used its powers when targeting trump the old the judiciary committee is hell bent on impeachment articles ideological obsession again. a suicide bombing in afghanistan kills 2 people outside the us air base that donald trump visited less than 2 weeks ago the news comes as a damning report is released shedding light on how top american officials have been routinely distorting facts and figures on the war in afghanistan. after former chiefs hailed the horowitz report into trouble brush occlusion as vindication inspector general horowitz himself debugs their interpretation saying it's quite the opposite. so many to be certain fundamental errors were made by leaving separately and for doing just the gate of. one of the most sensitive f.b.i. investigations. and the french government reveals more details on controversial pension reforms that have sparked mass strikes.

you're watching r t international i'm resigned a lot could thank you for joining us. in a suicide attacker has dared detonated a car bomb outside the bank airbase one of the main u.s. military outposts in afghanistan the attack comes not long after truck surprise that's giving visit to that same base local media reports say the powerful blasts hit a medical facility close to the bases main gate at least 2 people were killed and more than 70 injured according to local sources a shootout quickly followed and it's being reported 3 of the attackers remain at large 3 others have been killed and another captured a local t.v. channel says the taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack the american president visited the airbase in late november for thanksgiving speaking to the military personnel. trump struck

a long time. with the help and the devotion everyone. has given here tonight america is winning again we are winning like we have not won in a long time and you know what we're respected like we haven't been respected in a long time america is winning again and america is respected again and respected at the highest level that i found was saying that he was winning that most american presidents since the american invaded afghanistan says that they are winning but they are not winning in fact because the taliban is controlling half of afghanistan and after 18 years of war with afghanistan and trying to force the taliban from afghanistan the united states has come to the conclusion that they have to negotiate and we negotiate with the taliban the same force that 18 years ago they invaded afghanistan was the taliban from the country because they were harboring

terrorism and they were harboring some of bin laden what the american government says it says because they're taliban are weak that's why they keep sending terrorists every day but the real the real truth is that the taliban are the real forces unfortunately in afghanistan and you have to count on them in order to secure afghanistan. well alongside all of this an article has been published in the u.s. press to 10 years it deliberate disinflation by top american officials and cast yet has more on the story hundreds of thousands dead trillions of dollars lost generations traumatized but you know what nothing good comes easy nothing in afghanistan we helped liberate an oppressed people. and we will continue helping them secure their country rebuild their society and educate all their children boys and girls. all that i set to defeat al qaeda and deny it

a chance to rebuild is within reach and we're doing a tremendous job. and as you know a big part of the job is isis certainly the biggest and al qaeda and we. we've got them down very low numbers you didn't need to be nostradamus or clairvoyant to know that someone was telling bull it's just logical fallacy you can't keep fighting the same guys for 20 years and claim the jewel winning but then appearances must be kept up it's important that everyone thinks you're winning right up to the moment you admit you lost why well it's obvious no one has the remotest clue we were trying to do here we didn't have the focus notion of what we were undertaking there is a fundamental gap of understanding of the front and over stated objectives grew lines in the military and the lack of understanding of the resources necessary and

we'd never have known if it hadn't been thousands of secret and classified documents or afghanistan stuff from the white house from the pentagon the un and the various n.g.o.s well we would have known it's pretty damn obvious that the war is going terribly but who says mouth and all that it is. considering what the president the deficiency said and what they actually believed when i called our troops in action i did so with complete confidence in their courage and skill and tonight. thanks to them. we are winning the war on terror. today we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror are we capturing killing or deterring a dissuading more terrorists every day than them addresses on the radical clerics are recruiting training and deploying against us does the us need to fashion

a broad integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists the us is putting relatively little effort into a long range plan but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists the cost benefit ratio is against us see when you're in your 2nd term and you started a really messy war that you just realized you can't hope to win there only so many ways to save your own but here's a list of words you should use courage democracy kids' schools and hospitals and for the people that don't buy your baloney get a hope in there as well thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel a nation that was once a safe haven for al qaeda is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school new roads and hospitals are being built and people are looking to the future with new hope also poor in money into huge infrastructure projects to obligate money that was appropriated to

so we could spend it through building infrastructure in ways that have again instant could never sustain or even the use in some cases if you're a nato country taxpayer i honestly don't believe you can comprehend how much of your money was poured into this adventure you 1st need to understand the sheer degree of incompetence that these leaked documents show imagine for example someone's putting together a crew for a bank heist they invite a bunch of people give them a time and place and tell no one what their role is no plan so everyone shows up thinking that everyone outs knows what to do. and things go as you would expect now is the time to save your own heidi let's add a few more words difficult days human rights confidence success we will reward good governance work to reduce corruption and support the rights of

all afghans men and women alike. there will be difficult days ahead but i am absolutely confident we will succeed. you just cannot put those amounts of money into a very fragile state and society and not have if you corruption you just can't a legacy of mass corruption that's putting it lightly what else the jew expects the guys on the ground they sought disaster they reported it back to washington washington with its countless partment but now the courage to stand up and say they screwed up so they put up appearances everyone was doing what made them look best rather than what worked best interesting enough many of the documents were published with the name lessons learned perhaps an effort to extract something anything of value from this unmitigated disaster but you know as it have got

a star not long ago and after seeing what i saw there i can tell you honestly i can guarantee you that while they may have learned their lessons they sure as heck are putting them to use. the french government is pushing ahead with its controversial pension reforms to spice huge public hostility resulting in mass protests and strikes the prime minister formally presented his plans on wednesday in charge of bensky reports from paris perhaps one of the most controversial elements that was announced today is the fact that the retirement age will increase by 2 years it will go up to 64 while the legal age will remain at 62 if french workers want to receive a full pension they will have to work those extra 2 years let's break down some of the detail of how this is going to work the government said today this is a good phillipe the prime minister that those who were born before 1975 will not be impacted by these changes at all if you were born after 975 in your mid career at

the moment in what you'll find is around 70 percent of your pension will be based on the system and 30 percent. you system and the who's who turn 18 in 2022 they will be integrated for the 1st time fully into the new system this is a system whereby the 42 current pensions in france will be amalgamated into one universal payment the prime minister said some of the big winners as a result of this would be women who for the 1st time would receive 100 percent compensation for the time that their own maternity leave would also points towards their pension from their very 1st child while the 3rd child and he said there would be a guarantee of a 1000 euros a month in pension in retirement for those who had worked a full career let's have a listen to what else it would fully pacha say so that we may disagree on some points but the government's ambition for universal amity is now bishan for social

justice there is no hidden agenda we're not looking to penny pinch we don't want any one man the country we want to protect the poaching power of workers and the purchasing power of pension already we're getting some reactions from the unions who seem to be very unhappy with what's been announced by the french prime minister one union seed you know this is the union that is the major union for the s.n.c.f. that's the railway workers here in france say that they are now calling for a reinforcement of the strike which is now in its 7th day here in france we've also heard from police unions who are moving lising before that speech by the prime minister this morning saying that they want to harden not mobilization as a result the suggestion is the unions don't feel that the government has listened to them and hasn't gone far enough they're all going to know all of this is that people will have to work longer and they may receive less pension in the future i mean people often view reus about this so furious in fact last week when there was

a national strike some 806000 people took to the streets to let the government know that they didn't want their pensions messed with. they think oh we're still students 339000 they're all already calls with strikes on thursday of this week and of tuesday on next week it seems that this announcement by the government in detail of what these pension reforms will mean hasn't quelled the anger the anger that we've seen spilling out into the streets particularly in that protest last week where there were tensions in clashes between the police and the protest is it looks like this strike is fall from. well economics professor steve keen told us the e.u. rules make france's problem a systemic crisis because it's actually a fiscal crisis at the state caused by the rules that the master treaty that prevent the government running this kind of deficit it needs to do for a well functioning economy this is a little crazy notion built into the mastery that government should act like

a household and try to save money to run a dies or when you try that at the national level it's simply files all it does is reduced income because there is the exit of the individual little you can spend less than you earn and therefore save money but the you have a good level your spending is somebody else's income so the example of the entire society to save money which is built into mastery actually reduces g.d.p. and leads to this sort of so i would guess this is a manifestation of the founder of the scripps trucker of the european union particularly the year of. capital hill has erupted into business arguments as democrats and republicans pick over the findings of a report into the justification of the russia collusion prior to the so-called horowitz report was released on monday and while the democrats and much of the media are claiming vindication the republicans have been quick to seize on the irregularities of the f.b.i.'s investigation what happened here is the system failed people at the highest level of our government. took the law in their own

hands the report from the inspector general that looked into the investigations of the trump campaign in 2016 has been received on capitol hill differently by different parties democrats seem to see the report as disproving the allegations prank put forward by donald trump the allegations claiming that there was a politically motivated spying effort against him this is democrats the i.g.s. report conclusively refutes these claims this was not a politically motivated investigation there is no deep state republicans however have a very different interpretation of the report would you like trump hate trump don't care about trump you look at this is more than a few irregularities because if this becomes a few irregularities in america then god help us all. a point of

contention has been how the f.b.i. handled the salacious steel dossier now this is a da ca that made allegations against u.s. president donald trump regarding russia and the f.b.i. deemed it not to be credible they looked into the source who gave this information to christopher steele and determined that it was not really a credible allegation but that didn't stop them for applying for pfizer warrants in order to wiretap members of the trump campaign on the basis of this down cia the f.b.i. even described the source as being truthful and cooperative when trying to obtain the warrants this is what inspector general horowitz had to say about the errors of the f.b.i. we found and as we outlined here are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by 3 separate hand-picked investigative teams on one of the most sensitive f.b.i. investigations and after the matter had been briefed to the highest levels within

the f.b.i. and other reports seems to also indicate that former cia director john brennan may have misled the public when he testified about the role of the steel dossier in obtaining warrants and carrying out the investigation furthermore mccabe and combing f.b.i. officials have argued that they somehow are vindicated by this report they say it shows that the f.b.i. did nothing wrong and that trump's allegations are simply not correct this is the response from fired f.b.i. director james comey and andrew mccabe do you feel vindicated tonight that this report concludes that you did the right thing. you know as i said i've known all along that we did the right thing not just me but the group of people that i worked with at the f.b.i. the f.b.i. fulfilled its mission protecting the american people and i pulled in the u.s. constitution however what they seem to be saying about how they've been vindicated and how the f.b.i. did nothing wrong doesn't seem to match what's being said by inspector general

horowitz james comey said this week to your report vindicates him is that a fair system to be. you know i think the activities we found here don't and vindicate anybody who touched this although horowitz report seems to join many recent reports in washington d.c. that were expected to clarify points of disagreement between trump and his opponents and just like many of these other reports while it was expected to shed some light and bring some clarity to the issue it's simply up for interpretation with trump's supporters seeing the report one way and trump's critics and the democratic party seeing it very differently the u.k. now has more food banks the mcdonald's branches we'll have that story and more after this break. impeachment mania has dives drawn on both sides of the political divide the i.g.

report clearly demonstrates the f.b.i. abused its powers when targeting trump the world the judiciary committee is hell bent on impeachment articles ideological obsession with again. this in the individual i think very much i have to do what i think is right i have to friend to defend my values have to defend my principles and if i feel the state is not doing it according to what i think is the right thing that i have to stand up and say it's not good enough and if i as a humanitarian feel that the next to me is not respected and treated in a dignified way then i have to also stand up in this regard so yes we have to do it despite that it is maybe a very long term fight and we are not necessarily winning. welcome

back now the issue of wealth inequality in the u.k. is in focus again alter recent report by paul newman revealed that the number of food banks in the country is greater than the number of mcdonald's restaurants there saskia taylor has the story. i mean i love the slogan of the world's most famous fast food chain but it seems in the u.k. many can't afford to love it figure so there are now more food banks in this country than branches of mcdonald's sun given the fast food chain can be found on pretty much every corner that's an awful lot of food banks for too many people it's becoming harder and harder to keep their heads above water we can't shy away from the changes that would make the real difference to and the need for food banks

going hungry in one of the world's richest countries seems almost unbelievable but data shows more people than rely on food handouts one antipoverty trust distributed a rat court number of food parcels this year up 23 percent from 20 teen even more concerning for many is that always hall of these possibles went to children and out of we are all to pieces by the figure that means bring the numbers and the stories behind the statistics and for many families christmas equals crace s. when there are cheap places grew up and people are spending won't go theocracy you want to hear and wait their home but i think for me the utilize the resources that we have to support people experiencing poor people ultimately. use government. to do this for us it's crucial to the mean independent and if political show that we can hit with the challenges that people experience in court to face the u.k.

is living through an unprecedented time of political division this week is general election is being billed as the vote of the generation and it's not surprising then that the issue has been seized upon by politicians on the campaign trail and a final bid to swing the vote on approved everybody who gets involved with running food banks mcclure from the people should be dependent on them in the world 6 who just contrary it is a scandal that people are going hungry produce a basic human right. but this is just part of a wider page of spiraling inequality in the country the full extent of which was exposed by a recent report to break it down the you taste 5 richest families are now more wealthy than the poorest $13000000.00 a 5th of the british population lives in poverty with one in the hof 1000000 of those designated destitute meaning they can't even afford basic essential zz and while that happens the richest one percent continues to accumulate the same wealth

as 80 percent of the population says you huge gap between rich and the vast majority of the country is dangerous as you will from the hands of so few people demonstrate just how broken the economic system is this country has become more on equals greater levels of inequality she's been for 3 long time just terrible levels of poverty the government says it's not holding back on welfare programs like free school meals so the disadvantaged but as the wealth gap continues to widen it's little wonder frustrations are growing moving forward to the whole of the job nothing other than a challenge of. our own revolving of history the wild strongest economies in which the 5 richest families have a combined while 3 quid for lent to bahrain's annual g.d.p. and yet one in which so many are forced to get out that begging bowls just to put

food on the plates. how about government who are committed to diminish that agenda at the forefront of their main to making way. easier for people who are experiencing hardship in this country and really actually an all boys are calling me and create jobs that are actually here sustainable then my feet is that we would see the graphical and all. and on the news this hour science and business don't just intersect any law musk's office moscow's state university has hosted a key forum for young talents looking at how the 2 spheres interact don't quarter paid a visit. it's a glance into russia's future for the country's top university moscow state a place where the scientific achievements of young people are put on display for the world to see this year's innovation in practice congress has a large exhibition on how to improve education and job training is going to be

everything from v.r. devices to agricultural technology so let's go take a step inside and find out what russia's brightest minds have to offer. this is low the solution for little or nothing to the teacher who can afford to be free of the cold cold feet. when you know what's really there and it really was losing oh it was whoa whoa what was that you know that leave you with yeah i know those things lou but. this is a little over till it's time for the fool the symbolism will follow.

oh i see the file. to cut. so how does this thing work yes this is what. it was my room at work so you wouldn't see. you were saying no to it you. know what. the course no tech conference would be complete without. a talking robot let's see what he has to say. first the review group. hears you need to get a group of your feet through the loop seems like a very good robot done for the r.t.

moscow this works but you don't expect a russian talking robot to say that and to get more and all the stories you can head to our website altie dot com and don't forget to download our app to get your news on the me. each simulating civilization would be able to run using a tiny fraction of its resources. hundreds of thousands millions of runs through all of human history almost all. beings with our kinds of experiences with them to simulated ones brother to announcement at once and conditional not argued we should think fearful that one of the simulated ones. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or

rejected. so when you want to be president. or some want to. have to go right to be close to survival before 3 in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of the house. this city. is you'll be a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. isolation little community. are you going the right way or are you being led so. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us

in the depths. aura made in the shallows. i. know this is boom bust broadcasting around the world and covering all aspects of our global economy in the 21st century and then slowly and i'm bridgeboro in washington here's what we have coming up today president trump wants more interest rate cuts but the federal reserve is unwilling to go any deeper will begin to wear rates go from here and saudi aramco shares surged past

expectations and its grand debut on wednesday making it the most valuable listing around the globe professor richard wolfe joins us to analyze the listing and how the oil giant has shaken markets. wildly and c f o has been held by canadian authorities for months but has now won a court fight to see more documents about why she was arrested in the 1st place we'll break it down so much to get to today so let's dive right in. and the federal reserve will hold interest rates at their current levels adding it's unlikely we will see another cut this year or actually in the next year after cutting interest rates 3 times in 2019 the central bank decided to keep the target range of 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent that decision was made by unanimous vote now the 2 days of policy to meetings were the last of the year for the federal open markets committee and in a statement the committee said monetary policy is likely to remain where it is adding the committee judges that the current stance of monetary policy is

appropriate to support sustained expansion of economic activity strong labor market conditions and inflation near the committee's symmetric 2 percent objective the fed added they will also continue to monitor global economic conditions as they develop which could alter their plan of action and for more on this we're going to be joined today by richard wolfe professor of economics and host of economic update press well thank you so much for joining us today. glad to be here now no i want to start with the fetid signaling they don't want to alter rates over the next decade does this point to the central bank thinking we're out of the weeds of this economic downturn or is it more of a fear that low rates may be the new normal or are they just trying to stick to president trump what do you see going on here i think they're watching along a very narrow law and they are listening to president trump even in ways that most economists think they shouldn't but they're also trying to show that they haven't least a little bit of in depends.