jumped around eighteen percent in general year on year it's reached roughly nineteen billion dollars with the country's exports up twenty five percent the growth was mostly driven by high energy prices oil and gas sales made up most of the exports. that's it from me for now europe has a journey in less than one last time for more business news and get more stories from our website r.t. dot com slash business.

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feeds now in the palm of your. questions on the dot com. welcome back here with our team here's a look at the top stories colonel. refuses to give up power in libya and accuse a solid bin laden of inspiring the revolt could off he is struggling to control the capital tripoli and western areas while the protestors are consolidating gains in the east of the country. we can leaks founder julian assange has dubbed the u. london court's decision to send him to sweden to stand trial on sexual assault charges are rubber stamping process and many question why i joined his son just being extradited while many conover szell figures are allowed to remain in the u.k. . and russia launches an ambitious mission to upgrade its army over the

next ten years moscow is planning to spend six hundred fifty billion dollars on the project so the headlines here in our next sticking with one of our main stories people about asks his guest if states in the middle east can live up to democratic ideals of self-determination that's an r.t.s. debate show crosstalk stay with us. well see british science. is not like free. markets finance scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports on r.t. . and you can. start. to. flow in welcome to cross talk

computable a part of the globe or democratic rhetoric is beginning to match deeds the north african revolutions are in full swing is this the end of western client ism a neo colonial rule in the early world can the west leave with others and bracing democracy. and you can. start. to discuss new directions for the middle east i'm joined by harold wrote in washington he's an expert on islam and the middle east also in washington we have you know one gal till he is rector of the international trance and peace university and author of fall of the us empire and then what and another member of our crosstalk team on a hunger or a gentleman you have difference of opinion this is crosstalk so you can jump in anytime you want harold if i can go to you first we've all been watching the events going on in north africa first that we had it in tunisia egypt and now very bloody

ended it appears going on in libya here let's look forward what kind of middle east is coming into being in north africa how do you see it in reflecting upon the events of the revolutions as it were. well it is absolutely wonderful that people should have the opportunity to be themselves claim to be free of our autocratic and dictatorial rule which is bend the case that most of the middle east with the exception of iraq for some time now there's only one problem democracy is not the natural state of man it is something which is built on institutions it takes times the problem with elections without democratic institutions is that the other forces which want to humans democracy which want to use elections to take over and be their own tyrants meaning

for example the islamicist could use this for what they really want one vote one man one vote one time so where they're all errol do you see wearing do you see evidence of this at this point it's early in the game i would agree with you but you see evidence of this in the three countries you were talking about libya egypt in libya go ahead. in egypt this is the problem you have the we who is part of the muslim brotherhood. and when he came back to egypt and spoke before a very large crowd into one year square last friday he pushed off the stage the young executive from google and a lot of the people who are interested in the students the young people who are interested in democracy freedom and human rights the problem with the muslim brotherhood is and if i if you don't mind i want to quote exactly what they say

here and this is part of the we and this is the the muslim brotherhood. is our objective the prophet is our leader in the koran is our law jihad is our way dying in the way of allah is our highest hope this is not what the young people of egypt fighting for i could point you on and i go to you and i go to you honey i'm in washington so i mean in light of what we just heard from harold i guess the bogeyman is still alive and well i mean we have to be terrified of democracy because it won't create a possible outflow know it but that's what it sounds like harold ok and that's what we've heard for thirty or thirty years now i mean i'd like you to respond to this ok i'm using my words not yours herald go ahead you're on. ok way i see it is that up front to have two human rights issues and americans have it then

send it to talk about civil and political rights. in one nine hundred sixty six sixteen december that old soviet konami can social rights that is an enormous revolt against political repression and they gainst the horrendous corruption in the call that had on the emplacement the writing on the two covenants of human rights but behind that is the raveling go to. empires the us global empire and israeli region at that age and they have been doing exactly what they imposed all this to prop up the leads and tell them if you don't want to rob your own country do so we only ask you one thing name that you keep agreements with us and those agreement should be kept now to what extent that will come through i don't know but to me this very obvious that the washington point of view said guarneri mubarak is a gun and we'll see what happens the other place is of course what this crucial now

is back then and just a little jump from behind n.b.a. have the eastern province of saudi arabia that would be crucial we see what happens right know i am a little bit less about it about muslim brotherhood will come back to that one i'll give you my d.s. and sway more but it about all my soul amen and to the extent what comes out of egypt is actually the second a fallback position and military dictatorship that's what we have right now about how that will develop we'll see internees yeah it is not that stark not that strong but still very much of the old regime in power which so as far as i can understand is a question of sacrificing the top the names of famous ones and then trying to see if they settled back because it is very interesting here i have if i go to harold here where you're going to hear older i mean there's a good point there is that the militaries are still very much in control and if you

think that the united states is good it's going to find a new part new partners to replace the fallen dictators i mean we we knew about mubarak we knew about ben ali we knew what kind of people they were but they are also had the military there so is the u.s. going to partner with the military now to maybe you get the outcomes they want and then in north africa. well one can assume that what you see there is someone throwing a card of a deck of cards up in the air we don't know how things are going to fall if there is any sort of inclusion meeting forces which believe in democracy freedom and root human rights we should be supporting and we should be very happy with them but when if these things are taken over by the fundamentalists then we should be very very clear. that i excuse me one second unless i can go ahead one second i had. the other speaker here has brought up the the wonderful things that are happening

behind and the and the eastern provinces of saudi arabia i don't know yet but there is something really important that we here in the united states code should be thinking about and this is the following in beheading the about eighty percent of the population is shiite they have been oppressed by the order craddick rulers they are not tyrants but they are autocratic they these people in bahrain are members of the same tribes as a right across the border in saudi or in the eastern provinces of saudi arabia and that involves kuwait as well and even some in southern iraq here's the important thing here shiites have been oppressed by sunny's for fourteen hundred years the first time they have been free is in iraq to be able to make their own decisions the problem is is follows that iran the iranian government certainly not the

iranian people are deeply involved in provoking problems all over the the muslim world the iranians the through what approach a lot of people believe is their age in this guy they call old baradei who was the iranian who was the i.a.e.a. nuclear winter. who basically kept giving iran a free prayer not everybody agrees with that maybe not everyone agrees that's a minority and none of the money agrees with them on the security and minority it is not an excuse me excuse me there is very good reason to believe this here is the problem the iranians at first did not cover the marvelous demonstrations in egypt for the first three days until you started to speak and talk in terms of the muslim brotherhood that is their god that is they are working very carefully with the muslim brotherhood and well if we want freedom in the middle east it would make

sense that there would be that we mean listening to the people of iran who want to overthrow this regime they are shiites if they take over and if there is a free regime in iran that unfortunately our government here has not been supporting the free and the young people who want an end to this regime thirty years. say excuse me thirty there is going to no government in iran would be shiite and the shiites of the gulf who are looking to a big brother at least so. at least passively support them then we would have all throughout the gulf a situation where shiites would have their rights in the countries in which they live and i know we cannot let says that there are two people two other there's another person on the panel ya know i mean what again i see the outside hand of the united states of the west wanting to determine certain outcomes ok we support democracy but you can have this person you can have this ideology you can have this

party it's cetera et cetera this is the same kind of neocolonial pattern that we've had since the end of the second world war in north africa and it must come to an end because we saw what it created we're seeing in the streets now of libya. well it's happening in russia it was not only in russia right now i mean this i mean harold you're great at changing the topic we stay with north africa and you line can you go please go ahead. yes i see many stages in this see there would probably be a second revolt in egypt against a man and immediate dictatorship and the second devolved into a nice say is already coming so we have x. to our next two x. three and so on i don't think we should expect too much. build too much on the bird young we had to take into account that seventy percent of the population india at our birth three hundred fifty million i believe twenty five or so almost everybody is young what we have is the add up street as opposed to the

added deletes that they were stone broke have been catering to and particularly the us and the strains and have been mobilizing them to kill their own people to imprisoned tortured people and to institutionalize an inequality that is absolutely impossible. to handle go sightseeing ride on your own see right here on the economic social to handle those two at the same time within a western democratic formula i think it's an equation that it's very difficult to have sold so we'll see what happens and it will probably be quite dramatic but i'd like to pay attention to one point in the nineteen forty five agreement between franklin roosevelt and even salute on the aircraft carriers in the suit is. going to have to jump in here. because it is part of the program after a short break we'll continue our discussion on new trends in the arab middle east

stay with our feet. in. welcome to the. buried in a blizzard of winter blues get to slopes and try out some new text she's got to live. in its southern melt steel trainers to keep you in top form and watch lying on the goal line carving the trail to sochi twenty four to one technology update here on. the future.

play. plane. took. place. welcome back to crosstalk i'm peter lavelle remind you we're talking about new ways of dealing with the new middle east. but first let's see what russians think north african countries may achieve after their revolutions the social ferment in the middle east is changing the region many

argue it will also change the world order however the transformation period is not yet over the public opinion agency allowed us and also crush what can be the ultimate outcome of the public outrage in egypt thirty two percent said no progress forces will take power in the country thus improving people's living standards seventeen percent believe radical elements might take over thirteen percent see care and destruction of the government as a prospect and another seventeen percent think nothing will significantly change still the us has to liberate its new approach in dealing with this new arab world. ok you know and if i can go back to you i mean we've heard a lot of rhetoric coming out of western capitals during these revolutions these uprisings of what the west wants to do. with a kind of a big red face because it really supported for decades these brutal regimes but we

have to move forward ok and fair enough wouldn't be the best thing right now for western capitals is just to stand back and let these people collect themselves and see what directions they want to go to if they want to vote for religious parties that is their business it's essentially anything that the west does now because of its tainted past will look like outside interference. they won't blame you ask you where the herald herald i asked you on first and then you can answer ok johann please go ahead i think i think their western powers are getting increasingly irrelevant but they he had to talk about the burden nato has been mentioned according to an extended leave guys in on the fly zone and that is of course the possibility that the us failed have to stay on their its obligation from nineteen forty five to come to the protection of the royal house in saudi arabia if it is that taken by its own people ok. you want to jump in go ahead the

idea of american involvement again america is a political nation we are many people's living in this country what we have in common our democracy freedom and human rights a loyalty to these principles it is the only type of sustainable foreign policy that america can ever have because that's what our people are interested in as long as all of these revolutions are inclusive and that people can express themselves and you don't they're not taken over by new tyrannical forces then america will support them the american people if only other hand these are used by the forces of evil the iranian government not the iranian people the iranian government and fundamentalism then we have a problem and on the other hand want to raimi is a pretty fundamentalist regime isn't it i mean you always want to go to iran but

you don't look at where fundamentalism comes from in the region and saudi arabia is one of the epicenter of it obsolete right your abs no no no then we should invade saudi arabia you always want to invade iraq iran let's invade saudi arabia excuse me you talked about invasion not i you know we should be helping the young people we should be helping the opposition with communications equipment there are many many things that we can do but we can our president unfortunately has not talked about this our president unfortunately has supported. what he has said has been supportive of the iranian regime and not the iranian people hair on the whole world doesn't amount to random white oh hell we're all citizens of modern ran wow i ask you to come on this program to talk about north africa excuse me excuse me you have up the gulf you brought out of saudi arabia and i would agree with you that look the fact that. matter is that the eastern province of saudi arabia are

overwhelmingly shiite where the oil is is shia eat and these provinces were stolen by the wahhabi is who run that country in nineteen zero two these people don't want to live in a stand they don't want to live in saudi arabia that's why i am an arguing if there was a free government in iran it would be a natural our by the forces of freedom for through the united states the west i know the west is hated by the other speaker here i love the west thank god because at least stand for those for you think the people in the greater middle east love the west for what it's done over the last four decades harold. do you think the people in central a user love the russians or the people and try to. change the subject for just all change the suspicion against what must really interest me in the sense of probably people from central asia come to russia to work come on harold get clued in here ok

and you throw them out of moscow was what you do they're coming every single day here in being why you changing the subject why do you know exactly who you are i am doing what is i think you are not in. the middle east well america country we have done some deal for one simple question we can trade simple question we take all sorts of discriminate against people and they can make something of themselves in the united states where you are right now it is very very difficult for that that have been. talking about where i am right now we're talking about north africa not in iran all right you know you don't have the gulf before because you start you start with the rand in the first thing you said in this uprising of my not long harold that's the first thing you started out with if i go with you johan ok what about the issue well what about the issue of the israel what about the problem of israel here because in the new a new middle east we're democratic governments eastern harold i'm sorry johann how

do we the israeli question come into play because you mentioned that in the beginning of the program too can a democratic arab middle east have peace with israel. absolutely you know i'm can you answer first go ahead you know and you say you and i understand that i have i have the floor going i think it's very difficult think that of st this definitely against an avid expansion is the zionist israel and they have expressed seven times again and again they would to be content and could believe read a for june nineteenth sixty seven israel would somebody be actions that study other agreement their legal agreement the demand that iran has signed off by doing the job has done that so i would say the side if we have one step billeted the basic point would be for the west the u.s. european union and these threads to stop interfering to stop building their

political systems propping up their autocrats and their enormous inequality comically you see these people are fighting against that and they are perfectly cognizant that behind the u.s. any threat so sooner or later the car time will come to all of that i would not overplay their shia sunnis you grieve it had all it's an issue sixty one percent of iraq is a shia and inclusive you have add abyssinia down so they below course have an open border that's what they want they want to be to get there just like the kurds want to be together so that i many things that have to be shaped in the middle east and all of it is coming up one after the other go ahead errol go ahead jump in what about can israel live in peaceful coexistence with a democratic arab north africa and beyond ok if that is to come to some loathly and here is why if you notice democratic societies worry about the internal problems

that you have look at iraq the only arab country in the middle east which talks you hear in the wind which of street the. it's the word hope that people feel a sense of inclusion that they have a chance of making something of themselves and they don't have to cal tell to some bureaucrat or or or or some autocratic tyrant or something like that is iraq in democratic societies worry about what goes on inside of their countries and that is the greatness of what we have helped happen in iraq and i wouldn't say that iraq usual or israel for the u.s. . for the invasion by and large the answer is absolutely true and if the proof of that is look when you even had for eight months no government in iraq were they killing each other this was the norm in the middle east no the

answer is to get to a democratic system where people talk it through and eventually reach some sort of compromise that's what we helped engender in iraq and god willing that's what will happen throughout the other middle eastern places the other middle eastern countries and peoples as well can israel live with such a thing absolutely without a question of a doubt is iraq obsessed with israel right now you never hear about it because they're obsessed with themselves which is what they should be ok you know if i could have irony if i could ask both of you heart of a case supported by western governments anyway minute and i to ask you how the minute you think that still when we watch so i give you a chance harold please don't shove in our other guests it's unfair it still isn't being fair skews your not being seizure you're not being fair and when you go to our other guests i noticed and things you learned illiterate johanne and the thing country every so many people in the world were very very happy to see the uprising against these tyrants in the middle east should the palestinians now have the right

to show the same kind of free expression. again. they're broke and. can not leave then the expansionist. we'd ever expanding settlements importing russians to do it where they could easily accommodate people in northern israel they can live with their way and ties cooperated with. being gassed so they kind of leave that to all that has to change and they expect this middle east end thing your call it north africa that's quite right that's very much in the neighborhood my god have much luck i expected to come to like it came today to madison wisconsin and suddenly you have vaulted madison wisconsin how far this goes i don't know but it is about inequality and one instrument that can settle some inequality namely collective bargaining it's a human right and it is enshrined in the human rights so you see this is

a general tendency not restricted to north africa and to the middle east the increasing inequality under the economic system we have we need to exactly that kind of thing and i'm quite willing to admit that much of that will have been beat out the help of us in these three. times a very interesting and heated debate here many thanks my guess. and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk.