intercoms borders there in fact america continues its actions to establish control over parts of serious territory close to the turkish iraqi border in the meantime the u.s. scares the kurds away from the dialogue with damascus washington is encouraging separate a sentiment among the kurds. well there's been plenty of reaction coming from europe too on the latest development in northern syria germany's foreign minister has said any military confrontation could potentially carry huge risks following an emergency un security council session front's once again called on turkey to show restraint. well. one told us he believes the u.s. has made a mistake by trying to break up syria and create a kurdish state. i think are very aware miscalculating there and. asked them to choose either he or the they made that grave mistake when the two actually side with. all these to the polls the understand the situation

in syria the will for partition of syria and the creating that see without coordination with russia with syria with iran and with and now i believe that. a very very clear message that you know that americans are actually out of the liable. and they cannot actually count on them. or rallies against the military operation helping held in turkey as well as a number of european countries police in istanbul reportedly use force to disperse a demonstration earlier detaining at least a dozen people we are keeping a watch on the situation along the turkish syrian border any and all developments will brought to you here on r.t. .

turning our attention to the u.k. now where the head of the army in the main threats facing britain and russia is seemingly top of the pile general nick carter wants money to be our kate to bridge the gap between british and russian capabilities. the arch exponent of this is russia i believe represents the most complex and capable state based threat to our country since the end of the cold war they represent a clear and present danger they are not thousands of miles away they are now on europe still step i believe our ability to preempt will respond to these threats will be eroded if we don't match up to them now we cannot afford to sit back normally military chiefs asking for more money for more equipment is pretty standard practice normally it's retired generals in this case it was somewhat unusual because it was the acting head of the army nick carter he's basically

risking annoying his paymasters by coming out with this plea for more money but the purpose of the speech was to secure more funding for the military warning of the dangers of under-investment at a time when there's this threat of russia or as they say he spoke of the dangers of failing to keep up with russia's defense spending and also what he called russia's on orthodox and hybrid warfare one thing that was certainly on orthodoxy in that speech was the part with the or dear clip the russian audiotape take a listen. no indication the scale of the issue is clear from the three minute video clip i'm not going to show you this was run on russian t.v. a couple of years ago you don't need to understand the russian just sit through the sense of the commentary so this recording from the ministry of defense about investment in russian weapons but certainly in our news room and it may not be

a good indicator because after all we are our team but it caused a few people to scratch their heads obviously the clip is in russian what informational value it could have for the people there is not clear and it felt as though it may have been sort of playing on this stereotype of russians being aggressive and hell bent on world domination. isn't the first person to talk about the threat of russia recently in december you had another big sort of military chief here in the u.k. the head of u.k. defense stuff talking about the threat of russia cutting vital undersea cables as sort of a way of encouraging investment but none of this seems to be affecting the people who are holding the purse strings because downing street didn't have much of a response to this speech the spokesperson today from downing street said that the u.k.'s defense budget is the highest in europe and the issues outlined by carter

are already being addressed so varying degrees of concern from the ministry of defense and from downing street who just cite how much money is meant to be spent now it's also worth pointing out that when they're not asking for money members of the british military tend to be a little bit more blogs a about the whole russia thing last summer then defense secretary michael fallon joked that moscow is probably jealous of britain's new state of the arts aircraft carrier because russia says so lapper dated that was a joke by michael file and then defense secretary and also. boris johnson and rex tillerson meeting for talks today in london they're discussing iran north korea and syria they haven't mentioned russia. right let's delve a little deeper into this nie because security analyst charles schumer bridge has taken the time to join us hi charles good to have you on the program and just down the brass tacks to all this you know when it comes to money why is there such at

this graph and see between the government's assessment and the armies when it comes to funding because the army is essentially asking for much more here. well you're right this is i think a subtext of what you're asking if you forgive me if i'm wrong but it's about money and what we've got here is a situation where interestingly today even those sections of the u.k. media quite a large section of the media actually that regularly in fact even on a daily basis in many cases likes to play up the so-called russia threat amongst their headlines today i'm talking prick xampp of the b.b.c. the guardian if not amongst the headlines but something deeper inside their analysis pieces on this speech from that car today there's some degree of cynicism about what it is that he's actually saying and the reason for that is because of this conflict this below the surface conflict that is going on and particularly acute at this time when a defense spending review is underway about to get under way yet another phase of

that in the next few days in which the army particularly the army but the defense sector generally is not under threat because of vast amounts of money as you've heard already more than in any other european country spent on defense in the u.k. but the other parts of the u.k. economy suffering other services like the health service education and so on are competitors for that budget and what this is about is trying to protect ring fence and if possible even increase the money spent on britain's forces regardless of that that would have to come out of other services is it too simplistic to say that you know they're rushing targets simply poles died whenever the military wants more money. absolutely and it's not just russia of course we're talking about north korea iran or the bogeyman that are used for this notwithstanding that i mean it's very interesting that we hear the russian threat today is actually not thousands of miles away but on the doorstep of europe actually the reason for that is because

russia has moved its because nato of course has moved much much closer over the last twenty years towards the borders of russia so it's a slightly ironic thing to say i think but also there is something of course to what the general actually says and that is that first of all. the british state of the british military in terms of the number of its personnel the number the amount of its equipment and according to that quick money is at a pitifully low level and so therefore you have to have some sympathy perhaps for this man who speaks out in defense if you like of his soldiers projects but that is a situation entirely of the u.k. defense establishment is making because they have instead of opting for equipping soldiers with the best equipment and numbers they have chosen very expensive capital projects such as the two o'clock i was. supposed will be the pride of the navy despite the fact they want to have aircraft you've known them for some years and of course the try to educate its haven't yet of which eats up a vast proportion of the defense budget the year ago charlet just to get your view

on this you know there's mixed messages going on here is there not because a u.k. military official called a russian aircraft carrier dilapidated another rhetoric well it's a warning a return isn't it it's markedly different russian weapons are described the state of the art why the shift in such a short period of time. what i think to be honest in the case of michael fallen and indeed the current defense secretary very inexperienced politician a key ally of the prime minister a very ambitious and very aggressive in his rhetoric towards other countries not just russia they will waver of course according to the circumstances they will in the one instance of course. i denigrate and ridicule russia and indeed other perceived. enemies of that. same time in the next sentence they will ramp up what the degree of threat is from these countries so they don't seem to see the

internal inconsistences of what they're actually saying certainly it was in boston of course for michael falling to say that about the russian aircraft because literally within a few weeks virtually all of the brand new fleet of britain's very advanced frigate fleet was laid up in ports because of similar breakdowns in a very modern ships charles security analyst great to have your analysis and thoughts on this aspect of the latest development tween london on moscow thanks charles. now to the u.s. where after a three day partial government shutdown american senators have voted to support a temporary funding bill which will keep services and institutions afloat until ether fabre. too much is on the table right now that needs to get finished and let us take advantage of these next few weeks to show the american people that indeed

we will work together in the best interest of our country putting partisan politics aside we can do the people's work let's get that done and let's start right now while people are holding their breath we now have the u.s. senate voting eighty one to eighteen for this resolution that would just simply extend the funding for another two weeks so we could be back in this situation once again people are waiting for the house of representatives to see what happens now at the moment the statue of liberty here in new york even though it's a federal property remains open with the new york state actually paying the bills in order to keep this big symbol of the united states in this kind of iconic monument in the usa open furthermore all we've heard from the white house that cabinet members from the trauma administration of actually delayed their trip to the davis economic forum now to give you more of an idea of what exactly is happening and what it means for the u.s.

federal government to be shut down want to take a listen to this upcoming clip. america knows this is the trump shutdown figures delusion so let's get that nice little ring to it doesn't it senate democrats shut down this government a big fat failure and.

unfortunately we cannot if you're called today because congressional democrats are holding government funding hostage to an unrelated immigration debate each of this instruction the government shutdown. well as you saw there's been no shortage of blaming each other on the floor of congress democrats blaming republicans republicans blaming democrats all saying that it's the other party's fault that the government is shut down however people are excited hoping that we will have a two week reprieve that message that you just heard is no longer on the answering machine now there's been an interesting international reaction to the government shutdown chinese state media ran an interesting article observing the government shutdown and saying that it was indicated of what they called a spirit of non-cooperation in washington d.c. and said it was a slap in the face to donald trump now they went on to point out that donald trump

seems to undone all the major policy initiatives of his predecessor and from there they went on to say that you know around the world the western countries tend to hold up the u.s. political system as an icon say this is the ideal political system the ideal system of government however it seems to not have the ability to swiftly move into action and solve problems and that china essentially characterized the u.s. government shutdown as an example of what they called a chaotic political system in the united states. listing stateside america's national security agency now has the power to identify people by the song of their voice the n.s.a. still to be using technology much more advanced than what the likes of bill or amazon can utilize that's according to a report based on documents leaked by the agency's former contractor edward snowden . however on the top of my voice there isn't much i can gather my identity very compelling i'm female and before my accident we're going to i'm american i love.

the n.s.a. however could do a lot more easily using my voice to identify who i am what language i'm speaking my gender and my dialect according to cost by documents from the archives the n.s.a. has been developing technology to identify a speaker using just their voice for years. when sigint transcribers worked the same targets for a long time they sometimes can identify a certain individual in recorded conversations just by the sound of his voice and by his unique way of speaking this process was traditionally known as voice identification now rapidly improving technology is available that can do the same job but mathematically the technology works by analyzing your voice is unique features to create an individual voice print and once the n.s.a. has that a single speaker can be almost instantaneously pinpointed even among massive databases now in two thousand and sixteen alone the n.s.a. corded more than one hundred fifty one million records of americans phone calls and that was after their bulk collection abilities were limited by congress so there's

no telling how many boyfriends they could have at their disposal and theoretically a person could be instantly located and tracked down as long as a microphone is somewhere nearby and as edward snowden pointed out there's almost no escaping mix these days i don't think anybody would dog you the police. chase terrorists paedophiles who we don't so clue about so it's just talk it's heat surveillance what we're talking about is everybody everything piece of data by everybody being collected and scanned by software that looks deviant and he could stop talking see people involved in very lucrative things like demonstration of straw eeks even you know people who vote for the wrong way this was the american government is concerned another fear is that speaker recognition could end up discouraging people from speaking out it has the potential to unmask anonymous sources or tracking journalists or whistleblowers and according to the intercept

this technology isn't only in american hands either it looks like interpol the european union and china have their own version as well among others so you can run but you definitely cannot hide jacki very good while from collecting information to losing it the u.s. federal court has room real the n.s.a. deleted crucial data connected to illegal wiretapping carried out by the george w. bush administration the agency responded saying the data was removed to simply free up space on its hard drives. the presidential surveillance program that's gone from they to make criteria that were broadly used to delete dates of a certain type in response to mission requirements to free up space and improve performance of the backup system. of the data in question was controversy collected in the aftermath of the nine eleven terror attacks it was initially ordered by the courts to be preserved for further examination but has not been a raise that long with the back up to eight the information was deemed important to

a number of pending lawsuits a former n.s.a. director and whistleblower we spoke to say is this sort of data tends to disappear far too often it's a way of covering your backside so that when the investigation started we get they they just can't let that they to be exposed that's all it's just more evidence of their criminal activity the department of defense inspector general did to see thing with material against whistleblowers even though when the whistleblowers were in a court under under criminal his age in a criminal trial they destroyed evidence and it was only because it was exculpatory and they didn't want that out so now this is all deliberate even when they lie in front of congress or to the people the united states or even to the president or any of the cabinet it doesn't seem to matter there's no accountability here to be intelligence community is so much power i mean even senator schumer told the president trump that he shouldn't be attacking the intelligence community because they've got six ways to sunday to get back at you and these are the ways they do it . and germany's drone i'd wait for a new government could be on the verge of

a breakthrough the social democrats leader martin shuls has persuaded his party members to vote in favor of reestablishing the grand coalition with chancellor angela merkel's party this could see the anti migrant alternative for germany party become the main opposition force in the country as peter all over be looking into. all this was the result that martin schultz wanted it was the result he campaigned for but it was a visibly very worried martin childes waiting for those results that come in he gave a speech just before the ballots were cast he said that there were only two options it was either go into coalition with angela merkel's conservative bloc or they'd have to be another election and he was very clear on which one he'd prefer that you know. everyone should realize the question is coalition talks or new elections my take on this is very clear i don't think new elections are the right way for us but

what would a coalition do for the bundestag how would the book to stagg look if a new grand coalition can be formed well what it would do is it would mean that the social democrats who are no longer the largest opposition party that would go to the new kids on the block alternative for germany they would be the largest opposition party they would also get all of the or perks and traditions that come along with that including being the chair of the bundestag budget committee all new ground for the right leaning and tea establishment party a party in fact in which martin shultz and many other senior members of the social democrats have decried as racist before the election in september and said that they shouldn't be taking up seats within the bundestag well in an attempt to try and hang on to power for himself he may well catapult them up into the position of being germany's largest opposition or the push for

a second grand coalition has had a polarizing effect on s.p.d. members other parties on the left are also warning the social democrats that they are jeopardizing their future. as of yet. there is no more appropriate terms and political suicide to describe this because if the s.p.d. really carries on like all the things they were punished for in the last election then i don't know what will be left of them in two or four years' time and that's the vicious circle would have been trapped in for so many years now and that we should break it with. another coalition with another four years of government or government will bring us to this point i think that the people's bodies for thinking long term that the party will be destroyed by the grand coalition martin doul juror number game pity for the left wing party believes the social democrats have long been drifting away from their core values.

that is a long term process which is followed no by this decision when we see the social democrats just since ten or fifteen years big gave up the original position they gave up to be a party which really has a decisive politics for peace a decisive politics for. the interest of the workers for the interests of the majority of the population. is just a crease and office process. this hour but peter lavelle and guests are cross talking right after a short break. hello and welcome to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle well the

four page memo detailing extensive fives of course abuse changed the course of what is known as russia gate also does the trumpet ministration syria policy make any sense and who is the real boy from the media. cross talking real news i'm joined by my guest mark sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have alex christopher oh he's the director and writer for the duran dot com and we have dimitri bobbitt she's a political analyst with sputnik international are gentlemen as usual crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i always appreciate alex let me go to you first this four page memo now if you watch fox it means something and it means something big you watch c.n.n. you might not even hear about it is this a partisan thing or is there is something they are there to be honest we don't really know yet. i mean you have fox which is building it up as explosive scandal

is bring down the obama administration is going to connect obama to the d.o.j. to the f.b.i. to the clinton campaign that they were spying on trump they were surveilling they were surveilling trump and you have c.n.n. i'm simply seahorse saying there's nothing there i mean the the only thing you can really do is release that memo and glenn greenwald is calling to release that memo a lot of news a lot of people from toulon assad's everybody saying we got to release the memo because we don't really know laura ingram said on our show that there's one democrat who has read this memo which is located in some secret room for classified information one democrat while all the republicans have actually gone through that memo and they're shocked and that's a quote they're shocked at what they read nor what do you make of all this yeah it's hard to know what to make of it because of the part of the nature of the russia gate scandal that it concerns one thing we have to say that we can all

yell hash tag release the memo it's so popular right now but it's the republican controlled congress that can release the memo or trump's white house they can order the memo declassified and released it to everyone if they want it released well then release it already stop trying to make a public theater out of it let's see if there really is i mean a time when i understand they going to go through a process that will take like nineteen days for it to be released ok well that's nineteen days for this partisan. lunchroom fight to continue ok i mean it will seem but you know one of the interesting things is that all while the new this new phase of bill the seven hundred two bill that allows the n.s.a. to continue this process of surveillance i mean the irony of ironies here because it was probably because. i know too that allowed something like this to happen they renewed it trumps signed it where was the debate none well it's there is no. then the say will continue spine and this whole russia gate story will

continue. wiretapping of americans what what what what what i am interested in is where will people understand that this is just i mean i keep my diary they cured russia of meddling in the elections in germany france serbia italy malaysia. and these were serious an american politician saying that it was not just on paper you know saying that all russia could possibly try to meddle in do elections in serbia well there are also smaller countries like most adorning and they're afraid that russia you know you can. convince our viewers right now that the united states and its security agencies are not trying to affect russia's upcoming presidential election well absolutely. out of the question you know there are such beautiful people there participating you know on the story of we're not all neat you know is you are

granted tell us who he is how vallone is a racist. participant in the so-called russian march he's he's considered by many other ways over you a liberal but he's a persona called liberal leader of the anti putin and i put in a position and anti-corruption chris a day as he's presented the last why it's been convicted for fraud or french guzman why is it being connected for fraud in shady business deals and he has a problem with. a french perfume company and not with the russian only with russian companies however it's an interesting case when the united states decided to throw all they want with a nationalist with a racist you know this is a new technology. and they did it in ukraine they did it in the middle east but in russia they're probably doing it for the first time which will make this election cycle may. be interesting to me because we go back to the trump issue which is

interesting because for the last week when we hear about trump that he's unstable mentally that he's sick is he going to last you know all four years or eight years and get on a scale and show us your way so that you have the whole media even despite that even if it's going to sky it's got to be president physically mentally but to give him unlimited power to spy and surveil they gave him an unprecedented military budget voted both by democrats and republicans so you can see going back to what you said the absurdity of it all well let's talk about another blank check here let's talk about syria followed probably better than anyone i know. the more i read about what the u.s. is trying to do in syria the more i do not understand other than intentional destabilization. of the country forever that's what they've been doing for the last six years it legally arming training and salary militants allied with al-qaeda to

overthrow the syrian government the trump administration finally after months and that obama policy but they doubled down on supporting the kurds which are affiliated with the white p.g. which the us has listed as a terrorist group largely because of its insurgent actions in turkey against the turkish regime of earlier but what we're having now diem is that we have the us sowing the turks and the kurds under the bus the same bus i mean the contradictions the more you look at it the more the contradictions are are jarring ok well the problem is they're trying to remove. my and their diversity who was actually in syria before two thousand the united states and you have lost you which. you know a country at least four times more important than syria and iraq the u.s. and they have already lost you know their policy was so destructive it not only

destroyed syria it also destroyed their own released input it will continue oh it's one of the things is if we look at what secretary tillerson had to say about syria which i thought it was like a visit to the twilight zone and could make a whole program on it but the the there will be a embargo a blockade a sanction against rebuilding syria the u.s. will actively push that for us the refugees that left that went to europe will not be able to come back because they'll be nothing to come back to so this perpetuates this problem. exactly and will will actually see because it won't be any reconstruction more. more refugees flooding into europe i mean again look so who who are the winners in all of this i don't see anyone just because the united states is trying to spite. assad iran and russia parties in europe the ones the united states and the u. .