now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london, where our panel give their views on the next 12 months around the globe. hello and welcome to the final dateline london of 2018, a chance to look ahead to the people, the countries and the events which, our panel predicts, will shape the year ahead. joining me today — abdel barry atwan, who writes on arab affairs janet daley whose column appears in the uk?s sunday telegraph newspaper, maria margaronis from the weekly news magazine the nation, and the american michael goldfarb, host of the podcast, the first rough draft of history. i suppose this could be called that, michael. welcome to all of you. let's begin in our attempt to map out the territory for the year to come with the uk in europe. notjust brexit but perhaps other things on the horizon too. what are you looking for in the year ahead? the year ahead is a long projection!

let's look at the week ahead or the next fortnight. i think we're definitely going to leave, there's no question about that even though there is an awful lot of trash talk and noise, it is difficult to know notjust what is going on but what everyone thinks because everyone is lying and dissing everybody else. but we will come out, and i don't think there's going to be any majority in parliament for no deal but they will be some form of words and those will be fought to the last ditch. it is terribly important. so it will be 11th minute of the 11th hour? absolutely, last 30 seconds of the last minute. but it will eventually arrive at what will be called an exit because that is absolutely imperative now. i think the campaign for a second

referendum is going to get nowhere because there is no base of popular support for such a thing and i think even the people sponsoring it are beginning to have cold feet because they realised that the result of a second referendum would be remarkably like the first. so that's a nonstarter. so we will come out and it's a question of the terms and whether we stand by the terms because once you are out, you are out. then you can renegotiate the opposition. so we could actually be back into the negotiations? no, no, no. one of the reasons the eu is making life so difficult is because they don't trust this particular british government and this group of tories standing behind the government to be people of their word. what kind of organisation threatens people who want to leave? mafia families, religious cults, secret societies. how many commissars have come to your office and said if you don't do what we told you, set by brussels, we will shoot you? there is no threat.

that is completely rhetorical. the threats are we will be ruined economically by the club we are going to leave. they said we have to do this because otherwise everyone will want something. so there is a wonderful perfect union that once happened with but if we get a good deal, everybody else wants a deal. let's ask about the club we're leaving. poor club! what state will it be in, will it be diminished by the departure? yes, it will be but not as much as we will. the club we're going to leave has a lot of problems, the two main ones are austerity politics and a lack of democracy. the deeper problem is it has not managed to answer the fundamental problems of the uk and the rest of europe, which have to do with globalisation, the movement of industries abroad, all of those things. human migration as well, caused largely by wars

and global inequality. and what we are seeing now, it's a terrible old chestnut, the phrase that the old has died at the new has yet to be born, morbid symptoms appear. and we have morbid symptoms everywhere in europe. i disagree here. i believe the saga which is taken place in britain, the constitutional crisis, the uncertainty, the bad economy, the collapse of the stock market, about 1,000 points in the last just six months. i think this will make europe strong because the alternative is actually to stick together. the alternative is to keep the preserve... but the eu is declining. they are having serious economic problems.

italy is threatening the whole eurozone. the problem is more anarchy. look at britain, the situation of this country, it is a disaster. it's not! this economy is booming. we have the biggest high—tech industry of any country. we have more coders working in this country than san francisco and new york combined. so why are we seeing so many more homeless people on the street? that's a different issue altogether. those are people who would have been on benefits, not people who would have been working. we have the lowest unemployment in living memory now. the crime rate is high. that's a policing problem. the stock market is collapsing, the pound is very weak, unemployment is high. national health is awful. what are you talking about? the pound beomg weak and is helpful to the economy, we had a devaluation of the pound which has helped our exports enormously. if you are exporting...

the eu twisted our arm not part of europe so we can devalue the pound which is something thatcher understood and that's always been the case. why can't we have a referendum? the mood of the people in this country... can i pose a different question — will we have a general election next year? no. because labour doesn't want one and that's the secret to everything. might we never seejeremy corbyn fighting an election? i don't think so. i think labour even in its most insane moments, know not only that he wouldn't win but if he did it would be a disaster. i think he will be replaced and that is the real danger. who will replace him? at the moment, his shadow chancellor would be the candidate. it wouldn't be hilary benn or one of the moderate labour people or yvette cooper, that would be a plausible alternative but that won't happen because momentum has now got hold

of all the levers. so theresa may has a year of security because she won the leadership election. yes, technically. in terms of her party, you don't think there will be a general election so she will still be in place at the end of the year? yes, i think so. let's ask about the other problems is in europe that are unresolved. we talked a bit in passing about italy, the big one is france. yes, the gilet jaunes, this movement, i'm not even sure you would call it a movement but a populist uprising of yellow vests which began as a protest against macron's fuel tax, an enivronmentalist move, i think it is one of the strangest and most interesting thing in politics. they have strong traditional right—wing elements were nationalist, xenophobic and there is a left environmentalist wing to it and i think this is a response to the fact that neither left nor right has

come up with an answer to the collapse of communities, of local cohesion, of localjobs. it's interesting because i thought about the gilet jaunes thing for a while and i'm still not sure, they seem to come up almost as regularly as... it's almost cyclical like we get recessions. we had 0ccupy, we had giletjaunes, and before 0ccupy, we had g7 meetings and there is no coherence or ideology. 0ccupy had an ideology, the anti—globalisation movement had an ideology. what was the ideology? it came from the left, it was a bottom—up movement against inequality, against austerity. isn't that with the gilet jaunes? partly but it's also got a traditionally, socially conservative element with wasn't there before. i think, nobody that i've read reporting on it has been able to say it's this or that. with the globalisation of the economy and globalisation of labour, the globalisation of labour has tremendous consequences on indigenous communities and i'm afraid that the ruling intelligentsia if you like, the governing classes, have not recognised this.

but so does the globalisation of finance. we've got the left noticing that and the right notice and globalisation of labour. those are big thoughts we will come back to. in the programme in the coming year and probably becoming months, quite seen in terms of the economy. but barry, turning to the middle east. this is a region that is really changing almost as we speak. we have protests on the streets

in sudan against the 30 year ruler of bashir. we have the decisions by the united states to pull troops out of syria, and assad apparently resurgent with diplomatic sites reopening in damascus. what for you is the standout thing we should look for in the region in the year to come? the most important thing is how president trump decided to pull out all the american troops from syria. this is really a turning point. there are several interpretations for it. the first interpretation that president trump decided to leave the middle east completely, he said we said we lost about $7 trillion in the middle east and gave nothing. so we had to cut our losses short and leave. there is another interpretation saying that americans are pulling

out because there could be a war against iran in the coming year. or maybe in the coming two years. so they believe that. so he needs flexability in case that situation arises? he doesn't want troops in syria to be captive or a target for attacks on groups. i'm saying the second interpretation. israelis are pushing for that and are worried. what's the consequences for the region for the decision he has taken? now, the syrians believe that they are the winners. assad is there, he was supposed to be deposed, fighting for him for the last seven years, now he is very solid and the arab nations, the arab governments, are restoring their relations with assad. the united arab emirates has reopened its embassy, bahrain is doing the same, bashir from sudan, his isolation is broken. could we see him welcomed back publicly formally into the family of arab nations? yes. there are a lot of preparations for that, the reopening of embassies first, second.

there is an arab summit in march next year. already, algeria, tunisia and other countries are working to break the isolation of syria and invite assad to the coming arab summit. so it will be different because he was kicked out in november 2011. so it could be a turning point here. what i find interesting is that a lot of speculation is from western commentators, is that because assad was propped up in the bad days by iran and now you have all these arab nations, what does this mean? the turks immediately after trump said he was pulling out, did not consult with his secretary of defense which is why he resigned. the kurds, who did the heavy listing turning back isis, are suddenly now threatened by the turks. in the last 24 hours they invited assad to send troops to northern syria. and barry brought up israel,

what you have is this complete mess. i don't think there is any clarity because iran is strengthened all the way to the mediterranean by assad consolidating power. israel has had elections. an election in april. no one said they are waiting to replace neta nyahu, he will cobble together and coalition in the couple of years and it will be the same thing. but russia we haven't mentioned and russia has now replaced the united states as the main outside shaper of events and i do wonder what the game is between erdogan and putin and trump.

and what putin wants out of the situation because i think erdogan may be being played here a bit and they will protect the kurds and what happens next, i don't know. first, the kurds are the biggest victim of the americans pulling out from syria. again, they were stabbed in the back. the americans use them to fight isis and they did a fantastic job and kicked out isis from from the capital raqqa in syria, they said thank you very much, go and suck sort out your problems with erdogan, they know erdogan will be harsh on them. so they decided to go to the better choice

which is to go to assad again, who may be much weaker than erdogan and also he is supported by the russians. the russians have the upper hand in syria. i don't think there's any long—term strategy in trump's white house. i think bringing the troops home is always a popular move in america under any circumstances and this was an opportunist move because he was in trouble on other fronts. and it conveniently serves his friend putin. could we see, then, not a better middle east, but a more stable middle east? i think we will. now syria is going back to the arab rank again, there will be a revision of certain policies which guided to this mess, now this is the end of the arab spring. but it is at the price of russia running the show. why not? america is abandoning... we had a lot of problems with america. we had wars. barry, i can remember

doing this programme with you when we were both extremely critical, when 0bama decided his red lines can be crossed and so what? he wasn't going to do anything about it. that was considered to be absolutely immoral and one of the consequences was he was abandoning the middle east to russian influence. that is not healthy. it is healthy. it was americans there, the americans controlled this area for the last 50 years. and what did we have in the middle east? war in iraq, libya and syria. listen to me just one minute. what president trump said, when we had saddam hussein, when we had gaddafi, we had a more stable middle east. that's not what he said at the time. he said it. he changes his line every five minutes. that's not what he said under 0bama at the time. i think given russia's extraordinary success in the muslim world, whether it's internally in chechnya and who could forget the number

three in isis was abu al—chechnya or something like that. you know who i mean. i'm happy as an american citizen to hand the muslim world to russia and let them take the losses for a bit. thank you! on that happy note let's move on to the americas, michael. because we have notjust donald trump in office at the moment, we have the arrival in january of jair bolsonaro, the new brazilian leader, a strongman from the right. and have a strongman from the left in mexico, andres manuel lopez 0brador. these are a big figures, it's getting a crowded neighbourhood? what will happen in 2019, i will put senor bolsonaro and senor lopez 0brador to one side and say that in 2011,

i did this show looking ahead to 2012 and confidently predicted basher al—assad would be gone. the same way as hosni mubarak and gaddafi would be gone and he's are still there. so i will now confidently predict that i don't think donald trump will be president at the end of 2019. i'm with you there, absolutely. the variety of reasons for fact saying that. when he goes, this whole thing that columnists and journalists who spend no time in the countries that they actually write about, this whole thing about strongmen and autocrats, that will die with him. for a strongman, donald is actually really bad at it. erdogan it is good at it, putin is good at it, we will see if bolsonaro is good at it but trust me, donald trump is not good at it. this is one of the reasons i don't think he will survive. is it the mueller investigation, the russia connection? there are three things. we will put mueller last. there are enough red lights about the economy flashing. the uncertainty about how he works.

he doesn't think beyond tomorrow. he doesn't think beyond the next tweet and he doesn't think when he tweets, as we can see when we read them. it's affecting the markets' performance. in the month of november, this is an astonishing figure, i read just last week, not a single ounce of soybeans were sold from america to china. this cannot continue. finally, the most important thing is donald trump gives no loyalty and the party will give him no loyalty back. they have got from him what they want — they have have two supreme court justices, a locked—in conservative majority, they have a tax cut which makes the wealthy donors even wealthier. america really does need allies. i do think they will turn on him. the departure of mattis and john kelly... possibly the head of the fed. and the mueller report, he has kept it close

to his chest but what we know, the way the indictments are being rolled out, he has cast his net wide and he has evidence. i actually think the mueller report will become a sideshow. it won't be a democratic impeachment, that is too slow and he's too dangerous. i think the republican party will have to deal with this and remove him. all the grown—ups have left the room. i wish i was sure that you were right. i really, really hope you're right. except we get mike pence and he is no picnic either. he's sane. he is saner but backpedalling a minute... vice president and former governor of indiana. hardcore conservative money man, religious right, conservative, all of that.

the same nominees. the same nominees in the supreme court. for 18 months. the democrats controlled the house. nancy pelosi is better at moving the process. it's not so much will trump be gone but what happens in 2020. look at 2019. what's left, a year and a half in which most is spent campaigning for the presidency? mike pence is a social conservative, he is not my cup of tea but the point is he would not do the things that trump has done. trump is the infant in the white house playing with very dangerous toys. absolutely and as i said, i hope you are right but having seen so many things is expected to go differently, turn over the last two years, i think we in the age of disruption and there is no predicting anything. there is one thing that americans won't tolerate disruption of and that is the stock market. they are very sophisticated investors, they are very aware of how much their pension funds are linked to the stock market. we are talking about ordinary americans. the little people. not in politics or in the media.

they have pensions. the point is, when bill clinton was going to his ordeal and the economy was booming at the time, everybody said no, he will stay in office because people aren't concerned about paula jones, they are concerned about the dowjones. that is the obverse of what's happening now, people are really concerned. why people aren't concerned about the collapse of the stock market, for example? it isn't collapsing. it is — 1,000 points. let's not go back to that. i believe trump will face a huge problem, immediately, maybe next week, because the house of representatives will be dominated by the republicans... by the democrats. so the republicans are extremely worried that the same thing could happen actually in any coming election. i believe mueller will actually issue his statement. you've mentioned the democrats, barry, this should be, come the new year, the time when we start seeing the democratic white knight if there is such a thing,

appearing on the horizon. is there a figure? this is a problem with the press and particularly with the washington press. 2019 promises to be very interesting and i think the idea that most of the articles in the last month coming from washington are about 2020 speculation, it's clickbait. they do that because they know it's gossip. it's notjust clickbait, it's because that's where a real change will come if change will come. i honestly think if democrats have 15—20 people to sort through, they have no need to be looking for this. what's in front of them is the problem of donald trump. and that's what they need to focus on, not 2020 but this coming year? at a certain point...

barry, let me just finish. at a certain point in time, this will not be a party issue. we keep waiting for the republicans to step up and put country above party. i do think it will happen sooner or later. who will be the white knight? i mean, it could be that, there's beto o'rourke, there's kamala harris, there are men, women, people of colour, latinos, ther'es a wide range. whatever happens in the endgame of trump, that's when you will begin to see a national leader emerge for the democrats and the republicans. i'm not so worried about mike pence. this is a big thing but honestly... if not by impeachment, how do you think trump will go? when the subpoena hits his family's business. he will go voluntarily. he will walk away. i want one place where we haven't payed much attention and we should

think about in the coming year. italy. thank you. the financial crisis, the possible collapse? pulling out of europe. they've already made their deal with brussels, you just didn't read that headline last week. i did, i didn't believe it. i think china and central asia, you can't keep a million people in re—education camps without it having a knock—on effect. china would be my call too. saudi arabia is a very important country, when 100 senators voted that mohammad bin salman is responsible for the killin gof jamal khashoggi, it means there will be a lot of changes there. thank you all very much. that?s dateline london for this week, and this year, and since the new year is a case of out with the old, in with the new, we'll be back at the same time next weekend with a different panel, though you'll have to wait a couple of weeks i'm afraid for a different presenter! from all of us on the programme, have a happy new year.

. they will be at a largely dry day from any of us with high—pressure still in charge and although it will be fairly cloudy, there will be some sunshine breaking through during the afternoon. i think we will see similar scenes on sunday afternoon. in fact, for the remainder of 2018, things are staying mostly cloudy and mild, largely dry some rain in the forecast. we have weather front bringing rain through sunday morning across parts of england and scotland in particular. so we start the day with quite a bit of rain, especially in the east. just a touch of frost especially parts of east anglia.

cloudy start to sunday. it will link the longest of the northern isles. the best of the sunny spells will be the east of scotland and down the east coast of england, too. further west, the cloudy speaker so it will bring mist and fog over the hills and perhaps drizzle for the likes of western scotland, too. temperatures are still mild and 10— 12 degrees on sunday and then things it's a fairly mild and largely dry and unsettled overnight sunday night, into monday. which is of course, new year's eve. moving through the night, the cloud, fairly light winds. some patchy light rain and drizzle for hills and the coasts, particularly scotland. temperatures are staying largely frost free as we head into monday morning. that is look at monday. new year's eve, of course, the final day of 2018, sees high pressure in the driving seat. they will be a weather front sitting to the far north so some breezy conditions for scotland. it could think of it further south,

perhaps down towards the central belt, as we head—on through the latter pa rt belt, as we head—on through the latter part of the day. the rain is light and patchy and another dry and fairly cloudy day with eastern areas once a day and seeing the best of any brightness —— once again. 0vernight new year's eve, it looks mostly dry. fairly cloudy conditions are likely at times. it is high—pressure which will be driving the weather on into new year's day on tuesday. we have this fairly weak front which will slip its way gradually further south. new year's day looks largely still mild and dry before things turn cold after the first week of 2019. goodbye. may have welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers

in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories. france's so—called "gilets jaunes" movement brings protesters onto the streets. for a seventh weekend. 0rganisers blame the festive season for a slight drop in numbers. voting has begun in bangladesh, following an election campaign plagued by violence and complaints of intimidation. with more than 200 people arriving in the past two months, the uk government defends it's handling of the increase in migrants crossing the channel. after the christmas chaos at gatwick, local police say some of the drones seen over the british airport may have belonged to their own force.

the actress damejune whitfield has died at the age of 93.