Troops out of the middle east we take a look at the trillions spent on wars and the billions of men taining us military bases. Also this week the hog and pork industry has taken a hit from african swine flu in china and asia but does the Meat Industry need to change to save the planet. Frances digital tax on big Silicon Valley tech that could escalate a trade war with the United States. Well right now there are 200000 u. S. Troops stationed at more than 800 bases in 70 countries and territories outside the United States despite President Trumps pledges to end the endless wars the number of troops in the middle east has increased well the assassination of irans 2nd most powerful figure qassam soon the money by u. S. Drone strike has led to the deployment of more troops to iraq and one iran hit back and tensions appear to have eased for now a shadow war goes on which raises the question how much does the United States spend on its presence in the middle east well since 911. 00 taxpayers in the United States have spent 6. 4 trillion dollars on wars in afghanistan iraq and syria thats according to the Watson Institute of international and Public Affairs at Brown University more than 800000. 00 people have died as a direct result of fighting according to u. S. Central command there are between 60 and 70000 u. S. Troops in the middle east well this is just a quick snapshot of that Troop Deployment 14000 in afghanistan more than 7813000 cattle and 3000. 00 in saudi arabia and the cost of maintaining bases and troops including in war zones is as much as 200000000000. 00 a year thats according to david vine author of base nation how u. S. Military bases abroad harm america and the world will host nations do pay directly or indirectly for that deployment after sending 3000. 00 troops and patriot missiles to defend Saudi Oil Fields following an attack which washington blamed on iran trump said the saudis a paying for it already arabia at my request has agreed to pay for everything were doing at the 1st. 30 arabia and other countries to dow 30 arabia has agreed to pay us for everything were doing out there well joining me now via skype from boston is glenn kahl glenn is a for. Deputy National Intelligence officer at the cia the Trans National threats hes currently an assistant professor at Boston College and is the author of the interrogator and education glenn the u. S. Maintains numerous bases right across the middle east and the Rand Corporation estimates it cost between 50. 00 to 150000000. 00 a year per base and that takes up a huge chunk of the annual 700000000000. 00 u. S. Defense budget so do the host nations really pay anything towards those costs well ive done a Little Research on this too and the answer is a little murkier than i expected to find. It depends on which country were talking about japan south korea pay substantial amounts and in europe there are substantial contributions of various natures financially accountable for the American Military presence in iraq im not so clear that they are actually making a formal contribution to hosting us and much as they are happy to have as im sure so there will be ancillary or secondary indirect costs that the host countries paying certainly and i dont think that theyre paying some serious wish to host 6000 american soldiers known simply as yet lets just stay with us issue of cost then because the u. S. Seems quick to get into a war but its not very good at winning the peace is it and this still is very very costly Something Like 6 trillion dollars spent on wars since 2001 and here we are again with iran how do you see this all playing out then oh goodness well thats the question that no ones been able to work out. When the american political system is largely paralyzed so that any sort of coherent action in International Relations is very hard to do theres been strong inclination long. Part of half the country to to remove the american presence from iraq which is viewed as a disaster and and yet most i would say professional National Security officials who are perfect or individuals think that its necessary for us to have some sort of a presence there. Which is independent of whether we are the ones who broke the crockery or try to put it together but that to leave now would be a problem so i dont see us leaving anytime soon unless the inquiry into here and in the precious man in the oval Office Actually manages to act upon his and potions yeah and thats an interesting point you make them because President Trump says the us doesnt need middle east oil and wants to get us troops out of the region so whats the main reason then why the bases the still there when actually doing well i think in the broad sense the american. Presence in the middle east is in a recession evidently are slowly withdrawing i would say from it being used as an existential vital National Security interest because it is true that just in the last 2 years i thank for the 1st time since 959. 00 the us has become a net exporter of energy and alternative sources to petroleum are rapidly rising so so that is true the us says it less direct Energy Financial interests there nonetheless. Petroleum will be central to the World Economy political systems the ability for the remainder of your in my life times and therefore the middle east is a strategic the vital area and i dont see us losing our National Interests there in that regard any time soon there glenn lets just take a look if we can irans pasta in the middle east i mean we know it has. Oxys than iraq syria yemen lebanon but of course lets remind our viewers that iran is on the crippling us sanctions on how is it funding its influence and its wars right across the region yeah well im glad you raised that point is something to that we should bunk right away is the assertion that donald trump has made since he came on to the National Scene politically and just made recently again he makes it all the time that the nuclear deal with iran gave obama then gave 150000000000. 00 i think he said it was the figure to iran with which iran is now funding terrorism thats a typically grotesque misrepresentation of the truth what happened in the agreement was that the funds that had been sequestered or are frozen as a result of the seizure of the American Embassy in 1979 were released so this was a rainy and money that he was going back to them it is does appear true however that the iranians used some of those funds to fund their proxies and their activities in the in the beyond the Iranian Border rather than building highways or schools so that is true. You know you can always print more money and the people can again tighten their belts a bit more so that you can buy more guns and this tends to be Governments Fund themselves so those who suffer most immediately from financial sanctions and penury are the average citizen rather than the governments militaries that which are as i then call we have to leave it there thank you very much indeed for talking to counting the cost and time well as tensions between the u. S. And iran escalated the economics editor of a dolly caught up with the chief executive of Rolls Royce Motor Cars the luxury brand was reporting record sales as a strong presence in the middle east when he began by asking toast and my boss about uncertainty in the region and would that have an impact on the company. Our in various very hard to forecast as you can imagine we are always watching closely what happens in all our markets worldwide i mean we are not immune as a luxury brand thoughts and you just drop sions like political things going on or whatever so for that reason we are looking we are watching it but i cant tell you anything on what will happen over the next weeks or months so lets look into it so far i can tell you that the order bank coming from the middle Eastern Market is pretty robust force and looks good and we havent seen any decline over the last days so for that reason it is as it was in 2019 but lets wait and see what happens i want to focus on Climate Change and were seeing the impact of that around the world what is rules royce doing to make sure its reducing its Carbon Emissions in this decade rose royce will go electric thats already decided we are working on it it will happen step by step by step and our Long Term Strategy is also clear we launched you might remember a couple of years ago the you want all 3 excel we call it our vision car which was the lighthouse for 2040 and that clearly set the past electrified future so we will go electric step by step by step and that happens over or in this decade and over the next decades rest assured that we are on it and there we are aware of it. Now home production and the pork market in china were valued at 213000000000. 00 in 2018 but african swine flu a contagious disease has wiped out 200000000. 00 pigs on farms all over asia particularly in china well the chinese love eating pork but shortages of their favorite food has pushed chinas Consumer Price index to its highest in 7 years chinese demand is also reshaped global meat markets and the government looking overseas to satisfy domestic appetites katrina you reports now from beijing. Shredded pork and braised. Just some of the most popular dishes served during the Chinese New Year holiday. But as families in china welcome the year of the rat few a pork items may be on the menu in recent months prices have more than doubled not knowing where you would be if prices keep going up like this then i will order and eat pork or even try not as frequently as before. African swine flu has wiped out hearts of chinas hope its up to 200000000. 00 farm pigs have died since the outbreak began a year ago harmless to humans the contagious disease kills pigs within 10 days there is no vaccine and. China has 26000000 people and the industry is crucial. Because of this shortage has caught everyones attention including Farmers Consumers and the gama. The Chinese Government has released more than 100000 tonnes of Strategic Reserves to ease demand and lifted environmental restrictions on peak farming china consumers hoffs the worlds pork and during the Chinese New Year holiday demography seeks to address the source its the Chinese Government has a. Wide standing sprint to buy more. And is pushing a poor price as world wide beijing has ramped up pork imports from the European Union and despite the trade is awaiting tariffs on u. S. Pork its also boosting imports of other meat protein including australian musson beef and chicken from brazil. Agricultural experts say the poor could effect eating habits in the long term. For now chinas Favorite Meat but with no when to the shortage in sight it will continue to be more costly to bring home the bacon. Now the whole question of how we get our protein fix has gained prominence against the backdrop of Climate ChangeAnimal Agriculture is responsible for about 9 percent of human caused Carbon Dioxide emissions globally and with a growing population a rising middle class that can only increase so lets bring in and leading experts in this field from tracked in the netherlands we have Justin Sherrod and justin is a global strategist on Animal Protein and dutch bank robber bank just in so lets pick up on this issue of animal production we know its a huge contributor to global c o 2 emissions so tell us what needs to change or are we just so addicted to meat thank you derek i dont think were addicted to nature i dont think thats the right way of thinking about it mate is a staple part of diets of most people around the world in the way that you think of of rice in the way you think of bread as being a staple part of the diet so i dont think its about addiction what it is about is how were going to change the emissions signature associated with make production and consumption in the future and in on a Positive Side we start to see commitments being made by some of the larger leading Animal Protein companies in europe and in the United States about reducing the Greenhouse Gas emissions associated with the whole supply chain were not seeing the action just years were not seeing enough companies and as many players as we need to see along the supply chain making those commitments but i do believe were going to see much more of that as we move through the 2020 is the decade where we really need to deliver on the World Sustainable Development goals the 20 yet and just and we know that african swine flu has taken a devastating toll on the pig populations in china and asia but its also reshaped the International Market with more exports from places like europe from latin america so what can we expect for the rest of the year youre right its had a devastating. Impact and and it that they the level of devastation is something that will continue with us for over the coming years we have never seen in in our living memory the type of reduction in Coal Production in an Animal Protein production in the world that we saw in 2019 as an impact of african swine fever and principally that was because of the impacts of this deadly disease with on the pork production on the pig population in china this year we are going to see more reduction in pork production in china china which constitutes about half of the worlds total pork production up until 28. 00 in last year sorra a quarter taken from its total production so down 25 percent in 19 it will be down by about 10 percent to 15 percent maybe closer to 15 percent 12020 ok so lets talk about your outlook for this year 2020 you talked about wildcat seafood being in decline is this due to warming sea temperatures i mean whats causing this oh look wild catch seafood this is were talking here about hundreds and hundreds of different species across the pacific the indian the atlantic oceans its not easy to put your finger on just one thing that is contributing d to year to year changes in some cases warming sea temperatures may be contributing to a decline but probably the biggest factor than that is the way that regulation. Around the el hour will catches the legal catches it made it is starting to well is continuing to tighten up and we see a slight reduction in total allowable catch in some of these fishing waters just so lets just talk about the move to non meat based products like plant based theres plant based sausages we see compass. Its like impossible foods making a big statement in the marketplace whats the potential for the industry here but i think theres 2 points to make about this type of product the plant based at the plant by sausage citrus the 1st point to my just think is the obvious one which is there seems to be enormous attention and enormous potential around these products and the 2nd point to make you know its equally important is that they are starting from quite a lot of bodies and we need to take that into account when we think about what their potential is what they contribution is to worlds population of feeding the worlds population with protein in the future as a category in general in places like north america and europe weve probably saying growth of somewhere around 15 in some cases maybe as high as 20 percent year on year in this category when you Start Talking about something growing at 15 to 20 percent and doing that over a period of a couple of years its not surprising that they get a lot of a lot of attention and and they and they are set to continue growing well into the 20 twentys but they are still at quite a load bias in europe for example if you think about they scattered agree you probably have at the moment somewhere around 200000 tonnes of these products being consumed per year now while that might sound like a big number 200000 tons you probably need to compare that to Something Like 16000000. 00 tons of mate and seafood which is being consumed at the same time just and we have to leave it there thank you very much indeed the talking to al jazeera thank you don now Silicon Valleys big tech giants have often been criticized for not paying their fair share of taxes much of the problem exists because of International Laws that allow corporations to book their earnings and pay their taxes in the country of their choosing but france is leading a group of nations in imposing a tax on the revenues of Google Facebook and amazon and thats threatening to escalate a trade war the United States has proposed tower of some 2. 4. 1000000000. 00 of french goods but the french have warned the e. U. Will retaliate in selling austria i am turkey have imposed their own levies and the u. K. Is about to follow despite wanting to sign a trade deal post brigs it with washington so lets break this down now with julian david who joins us from london the julians executive director of tech u. K. Thats a Digital Technology trade association so julian Tech Companies like facebook Amazon Google or love talking about disruption but i mean one area they seem to have cause disruption controversy is this low level of Corporation Tax which they pay so what exactly have they done wrong and are they breaking the law well obviously no company should break the law and the problem here isnt really about breaking the law darron its about the way that taxation is still stuck in an old model and it doesnt just apply to Tech Companies its any Company UsingDigital Technology remember one of the original cases that came to prominence was about coffee chains and it applies to pharmaceutical companies and Financial Services companies ecommerce Online Sales Companies including obviously Tech Companies so the problem here is that the taxation system isnt fit for the new world that we live in its an interesting point you make julian because these companies will say look as you just said that whats broken here are these rather antiquated Corporation Tax laws and theyre really not fit for the digital age of today well exactly youre out on it and it thats the problem and its a problem of the fact that trading these days is international all sorts of companies every type of company is now operating across multiple fees multiple textures dictions and everything is now becoming more and more digital because thats what customers want customers want the convenience of the online world they want to use these new tools they want to use these new ways of doing business and the taxation provisions havent kept up with that and thats what needs to be changed and you know we know that the organization for Economic Cooperation and development was working on a fix. Make the tax much fairer but that seems that been sidelined for now so whats the latest with that well this is part this is partly the problem which is it does need to be fixed at a global level because if not then what youll have is complication people trying to arbitrate between the tax regimes which is part of the problem thats going on at the moment and the o. E. C. D. Is working on that they do to to produce things this year and whats happening d there is that because of populist sort of approach to this that some governments are responding to theyre actually bringing out their own versions while its only going to make things worse and if you look at the french example in the u. K. Example which we looked at in detail both of those have got really strong problems in them and they add more complexity and complication yet judy let me try and broaden this out because i mean could this issue of a digital tax actually escalate a trade war between countries because weve already seen the usa and france as you just intimated come to blows over this well exactly its already clear that the u. S. Has said look what youre doing in france is just targeting d our companies and the example they gave is advertising revenues so what they say is if you look at Search Engines most of their revenue comes from advertising and and the french have devised the tax the Digital Services tax which just aims at that kind of revenue but if youre another advertiser in france you dont have to pay this tax even though you might be using a Search Engine in order to allow your customers and your Business Partners to operate so the americans have said very clearly this is just a tariff its a is a barrier to business and youre targeting our companies and thats going to be a problem and we think the same will happen with the u. K. s proposed age and services tax the the us will say well look at this this is just aimed at our kind of companies and therefore any kind of agreement we have you have got to remove this so we do think its going to be a problem of the e. U. E. U. Where you weighing in on the side of the french not going to make life better do lets just talk about do. Well if we can because google recently said it would no longer use its irish the netherlands tax work around how much does that have to do with the us putting pressure on these companies to pay more tax in the u. S. Well here you go i mean if you can have more of a consistent approach to taxation Corporation Taxation then you will stop the kind of unusual behavior a particular approach is that double irish if you will all those kind of things that companies have in some ways been forced to to deploy because remember these people have additional duty to their shareholders to the company itself to pay only the tax that theyre due to play that theyre not supposed to pay more as some sort of voluntary agreement judy let me get a final thought from you because with more trade and commerce taking place online i mean how do you see Companies Responding to the political and social pressures even of a digital tax well heres the thing i think companies these days recognize the impose the communities they operate it they recognize the services of those communities rights and the contribution they should make to that and i think the Companies Want a fair and reasonable system they also want to make sure and we need to really focus on this in the u. K. As as we go into that the new relationship with the e. U. The new Global Britain that doesnt this incentivize people from investing so for example were very worried about the way the Digital Services tax might be viewed by investors if you get to a certain size on an oil platform in the u. K. Are some fantastic on Online Ecommerce platforms food delivery and other types of Convenience Service platforms want to get to a certain size then you become the target this time so the unintended consequence can be that we discourage the Digital Economy growing in the u. K. And its one of the u. K. s Great Success stories or attitude and david thank you very much indeed for talking to counting the cost thank you. And thats our show for this week but remember you can get in touch with us via twitter use the hash tag a j c t c when you do drop. An email counting the cost of aljazeera net is our address. But theres more for you online at aljazeera dot com slash c. T. C. That will take you straight to our page which as individual reports links an entire episode for you to catch up. Well thats all for this edition of counting the cost im down in jordan for the whole team thanks for joining us the news an aljazeera is next. Across europe immigration is high on the agenda and in hungary its presented as a pressing issues we didnt have immigrants at all 0 immigration but this is the one political topic anybody and everybody is discussing the far right is preparing for battle and their opponents or anyone who is different. Prejudiced some fried in hungry on aljazeera. The whole d. N. A. Of aljazeera is to deliver news of people who are subject to the decisions made by the powerful are simply no way to put all these people theyre all individuals with children the lowlifes of it but stories this place has become a complete trap you have to feel or to cheat the you see to this in respects. Hello there im a star in doha with the headlines on aljazeera talks on a permanent ceasefire in libya have failed to reach a breakthrough the head of the un recognized government fires also raj and warlord Khalifa Haftar were both in moscow for negotiations brokered by russia and turkey from their step fasten reports. The aim of mondays meeting in moscow was to formalize to cease fire that started in libya on sunday 24 hours earlier russia and turkey invited fired outside ratch Prime Minister of the un backed government and warlord after to sign a more permanent truth thats aimed at beefing the way towards formal negotiations