i'm on with features. of the final as of last summer my ex from the future crocker. goodbye russia china gatewood us into chase branding beijing the greatest threat to washington today a new sign a spy scandal unravels. and struggles with the pandemic and its economic consequences the nation's billionaires increase their wealth by more than a trillion dollars some big enough to cover a major relief built i guess get their teeth into the issue. it's a. worry of a system spinning out of control so that it's just in the quality keeps getting worse the way that they blame the capitals or british worrying about the poor and. creating great inequality which government policies. it's

a criminal court drops a probe into alleged war crimes by u.k. forces in iraq despite having quote a reasonable basis to believe the atrocities actually occurred. at least stresses the need to develop vaccines schools to encourage people to getting the dice we hear from the w.h.o. about why it's against pressuring people into having jobs. it's not. true it's much better people want to be vaccinated if you have a mandate for a system it's much. more difficult that joins so one that everybody gets because people become frank. thanks for joining us here on alt. top u.s.

politicians are calling for heads to roll have to remember the u.s. intelligence committee was targeted by suspected chinese spy comes as u.s. intel chips identify beijing as washington's number one i'm sorry i say is right because the digs deeper so trumps out and the russia gate thing is slamming shut behind him because there's a new scare story in town china you know it doesn't take long to dig up dirt in a town like washington q us democrat representative eric swalwell until now moves through well this chris so far the evidence is stunning contradicted that the president used taxpayer dollars to ask the ukrainians to help them choose an election this time around it's his links to a suspected chinese spy who is in the stink not least because and these awkward he seats on the house intelligence committee not only shall be removed from the intel

he should be removed from congress as well yes house minority leader kevin mccarthy there sporting an opportunity to claim his 1st victim so the background in a nutshell swalwell hod a chinese national called fang fagged in his early political career and this person quickly started raising suspicions within the intel community he got rid of her but has recently refused to answer whether he slept with her which probably means. but before we burn mr swalwell at the stake at sea we're out might have to join him once this chinese witch hunt really gains momentum you've got a feel for mitch mcconnell he survived the title moscow image but can he now survive the fact that is wife secretary of transportation elaine chao is from one of china's most prominent political families that would be one hell of a honey trap and you and james shall have served on the board of the holding company for china's teach to build in

a state owned enterprise that makes shapes for the chinese military and your show is also on the board at the bank of china a top lender to the ship builder remember also the former speaker of the house john boehner aka the original orange man is the house republicans actually give john boehner a harder time i'm a give me. which means orange really is the new black. these days the former speaker of the house just happens to be a lot b.s. for a certain people's republic of china is this guy aggie purdie chief security officer who are way the u.s. is ready for china on a number of issues and they want to hurt one way to hurt china the very afraid of the competition between china and the u.s. so they're focusing on hurting while way before getting professionally agri for you our way for a living and the purdy was a member of the white house staff team that helped draft the u.s. national strategy to secure cyberspace this is just the tip of the iceberg

therefore the head of u.s. intelligence has declared open season on beijing calling it threat number one if i could communicate one thing to the american people it is that the people's republic of china poses the greatest threats to america today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since world war 2 what they might find is that their own. many politicians left who don't have legs to this new enemy because they used to be friends we is getting hard to keep up. alleged chinese spies aren't the only cause for concern among democrats they are also divided over joe biden's controversial pick for defense secretary will be looking why a little later in the program. now the u.s. is also apparently worried about canada china ties it's been revealed that when ottawa's scraps joint military exercises with beijing last year it was doing

washington's bidding the trudeau government invited the chinese army just months after 2 canadians were arrested in beijing chinese generals were expected to learn canadian cold weather military tactics this raise concerns that it could help the chinese army fight better in the himalayas classified documents obtained by rebel news show that the training given was eventually cancelled at the request of the u.s. state department we were called for example that back in december department of national defense and canadian armed forces were keen to cancel the people's liberation army participation in the winter survival training following their request from the d.o.d. to do so that winter survival training will not take place this winter the security concerns originated primarily from the us we do not have a record of other 5 i countries expressing this concern 6 canada of the revealed documents also suggest the exercise was cancelled directly by canadian armed forces by passing through those liberal government and fast experts why canada's top

officials might want to think better relations with china. i'm not surprised that they're that the united states is putting pressure on canada. regards to its relations with china that someone decided that it was not encounters interest and that is the more unusual part is how that the military if these reports are correct managed to supersede the prime minister that is perhaps the most the more interesting question to ask and of course i don't have any answers for that who does but this is. it looks like a case of insubordination canada's long term success will rely more on china than it will perhaps on the united states the relationship between canada and china is. reasonably good so this my as world history real this exercise playing trend in

2090 might as well be an event well play and from a larger share of the g point of view i'm not surprised at all for the pressure of us on canada in fact it's not just canada even the u.k. australia a new scene than they always say of pressure these countries are no longer acting like an independent countries with independent foreign policies from the actions of prince trudeau canada is clearly much more inclined towards the pressure. from the united states. the pandemic may have left millions of people out of work but the world's richest seem to just keep getting richer the net worth of u.s. billionaires a soared by a trillion dollars since march according to a new report. as tens of millions of americans suffer from the health and economic ridges of these pandemic a few 100 billionaires add to their massive fortunes their pandemic profits are so

immense that america's billionaires could pay for a major corporate relieve bill and still not lose a dime of their provider is reaches the updraft of wealth to the billionaire class is disturbing at a time when millions face eviction destitution and loss billionaires are extracting wealth at a time when essential workers pushed into the viral line of fire. of the campaign group americans for tax fairness the net worth of the country $651.00 billionaires they found their extra wealth enduring the pandemic would be enough to dish out $3000.00 to every single american turn it if they want trillion could close the budget deficit of all state and local governments twice over roughly equal to the entire government so the entire amount spent by the federal government on health care in 2019 nearly 4 times more than the stimulus payments made earlier this year to 159000000 americans. that are guess debated. this is

capitalism on government life support and the side effect of that is to make those who own shares the overwhelming bulk being owned by the richest people even richer and while everybody else is in trouble in the way that they blame capitalism for destroying the poor and and creating great inequality these government policies do exactly not have lockdowns crushing small medium businesses we have stayed home orders which drove people into an unemployment largely virtual existence we don't wait a month for policy which drove a crisis in financial markets i always love these kinds of analyses is it the government has a day or 6 not going to the drugs from the government there's nothing naive here the government isn't doing something then as a result the government is itself the result of the way this is cya the works which puts enormous wealth and therefore political power in the hands of a very small number of people will turn out to have

a government policy that makes them richer this burst of new wealth is just as purely a product of government policy was unnecessary you know the unintended consequences of lockdowns and such and in this case they call them non-pharmaceutical interventions but there's also capacity limits on businesses are going to be almost the opposite of what we're hoping for the draconian policies they've increased the gap. between the rich and poor that created new controversies of wealth this tremendous consolidation going on right now let me be clear here we could have been prepared for this 5 years the way other countries where we could have handled it better the way other countries had we left a lot of the private preparation for disease into the hands of private enterprise and markets and they failed as they have failed us so often in the past it's a pathetic sad story of a system spinning out of control so that it's unjust inequality keeps getting worse the government's inability to get anything right there go. into to as i said before

to to to do everything everything everything wrong in a crisis including decreasing employment crushing firms crushing the engine of employment. all those sorts of things and never once even considering maybe that should be lower i mean a brief hiatus from certain regulations on that sort of thing we have a monopoly in this country that it for a century we have 2 parties we don't allow 2 businesses that dominate most of our industries but we allow these 2 parties to dominate our politics that's very convenient for the computer they the class of corporate directors who donate the bulk of the money to both of them who pull the strings for both of the bodies and you can't really have a monopoly without government help because innovation never stops you have you would you need to have a monopoly as richard said is you need government controls you need artificial controls like patents and i copyright all that sort of thing health care is

a perfect example of that as a business and it's a sector which is super regulated and therefore you have entrenched interests there and for that reason we shouldn't be surprised that those costs are rising rising rising and you know to jujutsu with no end in sight i mean i think that is. one of the one of the maybe maybe the picture perfect examples of what happens when government gets up to its neck in an industry to think of this as a government policy is strange the beneficiary here are corporations they are operate with 4 industries doctors hospitals device and drug makers and the insurers they've got us by the throat we have to pay those prices that they control yes peter's right they use the government to cement their monopoly as monopolists always had but the impetus the desire that need to control the market to squeeze more profits that's what drives the government to do what they do in support of

these interests trying to maximize the money they can squeeze out of our health care if you look at these lockdowns how many people i mean if you think of people locked in home people with nothing to do stores being closed what was keeping people alive what was keeping people fed what was keeping people's minds saying right facebook google amazon netflix things like that those no service providers and as many of the businesses to me is but large corporations are offering people some some sort of refuge from these heavy handed government policies which never had to be so heavy handed. i think i think the idea that we would ask billionaires to do more. to take to pay back their might that is just again it should be a punch line but it's actually a policy but i could not disagree more as a middle we can end on that none of these people almost not of america all of the exceptions have come forward to say say like jeffrey easels i had 200000000000 dollars if i give away half of it i help my fellow citizens i'll still be the

richest person in this country a little be a $100000000000.00 more to help out my fellow citizens the harshness of america is that they don't even think about that and that's a sign of a society falling apart. international criminal court has dropped a probe into alleged war crimes by u.k. armed forces in iraq that's despite the prosecutor having quote a reasonable basis to believe that the offenses occurred in iraq historic allegations team was known spy the u.k. government in 2010 to investigate on 3000 cases most of them were closed before the thing was shut down in 2017 the remaining cases inhabited by the service police system but after 10 years not a single one of those cases has resulted in prosecutions something that the i.c.c. itself says has deprived the victims of justice and the trying to pick up the story . and that story after 6 years of what was called a preliminary examination of allegations of war crimes by the u.k.

moultrie in iraq the international criminal court says it's not going to proceed and so just before calling the british justice system one of the best in the world this is the way you case proud defense secretary reacts their statement today indicates our efforts to pursue justice were allegations have been found that i'm pleased that work we have done and continue to do in improving the quality and assurances around investigations has been recognized by the international criminal court what i suggest though is reading beyond the 1st 2 lines of what the i.c.c. prosecutor ruled it will only take a few seconds to get to the part that says the office has previously found and today confirmed that there is a reasonable basis to believe members of the british armed forces are responsible for the following.

you. i'll continue reading out bits from pretty much every paragraph one after another civilian supervisory and military command famous contributed to the commission of crimes against detainees the end mishal response of the british army emptied or at the time of the alleged offenses was inadequate not a single case being submitted for prosecution today a result that has deprived the victims of justice i could keep going but it's already clear that these conclusions sound like they're from a different report not from one that leads to a major case being dropped or

a senior cabinet member bragging about an amazing justice system and seems to me. it's almost incredible that thousands of allegations not won over those thousands has been regarded as justifying coming in from to the court we need to push forward with demands for serious and proper investigations in what i believe is a scandal and as the report says you know the evidence there is reasonable evidence in the words of the i.c.c. prosecutor there is reasonable evidence of all hugs to patrol cities carried out by members of the british armed services he says against iraqi detainees however if that's the way things are in the world of international criminal law london tick the boxes by launching domestic probes and the i.c.c. couldn't prove any ceiling or deliberate covering up so the rest is out of the tribunals jurisdiction which only makes you wonder following up on the i.c.c.

his own statement does it all mean the iraqi victims will never get justice the u.k. government has repeatedly shown precious little interest in investigating and prosecuting atrocities committed abroad by british troops the prosecutor's decision to close a u.k. inquiry will doubtless fuel perceptions and ugly double standards in john. this one approach to powerful states and quite another for those with less clout the news from the i.c.c. comes as london pushes for a controversial overseas operations bill it's supposed to quote unquote protect british troops in overseas call flights from vick's ace's litigation and repeat investigations critics though say it would allow more offenders to escape the law the overseas operations bill will do nothing to address the issue of repeat investigations of u.k. armed forces personnel list will do is make arifin cases like the death of iraqi national even more difficult to prosecute. the uki would also be violating

numerous human rights treaties by not ensuring abuses are properly dealt with but even without the bill as we now know the international criminal court has pulled the brakes on probing the british military earlier when the court was going to look into potential abuses by the us troops in war zones washington simply paid back by sanctioning senior staff members at the i.c.c. what if after that the tribunal does didn't want to go too far with investigating uncle sam's number one ally in iraq well there's no way of knowing. you members stressed the need to develop a coordinated approach to vaccine certificates earlier the world health organization advised against any such system electronic vaccinations difficult switch whether travel had been immunized against corona virus before crossing borders the system was a key part of discussions on how the blocks going to lift pandemic restrictions of

the coming year you know all the debate shows also warned against any efforts to force people to be inoculated we spoke to this representative from a very we generally it finds not to make it mandatory it's much better people want to be vaccinated if if you have a mandate or a system it's much just because so much more difficult actually to ensure that everybody gets the accident because people become frightened and there's no reason to be fight no something like this which is their lives every tool and ultimately we want to be up to that snake at least 20 percent of each population as quickly as possible because we've calculated that the need to be vaccinated 1st the people who are most at risk and the front line workers will make up about 20 percent of the population in most countries so we are scientific and neutral car organization that any organization we do get criticized but we also have know if there's been some

politicizing the response and we do i ask. the quality well certainly we have been concerned and have been warning against taxi nationalism for a long time and again that's why in parallel whatever scientists were working on developing the vaccines we were working on setting up the facility the kovacs facility and turning with all the different countries to join that look at the day so from the vaccine trials to whether they were 1st of all how educators are they how safe either any do they meet the safety standards that we require and thirdly how do you think manufactured at the safest and highest quality standards when each vaccine needs criteria we will provide it with what we call an emergency use listing and that can be used by any country in the world the president of argentina has given a thumbs up to russia's coronavirus vaccine for numbers that wants the drugs approved by the country's medical regulator he'd be the 1st person in the country

to receive the sputnik the jump being that he had no doubts about its quality and women who are still in argentina some raised doubts about the quality of russian science the russian gamma lay institute has several nobel prizes among its staff of scientists particularly everyone's downswings sputnik vs here in argentina i will be the 1st one to take that vaccine because i have no doubt about the quality of the vaccine which in turn are has signed a deal with russia but if the supplies high risk groups in the country will be the 1st in line for the job developer so that is 95 percent effective based on trial results to date vaccines advanced stage 3 mass trials are currently underway involving 14000 volunteers argentina's been badly hit by the pandemic with nearly one and a half 1000000 cases the country's president says that they are buying enough doses to vaccinate 10000000 people you're almost there. we will be able to counter the

nuff doses to vaccinate 10000000 argentinians between january and february 1st a batch of 600000 doses to vaccinate 300000 people before the end of the year by january will have enough vaccines for 5000000 people and by february it will have enough vaccines to reach the 10000000 people with. several major democrats have rejected joe biden's pick for the defense secretary post the president elect named a retired general lloyd austin as his nominee on wednesday however the top job at the pentagon traditionally goes to a civilian and austin has only been retired for 4 years leading to concerns that he's still too close to the army kill him or put explains joe biden's pick for category and she is a man he's known for a long time they were friendly under the obama administration then you know i've seen some of the or interesting parts of the world with. all those various prez. so

moron with whom i have worked closely for many years and i've seen perform to the higher standards under intense pressure biden's decision to pick a pentagon general came despite the democrats' pre-election pledge to use their words they were going to end the trumps distortion of civilian and military roles in decision making and reinstate national security policy making processes and competent civilian control many within biden's own party are now fuming they say putting and general in control of the pentagon violates the basic principle of civilian control over the military plus general austin served in the military far too recently and at this point a congressional waiver is going to be needed i have deep respect for general lloyd austin we worked together when he commanded u.s. forces in iraq when he was vice chief of the army and when he was the centcom commander but just in another recently retired general to serve in a role designed for a civilian just falls off i opposed

a waiver for general mattis and i will oppose a waiver for general austin i believe that a way that is the 7 year rule would contravene the basic principle that they should be civilian control over a normal political military i will not support the waiver but general austin says he considers himself to be a civilian but i come to this role this new role as a as a civilian leader. with military experience to be sure but also with a deep appreciation and reverence for the prevailing wisdom of civilian control of our military but his long record in the u.s. military tells a different story lloyd austin the 3rd actually had the job of being the top commander of u.s. military forces in the middle east in 2015 he revealed that the united states had spent $500000000.00 to train forces in syria that would fight against the islamic state militants and after that they ended up with only

a handful of competent fighters can you tell us what the total number of trained fighters remains it's a small number and. the ones that are in the fight is is is we're talking 445 so is that still the goal to have about $12000.00 of them there is that still the goal what's the expectation then for them at the pace we're gone we won't reach the goal that we had initially established for a while but even after leaving active duty general austin was not yet ready to say farewell to arms his civilian job landed him on the board of directors of raise the on a top military contracting corporation now raytheon has been in the spotlight during the trumpet ministration because it is actually a top supplier of the military hardware to saudi arabia in their relentless and unending war against yemen in 2019 raytheon cut an $8000000000.00 deal with saudi

arabia for munitions and military supplies in order to continue their relentless bombing campaign that has already claimed over 100000 lives retha manufactures the bomb components that are used in yemen he bears a direct responsibility he was making money as a board member of the company that is directly responsible for the death and destruction there civilian control. well it seems like some civilians that have a pretty big financial interest in prolonging these endless wars have been exercising some level of control and influence for a long time and general austin is their man he been a military. in the military for 4040 years he he is good at taking orders and carrying out orders he has not exhibited that i've seen any or has a history of any strategic thinking that would allow him to provide for

for what's necessary or national security policy and i think that that would be a problem for a position a traditionally is supposed to be a civilian i think that he would tend to look more toward what the military folks are interested in rather than the overall policy as it pertains to national security and how it glen's him with other issues from a foreign policy perspective when he definitely would not be a strong secretary defense if. and that's how the world of news looks this morning all of that with updates for you in half an hour.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered un peter lavelle in january there may be a new american president but what won't change is washington's stance towards iran is military conflict inevitable what is the value of diplomacy if one side fails to honor agreements and what are iran's options. to discuss this and more i'm joined by my guest adam roosevelt in washington he is a national security analyst as well as a g.o.p. strategist and.