israel's armed forces target gaza in response to several rockets launched against israeli territory. violence leaves two palestinians dead and hundreds injured as a day of rage is declared in the region and spilled over a controversial decision to recognize it as a. major breakthrough is reached in the braggs of talks as both sides agree to move to the next stage though senior officials warn that things will only get tougher. if you'd like more details on those headlines you can check out our team

dot com but stay with us now there is a new episode of the big picture heads. the twenty third winter olympic games begin february nine in south korea but the festive opening ceremony that night will be missing one flag even though that country's athletes will compete. i'm holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our team america. this week the international olympic committee barred russian teams from the twenty eight hundred games in pyong chang based on an investigation which found what it

called the systematic manipulation of the anti doping rules and system in russia i see president thomas bach made the announcement the russian olympic committee is suspended with immediate effect. individual clean the russian elsley its will be able to participate under strict conditions at the olympic winter games here which are two as i was and eighteen of. these in writing desailly will participate beating individual or team competitions under the name olympic else lead from russia with the acronym. they will compete with a uniform bearing these names and on the olympic flick. the olympic anthem will be played in any sort of way. as if luring tourists

through the tense korean peninsula was already a heavy lift joining us from toronto is r t correspondent alex mann hyla bitch and here in washington veteran diplomat and the always diplomatic jim thanks for being with us guys alex you've covered. the world anti doping agency a number of occasions what can you tell us about that organization stance when it comes to russia. i want to talk about systematic bias systematic bias against russia's what we've seen all along look we were at a conference here back in july two thousand and sixteen the conference was set just basically to knock russia it was you know we know at that point it was in my when the mclaren report came out and they were just basically saying you know don't go up doping russia russia russia and that was the end of it there was no room for any type of talk about when it came to that now we know that that russia reacted to the

water report and it basically was saying listen we will comply what do we need to do but nobody wanted to hear any of that it was the what was said was said and russia was guilty and of story russia never even had a chance for a rebuttal during that time the russian sports ministry or any russian sports agencies weren't even allowed to participate in this investigation so the bias was there from the very beginning as set also when you look at it really a month or two later in september of that year we want to walk in montreal where their headquarters is there was a protest there for a russian paralympic not being allowed in the games and for the recommendation for that not to be allowed in the olympics they didn't want to talk to us so i mean this is the look of being harmed here it's outhwaite athletes have been training for a very long time as as well as the fact that we're talking about an agency that the bias is very very clear how about all the other countries and i asked mclaren that question i said how about other nations don't they don't what's going on here and

you know it was like this is about russia this isn't about anybody else so now we come to the i.o.c. the i.o.c. with chang the olympics basically saying we're not allowed to we're not allowing russian athletes there with the russian flags we're not allowing any russian government officials there we're not allowing the russian national anthem but unlike what we saw with the kuwaitis in rio we might allow the flag to go up at the end of the games and maybe hear the national anthem and these guys when we announce them we will be saying that they are russians we won't be said. that they're just neutral athletes so what does this really mean break it down look they're going to lose tons of money and young chang that a lot of russians are obviously not going to show up to these games now ticket sales are already hurt by what well there's another issue here and that's north korea so we have north korea now rattling its sabers we have the states rattling their sabers with the exercises that they've had this weekend with alongside south korea nikki haley's already saying you know what we might not be sending us out

please to this game this is following suit to what the french said back in september the exact same thing if this war scenario as collates at all on the korean peninsula we will not be sending our people to these games so obviously these games are ready suffering like us that ticket sales are down a lot of people aren't showing up there's a lot of fear here and when it comes to the stance of north korea well north korea get this is not going to have any athletes at these olympics in south korea so is there reason to fear while south korea is going to have a lot more security than it's ever had before the olympics and they're pumping that up so right now from north korea's point of view i mean what a better opportunity to be testing things with the whole world is watching this peninsula jim is this russia band pure politics of course that is if this was really about did a dirty athletes as alex said what about all the other countries we know there's a lot of doping there's a lot of corruption in sport and the and lot of other big money activities but russia as a country its flag and say anthem that's what's being single out here not even

necessarily the athletes with whom there may be problems alex here in washington we talk about how things play outside the beltway how does this all play outside the usa you're in canada how does this feel up there. you know the media is a beast and a half so if you look at canada's point of view it's pretty much in tandem with the us to say canada and the us have been caught doping in the past we've seen that we had our ben johnson who was the fastest man in the world for such a long time and guess what he was caught using steroids so this is again it's unbelievable that people in the western world including here in canada in the states don't see this for what it is and it's a simple fact that they picked one country wada did and now the i.o.c. and they're singling out this one country what they're doing but how about everybody else we know it goes on jim based on your years on the foreign service

take us inside the u.s. embassy in seoul now what's the mood of the shop there well with regard to the olympics and the russian the being banning the russians i think it's all business as usual i don't think they care about that too much frankly hollande i think they've got much bigger worries if you're in seoul with the tensions on the korean peninsula peninsula now between the united states and north korea we heard still for example senator lindsey graham suggesting that the u.s. family should not be there because this is a very dangerous circumstance and so even before this olympic thinking up you've worked in embassies if your clock and in it feels different in the embassy in seoul than it did a year or two ago already oh absolutely and that's one reason i think that the white house press spokesman have been so huckabee sanders really opened the door about maybe we will have sent a team either if the danger is that great to our athletes yeah that really hung in the air yesterday dan kovalchuk r t contributor and professor of international human rights at the university of pittsburgh thinks this olympic size shake up is

part and parcel of larger tensions between east and west this just seems to be part and parcel of this whole anti russia drum where were apparently evident. it's is never necessary just me or allegations and anyway and frankly and sometimes just pure fantasy and i am just very concerned what this is going to do frankly just all relations with russia they're just going to sour even more and to have that kind of souring between two great nuclear powers is not something any of us should feel comfortable about jim the olympics are supposed to transcend politics is that possible when russia is one of the few nations with a functional relationship with north korea. the short answer is no and frankly a little let's be honest the olympics have never transcended politics they've

always been in a sense a political showcase let's remember in the time of the cold war when there was this very palpable sense of an east bloc western bloc competition at the olympics which was kind of a symbol of the cold war who system does better the the socialist system or the capitalist system and the games were almost a symbol of that and of course then we saw of course the american boycott of the one nine hundred eighty olympics and moscow than a sort of a soviet boycott of the nineteen eighty four olympics and los angeles has always been politics in the olympics but i think the the banning of russia takes us to hold level even the flags have changed because east germany west germany back in the day right north korea south korea that was us right under and actually in the in three games the north and south koreans even though they competed as separate teams they marched under a single korean you're unification flag a white flag with a blue silhouette of the peninsula audit so it is there has been the sense that you could use the olympics says as a venue for projecting

a positive message as well something alex touched on a second ago people save up for years and it's the vacation of all life time to go to the olympic games but few in big venues could be as tense as the north korean peninsula here's senator lindsey graham. we're getting close to a military conflict because. north korea is marching toward marrying up the technology of an i.c.b.m. with a nuclear weapon on top that can not only get to america but deliver the weapon we're running out of time and that master said that yesterday i'm going to urge the pentagon not to send any more dependents to south korea south korea should be. sure it's crazy to send spouses and children to south korea given the provocation of north korea so i want them to stop sending dependents and i think it's now time to start moving american dependents out of south korea alex and jim and that order are these military maneuvers and other reasons reasons for folks not to be there for

the olympics look jump chang is fifty miles south of the d.m.z. so if north korea wants to do something it wouldn't be too difficult we know already that seoul house how many hundreds of rockets and missiles pointed out it so yeah this is one of those situations that you're looking at probably the worst place in the world right now to have the olympics in the sense of a whole geo political will to the structure of the movement what's happening between east and west and really that is i mean that's pretty much right on the ball this is a struggle between east and west and really north korea if you're going to think who's issue is this who can really solve this problem it's not going to be the u.s. it could be china right so this is just one of those situations where again the u.s. is these are exercises that it has with south korea we always forget about that that is really it is the true true nature of what sea saber rattling really is and for a country like north korea who is much smaller when you really think about it in any sense of the world word they have one thing one thing on their side and that's

this development of nuclear weapons so conjunct kim jong un so what happened to get off if he saw what happened to saddam hussein and he doesn't want the same thing to happen to him and this is his defense jim how do you see this all unfolding. i don't know to tell the truth holiday it's. we see this also lation back and forth between really tough threatening language out of both washington pyongyang and then some small indications well we can have a dialogue maybe even there will be direct talks between north korea and the united states but the question is as alex said what do you put on the table that counteracts what happened to gadhafi and saddam hussein that kim jong il is capable of believing even if he thought this ministration would here and here to what how does he know what the next administration would do could be an opportunity seems like a threat it seems like but you know getting back to the thing with what senator graham said about the embassy how does it feel to be a diplomat there in big cold and specially your expendable sure thank you alex mahalo bitch and jim shot for us we're going to watch this story coming up is

president trump addicted to twitter are you take our quick quiz next this is the big picture on our t. america. no russian flag will fly at the twentieth winter olympics but there will be russian athletes. the russian national anthem will play during official ceremonies but fans will probably acappella rendition you can take the athletes out of the country but can you take the country out of the athletes.

here's what people have been saying about rejected in the. show i go out of my way to you know what it really. is the john oliver of party of marriage is a. fairly better than blues. zaid if you search kim jong un twitter you will find some with almost sixty thousand followers he describes himself as a scholar athlete and god king of the greatest nation on earth and he admits it's a parody account we can't find the real chairman of the workers' party of korea on twitter but that are from talking to him their president trump never called him short and fat oh well i try so hard to be his friend and maybe someday that will happen good natured zinger sure compared to tougher talk we've seen recently in trump's cyber diplomacy the president tweeted what he told

a hushed united nations general assembly the usa has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy hash tag noko and as our secretary of state was trying to move the ball diplomatically his boss tweeted i told rex tillerson our wonderful secretary of state that he's wasting his time trying to negotiate with little rocket man after trump tweeted videos posted by britain first nationalist anti islam group in the u.k. prime minister to resign may was not amused i am very clear that re tweeting from britain first was the wrong thing to do to which trump responded on twitter theresa may don't focus on me focus on the destructive radical islamic terrorism that is taking place within the united kingdom we are doing just fine. our trump tweets

lost in translation to other languages and other cultures where world leaders are sizing him up is twitter as the president claims a useful way to end run the corporate mainstream media filter and engage directly with americans let's ask professor james roberts from baylor university he is author of too much of a good thing are you addicted to your smartphone which includes a chapter about that comment or in chief's twitter habit also deep in the heart of texas conservative radio and t.v. pundit paul glider whose blog is you tell me texas com john thank you thanks for having me thanks for having me paula a recent poll tells us that half of republicans wish the president would quit twitter and that's up from thirty six percent as recently as january ditto sixty four percent of independent voters double the january number and eighty four

percent of dems up from sixty six back then how surprising is this to you and how would you do a lifelong republican have answer that question. well first of those are the better question that a twitter is why should donald trump or should donald trump stop doing what's working and you're surprised by the poll numbers no if you'll remember thirteen months ago the polls said hillary clinton was well fair enough but about it's working just yesterday we hear from pew the new poll numbers are an all time low he's down from thirty nine to thirty two percent approval rate in general and down to among republicans from eighty four to seventy nine so is it possible that he's only talking to that hard core base. i guess it's possible that he's only talking to that hardcore base but as i said and you tell me texas dot com this time about a year ago the only poll that's going to matter with respect to donald trump is do

things get better in the four years of his presidency and look at the numbers that came out today and look at look at the jobless numbers and look at this look at the dow and look at the manufacturing numbers and look at all of the metrics by which we judge the economy and then go call on my advertisers who for the first time in close to a decade are in a good mood and are ready to unloose unleash the money and start advertising because they think there's business to be done you know the poll numbers are going to be what the poll numbers are right now on november definitely the mood on the street is pretty good all right on november seventeenth this year twenty seventeen came this tweet crooked hillary is the worst and biggest loser of all time she just can't stop which is so good for the republican party hilary get on with your life and give it another try in three years paul over a year after the election what do you reckon the president gains politically from continuing to fight that last battle will what and what triggered the tweet what

did hillary say what i don't know what's the context of the tweet and give you a better answer but you know i know that from this. republican lifelong conservative the fact that separate justice to sure how and thank you diction would be in a particular behavioral addictions any type of behavior we continue to perform despite the negative consequences that has on us and other people around us now let's all take this quick quiz from jim's book i sent tweets throughout the day question to i feel compelled to tweet my opinions on topics important to me. question three i feel great when my tweets get a lot of attention questions for i feel better after tweeting something that needs to be said question five recently i find myself tweeting more and more

question six i spend more time tweeting than i should question i get anxious when i can't tweet out my thoughts on something question eight i would go into a panic if i lost access to my twitter account question nine i've had serious arguments with others over my tweeting question ten my romantic partner says i need to cut back on my tweeting question eleven i've tried to cut back on my tweeting but could not and question twelve i have tried to be more civil when tweeting but i always go back to name calling and negative comments now jim you say if you answered yes to eight or more of these statements you are addicted which surprises me because i only went five for twelve and i feel addicted as a professor you are surrounded by young people how much time are

college age people spending on their devices and what's the impact on how they socialize or don't. that's a good question do remember we're talking about college students and so there's definitely an age divide we're talking about social media but you won't believe this some of the research that i've conducted myself has found that college to both men and women women more than men spend about an average of eight to eight half hours a day on their smartphones i've read and seen research that says we look at our phones one hundred fifty times a day do you tell the kids to turn it off in class. oh boy yeah that's a story right there twenty years ago my biggest task was getting students to sit back in their seats and quit talking to each other now when i walk into the classroom it's like a morgue there's not a sound being made and the biggest thing i have to do is get the students to look up from their smartphones yeah i'm walking down the street before the show today and i saw a guy i'd bump into the pole because he's walking looking down this is something we

do regardless of age but paul same question to you because you are an employer so you encounter job applicants and their application skills and you've got a teenager at home are we suffering a new tax generation gap. yes yes yes and yes we are very much bring a new tech generation gap and i'll have my daughter at dinner and i tell you it's not necessarily generational i could be sitting there at dinner with my by wifely and my daughter bethany i'm the only one not looking at the phone the two of them looking at the phone while we're trying to have dinner together yes it's a real problem and i've been around and job interview job applicants during the interview consult their phone in the middle of trying to get a job and what about the monosyllabic answers in the job interview. paul and jim in that order the kids are less articulate in the digital age anthony.

absolutely true they and they don't want to engage in conversations and you can't draw them out and they won't draw themselves out and monosyllabic is correct you get very very short answers you get the you know you get one hundred forty characters out of them that's that is absolute fact it's true jan the same question they just too quiet for you. you know that is a probably call it distracted but they're they've really lost the ability to hold face to face conversations the more we conduct ourselves over social media lines over high tech lines the more we lose the. millipede to read body language to understand people's tones of voice we lot we lose contact we lose i contact in particular and that helps us kind of bond with these people and we're losing young people are losing those abilities as they go on to more and more conversations online well jim for people watching of any age give us some do's and don'ts for

twitter and social media use yeah there are some there are some good ones the first thing i always say and again i'm going to liken this to the dutch when they're trying to reclaim their land from the sea start with small steps and build up and the first thing i would say is i think the one they can have the most important ramifications is no cell phone use no smart phone use while driving so simply and this is a habit this is an addiction and so we're going to have to take drastic measures that might mean putting your smartphone in the trunk of your car because we know even if the cup phone is in the car and you're not talking to it it's enough to distract you would you do when you're driving so first thing is try it with your smartphone or with your driving make it the first thing you do is to make that smartphone inaccessible while you're driving other things as we get outside of the car would be things about setting up smartphone free zones and times and what i mean by that is places and times throughout the day where their smartphone is forbidden so that could be when you're at dinner with your children and that could be at work check your smartphone at certain times at work when you're on

a date with your spouse all these types of things and particularly in the bedroom at night now not only can it be disruptive to your sleep amen thank you professor roberts from baylor university and paul glides are k t b b radio and fox fifty one t.v. and you want to follow paul's thoughtful blog you tell me texas dot com have a good weekend guys. thank you hala. thank you all as al franken leaves the united states senate alabama will vote and the world will be watching and this coming thursday the federal communications commission will almost certainly vote to nix net neutrality and southern california is in flames. while climate change deniers call it a hoax there is never been a more important time to question more that's the big picture if you missed any

part of this week's show or if you want to share it or to see all the shows we've done hit you tube dot com slash big picture r.t. and if you see it somewhere else you can also find r t america on direct t.v. channel three two one have a good weekend and question more. like when you all know it's coming through and spoke to. if somebody would have been told me that i'm going to spend my trip to playing committees are a little disturbed person would have sold to those critics. every night we were attacked by the arabs we will attacking them and we will

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