there were reports that the assad regime once again used chlorine gas as a weapon i'm tired of asking this but do you understand how pointless it would be for damascus to use chemical weapons both from a military and political standpoint whereas for the militants it would make perfect sense i think you understand this perfectly well but you persistently look for a pretext for an armed intervention. russia does not get you know laterally rewrite the terms of the resolution if russia is able to deliver a five pows let it deliver a twenty four hour one you would. need to be put to do in our western partners are patrolling the situation as if the resolution applies only to damascus and to russia as if it all depends almost exclusively on the will of our country may i ask you what you have done to implement the resolution if any of you lifted a finger if you use your influence on those who you consider the moderate

opposition have you persuaded them to lay down their weapons and release hostages there been a large number of efforts to protect civilians in the area russia carries out a five hour humanitarian pause and a daily basis in the hopes of protecting civilians and allowing them to get out through the humanitarian corridor furthermore the u.n. security council has passed a resolution calling for a thirty day cease fire now a letter was sent to the u.n. security council by some of the opposition and rebel groups saying that they would honor this u.n. resolution however at this point always three hundred civilians have been prevented from leaving due to the attacks they've experienced as they try to escape now the russian representative pointed out that these kind of humanitarian concerns and outrage were not being raised that while the liberation of iraq was taking place you will be because the americans. so where were you when the u.s. coalition were leaving record where was your outcry it's been months since the terrorists were forced out of the city. and it's still unfit for life there was

quite clearly a gap in the international media in the way that different situations have been portrayed when the syrian city of raka and the iraqi city of mosul were being liberated by the u.s. led coalition and a lot of bombing was taking place so we heard u.s. leaders saying making statements to the effect that civilian casualties are just a fact of life. or a fair life so it was quite a heated exchange at the united nations but all parties agree that the life of civilians in eastern guta is key however there is quite a disagreement about who's responsible for the circumstances in the situation in the country. meanwhile in neighboring iraq people are still struggling with life following their liberation from terrorists refugees in the country province say they feel safe in camps than in the homes they are being told riven forced to return to that's according to a joint report by three humanitarian organizations the report does say that eighty

four percent of refugees feel much safer in their camps and only one percent know for certain that they still have a house to return to with half of those questioned their homes have been destroyed testimonies in the report do appear to reflect those figures. we didn't make it to this place without seeing death with their own eyes are found sometimes. i can't return to ramadi my house was damaged by isis i'm worried about the camp management telling us to leave and return home i heard rumors that they might close the camp but there's nothing official lots of my friends have returned to ramadi but i can't go i can't afford to repair my house. that. we are stuck in here like sheep. while last month an arty crew was filming the

iraqi city of mosul which was liberated from iceland more than a year ago but as these pictures do show there is still little sign of the city returning to normal and while people are being told to go back there locals who are actually in mosul say the authorities themselves a staying away. many bodies have you removed since you started working in this area approximately five hundred. years in houses and all their odds were as your garden i challenge any member of parliament to live in the conditions we are currently living in here i bet they are even afraid of entering this area they have no idea how horrible the smell is or how critical the medical situation is this. we haven't received any kind of aid since thing it's been seven months ago on one occasion did they receive a small box of. food. melanie markham from the norwegian refugee

council which worked on the report to say that refugees fear traps and violent reprisals if they return. there's a number of dangers i think one of the largest threats is that of unexploded bombs unexploded mortars and baby traps and in fact we heard one report of a family who returned home only to find their house maybe trapped and it killed a family member some of the other things that make it unsafe for papal violent thrum the community around them people who even suspected of having links with isis particularly vulnerable but other people under the threat of violence by. members of their own tribal community so there are a number of reasons why it's unsafe still unsafe for people to return home. still ahead for you today to see a new show starting in r.t. hosted by the former ecuadorian president rafael correa i would have the details on that plus of the stories for you to just after the break.

they put themselves on the line. they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to express an injury. or something want to. get it right to be close this is what the three of the people. interested in the was. there should. be.

welcome back now the south african parliament has voted in favor of new legislation that could see land seized from white farmers under the plans white farmers will be stripped of their land with no compensation although this runs against the constitution which would have to be amended here's what the man behind the initiative had to say about it the time for re conciliation is over now is the time for justice we must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land. well julius malema there is something of a controversial figure in south africa he has been convicted of hate speech in back

in twenty sixteen he said he was not calling for the slaughter of white people at least not yet despite that the country's former president jacob zuma described him as a future leader with the rate of murders and violent attacks on farmers and landowners has risen in recent years in the cording to official figures seventy percent of the country for countries farmers are white earlier we brought up the issue for debate . people do not own land in south africa legally white people are live from europe in sixteen fifty two they killed our people they stole our land all oppressed us all the land they have his land up there was taken from us by force and in many instances by my success we all visit the south africa including the one the black type of south africa that came from the north that is well documented. therefore the land is the position of the black the only the first occupants of

south africa were the korean the son so if these are argument. that should be the way in the sons of the peasant like the one who is now my opponent easier for a night in south africa and the land he and in fact talking about equates son i am quite certain he can see my same name only time i ask him to say it he does it it can't because as a foreigner i even want it that day parliament is moving slow and politician we don't trust them they are using this lensing as a political eight ball instead of addressing the issue of this legislation could actually be changed to satisfy the white farmers as well there's a lot of corruption involved and that's why the oprah series of land that was taken from the pro legally in the past to be returned to them is not going as it should go you see this in front of me that is the issue. if this goes on investment in this country would stop people want invasion in their country will

go the same way as involved where there won't be production and then we have a big spring in south africa about food that's not available to the people of south africa. thirties in berlin have circulated a brochure among kindergarten staff that focuses on such issues as transgender identity and same sex marriage the booklet designed to help teachers explain the set. of topics to young children though has sparked controversy as peter oliver reports. a city famed for its liberal and inclusive attitudes to sex and sexuality. but conservatives in the german capital are upset at a new guide for kindergarten teachers that they say goes into too much detail and

is aimed at kids that are too young the idea is to give educators the information they need to be sensitive to children coming from non-binary families say children of same sex parents or transgender parents it doesn't have the most catchy of names but what it has done is certainly ruffle some feathers among those in angela merkel's c.d.u. party children should be allowed to be children and not be confronted with things like these it's also come in for criticism from the opposition alternative for germany party well it's very simple we believe sex education is important and of course our young adults should know about sex planning and all the rest but please not in the kindergarten give them some space let them be children don't force this issue onto them it's not even a problem for them they want to play around they want to discover the world so please let them be children leave them alone these subjects will come to them soon

enough in school or at home when the parents talk about this but not at an age of five or six years that is far too early on the streets of berlin opinion is mixed on when is the right time to be discussing with children issues of sexuality do you think that children in kindergarten should be taught about same sex couples and about transgender people yes. it's so normal nowadays. to be with people surrounded by people in all gender conditions or no gender or sexuality is an older stuff i don't think it's the right age i think when they. receive sex. education in school that's enough i think there's a stigma on the one hand i think it's ok but on the other i don't got on very much in favor of that idea so yes i do and why i think it's important factor of life so

i think children should be taught about all factors of life and this is one of them the left wing coalition of the social democrats greens and the left party that runs city government are accusing those on the right wing of politics of being overly prudish and unwilling to discuss the issue. after their attempt to scandalize the handouts on sexual and gender diversity for teachers didn't work the c.d.u. would prefer not to talk about the issue there's very little chance of the early in city government repealing this booklet however discussions over sex and sexuality and talking about it in kindergarten are set to continue in fact there's a petition going round the house already almost fifty thousand signatures from those who want to see this particular booklet stopped peter all of a r.t. berlin. that when you show an r.t. does premiere today hosted by the former ecuadorian president rafael correia his

first guest the philosopher and author named chomsky you can see the full interview on our website but his a snippet. according to the song under his government he's power will be. stronger. well actually it's quite the opposite under crumpets becoming weaker less effective it's internally disintegrating it's losing its whatever international authority and prestigious and it's also moving to destroy the world and the most important policy of the trumpet ministration by for is its approach towards the real existential crisis of climate change here the united states under trump has departed from the entire world. on

the road to real or between the united states and north korea and what they do know that ace you know or we. what consequences could very easily and in this case there happens to be a very feasible approach to dealing with the crisis and it's pretty well known oh it's a chinese proposal which has been on the table for years and the proposal is what's called a double freeze north korea freezes its development of weapons and the to clear the nuclear and missile developments it freezes them and the united states calls off the constant highly threatening military maneuvers on north korea's border and that could set the stage for negotiations which could deal with the conflict and crisis in

a sensible and constructive way. and you can see that show which premieres today at our web site at r.t. dot com news from iraq we're back with more in just over half a. little blog still with you on the idea that dropping bombs brings police to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battles that still need. to do socks for the tell

you that what we gossip the public by itself supporters. off about advertising how to make you on the cool enough to buy their products. these are the hawks that we along with all those watching. feel on a hot day in a continually of a bottomless sorry in china six oir get. an estimated eighty five percent under-age refugees are now living in greece. you know storm or go. to get a home in there you go food shopping. and many sell their bodies just to make ends meet. all of them the second or the one the second on again and all the

sins in there that is how bonuses and let things put it. also has turned to dealing drugs to make a living. but this doesn't mean it doesn't look like goods a little. bit in the been. to new. day everybody i'm stephen both rush to ask hollywood guy the suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george washington and r.v. to suggest this is my buddy max famous financial guru well just a little bit different i'm honest to god i know no one knows up with all the drama happening in our country and i'm shooting the good have fun every day americans at home and cook for the store to bridge the gap this is the great american people

which. mascot or this is the kaiser report. let's go into let's go right to. max i want to talk about billionaires we're going to talk about warren buffett he's america's favorite billionaire he's the little sweet ukulele playing billionaire but before i get to him i want to talk about another billionaire in history the guy was worth four hundred fifteen billion according to a visual capitalist they did a chart of the richest people in history and this guy's name was. he was you know an african king of the whole guy and section molly area present day and

at that time that part of the world controlled the entirety of most of the world's gold trade so this guy had a lot of gold so i want to look at actually how good intentions can go horribly wrong and how money. can possibly cause devastation because he went on pilgrimage to mecca and so travelling from africa through cairo down through medina and to mecca and this is what happened along the way which i found very fascinating so i wikipedia mussa made his pilgrimage between thirteen twenty four and thirteen twenty five his procession reportedly included sixty thousand men including twelve thousand slaves who each carried four pounds of gold bars and heralds dressed and silk who bore gold staffs organize horses and handled bags he also had these animals that included camels which carried twenty

three to one hundred thirty six kilos or fifty to three hundred pounds of gold dust he gave the gold to the poor he met along his routes mussa not only gave to the cities he passed on the way to mecca including cairo medina but also traded gold for souvenirs and this journey by the way is like widely documented all sorts of contemporary accounts of it along the way as he was travelling so it's well documented it's known to be not just a wikipedia entry mooses generous actions however inadvertently. devastated the economies of the regions through which he passed in the city's a cairo medina and mecca the sudden influx of gold devalued the metal for the next decade prices on goods and where it's greatly inflated to rectify the gold market on his way back from mecca borrowed all the gold he could carry from moneylenders in cairo high interest this is the only time recorded in history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the mediterranean so very fascinating as people are celebrating all these huge infrastructure deals whether it's the new

silk road or the infrastructure plan that trump is allegedly proposing right. you know spreading around of all this money cause a lot of inflation they cause a lot of problems and they had a way back at unwind all that somehow by normalizing the economy is on his way back and it's a great story i had no idea that the richest man ever in history was this african now he was not the richest guy in the world he was actually worth just four hundred fifteen billion there were several people richer than him including the richest man in the world ever was julius caesar son augustus who's worth two point two trillion dollars but here we see the impact of. like warren buffett famously walks into a room if you walked into this room here there's a four or five of us here we would be worth on average what probably about five billion dollars each write something along those lines yes so it's an interesting fascinating story shows you that the even back then there was

a lot of interesting economic vagaries that must be contemplated when you have such incredible wealth i mean talking about whether it's warren buffett or jeff bezos or the rockefeller's or any of these huge fortunes out of come and gone they do have these ripple effects on the economy and you know they do. many times engender a reaction and then that becomes political policy and then that shapes the economy and shapes politics and shapes our society it's shaping our society right now. now is donald trump of course and there's an infrastructure plan this headline reads higher inflation trump tax and spend boom sends investors looking for fed clues the upturn in inflation is already nudging u.s. interest rates higher even before the federal reserve's next meeting five weeks from now the central bank is expected to increase the cost of borrowing in march to keep the economy from overheating but now investors wonder if the federal reserve rates four times and twenty eighteen instead of three as previously planned why well what's complicating the fed's job is

a massive shift in washington support for the economy first came the tax cuts and now democrats republicans in congress have busted prior budget caps with a deal to spend an extra three hundred billion and the next two years they're expecting this inflation to ripple through the economy i know the fed has been trying for eight years to cause some inflation and now it's going to come rapidly remember ben bernanke he had said they can control inflation if it will never get out of control because they'll just flip a switch and will you know raise interest rates and calm down inflation that's exactly right he said that there's no risk that there would be a spike in inflation because they have the controls and everything is under their control they can flick a switch and they can start to make the maneuvers does a scary to control inflation history tells us that not the case once the inflation genies out of the bottle it tends to feed on itself and become a big inflationary problem and i believe that at the moment we've had a period of fake the flavor. engineer by all the central banks in the day don't

have the control that they think that they have and once you start to see this being picked up in markets like the gold market and others you know you've got to start to see it feed on itself in a big way and you know this guy. who travels across africa and the middle east and saudi arabia and caused this hyperinflation where he went how did he retract it it took ten years to retract it but. he basically had to buy all the gold back at very high interest rate so in a way as we went through deflation in two thousand and seven eight nine the fed basically did the opposite they were while they were paying high interest rate for all the bad debts they were paying all these bankers to take all their toxic debts and put it on their own balance sheet so something similar would have to happen well the numbers are huge i mean the central banks took on trillions and trillions of dollars of horrible debt and so i want to start on why no once the dam is broken

and all that money starts to come into the system you know i always look at the money velocity number which has recently got to the lowest it's ever been but then six months ago started to go up once the money velocity start to pick up and watch that money starts to come back and the economy have inflation and combine that with wage inflation and you have the makings of a shift from economic power from wall street to main street here's another story about america's favorite well certainly the media's favorite billionaire the democrats favorite billionaire and that's warren buffett and it's interesting you know we've been covering this divide in the u.s. and member koch brothers are great billionaires or their super bad billionaire villains george soros is either a villain villain or he's a great humanitarian billionaire warren buffett pretty much everybody agrees he's a great guy except for when he comes up with a so-called tax but is he a good guy well according to the nation secret behind warren buffett's billions america's favorite investor loves monopoly not free markets they use his own words

that he himself tells people i only invest in basically monopolies if they have monopoly pricing power that's what i bet on and that's what i invest in and this is what i go for and because he's one of the most successful billionaires of all time investors of all time everybody mimics him thus causing a positive feedback loop where everybody also seeks out monopolies to invest in and empower and so look at. amazon share price why is amazon soar and why is warren buffett actually finally going along a lot of these tech companies where he famously didn't during the dot com boom as because now a lot of them have a monopoly pricing power they talk about the fact that for example he always dissed airlines he would never invest in airlines he said well he started going long and twenty sixteen you know it's ten percent of some of these airlines and the reason why was that well the obama administration allowed the merger these mega-mergers so

you now just for airlines and they have huge profits it's often reported how suddenly the airlines have massive profits that's because there are now they're no longer eight but there are four right it's anti-competitive so the way to grow the economy is through competition if there's somebody sitting on top of the economy like buffett with access to unlimited cash to buy these monopoly positions in monopoly companies that's anti-competitive and it should be busted up best to create more jobs and more wage growth but that's not happening so they're pushing the economy to the edge of a different type of precipice as were saying with the introduction potentially of a big hyper inflationary burst that's going to kill the bond market and then cause everything to be reset anyway and then buffett will be long gone having made as hundred billion dollars but at the expense of a viable u.s. economy yet so everybody says that he's a great capitalist he's you know one of the richest guys in america sometimes is the richest sometimes bill gates's them so here's an exact quote from him the arch

capitalist they say the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power if you've got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor you've got a very good business but there's nothing wrong seeking out businesses that are in good positions and able to raise prices but there is something wrong when you have a single entity a private equity firm white. berkshire hathaway working with the government to guarantee that he's investing in the sure things the monopoly positions that are aided and abetted by a corrupt government that's not free market capitalism that's something else as feudalism again they look at some of the data about how this ethos you know when he was the first to invest in monopoly pricing power and everybody has followed him since then two thirds of all u.s. industries were more concentrated in two thousand and twelve than they were in one

thousand nine hundred seven the economist found since the reagan era the federal government has abandoned antitrust and foresman with markets for products like eyeglasses toothpaste beef and beer whittled down to a few suppliers the consolidation is vastly inflated corporate profits damaged workers and consumers stunted economic growth and supercharged economic inequality supercharge economic inequality the democrats favorite billionaire basically helped facilitate this by leading by example and we have donald trump we have incompetent buffoons that run for president nonstop because we have an economy that has left most people like with nothing to loose right supercharged economic inequality that's what his style is done on a mega billion dollar scale and the results are plain to see. so apparently a billionaire walks through the room in the economies around them get devastated whether it's back a hundreds of years ago.