RT — America Now
20260806 010000 UTC
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[00:00:19] is
[00:00:19] a 9:00 p.m. on the east coast, I'm Ben
[00:00:20] of Swan, here are the stories we're following at this hour. First, could the United
[00:00:24] States be losing two
[00:00:26] of wars for the price of one? We'll explain. And a secret military.
[00:00:30] Test, a civilian aircraft and four people dead. We detailed the new report
[00:00:34] raising serious questions about experimental weapons in
[00:00:37] America. And finally, the
[00:00:39] of migrant crisis in Spain isn't just about borders anymore, it's now
[00:00:43] reigniting a high stakes power struggle for energy. On
[00:00:47] this show, we know you don't need more
[00:00:48] of content, but you do need context. Anybody can tell you what's happening in the
[00:00:52] news? Tonight we hope to help you understand why it's happening, how it's
[00:00:56] happening, and how it affects
[00:00:58] of you. of This is America now.
[00:01:09] Well, last night, Kieve was hammered, and the real story isn't
[00:01:13] the resulting damage, but the reason they couldn't defend themselves.
[00:01:17] Russia launched a massive barrage of
[00:01:19] of ballistic and hypersonic missiles against the Ukrainian capital
[00:01:22] overnight. Reports indicate that that attack included at least
[00:01:25] 20 Iscander M and S400 ballistic
[00:01:29] missiles. four hypersonic
[00:01:31] of cruise missiles as well as over 100 drones, fires
[00:01:35] erupted across Kiev, warehouses, logistics hubs, industrial
[00:01:39] facilities, even
[00:01:40] of major shopping center were hit, but here's the question:
[00:01:43] why? why did 100% of those missiles get
[00:01:47] through? because
[00:01:48] of Ukraine didn't fire even one interceptor, not one.
[00:01:52] 39 Russian missiles successfully hit their targets, and it's
[00:01:56] all because Ukraine has run out of patriot...
[00:02:00] of interceptors: the patriot system is not magic, it only works if you have missiles to
[00:02:04] fire, right? and according to Ukrainian officials, the last available interceptors
[00:02:08] were fired days ago, that is stunning
[00:02:12] of admission, but even more deflating
[00:02:13] of for of Kiev, President Trump has denied Zelinski's request for more
[00:02:17] patriots. Trump says that the US needs them in the
[00:02:20] of Middle East, and the entire Ukraine strategy so far has been to let the
[00:02:24] US defend them. So now, the United States and NATO and
[00:02:28] Ukraine
[00:02:29] of find themselves. a strategic nightmare, they may be losing
[00:02:32] two wars for the price of one, one in Europe and one in the
[00:02:36] Middle East, and both are competing for the same missile
[00:02:40] interceptors. By the way, that's not politics, that is industrial
[00:02:43] math, and the math is not looking good. a single
[00:02:47] patriot battery costs around $1.1 billion, but the
[00:02:51] real expense, they aren't the launchers, it's the interceptors
[00:02:55] themselves. see each pack th missile costs about $4
[00:02:57] million again, That's each. And
[00:03:01] here's the part the few people understand. It
[00:03:03] of takes more than 2 years to build just one
[00:03:06] of of them. Two years. You cannot surge that overnight. You can't flip
[00:03:10] a switch. You can't order
[00:03:12] of Amazon Prime for missile defense. The supply chain is complex,
[00:03:15] advanced seekers, solid rocket mortars, high-end
[00:03:18] microelectronics, specialized composite materials. See, many
[00:03:22] of those
[00:03:23] in components come from a small number of highly specialized suppliers that were
[00:03:27] already running the capacity before the Russia-ukraine. war
[00:03:31] and that's why even Lockheed Martin and RTX are spending billions
[00:03:35] of dollars to expand their factories. Lockhead says it plans to
[00:03:38] triple Pack 3 production, but not until
[00:03:42] 2030. So
[00:03:43] of let of of that sink in, right? We're talking about a war that is happening right
[00:03:47] now, and the industrial response, four years
[00:03:51] of away. Today, the United States produces fewer than 1,00
[00:03:54] of patriot interceptors per year, so even with that triple
[00:03:58] production in
[00:03:59] of 2030, that's... still less than 3,000
[00:04:01] a year. military contractors insisted for
[00:04:05] years that 1,00 year, ah, that's plenty, don't worry, that was
[00:04:09] until of course the Russia-Ukraine war, until ballistic missiles began raining down
[00:04:13] on cities week after week, until the United States found itself firing
[00:04:17] of patriot and that interceptors, not in training, but in combat to stop
[00:04:21] Iranian missiles, and of course, you got the drones, because
[00:04:25] of 10,00 drones against 1,000 interceptors, well
[00:04:29] kids that math. does not math, so let's get a little deeper here,
[00:04:33] who makes the
[00:04:33] of patriot interceptors? well, it's Rtx, formerly Ratheon, they build the Patriot
[00:04:37] system, right? Locke
[00:04:39] of Martin builds the PAC interceptor, and while Germany and Japan have been licensed to
[00:04:43] produce parts of that system, they do
[00:04:46] a not have the
[00:04:48] of of industrial capacity to solve a global shortage,
[00:04:49] of which brings us of course to Ukraine's Zelinski. He hasn't just been
[00:04:53] asking for more missiles, he's been asking for something much bigger,
[00:04:57] the right to build them himself. At the NATO summit last month,
[00:05:01] President Trump suggested that Ukraine, could receive
[00:05:04] license
[00:05:05] a in the future to manufacture patriots. Listen, so one
[00:05:09] of the things we're going to be talking about is you'll
[00:05:11] uh, we're going to give license.
[00:05:12] to you to make patriots, that's pretty cool,
[00:05:15] this way he can't complain that we're not giving them enough, it's say make
[00:05:19] him yourself, yeah, but not long after that
[00:05:23] cabinet meeting in Camp David, the president changed his
[00:05:26] mind, we have to be very careful
[00:05:29] about letting somebody build them, you have to be
[00:05:32] very judicious, but you have to be very
[00:05:35] careful, now we have not agreed
[00:05:38] to that, we're talking about it, but it's a hard thing to give. away that
[00:05:42] kind of technology, yeah, it's a hard thing, and again as of today,
[00:05:46] President Trump has rejected Zelinsky's request for patriot
[00:05:50] interceptors, stating the missiles are needed to defend US ass assets in the
[00:05:54] Middle East, and here's something important to understand, even if, and that's a big
[00:05:58] if, that license were approved tomorrow, it wouldn't change this
[00:06:02] war, not this year, maybe not four years, because building missiles
[00:06:05] isn't like building the pickup truck, you need factories, and you need new tooling,
[00:06:09] new suppliers, highly trained engineers, long lead time components,
[00:06:13] years of certification,
[00:06:16] and if you're
[00:06:16] in the middle of a war zone, how are you going
[00:06:18] to keep those facilities from being destroyed, look, you can't solve
[00:06:22] a missile shortage by signing a piece of paper, so maybe the biggest story
[00:06:25] here isn't what happened in Kiev last night, it's what happened to
[00:06:29] America's defense industrial base for the past couple of decades,
[00:06:33] because if the United States can no longer produce missile defense systems
[00:06:37] faster than our adversaries can force us to fire them, then
[00:06:41] this isn't a Ukraine problem. This is not an Iran problem,
[00:06:44] this is an American problem. The United States may have treated what
[00:06:48] it thought would be a short-term victory, and instead traded
[00:06:52] it for long-term strategic liabilities.
[00:06:56] Again, we may be losing two wars for the price of one, one because
[00:07:00] Ukraine is running out the missiles that it needs to defend it cities, it has
[00:07:03] none, the other because our own stock piles were depleted
[00:07:07] fighting a war with Iran that hasn't made the Middle East one bit
[00:07:11] safer, and the heart. truth of all, you can't rebuild a
[00:07:15] missile stock pile with a speech, you can't surge defense
[00:07:18] industrial base with a press conference, and you cannot win a war
[00:07:22] if you cannot build the weapons fast enough to fight it, and that
[00:07:26] may be the real lesson of what happened in Kiev last night,
[00:07:30] so joining us now to discuss, we have Ben Freeman, he is the author the trillion dollar war
[00:07:34] machine, how runaway military spending drives America into foreign wars
[00:07:37] and banks bankrupts us at home, I can't think of better
[00:07:41] title, can't... better way of talking about this issue, and
[00:07:45] let's begin by taking aim, I would say pun not
[00:07:48] intended, but maybe it is, at military contractors, right, because
[00:07:52] those contractors been, I think, have absolutely run a
[00:07:56] scam on the American people, they have run a scam on
[00:08:00] everything that they're supposed to be protecting against, they have created
[00:08:03] a business of war instead of creating
[00:08:07] the the obligation and duty for defense of our
[00:08:11] country. "I think that's absolutely right, Ben
[00:08:14] uh, I'm remissed if I don't say thank you so much for having me, it's an honor, I'm a fan
[00:08:18] the show, so it's it's an honor to be here for the first time, um, but you
[00:08:22] really hit the nail on the head there, and you when you're talking about two companies
[00:08:26] like this, uh, RTX, formerly Raythion and Lockey
[00:08:29] Martin, war is profitable to them, you you when a conflict breaks
[00:08:33] out, whether it's in Ukraine or whether it's in Iran, their stock prices
[00:08:37] surge, their military contracts go up, and
[00:08:41] and the problem..." that
[00:08:43] we have in the issue that that you laid out in the
[00:08:45] opening and you hinted at it very quick is that this
[00:08:49] problem is actually decades in the making
[00:08:52] and
[00:08:53] and I would trace this back at least to the 90s
[00:08:57] and into a period of of what we call defense
[00:09:00] consolidation where you had the so-called peace dividend at the end the cold
[00:09:04] war, things weren't looking so scary out there, so the Pentagon
[00:09:08] decides that we want fewer and fewer contractors, and so what ends up
[00:09:11] happening is the... firms like the lockeeds, the Rathions, they start
[00:09:15] buying up all the little guys here and there, and they become
[00:09:19] these these mega firms, these so-called primes, well what the primes figured
[00:09:22] out real quick was that things like
[00:09:26] munitions, well they didn't have the profit margins that they
[00:09:30] wanted, they didn't have the profit margin of say an f35 or
[00:09:33] litoral combat ship, and so they started making less
[00:09:37] and less these and munition started becoming
[00:09:40] soul source into the... to the point where you have now, where you
[00:09:44] only have one or two these factories running, so you
[00:09:48] just don't have the search capacity, and that is what
[00:09:52] ultimately has led to the point that you so eloquently laid out in your
[00:09:56] opening. you know, i i appreciate that. i think one
[00:09:59] the biggest issues that we're facing with all of this, and i
[00:10:03] think we've been exposed to the Iran war, is the idea that
[00:10:07] most Americans,
[00:10:08] i think most of our adversaries around the world would have believed.
[00:10:12] our stock piles are deep, much deeper than we're letting on,
[00:10:16] but what was actually happening is that you had military contractors
[00:10:20] who of course encourage all these wars, they lobby for them, they go out and give
[00:10:24] money to... to vote for them, and then they
[00:10:27] say, with Ukraine for example, let's just give them on the old
[00:10:31] stock piles, right? we'll just clear them all out, because what that does is it
[00:10:34] brings in multi-billion dollar orders for new
[00:10:38] patriot interceptors and new missiles, and so they say, oh, great,
[00:10:42] so, and I've heard this from lot of politicians over the last couple of years the Ukraine
[00:10:46] war, don't worry, that money is not really going to Ukraine, it's going here at
[00:10:50] home to build more missiles and more weapons and new updated
[00:10:53] stuff, but as we talked about... "the lead time is so long that if you
[00:10:57] do that, you have the exact
[00:10:59] scenario that we're living in right now, which is
[00:11:03] you've run out the old stuff, but you don't have time to replace it with new
[00:11:07] stuff. that's years and years down the road. it feels
[00:11:11] like malpractice to
[00:11:13] me. i could not
[00:11:17] agree more ben, and it's not just you know financial
[00:11:21] malpractice here, there's a real national security threat to..."
[00:11:25] to this lobbying enterprise that you were talking about that is very active, you
[00:11:29] documented in in the trillion dollar war machine, and what
[00:11:33] goes on, them pushing for these conflicts, these these wars
[00:11:37] of choice, these these expenditures of US arms,
[00:11:40] ultimately it makes us weaker, because now
[00:11:44] while we're fighting a war of choice here with Iran,
[00:11:47] we're not prepared as much for the wars of necessity that might
[00:11:51] come down the pipe, you
[00:11:53] if you're China sitting out there... right now and i i think a lot the china fear
[00:11:57] mongering is very overblown, i'll say that up front, but if you are China sitting
[00:12:01] out there right now, you're looking at the US, you see these stories in the
[00:12:05] headlines the the US running out of bombs, running out of missile
[00:12:08] interceptors, running out of surface to surface weapons right now,
[00:12:12] man, if there was ever a time to to go over there and take
[00:12:15] Taiwan, this you might
[00:12:17] know be it, and and you know when you think about that, i certainly hope
[00:12:21] they don't do that, but when you think about that, that's the real...
[00:12:25] cost the military industrial complex
[00:12:28] constantly pushing for these conflicts, constantly
[00:12:32] pushing for the uf, the us to give our weapons, to
[00:12:35] give our security away. you know, trump did something uh,
[00:12:39] i don't think it was intentional or even in the way that that i'm going to express it, but i
[00:12:43] think he did something correct when he renamed the department of defense to the department of
[00:12:46] war, right? it has long been the department of war uh, and and it's
[00:12:50] not been a department of defense, but if it were the department of defense, everything
[00:12:54] we should be doing is about those stock piles and it's about making sure that we
[00:12:58] can protect our nation. We are at this moment, I think,
[00:13:02] I i've said it for the last couple of days, but deeply exposed in ways
[00:13:06] that I would never have imagined, I'm sure you as well, would never have imagined
[00:13:09] even five months ago. To your point, if the Chinese
[00:13:13] decided to take Taiwan, if the Russians decide, you know what, at this point,
[00:13:17] Ukraine has no interceptors, we can lay waste to the whole country. We
[00:13:21] didn't really want to take the whole thing, but we can, now we can do whatever we want because...
[00:13:25] because no one can really stop us, that I would lay at the feet the
[00:13:28] pentagon, but also those contractors who I think have misled the
[00:13:32] administration about what our capabilities actually were, when they
[00:13:36] were nothing the sort. I'll give you the last word
[00:13:38] here. 100%, and
[00:13:42] I
[00:13:42] I I completely agree with all that, and I would just add one more thing on on the contractor
[00:13:46] malpractice here, is that addition to everything we've we've already
[00:13:50] said, they have intentionally and and
[00:13:53] forcefully... stifled innovation at the department of
[00:13:57] defense, they have kept out for years
[00:14:01] firms who could do lot these tasks a fraction
[00:14:05] the cost, so you
[00:14:06] you know when when you talk about a missile interceptor, some these missiles costing millions
[00:14:10] of dollars for every you know small thing that either
[00:14:13] Russia or Iran is sending out, we know from the defense
[00:14:17] tech firms that they could do this a fraction the cost, for years,
[00:14:21] for decades actually the primes kept them out the business, only in the
[00:14:25] last couple years that we see these firms rising up, so again,
[00:14:29] this is decades long problem that we are unfortunately having to
[00:14:33] face as nation right now. Ben
[00:14:36] Freeman, we appreciate your time on this, thanks so much. Thank you so
[00:14:40] much, Ben, take care. All right, well,
[00:14:44] meanwhile, tonight, let's talk about deadly plane crash that happened in New Mexico and it's
[00:14:48] raising major questions about military technology, and
[00:14:52] whether or not that actually played role in all this, so joining me now. is Julissa
[00:14:55] Duro sitting in the chair, so we'll come over here and have a conversation about
[00:14:58] this. You know, I've seen the headlines about this. Let's lay out
[00:15:02] exactly what happened and then kind the theory around it bause there's a lot of claims
[00:15:06] online that this was actually kind of a downed military plane,
[00:15:10] correct? Right, so you have um, you have investigators
[00:15:13] investigating, they're investigating whether it was a
[00:15:17] military signal jamming operation that brought down that medivac
[00:15:20] civilian aircraft in New Mexico, like we said, so
[00:15:23] you know we spoke with. a professional on this who says that
[00:15:27] essentially what happened is you have two young pilots who are manning the plane
[00:15:30] 23 and 30 um and you have them flying a particularly
[00:15:34] dark night the moon was not uh you know shining super bright, there was overcast, but
[00:15:38] there wasn't turbulent uh weather right, but it's especially dark
[00:15:41] excuse me, it's especially dangerous because it's so dark so they can't
[00:15:45] navigate. now what happened was the military or the
[00:15:48] CVB was conducting a uh GPS jamming
[00:15:52] operation and the thing with that jamming operation is that it's
[00:15:55] not uh it doesn't have tight scope on exactly what's being jammed and
[00:15:59] where imagine like paint splatter it's just kind of like this is where we're going and it could
[00:16:03] it's as far as as who knows really and so it's not.
[00:16:07] for second so i can understand so catch me up though so the the the kind of
[00:16:11] plane that went down what what exactly was it that went down it was a medac plane
[00:16:15] so there it was four uh three personnel i think they were or they
[00:16:19] were heading to or coming to pick up uh somebody who needed emergency medical services
[00:16:23] and they crashed into the side of a mountain and
[00:16:27] this was because the gps uh there were number of reasons actually which is why it's so
[00:16:31] controversial this is really what the essent the the the point the entire
[00:16:34] story is you have articles online that are kind of since sensationalizing it, nobody
[00:16:38] really knows head from tails right, but but what are what are the big claims,
[00:16:42] like if we're talking about like the biggest conspiracy around it, what are the big claims that are being
[00:16:46] made? the claim here is that the United States is using secret uh
[00:16:50] equipment to take down planes or that we're using secret equipment that c
[00:16:53] civilians don't know about other testing special weapons on
[00:16:57] you know American civilians when I mean that's kind of uh it's not
[00:17:01] really what happened when you look at the facts actually it seems to be that this is uh just an
[00:17:05] unfortunate situation there are many things that people are looking at, for
[00:17:08] instance, like we said the weather, um,
[00:17:11] you know, the uh air traffic controllers in that area for that airport, that
[00:17:15] landing strip, they were not there that night to be able to adjust or to notify them about
[00:17:19] their elevation being 9,00, and it was supposed to be 12. why were they not there? where were they? it
[00:17:23] was too late, it was too late, so the air traffic control had gone
[00:17:26] home, yes, the plane is flying at 9,00,
[00:17:30] yes, feet instead of a 12,00, instead of $12,000, the
[00:17:34] GPS, the GPS that they were using, it was... is
[00:17:37] disrupted by this uh by this jamming
[00:17:40] exercise, however there are other ways to track so
[00:17:44] such as uh radio beacons, which is primarily those are the two ways that
[00:17:48] plans can fly, both them are, they have both capabilities in the plane, and you have some
[00:17:52] sound on this, correct? do, we uh spoke with Chris Lado who was an F16 fighter
[00:17:56] pilot, and this is what he had to say on what it looks like. hope they don't
[00:18:00] just deny all jamming,
[00:18:03] um,
[00:18:05] you know, maybe they they could restrict it to day only. um, but then we
[00:18:08] don't get to train against knight GPS jamming. I
[00:18:12] don't, it's difficult to direct. I think ultimately, yeah, the
[00:18:16] best thing for the military and civilian,
[00:18:20] especially after this case, probably just with the amount of publicity that
[00:18:24] it's getting, is to try and come up with some sort of directed
[00:18:27] GPS jammer. So it pretty
[00:18:31] much sounds like he's saying this could have been related to the
[00:18:35] jamming exercises. you gave a great example, we talked about this before the
[00:18:39] show, right? you refer to it as swiss cheese, and the holes in this
[00:18:43] case would have all lined up, right? can you just run through that real quick for us? usually you
[00:18:47] have guidelines or guard places in place in case of
[00:18:51] emergency, right? you experience a problem, there's a hole, but usually there's lines
[00:18:55] with no holes. unfortunately in this situation, all the holes are aligned and every uh
[00:18:59] method to save the situation completely failed is what happened here.
[00:19:02] yeah, it's it's it's tragic and it's very sad that this is the way it played out
[00:19:06] but not every st. no matter how dramatic is always
[00:19:09] conspiracy, exactly, this case it could just be a whole lot of errors
[00:19:13] all happening at
[00:19:14] the same time, perfect storm of, it was it was a contribution, it definitely was a
[00:19:18] contribution, which is what investigators will find, but i think you opposed to the
[00:19:21] headlines it wasn't solely the government, understood, girl, thanks so
[00:19:25] much, okay, let's go over to
[00:19:29] Spain now, right, that recent migrant chaos, we've
[00:19:32] been telling you about this right, in Spain's
[00:19:34] uh seuta region has returned to Madrid. to its
[00:19:38] long-time headache, diplomat balance between neighboring
[00:19:41] Morocco and Algeria. The nations are important for Spain, but from
[00:19:45] different perspectives and at the center of it all is, of course,
[00:19:49] energy. RT correspondent Umana Hchar
[00:19:51] explains. Spain is facing two very different
[00:19:55] crises at the same time, one its border, the other in
[00:19:59] its energy sector, and together they reveal just how difficult it has
[00:20:03] become for Madrid to balance its relationships with both
[00:20:06] Morocco and...
[00:20:38] another issue has quietly become just as important, the
[00:20:41] issue of energy. emit global uncertainty and pressure on
[00:20:45] international gas markets amid the US war in Iran,
[00:20:49] Spain has has been working to reinforce his energy partnership
[00:20:53] with Algers, one of its biggest suppliers of
[00:20:57] natural gas. Algeria was our first supplier of
[00:21:01] natural gas a time of extraordinary uncertainty in international
[00:21:04] markets. From Spain, we especially value Algeria's position as a
[00:21:08] strategic partner and reliable partner. Obviously, it's not just a
[00:21:11] supply relationship, we also want to collaborate to face together the
[00:21:15] challenges the energy transition, technological innovation, and
[00:21:19] also the digital. ation of infrastructure. Today we are at the beginning of
[00:21:23] new phase. Algeria can count on Spain, it's a key partner
[00:21:27] to us with its geographical proximity. Spain's
[00:21:30] position is unique because it shares a maritime border with
[00:21:33] Morocco, key partner migration and security, while
[00:21:37] Algeria supplies much the natural gas that powers spanish homes
[00:21:41] and businesses. For years, Madrid managed to maintain good
[00:21:44] business ties with both of those nearby countries. Up to
[00:21:48] 2021, Alge. Korea was exporting gas to Spain through two
[00:21:52] pipelines: one, the med gas pipeline runs
[00:21:55] directly under the Mediterranean sea, the other, the Magharib Europe
[00:21:59] pipeline ran through neighboring Morocco before going to Spain. The
[00:22:03] arrangement worked for everyone. Alger sold its gas, but about
[00:22:07] earned transit fees and received part the supplies, while Madrid
[00:22:11] benefited from two separate import roots, but that
[00:22:15] changed in 2021. You see, relations between those
[00:22:19] two north. African nations have been tent since the
[00:22:22] 1960s, but they worsen dramatically in
[00:22:26] 2021 over a variety of issues, particularly
[00:22:29] territory in the sahara, and so amid that situation,
[00:22:33] Algeries decided not to renew the contract for the Magharib Europe
[00:22:37] pipeline, ending gas exports through Morocco, that
[00:22:40] is despite Arabat repeatedly expressing its desire to keep the
[00:22:44] route open. Morocco's desire to retain this export
[00:22:48] route has been expressed clear. and consistently at all levels for more
[00:22:52] than three years. Algeria, meanwhile, announced that it would end
[00:22:56] the agreement citing what it described as supposedly hostile
[00:22:59] actions by Morocco. In view the hostile practices
[00:23:03] the kingdom of Morocco towards Algeria, practices that undermine
[00:23:07] national unity, and after consultation with the prime minister, the minister
[00:23:11] of finance, the minister of foreign affairs and national community
[00:23:15] abroad, and the minister of energy and minds, the president the
[00:23:19] republic has instructed the national company, Sonatrack, to
[00:23:23] cease all commercial relations with the Moroccan side, and to not
[00:23:26] renew the contract in question. From then on, Algerian gas
[00:23:30] bound for Spain would travel exclusively through the med gas
[00:23:34] pipeline beneath the Mediterranean, bypassing Morocco
[00:23:38] entirely, and yet Madrid continued emphasize the
[00:23:41] importance of its relationship with Arabat. Morocco has been and
[00:23:45] will remain a strategic ally for Spain and the European Union. Morocco
[00:23:49] is of paramount importance for the interests of Spain, what we want is a
[00:23:53] strategic relationship with Morocco even stronger than before. the
[00:23:57] balancing act became even more complicated in 2022, when
[00:24:01] Spain began supplying gas to Morocco, move that
[00:24:05] raised concerns in Algeria about the origin of that gas.
[00:24:09] Madrid insisted that it was not Algerian.
[00:24:12] Spain is seeking to strengthen energy deals with Algeria while also relying
[00:24:16] on Morocco's cooperation on migration and border.
[00:24:20] management and both relationships are strategically important for
[00:24:24] Spain. The latest events in Sipta, also known as seuta
[00:24:28] have reignited questions about how migration and diplomacy
[00:24:32] intersect in the region. In 2021, after Spain allowed
[00:24:36] the leader of Polisario Front an organization that Morocco sees as
[00:24:39] separatist movement and a proxy group controlled by Algeria, to
[00:24:43] come to Spain and receive a medical treatment, thousands
[00:24:47] of migrants crossed into sa, which... Again is the city that
[00:24:51] Morocco views a Spanish occupied territory, making the whole
[00:24:54] situation even more complicated. Spanish officials then
[00:24:58] accused Morocco of easing border controls during the diplomatic
[00:25:02] dispute, an allegation that Morocco rejected. Whether these
[00:25:06] developments are directly connected or simply unfolding at the same
[00:25:09] time, remains a matter of political debate,
[00:25:12] but what is clear is that Spain's geography leaves it
[00:25:16] closely tied to both Morocco and Algeria, and as my
[00:25:20] ration, energy security and regional tensions continue to
[00:25:23] overlap, maintaining the delicate balance is
[00:25:26] becoming increasingly difficult. fascinating stuff,
[00:25:30] listen, tune into our next hour by the way, because we're going to have in-depth report on
[00:25:34] this migrant crisis and critical look at how the US
[00:25:37] congress may be involved. special guest Harrison Smith will be joining us for
[00:25:41] that. all right, tonight is this real? we have shown
[00:25:45] you the videos, right? you've seen them before, men being ripped off the streets, forced into
[00:25:49] vans, a way to fight, all of that is absolutely real, no
[00:25:53] question about it, but tonight there is new claim, claim that starting august
[00:25:56] 5th, the European Union, no longer granting new temporary
[00:26:00] protection to most draft age. men who cannot prove they are
[00:26:04] they legally left Ukraine or have fulfilled their military
[00:26:08] obligations. EU officials say the change reflects Ukraine's
[00:26:11] changing defense needs. In other words, the manpower
[00:26:15] shortage has become so severe now that Ukraine wants to
[00:26:19] forcibly import men back into the country who made it out
[00:26:23] alive. For months, Zelinsky and European leaders have publicly called
[00:26:27] on Ukrainian men living abroad to come home. Well, now that call is being
[00:26:30] backed by policy. Turns "current protection holders can keep their
[00:26:34] status and temporary protection holders, for most other
[00:26:38] Ukrainians, that's been extended until March 4th, 2028,
[00:26:41] so is this claim about August 5th real? the
[00:26:45] verdict, yes, while protection stay in place for
[00:26:49] some, for military, draft age men, EU protections
[00:26:52] as of tonight are gone. Europe won't send home
[00:26:56] migrants from the Middle East and Africa who have taken over massive portions
[00:27:00] their countries, but if you're a draft. age man from Ukraine, they plan to
[00:27:04] send you forcibly back to die for a war that you cannot
[00:27:08] win. That is America now for now, I'm Ben Swan. For more stories, visit
[00:27:12] our website RT.com and join us every night, 7:89 and 10 pm eastern.
[00:27:16] Thanks for watching, have a great night. Remember, question
[00:27:18] everything.
[00:29:36] me tuve que meter prácticamente a situaciones
[00:29:40] ilícitas, tijuana, cualquier esquina está lleno de
[00:29:43] poster donde hay personas
[00:29:44] desaparecidas, there's a reality in
[00:29:47] mexico,
[00:29:59] hello and welcome to
[00:30:00] crossstalk where all things are considered, i'm peter. Well, the longer the
[00:30:04] US-Israel war of aggression on Iran goes on, the fewer good
[00:30:08] options are available to end it. In fact,
[00:30:11] with every passing day the war widens horizontally, while the American
[00:30:15] administration continues to claim victory, it is being forcibly
[00:30:18] pushed out the Middle
[00:30:20] East.
[00:30:30] To discuss the ongoing war, I'm joined by
[00:30:34] He is a professor at the university of Toran. A warm
[00:30:38] welcome back to the program. We've been doing this for 15
[00:30:41] years now and it's a pleasure to have you just one-on-one for a change here. So
[00:30:45] I'm going to start um quickly with the uh
[00:30:49] I'm sure you saw some the senate uh clips the senate hearing
[00:30:53] with uh the person that claims to be the uh secretary of war
[00:30:56] Pete Heggsed. And I wanted to start out very broad.