saying that some of our allies or so-called allies treat us the worst and over the next couple of weeks we'll be looking perhaps at military spending as a factor in how these exemptions might work can you explain how those two things are related. well the president's going to take into many considerations when you look at national security but it you know the president's been very clear we're spending four percent of g.d.p. many of our allies are spending one percent of g.d.p. and not making commitments to go up to the two percent so the president is very clear with you if we're in nato he wants to make sure that nato gets more moderate so that nato can protect all of us and fulfill its goal what what he means is that if the e.u. countries want to be exempt from tariffs they need to pay to be nato members and this is something trump has been pushing for since his campaign days arguing that the u.s. bears the whole burden paying nato its bills saying that other countries should be paying for nato protection and security let's take a look at what trump had to say some of the countries that we're dealing with on

our great partners great military allies and we're going to be looking at that very strongly the terrorists don't go affective for at least another fifteen days and we're going to see who's treating us fairly who's not treating this fairly part of that's going to be military. paying the bills who's not paying the bills the new levies will be taking effect on the twenty third of march and just to recap foreign companies will have to pay a twenty five percent tax on steel imports and a ten percent tax on alumium imports of course this was met with a furious response from the e.u. and in response to the move the e.u. said that it would impose tariffs on u.s. imports of jeans and motorbikes peanut butter and orange juice but now the u.s. secretary for commerce will be speaking to e.u. representatives regarding eliminating tariffs against the u.s. but ironically it looks like the military will be playing a decisive role in what's supposed to be economic bargaining. israeli defense

forces are facing a public backlash after removing a video prepared for mocks the international women's day it features female soldiers performing various roles in the service however it was scrapped allegedly after pressure from religious groups is a clip of the video game a moon. seems. to be free to say. and bush should be loyal hold physiologic. the i.d.f. spokespersons unit insisted the video was removed simply because it was not officially approved before it was uploaded the religious affiliated web site sort of game claims in a tweet that the clip was taken down following its complaint describing the video provoke it if they removal caused outrage online and many questioning the official

reasons behind the move the female combatants forum started an online petition demanding to fire rabbis who incited gangs the integration of women in combat positions within the i.d.f. we heard from the executive director of the israel religious action center she believes that the growing influence of women in the country is disturbing to religious groups i think that rabbis extreme zealots rabbis that belong to minority groups in israel do certain certainly not the mainstream rabbis are disturbed by the fact that women are becoming more more and. dominant in the israeli public sphere why are the rabbis disturbed there's thing saying if women become generals in the army what's next they're going to want to become grandmas they're going to become religious judges they're going to take our jobs away and i'm sorry that the army bent down. capitulated to these demands thirty

years ago women were assigned to only one hundred professions while men had seven hundred professions and now women are in the hundreds of professions in even though they are only serving twenty months while men serve thirty months. i'm proud of this movie and i think there. even if the movie is off the air it's not off the hearts and i think reality in the end will try and. ok let's go back to our top story this hour we've heard from tourism a in the u.k. house of commons earlier saying that it was highly likely that russia was behind the poisoning of former russian spy in the u.k. let's get analysis now from martha macauley is an offer to russia and this very good evening to you martin. so we heard the words highly likely you would like to say at this point i don't think anybody would disagree if russia was found guilty of this as

a state sponsored attackers that is the phrase has been used nobody would disagree that they should be punished the question is did they do it now to resume a said that investigation's ongoing they're waiting to hear an explanation from the russian ambassador given all that why did we then see that house of commons open up and see what some would call the frenzy of calls for punishments given that they haven't established guilt. yes unfortunately to read them a was really forced to say something she would have preferred to said nothing and had i been a pm i think i would have said right we are investigating this in great detail and taking very very careful steps etc but we haven't yet reached a final conclusion and when we have reached a final conclusion then we will say we know exactly where the the agent a nerve agent came from and we'll identify the source and the country because she

comes up with a statement highly likely which will not stand up in the court of law and is purely sylmar as she's saying basically i don't know but i have to say something and she may in fact have to retract what you say is in the future but she was a very very difficult position and i think she took the wrong course but of course that there's a lot of labor and conservative m.p.'s who have already decided that russia was responsible even though the evidence has not been brought forward and of course they want action and so on the see this is a pearl case a great political ball game where they can kick russia around and one will say we have to do that now with the hope we do something else and they get themselves into the newspapers and so on and it's great fun from their point of view but from the point of view of law we haven't taken one step forward yeah let's pick up on that

because obviously the fundamental principle of. the legal system in the u.k. is innocent until proven guilty is another example is not the first time we've seen this they've essentially said the reason was said that it's up to you russia to prove your innocence in this case we're assuming you're guilty if you don't come back mr ambassador by wednesday with with proof that you were innocent. that does not work in english law english law in fact works the other way round. the state has to prove the guilt of the defendant all the person sitting in the dock english though is very. very precise one that you don't it doesn't take the step right you're here before this court prove to us your religion and. it works the other way around the court has to prove has to arrive at a decision which is quite clearly yes or no he's guilty or not not guilty so

therefore you can't really argue that the rush them best should come back and prove that russia did not do it and so on that is not english law and this is going to be hugely damning for the russian government if this turns out as everyone is assuming in the in the house of commons from the statements that were made and a large part of the evidence is that this is described as being a soviet produced nerve agent from a batch of nerve agents called navi chalk this sumption being made it seems is that this could only be russia which you agree with that that it couldn't be anyone else who could be in possession. they could be somewhere else did if it was the soviet union did they in fact share this expertise with any of the other was opec countries or even the china or some other country we don't know that or was it unique to the soviet union we know that the soviets had back logical and chemical

weapons as did the west americans had it and nato had the same so therefore what is very important would be for. the authorities in britain legally to identify the source and if one hundred percent sure of that then to work out whether it was actually a state action was it in fact deliberately done by the russian state hall did the agent did this nerve agent escape or was it removed from the laboratory without the knowledge of the state. and it fell into other hands which and who were non-state actors this is the problem they can identify exactly perhaps where they know their agent came from but then you have to go another step further and say what a state action was

a dream move by the state and state officials and the g.r.u. or the f.s.b. he used it to poison script or was it removed illegally and was then used by somebody else who was on authorised by the state to poison script well that's the problem you have that's the problem the british government has is no use just pointing the finger and say right we know exactly where it was produced we have to then proceed to the next stage which is that wasn't really an action by the state or by some other actor who was not acting on the orders of the state martin many thanks for joining us am i guess martin a call the author and russia analyst. now in other news terrorists and rebels occupying the enclave of eastern ghouta just outside the capital of syria damascus have reportedly started to fight each other this is

according to the russian reconciliation center for syria it says that in fighting began after one of the rebel groups was those to separate from al nasra terrorists in exchange for talks about their safe passage from the area early the reconciliation center struck a deal with some rebels allowing fifty two civilians half of them children to safely leave the enclave through humanitarian corridors the first time civilians have actually managed to use that corridor as intended previously they were the fired upon by militants all resorted to using a passing aid convoy as cover art here but correspondent reports from the ground. the syrian army has liberated several parts of eastern. also thanks to syrian russian efforts a number of civilians have managed to flee after being trapped inside a battle zone i.

that's after g. russian reconciliation center for syria offered to militants and their families an opportunity to leave with safety guarantees in exchange for allowing to free passage of civilians principal conditions of that deal was the separation of this rebel group called legion from honor sure a terrorist would harm this group has long been affiliated however these negotiations reportedly resulted in fighting between the former new shura and our allies which has led to an open confrontation an exchange of fire on the streets of eastern ghouta pursing civilians to flee the crossfire nevertheless all in all there's been a decline in fighting as a syrian government and russian reconsiderations center contin. a negotiating with militants for their safe passage out of the battle zone. of the rebel held areas of eastern good has been besieged by government forces since two thousand and thirteen

but the fighting there has recently escalated in the last few days the syrian government has regained a large portion of the territory it's put into isolated the militants into just three pockets as you can see here really reducing the hold a local suffering under militant rule in those areas have shared their stories of these it is done and has more now on the deal that allowed dozens of civilians to leave the fighting. militants in control of the area have let them out almost two weeks after russia and syria opened a humanitarian corridor was not an act of good world on behalf of the rebel factions but part of a deal russia and syria led some anti government fighters safely flee with their families and in exchange fighters in ghouta of would allow fifty civilians to leave the war zone as well. we've been suffering horribly for seven years we all stayed neutral in misrata but we couldn't leave can do anything they didn't let us leave controlled pressure on us and the starry night she'd we haven't seen any of

the aid sent to us we haven't seen any money nothing he took everything from us. militants treat civilians anees goutam as a bargaining chip making sure that if anyone flees they do it on the fighters terms the gloves were off from the start the russian defense ministry has reported that the paths to safety were shelled almost religiously precisely to prevent anyone from fleeing to damascus trying to scape the house fire between the government forces and militant groups whose fighters far too often side with terrorists. who have all sorts of needs inside the border today the priority remains medical

help that we need to. reach with the people inside all day and food aid as well. gov young people. are the. one that started to. turn over security it would. be out of the. what they said about even any. sums are still. looking to. the u.n. security council which was supposed to be focusing on relief efforts for war ravaged ghouta in syria has descended to threats the u.s.

envoy has warned the washington is ready to strike the syrian government. we also warn any nation that is determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and any human suffering most especially the outlaw syrian regime the united states remains prepared to act if we must it is not the path we prefer but it is a path we have demonstrated we will take and we are prepared to take it again. course mckillop milton's been following events there from new york kelly shades of north korea the threat that they are you know military action could be there if needed do you construe that to be a threat from the u.s. ambassador. well we did hear nikki haley on the floor of the u.n. security council using the language that could be interpreted as saying that the usa has the right to attack the syrian government now the meeting was convened for

the purpose of discussing the plight of civilians in eastern guta and the efforts to get them out of harm's way and take care of civilians and make sure that people are protected however the minute the meeting pretty soon turned into a forum as we heard nikki haley get up an essential to make some very serious accusations against the governments of iran russia and the syrian government she accused those governments of actually conducting chlorine attacks in the last sixteen days of course then we heard a response from the russian ambassador saying that this was simply a decision from ation campaign this is what we heard the exchange with this is nikki haley followed by the russian envoy to the united nations security council. and in the past sixteen days there have been three separate allegations of chlorine gas attacks this is no ceasefire this is the assad regime iran and russia continuing to wage war against their political opponents are

a constant when you want to meet with the flu we understand the goal of this decision from asian campaign is to manipulate public opinion and convince people the syrian government is using chemical weapons but we have reasonable concerns that they were all preparations to stage fake chemical attacks in order to later accuse the s.n.p. government and according to our data on the fifth of march the onus or terrorists used chlorine in eastern guta injuring fifty people. now nikki haley said that the united states is currently in the process of putting forward a new draft resolution that would not contain what she called counterterrorism loopholes essentially the current resolution for a cease fire allows the syrian government to continue fighting against the terrorists and extremists in eastern guta she's arguing that this new resolution put forward by the united states would not allow for the fight against terrorist groups like al nasra to continue now at this point we're hearing from moscow that

these terrorists in eastern guta are essentially using civilians as human shields they are holding the civilians in the area not allowing food and water to get in and actually staging executions now in his response to nikki haley the russian ambassador pointed out that essentially what was supposed to be a meeting about the plight of civilians in eastern guta and helping the civilians to get out of harm's way seemed to have turned into a vehicle for some unprincipled attacks on the government of russia this was his response. last time i promise to count how many times the u.s. envoy would mention russia during his statement i counted it's twenty two russian to russia russia russia russia russia trash and russian russian freshly crush russian russian russians and russian russian the russian the russian and russia russian russia and the russians don't for political purposes only and not house of catherine civilians. now at this point all parties in the u.n.

security council fully agree that every measure needs to be taken to protect the lives of civilians in eastern goods as the fighting continues however there is pretty clear disagreement about who's to blame for the situation there and who is responsible for it and we've heard some rather heated rhetoric this latest statement from nikki haley essentially arguing that the united states would have the right to take unilateral action against the syrian government will only and seems to have only intensified the situation in the council and the tension between different countries reporting live from new york correspondent kelly maupin thank you and if you thanks to you guys at home for cheating it's a busy news evening we brought you up to date in the stories latest headlines coming your way at home now. the art of the deal is being put to the test can trump the former reality television host broker

a deal with the north koreans will the deep state allow him also is the world into a new trade. time after time here we're going underground in the last week of campaigning for this week's presidential election in the largest country on earth russia coming up in the show was the saudi crown prince in london this week telling tereza made to go to war with iran the u.s. colonel who helped make colin powells case for war on iraq at the u.n. warns of a war that could kill even more than tony blair's shock and awe and. rise like lions after slumber we speak highly of young ridiculed by mainstream media for

predicting the huge quake in british politics plus will tomorrow's u.k. spring financial statement do anything to make britain more equal we speak to grassroots activists fighting for equality and working class representation all this more coming up in today's going underground or at first it's not only post britain little need to look further afield for trade opportunities the trumpet ministration ascent former c.e.o. of exxon and current secretary of state rex tillerson on a tour of u.s. arguable proxies in africa firstly ethiopian infamous of our it was at war during the one nine hundred eighty s. live aid concerts national state of emergency has now been declared to me just one day after the an expected resignation of prime minister my re and bethel and yes ethiopia after years of i.m.f. world bank policy and billions in u.s. military and civilian aid and weapons sales is in a state of flux tillerson destination the old british colony of kenya over which the u.k. still stands in the dark about mass killing and torture during the malmo uprising

unprecedented times in kenya the only other kind to date expected to be on the ballot paper for the election and the month has pulled out. yes reverberations are kenya's most recent general election continuous parties alleged corruption of the vote this in a country crucial to u.s. military ambitions in the indian ocean world's longtime ally until this investigation oil rich nigeria continues to battle with oil shortages fuel shortages brought nigeria to a standstill that nigeria sold arms and given between four hundred and six hundred million dollars every year in so-called aid for at least the past decade by the us taxpayer that's for chad in central africa to listen will be visiting a country he knows well according to rachel maddow of m s n b c you referenced a book on the secretary of state's company steve cole points out in his book private empire that the total of u.s. aid in chad the total of american aid that we spend in that country foreign aid and

military aid the total less than twenty million dollars while exxon is paying them more than five hundred million dollars a year in oil revenue and that whole exxon move that all happened in two thousand and six that happened right after this guy took over as the head of access. yes rex tillerson allegedly enabled weapon sales by a oiled contract in chad but there's no need for anything like that in his other destination of djibouti where a quarter of the population lives in extreme poverty today we're doing a category three qualification which involves quite a deal of stress and quite a deal of what fundamental lot of weapons in the belief that you have to listen stop in djibouti no doubt referenced the u.s. top secret base at camp lejeune a from where drones fly to kill people all around the world there will have been some tough talking as a new superpower though has also moved that on the red sea to

a nation known for high rates of illiteracy unemployment and childhood malnutrition the chinese navy is setting up a base in djibouti to support has scored peacekeeping and humanitarian missions and ships carrying chinese military personnel left in southern china province on tuesday to sell for the country located in the horn of africa the base to be set up while provides support for operations in africa and west asia and china the people's liberation army said the decision to the days was reached after friendly negotiations between the two countries and aligned with the interests of both sides whether to listens talks with african nations which end tomorrow or to the benefit of both sides of drug be little progress since the end of u.k. colonialism is another matter at least the former oil boss who says he felt helpless in the rush to tony blair's war on iraq now appears to realize it was a mistake the decision to go into iraq and change the leadership in iraq but on

reflection. bush perhaps not did not achieve those objectives we do not have a more stable region in the world and our national security is not million. well joining me now from falls church virginia in the united states is someone who made the case for that iraq war he's a retired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff. desex your state colin powell welcome again larry wilkinson colonel even rex tillerson fully recognizes the failures of the iraq war you made the case for our goal and pile you believe a similar rush to war against iran is currently underway i do they could saw granted majorly by the fact that we have this almost obsequious sycophantic relationship with israel and particularly with its prime minister bibi netanyahu is willing to die to the last american to take on iran you know that repeatedly the united states says they are the only democracy in the middle east which is why the

us has that alerts i'll quote to you gideon levy of ha'aretz along with me and several others made speeches about the us is your relationship in gideon's said how can anyone call a state that has that toad talent terry and brutal occupation going on in the west bank and he didn't even mention gaza a democracy i say get in the right how is it always former top officials like yourself out of power that come up with these appear phonies about israeli power was not present when you were in the state department. absolutely it was in fact in the conversations that go in and i had secretary powell and i had with regard to the u.s. is are all issues ship we're not too less a service than the one i just gave you but the realities of power especially in

a republican administration but let me not hesitate to say democrats too like bachmann indias and chuck schumer from new york and so forth are as guilty the realities of that power at the highest levels in the united states is that as one individual said policies made intel of live not washington and i know you've been addressing this recently why if it is indeed israel that is forcing the u.s. hand here why isn't israel just attack iran. well we lost the connection with colonel larry wilkerson that subsequently we retrieved it colonel thanks for coming back after that brief blip we were talking about the attack on iran why doesn't israel which is never confirmed by the way that it has two hundred nuclear warheads why doesn't it just attack iran why does it need the help of washington i think there's a two part answer to that question wanted is they need great power over flight if

you will the united states doing jumping is quite different from israel doing something isolation and doing more concrete they also need the u.s. to do the real heavy war israel has an extraordinary military capability but its capability that's pretty much confined to a very narrow range and it's been designed that way. it cannot project power to the extent that it would be able to eliminate the actual nuclear program and do other things that it would need to do in order to feel assured that it is its attack it more that the only power really on the face of the earth that can do that is the united states multi carrier around the clock operations in terms of arab power massive strikes out of the huge air force base in gutter and so forth i know you age they know human erosion not only iran there not iraq and of

course israel did lose the war in lebanon against as a bull and i got to tell you though in britain i don't know whether you've been reading the news crown prince mohammed bin selma has been visiting the prime minister in the queen here i understand your knowledge and intelligence of. this region suggests that saudi arabia would also be part of a such an alliance with israel and washington in this war on iran. and i think saudi arabia is in many respects a long pole in the tent especially with mohamed been so mom is the heir apparent and really the king started already wants her on taken down and saudi arabia has an erstwhile alliance right now with israel is are we riyadh in order to accomplish those and did i mean of course we would be speculation but obviously he's here in london you think that he.