now that sort of came out of those one hundred seventy is that became a thing that they started having these plastic beads which is about the time we got cheap plastic. you know so we're known for those types of things right so in this at another study that was by a group called healthy stuff dot org and very grass just trying to sort of green up the mardi gras celebrations these beads contain a range of hazardous substances that exceed the consumer product safety improvement act regulation tests have shown at mardi gras beads to contain lead antimony chromium cadmium nickel trace levels of mercury and several flame retardants all of these things are incredibly toxic these are having about just room to room and right now there are no mardi gras well they're extremely toxic but it's all it's interesting when you break down what's in these beads as we're talking about earlier you showed me this interesting data the repeat that taking credit for your work but more than half of the mardi gras products they tested fifty six out of

seven have levels of lead above one hundred people that's the no one hundred b.p.m. that's actually the legal limit for lead in children's toys as above so prone to be put on your body getting into the going down the drain that's just dump unleaded there not to mention the fact that the little mardi gras prostate footballs is not just the beaded necklaces you know it's all of somebody's getting thrown out they can do about twenty nine percent pathology by weight which including which of those some other signs which are. to. banned by the consumer product product safety commission in the plastic bubble i want to know why is anybody in the party toyed business saying hey let's pack our toys because what really gives people a good time let's pack our toys with toxic substance and sure we're going to do this you can see the way the the life of these beads is that you know you take petroleum from the middle east it goes to china it gets. all packed in with these

horrible toxic chemicals and shipped off along with other a cheap plastic things to throw out and as new orleans is also trying to make mardi gras more family friendly and they're like there's kids through grams of like don't they literally have on there don't let your kids touch them wipe them off with baby b. if people who handle them a lot are encouraged. very shortly hardly to wear gloves when they're handling these things they're going to give the tab is there any alternative that we still i still want to see people get out of your legs have a great time to grow but they're just on their own let down on the ground yeah but you're one of the alternatives that are out there perth from the lead party favors to start early we've all been using right at least put them in a proper guard garbage disposals and don't dump them out so that they clog up these very old drains because we do know that you know hurricanes make that even worse there are some groups and new orleans some of the groups that have these out these crews like crew the floors that make it a point to only throw things that are biodegradable that are you know we're sorry

your hand made of recycled materials and this year what they're going to be showing is this which is the be made from flower seeds so that we handing out these will michael says this began it and you could take it home with you and plant and flowers from mardi gras will grow it was a much better the. yeah way better that i don't think not as we go to break water don't forget to let us know what you think of a property over facebook and twitter see our poll shows r t v dot com coming up we welcome the retired brigadier general tony take to the hawk's nest to discuss reports of u.s. support of afghan soldiers violating human rights and i'm gonna say and i will talk about his new book state to watch for the whole. front of the globe the best out of. the

concerts those paying to perform i had to actually prepare myself to. heed what to say to trust when i stand. as my son and you will know that it was in the home of well done stuff done. that was where. it's going to close. the group so it ends in. sort of getting. more traditionally a bit closer do you agree with that wesley was just that yes good morning to be sure so i took your to education going to be a couple so high that all your b.s. get there you know.

more and more we seem to dip into an orwellian world where up is down left is right defeat is victory and nothing quite make sense in the news we digest every day take for example the proxy war washington's go to tactic when faced with authority conflict in a part of the world it may be imprudent or unpopular for us to dive into directly whether it be our financing and training of the moderate rebels in syria who with alarming frequency ended up mysteriously disappearing with their us approved weapon the us provided weapons into the hands of isis and other terrorist groups or the never ending debate over whether to hand over afghanistan to a private mercenary army or allow a barely functioning government to face the odds in a three way match against the taliban and isis proxy wars come with no shortage of risks not the least of them that the american government's money arms and seal of approval are often bestowed on groups of misfits and renegades who only has only

qualification is often just being in the enemy of my enemy a friend zone in that vein troubling news has emerged from afghanistan where u.s. taxpayer money has apparently been flowing freely to local forces credibly accused of sexual assault against children for more on how these entanglements and make sure. alliances affect our military strategy abroad we turn to retired brigadier general. david grange joining us on that i want to ask you know first to start off is this special report by the inspector generals you know focuses on how the pentagon the state department essentially circumvent the law requiring military funds to be cut off in instances where you know human rights violations and war crimes may be taking place if we're giving money to people that we suddenly realize these are good people we don't want to give money or support to these people in your experience are we generally is this something is this common are we generally too lax with how we vet our fighting partners abroad i don't think this is

reprehensible it's just disgusting behavior for these seven incidents or six incidents that have been reported and i would say a few things are one hundred seventy four thousand afghan national army soldiers that have been trained by the united states army and allies all the multinational forces their ties so i think if we have six cases that's six too many of course but given the percentage when you're when you look at an army comes is just a cut of cloth from the society from which it comes some of some of these types of problems unfortunately are going to come with that so what what the military does is they feel they've got a system for reporting and they've got a system for finding this and so general nicholson over there in afghanistan four star used to work for me when i was a deputy commanding general of all the troops there is a great guy and he's four star general and i'm sure that he's going to get to the bottom of this now that's been brought to his attention and sometimes you know it's

just a very bifurcated area of fighting from valley to valley mountain to mountain and and reporting structures and so forth it's unacceptable behavior and it's unacceptable that we continue to support these six or seven units so of where these folks came from both of them one of the concerns. whether you're very supportive of war antiwar is in danger and of our troops on the ground and one of these things that kind of comes up is that there's certainly a ject of human rights component here though there's also sort of more self interested cause for concern senator patrick leahy the architect of the legislation in question said to n.p.r. about the people sort of sweeping these abuses on the rug what he said was quote i don't think that they realize the united states ultimately gets blamed for this it becomes a talking point for our enemies so my question to you is do you think sort of ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug as often you know obviously these

aren't but if it does sort of get swept under the rug does that ultimately. you know do you think ignoring those kind of things committed by allies may ultimately endanger troops on the ground because they can be right now and i don't believe that we're nearing them i think the leaders in charge are going to do the right thing here and i think we have very open and inspector general hotlines we have ways that if there are you know just take a look at the mirror that we're holding up to the united states with the me to movement and all of that and talk about sweeping under the rug with hollywood and so for so i think the military at least has in place of reporting system and and that reporting system has been strengthened over the years with with the integration of several different minority groups and so forth and i it's not perfect but but it certainly is something that good commanders like general mick nicholson will take to heart and take corrective action immediately and follow the legislation and do what the right thing is but your question is does it reflect

poorly on the united states on that rig or all if it is it seems like easy ammunition of course and the taliban al qaeda isis they're all experts at taking just a little slivers of information and then using that to radicalize others and as propaganda so we want to try to eliminate as much of that as possible because in any information we give the enemy they will expand it up and make it into something like i said one hundred seventy four thousand trained six on acceptable incidents six too many but when you do the math on that you know it is a cut of the fabric of that society i think some would be even argue the and say look you know maybe we need to back away from kind of using forces to kind of you know in the in this kind of proxy war set up where it's like ok we can't really fully commit ourselves whether it be unpopular at home or whatever the reason would be so we're going to kind of you know flood money or weapons or support into groups

even if you look at like syria you look at a lot of other places around the world throughout history the ultimately kind of grew out. to be these are unsavory characters do we need to kind of rainy in that idea that kind of go to plan and i think what you're really seeing here is we have got a new national security strategy and talks about protecting and prosperity and one of the areas within protection is to pursue enemies to their source and that's really good not the transnational threat of isis and al qaeda the taliban and those types of borderless threats that we we face and so the idea is it's better to fight them on their five yard line to use a football analogy than than our five yard line and so if we're going to continue to support our national security strategy we have to have some way of getting at the enemy at their source and whether that's use us special forces whether that's yours and other countries special forces or proxy units or military contractors the

end result is we want to eradicate the threat at the source and deny sanctuary if we if we cut through all the noise of the last seventeen years the primary mission has been to kill capture al qaeda and deny sanctuary because they planned these missions against on during nine eleven. and sanctuary in afghanistan that that was the very beginning and we sort of took our eye off that ball and in my opinion i would agree to have the other you know i think that we've really diverted especially with you know kind of the continuous selling of were ok now we're going to be over here and now we need right over here and now we need to be over here and that's really been diluted over the years from what the original thing that we were told was clear this is what we need to go into iraq. and i think that that's part of the re that's where you get into trouble like this i think you make too many you know enemies of my enemies that might not be that great of people right with you know i before we run out of there i want to get on a slightly better now and. since retiring you've been writing fiction has been and

your latest book direct fire. tell me a little bit about it in rhode island our all of your real world experience that i'm there right and you know everybody asked me out and you know i've always been i get asked how does a general become a fiction writer and i answer how did a fiction writer become a general goes you know really as a kid i used to read my mom saying i write novels and all that and i loved i became very interested in the writing process and i just started writing and realized that you know people started liking it and when i got my first book deal back to about ten years ago and i've had eight novels number nine comes out in may ten in october so i'm kind of started to write him every four to five months and it's a lot of fun to create in this direct fire is a story about our hero and national best selling hero jake may he again who is a former delta force six foot tall native american from the outer banks of north carolina and this story has to go find the former the current joint special

operations command commander who's been kidnapped and is being held in a mine in band in mind in the near asheville north carolina as some erstwhile hackers and various actors of syrian refugees that are now terrorists who want to attack and doesn't know the facts and there is zero can i say i know that most of it yes i know it's interesting you said you know kind of a writer became a general military when you were growing up as i were you wanted to go it was like i'm going to go military or did you lean more towards kind of english things like that and then said no i'm going to the both my parents were school teachers you will counselors and i was a pretty good athlete as a kid play baseball wrestled and i was recruited by west point to wrestle and i had this great affection for history growing up in virginia and going to all of the battlefields whether it's revolutionary war civil war and all of that and and so

when west point called me about perhaps wrestling on the team there. i you know when i was very very interested i already had a brother at the naval academy and so it made sense to do it and my parents of course were yes they look at it as a point. but you know writing the direct fire the fourth book in the series and and it's just something that i'd love to do and and get great reviews from publishers weekly and you would you think you'd have gone told if you didn't end up as a military man would you go on writing i think i probably would have been like my dad i would've been a high school teacher and he coached football i probably would have baseball coach and i still would have written that would have been the one constant but you know i was super privilege to serve and lead america's finest in combat in the eighty second airborne hundred first airborne tenth mountain division and what i think of you know having this discussion i know a lot of times like our viewers to be i want to push you know this person harder go

after this and you know i was like to say that look you can disagree with the war doesn't mean you have to necessarily disagree with the people fighting it you're i just try to have a good conversation together and try to find a good mutual you know understanding of where both sides are i think that's why you have such a good nurse thank you very much bigger very much destroyed and always a pleasure to have you on there terry thank you. what hasn't been seen and a hundred fifty years on is finally making a return appearance this wednesday january thirty first it's thankfully not nosferatu but the once in a lifetime convergence of a blue moon a blood moon and a lunar eclipse all at the same time are things david miller has more. wednesday night it doesn't matter what you're doing you owe it to yourself to gaze at the darkened sky in the early morning hours of the western hemisphere and the evening and a certain you will be treated to both a visible supermoon what experts call a full moon at a close to over two point to the earth and a total lunar eclipse the celestial coincidence hasn't happened in more than one

hundred fifty years i mean there are people who have lived and died on this earth without even having a chance to see this phenomena which one appear again for in another decade and according to nasa visible superman's appear fourteen percent bigger and thirty percent brighter than full moons that occur at the farthest point in the moon's orbit and during the eclipse with totality visibility from eastern asia across the pacific to the west and north america a moon will slowly lose its brightness and take on a reddish hue because of the way the atmosphere binns the light and to answer a question do i need special glasses to watch the super moon and lunar eclipse like the solar eclipse the super moon and the lunar eclipse are safe to view with the naked eye there's nothing to worry about if you find yourself in thrall to and staring up into the sky for a very long time except maybe your neck and the best time to enjoy the super moon is right after the moon rise and before sunrise when the moon is setting on the

horizon reporting from washington d.c. david miller. and that lady's brother was our show for you today remember everyone in this world we are told we love the absolutely wall i love you i am a rover and then top of the list keep on watching those talks of a great night of. light for many plebs over the years so i know the game and so i got. football isn't only about what happens on the pitch for the final school it's about the passion from the fans it's the age of the super manager billionaire owners and spending shouldn't twenty million on one player. it's an experience like no one else want to because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful game played

great so will transfer. the case it's going to. release the memo russia gave morsi into f.b.i. game also for the u.s. and turkey on the path to confrontation in syria and the great debate in jordan peterson is called a one man army and has taken the internet by storm. the

trumpet ministration says it won't impose new sanctions on russia for now despite congress passing legislation last year requiring the white house to do so. the u.s. house intelligence committee votes to release a classified memo and letting the f.b.i. and department of justice abuse that power in the surveillance of donald trump's presidential campaign. the international paralympic committee upholds its problem the russian team despite admitting the country's anti doping system is no longer corrupt and says only hauffe of russia's athletes who prove clean can compete as neutrals. and islamic state says it's behind an attack on a military academy in kabul which left eleven service men dead and injured sixteen

the latest in a string of terrorist atrocities in afghanistan that have killed more than a hundred. my colleague will be here from the top of the hour with a news bulletin but for now on r.t. international it's crosstalk and in the u.k. and ireland get ready for a reading gating. hello and welcome to crossfire all things are considered on peter lavelle release the memo russia gate morphs into the f.b.i. gate also are the u.s. and turkey on the path to confrontation in syria and the great debate jordan peterson is called a one man army and is taking the internet by storm. cross

talking f.b.i. gate i'm joined by my guest mark sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have extra leverage he is a political analyst as well as a leading expert at the center for actual politics and we have dimitri bobbitt she is a political analyst with sputnik international red cross talk rules in effect and you always can jump in. me go to you first hear. a we're going to see a new member new debate. like who lost turkey because if you remember when the communists came to power in china that was lost china and it ruined a lot of careers because people didn't get it right ok. who's losing turkey who's gaining turkey going well let me remind you that in one thousand nine hundred eighty there was a big debate who was russia and the it was at the times when suppose that russia was so democratic mr yeltsin was still in power in these all those guys two boys

and those who called the report called it s. called us all out of a few billion dollars right there that's a bulge in all the almost yeltsin's guys the younger forms but what's going on now between turkey and the united states is unbelievable i mean trying to remove a relatively loyal regime in syria which you know mr us with was oriented towards the european union more than towards russia the united states had made to almost a much more important country turkey where they might lose me by losing a life and some job to go ahead of the united states to the crease is a very stark choice the us has the cure in syria as a is the only force the only viable forward and they're in bed with the kurds that that would support the partition of the factual partition of syria and that supports the u.s. and and if so the u.s.

can support the curate's and then it gets the air of that we see that happening now who are the united states going to stop supporting the curate's that turkey would be happy about that but then the united states would be left with almost no credible serious support force see and taste to it and no reason to justify their continuing presence is a kind of choice is ally with the curate's and they have to a key is is an adversarial power considering that turkey has the second largest army in. they thought of a very serious question you know one of the things is to do one he can't afford to lose in syria he's put too much into it oh yeah he's politically security invested i don't believe that peace in syria is possible you know the question is a while but charlotte saw it continues in syria but well ordered god continues in

ankara. god must go hash tag or go go what is that you've been in the military what is the possibility of some kind of confrontation you know because just as i just said and you just said it one is not going to back down this means a lot to him and his legitimacy at home and the ongoing problem they've had with the united states is it isn't so important to the united states because if you look at the the the defense community intelligence community even in the u.s. they're divided about what's going on yet in fact you're starting to see splits not only among the administration but in the foreign policy blob between the neo cons and the liberal imperialists they're divided on this issue and victor is exactly right you either get a kurdish protectorate carved out of syria to continue to destabilize syria and weak in iraq and thus by weakening one of their allies or you get to make continue your relationship with turkey as a member of nato and then a u.s.

turkish alliance which allows u.s. military bases in turkey that their flights are necessary for controlling the region also gives the united states access to the black sea which is russia's underbelly of course so there's big geopolitical questions here but obviously this is a self created blowback we've been saying on the show all along that if the us tried to partition east syria with the kurds it would face blowback politically both from turkey and from iraq likewise her god has created this situation where he calls kurdish terrorists there's no evidence that any. syrian kurds have been involved in terrorism on his territory but he created this by illegally arming training and cellaring sectarian militias you know the united states. were arming him and supporting the kurds are there is one thing in a bottle of this situation find the you with the truth about the united states financing terrorists out of the mold of babes no out of the mouth of mr erdogan and so he's the guy. well that's why you see it's not exactly

a challenge to the mall to be no shortage of people are legion punching terrorists . but he basically admitted something that all the other need to remember us have no but they have been hiding it yet so ever they're gonna put in these. where he drove himself by his decision to change the regime in syria he is now i'm sorry he's now spewing the truth let me know where to go if i can if i go if i put in. the existence the possibility of a kurdish state when turkish border is an existential threat to a president of literature and that's where his name is there anything else would do right now do exactly what they're going to he's doing these are the curate's yes he made mistakes i agree wholeheartedly with mark as far as that he got the start that he was one of those that supported the syrian civil war he created the situation

where the syrian kurds who were who have now more power and more autonomy and more willingness to act against the occasion to the interests then i. don't want to he has to choose now i mean if he continues down this path he wants to drive all the way all the way to the iraqi border here i mean is he going to have to choose nato or not nato but we will use the level of negotiations agrees or disagrees and he he's not willing at this point to take out of need to there isn't even that mechanism set for that. but at the same time to ricky and the gun is not going to do anything that will endanger the national security and sovereignty of the turkish state look at what is bluffing here mark everyone's blood everyone's everyone is bluffing at this point including the syrian government and russia the kurds in africa have now officially called publicly for the syrian government to help come in and protect them against the turkish invasion this isn't going to be met because

they aren't fully they didn't fully agree to demands that russian the syrian government sent for them which included completely dismantling the kurdish militias and either moving east to the us controlled territory or joining the syrian army plus relinquishing control of oil fields in eastern syria which diem if the kurds before this incursion started a little over a week ago if they had just taken the deal to pick up the syrian flag that would of no no that's that was the that was the minimalist demand they accepted that there was a maximalist demands from russia and the syrian government and there was no negotiation a compromise position should have been official the kurds or alfre offered that at the time they are offering that now that's not and has a habit of choosing the wrong side well you know it's one one one chooses the wrong side one place and that's what the kids are doing now let's hold the kids will have

a voice at the congress of the syrian minority that is going to be held in sochi you know in the coming days but actually if you look at the pattern it repeats itself in syria you know the foreign invaders i'm sorry they have been trying to remove the syrian government created more and more programs you know that the states intervened in syria in order to replace a person who was not actually and they west and mr ross up and they've got a terrible problem with the islamic state you know which was much more dangerous then ten loss of state them together right. you wanted to put its old people in power in syria then.