but the amount that they give us a tour with gas prices in europe hit a new record with the german government warning people to prepare for a close to freezing month. meanwhile, the countries energy regulator is yet to grant an operating license to the now fully completed nordstrom to gas pipeline. white house that v classifies a report revealing its suspected for years. that is, the mystery sounds supposedly attacking us government staff. a broad will not unknown russian weapons, but rather tripping crickets and poland accuses that you have blackmail for threatening to withhold cache from regions that don't recognize l g b t. right?

that's look at your headlines for this hour. we back in about an hour's time with another looks they were interested about ah, on this week show what mass colvin collateral damage includes, a pile of plastic that is trashing the usa and poisoning the seas. how did pandemic protocols back fire? and how are we at risk? but 1st, think afghanistan is in the rear view mirror. think again and where's the next hot spot? i'm holland cook in washington. this is the big picture on our t america. ah, no matter how old you are, the united states has been at war and most of your life, if not your entire life. i stand here today,

for the 1st time in 20 years with united states not at war, returned the page. all the unmatched strength, energy, and commitment will and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what's ahead of us. what is out of us? let's ask, john said ladies, geo political strategist, a trilogy advisors under diplomacy, consultants of the department of state. and former pentagon official and r t contributor michael maloof, a john after the usa is bungled coven response, then january 6th, then that abrupt afghanistan exit. and with non stop noise here in washington, do our friends now trust us, less and do our foes now. fear us less, it depends on which allies in which adversaries of the united states we're talking about holland. if we just look at events of the last several weeks, we see that the united states has announced and new security alliance with united

kingdom and with australia, the august agreement. we just had a convening of the quad here in washington, d. c. with united states, the indian, the, our prime minister, the japanese prime minister, and the australian prime minister, working together to build our free democratic societies and to uphold free and open shipping in the indo pacific region. and then in other parts of the world, whether we're talking about the middle east in the south china sea region and the light, we have very strong friends and allies. but there were those countries that will remain adversaries of the united states, no matter what the conditions of governance are here in washington d. c. primarily unfortunately, that's china. that will include iran, that will include north korea. and there's nothing that washington can do for the most part that can help move those countries away from their adversarial stance. michael, embarrassing as our bug out was most americans wanted out. and are we naive to

heave a sigh of relief that afghanistan is in the u. s a's rear view mirror. what we shouldn't be naive. we should be watching a very, very carefully we still have a serious and growing terrorist threat from there. and, and as a result of our rapid departure, abrupt departure from afghanistan, it has incentivized other terrorist groups. and in effect, afghanistan is becoming a terrorist state. i, which might hear countries are mighty interested in the lithium mother load. afghanistan sits atop john with a collapsing economy and massive brain drain. there are taliban hard liners, a doomed government that's going to be a critical question. in the months and years ahead, holland and governance is moderation. governance involves concessions to domestic parties, to international actors and international organizations. and this is,

i think we're to be an issue of jihadist purity among not just the taliban, but also a resurgent al qaeda in afghanistan, the hall county network and the islamic state correson. and if there is going to be a civil war based on g, hardest purity, you may see ha, connie and islamic state turn against a tale by because they may decide, as michael just noted with the rear arts issue from china, that you may have the child been remaining relatively silent on the mistreatment of at least 1000000 weaker muslims in western china as well as issues again with the treatment of women in afghanistan and others that will become very problematic for a governing taliban against more radical extremists. it, she hardest, oops, inside of afghanistan, when you talk about the treatment of women, they are how susceptible, how sensitive are the taliban to a criticism from elsewhere in the world? did they care?

do they have to that's going to depend on how international organizations may qualify any international aid at the afghan government is highly dependent upon right now. as you note, the economy is a shambles. we may see widespread famine in afghanistan during the coming months. that may be compounded by a very deep winter freeze. so the extent to which to tell the buyer is going to be dependent on international organizations for vital aid. they may make some minor concessions to the extent possible compatible with their particular version of islam. but there may be the door opening for other organizations to begin to go after the taliban in government. we are speaking with long time pentagon official, michael maloof and geopolitical strategist. john said ladies a year ago, you might have seen this mean bounce around social media. and if you're hearing this as a podcast, the graphic has a map that shows dozens of u. s. military bases surrounding the gulf. and the caption is, iran wants war. look how close they put their country to our military basis.

michael, when you and i were here a year ago, iraq was on the front burner and that's still a pretty rough neighborhood. but with everything else on our plate, american citizens attention is elsewhere. is iran any less troublesome to day? troublesome? no, i think it's, it's turning it so it's a view view and world view toward an alternative world order looking more eastward . now that they, they did a dia, major deal with the chinese. and they're looking to basically get out from under the us sanctions. whether not the u. s. her and iran can actually work out an arrangement to reestablish the j. c. p i. j. c. p, away. i think iran has moved on and they're going to be charging a greater course. they just were admitted into the s c o, the child that the shanghai cooperation organization that is huge, that is huge. and that links and much more closely with china or russia,

turkey pakistan and a plethora of other countries and central asia. so with friends in the neighbourhood, there are sanctions have less teeth that that is correct that i think it's going to diminish the impact of us sanctions. we've overused them. gotcha. on what's called mischief reef in the south china sea. there is a military grade air strip and anti aircraft and missile installations. the u. s. position is that under international law, a place that is submerged in its natural state as this was before china built the island up is not entitled to a territorial c. this is a stance our in naval maneuvers are testing their half a world away. john, where'd he us see this stand off heading and who are the other stakeholders over there? were you just pointed out, holland may be one of the most critical geopolitical flashpoints on planet earth for the months and possibly years to come. and i'd like to provide some context here for your viewers 1st,

because it's very important to note that this is an international waterway. the south china sea. and through a traverse is about one 3rd of all international commercial traffic, and about 80 percent of the oil and natural gas that literally lubricated the chinese japanese, taiwanese and south korean economies. there are also vast fisheries for an affluent . i'm high protein diet for the people of asia and also potentially vest oil and natural gas deposits beneath the sea. bit of the south china sea and china is now declaring these international waters about 1300000 square miles. as essentially a chinese lake all at the expense of about 8 or 9 countries at all, have significant coastlines on the south china sea. and ironically, china's actions which are unlawful regarding the un convention on the love. the c would essentially threatened to free an open shipping system that is enabled it china to achieve this astonishing growth and level of wealth today,

after 20 years in the world trade organization. and now china seeks to supplant that same system and to declare all of the smaller countries to had south, essentially as tributary countries, recognizing respecting and bowing down to china's dominance of the asian continent . wow, michael a while we're in the neighbourhood. let's do an indo pacific lightning round in this order status report. japan. well, japan is going to as going to be tightened up on its own defenses. we're going to see that united states along with japan as well as i was south korea. even india, they're, they're trying to basically contain china and you can see much closer cooperation among those nations. and of course you got north korea that south korea is still worried about you're gonna, you're going to be seen in south korea itself is going to be trying to work with the us much more closely. and it has issues with china. you have the philippines,

they have real serious issues with china in terms of our access rights, mineral rights, ah, that, that it is confounding. the problem in the south china sea stand off with, with, with those countries. as john pointed out, that india itself, it has designs for the same area, but it also has a competitor with which is pakistan. pakistan is very close to china and they are competing as well. so, and yet united states has drawn much more closely to india as a consequence. now this is going to have a ripple effect. you talk about end of pacific b into a crisis area in the future. this is kind of a spill over effect into central asia. inevitably, the world's gotten smaller very much long time. no see kim jung oon until this felt new version reappeared recently and they've been testing arm events. so what's he upto? well, he's trying to be ever ready. he's trying to basically leverage against south korea

and try to basically get the united states out of out of his hair. and he's trying to keep up in south korea and north korea are looking to try and, and compromise on things. and it looks like they may have some compatibility, but it, south korea has got us in exchange, stop, it's maneuver, act activities with united military maneuver activities with us, no real consequence. so that photo op with trump though, i don't think nothing really changed. john, i got about a minute left. we were talking a hot spots, pick up place. what keeps you up at night? what aren't we looking at? or i should say, where aren't we watching that we should be? well, i'm glad you asked about to south china sea and i'm glad you spoke to micheal about what's happening on the korean peninsula because it's essentially a mini arms race to between north korea and south korea, which is the 1st non nuclear country to now long sea based ballistic cruise

missiles and all of this is happening while japan is undergoing a political leadership change in the next several weeks. and i'm gonna switch to the other side of the continent quickly. also holland, because we have a new german government, potentially. but we don't know how long it'll take for to actually come together. this could takes we, we could take weeks, it could take months into early, 2022. and we don't know where this gives russia an opportunity to scramble and to see how would further destabilizes countries in the baltics or continues to undermine political democracy in the european union. i'm glad you pinpointed that germany could be the story to watch. john said ladies, michael maloof, thank you again for stepping in to the big picture. when we were told it was a novel corona virus, we went in to better safe than sorry, mode. how his mother earth suffered. and how will we, this is the big picture on our t america. ah

ah, of course after 40 years of fed interventionism by simply expanding and pretending and printing a lot of money, they got into this cargo cult. you'd call it mentality where simply waving a flag, you know, that essentially printing more money is going to make all the problems disappear. meanwhile, politically, what we've seen in america is really remarkably the liberal left and their co hearts in the media. even though that this is cause incredible human suffering in america, they effectively marginalize those people as quote, deplorable and really made scapegoats of the victims of j. powell. and they've often said that this is a victimless crime, money printing and extortion that practice at the fed. and yet i look at those 90000 debt american last year from opiate overdose. i'd say j pal,

you got blood on your hands because that's a direct result of mal investment, money printing, and rogue economics that you're practicing as a charlatan. ah, if you are expecting be of non government will be in the image with a seat. and i'm sorry, this is august nation, be you will have to see if you want me to go with the entities. you can't impose the democratic system on both on sunday, he will and didn't good order. ah ah,

to pandemic shut down took a terrible human toll and now mother earth suffers here is our t boom bus co host, an investigative journalist, been swan, holland, p, p e or personal protective equipment is really just the beginning. consider also all of that plastic takeaway food containers that have the increased exponentially over the last 18 months or how about all the bubble wrap that is used by companies in order to ship products directly to homes. all of this has increase, as i said, by an order of magnitude, and now it's creating a huge problem. keep in mind, all of these products are plastic and every piece of plastic begins life as a fossil fuel. the economic slowdown has puncture demand for the massive, increasing consumption of plastics and packaging. during the pandemic has produced mountains of waste. in some cases, fears of coven 19 have led to work stoppages, a recycling facilities. some re, usable material has been jumped or burned and said, so what kind of effect is all of us having while a recent study found that during the last year and a half,

$16000.00 and fewer tons of recyclable material. when in the circulation that comes out to about $1200000.00 every month and revenue last for waste picker associations come and get them under found in the greater jakarta area, there are $13000.00 workers who collect and sell plastic waste, even before the pens and i couldn't, our workers were already burdened by declining prices, economic crises, and government benz on plastic luma. then these factors shut down many of the industries they would typically sell plastics to that coven, 19 locked downs, have only made our business that much more difficult. but an even bigger problem because of the fear of the virus. a huge amount of personal protective equipment has been mis classified as hazardous. that material often isn't allowed into the normal trash. so a lot of it is dumped in burned pits or as litter. the united nations environment program estimated last year that health care facilities around the world were producing about $7.00 pounds of coven related medical waste per person,

per day. worldwide. it said that in jakarta, indonesia and for other asian mega cities, the rate of overall health care waste disposal had risen by about 500 per cent. and then there's the issue of syringes and other true we hazardous medical waste that may end up in the wrong places in the world's poorest countries. this creates a whole new set of problems. take, for instance, bangladesh, where tens of thousands of people pick through garbage every single day, just to survive, will in bangladesh, for instance. a new report shows that nearly all of the districts in the country fail to properly dispose of syringes. and instead, they simply go into the garbage, which creates a all new set of hazards for people already living on the edge. for the big picture, i'm been swan. thanks, ben. when you are out and about to they looked down, you're gonna see discarded face masks, right? there on the sidewalk, think the street is a mess. how are the sees? let's ask my fellow, rhode island,

or richard weber's founder of the non profit ocean agency, whose mission is accelerating ocean science and conservation. a richard, you are in breath taking the scenic new port and i live on block island. so we from the ocean state, get it. but tell people who are watching and listening and kansas and kiev how, what's happening to the ocean threatens them. one thing is very easy to think gets that the ocean is really one dimensional to lie, comma, it's now our life support system and it produces most milton. we breathe, it reduces and the water that we need to grow food and it's, it's really essential to life and swish. fundamentally changing the ocean are changing his chemistry, me changing his temperature way, altering the biodiversity, and it's impacting his ability. simple life on earth is also impacting its ability to do something really important at the moment, which is controlling the impacts of climate change. we are seeing the heart

breaking images of which should be beautiful, beaches sadly littered and no crop. seeing photos of fish stomachs full of colorful plastic. and we've heard that there's a pile of floating plastic out there. the size of texas. richard, where is all this coming from? is it indonesia is a crew ships? there is a lot of land. it's a complex issue. ocean plastics. there is a lot that is coming out of about 10 rivers in asia and yank. see, for example in china, i'm this about 1500000 tons of plastic flows into the oceans through that river system. but as i said it's, it's a lot more complicated. there's a lot of micro plastics going into the ocean and pretty much everyone on the planets is contributing to that. it's, it's not clothes, it's in all wash products. it is in all sorts of the products that we use and it ends up in the ocean. it's eaten on the breakdown of tires on the roads that is

washing into this ocean. and it's so getting into the food chain and eventually ending up on our plates. and we're kellen critters out there too. we are disposing of fishing nets and other stuff like that designed to capture the critters. and that stuff gets abandoned and animals get caught in there. and are dying out in the ocean, are they? yes, i mean go snatch, says it is a huge issue. austin, that makes this easier to discard the net when it gets smacked flights rapidly, ocean. and he carries on doing what he spent. sting surviving a very long time, catching fish and, and other animals. so there's a lot of organizational elkins ations putting a lot of effort to try and locate jo. snacks and pulling them out of the ocean. ghost nets were speaking with the ocean agency founder richard fevers, who appears on the award winning film, chasing coral. ah, colonel is

a fundamental power over huge ecosystem. they continue living as long as their environment allows. listen to. this is big. he played this trolling ramble over the world, the co bleaches. i'm what you're seeing, easy skeleton underneath. it's like your body temperature changing. that's the seriousness of the issue. great flick, you can find on netflix, sir richard. other than screaming, bloody murder, about climate change to members of congress. what can someone who was watching and listening do to help the oceans? what i think one of the biggest things people can do is just great seafood as special am so have it for special occasions. don't eat it as an everyday product at austin. we find ourselves sort of feeding tuna to cats, for example, bus and life in the ocean, especially some seafood is really important for reducing the impacts of climate

change. basically takes carbon out of the system and puts it to the ocean floor where it safely sold. and so by taking and out of the ocean, when we're closing at double problem, it's not doing its job of removing copper and from the system. and it's releasing it instead sites just treat it in a special way and only have it on special occasions is would be my sort of biggest it when you who live in coastal now when glen gulp, when we hear about over fishing, how bad a problem is it in our neck of the woods. it's certainly a problem all over the well it's, there is a lot more regulation in, in the us, them and many other countries. and so we were starting to really understand the science of sustainability where this huge precious to fish and the people love see thing so much that austin m e gets a double issue of not just fishing for the species. it's the bi, catch, the, the issue. apt ruins, for example, are renowned for being very expensive in terms of all the other lives that they can

ask the ocean while trying to fish all of rooms. and that's just one species. there's a lot. so by catch issue in the ocean, ocean agencies, richard fevers, thank you for stepping in to the big picture. i appreciate your time. 2016 candidate donald trump hollard about draining the swap, but in its oversight report, mapping the swamp. a study of the administrative state fiscal year 2020 non profit non partisan. washington watchdog open the bookstore. com quantifies the federal bureaucracy. the president joe biden inherited from the trumpet ministration, during which the number of employees within the executive agencies increased to modern day high. among the takeaways, $2800000.00 disclosed federal employees cost the american taxpayer. $2300000.00 per minute. do the math. that's

a $1000000001.00 per day excluding department of defense and u. s. postal service. veterans affairs is the largest executive agency with 400000 some employees. so bureaucrat is not necessarily a pejorative term. another important mission, homeland security has 200000 plus staffers over $7000.00 federal employees are in 300008 year and uncle sam's highest paid is doctor anthony found, chief 434300 $12.00 give him a raise. but jeffrey ly, ash, ceo of the kweisi public, tennessee valley authority raked in 15 and a half 1000000 and salary retirement and other benefits over a 2 year period. bureaucrats average 44 days of p t o 11 holidays, 13 sick days and 20 vacation days. another 225000000000, an estimated compensation remains hidden and not subject to the oversight of this

report, which you can read in its entirety at open the books dot com. and that is the big box, big picture. and thank you for watching the big picture. we're going to be that same time next week if you'll watch in real time. otherwise set your d v r for direct tv channel 3 to one on the dish dish, we're channel 280 you tube dot com slash r t. america is our live stream there and all my work is archived in youtube dot com slash the big picture. our t and of course you can watch us live or on demand, or you will find all our shows on the free, portable tv app and the app store, or on google play, or at portable dot tv. if you're a hockey fan, you're gonna love it. i am holland cook in washington and on twitter at holland cook were if you follow me, i'll follow you question more. ah,

lou. lou is you'll media reflection of reality. ah, in a world transformed what will make you feel safe? isolation, whole community. are you going the right way or are you being led somewhere? direct. what is true? what is faith? in the world corrupted, you need to descend,

have join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. ah, france is macro recently said quote, the europeans must stop being naive when we are under pressure from powers which at times harden their stands. we need to react and show we have the power and capacity to defend ourselves, vold words. but does europe have the political will to actually defend itself? ah

good acts guys are this is the kaiser report as we continue our deep dive in to federal reserve? diss and genuine ness. they think?

yes, it's a deep dive into all the times. max kaiser kaiser report, stacy herbert, we've been right over and over. we're right. last time we mentioned how jamie diamond has capitulated and agreed finally that the kaiser for it was right. a bit coin. well, of course it was kaiser for we 1st heard about the threat of stagflation, high unemployment, high inflation. well, the fed chair, jerome pal, i j. pow, he says, well, inflation is high and unemployment rate is high. so. right, right. a step to play, the fed has 2 jobs, one is full employment. the other is price stability. so there are failing on both of their primary jobs. and in a way that was predictable. because if you're simply printing money to bail out bankers all day long, you create a situation and what you do not have any reliable.