president trump's pulled out of visiting britain next month to open a new u.s. embassy in london that he says it's because he's unhappy with a one point two billion dollar relocation project. the reason i can so much it to

london is that i'm not a big fan of the obama administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in london for peanuts only to build a new one in off location for one point two billion dollars deal wanted me to cut the ribbon no. appeared at the new embassy but. there is the mother to start she was placed outside the building to the delight of construction workers a local boy who looks next to the president's decision not to visit the u.k. . this is what all this is about is the new u.s. embassy in the area of nine elms which is being regenerated into sort of an embassy quarter. to the public next week donald trump was supposed to arrive in february or it was widely expected that you'd be cutting the ribbon and that's not happening any more clearly the old building of the u.s. embassy on that was on the sort of grand old square in the very heart of the city

in the center of mayfair which many people know is the most expensive location on the monopoly board but the interesting thing about the president's tweets is that there was a slight error and he accused the obama administration of selling that old building for peanuts it was in fact the bush administration before him and there have been suggestions that this whole embassy rau is a way of getting attention away from the fact that perhaps the president didn't feel like he was going to be particularly welcome in the u.k. almost two million people has signed a petition against him coming here claiming perhaps the most british reason a rule that it would embarrass the queen donald trump arriving here and the marriage of london hasn't been too welcoming either take a listen to what city khan has had to say about donald trump it appears that president trump got the message from the many londoners who love and admire america

and americans but find his policies in action the opposite of all cities values this just reinforces what a mistake it was for it's a reason to rush and extend an invitation of a state visit in the first place and a special relationships go to this one looking special. all the wrong reasons right now we know diplomacy hasn't been donald trump's strong suit but perhaps a year into the job he is managing to surpass even himself because he has reportedly insulted highty and. other nations as well. with the u.k. according to media reports he referred to highty and a number of other countries as quote undesirable second rate countries and not in those words the white house hasn't even denied that he said it instead they've issued quite a bit flexing statement saying that in washington politicians choose to fight from foreign countries but president trump always fights for the american people so.

with haiti now rumors that the island nation could be recalling its. washington and probably a few bridges to build and fences to mend for us. all in a day's work or should i say in a few tweets for the u.s. president. well this is the u.s. president's been quick to reject to the reports that he made offensive comments about a number of countries if he tweeted that his language in that meeting was tough for you that he didn't use the words attributed to. me time washington's new ambassador to the netherlands seems to have picked up some of the same diplomatic. president when it comes to the media his first news conference he came under fire from journalists are refusing to defend previous remarks about no go zones and he's not the only one trying to give the media the sleep either.

i know you should. revisit it you should know last year you said this is a book that some of you believe you. are not. why don't you i'm sort of what i'm sort of course this is not works for me this is the evidence i'm from scratch. to use cluster weapons in the end this is not the question did you think your wife. yes or no yes. and.

maybe a way forward in germany though to end months of political deadlock in germany seems dazed chancellor merkel's c.d.u. party the social democrats have struck a breakthrough some calling across this in berlin let's go to the details i shall come out of these talks what sort of concessions both sides saying they're ready to make now to at last when you government. well what we know is this is a very small step on the way to potentially forming a new grand coalition between these parties and then forming a government here in germany but is it a government that the german people want if we look at the elections both of these parties actually lost support in the last election which has left them struggling to be able to find coalition partners in fact. party had already held talks with some of the smaller parties which had failed to turn into concrete coalition talks and form a government cheese then been trying over the last few days with the social democrats

and they've now agreed on a twenty eight page blueprint document however many people in germany are unhappy with the idea of returning to this old grand coalition style these are the two parties who work together in the previous tenant see here in germany fifty two percent of people in a poll that was held by a german public broadcaster say they didn't want these two to get back together and that has not been left unnoticed by the party leaders themselves take a listen to what the leader of the c.s.u. this is the sister party of merkel c.d.u. had to say about their unpopularity with the german people. this is the right response to september the election all three of us were far from impressed with the results like there was a signal to politicians that things can't continue down this path anymore. so what's in this new blueprint that spin agreed on well one of the things that the

c.d.u. and the social democrats have agreed on is that they will look to limit the number of migrants coming into germany asylum seekers and refugees that would be between one hundred eighty and two hundred and twenty thousand people limited annually that also be no tax increases and there would be more money for the e.u. but this is us. small step on a long path to go there is very tricky from here on out the social democrats have to take this blueprint back to their party members their party members have to approve it that vote will take place on january twenty first if it's approved then they can start formal coalition to go stations but then whatever is agreed to in those coalition negotiations will again have to be put back to the social democrats for them to vote on so angela merkel may be out of the woods but she is this is far from over and germany could be without a government for many many more weeks like one big slow moving merry go round is

now in germany show the berlin thanks for the update the news in from the u.k. after the break a top girls school in britain could be about to burn leaves pupils being called all referred to as girls we talk about that eighty seconds away.

unfortunately it appears that once people learn that you've reported in a sexual assault or me have been involved in that. instead of being scared of the perpetrator. one of britain's leading all schools has decided to stop referring to its pupils as girls in a controversial move to adopt more gender neutral language or grammar school for girls defended its policy saying the trying to simply breaking grain habits to help students with gender identity issues out in that quote we welcome and celebrate

diversity people really come up with alternative names for the school itself. meantime it has got no plan to drop the word girls from its title we are some of the locals what they thought of this new gender neutral policy. i think the majority would be happy to be called ridiculous i think girls are girls and boys are boys there's too many pressures on pupils too much attempt to move everything

towards gender neutrality i think it actually leads to more confusion rather than clarification this is a girls' school and it's extraordinary that children are being encouraged to go along the path we're going to have more and more children with mental health problems who are confused and unhappy by all means support children who have a gender issue but don't do it at the expense of the majority do not rob them of their gender identity we only need to apply those basic principles of religions that we treat other people how we wish to be treated and we solve the problem we need to stop for a sting pushing adult neuroses onto these young children. the deadline is looming for the u.s. president to decide whether or not to extend sanctions relief for iran as part of a big nuclear deal struck back in twenty fifty and what it appears the administration will i hold off on reimposing those sanctions it seems u.s. officials say they still may well target around with new separate measures i am

expecting new sanctions on iran we continue to look at them we've rolled them out and i think. you can expect there will be more sanctions coming but the french president meantime for ones reaffirmed his country's commitment to the nuclear agreement the original one as have a number of other e.u. states. great value for the chain c.p.i. way that you deal with iran the deal is working you want to. protect just if you were a white support for this deal make sure that the lifting of nuclear related sanctions has a positive impact on trade iran is in compliance with this agreement of the only agreement which prevents us from the proliferation of nuclear weapons is crucial for the security of the region but also for the security of a good. deal with iran as it was signed back in twenty fifteen after nine years of

talks six other countries including the u.s. were involved in the negotiations were seen as a huge breakthrough and bring in a long running confrontation over iran's nuclear activities but no washington is claiming this deal actually allows to run to expand nuclear capabilities anyway so with a lot at stake we've been hearing how the disagreements driving a wedge between america and its allies over it. what we see at the moment we see a historic drift between the united states. and the e.u. we never ever seen such a gap such distance between the e.u. and the us at least over the last thirty or forty years or so what happened in brussels was really interesting effectively every important player in the e.u. defied the verdicts of president trump the main target is really to press pressure the american government. to stick to the deal do the nuclear deal with iran that is the main objective i believe from the e.u. side not just the e.u.

as a whole but also through france and germany as separate member states of the u.n. security council what would happen if really the u.s. stepped out of the deal this is not something like like like the climate the climate agreement this is something that would have much worse consequences. a new u.s. army project on submarines said to be completed within fifteen years could already be going on strong comparisons of that with america's most costly fighter jet robert f. thirty five which faced criticism from experts over technical failure as a girlfriend says santiago report meet the colombia class submarines the u.s. navy's ambitious project to replace old nuclear submarines said to be decommissioned from twenty twenty seven twelve ballistic missile submarines or carry seventy percent of america's nuclear arsenal and are supposed to be packed with new technologies the columbia class submarine program is well positioned to

provide needed capability at an affordable price on the time i need to meet national strategic deterrent requirements the new class isn't expected to enter service until twenty thirty one but already at a design stage it's causing some huge concerns the u.s. government accountability office is latest report highlights quite a few problems with the super. project some of the theology is yet to be developed heavy deal a's are expected and the costs could skyrocket columbia class is not funded on too quickly to address program risks this is more like with no columbia class program will exceed the navy's one hundred twenty eight billion estimate of total acquisition cost as expensive and of big so teacher comportment ring a bell anyone columbia's submarines are already being compared to the f. thirty five fighter jet the u.s. military's most costly and arguably most miss civitas projects the f. thirty five assessment reports have pointed to at least two hundred seventy six

deficiencies in combat performance marked as critical so correct from unacceptable flight performance when breaking the sound barrier to overheating problems and cyber security vulnerabilities hundreds of issues of all kinds. so why would the us pursue another ambitious project and insist it's flawless despite worrying assessments called front loading you make a lot of big promises up front that this wonderful new technology is going to work just perfectly and then you hook in congress to commit to funding something like this and as with the f. thirty five once things don't work as play and then it's not very easy to get off the hook because they've already committed the money upfront to get the project

started it's something that the that the military industrial complex together the pentagon has done for decades congress has a long history of appropriating money for weapons systems and other military equipment that the pentagon neither wants nor needs so ultimately this is a political issue where you see unfortunately the columbia class submarine could mark the next big sinking of american taxpayers' money i mean look the u.s. has the largest military budget of ball yet a massive chunk of it is wasted on disastrous projects which are still being carried out only because they are too big to fail axis and giago r.t. we'll continue to track that story you come to r.c. dot com here in moscow for now kevin i would say and thanks for watching.

the two thousand and eight economic crisis turn some countries into paid. these are the countries with weaker economies that needed austerity policies if you are in a situation of low blow even the recession austerity is a very bad idea it doesn't work and it makes millions of people very unhappy to those who own them. cloyd see their wages decline the whole most a decade how good are the results when you go into these with a body. cavity search the wad of good people to see what do i do in a choice a beautiful blue she goes i mean if a legal. challenge and. they see something. why are the same measures still in place to one of the consequences. we can

bluebirds. i will first the one this is the truth be considered this is the consequences are actually quite acceptable to the decision maker. hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle it's being called an olympic truce after months of over the top rhetoric the two careers are talking again the first time in two years is this a serious diplomatic opening or merely a ploy south korea appears to welcome this opening as the same apply to washington

. and cross talk in the koreas i'm joined by my guest michael maloof in washington he's a former senior security policy analyst in the office of secretary of defense also in washington we have set up he is a senior fellow at the institute for china american studies and in london we cross the charles bridge he is a security analyst and a former u.k. army and counter terrorism intelligence officer. origin across the rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate charles let me go to you first here of course looking at the reactions to this a limp dick truce the one word keeps coming up wedge the north koreans are trying to wedge the us away from south korea well of course they are the whole idea that's why it's called a political and diplomatic gambit let the games begin at least the diplomatic ones here really the question is how the americans are actually going to respond to it not that it's a wedge because it is go ahead charles. yes undoubtedly north korea is quite

skillfully taking advantage of events such as the olympics that doesn't mean they don't generally want to take part and i suspect many in north and south korea would welcome that they're going to take part after all they're all koreans at the end of the day america could have perhaps seen this coming perhaps did but they way they were acting in immediate run up to this decision suggests that many of them weren't for example nikki haley and of course in the un very loudly i often the case unfortunate not just on this issue but so many others who have a very largely pronouncing that talk simply wouldn't be taking place that very first of all north korea had to denuclearize. abandon their program before any talks would happen and then almost as if the world has been pulled underneath but to be fair as well donald trump himself has welcomed these talks he's tweeted i

think has of course where we find policy coming from he has tweeted that it's welcome and of course it is of course if we went on to claim credit for it actually it may be that in some ways credit is due to his charitable it may be that for example not necessarily his tough approach but he's very unpredictability and perceived irrationality not just amongst koreans but around the world among catalyze as well of course it could have contributed to this i agree with you you can look at it from totally different venues and come to the same conclusion actually it's very very interesting let me go to you in washington here a few days ago the very suggestion that the north korean a limping team would go to the south to participate lindsey graham said that should not happen and one of the interesting things that western policymakers don't give south korea much agency about their own security and i think that's again part of this wedge here i mean if the north koreans can talk to the south koreans where the problem is in that region you have the russians in the. chinese vouching for

a process that's the way it should work that's a whole lot more confidence than somebody all the way across the globe talking about is big button go ahead it's you know the point about agency which you mentioned is actually the important one and it is it is that aspect of agency which the current south korean government has has has cottoned on to the center that governments in south korea always felt that they needed to exercise that agency so as to have a little bit more of a balancing role on the peninsula and rather than be completely aligned with the u.s. because on on on peninsula issues because when you're completely aligned with the u.s. on peninsula issues sometimes things just go down the wrong way track of the military route the wrong with sensually you know one of the very important factors about kim jong un's rest of procreation in his new year's speech was actually that many of

those points were laid out many of the media the points richey which he talked about were points which were listed by president in a speech in berlin in july. please come and see and participate in the olympics let's try to have exchanges starting with during the korean new years and have family family exchanges let's reduce tensions on the demarcation line i mean each of these has received in response from kim jong un in a positive response yeah we can talk literally as you know graham has a serious analysis but it's an important it's interesting because if you look at the north korean leader of north korea his new year's speech michael let me go to you here i didn't see really much coverage in the mainstream it was very interesting ok fine it's the old days of prim an olive between a fine that's fine with me but i mean on the face of it it was it was very it was an overture and the south reciprocated i mean that's how you start

a process ok and i think this is something that's very good i know the north koreans are very difficult to work with but the americans don't keep their word ok so now we have to go to baby steps to start a process go ahead michael. yeah i think that what what north korea did particularly. kim north korea he he he made he made these overtures i think because he now realizes that his nuclear and missile capabilities are in play that they are sufficient to deal with any u.s. threat i don't think he would have done anything before he was assured and felt confident that his arsenal was well as it was was prepared and ready to go if he's not going to use them against the south and i thought and i think that he has good strategic thinkers and by making the overture to south korea president of south

korea was very has always been involved in wanting to have closer discussions the question that arises for the united states is does this then make the united states influence on the peninsula. less and less relevant as a consequence but it still doesn't take care of the issue or address the issue of kim's nukes and i think that those are not going to go away and i think that what happened is that south korean initiative has taken yeah but when it gets a go big or go to china things here because i mean this is a deterrent i mean i can no logical person with knowledge of this long going conflict can convince me that north korea wants to use these weapons in an offensive matter because if they do they will be incinerated in a matter of minutes it is for security it is for him this is what the north koreans want they want the americans a sit down at the same table in the korean war that's right folks it has never been

ended they want legitimacy and they want economic aid and they want to be part of the international community is they see fit i think those are interesting talking points ok it's or better than war go ahead charles yeah i think we need to look at this from the perspective of. koreans or rather because this is what's relevant in this case the north korean leadership. north korea like other countries around the world has seen a decade and a half getting on for two decades now where countries were persuaded to give up their weapons of mass destruction and countries such as iraq countries such as libya on the promise that they wouldn't then be interfered with that they didn't need to defend themselves against countries such as united states and those countries were then destabilized on their leaderships deposed by force of arms of course talk about iraq and libya and arguably of course that may well be an issue with syria as well there's also of course given up that day and we may see the

results of that in the future but nonetheless this is a message around the world to smaller countries in particular particularly those countries of course i've been on the list of the axis of evil united states promulgated of its plans widely known to topple what it sees as any me or unhelpful regimes around the world i say use of the word regimes we would say governments and of course north korea is and has long been on that list and so the only way that it can prevent an attack from the united states from its perception or from its perspective is of course to go the opposite way of these other unsuccessful countries and actually not just maintain it's to be indeed but actually acquire and refine them and with the previous speaker who says that actually now north korea has arrived at that situation it has arrived at a point which is now almost certainly too late for the united states to take military action or such strong military generals charles or i think really interesting if you look at the history of the ups and downs of the goshi ations

here i mean it's or it's kind of a golden bluff nobody really wants to test it at this point right now ok and i think that's really quite interesting i mean i am not a technical expert in these things here when they tell me this is an i.c.b.m. or maybe it's just an. immediate missile with extra fuel i mean i i remain agnostic about these things i don't believe the intelligence services and i don't believe north korea ok but i do believe in bluff so what do you think ok good sort of in washington before the break. i completely agree with you on that point. he has his deterrent is not completely in place but he seems to be sufficiently adequately confident and comfortable in this regard and there is some element of bluffing because we do need to know that he does need some additional testing to to refine that if the parent but that he hasn't placed is sufficient for him to book ditto the us for him and him for him to feel confident to really.