it's. going to be your time. coming up on r t in afghanistan tribal leaders gather for a momentous a vote at issue should u.s. troops be granted immunity in the country beyond twenty fourteen the future of u.s. intervention in afghanistan coming up. going nuclear suddenly democrats are changing the protocol to approve presidential nominees so does that mean a clear path for janet yellin an update from capitol hill on the push for the next fed chair and food lovers the way or in an attempt to tip the scale in favor of clear arteries the f.d.a. is about to take your trans fats away we'll get saturated in the details later in the show.

it's thursday november twenty first four pm in washington d.c. meghan lopez and you are watching r t well political leaders and tribal elders are convening on kabul afghanistan this week to discuss the future of u.s. troops in the country the meeting is known as lawyer progress more than two thousand tribal elders will vote on whether or not to give u.s. troops immunity in afghanistan beyond two thousand and fourteen without such an agreement the u.s. has threatened to pull all troops out of the country and let afghan troops take on the taliban on their own president hamid karzai and the u.s. secretary of state john kerry have a ready a reached an agreement that would provide immunity for u.s. troops for another decade now the tribal elders are have their turn to modify the deal after their vote will go on to afghanistan's parliament then back to karzai for his finals. sure but in

a surprising turn cause i announce today that he plans to defer the signing to his successor after the elections in april for more on this meeting i'm joined now by scott horton he's a contributing editor at harper's magazine hi there scott so how important is this decision coming out of lawyer hurghada and in your opinion how likely is it to pass . well i think this is a key issue frankly. is. the most prestigious most powerful institution in afghanistan it's the supreme council for the elders council . and it has tremendous credibility and power and it's because it's such a large unwieldy body it's very difficult to say going into it how the church is going to deal with these issues and i'd say the absolute pivotal issue here is whether the u.s. troops will secure i'm unity because i think the u.s.

make clear previously that without immunity from criminal prosecution in afghanistan we will not leave troops behind there and in fact this was this was the big issue at the time of the final iraq the u.s. supposed to leave behind about two hundred. very substantial more the american soldiers and then the end iraq would not agree to this immunity request and on that basis the u.s. departed finally completely so what type of immunity are we talking about here what exactly will it protect u.s. troops from. well. it's probably it's bigger than us troops to start with it's also the civilian contractors who go with them and particularly the security contractors and i'd say it's traditional that when any military forces stationed

abroad that the military itself exercises discipline over its troops and that the draft agreement provides that. it also provides for exclusive jurisdiction and of course the agreements to us is reached with many other nations japan germany korea for instance are not exclusive they provide for concurrent jurisdiction so this is less favorable to afghanistan than the u.s. has reached with other allies but probably even the more sensitive issue is the treatment of contractors and this agreement says the contract is remain subject to afghanistan well but it also says that afghan police forces are not permitted to arrest or to hold any of them very interesting now president karzai his administration announced today that they want to wait on any agreement until his successor was elected in april what the u.s. be willing to wait since they have such direct deadlines or and also another question is is car as i just trying to get more concessions from the u.s.

with this proposed delay while he's clearly pushing for more in fact he made a he made a strong point earlier about two days ago that he wanted to see a written letter of apology from the united states for bad conduct. american forces in afghanistan and this goes to what is a very very hot issue within the country and that's night raids conducted or around the country and secret detention arrangements. by the u.s. much of which is conducted by by the chase are the special. special forces unit. in afghanistan that's that's been the a cheap point for three or four years now he's continued to press that i'd say the end of the day you know whether he's trying to there is success or is less of an issue than whether it's approved by the loya jirga and then by the parliament very

very interesting indeed now the major reason that afghans want american troops to stick around is to continue to train their ass can chose so that they can protect themselves against the talabani but on the other hand cars eyes government has been reaching out to the taliban for talks so one signing this agreement make talks with the taliban more difficult in the end i don't think i don't think the agreement necessarily with i mean i think the whether there is in the end of the day a reconciliation with the taleban the afghan government is still going to need the training facility i think what we're seeing though in any event is a sunset. u.s. military operations on the ground in afghanistan and that finally can you touch a little bit more on those night raids that you were just speaking about what kind of agreement could be resolved here in the senate and this lawyer greg. well i

think there is strong resentment about it fact i would expect this to be an issue that's raised and discussed openly in the loya jirgah in fact it's tribal elders and many of the regions who've been completely outraged by it they consider it to be these the night raids to be a violation of some of their most fundamental traditions. and i you know i doubt we're going to see approval in the woods or go without some sessions by the united states probably and the knowledge with the night raids policy was a mistaken policy it certainly was one that was never supported or indorse by the government of afghanistan it was carried out over the opposition of the government of afghanistan and that was a violation of their sovereignty but thank you so much for thank you so much for weighing in scott horton the contributing editor at harper's magazine great to be with you to syria now where hundreds of thousands of christians have fled the

country since the beginning of the civil war there one to two thousand christians are believed to have been murdered in the violence perhaps one of the hardest hit areas is the historic town of malala this mountain side villages on the unesco alysa proposed world heritage sites it is one of the last known places where western aramaic which was the language of jesus is spoke in the town has been attacked on numerous occasions since the war began and many have chosen to flee over a syrian patriarch gregory last month is urging christians to stay put artie's a policy or has more. for many christians in the middle east the arab spring has been wouldn't treat at the international society for human life is that philosophy if we find acts with discrimination in the world today perpetrated and carried out against christians nowhere is this more peace felt than in the middle east and north africa if you look at syria for example we can all be hopeful population is

christian a third of them have already fled from the civil war that started two years ago and that number continues to grow off to the murder of father but serious enough to last year in two thousand and twelve the swiss in the post accused him of christians escalated so much so that maybe today they'd be nice maybe facing the christians of syria is the same nightmare at the questions of the law have been living under since the invasion in two thousand and three. i believe it is all systematic and planned forcing christians to leave in iraq for instance less than two hundred thousand christians remain we do have concerns we do hope we can stick to our land syria which is the cradle of christianity we also hope that the pope and heads of christian denominations shall call for denouncing violence and adopting dialogue in august this year the christian town of muna

outside damascus was attacked by rebels tens of soldiers were killed and many residents fled it's still not clear how many of them have not returned to the village and where in syria they have been displaced only i visited the town a podium where some enfolded took me to the frontline and showed me the damage the rebels had carried out against the local church. this is the church unfortunately it was not like that before look at this destruction in mass from here the explosions were coming down on people praying of course people started crying out for help from us the priest was right here and they were captured here in the church elsewhere in egypt the muslim brotherhood supporters have blamed christian for the army out still they president mohamed morsy more than eight hundred christian sites were attacked and some two churches razed to the ground one in iraq also the american base invest in two thousand and we call for the iraqi christian

population live for other middle countries an american think tank the pew poll and that questions face a referent and a question in one hundred and fifty nine countries this is maybe a week or so of all the countries on the face of the want to see on t.v. . back in the us the senate a failed yet again on wednesday to come up with an agreement on the twenty and fourteen national defense authorization act for the n.d.a. congress was hoping pass to. the bill before thanksgiving recess however with each passing day the chances of that happening are becoming smaller there have been two key sticking points in slowing down the process first an amendment that would revamp the way the pentagon handles cases of assault and rape the other men addressed the issue of guantanamo bay on tuesday senate democrats voted down a proposal that would have prevented the transfer of one to one time obey detainees out of cuba another proposal which would have ultimately made it easier to

prosecute detainees on u.s. soil also failed if the agreement is not reached it would be the first time in fifty two years that congress would not have passed a bill for funding the defense department also coming out of capitol hill senate democrats broke a two hundred twenty five year tradition today when they voted to eliminate the use of a filibuster against president obama's pick to fill executive and judicial positions now those nominees will require a simple majority in order to get appointed instead of the sixty one votes they needed before this vote has all but paved the way for federal reserve chair nominee janet yellen to take over for been a key come february today the senate banking committee approved elin's nomination on a vote fourteen to eight her nomination has now been sent to the full senate for a vote if confirmed janet yellen would be the first woman to ever hold that position and one of the most powerful women ever in the world of finance parian

boring is at the capitol to bring us the latest. well delon passed she had fourteen senators voted for eight voted against is out of twenty two members of the senate banking committee one democrat voted against her and three republicans voted for her so there's a boat was bipartisan we had republicans and democrats voting for and against it janet yellen today now senate republicans have been slowing down a number of president obama's picks as of late for a host of reasons however the senate just voted today to invoke the so-called nuclear filibuster option allowing a simple majority in order to confirm president obama's nominees how will this speed up the confirmation process. did take sixty votes to get a nominee through a full senate that's out of one hundred that's a three fifth's vote this is the way it's been since one nine hundred seventy five today with the nuclear option it only takes fifty one votes so any one will be sped

through the takes way less votes every member democrats control fifty five votes in the senate and this is exactly what senator hyde camp was talking about now and most members of the senate banking committee were not concerned with janet yellen qualifications they were concerned with federal reserve policies themselves the biggest one being quantitative easing the bond buying program and this is what senator hyde camp told me earlier today take a lesson. i think everyone in their expects that she's going to be confirmed on the floor but they wanted to have a moment to express their disagreement with the fed policy. so now with the nuclear option and with what happened in the hearing last week and today it looks like janet yellen is on the fast track to becoming the most powerful woman in finance very soon and the parian you touched just a little bit about some of the janet yellen fiscal policies can you give us

a little bit more ideas of what it's like today mirror ben bernanke is for instance . right she is a fiscal the she supports this huge controversial program called quantitative easing it's an unprecedented inflationary monetary policy the most the biggest policy of our time eighty five billion dollars a month and gone purchase that is very controversial even former fed officials have come out who are part of that came and said they were sorry that they were a part of q.e. so it looks like yellen is the same old song as ben bernanke she supports q.e. he supports q.e. so we're not really expecting to see a lot of changes in the fed anytime soon so what is the next step in this confirmation process. well now it's going to go to the full senate for a vote again with the nuclear option and looks like she's on the fast track to becoming the next fed chair woman now you spoke with senator elizabeth warren right after that vote here's what she had to say. this is

a moment in history. we just had the opportunity to vote for an extraordinarily well qualified woman to be the head of the federal reserve bank and we are delighted janet yellen is very well qualified her academic background her experience both in and out of government and her extraordinary good judgment so there you heard senator warren call for a vote today saying it was a historic moment but can you go into a little bit more detail about the types of power that janet yellen will have being the first woman to hold this position. very few of the first woman so it's all the women senators of the senate banking committee were also very excited for her but again she's the same old song and as ben bernanke the they support the same policies and this is absolutely the most powerful entity on the face of the earth it controls monetary policy of the u.s. dollar the world reserve currency so the power that's being put in this woman hands

are larger than anyone out that we're that we've seen now rand paul has said that janet yellen is the transparency advocate for the fed do you have any idea if that would change the way that the fed conducts its business where we see any more information coming out of it. now senator rand paul said that he was not going to support janet yellen and that he would even hold up her vote unless his bill out of the fed was brought to the floor as well and i asked elizabeth warren about this and this is what she told me. his problem is not on which janet yellen and with her policies generally he wants approaches to just stop the promises of considering people going forward and it would make any difference whether it were janet yellen who is being proposed british or someone else and i think that's not the right use of the filibuster. so she does not think that rand paul is genuine about this today that he was trying to make a run for president obama he doesn't really care about auditing the fed but we have

to remember senator warren's background she helped create and establish the consumer financial protection bureau that's the c f p b it was created in dodd frank the financial reform law and it has jurisdiction under the federal reserve which is very different to other federal agencies so opening up the fed's books would mean opening up a c.f.p. these books that was archies perry and boring on capitol hill well a twenty five nine year old san francisco man who allegedly ran an underground web site for selling drugs documents and services in the new york federal court today for a bail hearing ross william old rich. reportedly use the name dread pirate roberts to run the silk road website was denied bail for charges that carry a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison he also is charged with being involved in two separate assassination plots r.t. correspondent on a saucer charkha takes us to the court house twenty nine year old ross aldridge

accused of being the mastermind behind the silk road website run by an operator dubbed dread pirate roberts allowing users to purchase drugs online has been denied bail at this federal courthouse in lower manhattan over it was arrested at the science fiction section of a san francisco public library last month and charged with drug dealing money laundering computer hacking as well as murder for hire accused of hiring hitmen to get rid of an informant in a witness who had allegedly been fearful of the knot in his drug market website silk road was launched in twenty eleven with over a billion dollars in sales and almost a million customers the f.b.i. has seized hundreds of thousands of bitcoins a virtual currency worth tens of millions of dollars they see that the person operating the website had pocketed about eighty million dollars they've also dobbs silk road one of the most sophisticated and extensive marketplaces on the internet today all great of course has pled not guilty on all the charges being made against him and has his defense team says the prosecution can't prove that he is who they

say he is ross who is living a life in san francisco in a modest way and they're claiming. it he's living in a manner of a head of a cartel the distinctions between work that the head of a cartel you don't have to see too many movies to to recognize what the differences are here at wednesday's hearing family and friends pledged over one million dollars so that ross could be released on bail his family offered up their home thousands of letters of support were sent in however the judge decided that he will remain in jail i thought it was the wrong decision point. he would have been a flight risk and. he's never been and is not a danger to anyone while the prosecution says the university of texas graduate ran an extensive criminal enterprise for the last two and a half years one of the aspects the defense plans to question is the and the ses involvement in this case if we're talking about n.s.a. surveillance being used and the question becomes twofold one is whether it was done

properly in other words according to statute as we've seen from the releases of opinions by the finish of the foreign to the foreign intelligence surveillance court that the government and n.s.a. have been regularly out of compliance with even what they're authorized to do then the question even one step further back is whether even if they're authorized under statute whether that's statute constitutional with lots of questions yet to be answered for now this case is only in its first stages and as they see it you're going to r.t. new york and now to another soon to be alissa substance trans fats if the food and drug administration has its way the artificial ingredient will be banned from american food products but it was this the best way to fight the growing obesity epidemic here in the u.s. or to correspondent liz wahl gives us the skinny on trans fats. the food and drug administration hopes to ban a type of fat now considered toxic it includes moving trans fats from a state where they're generally recognized to safe or grass into

a category where they would become food contaminants the f.d.a. proposal would eliminate trans fats from the american food supply the cheap and tasty artificial fat was once seen as a harmless way to preserve food but it's proven to be a health hazard trans fats are strongly it linked to very high risk for heart disease and cardiovascular deaths so there is no safe threshold for trans fats any amount is considered too much by the world health organization getting rid of trans fats is expected to prevent thousands of people from going to the hospital according to the food and drug administration the restrictions would prevent twenty thousand heart attacks and seven thousand deaths each year trans fats have been on the decline major fast food chains have replace them with other found sources in two thousand a new york was the first city to ban them from restaurants the move faced resistance with some consumers seeing it as a sign of becoming

a nanny state regulations i think i think government's got twice twice as big as it should be both on the federal and state level but even those that don't like regulations think trans fats should be banned they should figure out a way to. allow trans fats because it's not good for anybody what you want to be food josephs brandenberg agrees as part of transforming his lifestyle and body he's a lemonade and trans fats from his diet he recalls the days when he wasn't so fit so i grew up. for it were the things they would call me when i was there was a thing adopting a lifestyle of exercise and healthy eating he lost more than forty pounds you can see the transformation here and has before. and after photos generally speaking you will not find trans fat in food you know it will be in this process thing that you'll find on the shelf it can never go through to go bad cannot be very good for you that means getting more of your diet from these aisles and staying away from

items like donuts fried foods and processed foods i mean you have to read labels but experts warn labels don't always tell the whole truth even today when something says it's trans fat free that only means that it has less than half a gram of trans that person so the serving size could just be less than half a gram in a computer trans fat and even when trans fats are eliminated they're usually small up with saturated fats those facts aren't healthy either they will be replaced with some other source of solid fat that maybe not as bad as a trans fat but they'll probably be saturated and may be artificially created saturated fat so while burning trans fats may not be a cure all for the nation's obesity epidemic and related diseases the f.d.a. hopes it will be a step in the right direction in washington liz wall r.t. now in the food industry is dire attempts to replace trans fats with a healthier alternative palm oil is now being considered as

a replacement it comes from the pope in the fruits of oil paul's but it's not as easy as swapping one saturated fat for the other or a switch of that magnitude will have huge economic impacts on the world an environmentalist warned that it could lead to massive deforestation in southeast asia right now eighty five percent of palm oil around the world has grown into countries malaysia and indonesia and it's becoming so popular at plantations in indonesia have actually expanded eight times their size in order to accommodate for consumer demands one of the biggest buyers is the u.s. which doubled imports between two thousand and six and two thousand and eight to over one million metric tons per year. but before you get your hopes up thinking your donuts peanut butter in frozen pizza are safe keep in mind palm oil is still a saturated fat and can lead to heart disease now because this oil is becoming more

valuable growers are being accused of clearing native forests destroying the habitat of endangered species and violating the rights of forest dwellers a problem that's only likely to grow when the f.d.a. bans trans fats for good meanwhile protesters gathered in front of the kellogg company's headquarters on wednesday to push for an end to the company's alleged ties to rainforest destruction kellogg's as the company behind frosted flakes pop tarts chips ahoy and fruit loops among other products and environmentalist handed officials a petition with thousands of signatures demanding the company to into its partnership with well more international and agribusiness from singapore that has been accused of using illegal this deforestation practices to collect palm oil kellogg's says it's encouraging its suppliers to use more sustainable palm oil when it's grown the afforestation and protests are just one side of the story to consider as the f.d.a.

bites into the issue. well he's one of the most prolific journalists and authors of our time washington post investigative reporter bob woodward is famous for breaking the news about the watergate scandal that led to the resignation of president president nixon but on politicking with larry king he caused quite a bit of controversy take a listen to what woodward said about edward snowden's leaks in an interview with artie's that larry king would she come to me instead of particularly good and i would have said. let's not reveal who you were let's make you a pretext to two are saying give me time with this and let's sort. who would. that's the sniffing heard round the world generating headlines from this tweet from glenn greenwald the journalist who did turn those documents over to

greenwald suggests that woodward should spend a few minutes to think about why spill it into a kid's information elsewhere while tune in to politicking on our teacher night at nine pm eastern for the whole interview and to see what all the fuss is about but that's going to do it for now i'm meghan lopez see you right back here at five pm. all people are interested but he has something to say everybody has a story i'm up a kind of person want to sit next to on an airplane. i mean there's always in the waters and. that's whether it's a ballet dancer a ballplayer present things that are curious to me is it just things i think about . them or not of.

i think. i would like to go digital the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hydrangea lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once told us i'm tom hartman and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem trucks rational debate and real discussion critical issues facing america five go ready to join the movement then walk in the big picture.

there i marinate it this is boom bust and here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today first up the bogle rule will it or won't it be up and running by the end of the year that's the question on jack as the ruling faces new off stickles from two top regulators we'll tell you what's going on coming right up and big banks sure are known for their loyalty aren't they especially when it comes to governments that tell them out right. no we'll tell you about j.p. morgan's already whipped up.