a big breaking news night here on our team international james mattis the defense secretary of the united states is out president trump announces the u.s. defense secretary will step down from his post at the end of february that's not very long at all what's. wrapping up with the presidential question and answer session on two thousand and eight teens at biggest events russian president vladimir putin gives moscow's stance on the threat of nuclear war the ukraine crisis and brags that among much much more. many western politicians experts and even ordinary people see russia as a threat they even think that you want to rule the world of course i do.

international journalists even press the russian leader about potential plans for a global takeover thankfully everyone sees of the funny side realize that the leader was just having a little bit of a law. by broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our international incheon thomas glad to have you with us our u.s. defense secretary james mattis has sent a letter to president trump announcing his resignation from the post effective at the end of february in his letter he said that the president deserves a defense secretary who's quoting here views are better all lined with is this comes right after trump's decision to withdraw u.s.

troops from syria to get more on this let's cross live now to our tease who is in the united states for us caleb. interesting decision especially in terms of the timing what can you tell us about it. well he is known as mad dog mattis secretary of defense james mattis one of the military men that trump once referred to as my generals according to what we're seeing on twitter he is now out now this comes just after trump announcing that the usa is withdrawing its forces from syria now it's being reported that mattis had argued against that decision saying that the usa should keep some forces in syria in order to combat terrorism he did not agree with it now there has been a letter of resignation that has surfaced and one passage from it contains the phrase because you have a right to a secretary of defense whose views are more aligned with yours now the letter also

makes reference to russia and china makes reference to the fight against isis terrorism so it would appear that the secretary of defense mattis is out and also is being reported that he was critical of trump's decision to withdraw u.s. forces from syria it's important to note that the u.s. forces in syria were there without the permission of the internationally recognized government so by withdrawing from syria the usa is essentially complying with international law but it seems that there was a disagreement between trump and madison now you know this letter is surfaced and it's it will be the end of february when we see the end of the secretary of defense leadership by james madison and trump will then have to replace him have to appoint a replacement and congress will have to then confirm his replacement. has come up and we this is just coming across now so i'm sure that we're going to get much more information as we do get it and we know you'll stay across it for us thanks for being with us. and i don't trump has announced the defeat of islamic state in syria

and the rapid withdrawal of all two thousand u.s. troops from the war torn country you heard that caleb alluded to that decision just a second ago now the american president took to twitter giving his nation and himself much of the credit for the victory over the terrorists although his words seem to have perplexed his administration allies and advisers be have one good study says we've beaten them and we've beaten him badly now we've won it's time to come back. to remain on the grounds of after the physical defeat of the caliphate until we have the pieces in place to ensure that the defeat is under. the knock of the hell out of isis will become another syria like very soon. to us officials tell n.b.c. news the president reluctantly agree to keep troops in syria well some analysts point out that the u.s. backed kurdish fighters will now be left abandoned and vulnerable turkey has

threatened offensive in northern syria against the kurds who they view as terrorists if spokesperson of the syrian democratic forces which includes the kurds told us why they opposed. because the american decision to withdraw from syria is sudden and shocking to us and even for the american troops here on the ground the war on terrorism is not over yet and such a withdrawal would create a big vacuum that terrorist forces mainly isis will benefit from and they will try to reorganize themselves and launch counter-attacks others in the american withdrawal will surely contribute in one way or another to escalating the continuous turkish threats toward the north of syria in general and towards the kurdish people in particular there are concerns that massacres could take place and the turkish attack aimed at demographic change just like happened in our friend that is why we believe the turkish threats are real and serious the world mainly

the us should fulfill their obligations in this area. earlier my colleague you know neil discussed the latest decision of the us president with a member of the turkish patriotic party who believes that the retreat of washington from syria is a huge step towards a new multi-polar world. we here in turkey think that this is a very important very historic decision taken by the us president donald trump because to begin with the and over twenty seven years war started in one thousand nine hundred ninety one with the first invasion of iraq this decision of retreat from syria is not just a matter of defeated yes or not it is basic decision to end this twenty seven year old war led by the united states and its allies so it's a historic decision. maybe not easy to understand here today with

all the opposition within the united states but in the long term we will face that this is the end of a period of u.s. interventions in the middle east and in asia but in terms of the country itself syria what does the withdrawal of u.s. troops mean for it. exactly that's the second point that's the second aspect of this historical decision means that the period of u.s. control then u.s. led regime change is over as well the old politics of american imperialism as it is called as it was called to establish. regimes and governments that roundly. is also the second this but in fact this historical decision and connect to that is the transition to a multi-polar world why because the united states is not able this is acknowledged

by their president he's not able to really change on its own so who leads the probe the political process here in syria and in the middle east right now it's a trio of russia iran and turkey and of course the main. wait in this tree your. it's for actors actually is the syrian government and the syrian people so that is a political process that is led by different actors and the united states is not one of them anymore so this is a transition therefore to a multiple or a world where other countries in the united states and hmong themselves corporate owned that their man their future so definitely the united states will of syria and this is the beginning of a new age. the russian president has held his fourteenth annual q. and a with media from all around the globe we have special coverage of the whole

event and reaction to it right here starting now. of world report and spent almost four hours answering a ray of questions from both russian and foreign journalists ranging from the economy pensions and education to sniping back at a question about world domination following the q. and a our correspondent what i have. not quite the five hours that his record but you know pretty near four hours solid enough but there was so much covered so much from fuel prices to protests to even nuclear war breaks it mentioned in those mentions relations with various countries the chance of conflict there but one thing that stood out towards the end was an interesting question of. who can about whether he wants to rule the world and he does. many why some politicians

experts and even ordinary people see russia as a threat they even think that you want to rule the world of course i do i just want to know do you really want this was a real end of your foreign policy. concerning ruling the world we know where the headquarters are located of those who want to do this and it's not in moscow you can connect this to defense spending the us spends over seven hundred billion dollars on it or russia only forty six billion. do you really think that our aim is to rule the world. this is just a cliche that's being imposed by the west in order to resolve their own domestic problems. but i. also asked about the trouble. now and cement resident declaration yesterday resident tweet i suppose that he is going to pull out american troops from syria now that the job has been done and isis has been

destroyed that hasn't but. says it has blood in there putin was asked what he thought about that intent concerning the u.s. withdrawal from syria i don't really know what that means for example the us has been present in afghanistan for the past seventeen years and almost every year they say that they are withdrawing their troops but they are still there now and what is the presence of american troops needed in syria you pushed you quite don't think so let's not forget the presence there is illegitimate but it was not agreed with either with the un security council with the syrian leadership if the us plans to withdraw from us is the right decision ukrainian journalists are also always welcome at this press conference in recent years of the more nationalistic li minded and zealously anti putin ones seem to savor displaying their colors. for everyone to see. flags all banners or indeed

provocative questions. to do no good i just wanted to ask you how much money do you spend on dunbar people are starving and they've turned into slaves of russian frankly speaking as a way to shoot three members of the puzzles. just tell me they. between you on the us and the rest of ukraine it's because the russians do know it was done by the ukrainian authorities if they haven't forced a full economic blockade of the territory they consider their own. consider their own citizens almost every day civilians die though we provide humanitarian support for those living mansions but only not to let those people starve to death another important thing that people have been talking about for some years several years now escalation growing tensions in the world armament an arms race and vladimir putin was asked about potential nuclear war he said that would be

catastrophic but the risk is there because the google security order the global security mechanism is unraveling it is failing it is being destroyed nations are pulling out of arms treaties out of arms limitation treaties developing these new weapons capable of defeating all defenses and there is the problem that balance is gone there is no mutually assured destruction there is no parity and so everybody is trying to make new weapons there is a global arms race and it isn't going to end well as the us is now leaving the i.n.f. treaty going to happen it is hard to imagine what is the rockets are located in europe what should we do of course we will have to insure our security with some concrete steps that you will let them not say later that we are trying to get some advantage we're not trying to get some advantage with this but merely to seek your pilots to ensure our security so what's more covered that we don't have time to

pack in now almost four hours the rec would do as well one thousand seven hundred and two accredited journalists in attendance with a lot of questions and times a very chaotic with journalists screaming and shouting in jumping to be noticed and to get their question of the crisis and solution please them only one putin and many more journalists. with time ticking and journalists desperate to get their questions to the president those in attendance were looking to stand out in the crowd in any way possible they could get his attention. overreach are.

you. sure it's just parties a reporter was among the journalists and talked us through his questions to the president he brought his own poster though it was a bit on the small side. when you're sitting there when you're trying to hold this little thing actually the size of this was the limit to this year for all the journalists when you're desperate to get this question you can feel every minute of it possibly even second and then when it gets closer to the end it really really puts a lot of pressure on you but i was lucky enough to get a chance to ask my questions about ask questions after about one and a half hours while we were there in that room you know if you get

a chance it is still not much because it's only thirty seconds maybe a bit more than that if you don't finish your question within that time other people will start screaming at you you know making noises that that's really something that makes it difficult to do the job but then in these thirty seconds what you're really trying to do is squeeze in some kind of stuff about the most important invention of the year so why began is that the my question and when i mentioned the script all case and also the killing of saudi journalist jamal that was the moment i did that and you can a lot of more potent decided to draw the line between these two immediately i'm sure you would be cautious he was assassinated everyone knows that there is evidence script is a lawyer however there are sanctions against russia and complete silence in the case of saudi arabia that this politicized russia for you because it is just

another reason to attack russia if it was not script they would have thought of something else this is obvious to me and the aim is one to hold russia's growth at any cost of speaking of other double standards i went on to talk about more things for example the arrest of russian journalist in fact he is he used to be the head of a russian news agency in ukraine carol this is a city in ukraine he's been arrested for months the arrests of maria buttin in the u.s. and the recent detention. of the wall weight financial director in canada by the way donald trump refers to a house of bargaining chips in the trade war game possibly even openly doing that and i went on to ask whether this is possible in russia to detain foreigners whether we'll ever see that on under some dodgy pretext to then possibly exchange the prisoners that are under arrest in the west and if we

take the rules of the game that are being set by america and some other western countries in this case whether that is at all acceptable the answer from the russian president was no he said that russia will never try to use this kind of tactic. we've spoken to a former u.s. congressman ron paul who shared his thoughts with the. on with us excuse me on the current state of the u.s. russia relations. i don't think it means that something horrible is eminent but i think it's a shame that has happened because when we do that as american citizens we see our government doing this then there's a response from the russian government and i see that going in the wrong direction but i don't think it should be a great alarm that next month there will be a clash. and trump although he has his ups and downs i think that

he has taken a good position he said he wanted to get out of out of syria and he said in the campaign he said that isis is not a threat there and that it's time to come home and i just wanted to be complete yes move the troops out our couple thousand troops but i want to make sure that you know the cia's out and the special forces are out and that we don't use sanctions and that we move in that direction where we just have hands off and deal with diplomacy and getting along with people but in that philosophy that i just spoke it also means that for in a way our problem is if we dominate and militarize a country then we finance all that and if we converted into friendship then we send them millions of dollars because we still own you so we still should be concerned it's great to do troops are leaving and as i mentioned as we began that i wanted to be more inclusive to you know i would not say we're going to remove two thousand

troops because we've been in a many many countries we continue to be in countries but we start off with our cia agents and we start off with special forces we start off with interfering with sanctions and we just don't we don't need any of that if we're noninterventionist and we just want friendship and trade you don't spend that money because it gets us into trouble venezuela is turning into crypto currencies in an effort to fight i present place and that's very much more of a short break these are tensions. china much bigger economic power lunch or wall inter. i think. you have to live with it. and there's lots of

advantages that the europeans jethro but as well as america. in a world of big part of the lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for washing clothes for watching the hawks. oh. international now for the first time in half a year julian assange shows had visitors to the door and embassy in london to

german m.p.'s met with of the whistleblower to express their solidarity and the hopes they can find a legal solution to the wiki leaks of founders situation. you're going to pick up the story for us m.p.'s from the german bund to stop and it's committee on foreign affairs who authored a letter in support of we can leaks founder julian assange signed by dozens of m.p.'s have been visiting him here at the ecuadorian embassy in the british capital they are demanding that the u.k. provide assurances that the song would be able to leave this embassy without being extradited to the u.s. they see the next step in this ever lasting case is the responsibility the united kingdom united kingdom has to take the measures now. to think through the solution which is in the frame of international law and not in the frame off the u.s. at move station boy is a gates international law and against actually the u.s.

will i mean again it's a first amendment they are taking measures like the protection of journalists and freedom of speech and the freedom of press so we have to actually protect them from that of a selves and not to a violate the first amendment julian assange just father also visited him here on thursday saying he did not find his son in the best of conditions but the funding as you would expect of a few should. just go straight to. court cases. knows someone restricted this is toshi. to the communication snow job for. most. of. the m.p.'s visiting from berlin have demanded that the international community listen up to the united nations ruling that has now quite

a long time ago found that julian the songes detention is arbitrary united kingdom government tried to appeal to the un decision and they lost and still they are not accepting and. accepting this u.n. decision and this has to be stopped they have to i mean it's a member of the united nations it's a have a seat in the security council and in my point of view you can't united kingdom is dead. except and respect the international law and international rights of someone local who likes to you know songs ecuadorian officials have legally been increasingly indicating that the week you leaks founder has outstayed his welcome behind these walls while his sancia spent the last sixteen years here fearing that if he leaves the premises he will be extradited to the u.s. and prosecuted for his work as we can weeks publisher that's released information

that washington would rather have kept under wraps reporting from london. with our two. i venezuela which is reeling under crippling hyper inflation has pegged its hopes of recovery on crypto currencies many businesses there are adopting technology to accept payments in crypto but does not all running smoothly on his main financial reports now from caracas. behind me as one of caracas is famous for the ballad kind of trademark of venezuela's capital no one can say how many people living days lives. some studies estimate that more than eighty percent of been israel has thirty million population leaving dire poverty once relatively well off the country's own dependent economy simply collapsed when prices slumped fuel is fast becoming one of

the few things anyone can afford in venezuela according to today's rate for just one u.s. dollar i can get attention eleven thousand tons of fuel sounds absurd right with hyperinflation here in the country a week later for the same amount i would be able to get it wouldn't more than that annual inflation has topped one million percent and in attempts to curb it five zeroes have been knocked off the currencies value it actually gasoline is cheap if people are starving who don't get proper health care and education while the security situation getting worse every day. all we've got to starvation and it's to far out of this government. experts say been as well as economy can hardly survive without international donations in reality u.s. sanctions make it impossible for an as well a to pay off debt let alone borrow money and donald trump has never made

washington's aim as secret i'm not going to rule out a military option we have many options for that is whether it's a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military as the military decides to do that cut off from the dollar the countries unable to import food or medicine and putin and even heavier burden on the already exhausted population even though this. actions do not affect or prove that the importation of of basic goods is a fair fact that there are financial sanctions under this bill has made it very difficult for the country to go for the government rather to engage in our financial transactions over almost any kind of memory that we're going to see or also depends to a large extent of the true ninety something percent of that software and i include in that it's hard currency earnings that depends on oil production in oil production is declining because it would be almost impossible for the government to import badly needed replacement parts for the oil industry and saw oil production

has declined by as much as fifty percent in the past two years the digital money firm dash though sees this catastrophe differently they are calling it a creep to revolution trying to encourage people to avoid hyper inflation and secure their money electronically dash is digital cash much like bitcoin but unlike bitcoin it's really the first form of digital cash that works just like physical cash the group says its cash could be successfully used to pay for airplane tickets head tells a lunch as we heard that food chains like papa john's subway may accept cryptic currency we're going to take it out now this sticker actually means that they do accept pretty currency by whether this but i getting pay with cash. only currently i cannot accept the payments and dash i need a smartphone to scan the code that you'll receive on your phone to complete the

transaction but the boss took the smartphone how many people pay with a printer currencies and popular. when we have the equipment during the weekends sometimes we get four people in one day confused a bit which tried couple of other restaurants of the same chain and another one reportedly except in payments encrypt but the best we got was the dash sticker we saw through a closed glass door do you pay with crypto currency no i don't because why. i don't have any don't know i personally don't use it they will go on to pay pensions and cryptocurrency but i don't know whether that's haven't worked out. people do have access but they can't afford it all they make goes towards buying food. optimists say crypt occurrences can help those who fled the broad some estimate the number is already into the millions to transfer money to their families still here in venezuela but until fundamental changes come into effect the so called

a creep to revolution won't ease the months of hardship cryptocurrency it. could work i think and of course people would be interested in using it if one were just more or less certain that the price of oil were going to go up but when it's going down the government people going to be interested in investing in it so are so that's been a bit of a problem for the governor because recently the present world has been going down it's going to be very difficult under these circumstances for any kind of crypto currency actually i think two are to really take hold in venezuela because it needs economic stability i think in order to work twenty nine and a half minutes that's when i'll be back with more news watching our two international stay with us.