reasons, but it views those things and existential survival issues for his regime. there's almost no level of leverage that's going to get him to agree to say ok, now i'm going to do something that hurts me. what is more likely is the kind of engagement the present by just talking about if successful developing a nuclear arms control strategic stability, dialog dialog on site, restoring some of the basic, ongoing diplomatic contacts. we began to look a little bit more like times in the cold war, where american presidents were successful in getting dissident out of russia because the russians had a stake in the relationship. and i think that's what i'm interested in. well, listen, thank you. this is one of those times you realize, i really wish i had an hour long show what a great conversation, bruce stokes,

of the german marshal fun and matthew ro, gantski of the wilson center. really appreciate you helping to explore this question of biden and your a thank you so much. thank you. so what's the bottom line president joe biden keep saying americas back as if the world stood still for the past 4 years waiting for it. of course there's a difference with american diplomacy now everybody can feel it. his team of already engage in some of the top issues out there like israel palestine. but everybody knows that america has a lot of issues to sort out at home. and there are lingering doubts in america is really fully 100 percent back branch in germany said many times in response to trumps a bluster that europe would have to consider going it alone on many fronts. and that'll probably be a strong current of european thinking from now on. at the same time, it's cheaper and easier to work together on climate change on cyber threats and whoever they consider road nations together. ironically, the challenges posed by russia and china may force the u. s in europe more tightly together, even if it's not the sturdy alliance it used to be. and that's the bottom line,

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corners of the globe and across all sectors side chalk away out of the join at the top, you can on the forums powered by blue o and i'm down jordan into the top stories and al jazeera. i mean, you can take a prime minister has one sunday snap elementary election results released by the countries election commission show. nicole passion and party got nearly 54 percent of the total vote. we call the election following last year defeat and the war with as a by john, where we challenge us more from a capital a very result started coming in acting prime minister nicole patching the unclaimed victory over to the people of armenia, gave us.