after 47 years the united kingdom marks a historic day cutting ties with the e.u. was officially comes into effect but the road ahead is still unclear. the us democrats are not back in getting new witnesses the standing of the trial it does mean a final vote on the president's time in the oval office is expected next week. and france pledges to send its naval forces across the mediterranean to cyprus as a maritime dispute breaks out between nato allies over gas exploration.

from moscow thanks for joining us at r.t. international i'm daniel hawkins welcome to the program. that was taken more than 3 years and divided people up and down the nation but after almost half a century the u.k.'s finally bid farewell to the european union as 11 pm g.m.t. on friday the result of the biggest democratic a friend in british history was finally. parts of the u.k. burst into celebration with leave voters turning out in force. city as party to in london's parliament square some were enjoying the festivities north of the border in scotland which voted to remain visuals were held our colleagues in london were covering the historic event as it happened there are some of the highlights. i. see.

was a bit out. we're all still here only you know yeah it's like millennium bug nothing's happened you know the big you how did not to face all the. course when the sally who has the treat of being in the thick of things that is a pro breaks it party but what is the atmosphere like now. well just as you're doing me. nothing least said 60000 people to work out it's really really should be called save the queen that i'm. just a. sad way being sick was a bit of a shitload also the focus of. your. course you have the 11 transition period and they're off to bed and will have to read the shots it's pretty different here just what exactly. we live in style but for many here at least the future

represents one of opportunity but of course in other parts of the country. that will be much less sort of a tree not admitted i hear. the full power of the rani you've been campaigning this for this for your whole life i mean how do you feel very pleased very pleased i have to say i mean you know we're not allowed to be triumphalist and i don't want to be triumphalist but i am pleased you know finally from my point of view we've got to the end of 3 and a half years with them frankly we've got a functioning palm and that's actually delivered a result and we've actually got a prime minister who's actually delivered a play which norman is a full on lib dem minister how do you feel bearing in mind the lib dems one of the revoke article 50 well i did not should be without particular policy of the site but i feel very worried for the country i mean find somebody on this politician there are so you and she's absolutely straightforward in her views and she you know to be. leaders are the best thing for britain i thumb to believe the opposite why

what is the problem what we want them is that we are in a world of power blocks for this us over the china russia the e.u. and britain are very small fish in a very big pond full of sharks the whole economy is integrated absolutely you if we end up leaving a single market and having her and her attorney barriers that would your mental damage to car history among those forest johnson addressed the nation a preacher called it video message and he claimed we are at the start of the new era this is not an end but a beginning the e.u. has evolved over 50 years in a direction that no longer suits this country and that is a judgment you the people who are now confirmed at the polls not once but twice well over on the continent the e.u. has been saying its good byes be for the trade deal talks begin in our europe correspondent peter all of the joins us with all the latest bring us up to date with what's been going on be on the channel yes it hasn't been marked with the types of celebration we've seen in london all the type of commiseration you see you

know the parts of the u.k. as well as in the british capital as well but we have seen is the british flag being taken down in brussels from the e.u. institutions from the the commission presidency the parliament and the council building as well we've also seen the european flag being taken down from british offices in brussels as well we also saw emi piece from the briggs it party well being piped out all for brussels as they were leaving heading back to london we've also heard some reaction from the european institutions the high representative for foreign affairs your state boil who's basically the e.u. foreign minister to say that the u.k. will remain a very close partner of the e.u. both on a regional and global scale that's really emphasizing what we heard from the e.u. commission present. on the line early on friday where she said that she hoped for

a close and well productive relationship post breaks it between the u.k. in the e.u. but said that any deal that the u.k. got couldn't be as good as membership almost half a century of the united kingdom's membership in the european union is over we want to have the best possible relationship with the united kingdom but it will never be as good as membership well one of the key areas the negotiations going to move on to as they look towards this trade deal is going to be the u.k.'s future relationship with ireland in particular that british border on the island of ireland well leo varadkar the irish to show did have something to say about this about briggs it about the u.k. leaving the e.u. on friday he said that he wished the united kingdom well on its journey alone but

did say that there was always a seat back at the table if it didn't work out for them we do hope it works out for them but if it does not there will always be a seat for the united kingdom at the european table as the united kingdom leaves the european union we enter now into this transition period of course all of those lovely trade talks that are set to start on the 3rd of march so it's not done with yet with bricks that day finally upon us the one question on everyone's lips is what happens next well it's the transition period until the end of the year where everything essentially stays the same for you and me it's business as usual for the e.u. and u.k. trade negotiators it's game on well they have to get a trade deal signed off by december 31st ideally 6 months before to give businesses time to prepare the alternative well will crash out of the e.u. without a trade deal something businesses on both sides really want to avoid so. we better

crack on with the trade talks as soon as possible now boris johnson has said he wants to get started right now but that's a bit of an issue for the e.u. the e.u. isn't just one save it's $27.00 countries needing to agree a negotiating position and that won't be signed off until the end of next month so march will be the ringback earliest we can actually get started but what might the agreement look like well the easiest for would be what's called an alignment deal our trade rules already mirror the e.u. so let's keep it essentially the same and just agree on which areas to diverged that's the a use preferred option for the negotiations. michel of set the level playing field is of utmost importance if social rights are inventive of environmental or rights state aid or others where the advantage of that kind of deal is that it means the u.k. can access the e.u. single market and of course that means we get

a deal and easily before the end of the year however that's not the way the u.k. government wants to go but we been very clear now for actually many months and of course in our recent election as well as we leave the e.u. we will not be in the single market we will not be in the customs union and we will not be rude takers so let's try again boris johnson says he wants a free trade deal full comprehensive covering everything but how comprehensive could it be the one between the e.u. and canada took 7 years to finalize. i know done this negotiation will be difficult and demanding. for one reason. will be extremely short. 11 months or so. and if he's right we'd crash out without a deal so let's try again johnson said he wants a deal based on 0 tariffs and 0 quotas no barriers that all sounds easy

except some are worried that letting the u.k. in without guaranteeing it won't play by e.u. rules would mean it becomes a very attractive no regulation no business tax zone with watered down workers' rights econd to singapore poaching business from the block the key issue here is around level playing field issues there is no way the e.u. will ever sign up to a trade deal that allows tariff free quota free and frictionless access to u.k. goods coming into the e.u. if there isn't a level playing field in terms of how they're produced because that would be unfair competition is there another way well then it gets tricky where into sector by sector deals in some of those deals we've got a strong hand like fishing rights in others like financial services no deal could be the end of the city's dominance as banks and firms need to frankfurt to ensure

they can still operate in europe. but it all has to happen quickly as well because the clock is ticking and if the sign deals arms down in time you guessed it we crash out i hope that's made everything and little clearer i have a feeling the last time i saw you let's get this out of the way that you are indeed intending to stand for the breaks apart in the election is this a big change constitutionally for it's a huge change constitutionally because now we've become a fully independent sovereign state bar disentangling ourselves from the european union will be a long and time consuming problem because when the european union issued regulations they had director thing act and instead of just letting them be regulations in order to describes how much we were ruled by the commercial we enact those regulations of abating and as acts of parliament.

now as the united states where the democrats have been dealt a blow in their push to impeach president donald trump and a close spot at senate republicans on friday defeated any attempts to allow a new witnesses and evidence the stand in the trial yaser 49 nays are 51. motion is not agreed to trump was impeached by the democrat controlled house of representatives in december on charges of abuse of power and the structure of congress and his trial in which the senate which has a republican majority got underway on january 21st friday evenings vote paves the way for a final decision on whether to acquit or convict trump which is expected next wednesday. we spoke to the editorial director for the reaction which i'm struck

calm who believes trump is now essentially in the clear as of wednesday they're going to have the up and down vote he's going to be acquitted you know where america is going to move on from this and i think the american people deserve that the democrats ultimately they had their crack at the apples in the house and they called i believe it was upwards of about 17 witnesses they had smoking gun evidence something that would have risen to the level of you know what the burden of proof that it would have taken to prove high crimes and misdemeanors and then they would have had a shot of removing the president book you know quite frankly you know it's their impressions of what the phone call was you know yes adam schiff kind of you know i mean what he thought you know the content of the phone call was their only intention is to try to regain power. and british academics have claimed that the level of discontent with politics is at its highest level in 25 years the report by

the u.k. center for the future of democracy says americans are among the least satisfied and explains we're used to hearing that the usa is a cradle of democracy and in case you might forget they remind you at every opportunity impeachment is no exception this is not a banana republic. it's a democratic republic. of the united states of america a moment when our democracy was gravely threatened embattled democracy being invaded by this by the by russia democrats accuse donald trump of using his political position for personal gain and thus corrupting the entire system trump shoots back that the democrats are manipulating the constitution in order to go after him by proceeding with your invalid impeachment you are violating your oath of office your breaking your allegiance to the constitution and you are declaring open war on american democracy interestingly new data has been published by the

u.k.'s cambridge university showing that among americans there's been a dramatic decline in people's confidence in democracy we decided to talk to new yorkers and see why they might be losing faith in the founding fathers i feel most people are and misinformed more than anything and they need to understand that we don't live in a true democracy where you know specifically every vote counts directly we know it's a representative democracy writes people vote for things and then other things happen for other people when you know people get more votes and then they lose that's not it's not really democracy is it i do believe that within the system we need to do a better job of including everyone into the conversation and i also think that the current state of affairs is what makes people just really turned off. to supporting democracy as a whole you know the institutions which were set out with the i think right frame book are not being used or the loopholes are being exploited democracy sexy being taken out of the hands of the people it's in the hands of foot i would call it big

money in corporations but it's not just americans according to the poll that was conducted around the world there has been a decline in democratic values in countries like france and the u.k. people just don't feel they've got a voice anymore it seems that you have you just going to do their own thing anyway they have their own agenda to people on trusting politicians as much as you know there's a lot of groups and minorities that. not being made and you know democracy should be to serve everybody and particularly those who are disadvantaged if it's not serving a disadvantage then i don't think the democracy. parliaments in the walls especially the a you know you are not listening to the people one thing. i think people need to have. information more education to realize my democracy think people should fight for. the people. but this points to a bigger question what those democracy actually mean now in theory it's supposed to

be the rule of the people but it seems like around the world in many different countries many feel like the people's will is not being acted and they are not happy about it. artsy new york we discussed the story with investigative journalist david lindorff he thinks that politicians are losing touch with what voters really want. i wouldn't say they're dissatisfied with democracy they're dissatisfied with the way our democracy is working these days it has really lost its connection to the people all the money in the political system incredible amounts of money billions of dollars to run for president are coming from corporations and rich people and the average person is cut out of the picture i think at least in the us . fortunately people are not saying we don't like democracy they're saying we want to moxie that works so it's not people are saying oh we need a dictator the vast majority of americans have been brought up on the notion that

people are supposed to run their own government want to have a government that works for them but they're not able to get it. more news coming away after this short break.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. welcome back to the program a growing controversy over facial recognition technology has hit facebook in the pocket after a failed legal battle over how at times and scans photos on it but for a case filed in the u.s. state of illinois has resulted in a payout of more than half a $1000000000.00 here illinois enacted

a statute not to innovation but to protect individuals privacy as technology advances corporations must be mindful of the privacy of their customers and more importantly comply with the law. well the social network giant will have to pay 550000000 to a group of account holders who argued the facial recognition tool violated state privacy laws facebook went as far as the u.s. supreme court to get the case thrown out but that was declined worldwide the technology is being met with growing concern.

we discussed why facial recognition such a sensitive issue with privacy activist and tech expert bill me as well as former u.k. police officer peter kirk. you can't reset your face or your d.n.a. or your fingerprints in the same way you can reset a password when it's lost and therefore if for some reason there is a data breach in the data was lost or in some way it is used a responsibility then there is no comeback and that person's identity has been lost forever and there as a enormous caution needs to be sick not only only responsible use in the secure husbandry of this trend of data but we also need to start improving the effectiveness of the fake recognition so it's actually more accurate and effective it's concerned me for some time the likes of facebook and other social media platforms or using facial recognition is pretty clearly being used to

further the interests of the social media platforms which at the end of the day combine to make you money if you are in a graph with someone who is on facebook. you may or may not wish to have your name associated with that photograph your profile associated with that for graf bad enough trust in your friends not to tag you into it but when their software they're in automatically. different coefficients so of i think people really should worry more about what's normal reinforcement to doing with this rover the more a foursome of doing with. france has vowed to send was shipped to support greece and cyprus that's off the rail would mean nato allies over gas exploration in the region turkey's stepped up its own drilling activity in waters around the area it controls in cyprus are you sure do miscues got more now on why paris could be concerned. as tensions between greece cyprus and turkey heat up from this

president much corn has decided to do the right thing and just swooping in to save the day he's dispatched war for gets to the eastern mediterranean as the age old regional rivals clash once more left france supports greece and cyprus when it comes to the sovereignty of their maritime zones and along with our european partners condemns turkey's intrusions and provocations what might appear as some 19th century style of a conflict at sea is really largely about energy reserves as you can see the divided island of cyprus has off shore gas fields with billions of euros no surprise then that the self-proclaimed turkish republic of more than cyprus issues its own licenses to explore those gas rich areas to turkish companies while the republic of cyprus gives theirs to companies including the french giant toto which

has several licenses france wants to protect its crown company its crown jewel its total its total is kind of a state within the state and if turkey intervenes put some of its contracts are. france wants to protect its company and or wants to. protect its sovereignty and it's not just a rift over cyprus it's the whole region where you sit these past few days we have seen turkish warships deliver syrian mercenaries to libyan soil this is a serious and explicit infringement of what was agreed upon in berlin i must reiterate the prerequisite for any political solution in libya is the cancellation of this document it's clear to see much course not exactly thrilled with that agreement which sees turkey. having agreed a new maritime border with the un backed government in libya this deal took says

granted economic rights to explore even more of the mediterranean gas reserves and more importantly what any other major gas project in the area like for example and is recycled scree spike line that's currently under construction that could supply of around 10 percent of the natural gas how. it is no longer legally possible to conduct exploration and drilling activity or to run pipelines in the region between the turkish libyan coast without the approval of both countries in 2020 licensing these areas and starting the search and drilling move quickly than ever these coasts reserves are highly contentious as they thought to be changes in offering europe a new supply that could lessen its dependence on russian gas whoever has control over the sea here has control over the supplies it's

a huge gas program over there it's a huge gas reserve reserve or there was an involved one still and nobody called on this. and this is this is we call this is military in pipeline and turkey is part of the east military and and the what they call a lot of them and turkey again wants to be part of this regional power and they want to show that they're one of the strongest country in this region they face a lot of opposition because egypt russia the united arab emirates are against that turkey intervening in libya so they try and they try to counter turkey in this part of the world. donald trump's again come under fire on major news network c n n after the president's latest briefing on a coronavirus task force an opinion piece published on the channels website has

called out the new team from latin diversity. coronavirus taskforce another example of trumpet ministrations lack of diversity. who are these experts they're largely the same sorts of white men and a couple women on the sidelines who've dominated the trumpet administration from the very beginning.

to see those board of directors. as long as c.n.n. wants to play quite a game why does the network have a grand total of one minority anchor across all the weekday shows and not one hispanic collarless news network. the coronavirus we try to have a task force but it wasn't diverse enough for c.n.n. . this is a scientific issue and you need the best people to. organize you know a defense against against the spread of the virus everywhere and you know it's to inject diversity and identity politics into this thing is just just

a silly thing to do it's science. and science is nothing to do with diversity and end racism you know there's a problem in the us of identity politics and that keeps everybody fragmented across their various identities rather than uniting them and dealing with the real economic and political problems of the country. rock him for the american dream is the definitive discourse so numb chomsky next time for u.k. views it sputnik or what in the world. happened and another one of the. swaying. benefits for movie

theater. plus we've got it all so hard not to think of the how the disaffected the work of a coward and i don't just thought that if. this is the only think that we do is music because everybody fights his way. through on the field without a visible face with it and. have it at the bottom. but i think is this is the fun that is what. albert einstein is often.