with stephen sackur. welcome too hard to talk. i am a stephen sackur. all of the conflicts and tensions in the wider middle east coalesce in the discordant politics of one small state: lebanon. currently a quarter of the lebanese population is made of syrians seeking refuge from war. iran wields huge influence through its sponsorship of the shia islamist group hezbollah, while israel has a history of intervention in its northern neighbour. my guest today is lebanese foreign minister gebran bassil. is his government making lebanon s problems worse? gebran bassil, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. once again, it looks as though lebanon could be drawn in to a dangerous regional conflict. and your government appears to be doing nothing right now to reduce the tension. why is that? actually, we wa nt to tension. why is that? actually, we want to avoid getting into any trouble. our policy is to be disassociated from any conflict in the region but we are obliged to protect our country
minister a month ago, and military generalses have been gaining strength but that seems to be the final nail in the coffin. is that your read? reporter: that s right, deirdre. we re obviously waiting for some reaction out of the white house to all of this. very fast-moving story. we heard secretary of state john kerry commenting that he did not know much about the situation in turkey right now but hoped that peace and continuity continued there. this is very, very critical relationship for the united turkey, a key military ally in the region, in the fight against isis and in other major issues in that part of the country, that part of the world, but also, very tough balancing act for any administration because of the situation with the kurds there. we are allied with the kurds in the fight against isis. but, kurdish roesch bells are trying to secede from part of turkey. so turkey says it is battling our, some of our key allies there. so the united states and erdogan administr
until 2009. that s when we saw this explosion of all the stores. . also to get data in order. we have so little data and i think that s really important for good policy to be made before we roll this out and commercialize it, we really need to look at this situation and do it slowly and be very thoughtful and set up the regulations first. let me add to what happened in 2009 is attorney general holder on behalf of the obama administration announced that they were going to depriority ipes marijuana offenses. so even though e-mailed legalized it in 2000, that s certainly when the momentum started. my pieces of advice, i think would be very simple, to not underestimate the lobby and the industry that s behind this. i think that s something that we are still doing in colorado and i think that the idea that this is a grass roots people s movement, that s just silly. the idea might be. decriminalization might be, but legalization in colorado has become completely synonymous wi
long been simmering there. that has created folder abilities within the iraqi government and in the security forces. any action that we may take to iraqie assistance to security forces has to be joined by a serious and secure effort asideqi leaders to set sectarian differences, promote stability, and account for the legitimate interests of all iraq s communities and to build an effective security force. we cannot do it for them. in the absence of this type of lyrical effort, short-term military action, including any assistance we might provide, won t succeed. this should be a wake up call. iraq s leaders have to demonstrate a willingness to make our decisions and compromises. hard decisions and compromises. in that effort, they will have the support of the united states and our friends and our allies. have someghbors responsibility to support this process. nobody has an interest in seeing terrorists gain a foothold inside of iraq and no one has any benefit from seeing iraq
founding principles of jury duty. at this point, i think if most people had to choose between jury duty and leading a soldier crash on your couch, we would choose the latter. the eighth amendment protects us from cruel and unusual punishment, which apparently does not include strapping a citizen to a table and murdering them. i guess that is some sort of judgment call. the rest of the civilized world has stopped practicing capital punishment, and meanwhile, officials in oklahoma we leave the last minute of this and take you lie to a briefing in san antonio, texas, for the latest on the situation on sergeant bowe bergdahl, held captive in afghanistan for years. click the mission lead missionters the lead headquarters for this, the integration phase. today, we address your questions on the integration of sergeant bowe bergdahl, who is now here at fort sam houston. our panel today includes the reintegration mission commander southmmander of u.s. army major general joseph