in paul and when the russian spy decided to blow up a plane. a train now some tea so the seventy applause we have in this kind of. you know more or less try to relieve itself would flood the high seas recently so few weeks ago. mugsy the insights into our members to go out and actually derailed train so the russian security agencies did the right i was up. there for the crew would have done in been able to evacuate as many people as. thousand people would have been caught up in this mere few thankfully nobody was hurt but it's certainly been very disruptive we will leave it there go to tilt you know. i can't terror expert thank you. back with monique's in half an.

prescribe medication is widespread on the u.s. market a frequent cause of death at that point in my life i just felt like everything was ashes my family was literally coming unglued i had actually planned. to commit some site water or who has made antidepressants so commonly used we were doing what the doctors told us to do we were being responsible and what the real side effects. was literally all to what i did was done on a cocktail of lethal drugs. just because something's legal doesn't mean it's. syria paradoxical the.

reason was a situation like israel and palestine is not a country where i meet a lot of people without hope although everybody agrees. is a very serious situation people have been much more affected than in any other active conflicts to day. eighteen years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with a gun if a bad guy tried to get to one of my family members he would have better a lot better knife. and hurting my babies since my book was published in the. thousand more than half a million americans have been killed by firearms in the u.s.

and we had a thought. this is a middle school we go through drills and we put ourselves in real scenarios it was interesting to see hill actually got hit by the gun i decided to return to the subject to track down each gun owner who i'd met and photographed those years ago i don't know that but we are not. noisy you are a member of the left party and the spokesman for the defense committee parliamentary elections will take place in two weeks and the left party hold onto its positions in parliament. so i hope we strengthen our positions currently we have sixty four seats in parliament which is eight point six percent i hope that after these elections will have ten to eleven percent this would send the right message to the

people. there have been quite a few developments in foreign policy and security policy over the last four years i remember the two thousand and thirteen campaign when relations with russia were more or less ok in the syrian crisis was still in its early stages what do you think has happened with security policy over the past four years. yes the syrian crisis escalated greatly in recent years it seems though that we are pulling into the homestretch with this matter it looks like the islamic state a terrorist organization banned in the russian federation will soon be defeated once this happens russia and western nations will have to divide syria into their respective zones of influence that's number one number two ukraine the ukraine conflict started in november twenty third and reached its peak in the spring of twenty four to. this conflict remains unresolved it is still boiling and may become

another frozen conflict at the same time the situation in germany is changing the military has adopted a new policy boosting the number of personnel building up the number of troops the amount of weapons financial resources germany wants its share of the pie it wants to increase its influence and this includes projecting its military power what do you think about this parliament's defense policy what has it done in matters of war and peace in. the last four years were extremely disturbing we made little progress in the matter of our peaceful policies on the country if you look at our tensions with russia in late twentieth thirteen early twenty fourteen which started with the riots on my down and the nazi coup in february twenty fourth teen the west admired those nazis and did not view them as such even some members of the green party did not see them for what they really were and then there was crimea's reunification with russia and similar tennessee the escalation of the syrian war which is still going on but we are pulling into the homestretch islamic state

a terrorist organization banned in the russian federation will soon be defeated but then there will be the issue of the zones of influence in the west has ground troops in syria russia too has ground troops in syria and i don't expect the west to give up the territories it controls easily and respect syria's sovereignty as for the military we have seen a new trend defense minister. plans to abandon the disarmament program in a year and start building up personal and financial resources as well as heavy weapons so the goal is to secure one hundred thirty billion euros over the next thirty years to purchase heavy weapons that they think they need a stronger military to play a bigger role in international affairs including militarily if there was a document in the circles close to the federal government in early two thousand and fourteen speaking of new responsibility what do you think is the federal government's idea. new responsibility in terms of foreign and defense policies what

does this term mean. actually it is not in the circles close to the federal government this document emerged it was produced by the foundation for political science and politics together with the marshall fund they were politicians researches diplomats and business men involved in working on this document it is like a vision for germany's foreign policy strategy germany was to become a key player in international affairs this document is a kind of road map showing how to achieve this goal for example the authors believe that the united states we're less active in europe going forward this affords an opportunity for germany to fill this void replacing the united states so as far as defense policy is concerned this document was the first step towards building up the military at the same time the federal government is working through diplomatic channels to help resolve the syrian and ukrainian crises always ruling out the possibility of direct military involvement but this is a positive development right and. this was. there are some distinctions

here in syria we have a military presence we have our tornado reconnaissance jets there refueling aircraft and a navy vessel this means that we are using military instruments in addition to diplomacy with this violates international law because the syrian government has not asked for our assistance to fight isis germany is also involved in the ukraine crisis this is somewhat weird situation the west poses an arbitrator only this arbitrator's size with ukraine wants to punish russia and basically this shows how much the european union and nato countries like germany britain and the united states heavily involved in this conflict there are at least parties to this conflict between ukraine and russia the west and russia gauging this standoff over ukraine seeking to influence it. because if you want to the left party has consistently opposed the war at the same time when the civil war in syria escalated

how many left leaning people who are not members of the left party went to northern syria to support the kurds isn't this a contradiction what is the left party think about this situation is that what. we discussed it within the faction and it was a heated debate this is the situation we're facing pacifist cannot condone the use of force but anti militarists and this is an important distinction recognize the right to self-defense i don't think we can tell people you have to figure out somehow isis is at the gates you might die but it's not our problem because we are pacifists i do not accept this reasoning i've never been a pacifist i am an anti militarists that means that in my opinion military force should be a last resort we have our national right to self defense that cannot be taken away we should not abuse the idea of defense in self defense so the defense policy of germany and western countries is

a misleading concept we don't defend ourselves we advance the interests using military force to the point of breaking international law. or anything. so if i got it right you think that the kurdish people living in northern syria have the right to defend themselves americans and other members of the coalition support kurdish groups in this conflict but the courage don't just fight against isis they also target government forces what do you make of this or this it's a really complicated issue for the kurdish self-defense if it's in northern syria and the blockade of isis forces are absolutely legitimate is what choice did they have but now kurds living in these territories are seeking some sort of independence reports about their fight for independence from syria often refuted but i do know that they a manipulated by the americans they get american weapons and serve as their boots on the ground. fighting against isis so it's very unlikely that they will be willing to give up control over the territories we see the same happening in

northern iraq and soon we even expect a referendum on kurdish independence i cannot approve that move i strongly oppose separatism my stand it is international law i know that any separatist movement creates more problems than solutions look at sudan sudan and south sudan now know their problems were solved on the country things go even worse or former yugoslavia the situation did not improve because now we've seen seven tiny states one of which is on the verge of failing that whenever there is a split there are no solutions things only get worse and the regional conflict is dragged out. so i think so you think that a unified syrian state and strong government will provide the solution to the current crisis. certainly we have witnessed the fragmentation of libya and know what it entails as you've just mentioned the federal government of germany hasn't contributed enough to the deescalation and resolution of conflict in ukraine and

syria but there's one more pressing issue the iranian nuclear talks which started under obama's last term frank walter steinmeier the minister of foreign affairs at the time mark gabriele the minister for economic affairs were actively promoting the talks and insisted that a diplomatic solution to the iranian nuclear problem should be found could you name at least one initiative that the left party supports. yes this deal is a great achievement we see that we avoided a war but we also see the achievements of this deal in jeopardy the u.s. hasn't lifted quite a number of the imposed sanctions that have imposed new ones under various pretexts it seems that america under trump is not interested in trying to make this deal work and impose new sanctions to provoke a run to break it but if iran acts wisely it will not be provoked and the u.s. will not find a pretext to start a war which i think america would be happy to do as for the sanctions the u.s.

congress and president trump imposed a new set of sanctions against russia by and some of them could even affect european companies the federal government and the chancellor protested against that what is the purpose of sanctions against russia and against the energy sector but. it's true when washington and brussels i mean european countries play the sanctions game they usually coordinate these decisions. i do not support sanctions because they usually affect ordinary people also the anti russia sanctions and not legitimize when the us imposed the last set of sanctions they did this unilaterally without discussing it with a european problem is best of finding them the european countries are not too happy about it the federal government of germany is worried the sanctions may affect the ongoing projects mainly the baltic sea pipeline and the north sea pipeline. it seems that political and economic interests are involved here that they want to

supply north american liquefied shale gas to europe and to us russia from the european gas market. it's interesting how the situation in the us is developing initially from position himself as a tough and active person in various fields including foreign policy but he's been sidelined by the democrats and by his own party members now we see that he no longer controls the affairs relating to brush up as for the new set of sanctions he signed the russia sanctions bill but he's not able to call them off this is up to congress as we see that he delegated most of the foreign policy affairs to congress and became a lame duck president regarding russia. that

pressed for a single purpose. they have a superpower. they start training very young. they months of intensive school. routes. and so you save lives. when i'm going to. the marshall. islamic states claims it was behind the manchester terror attack by the front so kill the priest every time a terrorist attack happens all these people are out there screaming i says so bad

someone needs to do something against them and for me. why you don't do something. that. you. really don't know. but i think if you. check if. you kill innocent. america seems to say you don't need to spend money to make money they just want to be extraction extracting money like parasites used to be the model america pursued around the world but america south america asia southeast asia they were just

extract well take money take might take money but they read out of countries that would put up with that so now they're doing it themselves. polluters speaking of defense policy there is another important matter with respect to the u.s. the united states insists that all nato partners should bring their defense spending up to the two percent threshold the defense minister ursula funda lion and

chancellor angela merkel publicly support this demand from time to time yet it seems that this is a very controversial issue in the ruling coalition in effect for example foreign ministers ignored gabriele openly stated his disagreement with his position recently what does this figure of two percent mean for germany's economy and what does the left party think about that they think about. this first of all the two percent is an arbitrary figure there were several attempts to adopt it at nato summit back in the early two thousand it is a political commitments not a legal one in other words we don't have to do it the cd you think this requirement is not legally binding yet germany can comply with it the s.p.d. realizes that the vote is not going to like a massive increase in defense spending right before the election but i really doubt that the s.p.d. will put up a fight on the issue there hasn't been one project in this parliament that the

s.p.d. did not support in other words they supported all the military projects before the election they realised this will make them unpopular as well let's take a look at the twenty eighteen budget that includes this provision about spending two percent on defense this plan was approved by the cabinet and all of the s.p.d. ministers fully endorsed it that's number one number two when the political decision about two percent was made in wales frank was a steinmeier who was the foreign minister at the time and who is currently president speaking in s.p.d. member supported it which you can look up what the s.p.d. politicians say and you will see that the closer to the election you get the more they talk about peace. but then once the election is over they continue with the militarist policies they've been pursuing status twenty forty. what is the left party think about this we absolutely reject this policy let's take a look at the numbers currently we spend about forty billion euros on defense and that's a lot right for the sake of comparison russia spends about sixty five billion

a year but russia has many more troops russia has nuclear weapons which is extremely expensive russia's conventional weapons are not too cheap either in other words russia has much more weapons and troops than germany germany spends about as much as russia if we are to increase our defense spending from forty billion which is one point two percent to two percent by twenty twenty four and we adjusted for inflation in take into account g.d.p. growth let's say by one point five percent this gives us almost seventy billion euros which is almost twice as much of a drop long so defense spending will double yes we'll be spending twice as much on our military will be spending more than the british who has nuclear weapons more than the friendship will also have nuclear weapons because i would be worried about germany arming itself too much with a fact we should take a closer look at the figures some people say we should build up our military because the russian military is getting stronger but that's not true russia has

a program to build noises military by twenty twenty six and russia plans to spend six hundred billion euros on it if i remember right the russian government adopted this figure in twenty fourteen's that's true but next year twenty eighteen russia will reduce its defense budget by five percent that's because russia's military is getting increasingly professional if you look at the absolute figures nato countries spend a total of nine hundred sixty billion euros a year on defense whereas russia spends only sixty to sixty five billion in other words the west spends fifteen times more brushes defense budget is one fifteenth of the nato budget how can you boost. this spending even further by the time germany increases its spending to two percent nato's budget will be twenty five to thirty times bigger than brushes budget besides most western weapon systems are superior to russian ones at least as far as high tech systems are concerned and as for quantity apart from artillery and we have two or three times more weapons than

russia the west has more combat aircraft more transport aircraft more helicopters more submarines is that the west has two or three times more weapons systems than russia so to me it doesn't make any sense to say that was russia is building up its military so we should increase our defense spending over the next seven years as well. you said this decision was not justified in terms of weapons and defense policy and what is behind such major investments in the defense and history. into several years now i would say that twenty zero eight was a turning point we've been witnessing the end of the unit world order when the west was the only power that could advance its interests without any serious resistance to the union world order is over and we're transitioning into the multipolar world order and the west is having a hard time accepting the fact that it needs to coordinate these actions on the international arena and its security policies without the powers such as china

russia the brics states and other countries respecting their interests in the last twenty five years we've been doing whatever we want it sometimes disrespecting international law now we find ourselves in the situation where this approach no longer works didn't work and you crazy didn't work in georgia in two thousand and eight and that was a turning point what happened in syria the west could not overthrow the assad regime and now it looks like we might even leave syria defeated we're no longer able to advance our interests without taking others into account but the west is still holding on to that tactic so we're used to dominating the world and imposing our interests as we call it defense stiffen. in our interests which is absolutely absurd we want to increase our military power to retain whatever influence we have left and not lose more lessons germany is also participating just like in the nineteenth and early twentieth century it's a vibrantly developing power that wants its piece of pie. let's look at the recent

conflicts in afghanistan libya syria and many other countries including the latest one in ukraine on many conflicts have intensified and turned into wars and what diplomatic and political measures to the left party propose to end these conflicts . that. you are rights we were drawn into many conflicts the situation got worse and it was a loss at least for the residents of those countries i would like to go back to the conflict in yugoslavia slovenia is the only country where life is better than it was when it was part of yugoslavia bosnia and herzegovina is on the verge of failing kosovo became a safe haven for the mafia and gangsters let's look at libya it is in ruins there's no statehood there syria is almost destroyed the i said regime which i don't support quite the opposite actually but it is the least of all the evils because it provides some sort of stability afghanistan is in ruins nato lost the war the war in iraq was

a total disaster and it is also in ruins whenever the west got involved and hit its true interests the real politic line some lecturing on human rights and democracy has left behind a scorched earth there is no other name for it that is why the flow of refugees is constantly growing in twenty sixteen strong international peace research institute published a report stating that the largest number of refugees come to europe from countries that we graced with our bombs that says some things the second largest group of refugees who flee from poverty that's understandable we destroy these economies that we're not the most competitive game with by demanding these countries open their markets for our products no matter what of course the economy in those countries ends up in a shambles it happens all the time in africa the middle east latin america it is no wonder that it's some point people pack up their bags and move to germany the promised land where they hope to find a better life for themselves it makes total sense to me. that we need to change our

foreign policy in terms of economy and security is first and foremost we need a new era structure of global economy we have to admit that protectionism for small economies is not necessarily a bad thing but on the country it helps countries grow stronger we also need to respect international law from the get go because now we invade countries and then blame them for disrupting peace and order in europe it is absurd the system of peaceful coexistence in europe was broken in one thousand nine hundred one and berlin is what has gone before that played a key role in that the left party wants to change many policies which in turn will lead to fewer conflicts in the world and less human suffering that could change a lot here is an example when we say that germany should take on more obligations most of the time it is all about military issues but it doesn't work we want to be more responsible we can do it in other areas every year twenty to forty million starve to death germany and the west could channel their desire for protecting human rights into this area to supply food develop agriculture and suffering

countries but nobody is doing it because everybody wants to advance their interests . or are you talking about economic interests such as exports etc yes exactly what is your prediction for the outcome of the parliamentary elections that will take place in two weeks what does the left party expect. i hope we get ten percent or more which will allow us to stay the third largest party in the parliament for us it would be a disaster if the f.t. got a lot of votes again i would like to reiterate that many voters choose the f.t. because they think that the opposition party will meet their demands but the if the is a neo liberal party like the free democratic party which has little sigh racist this will help no one in germany it will not be good for retired people ethnic russians or was because all the unemployment on the country they have a neo liberal program on the left lot is very different from them we want to bring

minimum wages to twelve year olds now up we do want jobs that often minimal pay and minimal hours we want all working people to be able to live well we want good and stable relations with russia we don't want nato to exist because nato is the source of instability so it is an aggressive alliance i think it is possible but we need to have a strong presence in the parliament so we can make a difference. mr noir thank you very much for the interview my pleasure. sylvia paradoxically. compadres and was

a situation like israel and palestine is not a country where i meet a lot of people were told. everybody agrees this humanitarian situation in syria is a very serious situation people have been much more affected than in any other active conflict today. prescribe medication is widespread on the us market and a frequent cause of death at that point in my life i just felt like everything was ashes my family was literally coming unglued i had actually planned. to commit some site what or who has made antidepressants so commonly used we were doing what the doctors told us to do we were being responsible and what the real side effects. was is jealously alter what i did was done on

a cocktail of lethal drugs. just because something's legal doesn't mean it's safe. as one of the basic instruments to drive an economy but it can also lead to tragedy i did i took the how to start game bigger and made that the death star game bigger and it was far enough and found. many lives have been broken by excessive debt and the banks got into for a walk on or a big bankers go big. or go on the banks birthday i didn't think of the ordinary men and the morning through the back under don't buy creditors people see no future bad face and you know you become ill you due to job your relationship breaks down you become a casualty is debt a life long trap or is there a way out of those national front of it or no right to ditch a bill for more

a few more. russian submarine strike i still target. around the syrian city of did his moscow continues to support government forces in its campaign to liberate the country from terrorists also in neighboring iraq claims responsibility for two terror attacks that have left at least fifty people dead. and hillary clinton opens up on her election defeat in her new book outlining who and what she thinks cost to the chance to be america's first female president.