it would roll over thirty thousand troops from afghanistan is one of the main pledges in barack obama's state of the union address examines the foreign policy areas he wasn't keen to talk about. his broken israeli media a shroud of secrecy of the death of an alleged secret agent in custody despite the government trying to keep it quiet. and with europeans paying some of the highest taxes in the world the wealthy take flight to protect their cash and small business is taking too big a hit. from a new. this is r t with the screen twenty four hours a day. the first state of the union address of his second term to try and appease

lawmakers and taxpayers making fresh promises to boost the economy and slash debt and foreign policy the us president also announced thirty four thousand troops will leave afghanistan by next february he looks at what he did and didn't say. after over a decade of war troops are coming home in twenty fourteen as obama put it obama points out that there are two missions now one to prepare handing afghan forces to take over so that the country does not slip into chaos again the key word here again it almost seems as if it's now a stable place just today reports of ten civilians killed by a nato strike targeting taliban insurgents and while obama spent most of his speech talking about the economy and taxes he failed to mention that so far the u.s. has invested over one hundred billion dollars in reconstruction of afghanistan and

that this year alone it's expected another thirty billion dollars could be spent in eight this as the afghan state is rated one of the most corrupt in the world despite red flags from a watchdog monitory bad aid they say there's no way of ensuring all this money is going to the right place or whose hands the cash is falling into and that it's too dangerous in many places in afghanistan to safely observe what's happening well former and. some have become very rich including western officials well most afghans have been left with nothing many countries thrive on this war they make money there is their u.n. people are others who are lined up and making fat salaries and while the life of afghan ordinary afghans have not changed of course we have had some things like media like communication in this and that but. in relation to what was

available and what could have been done it's drop in the bucket now obama also spoke of defending democracy across the globe most notably the arab spring which is previously been held by his administration a great success especially libya egypt and tunisia those countries of course now still drowning in chaos and violence two years on well over. arma has changed his tune a bit now saying well it's going to be messy those transitions also his tone on syria a bit distant considering a year ago the us was insisting president offered moscow a lot of speculation about intervention was going on now the president saying they will continue to put pressure on the syrian leader but another pledge from obama to continue to push for legal and durable policy on counterterrorism no mention here of guantanamo drones or wiretapping and obama mentioned internet freedoms well sort of he flaunted signing an executive order on cyber defense but the order is really

seen as a response to congress's refusal to pass the cyber intelligence sharing and protection act or says last year in light of serious privacy concerns in other words a loophole is now available for cispa to effectively be put into action let's get more on obama's comments on cybersecurity from he's the leader of the u.k. party laws president obama he cited growing threats from cyber attacks how justified all of these fears well of course we all want to be protecting key infrastructure in our country but frankly extremely worrying the bombers chosen to sign an executive order in such a controversial area as security now. your report mentions very controversial. so says. liberties groups that

were been warning that this. barry a super serious monitoring of ordinary citizens internet use now what be so sensually by signing an executive order this is by no hearts in congress but that also means bypassing public debate on this important issue parts but he does stress that this executive order will possess strong privacy and civil liberties protections so why don't you trust that. sure the executive order in itself is actually an improvement on sis in particular because the information is just about flowing in one direction from government to key infrastructure company however it's pretty transparent that this actually was accenture the political ploy to quote pressure on congress to actually to move forward with further legislation

and indeed a promise said that explicitly within the within the state of the union address what's what's very worrying it's still the definitions are very loose so what constitutes final intrusion for example for. denial of service attacks. which are usually for example we've seen time and time again legislation brought in the name of national security to be or to be used for widely and actually harassing ordinary citizens but why is that law is what it because you just said key infrastructure interests are at stake here a bomb has power grids financial institutions and the air traffic control systems could be sabotaged now surely something's got to be done if that threat is really existing and why then should ordinary people be worried about the impact of those being protected. by this initiative what will probably have to look for what is actually on board on the table here it's out when we come down when. we come back

to actually these key infrastructure areas where it's basically ordinary ordinary police think it's actually a bit ludicrous to address this ark and it's unmanned which side of this that and the other but the important thing to freni if we find this security it's about securing systems and technology not securing access to the private information of citizens and all of this legislation to people it's actually information sharing that it's the constat it's really the concern that civil liberties groups have so this sort of ask you this doesn't solve all the citizens like you and me the we busy internet every day is it not aimed at criminal groups terrorists and indeed even state sponsored organizations well i mean if we look at what the executive order has in it it's actually i think it's going to end up pleasing no one because

security experts said today that it's that it's actually pretty truthful it's this is because it's an exact it doesn't how that same power to compel companies to act but that it's actually as i said it's it's out it's actually essentially a political tool to put pressure on congress psystar is not off the table this is coming back and this has huge huge implications in terms of the monitoring of all of all citizens and also this is not just for us it's a concern to all of us around the world what u.s. starts miles thanks a lot good to hear your thoughts there from the u.k. power party life here in r.t. thank you. well thousands are taking to the streets of dresden to protest against a neo nazi march held annually by far right extremists it marks the anniversary of the allied bombing of the city in eastern germany where we can now see pictures live pictures from marty's brand new video agency ruptly some three thousand police

from across the country were sent to dresden to prevent clashes between the marchers and their opponents in autism condemning the bombing that nearly destroyed the city months before the end of world war two but local residents there they're angry at what they see as a hijacking of the end of my street for the purposes of propaganda when i was taught more than that with georgina sikorsky she's from the european network against racism she joins me now live from brussels now this is an annual event georgina how alarming is it that it it's become a tradition after all this time. sorry could you repeat this. list is an annual event we're seeing there in dresden just tell worrying is it that it's becoming a tradition after all this time i mean this this bombing happened toward the end of the second world war yes i mean it's a it's an extremely worrying phenomenon because it essentially as we see the not only in germany but in other european countries as well there is an increasing

popularity of these rights movements and even their nuts who reads for instance then at the same time it's really encouraging to see that interest and there is this counter march happening that really has shows that there is a position to these movements and opposition to ideologies promoting hatred and extremism why is there a royds in the interests of neo nazis and throughout europe now as you just said. i mean it's difficult to pinpoint one cause i mean obviously the economic crisis is exacerbating tensions of duty loss of jobs exception but at the same time it's i mean it's been the last you know. since before the economic crisis so it's really difficult to pinpoint one but what's really important is that governments and politicians really take

a clear starts against the ideas promoted by most and really promote a message that unites instead of separate people while the economic situation isn't getting any better throughout europe is it there will soon the debt crisis continue more and more social unrest so therefore where perhaps could this worrying trend in india not lead to. well it's difficult to say i mean i'm not i'm not i don't have a crystal ball to look into the future but i mean obviously the continuing economic crisis is not going to help but if political leaders really show political will to fight this trend and to really promote social inclusion and promote equality then i think we can with yeah you talk about social inclusion multiculturalism that could be a threat all those initiatives that european countries are trying to promote could be undermined by this. yes but i mean in some countries we've seen that despite the

crisis governments are continuing to. invest in in social inclusion policies and integration policies so i mean it shows that even despite the crisis it doesn't mean that governments don't have to continue you know promoting these policies and improving the situation for europeans is there not a danger that the far right parties could really make it to mainstream european politics any time soon we see what's going on in greece at the moment. yes i mean definitely in some countries i mean the far right has have some breakthrough i mean we've seen also in the recent french elections that. that had quite a big share of the vote so that at the same time another actually is the far right has has had losses so there's not really picture across europe but there's definitely a danger that for instance some cultures like greece if the government doesn't invest in social measures that this might be the case in the future georgina from

the european network who gets racism thank you very much indeed for joining us georgina thanks thanks for being with us live here on our take. just ahead this hour european leaders may think tax hikes will help tackle the debt crisis something we've just been talking about in that interview europe's wealthy are being lured away by latex country. with small business left at home struggling to stay afloat a reporter left is just ahead for you this hour and also still to come. in teaching religious schools spread across tunisia after more than two decades of being banned under the previous regime investigate whether islam in schools is good for young minds that report and after the break. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized

everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

continues minority a man who was out of work is himself on fire in front of a job center in the french city of nonce the forty three year old self immolated after finding out he was ineligible for unemployment benefits the last time this happened in france was last august when a man died after burning himself in paris well let's get the details from marty's tesser a silly or tell us what exactly happened there in this latest case of self immolation. well we have the basic details what we know is that this forty three year old man is jobless unemployed and he had died after setting himself on fire in front of that employment agency and a french city of none to know it said it reports that he had actually set a letter to some journalists saying that he was going to do this this week so the police had said that they had sort of surveillance outside that employment agency

but they didn't manage to see him he was already on fire they said he had entered through a side street and therefore this tragedy had happened now the man did this after finding out that he he is no longer eligible for those unemployment benefits and as you mentioned earlier this is not the first time it has happened in france in august we know that a fifty year old jobless man had done the same and this is a worrying sign for france for a country that has seen its unemployment rising for the past twenty months and this after a president had been elected on a campaign of jobs and growth so we haven't seen any improvements on this front so a lot has declared twenty thirteen as a battle for jobs he said that by the end of the year there would be he would be creating jobs for the french people however statistics show that by midyear the number is set to rise and let's not forget that more than three million french people this number does not include people who have quit the unemployment program because they simply have exhausted all their benefits similar to the case of the

man who had just burned himself and also those young people who have never registered or those who are in part time jobs and who are hoping to find better jobs this is not included in those numbers and therefore reality is much grimmer than the number of says say also france's finances have been going down in the past thirty five years according to the o.e.c.d. it's not getting better but as you say the job problem really doesn't look as if it's getting any better as indeed the financial situation only fears that we sort of desperate could be repeated because of these conditions. well the ads that we saw in france today is far fall we actually have already seen in other countries so we hope it does not going to new but if we look at the trend we've seen a lot of suicides and attempted suicides in countries like greece one of the hardest hit euro zone countries because of this eurozone crisis there's a general feeling of a still be in the country a lot of people going out in protest we've also heard of stories of suicide italy another hard hit country so if we're looking at the trend that's happening in

europe we hope it does not continue but we could see a lot more of expressions of dissatisfaction hopefully not resorting to suicides but we can see protests certainly are still down the line of people expressing their dissatisfaction at the fact that unemployment is still going up they simply do not have jobs what what we see here in france is simply a slice of life a glimpse into that individual's life if giving life to that statistic unemployment rising this is what happens on the ground to an individual who is suffering through the unemployment crisis here in europe. from brussels thanks very much indeed for that. we're just getting some news just in this hour breaking news that a passenger plane carrying about forty people has crash landed near the city of donetsk in eastern ukraine it's believed the aircraft which was on an internal float missed the runway and overturned before bursting into flames

a full scale of casualties isn't clear but early reports suggest at least three people have been killed with four still missing reasons for the crash landing on the investigation of course we'll bring you more details as we get them here live on our team. veil of silence of the death of a top secret prisoner has been lifted by the israeli media which had been gagged by a court order it surface following a report in the australian press about a man linked to the israeli secret service who hanged himself in prison after months of being held in secret or he has the details. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu summoned the editors of all the major israeli news outlets to an emergency meeting and in that meeting he asked them not to publish the story saying and i'm quoting that it would be embarrassing to a certain government agency not at first the editors did listen and all references to the original australian report were removed from israeli news websites but later

it was brought back not only to the web sites but also to all the radio and t.v. stations here and certainly sincerely also this morning it has been the headline news everyone there is referencing it as a report from australia not what we understand is that israeli parliament terence did oss the justice minister to confirm whether or not this report was true and they also demanded to know if there were other prisoners who were being held in secret in israeli jails the justice minister's comments were and i'm quoting that there is no doubt that if this information is accurate this is something that needs to be checked state senses gave news office in israel the green light to report on this parliamentary debate but nothing else but of course we're witnessing now that the reporting has gone much further than just this debate such a gag order it is important to say it is highly unusual in israel ways state military sense is normally an hour of the local media to quote someone sources on controversial topics such as the alleged israeli strike in syria last month what we

also understand is that various human rights groups such as human rights watch as well as the israeli civil rights movement has been aware of this particular incident for quite some time now the australian media is reporting that this man came to live in israel when he was a youngster he made what is called idea and he was recruiting on the stand by the messiah these ready secret service something went wrong and we've been given no reason for him being imprisoned but they respect the nation that it would have had to be connected somehow with espionage and sensitive state secrets the. former foreign minister avigdor lieberman has said that left wing parliamentarians have damaged israeli security by bringing this issue to the fore in the first place. we've got more stories and great videos free at the moment r.t. dot com that's our website online all the time here's a quick look at what we got there at the moment after taking a battering from mother nature residents in parts of new york which were hit hardest by hurricane sandy are in for an unfortunate surprise from the city's tax

authorities. the iraqi capital baghdad makes its first steps onto the catwalk in ten years the fashion show is seen as a symbolic break from the years of turmoil since the u.s. invasion more nuts on the web site r.t. the. tax hikes are still the default plan for e.u. nations trying to get out of debt and while the super rich can feed to places that won't take such a hefty slice of their cash small businesses left behind say livelihoods are at risk as are these people of found out he's a leading man of stage and screen however european heads of state will be hoping to you doesn't become the leader of a tax exodus but the super rich. decision to push through a seventy five percent top rate of tax on those earning over one million euros saw the act of sticks and head to russia europe has some of the highest rates of

taxation in the world with many giving the lion's share of the things to the state . balancing act of course you want to run a successful business but if you make over a certain amount you find yourself paying out huge quantities of tax over fifty percent. there are warnings for europe that when compared to low tax countries like russia they could lose their competitive edge if they're a country with low taxes and with high taxes capital flow well to country with low taxes in the same is true for people with talent there's always going to be people that think the taxes are too high but a growing number actually starting to think that it's becoming detrimental to the development of business but he can't owns a whole it company in munich currently he employs around ninety people transporting everything from the small to the big and bulky all over mainland europe he say's

that lowering the current rate of tax would not just make big changes to his business but also to the lives of his staff that's what i meant and what. he would be super first i could pay higher salaries this is a very important issue right now due to the rise in the cost of living also i can invest more into the company and grow the business even employ more people everyone benefits something that is impossible under the current tax system and that those in power argue that the problem in european countries right now is that taxpayers want to have the best of both worlds big management of the phenomenon we face regarding taxes is that everyone wants to pay as little as possible however no one is willing to give up the services that those taxes go to pay for a. few signs of any major tax cuts on the horizon in your businesses like this one going to have to continue to struggle to bring home the bacon when it comes to

saving fifty development beach or all of the arty. religious education is making a serious comeback in tunisia two years after the regime which banned the teaching of islam was toppled the current government has no control of private muslim schools springing up across the country and the worry is there spreading extremism ortiz alina visited a school where the qur'an is the main subject. tunisia's learned some tough lessons in the wake of its revolt but now the report card for what's going on in its schools is facing examination in the school in one of the poorest districts of the tunisian capital children come to learn about the qur'an and the way of life of true muslims religious education was banned under the old regime but it's making a comeback in a big way the rise of islam as a man has led to an increase in the number of religious schools springing up across the country these schools are private operating outside of the control of state

officials who have no say over what's being taught in these schools and some worry that this may lead to a rise in the number of young extremists even many religious experts agree filling young minds with religious doctrines may not be the best way to bring up children. i read in one of the papers sent by a three year old girl to her mother with a message my beloved mom teach me about the afterlife the same way you teach about the west is this a way to teach three year old children we can see it clearly attempts to brainwash these children dr mooney carried out extensive research on religious schools and to nice to find out whether critics were right to say that they were damaging to the country's post revolutionary development she found most schools were primarily focused on teaching strict islamic values without worrying about the effect these methods may have on youngsters. but i have noticed that all female teachers at

these schools where any cub while teaching you can see her face this is in contradiction with what's known in psychology as communication how can she communicate with the kids of her face is covered emotions and movement of vital to kids and social interaction such things do not contradict our values and morals. but parents who send their children to study these schools believe they are on the right track. how did you get in your day. values is the way to ensure that they will lead a proper life from childhood studying the koran improves memory increases thinking abilities and says the right course for the rest of their lives. not even the ministry of education is able to say exactly how many religious schools there are in tunisia after the revolution they sprung up over the country many operating without license from the state the government has acknowledged the problem but has its hands full trying to keep the economy together. is on the backburner absence of

control of it especially worse on top of the concerns about extremist salafist groups gaining ground. from these groups don't believe in democracy the republic and freedom they consider them to be against their religion they want to impose their way of life on by force as if they know better than other people. after the arab spring revolt tunisians were eager to embrace what they hoped would be a new way of life but with radical islam permeating more and more spheres of everyday life these children's future i mean not be exactly what many parents had hoped for in their quest for freedom and democracy in tunisia. are. a lot about the news team with more news heard about. its business with katie katie i want to talk about illegal capital yeah the alarming rise of the last eighteen years we've seen it reach a level of over two hundred billion dollars i'm going to be expanding is that why

and the implications in the businessperson after the break so. thanks very much.

today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are on the day. that welcome to business i'm a casey kobe. now illegal capital outflow from russia amounted to over two hundred eleven billion dollars over the last eighteen years that's according to the global financial integrity organization now illegal inflows and outflows of capital provide the existence of the shadow economy in russia which includes the proceeds of crime corruption and tax evasion now the total of the shadow

economy is estimated at forty six percent of russia's g.d.p. this figure comes out of the shadows the same week that russia's president vladimir putin introduced a draw floor that restricts investment abroad barring senior officials from holding bank accounts of stocks outside the russian border is now the law is an attempt by putin to fight corruption in his ambition to make russia more investor friendly now earlier today i spoke to jacob nel chief economist from morgan stanley russia about the race of illegal outflow putin's attempts to combat it it's always hard to know how to measure something that is illegal and therefore hidden the actual number for capital outflows provided by the central bank is much higher for instance last year we know it was about sixty billion dollars the year before eighty billion dollars so much larger number than the ten billion dollars or so

that this report is talking about per year. there is a line on the central bank balance of payments called fictitious transactions where people are under reporting imports overreporting exports in order to move funds abroad but some of that may not be. may not be the proceeds of crime what this report is talking about is money that is generated from some kind of criminal activity that is then mordred and so necessarily it's a somewhat speculative number but of course this. agreement that the flows of illegal money are quite substantial and this is an ongoing problem in russia indeed and that a putin has come up with a new law apartment to ban state officials and their family from owning a foreign financial assets abroad is this the way forward in order to avoid such reports coming out in the sea you think this is the right thing to do going forward

where you know money combatting money laundering started out with trying to track drug money and then and then after nine eleven it became more focused on trying to track down terrorists farms and over the years the o.e.c.d. through the financial action task force has developed a sort of manual of best practice if you like and one of the key steps in trying to control the limits of the phenomenon is to make sure that you regulate your banks properly and make sure that all money flows through banks and that is a fact what is the purpose of this law is to try and ensure that money is first of all deposited in a bank that's regulated by the central bank of russia so that the authorities can keep an eye on the flows of money that are happening i think that it's. i think it's a reasonable it's a reasonable requirement from an economic point of view i welcome

a liberal capital account like we have in russia which supports investment flows however there's been too much associated flows that have been of dubious origin and i think in so far as the authorities can get the balance right between better regulatory control of illegal flows of money and an open capital account that would be supportive for investment and how we're listing is it the russian government will be able to get some of these billions back. is that a possibility or no let's think money comes into an economy when people feel confident about their property rights and is a decent investment climate and they have a prospect of making money making a good return on their money. and so i think the general problem really i would put somewhat differently not will this particular money that went abroad come back but can russia improve its investment climate so that there's more money coming into

russia whether it's owned by russians or owned by foreigners so that sort of being the we recover moment could see investment rising and growth rising in line with its objectives. and moving on that despite posting the biggest gas reserves in the world russia's gas problem is now in the balkan basket the company's work has dropped by a third in the past year now the cheapest among the global oil and gas mages touch and she's got all the details. yes it's bad news for russia's gas giant gazprom capitalization on the moscow stock exchange has reached its law was to level in three years the company is now worth just over eight hundred billion dollars for comparison the market's capitalization of the most expensive oil company exxon mobil is more than four hundred billion dollars followed by petro

china at over three hundred billion shell and chevron over two hundred analysts say the main reason for gas from plunging value is higher taxes the market also didn't like the company's increase in capital investments and its decision to cut dividends and added a sailor resteal more room for a down side pension to gas problem made by going to the stinking to the ukrainian transportation system and his service and you know he's materializing then there might be an additional don't say. i don't have gas last two years. because all that in the postman will be done dose of medication before guessed wrong so you could in your system is much. the same price got. you clean your customers the three don't. be bought on the up side analysts say

gasper may become one of the most interesting dividend stories globally as the company is now changing its dividend policy market players say that they are betting on the gastro as a huge infrastructure monopoly with high yielding doodles rather than the upstream production company that is doomed for zero free cash flows for the next several years. russia's leading oil company ross nafta has signed loan agreements to attract over fourteen billion dollars from a group of foreign banks these funds will be used to purchase fifty percent of teen k b p from a all consortium of russian billionaires are quite a rough snap the interest rates are said to be one of the lowest in the russian market now fifteen foreign banks will be involved including bank of america merrill lynch b m p power by bank of china broker check out some eggs the markets will stay with russia and see what happens here now finally managed to see some

significant gains here in moscow we've got almost of the same for both the r.t.s. and the my six just stand on most of the blue chips actually gains here moscow must say v.t. be the second biggest land ahead jump more than five percent we had retailer dixy adding more than three percent and that's after reporting a twenty three percent jump in revenues in january so a positive day for see how the ruble got on you can see is indeed makes it managed to gain against the u.s. dollar just lost out to the euro but really just a fraction you can see almost flat not much move at a top of this he will have to europe then the stocks rose actually on wednesday you can see where the euro zone in just two days added some support as was as well we had heavyweights general as well as heineken really drawing attention and helping boost up the mood we had some strong bank of england want to add to the fact that there might be some stimulus on the cards as well so investors are really watching

that one as our way wall street that it was a mixed day still going out to u.s. consumers they increase their purchases of goods in january bought at a slower pace than the month before and i actually suggest that a beginning of the a tax hike partly restrained spending other news as well traveling through the trading floors president barack obama. he's vowed to spend money on infrastructure and environmental spending that came off the union address that we were watching all right that's the markets movie all men here and also you got an interview with the u.s. foreign affairs as clyde had said that says they with us about i'll be back less than two hours now see that.

mission. critical free storage free. free. free. free. and free broadcast live video for your media project free media r t v dot com. choose your language call it make it with zero in federal custody still some of. the consents to. choose the opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories get him to. choose the access to.

today i'm joined by mr clyde prestowitz the founder and president of the economic strategy institute he writes for foreign policy affairs and most recently he wrote

in defense of nominating chuck hagel for secretary of defense with him we discuss this nomination thank you very much for joining us on r.t. let me start with this why chuck hagel well i think very important is because president obama likes him and trusts him. and thinks that he. do a good job at the defense department i think we have to remember that chuck hagel was an early supporter of barack obama in two thousand and eight when he was first campaigning for president he traveled with obama to iraq and afghanistan at the time. and it's important that he's a republican and so this demonstrates that the president on the one hand this is able to attract at least some kind of republican support and secondly that the president is able to send the message through this kind of a point about let's not forget chuck hagel is

a veteran of the vietnam war he was a noncommissioned officer in the vietnam war. and as a result of that. he became very very cautious about war. it's he will be the first. non-commissioned officer ever to be secretary of defense i think that's also a very powerful message. and the republicans actually see him as a republican well some republicans do it let me remind you of president ronald reagan who began his career as a democrat. wound up as a what we call that the time a conservative republican president and reagan always so. that he had not changed his views but that his party the democratic party had left him. i think hagel is in a similar position higgle is what for most of my life people all thought of as

a republican it's only in the last ten or fifteen years that the republican party has shifted his views away from. natural position and so i would say today probably most republicans don't see hagel as a republican but there are still some who do the previous defense minister if i could say that he was talking about not reducing presence in the middle east yet expanding presence in asia that hagel doesn't seem to be i'm not sure it's completely different i mean as you know from your broad experience here in washington all of the messages have various audiences so let's keep in mind obama when he became elected said he was going to wind down the war in iraq said that he was going to withdraw all eventually from afghanistan and he has been

doing that now there are those in the american body politic who opposed it. and so obama has had to be able to carry with him. is in the congress and in the country and sometimes in building a majority it's useful to have a secretary of defense who sounds tough even if the president's position is not so tough so i shouldn't think we should over interpret panetta but i think it's important to see hey goal was as a message to various audiences to an american audience to american military audience that the emphasis is going to be less on the military to foreign audiences the american is the. going to be more interested in talking and fighting . and the particularly i think to two audiences in the middle east

that. there's room for cutting deals between america and iran america and other people in the middle east and we saw how iran received that methods you know maintaining hagel how do you see that do you think the u.s. policy on iran will change in the second term of obama having chuck hagel as secretary of the well i don't know if i would say will change because i don't think obama has actually been taking a confrontational line with iran but i think any president in his second term is no longer running for the white house he's running for the history books. and that means maybe bolder moves the president has more flexibility to take. new positions and so i do think.

president obama will try very hard to come to some kind of a more stable arrangement with iran and in the middle east you were talking about messages that obama but what is the message that well i think alertly sent to the middle east by choosing by obama is sending the message that he's not the president from israel. that while the united states strongly supports israel and is an ally of israel and it will defend israel that the united states has a broader interest in the middle east and that. he the president obama. is . pursuing broad long term american interests in establishing a stable order in the middle east one of the issues that people are criticizing him wolf where a lot of the criticism actually comes because of some statements he made in the

past namely i am a senator from nebraska not from israel the jewish lobby how do you think that will affect his nomination well i think his statement that he is the senator from nebraska from israel will actually be very positive for him. i think i think most americans will say yeah that's right he should be the senator from nebraska and from israel of course there will be those supporters of israel who interpret it in a negative way but i think on balance that will be a pause a positive i think his comment about the jewish lobby. we're oh oh. because verse i don't think it will stop his nomination. but it would have been better if he had said the israel lobby because there are of course many american jews who don't support. the positions of israel

and so by using the term jewish instead of israel that kind of cloud the issue but having said that we also have to be realistic and the fact is that the israel lobby in america is of course very much. composed not only of jews but there are many leading jews who obviously are part of a senator who is now nominated for defense secretary has to defend him himself for saying things like i am a senator from from nebraska and not from israel i how do you know this is such a taboo issue it became in the u.s. that it's an untouchable and is this sending a message maybe to other. politicians that maybe this is a subject that i should not even criticize talk about because in the future it will let me know this is a complex complex issue and i don't know if we have enough time to for me to

explain the top down the peculiar taboos of american politics but. i would say that the this is not unique for example you have to go back in american history so for example there's a large irish population in america and for many many years discussion of the northern ireland problem between. ireland and the u.k. was very difficult in the united states because of the influence of this irish political group in the united states so the israel thing is not unique. you just. i have to know that sometimes american policy all politics are strange every country has its place it's secrecy but i think to your question of this is some kind of a message that people have to be very very careful about speaking about israel i

think not i think it's the opposite of the fact that the president is going ahead with this nomination that it probably will be confirmed i think demonstrates that you can. make statements that are not entirely pure and it doesn't stop your career he did say that he supports israel but people don't see that as emotionally well i mean remember that there are people who would like to stop his nomination. politics is a context sport. and there are important people in the united states who would like to stop him so they're looking for any excuse i mean if he threw chewing gum on the sidewalk they would criticize him for throwing chewing gum on the sidewalk they're just looking for an excuse this is the way they gave it his confirmed and many people said that he will be confirmed pressure do you think

there will be on him. oh i don't think there'd be a great deal of pressure on him. of course being secretary of defense is not a small job. but i don't think that there will be extra pressure on him as opposed to other secretaries of defense i think there is a lot of resistance to his nomination was there may be agreement between obama and and hable that doesn't mean that there's agreement between obama and senator mcconnell or other important leaders tell me more about this i mean if there is well i mean in the first place we have. in the united states a two party democracy and so the president is of the democratic party but part of the congress is controlled by the republican party the house of representatives and the senate is not controlled by the republican party but the republican party has often blocking power. in the senate. there

are also many many other interests there are business interests there are military interests there are. social interests all of them looking for. budgetary support all of them looking for a publisher they all of them fighting each other for attention. and they look at every nomination the secretary of defense secretary of state they look at all these nominations from the perspective is this going to help me or is this going to maybe not help me if it's not going to help me then maybe i should try to stop it. it's important to keep in mind that the united states is not a parliamentary system in a parliamentary system the prime minister has a majority and he controls the legislature and he names whomever he wants america

doesn't work that way the president doesn't control the the legislature. legislature must agree to his nominations he doesn't always get the nominee that he wants so it's much more of a fight within the internal american system than in a parliamentary system. wealthy british style. is not on. target. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports on r t. i never knew adam lanza in person but i was in the same high school as that he was younger than

me just a little bit younger. i always thought he was different i always into something funny he rarely talks and you don't he was a shy kid. i don't know if anyone was friends with him i also don't know of anyone who was particularly mean to the what i do know is that it was very clear that this person was not like everybody else. can imagine the level of mental illness that would be present to murder show. america's so when you go on this there would be an american bind every tree with a gun. i think for kids growing up in this environment is good for them at an early age to least see the gun and respect it because they need to know what kind of damage it can do. this is our first task as a society. keeping our children safe. this is how we will be judged.

by juggling john kerry. do hack work and get caught when lobbyists money and lawmakers are combined together that's where the problem of corruption comes from. the document's. keep up a smart look. there is also. another well behind that which is how to influence things situations steer clear of provocations don't answer any question. came into the office

and found banners hanging around the office and lots of strange faces around so i said what's what's happening will somebody please tell me what's going on and they said oh we've come to occupy your building. possibly they want to do a confrontation possibly they wanted me to ring up the police have the police come in through the mail that. didn't seem to be a good idea to. learn the european way with brussels business. in the ocracy it's one person one fault but in the brussels business it's one euro one fault. it.