we'll get inside from julia yoif and andrei soldatov. and since china opened up its economy in 1978, it has averaged almost 10% growth a year. but are we now at peak china? the economy ims keyu jin weighs in. >>> also, has humanity gotten, well, dumber, thanks to the supercomputers in our pockets that could tell us everything that we need to know in an instant. i'll talk to the author simon winchester about the past, present and future of knowledge. >>> but first, here is my take. america's debt ceiling crisis once again provoked the usual commentary about how it shows the country's basically dysfunctional. but the truth is this unprovoked madness causing self-inflicted wr wounds take place against a back drop. the facts cannot be disputed, the united states has recovered from the pandemic faster than any major economy in the world. as bloomberg's matthew winkler points out, unemployment is stunningly low. gdp growth has grown at 3 times the average pace as under donald trump, real income is rising and manufacturing it booming and inflat

joining me now to talk about all this andrei soldatov and julia yafi. ssian investigative journalist living in exile, of course, in london and julia is a founding partner and russia correspondent at pak news. >> julia, give us an overview from what you can tell, are we overdoing it? in all this reading of tea leaves and looking at the fact that putin doesn't discipline prigozhin or the defense minister or allows this all to happen and there's more going on underneath the surface than we think? what's your basic read? there is more under the surface and one where andrei has been forced to leave and there's very little reporting on the ground and it's hard to tell what's going on and it's important to know what's going on when russia is waging this bloody, criminal war in ukraine and using people like prigozhin in the east and it's important to understand what's going on and when you have not a lot of information all you can do is read tea leaves and try to decipher the few public statements that these people make. >> andrei, describe for us, your answer t

but now it could ring in major problems to come, andrei soldatov says. >> i think he is nervous. he cannot trust completely what his people are telling him. >> in a highly unusual move the u.s. ambassador to south africa has publicly accused the government of delivering arms and ammunition to russia. he says weapons were loaded onto this sanctioned russian cargo ship late last year at a south african naval base. let's bring in cnn's senior international correspondent david mckenzie live in johannesburg. so david, walk us through the allegations and the reaction from the south african government. >> reporter: well, kim, the allegations are unusual as you say and very direct. the u.s. ambassador to south africa talking to local me immediate saying this ship, the lady r which docked at a naval port in south africa near capetown, was there to receive arms and ammunition from south africa that would end up in russia during this bloody war on ukraine. now, that ship was sanctioned by the u.s. treasury in may of last year. that already begins problems regardless of the specificity of th