so i'll just say, oh, a wild alarm. listen, the zionists are making serious efforts in order to impede and to start to turn the with the story stuck on. ah, hello, i'm marianne noisy, in london. look at the main stories. now, people around the world are bidding farewell to 2021. the, for the 2nd year running, man you, near celebrations are being held in the shadow of the corona virus pandemic. he's alive, pitches now from dubai in the united arab emirates black cove at 19 his fail to curtail the display that julian wolf has more now on new year's policies, the taking place and the impact of the minors. ah zealand was

one of the 1st to bring in the new year. it's neighbor estrella didn't hold that tens of thousands of people gathered around sydney harbour bridge in a tribute also to the front line workers in the fight against coven 19. ah! in north korea, there were fireworks taiwan, 2 lighting up the night sky. but elsewhere, there were bands on big gatherings in china were 2 years ago. corona virus 1st emerged. events were canceled with the nation on high alert and the city of she an under locked down soccer, soccer awesome. since the 1st reported case, more than 5400000 people have died around the world. and with your micron, very and taking hold. many governments have re imposed restrictions to try to ease the strain on overwhelmed hospitals. even in those countries where gatherings are

allowed, many people have chosen to stay home. the one wish shared by people around the world. this dear is the 2022 is better than the last 2 and sees an end to the pandemic until it wolf al jazeera will the u. k. is reported another record number of new infections on friday at more than 80889000. the british prime minister boris johnson has not bad news. eve celebrations in england. instead encouraging people to take a cove at test and get vaccinated. as soon as possible, the people who think the disease can't hurt the look at the people go you dollars little now, that could be you look at the intensive care units and the miserable needless suffering of those who did not get that booster. that could be you. so making your new year's resolution far easier than losing weight or keep your diary falling

a walk in center or make an online appointment. get that job a do something that will make 2022. a happy new year. fossil record numbers have covered infections or again being reported in the u. s. yearly 650000 people tested positive in the past day. while some cities in france, including the capital harris, have made last mandatory outside. in india, daddy infections have more than doubled in the past week. more than 16000 new cases reported on friday. i a number of daily cases since october will in all the stories we're covering, they've been these devastating fires, destroying hundreds of homes in the usa of colorado. tens of thousands of people have had to evacuate the area. officials, a warning that people might have died in a fire at a hotel shopping santa and an apartment complex in the town of superior colorado governor yard polis is declared a state of emergency for

a 2nd day south africans of pay, their respects to desmond tutu as his body lay in state in cape town to choose simple pine costs get. we'll spend the night in saint george's cathedral. before his funeral on saturday. he preached and served as archbishop for a decade, about 3000 south africans, while by to say good bye to the few parts ada, who railed against white rule in the country to 2 died on sunday at the age of 90 and the former south korean president park in hay has been released from jail. the 69 year old was pardoned by president lin, joy in last week, citing deteriorating health. she was almost 5 years into a 20 year prison sentence for corruption. park was the country's 1st and chronically elected leader to be thrown out of office release, his fuel speculations, she might stand in the upcoming presidential election. the bottom line is the program coming up next. the hi,

i'm steve clements and i have a question. angle american stepped into lead the west at a time when the united states was trying to shrink away from the world stage. but who will fill the gap next time? or even now, let's get to the bottom line. ah, for a time she was the most powerful woman in the world angle. america became germany's 1st female chancellor in 2005, and she served for 4 terms, thing and power for 16 years, a whole generation. while the former us president donald trump closed america's borders to folks fleeing the wars in the muslim world, she opened germany for a 1000000 refugees. and while he deli dallied on the crone of virus, she gave a famous speech speaking as a mother. and as a scientist and telling the world to really take it seriously, she became the one people look to. and america started to fade into the background as a source of noise and chaos. and on russia, from countdown to president vladimir putin, while miracle didn't buy what he was selling. but on the other hand,

the extremist right grew exponentially while she was leader in germany and all over europe. so what kind of mix legacy does she leave behind for her country, for europe, and for relations with the united states, and what does her moving on mean for america's own engagement in the world? well, despite the fact that merkel is famous for being a very private person, we're really fortunate to be talking to someone who spent years researching her and finding people to explain her world view. she has copy, mar time, former a, b, c, news correspondent in germany and author of the chancellor, the remarkable odyssey of anglo american khaki. thank you so much for joining us. look, you know, what i'm really interested in is those 4 years of america. first, under donald trump, when angle american stepped in your late husband, richard holbrooke said america would have been in strategic contraction from its responsibilities in the world. my question to you is, what would america look like today? if angle american had not step great question,

steve and let's deal with them one at a time and but 1st let me just thank you for having me on. it's always such a pleasure to talk to you and you're always the most thought provoking interlocutor so, so that will leave the world stage an extraordinary legacy. she leaves the template for a new way to gover, which is how shall i put it? an ego free way to govern, whereby the leader of europe most powerful state germany, focused on the people not on herself. there isn't a single, i'm sorry to say this. they're mostly man, politician who is as lacking and hubris as she was. and this had an enormous impact on, on her ability to get things done because she was always the last person to leave. but the go shading table because her feelings were not involved. she, she didn't get upset when, when either either or trump tried tried to fake their way and bluster their

way through a negotiations or in trumps case cross. can these at her say don't say i never gave you anything. she just kept that, that absolute unmovable facade and, and, and restaurant soldiered on. so ego re because she was at the table. be it on, on your brain. she left the temp lake or how the world should deal with with what looks to be close to renew russian aggression into your pray. because she was in charge of halting that aggression in 2014. basically, obama handed off the leadership of the west to her at that time because he had given up on who he said, this man does nothing but lie to be. well, he likes to her too. but america, not the luxury. sitting right next door to the big,

bare catching from from trying to bring him to hold him to account. so she leaves you already, you already referred to her remarkable humanitarian intervention in 2015. and let me just say that those 1000000 mostly middle eastern refugees have been integrated into a formerly mostly christian homogeneous society. and it's a back corner issue. so again, she has left a model for how to do that if the world will heed her lesson. so, you know, she did, she did all this without saying, look at me, look at what i've done and thereby demonstrated that you can get a whole lot done if you don't insist on taking credit for you know, so in terms of the shape of the world now, you know,

i miss medical already just a few days into the post snack period because she gave us all a sense of calm and things will be taken care of because i am here and i will look after things. there is really no one who duplicates her. remarkable journey and i'm sure we're going to talk about that. there are many good politicians in germany. one of them is her successor, but, but it's her extraordinary personal journey, which is what i set out to capture in, in the chancellor that, that makes her unique. and she now enters history. it's an incredibly fascinating book, not only by what you discovered in research, but also by her hostility to anyone who talked about her and shutting them down, cutting them out of her life. and you know, the enforced humility if you will,

that she wanted around, you know, her life in circumstances. so i find it incredibly well done. well, research work because you did it under very difficult circumstances. but when you, when you get into that, that journey, the she took, i had a meeting recently with an ambassador from a former soviet communist country in eastern europe. and, and he said, you americans tossed around the word socialism and communism. so to casually to describe the debates going on, he says i lived under communism. you have no idea how bad that was and what the dimensions were. of that her dad was a pastor who willingly moved into east germany to be in that world. and i, and i'd love to kind of hear about the seed that got planted an angle, a miracle of being in that situation. and how that remarkable journey affected who she became. right, right. well, you just did it on the head. it was for formation this the double influence of 35

years spent in a, in a police state, the police data, germany and, and being the pastor daughter. so a very strict family of baseball lutherans where responsibility was instilled in her need to look after the less fortunate, which again we saw play out in real time with for refugee policy was which shocked all her fellow european neighbors who did not come for her a chance it's a faded and i have to say that if i had an advantage in, in piercing the, the, the enigma back all the deliberately constructed enigma. it was that i to grew up in a communist hotel. it's area and state agree and my case. and i was the child, the lyrical prisoners and i was, i was very conscious of the fact that, you know,

you had to keep your own counsel and you didn't know if your next door neighbor was, was informing you. in the case of medical, it turned out that one of the people she most trusted her lab partner, because as you know, she's, she's a visit this by trainee. was a full time informer. so no wonder that she keeps, she keeps to herself and, and is deeply suspicious and doesn't like to open up and certainly doesn't open up to, to journalists or, or biographers. she frankly doesn't think it's any of our business. what she does by the chancellor e. but, but to me, that was the part of the story that was most interesting, far less interesting or the machinations of the byzantine world of german politics . really interesting was how this triple outsider, so a men in the mail, political culture of scientist and from the east. how did,

how did she gain control of the politics? not only of her own country for 16 years, that's for elections? who can, who can match not today in a democratic way, but, but that, that she, she, she managed to transform that country. so she didn't just hold on to power. she very quietly transform with a country which she now has left a different society than, than the walk around the one she found. she, she achieved marriage equality, she expanded opportunities for women and, and of course, have made germany the most refugee friendly country in the world. is really the, when you think about it, knowing as much as you do about about german history and the dark chapter of both

of the 3rd, right. that she, she, she really has succeeded to making germany not only the economic powerhouse of europe, which it was well on its way to becoming but the moral center. that to me is the most astonishing. i mean, who is buying for that role? right. really not, not, not the united states. well, you know, we measure time oftentimes in terms of leaders. and so during the time of miracle we had for american presidents, we had george w bush. we had brock obama. we had donald trump and we haven't had joe biden. do you have a sense of how she read the trend? you know, the strengths and weaknesses of the american leader? she was dealing with. who did she like the most? well, 1st of all, she reveres america. she attributes to america per 2nd chance as, as a, as a free woman. and as a politician because she, she was

a scientist only because she had chosen science as a safe place to park her or her brilliant mind. and she is really in and out of the reach of the police state. so she had she had on our wall a picture of a bush, the elder and a reagan who were her cold war heroes. she had a personal, she had great personal report. this may surprise your, your viewers with george w bush and they click and, and that had real time results. they only overlap for 2 years, but, but they continued to be friends. she had a rocky relationship at the beginning with bark obama, although they are much more liked than she and george w bush. they're both cerebral and they're there. they're both people who don't really love politics or politicians. but she found him to be at the

outset. rather arrogant and too much of a hurry and she was offended that he wanted to give a speech before he was even elected president on marilyn's most like klondike corner, which is the brandenburg gate. so she'd be told that he took that very well. and ladies and staff were having chosen that, and then of course, she discovered that he'd been tapping her or private phone or cell phone, whether he'd given the instructions for that or, or, or others in the mean. i mean, i just want to go out there, i just want to stop there for a 2nd. she found out the u. s. president was spying on her. right. that's. and how did she take that? not. well, you can imagine when i interviewed the american ambassador in berlin at the time, john emerson. and he said that that was a wasted year between berlin and washington. and the result of that that really

unnecessary tapping which by the way, got them nothing because macro being as suspicious as she was anything and through our cell phone beyond what, where are we going for dinner? 8 so they got nothing and they succeeded in, in deeply offending her. she, when obama visited her kind of make up call, she took him out to the balcony which, which is off or her former office in the chancellor. and she pointed to the residence of the wall, there, the terrible wall that had kept her prisoner for 35 years. and she said, now do you see why this, this has so upset me and my people, because we live behind behind, we were prisoners, right? the, the state a copy, one of the reasons i wanted to talk about this book was not just because of angle

apparent medical who stepping out and, and his history now. but her relevance of some of what she did in dealing with the challenges of the day. and as we look at a $170000.00 plus troops, a mass on the ukrainian border from russia as we look at human rights violations in china. sin john. the rise of teaching ping, not only in chinese history, but his power in the world. i'm really interested. she dealt with both of these leaders. she took blandness to an art form, but she also took doggedness. you know, into a political art form. and i felt the pallet bubbly in your book. and i don't see anyone engaging either, is asian ping or vladimir putin in the same way that she did. am i wrong? no, you're not wrong. no, no. the doggedness is it is what, what remains to be seen, whether whether anyone has that but,

but don't forget that we, the united states are in steady or hands and then we were under, under trump. and she, she exhaled when, when biting was, was elected. because because of course, the trunk was not serious in negotiating with either. no, she thinks she medical has paid more calls to beijing than any other head of state since 2005, when she 1st identified that that china was ascendant and would be the challenge for, for, for the west. she's paid a call every year. she's cultivated a leadership and the food chain. she knows who to talk to about what. and although she does not believe in confrontational diplomacy, and she would never call out either cheap, cheap thing or,

or in front of the press, for example, because she thinks that, that's just, you know, male boss know where she is tougher when the door is closed. and she does call out or did call out a week or is and on hong kong and makes it very clear that you're going to force our hand. you're going to force us to be much tougher if you proceed down down this road. but she, you know, steve, she's, she's, she's not an idealist. she does not think that the ark of the moral universe been store justice. she's a, she's a realist, not a i wouldn't say she, that she's a kid in geri rail politician. but she does believe that that humanity is capable of terrible crimes. e law. i mean her or

her parents generation suffered under, under the nazis. and she herself, suffered under the german communist. so she's she, she deals with the world as she finds it and believe i would describe her as a determined optimised for her. the image of the image she uses frequently rolling that rock up the mountain. lonely dive. it fall on his head every, every few feet. and that keeps going. that for her is not a a pessimistic image. it's what she does. it's what. and again this goes back to her lutheran foundation of the quiet work of salvation. right? right. that's what she did right, chance for 16 years. well, not only is germany and europe on the united states being tested by seizing,

paying, inviting, reputed there being tested internally. and while she was in office, the alternative for germany, a party of extreme islamic bo be extreme anti immigrant groups earned 2012 percent of the electorate in 2017 and grew. we've seen the rise of populace in the united states and elsewhere. do you have any insights about her views on those group? how that i mean and her concern about it, you know, how if she were still in power, maybe now out of power that that element needs to be confronted? yes, yes. and, and you know, she's by no means a perfect politician shooting when she has her blind spot. that one of them was that she didn't deal strenuously enough with the rise of the far right in or in her former region of east germany, which is where it's mostly located. and by the way, that is also the of the coven,

the anti backs. the anti backs are population, is also in the least. and these 2 things are, are related, and social media, and this information lanes and enormous role in that region. that this information coming largely from russia, which is not far and she, but she didn't deal sufficiently with the fact that, that not everybody in the east was as ready to adapt to the ways of the west. and she was, she just immediately rolled up her sleeve and, and chose a new profession, left, left science for, for politics and began her now legendary ascent a large a large number of her peers did not. and they feel that she has. she does not acknowledge them sufficiently if not about the economy because although the east is still a bit behind the west. 8 it had enormous infusion, so support from the west,

but it's about you haven't recognized that you haven't acknowledged our suffering during during half a century of communism and, and that's where that was fertile territory for the far right. but let me just quickly say that the far right is not us. and in germany, i think that of all the european countries of all the countries in the west germany would be the last to fall for populism because they have so. so process their own dark history, so worked through that but, but the east is behind the way in that in that process. and very late in her days in the trans flurry, she began to acknowledge her eastern routes, her and the fact that that well bred she should have spent more time kind of making those people feel that that she hears them and that she sympathizes

with it was it was that the identity for deutschland is a child of the medical era. in our last couple of minutes coffee, i just want to ask a question about your own observations about the world in america. when you grew up in hungry, you grew up in a communist country. you know, you, you have had a partners in life who straddle the world and you with them seeing all kinds of leaders all over the world. and i guess my question to you is, you look at this time, you just set americas instead of your hands. but there seems to be this lament around the world that america is not back where it was. trust is not where it is. the solvency of alliance is not, is not what it was. and i just be, it should in your insight, in what it would take to restore american engagement in the world and the kind of principled way that angle a miracle wanted to see. yes, well, we do have a model now to follow. and i say only has been just that i hope that people in the ministration read are

a good model follow. and by the way she's, she is a ruthless politician when she's no pushover. she's, you know, to call. 1 her would be mommy, as, as i'm do is to completely missed the fact that that she is deep strategic thinker. she sees not a new cycle. she thinks not tomorrow's headline, but in how things fit in a historic pattern. and, and all, you know, these are, these are important lessons that she leaves behind, but i'm as concerned as, as you are both about what is happening and in our country. and, and, you know, we, we could, we could go on for a long time discussing the origin. so, how we got here? well, we'll, we'll leave it there. i mean, if it extraordinary book and it's very rare to read a book, a biography of a foreign leader that matter is as much to america in this case in reading it,

it just extraordinary. but i highly recommended the book is the chancellor. the remarkable odyssey of angle americans and the authors conte more time. thank you so much for being with us today. thank you steve. it's been a great pleasure. thank you for having me. so what's the bottom line angle america really mattered for the west, but now she's history. america. tripped and stepped back from its leadership role in the world. and germany stepped in france as a manual macro stepped up later. but it's clear that the world's leading democracies are just less compelling than they once were. medical successor may really prove to be a strong force in the world. we hope. so. macros is up for election next year, and we're going to see if he remains, or if he's replaced by someone who's inward looking. what is clear, is it liberalism as a political ethic? when that means human rights and civic justice, liberty freedom are more fragile in the west. now, more than they've been in decades to preserve democracy's an liberalism, these nations are going to need to generate more angle of miracles. but let's be

honest, that's really hard to do. and that's the bottom line. ah, i'm certainly saying without you business class, which way your privacy is paramount. and your experience can sit back, relax in your own private space and let her take care of everything. catera always the a line you can rely on. gotta one of the fastest growing nations in the way won the cost of needed to oakland and develop it, pull track international shipping companies to become a key, middle east and trade and wanting skillfully, mcdowell,

$3.00 key areas of develop who filling a prominence of connecting the world connecting the future while need. cato causes gateway to whoa trade. lou. hello, i'm sorry, i'm noisy in london, the main stories now. people around the world of bidding farewell to 2021. but 2nd year, running many new year's celebrations are being held in the shadow of the pandemic. the official firework display was cancelled in new zealand. one of the 1st countries to ring in 2022 in its place was a light show and open sky tower. and hump of bridge, but in australia, the traditional fireworks show their own sydney hall. the did go ahead or then 6 tons of our techniques were ignited for the display is by.