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 troops the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle welcome to the crystal ball edition of crosstalk what can we expect in the new year we have a great lineup of guests telling us what they think. crossed

talking the new year i'm joined by my guest here in moscow mark slow to he's an international affairs and security analyst and we also have to be he's a political analyst with sputnik international our gentlemen cross-talk rules and effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it we have a number of other guests on the program here but i want to go to you first mark here a lot is is in the brew right now a lot of stories bleeding from two thousand eight hundred into two thousand and nine what's the most important story you're going to even more from two thousand and seventeen into two thousand and eighteen we were concerned about four main stories going into the year the conflicts in syria and ukraine geopolitically the political witch hunt inquisition against trump in the united states and the political crisis in the e.u. with bragg's it and you know all their political crises against you know the government in brussels across the board. and going into two thousand and nineteen

those are the four big issues again none of them are resolved and every one of them actually looks to be worse going into the new year and the other two things i would highlight the new coming trends. the threat of the new arms race the emergence of you know what military people are calling hypersonic war whether we're talking hypersonic weapons the autumn ization of the battlefield with a gun and thought of as killing vehicles and so on and the other big story i would think to keep track of is the fragmentation and nationalization or blockades ation of the internet the golden age of the internet is over and we're going to see a warring internet always always great to hear your often is the mark. but mark just numerate the most important subject so i will concentrate on one that for me was pivotal you know how far can the so-called liberals goal he could be saying to

all vs breaches of human rights to all various cases of extreme nationalism and here i have a few examples of the first one is their unwavering support of the european union for poroshenko as a regime this year despite the fact that poroshenko just everything that was against the principles of freedom he nearly shot down all of the traditional ukrainian also the church replacing it by a new one with the state involvement he is stuck that it can pain to uncover a state officials in ukraine who have relatives in russia this is the warst feature of started using you know when relatives abroad was a risk factor than either united states how the democrats the new hall they all wanted to pull. in jail and keep a small as possible seem pitiful posted photos on the internet with men. national

rifle association so how far can these presumably liberal were told you know or you know in accepting an agreement in the left never knows when it's gone too far he let i want to bring in john john laughlin in in paris john as a good friend in a long standing guest on cross talk you you've heard a lot of optimistic words from idema and mark here and i think you're going to continue the trend john what's the what's the state of the e.u. going into two thousand and nineteen we still have the yellow vests in france and brags it isn't is looming. but i very much agree with what dmitri has just said how far can the liberals go because for years now i've been saying that the european union and its member states are on a drift towards totalitarianism and the permitted margin of debate is narrow in every day particular of course where nothing to do with russia is concerned but you know when people ask me about the future of the european union i'm reminded peter

as perhaps you are from your your student days as a political scientist at the debate that took place between the right wing and left wing americans on whether or not the soviet system could be reformed and the right wingers said that it couldn't and lead democrats and left wing it said that latin american dictatorships who america supported by contrast could reform and that analysis turned out to be correct the right wingers were right to say that the dictatorships could reform but that the soviet system could not and i think the same analysis applies to the european union you asked me in your question about the the yellow vests movement back home was the last great hope for reform in the european union and he's blown it this is one of the biggest social movements in france for many years and he has clearly shown himself not surprisingly to be incapable of reforming like the front of the european union and the reason why the european union can't be formed is. actually the same reason why the soviet union

couldn't be reformed both the european union and the soviet union are trapped inside an ideological minor set which makes them intellectually incapable of reforming and that mindset is of course post nationalism globalism and so on and michael is the greatest example of this he thought that with that force of his personality and his good looks and whatever he could change things but since he never wanted to change the most important things namely the european policy the euro and so on his country and the rest of the european union just like the soviet union will remain mired in decline for as long as it takes to break ok mark let me go to you how do you react to what john laughlin had to say yeah i don't see that mccrone was ever intended as a voice for reform i think he was more intended as a last desperate hope of the technocrats and brought olds to vote trysts the status quo to prevent

a radical reform is such as as the lumpen from gaining power with the collapse of the socialist party due to the unpopularity of a large. mccraw in the literal ross trial banks there was brought up as the last desperate hope and he has failed utterly and we will see the results of this the front and the far left in france only game can we see we've seen mccrone fail john laughlin let me go back to you. does that mean on the other side of the equation that we will see some kind of success of the yellow vests. not necessarily i mean the problem with the yellow vests is of course that it's a disparate movement and it doesn't have a structured leadership and i'm strongly of the view that political movements only succeed when they have very tight and very professional organizational structures. yellow vests is just one of

a large number of of cries of anger and frustration all of which have have or ever have come about repeatedly in recent french history when i say recent i'm referring particularly to the last twenty years to the period in which the euro was introduced and one of the reasons why i think the yellow vests unfortunately might fizzle out is that the indoctrination about europe has been so strong that they haven't as far as i am aware managed to focus attention on the real cause of their decline in living standards which of course is the single currency the single currency has proved to be completely murderous for the economies. of the for the peripheral common economies of europe in other words for all the economies that are not part of germany austria or the netherlands you know for twenty years italy for example has had zero percent growth you can't a country that way and so because they're not focusing on the essential i fear that they might fizzle out you know but at the same time i agree with john larkin there

but at the same time the establishment the status quo we've seen it's vulnerabilities here and dance right. or not organized. if they do get organized would be would be interested in what kind of ideology that they would be pitching ok because this is exactly what the liberals want they want to do some kind of artificial opposition and they're going to get it well i think it will be on weis for the yellow vests right now to come up with a certain ideology i think. it will it will need a lot of work to form some kind of at the alternative ideology i think. if he decides not to imitate the west but rather to lead that way may help you know develop these kind of ideology but since i don't want it to be all doom and gloom there was. a i would go in

a year you know president also that was invited to a segment meeting of the arab league by none other than the tunisian president and the tunisian president could not do it without the brutal from the european union and most likely also from the united states so for the first time and the damage that regime change crashed i can great you all congratulate you on this i think it's an important event of the year ok i mean the finish off in a small block here with john laughlin john any other how is the hard brags that affects the european union the. european union we had about one minute left go ahead. well like dimitri i'm optimistic i think that next year because of the excellent news it's very bad news for the european union if there's no deal it means there will be a gaping hole in the european union's budget immediately and even if there is a deal the uncertainty will continue until such time as britain stops paying its

budget contributions and when it does then either the german taxpayer has to cough up more or the polish subsidy receiver has to receive yes receive less i think breaks it will go ahead whether it's hard or soft ultimately doesn't make a difference to the to the eventual outcome which i repeat is that the european union will follow the fate of the soviet union britain is bigger than the baltic states but it's the same principle ok here i don't have john's optimist i'm about brakes ok but one thing john laughlin is writing if we have him play as usual this is the subtext of this program the law of unintended consequences these fools in power do not understand what they're doing you are a gentleman i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion this question on some real news state with a. guitar

to emerge and the decades after the war a nazi doctor was still active and rich in the nineteen seventies crittle had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery and ash with a german company developed from the denied a drug that was promoted as completely safe even during pregnancy it turned out to have terrible side effects what has happened to my baby is anything but. yeah she said she's just got charged arms minix a little mind victims have to this day received no compensation they never apologized for the suffering that. i do not only want the money i want the revenge . i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter the us of the rich one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crime tempi each did. eighty five percent of the global wealth he longs to

the ultra rich eight point six percent market saw a thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only number you need to remember is one one business show you can afford to miss the one and only boom but. nobody could see coming that false confessions would be that prevalent in the spot the place the fall for conviction if you look at any interrogation out there what you'll see is threat promise threat promise threat lie a lie a lie the process of interrogation is designed to put people in just that frame of mind make the most comfortable make them want to get out and don't take no for an

answer don't accept their denials she said if i wait for a sad statement then i will be home by that time the next day there's a culture on accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with all the crime. sammy. gave to potential you'll be going to still. now you cannot because you look. big before you finally get a. welcome

back across the uk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing some real names. ok now i have the pleasure to bring in exhibit a paris he's the founder of the center of political strategic analysis struck poll or an exam da. talk about foreign policy in the new year we have trump deciding to pull out of syria as we speak lowering the troop troop numbers in afghanistan how is the european union looking at this because they have been followers since trump has been in power they have are obviously had a negative view of him is this the beginning of something here and what are the chances and what are the chances of the e.u. getting better relations with russia once britain the u.k. is out of the european union go ahead. so there is

a who or which was believed from the french secret service recommending to the president whom to work try to be a more realistic and who are going to fight against terrorism was that your run in with syria. with russia so maybe there is a chance but i'm a little bit concerned because. some people are so full of ticks and we want to continue to support the curious but what we can do. with all of the u.s. forces it's impossible to get we can't do anything it's over and you know i'm afraid because a lot of you know we know minister for enough french for he was. minister of defense during. the french like russian against syria i'm afraid it's. a mix of best and of the best of films on this question of do you want to go to dnd because of the socialist governments can't accept. all the money.

or all do so use all that there are is the help during the last the last of a few isn't it one how does it change the equation here because. it's completely destabilizes things right that it's a good thing that the u.s. is is withdrawing its i.q. patient forces but the vacuum that that creates there was never going to be a good outcome of that it was in order for it to resolve it's going to have to play through you've got across leaving at least a thousand french forces in east syria and the u.k. has an undisclosed number that is probably about the same and they are going to be trapped in the middle of such a complicated conflict kurds versus sunni tribes an insurgency against each other rather than survive this turkish and there's jihadi proxies moving in to target the kurds the syrian army russia iran and hezbollah racing in to help syria retake back

its country the u.s. probably doing stay behind operations with special forces an air strikes and these poor french and british troops are going to be like human trip wires trapped in the middle of this i think we can forget the israelis of course which just attacked syria again on christmas on christmas so they're going to be trapped in the middle of all of this they're going to start looking like swiss cheese and it's very easy for a reason to say hey i don't throw the money why i think that. what savia just told us basically a show of. all the idea that the state is bad then the us somehow on the bad influence and that's why it's misbehaving this view is completely correct you know our way to miss our ideological they are not ethnically determined table to see

because look what's going on trump announced at last you know something along the lines of he is electoral campaign he is putting out of syria who are the first to be enraged the europeans you know immediately the french minister said we are live in the you know this country poor country to its own devices the driven minister was enraged that these specific so you don't think the united states in the european union have given enough help to the syrian people i think they already know all these years they have given so much help that they will have to a poor dry side until their third millenium i think what they did to specially the french with their colonial history in c.v.a. they ever also are basically i want to go i want to go back to the. i asked you my original question what are the prospects of better relations between the european union in russian this year. you know i'm quite serious just because if you look at

what happens in germany because actually in your opinion you germany is a mostly bottom gun tree. that america doesn't want to change your she just accept it because it's not a choice for the german industry but if you look up to. you in germany. worse than a. two point zero two point zero again yes and if you're getting friends which is a. who are in your group you know i don't see any sign of wanting to do some seeing a more effective anyway the question is whether we. deserve sanctions. which doesn't work it works for russia but it was against us ok and so the point is when we would go from the sanctions and i don't see any positive signs. from germany and france that's the child. it was to do

decide to go out and just anxious ok thank you very much for joining us and happy and have a very happy new year thank you are you going to what are the prospects here i mean is it going to be more of the same here because we know that the same sions in the united states it's a congressional decision here but the europeans it's on a rolling six month basis here do you think that with the change of late with the u.k. leaving you a new leadership in germany anything is going to change or is there going to be still the pressure from washington there is going to be pressure from washington it may not be coming from the president's office but we know that the president doesn't have complete control of the deep state foreign policy and so on he may be trying to regain control of some aspects of it but i think the you has their own neo con ideologues exceptional us at this point and they will continue the war against russia in all spheres economic military and

so on regardless of trump and. you know we have to expect that the political crisis in the u.s. with the number of. grand jury indictment this is exactly where i want to go here i want to bring in alexandra christopher he's an app and he's the director and writer for the duran dot com alex marc was just talking about. the investigation's going started in two thousand and seventeen eighteen now we're going to two thousand and nineteen the moeller report. what's it going to say what's your gut tell you it's going to say nothing. nothing about police nothing about truck gross or collusion that's for sure it's not good and i think that pretty much been accepted and they're now trying to move the narrative towards a different direction so i think the best occasion is going to be what johnnie but

i think the media peter i think you know by now that the media are still invested in this narrative that they'll find a way to connect trump somehow to wiki leaks wiki leaks to russia and somehow see that there was some kind of funny business going on and kind of legitimize. it when you look at this french back in his board. you know you know the him it's really interesting is that you eventually previously the crisis of journalism when you know these lou carvings and we have this is german. right and still there's no self reflection by these people whatsoever you know they're always the exception but my sense is they're more the rule they just got caught or why or why should they have so reflection if the new york times i guess has just walked puts a price for its russian meddling the investigation so what investigating something that was asked not exist and that's the children described by remote you know poor

children born by you know when their parents send and even into a get seen on the american in their dreams according to his report so basically what we see with our commission is this situation when people are basically forced to testify against themselves that was the case with which you know that was thinking with fleeing basically that was the case with them on a fault and the technology is very simple kate we accuse you or could you know with the russia they had me bring you into this situation or when you will face fifteen years in prison you know usually accuse them of any of that no means no at. no the allusion would testify against yourself that you. were involved in corrupt dealings with the ukrainian government or them to you. to ask illegal foreign agents or that you did not inform the vice president of the united states about your talk

to a russian investor that with fleet so people are basically forced to testify against themselves because they'll turn and you know if you're going to jail for fifteen you go back to alexander. in athens you know i think it's well accepted here that obviously democrats and liberals hate the president there are plenty of never trumpeters in the republican party in of course almost to the person in the media bar a few individuals on fox they all hate donald trump so why doesn't trump after the report comes out after these indictments come out that trump his turns around and pardons them all what does he have to loose. well i think whatever move trump makes whether he pardons them whether he does it they're just going to come down on him hard whether it's the republicans the right knows whether it's the democrats and most importantly the entire mainstream media establishment like you said peter barr bar one or two people on fox everyone is against trump any decision he makes

they're going to come down hard but one thing that we learned peter and all of this is that a deep state does indeed exist yet with learned that the russians spent four thousand seven hundred dollars in google ads which supposedly overthrew the entire us democracy while a tyrant of a crisis still i would correct out there russians not necessarily the horrendous actions as yourself ok interact russians russians are a troll a troll to arm a troll factory in st petersburg which no i didn't know what you're talking about arkady we're not talking about the wanted out of babel a different question. to either right all over the world and also what in macedonia that was that's doing some sort of actions we also learned that the f.b.i. had it in for trouble before he got elected and after he got elected and we also learned most importantly the biggest coverup of the muck eater is that hillary clinton raked the primaries against dirty sanders that's something no wanted to say i'm going to jump in here if any one of you guys ever run for president make sure

you have the macedonia ends on your side yes they can make that difference here and there are as you know it's all the while we have you many thanks to my guests here in moscow in france and in greece and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember. so you. were not told what i mean.

it was not up. to your local superman from whom you can see as in the. third class you're in the stuff will leave you. with the. most and he was pretty forceful for the spoke to few moves to. seem wrong. but i. just don't. get to say power just because as a kid and in games from. the trail. when so many find

themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. nobody could see coming that false confessions would be that prevalent in the spot place the phone book of virtues. and any interrogation out there what you'll see is threat promise threat promise threat lie a lie a lie the process of interrogation is designed to put people in just that frame of mind make the most comfortable makes them want to get out and don't take no for an answer don't accept their denials she said if i were poor or very sad and i stayed there i would be home by that time the next day there's a culture on accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with solving their crime.

at least seven people are killed and thirty five left unaccounted for after an apartment block collapses following a devastating gas explosion in the russian city of much need to go to. britain and france are to step up joint patrols in the english channel after a spike in the number of illegal immigrants trying to get to the u.k. over the past two weeks. thirty russian children who had been held in an iraqi prison with their allegedly ice a link the parents are now back home we were there when they returned to russia. and the world welcomes two thousand one thousand with a clock having already started midnight in over half the globe we show you some of the highlights of the festivities.