hundreds of turned to storm the u.s. embassy in baghdad after last week's deadly american airstrikes on iraq diplomatic staff including the ambassador have reportedly been evacuated from the compound. and as our review of the key events that shaped 2900 continues we shed some light on the impeachment saga. very good evening thanks for joining us this is r.t. international. hundreds of iraqis have attempted to storm the u.s. embassy in baghdad with some of the protesters there starting

a fire there reportedly demanding the embassy's closure and that u.s. forces exit the country iraq's popular mobilization forces say around 2 dozen people have been injured at rallies in and around the compound the nation's prime minister reserved the assembled crowd to leave the embassy warning of a tough response if they don't rest after u.s. bombing raids in iraq and syria killed 25 people at the weekend. i. i. i i i i call you know on the discuss the situation earlier with our middle east correspondent paula michel greenstein from r.t. america. paula let's go to you 1st the protests there they show little signs of relenting what do we know about today's over full circle at that stage they show no

sign of dissipating we know and we've received reports that the american embassy staff including the ambassador have been evacuated from the compound but these reports come as we continue to hear that iraqi security forces are firing tear gas on the crowds to try and get them to disperse now many of the people there who were attending one of several funerals that was organized on tuesday for some of the victims of sunday's american airstrikes and as you mentioned the situation at the moment is far from being under control earlier the american ambassador was summoned for an explanation of the american strikes that targeted some 5 sites belonging to the cutter hizbullah armed group now this is a group that emerged after the american invasion of iraq in recent times it has repeatedly been involved in attacks against american forces it is also one of the main shia groups that has been fighting islamic state in syria and in iraq now according to the americans the sunday air strike was carried out in the television

for bomb for bomb attack on its base in quetta cook during which one american contractor was killed as of yet there's been no confirmation for that attack but the pentagon insists that the hizbollah group was behind it now the iraqi prime minister has slammed these strikes closely on what happened yesterday was clear aggression it was not right and we tried to stop it but the u.s. insisted very unfortunately this thing happened this was a very dangerous matter and to discuss it to face to face with the responsible parties not only by from what he said the decision has been made and i am informing you of this now the protests began on sunday night after the american strikes when hundreds of people took to the streets of baghdad condemning the americans and. at the same time expressing support for the militia they burnt american and israeli flags and the chanting slogans such as down with america and no 2 america ok well

let's cross to michele greene who is in washington d.c. for some of the reaction from the u.s. michelle what have we been hearing there well for one thing we have u.s. president donald trump insisting that iran is orchestrating this attack on the on the embassy in baghdad we also have senator marco rubio who doubted the theory that the u.s. in any way brought this attack on the embassy upon themselves take a listen room killed an american contractor. we strongly responded in ways we'll know iran is orchestrating an attack on the u.s. embassy in iraq they will be held fully responsible in addition we expect iraq to use its forces to see. iran is directly responsible for orchestrating the storming of the u.s. embassy in iraq and must be held accountable for it and the safety of every american serving there now we also have the state department special representative

for iran brian hook emphasizing that sunday's air strike was just a defensive action take a listen one of the things that we want to emphasize is that this was a defensive action that was designed to protect american forces and american citizens in iraq we're also working on the mission set off restoring to terence against iranian aggression now in terms of a response from the u.s. press we have the washington post bureau chief for iraq to syria and lebanon explained to her readers that the embassy had been stormed not by the iraqi people but by qatar either has been lost supporters and we also had c.n.n. anchor jake tapper read tweet an analysis by former national security advisor to the top administration john bolton in which he declared the demonstrations as a sign of iranian control over militia groups not a sign of a rocky anti americanism and this is all of course despite the crowd outside the us . shouting down down usa. we discussed the situation with. a member of the baghdad security committee he says the u.s.

is creating a war on iraq you saw which will affect the country's relations. what's iran got to do with this this iraqi soldiers iraqi personnel were killed the iraqi people walked into the international zone with anger. for the loss of their brothers loss of their soldiers so i don't know why the americans assisting to move the battlefield from iraq into iraq. creating a proxy war in iraq is soil which has no reason and no need for it if there is a problem between the united states of america between the united states and iran they might as well take between themselves why involving iraq and why attack iraq soldiers in retaliation to 2 iranian policy this is something that there is no need for it it will definitely lead to deterioration of diplomatic relationship between

iraq and iran to states and would definitely effect the presence of american soldiers american fighting forces here in iraq. now to a story that started with tragedy but ascended with hope a year ago the baby was rescued from the rubble of his collapsed house in the russian city of money to go and after treatment and care little venue is now taking his 1st steps. i. think. i like.

this a little further one of the rescue workers heard a child crying we stopped all our equipment in order to listen and make sure when we said quiet the baby reacted and went quiet to when we said where are you he started to react again was. one of the jets touched my eldest son then i fell together while vanya was left alone is that they managed to get out who she was left there. so. i. took the child was conscious when he arrived and taken to an operating room at the moment the child remains in serious condition under artificial ventilation sedated.

cooper. final preparations for the new year countdown are in full swing the fall is ready to go to see how moscow is about 20 the new decade is our correspondents us it taylor she joins us live from the heart of the for us. come up with will. go beautiful red square just spit high and do what's the mood like. well no i don't know about you but i can't think of many better ways to usher out 2902020 as you said from the very heart of the russian capital i am in the center of moscow instantly recognizable some cathedral behind me and beyond the life of course the historic red square but tonight all eyes will be on that tower

at that spot tower because a couple of minutes before midnight the russian president will give his new year's annual address and that's going to be broadcast on screens throughout the city and then at the stroke of midnight that is going to chime 12 times officially marking the start of the new year what follows in the heart on the heels is a spectacular fireworks display at the red mosque and just so you can appreciate how seriously they take that everything is meticulously planned out on a computer up beforehand state pay away with all the different variations before finally settling on the exact points from which they're going to launch this year an astonishing $5000.00 and that is all of course to ensure that we have the path it took off in the collar of light of sound that's going to last for around 10 minutes nothing not tonight is left to chance everything is planned down to the

millisecond why is this taken so seriously while his in russia new year is the biggest holiday of the year and the country's been gearing up to this moment for a while now so moscow is tied to a fairytale you will call on the beautiful tunnels of light along the main streets they put up these teaching us multi-colored everywhere you look if you've got decorations and trees but no tree is. that safe in the last. and the one right in front of the kremlin that's the far end of red square this one is 22 meters high it's got 3 and a half 1000 decorations and then to really bring it all to life that there is a well paying 3. of nights now at the far end quite near the tree all the main streets around the kremlin have been shut off they've been. so it's really turned into what can only be described as a massive outdoor party tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who flocked to

the area in the coming hours because there's just so much going on we've got carousels food markets we've got many many hockey competitions dumps offs that really is something that everyone was spoilt for choice and then you will the numerous parks throughout the city they're already hunting out tangerines and spot because as we count down to midnight gong on top of the main fireworks it's going to take place just across this river in front of me all the way up until 3 am they're going to be a father 28 fireworks shows all across the city will not many people have chosen to celebrate at home tonight so that the gathering now with family and friends they'll be exchanging gifts feasting on traditional new year's dishes to as is traditional they will watch president who tend to live a his well wishes before potentially settling for the some classic soviet films which without fail on john reid the fust but although i am slightly sad to wait for security reasons when i was walking through i could tell that the atmosphere the

anticipation was building that spirits were high and people were already beginning to reach for those champagne bottles but come midnight all eyes on that tower and then. as that fireworks display explodes across the night sky and it looks like i have the best seat in the house tongue ring sparks with some fireworks sounds like a recipe for success looking forward to the one will speak to you again shortly. and the things. just some of the highlights of 2019 still ahead we continue our review of the past year of certainly was an action packed 12 months more after the break. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

wow 2020.

welcome back the new year just a few minutes away now so let's quickly take a look back at the kiva shapes the past 12 months. picked up some new highlights this is a surprise for me and what we've got for you this. we have got the chief streets of race this is new to certain chief i've no idea what this is so let's have a look. about the year of donald trump making the headlines when he nodded his finest hour right after the start of the impeachment inquiry which in fact has not made him any less popular so let's check out a bit more about the impeachment to your own for some people. more but explain how the house of representatives vote in favor of terms of peace but may not of the democrats were hoping for. president dr slamming house speaker nancy pelosi as of

late. so are you sick and tired of it yet every single day there is a fresh deludes of stories about donald trump and his impeachment not just in the usa but around the world increasingly it seems like the u.s. public is suffering from what could be described as impeachment. so why are people getting bored and tired over something that could be a dramatic saga the democrats attempt to bring down the american president well it could be that donald trump has already been investigated and exonerated over russia

collusion a rise to mr speaker. to call for the impeachment of the president of the united states of america talking about a president who fired the f.b.i. director who was investigating the president for his connections to russian involvement in the presidential election the public breathed a sigh of relief thought it was all over but then it got going again it didn't work with russia so now it's ukraine this week the president has admitted to asking the president ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically therefore today i'm announcing the house of representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry now once the ukraine stuff got going it got to be a little bit long winded the witnesses repeated the same fact over and over and over again and democrats warned that it could be

a long process but there is no limit on the number of the senate. or not a president no limit to the number of times the house can vote to impeach a president if the senate doesn't vote to convict trump or tries to monkey with his trial he could of course be retried in the new senate should he win reelection and repeating yourself over and over again is a sure fire way of becoming popular no one is above the law and that includes the president of the united states in pietschmann is the way we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences if we don't reckon with president trumps persistent transgressions the very foundation of this great republic is at risk i have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment but if the president is essentially trying to browbeat

a foreign leader into doing some. illicit then that may be the only remedy now polls show the us public would prefer congress actually address some of the problems facing the country not spend their time squabbling with the white house though to set times of democrats petty politics and basis we chant what i'm hearing out in the street is yeah with most people is they're kind of tired they're kind of worn out they're kind of bored your folks and they really want to move on unless there's something new and amazing we know the end game there how did you tune in for the last hearing of the impeachment extravaganza mainstream media seems to give the impression that the whole country is watching the impeachment hearings but in reality they aren't viewership of the 1st impeachment hearing was roughly $13800000.00 do the math that's about 5 percent of the u.s. public now when richard nixon was facing impeachment hearings decades ago roughly

71 percent of american citizens tuned in big difference so we decided to talk to new yorkers and see how excited they are about the impeachment process and you feel like the american people are a little bored with the whole thing i do coming want. to drink i don't look at it the more because this is a real thing i know i'm not i think it's an important story and you get a personal moment of our history of wasting valuable time nothing is getting done i don't need to go through every single process out so i try to watch some of it on the drudge but then again i've been watching bits and pieces and this sense of surrounding information about it it's enough for ready it's not going anywhere and nothing is going to come out of this with the president's going to be removed and you know people want the country to get on with the business at hand that needs to be addressed and i'm pretty sure it's bogus as 2020 rolls around americans are unsure of what the new year will bring however one thing does seem to be pretty

clear there will be plenty of congressional hearings and. senate debates on capitol hill whether the u.s. public is interested in them or not kaleb up and r.t. new york and i've been to products they do join me for the midnight celebrations that are moscow in just over 30 minutes. today there are good terrorists and bad debt it's the bad news in the end then the

united states deems to be a threat the good those who work in syria the cia and the us military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up the right way military juntas funding an army of death squads there's no any more because there's always a small for a really good. profit. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being legs up. direct. what is true watch this space.

in a world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or remain in the shallowness. i am max kaiser out being new there. wow i'm feeling it 2020 should be a whopper stacy yes this is our last day of 21000 we're heading into 2020 we have a lot of predictions that means because of course no beginning of the year is a true beginning of the year without some predictions i think 2020 could be

a year for giago we saw coming into the end of the year these uprisings across the world so will we see pitchforks and billionaire taxes was going to have a banner year the global interaction against banker i could patient for sure because the is an agenda is a folks are going to give up they're going to realize that there's been a rigged game from the beginning they have no chance they're not going to make as much as their parents did life expectancy is falling in america and the environment is collapsing and they realize they've got to fight their way out of this or they're going to perish so they're going to there's going to be pretty gnarly to use a term i think that was a generation x. term i remember that and i from my childhood so i think it is indeed a time that people in the younger generations and they have the vote now they are the millennial and they have the power and i think you saw that in the terror this year in the billionaire boomers because they came out like no other fear i've ever

seen on them we saw jamie diamond leon cooperman michael bloomberg bill gates lloyd blankfein they all came out terrified of this billionaire tax i the notion not that attacks might pass but that the millennial realize that they have some odious wealth well if the prevailing sentiment will be that the blue the billionaire boomers wealth was not earned. it was stolen the cunto in effect by their dismantling of the rule of law by the dismantling of regulations by their are. co-opting the political process by their engagement and all kinds of nefarious under head of techniques they have stolen the future and now these millennialism genesee folks are going to have to act they are acting and re dally oh billionaire hedge fund manager out of connecticut he f. course has also ended the year of $21000.00 with many many warnings that the

pitchforks are coming he sees the obvious he's talking like a hedge fund or he's not being creating you know he's not screaming like leon cooperman he's not going on television and crying and saying they're going to take my money he's just saying i see what's coming is fascism and communism this always happens every time the wealth and income gaps like this and like it was in the 1000 and in 1000 twenty's thirty's and see what's coming so he sees what's coming the uprisings around the world were reported by gary young in the guardian he said something interesting which i think sets us up for 2020 he said and so the decade ended as it started with demands for systemic change of course it started after the financial collapse and all those uprisings that we saw in 20102011 led primarily by the young and hundreds of thousands in the streets of chile hong kong indonesia haiti peru's sudan lebanon israel iraq and the us as resistance gross economic inequality state repression bigotry and sexism political cultures have become more polarized with no systemic response to the financial crisis that would prevent it

recurring and no punishment for those who caused the world sits on the brink of yet another one there is more oil on the streets and more sparks to ignite them the next decade promises to be more combustible than the last even though the us doesn't want to admit it that they have an empire and it's an empire primarily of debt that there are some potential disruptions just. supply lines rare earths for example that power a lot of the high tech economy are in countries and territories that my society to secede from america's empire that's going to upset those supply lines. markets and the oil conflicts of course are going to be disruptive to supply lines the i see that a lot of the. retail chains that sell extraordinarily cheap stuff to poor people prices are rising rapidly because of the trade war with china so as we've said on

this show the poor in america don't notice their forum because the cost of their stuff when they go to the discount store gets cheaper and cheaper so their lifestyle never doesn't really get horribly worse because even though they make less money the cost of stuff gets cheaper while china enter america go to trade war the cost of stuff at the local discount store starts going up and now suddenly you really are poor there is a trade war and the trade war is ongoing and it is not stopping and tariffs are taking effect and tariffs are taking effect against china taking effect against europe so those costs are rising but as gary young points out there is oil on the streets on the streets where the people are protesting and it's just like one little flame one thing whether it's a market crash whether whether it's yet another bailout for bankers something is going to ignite it and it's all ready to go up in flames as what he's saying that's what the oil is in the streets is is the anger and it's the income gap is the more importantly the wealth gap and it's this sense that there's an injustice being done

upon the people because of the fed intervening always always always all the central banks around the world intervene on behalf of the bankers and who intervenes on behalf of the people but the i.m.f. sticking them with debts and the austerity freaks so that's what we've seen from through the past 10 years and there is a sense that despite market all time highs despite booming markets despite the apparent joy for the top. one percent that there is anger ready to ignite and i think ray dal you know as i said he sees it just as a you know cold hearted analyst you don't become a billionaire being warm hearted and fuzzy and hysterical and then you saying that it's all debt field so that there's 200 trillion in debt approximately on the planet and so if those supply lines are cut if they if there's a boil on the street it combusts and suddenly some countries unable to buy u.s. treasuries anymore or they go completely dead dollars ation then that means higher interest rates and then you have a totally did dollar rise to

a globalized world and it's all against all that's my next topic because i have an on that document i have on your lap i have q.e. and negative interest rates will they or will won't they go negative this year our guest michael hudson this past year he said that rates are going to go as negative as 25 percent if they want to maintain this central bank run system they will have to take interest rates down to 25 percent negative he says is that going to happen or will the whole system collapse will will that basically this generation and see will they have to will they tear it down otherwise the rates are going negative well negative interest rates are an obvious form of financial pressure so i think that you know that the t. shirt that says the beatings will continue until morale improves right so even though you've got billions of people on the.