if you're away from your television of the it just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch your t.v. anytime anywhere. president obama host president karzai at the white house this afternoon on the agenda the war in afghanistan u.s. troops have been in the country says two thousand and one so when will they leave for good report on the meeting just ahead. taking to the streets to protest president obama's and the opening of guantanamo bay protesters march in d.c. are trying to push president obama into closing guantanamo bay the facility in cuba where the u.s. holds enemy combatants they claim are on trial we'll take you to the demonstration and he's been tapped by president obama to be the next person to lead the treasury department besides this terrible handwriting what else do we know about jack lew

does some digging into his past will share what info we found coming up. it's friday january eleventh five pm in washington d.c. i'm going lopez and you're watching r.t. all right well at the moment we've all been waiting for for over a decade just hours ago president obama met with his afghan counterpart to discuss a twenty fourteen drawdown of american troops now in front of the camera both president obama and president karzai have presented a united front and say that they agree on the future goals for the country here's one of the more surprising moments that came out of today's speech starting this. troops will have different. training advise and assist afghan forces. it will be a stork moment and another step toward full afghan sovereignty something i know

that president karzai cares deeply about as do the afghan people on that front the two leaders agreed but one report after another has demonstrated that these two leaders are often at odds with one another r.t. arabic correspondent rima joined me earlier to talk about the current relationship between the presidents and what we learn from today's meetings. even though they try to give us that picture that they've agreed on the goals that everything is going well i don't think that was really what happened behind closed doors i mean the fact is the fact that obama could not even talk about the precise number of troops to be left in afghanistan the problem with the immunity the issue of immunity the nature of though he kept saying that the nature of the troops left in afghanistan will be fundamentally different we did not really hear an exact plan that may be as i has been in washington for a whole week to try to get to try to guarantee from president obama so i don't know

if that if we can call that a united front differences were very obvious especially when they were talking about immunity specially when they were talking about the number of the troops to stay in afghanistan so the situation is very complex. living in twenty fourteen for the elections he did say during the press conference that he will be retired that that leaves the future of the future of afghanistan as vague as the nature of the relations between the united states and afghanistan in the future so obviously a lot actually came out of this conference today or we have learned a lot and that might be learning that there are still not much that we know at this point or that they have figured out concretely at this point one thing that did come up over and over again was president karzai saying in reiterating the fact that they need afghan sovereignty in the nation and one of the surprising things that actually came out of today was that they announced that once the cars i

returned to the country they will be in charge of the detention facilities and the detainees in afghanistan the afghan forces will be talk about the importance of this and why this was a sticking point for president karzai he can go back and tell his people i have accomplished something now we do have control over our own over own prisoners now this is the silver entity that i've been talking about this is something that. accomplished in this trip this is. he can use this. goes back to his country for his people to tell them that our sovereignty is coming back the troops are going to leave we are going to be in charge of our own destiny of our own future of or own basically security this is something that the afghanis have demanded a lot because of the fact i mean this is their country and just imagine the afghanis in a situation where they live in their own country but someone else is controlling their own prisons someone else is controlling their own prisoners who gets to stay

there who gets to go on trial who gets what and when and this is something that i have been putting as i under a lot of pressure and this is something that now we can use and tell his people that have accomplished something of this trip now that's one of the selling points for president karzai now on the other hand president obama had his own sticking points you kind of talked about a little bit in your first answer president obama said that he will not leave troops in the country in afghanistan beyond twenty fourteen if there's no guarantee of immunity that was a pretty safe line that he drew today what we saw in iraq when we drew out of iraq was the fact that that was not offered immunity was not offered to u.s. troops past a certain point so what did we do we pulled all of them out is this going to be feasible for the u.s. for them to be able to pull out all the troops if it's not granted and president karzai do you think grant them this type of right president karzai himself cannot

just grant them he has to go back to his country to his to the people on the ground and try and this is what he said actually now i can argue that immunity is something that we could give to the soldiers who remain in afghanistan that this is not something that he can just get on his own but the situation in both iraq and afghanistan are completely dead. what might have worked in iraq might not necessarily work in afghanistan and i think the same will go with the immunity thing although he cannot guarantee. immunity to the american troops on his own but he's going to try to go people into that but the structure of afghanistan is completely different than that of iraq in iraq the parliament had to decide on this and the parliament basically said no we're not guaranteeing the immunity of any soldier to just do whatever they want in our country is that going to be the same in afghanistan most probably yes but because the structure is different because of

the tripes and because of the. kabal and a lot of people just as the mayor of kabul and that's very true because cavill is basically the country the rest of the country is scattered villages under twenty five thousand inhabitants so very hard to get them to accept or not accept immunity given immunity to soldiers and will they have a say that's something that we will find out in the future basically so just because president karzai says that he thinks that it will happen doesn't necessarily mean that the entire country will agree with that and you just kind of brought up a little bit that that you think that are that the afghan people think that president karzai is the mayor of kabul so let's talk about kind of how he's seen in his own country people perspective and also how is he how is he seen in the region well he's seen as someone who can pull strings together someone who can actually get something done on the international level in afghanistan itself what has the

country accomplished we know the situation of education in afghanistan we know the situation of health in afghanistan the infrastructure the fact that most people are still living in poverty so for the people of afghanistan cares i has not accomplished a lot. i don't know how much respect they would have for him but i know that they see him as someone who could not accomplish everything he did and maybe that's one of the reasons he was talking about the fact that he wants to retire maybe because he knows that he does not have a future in the future of afghanistan so why you bring up this retirement let's go ahead and talk about that one of the sticking points that president obama and other obama administration officials have announced is that it's time for him to start seriously considering a democratic election where the people choose somebody else the fact is that karzai has been in power for over twelve years now and he's still going is there forced

retirement on the u.s. part do they even have a hand to force his retirement and will president karzai release the reins so freely all it needs. to do all he needs to do is basically manipulate the constitution and i'm getting one of the observers who is talking about the situation in afghanistan and most likely a lot of people see him doing so is he going to do so i think the u.s. does not want to see again stand does not want to see its role in afghanistan being manipulated as such why. but at the same time they're looking at the alternatives and the alternatives do not look very promising maybe at this point in afghanistan so it's it's very complicated twenty fourteen is going to be. maybe the challenge for the u.s. diplomacy in the you know in twenty four team and another thing that we heard today that was a little bit surprising for those of us are watching the president obama president

karzai announcement today was that president karzai announce that the taliban will have an office in doha qatar and that the afghans will become doing peace talks with these people so why is this so surprising first of all and also i have to ask you is there ever going to be an afghanistan without the taliban. i am not sure about the second part of the question i don't think that's going to happen though because the band is one of the main players in afghanistan it's very strong that it has support from the people and for many different reasons some of it ideological and some of it just to do with social services so i don't see them as a power vanishing in afghanistan and maybe that's one of the reasons they're talking about the solution not just within afghanistan but an office for a band in a different country to the talks and the dialogue between the government and

afghanistan many people do not see this as very surprising actually the fact that will have its own office they've been talking about this for a long time qatar is seen as some as a place where they can actually haase they can have both parties to talk about the consultation process how successful is that that's the question because taliban is not is not just one faction and one group taliban is composed of different groups who believe in different things and we're not sure that all of them agreed to the fact that they want to have. well we learn a lot of things today perhaps not the things that we wanted to learn but we did learn a lot about the relationship between the two presidents i appreciate your reporting remarkable him via our arabic correspondent thanks so much for joining us. perhaps the most important topic that came up for debate between the two presidents today was how many troops will remain in the country after the u.s. withdrawals up until recently and we've heard numbers of anywhere between five and ten thousand troops but just days before the meeting between the two presidents was

slated to take place white house deputy national security adviser ben rhodes said the administration is considering pulling all troops out of the country so we wanted to know what you think do you think that the administration will be will be true to its word it is seriously considering taking all the troops out of afghanistan laurie harshness of the resident dot net to that very question to the streets of the big apple take a look. the obama administration has recently said that it's considering having no troops in afghanistan after december of two thousand and fourteen is that a good thing a bad bag or a totally made up thing designed for political shenanigans this week let's talk about that do you even think he's going to do it he said that two years ago and it

didn't have been saddened by it so why does he keep saying it if he doesn't mean it . to get people to like it and their families will be happy but hopefully you know you finish what you started what do we start and what do we have to finish what is finishing me i guess to capture or kill or. do you think that we've defined what the end means it's tough because you know we don't know everything i think we need to have a world presence to maintain a democracy why is it up to us to maintain a world presence why don't we just get out of everyone's business well that's a good idea too but if no if we don't do it nobody will and there was a world going to go to war and we really need a stabilizing factor and until now in time it's been us but we're the ones causing all the wars. depends on your perspective i think as a band sword we're more defending than attacking but don't you think that there are some people in the world that feel like america imposing its will on their

countries yes but america's will lose its freedom and democracy at its heart it's not a fanatical you don't think it's you know might be money and imperialism a little bit too i don't believe that it is imperialism. and what about money do you think that money might drive some of the reasons for gold of course but money is going to help everybody i don't think it's happening i just came back from afghanistan so oh so you don't believe that he's really going to pull the troops away. not entirely i think that i think that there our presence there is important and it's more sustaining what we've done so far my opinion is that the reason we are over there is because of the wonderful lawyer that i have it's all about money and. that's a merino someone to put your life on the line doesn't that make you mad it makes me really upset because we have a lot of marines that are dying each and every day in afghanistan you know and you

know for god's sakes i can be next you know so it does make me pretty upset that he's promising something that he's not owning up to is the bottom line is we're so used to having u.s. troops all over the world up in everyone's business that we probably can't imagine of pulling out of anywhere and that makes americans the world's bullies whether we like it or not. for over ten years it's cast a shadow over u.s. diplomatic efforts the guantanamo bay detention facility opened exactly a loving years ago today in its time it has held and interrogated hundreds of prisoners some guilty of numerous atrocities some completely clean of crime all held without due process eleven years and still no end in sight now since the first

days of his first term our constitutional lawyer term president has expressed time and again his plans to close the facility but i've said repeatedly that i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that i've said repeatedly that america doesn't torture and i'm going to make sure that we don't torture those are . those are part and parcel of an effort to regain america's moral stature in the world it's a sentiment echoed as recently as a few months ago there are some things that we haven't gotten done i still want to close guantanamo we have been able to get the polka which. despite these promises the facility remains open even housing a new seven hundred fifty thousand dollar soccer field but critics are not giving up their pursuit to have closed permanently amnesty international held a stand in orange protest in washington d.c.

today arctic correspondent christine for south takes us there. it is january eleventh that means want on a mobile bay has now been opened eleven years the people you see here in orange jumpsuits represent the one hundred sixty six people still at guantanamo there are also people holding signs like this one that represent the eighty six people that have been cleared for transfer and yet still remain behind bars. was not just a place it's an idea and the idea behind it is that the u.s. government can ignore its human rights violations in the name of this never ending a global war so that the concept of indefinite detention is what has to end it's not just about one ton of we've been involved in this issue and certain about guantanamo since two thousand and five so we've been coming out we were a kid go far far now they have kids i want them to know that it's the right thing to do to believe in something and stand up for it this is an issue many people have been protesting against for years but one they thought would be over in two thousand and eight once president obama won the election. i don't know if you know

any of the rock songs you're too young maybe from the sixty's but one of them the refrain is welcome to the new boss same as the old boss said it makes us less safe when we mistreat people and torture them some military people have said this is a great recruiting tool for al qaeda look what they're doing to our muslim brothers in guantanamo the protest ended here not far from the white house and just before inauguration those involved say they're hoping that president obama make one ton of obey a priority this time around in washington christine for our team. moving on now there's been a lot of news coming out of the white house in past week and severable several notable changes in the obama administration lineup one has been controversial one has been predictable and one has gotten attention for a different reason jack lew is president obama's pick to replace timothy geithner

as the new treasury secretary it's a name you've probably heard a lot about as of late here's why in the only do you what this you you could be seeing a lot of but everyone still talking about treasury secretary nominee jack lew's look be signature new york magazine says it has been called the worst autograph in washington jack assures me that you're going to work to make at least one letter legible one of our producers found what could be the true inspiration for the treasury secretary nominee is unique signature so here's a few things you didn't know about the man as c o n y u he helped bust graduate student worker unions he was the c.e.o. of citi group swells and management group an alternative investment groups and told congress he didn't personally know the extent to which deregulation drove the financial crisis but i don't believe that deregulation was the proximate cause that's a quote from jack lew now president obama is sure to face some contention when it

comes to chuck hagel nomination for defense secretary but jack lew is practically a shoo in however given this man's history with banks and his stances on deregulation should we expect more of the same from him for more kyle harrington founder of harrington capital management joins me hey there kyle so let's are you doing well how are you sir good jack lew is not a surprising choice to many just i mean he isn't facing as much scrutiny as more of an out of the box kind of nominee. well i you know it's interesting aside from his peculiar signature you know i think you know one needs to look at whether or not you are republican democrat liberal conservative his his background is it is kind of interesting as well it seemed as if he was raised and grew up on more of a government dependent spending liberal side of the equation and then he got into private practice in which he you know like you highlighted said that financial

deregulation had nothing to do with the collapse so you you you wonder whether or not you know where he is and again with the less thing we need in my opinion out of washington d.c. with respect to any of the investment markets equity markets bond markets is lack of clarity with any nominee and here this is there are there there is some mixed views on where he stands with particular issues now a couple things i've heard about him is that he isn't a hardcore deficit hawk he's not a bully and he is a numbers guy he's very detail oriented but should a secretary kerry secretary be a deficit hawk considering the whole that we're at right now yeah i mean you know. look these just any of these jobs at this current time i think are going to be very challenging the deficit is where it is we all know that we have a debt ceiling issue coming up without which i think if we increase that debt

ceiling is going to have a vibrational effect on a lot of things one being the credit rating of the united states which i think could potentially be at risk of another downgrade so he's got his hands full for sure keep in mind he did work for the clintons i think he was head of the office of budget management and he he did balance the budgets there but i'm still the jury's still out with respect to where i am with you know how he views the government. spending as well as taxes. tension support. has dismissed links between deregulation. the such a dangerous bully well you see here you know it's this is a very sensitive issue right because republicans believe in a lot less regulation in i think the democrats lean toward having more of

a regulatory environment maybe too much that pendulum is a very sensitive issue and i think needs to be managed very delicately because i think you know some of the the collapse did have to do with extreme deregulation at the same time i think we have swung way to four to the other way which is just increased scrutiny and regulatory environment that involves a lot of lawyers that i think is just exaggerated there too so he's going to have to do a very crafty and creative job at making sure we're that center point is because this issue is going to be very interesting in the financial services business for example at the current time where we sit harrington capital management we've seen a dramatic increase with the regulatory bodies on where how when why have you done certain things on behalf of. of clients so you know that can get exaggerated and way too difficult to do business and conduct business in

a normal fashion so kyle let me ask you this doesn't to say what type of regulations he will and will not enforce and what does that mean to you well i think that you know where jack's going to come out is he's going to lean more toward higher regulations i think that that is obama's belief and i think that a government you know d.c. centric belief system and higher regulatory environment we saw the fiscal cliff issue with raising taxes on the wealthy i think that that's where jack's going to go i don't really that's not where i think we should go but i don't think we should go to an extreme deregulation again and so i think it needs to again it's going to be a sensitive area where that falls in by think. it's going to lean toward furthering regular the regulatory environment and jack has also been described as a liberal but here's a conundrum for you as we kind of highlighted a little bit earlier he's played a key role in reading the new york university of its graduate student workers union

on the other hand the white house says that lou supports workers' right to organize just like president obama can you talk about this this kind of conundrum the a little bit well meghan there and again lies what i was outlining in the beginning of this which is you know if there are mixed signals in the ambiguity is concerning i i i i think we will see that because i think he is a shoo in for the treasury secretary nomination we will see you know he's going this is going to be his center stage. performance and we're going to see where he you know where is he a union guy is he not a union guy where the regulatory environment the regulatory environment with respect to where he's concerned and i think that he's going to be more of a union person with high regulatory. viewpoints and it's not exactly a time you know considering how rocky that. the financial as industry is right now

to be having those types of ins uncertainties is this nomination i find that the obama administration thinks the financial crisis is done well. you know i mean there's been a lot of very interesting decisions that the obama administration has made some i agree with and some i don't i think this is very mixed signals and i'm a bit disappointed in the rush to nominate nominate him but you know i don't know all of the details all i can say is i don't believe it's good for the equity markets and for the small and medium sized business world to perform where we needed to perform to get this kind of going in the right direction to increase g.d.p. growth to increase the belief in the american currency again and so you know we shall see and then finally we have just about a minute left but i have to ask you this obviously i'm timothy geithner took a few punches here and there in his day from our lives of the industry is then called the fail or out in chief and what not but i have to ask you he was it love

him or hate him moving the industry in the right direction and terms of regulation so are we going to lose that momentum with with jack's nomination here i you know again this that's a jets of the debts a job that that was very difficult think jack lew inherits even more difficult job as a result of you know the economy and the belief in the united states currency in our credit rating in a whole bunch of things here's the key here is that all of these things you're seeing are actually linked and there's a domino effect to a lot of them so that job in particular is going to be you know heightened scrutiny and. you know are not necessarily in full agreements with the decision but then again i'm not the president of the united states there's definitely a lot that we are expecting out of him that they view the country needs from hands a lot to see how this all plays out karl herenton founder of parenting capital management thank you for your time thank you megan. what's in

a name you may of been introduced to the term homeland security as a justification for needing to take your shoes off at the airport or for spending billions of government dollars but what does homeland security actually entailed that innocent question would stump the thirty federal agencies and groups who receive homeland security funds funding this is according to a new report from congressional research service says it says ten years after the september eleventh two thousand and one terrorist attack that's according to a congressional research service of course and the idea of homeland security and the agency with that name came up after september eleventh of course the first foreign attack on u.s. soil since pearl harbor in arguably the largest so is it is generally agreed that

terrorism and the notion of protecting the homeland play a different part in the idea of homeland security but some of the mission statements the report analyzed found now that natural disasters were considered as threats to homeland security or at least an excuse to get some of that federal money to at least two thousand and twelve department of homeland security even included the very vague phrase other hazards to make the definition as broad as possible now this is more than semantics if there is no agreed upon definition for homeland security the different agencies could be on totally different pages they could get in with each other so they could get in each other's way potentially or even have conflicting strategies so i don't expect merriam webster to come up with a good definition to homeland security any time soon the government that invented it still has to come up with one itself and that's going to do it for.