control of the parts of serious territory close to the border in the meantime the u.s. scares the kids away from the damascus washington is encouraging separate assessments among the kurds meanwhile germany's foreign minister has said any military confrontation would carry risks following the emergency u.n. security council session france once again called on turkey to show restraint saying other members share its view and ritualised co-author of the new turkey and its discontents gave us his view on the situation this is a. thought of mistrust between turkey and the united states and in general nato turkey has been calling. to take an action there is no cooperation between the turkey and united states is the biggest friend of turkey is actually. the biggest enemy of turkey for today turkey is trying to create more options put

into russia or thaw it feels like turkey is trying to make a deal with it so you want the more you should speak up the future of the syria is special northern syria is all about relationship between them of course and their position to i.p.g. there that they will work together or they prefer to work at five or rallies against the military operation were held in turkey itself as well as a number of european countries as you can see here police in istanbul reportedly use force to disperse a demonstration earlier detained at least a dozen we are keeping a watch on the situation along the turkish syrian border any and all developments we will bring them to you. bring attention to the u.k. now where the head of the army there has outlined the main threats facing britain

and russia is seemingly top of the pile general nick carter wants money to be allocated to bridge the gap between british and russian capabilities. the arch exponent of this is russia i believe it 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's doorstep i believe our ability to preempt or respond to these threats will be eroded if we don't match up to them now we cannot afford to sit back. well military chiefs are asking for more money for new equipment is hardly groundbreaking is pretty standard practice however this time it was the acting head of the army normally it's retired generals so nick carr said was risking annoying his paid marsters with this plea for more funding the purpose of the speech was to

warn of the dangers of under-investment in the u.k.'s military especially the dangers of failing to keep up with the russian defense spending he spoke of what he called russia's orthodox and hybrid warfare and one thing in the speech that was certainly an orthodox was this video clip take a listen no indication of the scale of the issue it's clear from the three minutes 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 tone of the commentary the uses the movie going to be used you think you do you lose the use live you can see the movie so you have him there saying take a listen to this audio recording of a russian defense ministry video talking about investment for new weapons but certainly in our news room which may not be a good indicator we are r.t. after all but it caused a few people to scratch their heads wondering what they were playing on whether

they were playing into this sort of stereotype of russian being aggressive and of being hell bent on world domination after all nobody could understand that video clip other than hearing the russian language now nick carter isn't the first person to talk about russia as a threat in military terms just in december the head of the u.k.'s defense staff was also rallying for more money when he was talking about the threat of russia cutting vital undersea cables now none of this is really ruffled downing street vendors including this speech today a spokesperson for downing street as the prime. office said that the u.k. defense budget is the highest in europe and the issues outlined by carter are already being addressed it's also worth pointing out that when they're not asking for more money members of the u.k. military tend to be somewhat more blunt as

a about the whole russia thing last summer the venza secretary mike the founder and he joked that moscow was probably of course is unused state of the arts and crafts carrier because russia's is pretty dilapidated and at the same time today you've got the u.k. foreign secretary boris johnson he's meeting for talks with his u.s. counterpart rex tillerson they're going to be talking about iran north korea and syria russia isn't on the agenda well security analyst charles schumer bridge believes the u.k. faces a genuine problem with investment in its armed forces. what we've got here is a situation where interestingly today even various sections of the u.k. media play up the russian threat amongst the headlines mugs the deeper insight that analysis on this speech from that caucus 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 the british state of the british military in terms of the number of its personnel the number the amount of its equipment and the quality of that quick money is at a picture for you know nothing is bad 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 that used to have. the support that will be the pride of the navy despite what i want to have across to you've known them for some years and of course the try to nuclear deterrent both of which eats up a vast proportion of the defense budget. prison officers across from blockaded dozens of jails in protest over a lack of security that's after numerous attacks by inmates on stuff r t charlotte dubin ski the latest from paris this is

a nationwide strike of prisons across france with the union saying that around one hundred thirty of france's one hundred eighty eight prisons took place in this strike now europe's largest prison which is just south of paris the protesters there actually blockaded the prison with tires with wooden pallets they burnt them off too it's something that we have seen at other prisons across france as well quite a normal tactic to block those prisons now this is now the eighth stay over these nationwide blockades and this comes just over. week ago there was an attack on three security guards at a prison in the north of france by a man who's a convicted terrorist now that sparked off these latest process but since then in the last week or so they have been several other incidents at prisons in france including an incident on sunday in which two guards were assaulted again now the

unions and the prison guards themselves say that they want more working conditions to be more secure for the dangerous prisoners for those prisoners who've been radicalised to be isolated in the jails. we continue because today there is nothing a few things that have been announced by the chancery in the trade unions the staff of rejected entirely we're blocking everything we're blocking a prisoner. who will block all of france in terms of security we want concrete things including materials that allow the prison staff to work in safety well of course prison guards and police officers are normally on the same side of the fence defending justice but in this occasion there are actually on different sides of the fence different sides of the opinion and what we have seen is conflicts and clashes between the two including tear gas being used at times take a look at some of what's been happening outside the prisons in france was. there or.

was. was. the president himself has offered to unveil a radical reform of prisons across france that is due to be unveiled at the end of next month but it's going to come a long way away from this process which looks set to continue unions again on monday night called for yet another day. of blockades outside france these prisons . america's national security agency know who has the power to identify people by the sound of their voice the n.s.a. is thought to be using technology much more advanced than what the likes of. us on for instance can utilize and that's according to a report based on documents leaked by the agency's former contractor edward snowden

reporting on and jack. however for most of my boys there isn't much of my identity you can tell i'm female and people act like they're going through but 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 classified documents from the snowden archive the n.s.a. has been developing technology to identify a speaker using just their voice for years when sigyn to transcribers work the same target set 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 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 mike these days i don't think anybody would augie the police she said chase terrorists paedophiles who don't saluki about such just because he's surveillance what little he that is everybody everything piece of data die everybody being collected and scanned by software thinking that looks devious and he could stop talking see people involved in very legitimate things like demonstrations of straw eggs even you know people who vote for the wrong way this

was the american government is considered another fear is that speaker rec. ignition could end up discouraging people from speaking out it has the potential to unmask anonymous sources are 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. germany's draw lowered wait for a new government could be on the verge of a breakthrough the social democrats leader martin shools persuaded his party members to vote in favor of reestablishing the ground coalition with chancellor angela merkel's party whoever could see the migrant alternative for germany party become the main opposition in the country peter all over me looking into. all this was the result that martin schultz wanted it was the result he campaigned for both 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 that have to be another election and he was very clear on which one he prefer that you do you know you everyone should realize the question is coalition talks for new elections my take on this is very clear i don't think you 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 were no longer the largest opposition party that would go to the new kids on the block of turner to germany they would be the largest opposition party they would also get all of the well 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 schultz 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. yet the push for a second grand coalition or a continuation of it of sorts has had a poor arising effect on s.p.d. members of our parties on the left are also warning the social democrats that their jeopardizing their future. there is no more appropriate term than 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. been trapped for so many years now and that we should break it with.

another. point i think. the party will be destroyed by the grand coalition. martin doul terry homburg m.p. from the left wing party d. link believes the social democrats have long been drifting away from their core values but it is a long term process which is followed by this decision when we see the social democrats 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. just. this process.

so i think it's safe to say doing the household chores isn't everybody's idea of fun although one russian cosmonaut might beg to differ the following are pictures sent from the international space station and show him around on a vacuum cleaner. if you've ever wondered what they do in space in the evenings there you go i'll show him thomas is here in half an hour's time with more global news in this studio for me.

join me every thursday on the alex simon chill and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics. i'm showbusiness i'll see that. prescribe medication is widespread in the u.s. market a frequent cause of death at the point in my life i just felt like everything was ashes my family was literally coming unglued i had actually planned. to commit suicide watch all 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. what i did was done on

a cocktail of lethal drugs. just because something's legal doesn't mean it's sing. along welcome to go on sophie shevardnadze attentions in society sometimes reach a boiling point if not taken care of leading to revolutions how do they work and are they in voidable i asked professor jack goldstone scholar of revolutions forward consultants to the us government and professor of public policy at the george mason university. when politicians ignore those they govern and the people's discontents becomes intolerable politics spills out from parliament chambers into the streets and squares but what does it take to get from peaceful protests to an

uprising so revolution just toppling governments really bring about the end of people's grievances what happens after a revolution is successful. professor jack goldstone really great having you on our program today welcome thank you very nice to be here by so let's start with tunisia i remember it was seen as sort of an arab spring. poster child now seventy years on the seer has started yet with new protests and people are saying hardly anything has changed why is it as a success story well if you compare the conditions in tunisia to those in libya or syria or yemen it still looks great by comparison revolutions in general are messy uncertain if you look at the situation in ukraine after the two thousand and fourteen revolution the transitions are all difficult at least tunisia is not in a civil war get to ukraine but if we talk to take

a little about tunisia because that's where the arab spring started. in comparison everything is different but if we talk in particular about tunisia the nothing has really changed within the borders of tunisia for the better and may well i wouldn't say nothing has changed you have groups that are now active in politics that previously were shut out you have different coalitions forming what you don't have is a kind of idealized utopian transition to denmark right you don't take a country that was middle income corrupt and authoritarian and instantly create a somehow rich modern peaceful country it takes a long time to complete that transition tunisia is having problems that's to be expected but it has not yet collapsed and that is worth applauding. so if you look at the arab world that's only home to like five percent of the world's population yet in accounts to how awful the terrorist attacks that take place in the whole

world and there's still so much. and so much instability young people are growing more and more unhappy do you think there is a chance of the new our spring new revolt well we're never there's injustice and deep inequality there's always a chance of a revolt people get angry about injustice they will tolerate poverty they will tolerate slow progress if they think their government is working in their interests but once they believe the government is no longer. taking care of them in any way if the government officials are simply enriching themselves you have the risk of revolt and i think certainly throughout the arab world that risk will continue. but just in a nutshell the whole arab spring that took place seventy years ago would you say it brought the region for. region any good or where pretty much where we started off

i would say the results are mostly negative but again you could have said the same thing about the french revolution and seven hundred eighty nine it started off with great ideals and it plunged the entire continent into war the nature of revolutions as they nurture wonderful dreams they often run into difficult painful realities but in the long run of history revolutions often serve the role of creating a change creating a space for something new to develop we don't know how long that will take revolution and we know what kind of change it will be no we don't in that sense a revolution is like giving birth you don't quite know ten or twenty years down the line what type of person your child will grow up to be but you need to have birth in order to have change so you brought up ukraine and all these the revolution in ukraine. big hopes and now people are looking back and they're saying the situation is so bad we might as well have a new revolution so i was wondering if revolution happens ones i mean durables

destabilize country to a point where the country is prone to fall back into this arrest time and time again one of the difficulties with color revolutions is they are peaceful relatively but because no deaths i don't mean no deaths i mean you don't have a kind of mass terror and civil war it's hard to have a revolution without a some number of people a few dozen a few hundred maybe even a few thousand but the great revolutions killed anywhere from. tens of thousands to millions so the color revolutions are more peaceful by comparison but they also tend to be less completes and the changes they bring you don't have a new government that completely extinguishes its enemies you don't have a new government that develops new sources of revenue or a new ways of doing business that's rather a partial change and for that reason there are a lot of problems that remain unsolved and there's always

a risk of going back there is what i call a partial or incomplete change that has the potential for regression or for further progress but in either way is not yet complete so what does it take for a successful revolution i relish is just lucky revolts i mean does it take more than a clean siddons and angry population to make it a successful revolution or there is much more to it if it was that easy there'd be more revolutions in history than there are in order to overthrow a regime it does take popular discontent and popular mobilization but it also requires actors with in the leadership of the regime who feel that the regime is no longer serving the national interest you need people in the military or the bureaucracy or both who are willing to see the regime change otherwise they would be able to put down a popular revolt that did not have support at higher levels so one talk about

america a little bit because there's also a rise in more radical movements like we see the black lives matter there is the right and the other flank i mean this groups aren't exactly prone to dialogue and compromise they're actually quite uncompromising is there a chance that they could actually radicalize american politics or it's a thing that will pass well if you talk to a lot of people in america they feel our politics have already been radicalized democrats and republicans are not talking to each other that much president donald trump seems to be something different he's not a conventional republican. he's certainly not friends with the democrats he seems to represent something else at what he calls the voice of the forgotten people by which he means rural small town america which is not being well served by the forces of globalization automation meritocracy and so we essentially have a radical popular movement aiming to restore something like the america post world

war two when america felt it seemed the dominant country in the world that's what a lot of americans long for sometimes movements that which is cited to a party and yes and also that black clouds matter and the right flank do you feel like they have a real chance of succeeding and getting somewhere with being at the helm of the country well black lives matter is succeeding in bringing police reform there are a lot of people who are quite distressed and we now require police to wear cameras when they carry out arrest so we have a record of what's happened but let me point to another radical movement and that is the hash tag made to a movement to say the traditional ways that men have interacted with women are not going to be accepted anymore yes we live in a patriarchal society but that does not mean men in power can impose their will on women or men who are there juniors and this has led to the downfall of some extraordinarily wealthy and powerful white men in america who thought they were

untouchable so i'm thinking massive protests in the united states that have taken place in recent years like there are millions marching against war a new iraq. a lot of people writing against police killing of black people unjustly . sit ins at the caught up pipeline and really they brought nothing why is that why are the protests of today weaker than let's say those of the sixty's because they really made ground it's a very good comparison i grew up with the riots of the sixty's and they had an enormous impact on civil rights women's rights and of course ending u.s. involvement in vietnam. right now the movements that we're seeing tend to be specific to a particular cause as you said stop a pipeline here deal with police brutality focus on women's problems now the great thing about america is when people want to express themselves they have the right to protest to assemble to create citizens disruptions and that has always been

a healthy part of american politics it's less effective now because the people who are looking for change have not come together in a broad national movement instead you have a number of limited movements now in american history when there is a time of major changes the little movement sometimes coming together and produce a big outcome i think that was the case in the one nine hundred sixty s. it may be the case in twenty eight teen if there is a transformative democratic wave that leads to electoral change perhaps we'll see movements come together but we don't know yet all i can tell you is there is potential but so far it remains divided so you've said many times that actually people need to come out in the street and protest time to time to remind the government what they want and why they are unhappy but should this and overthrow of the government of these protests are for instance ignored by the

government no of course not the advantage of a democracy is that people can vote to change the government without having to overthrow it in the streets and indeed one could argue that the election of donald trump was a major protest against both of the mainstream political parties by people who felt we need a huge big change and they could accomplish that at the ballot box even though voting is often supported by popular organization and demonstrations the two essentially are i think complementary parts of democracy they're not widely different so if you look at riots revolutions generally right people who. actually can't get themselves to get up from the couch go out in the street and protest and you know be very adamant about it are the active ones right for it but that they salat majority the majority of the country they're just too lazy to go out and they sit at home or maybe they're not lazy but we don't know what they think so how is it fair to judge i going to mass protests as an expression of

a whole country well lazy is not a good description unless you've gone out and interviewed people and asked why they're staying at home a lot of them simply have jobs and families well we're happy with everything we don't know that they're happy here's what we know in countries with a very youthful population you tend to have larger more violent more ideological revolutions because young people are wide open to the future they're not tied down with family obligations they're willing to take risks they're often more excited by the idea of change when you have a population that is older it's harder to get people into the streets it usually only happens if there is some process under way that already has got people thinking about change for the future but people who stay home are not usually lazy they're usually fearful and waiting to see is this really an opportunity for change am i going to make a difference or is this something i had better sit out and why.