The u. N. Says north koreas not only violating International Sanctions but profiting from and is supplying weapons to both syria and me and mom while at the same time the United States announces its beefing up its stocks of Nuclear Weapons we will have details on both stories and how they might intersect also on the grid munching for nationalist on the french on and of course taking their dogs for more freedom to the streets just days before a visit by the french president emanuel much wrong but after a failed bid for secession in spain we wonder are these protesters setting themselves up for disappointment and the bigger they are the steeper the down on the cryptocurrency rollercoaster bitcoin is sinking in value as governments try to tighten controls on digital money but were looking past the headlines because there is almost no doubt that these crypto currency will be a part of our everyday lives event. And im only a hardened southern cameroon joins a long list of regions pushing for independence were following the conversation driven by hashtags demanding the government recognize. Southern kemah has its own country amazonian if youre in cameroon connected with a hash tag. You with the news grid live on air and streaming online through huge of Facebook Live and aljazeera dot com and while the prevailing theory on north korea has been to pile on the sanctions in response to its Nuclear Program we may have the proof this saturday that sanctions dont work the United Nations says north korea is violating International Sanctions with in its words rampant illicit activities to the point where its apparently made two hundred Million Dollars from illegal trading with other countries the u. N. Group investigating the breaches says pyongyang made that money last year by exporting banned commodities around the world and not just that investigators say they have evidence pyongyang helped syria develop its chemical weapons and provided me an mar with Ballistic Missiles the report also shows the north used fake documents to continue shipping banned commodities like iron and steel and also shipped coal to russia china south korea malaysia and vietnam those countries are part of north koreas limited trading circle as youll see in this info graphic from aljazeera com it is basically china thats the eighty three in the eighty five percent you see there and a few others India Pakistan rusher as well and the bulk of those exports that happen as you see from this one minerals mostly cull but also some refined petroleum. And textiles is the other major export apparently coats and suits make up the bulk of those exports so thats whats going out of north korea so lets start with robert kelly who is was a professor of Political Science and diplomacy at Prison National university in south korea hes actually not surprised that north korea has found ways to get around the sanctions. Theres been a lot of discussion about the tightening of sanctions in the last couple years every time we have a round of sanctions at the u. N. We hear about how these are the tightest sanctions ever and north korea is on the ropes. So but its not actually surprising the north korean gauges and sanctions busting china has allowed poor sanctions to sort of go on they tolerated port sanctions now for several decades the North Koreans have also engaged in gangsterism and stuff like that since the one nine hundred seventy s. We know they sort of smuggle gold and people engage in sex trafficking and things like that so all of that is kind of a piece of the larger story of north korean gangsterism and Everything Else its just only kind of surprising there still that successful at this late i think the proper counterfactual on sanctions is to think where north korea be if we didnt have sanctions ok so yes theyre porous and they dont work terribly well in the North Koreans go to cheating right but if they didnt if we didnt have them at the North Koreans sort of running around doing all of this above board then you know instead of having maybe fifty Nuclear Weapons that have two hundred or Something Like that right so i dont think that we should look at sanctions as some kind of cure all or Silver Bullet its not going to be that whale never be that way there too many incentives the sanctions bust i think instead we need to do is just to keep tightening keep having reports like this this kind of stuff in the media right it continues to bring attention so rather than completely shutting north korea off we should narrow the pipeline and i think thats what were really looking for right but sanctions are not going to bring about the collapse the American Ambassador are supposed to be an American Ambassador to south koreas an academic a think tank intellectual named victor cha and dr charles pretty well known in the community of people who do what i do sort of the Analyst Community on korea i know myself and hes got a reputation as a hawks of smart and personable and Everything Else and sir i think a lot of people were looking for to him coming in the Top Administration pulled him back at the very last minute cha is known as a hawk but apparently hes not hawkish enough for the trump ministration and a lot of people are read that as sort of a big red flag that the trump people looking to strike north korea i myself im a little bit concerned i would have thought that victor would have been a shoo in is sort of like a conservative broadly speaking youve got a history in republican politics the United States but they pulled him anyway because i guess he didnt he didnt support a strike which tells me that the trump people are really seriously considering military action in two thousand and eighteen. But north korea is not washingtons only concern when it comes to Nuclear Threats the u. S. Is concerned about russia are expanding its capability so now the trumpet ministration wants to modernize its own arsenal moscows reactor though denouncing the policy as bellicose and is on the way to be a terribly often these guys just last month the defense secretary James Madison said the military was switching the main focus of its National Security to places like china and russia this from a defense correspondent patty telling. Us President Donald Trump never criticizes russian president Vladimir Putin but the pentagon is doing just that moscow retains a large stockpile of nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons and continues to modernize those as well as its Strategic Systems this report says aggression from russia concerns about china and north korea and potentially iran are the reasons the u. S. Needs to modernize its Nuclear Weapons and its changing the wording on when it could use them saying the u. S. Could use Nuclear Weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the u. S. Whats new is they added this line extreme circumstances could include significant non nuclear strategic attacks the military was asked to clarify what that means it would that also involve the employment of biological weapons against the Us Population or allies would involve the use of chemical weapons against our people would involve a conventional tack in other parts of the world the context in which an attack occurred on the United States or allies would be how we would evaluate the appropriate response the plan also calls for modernizing the Nuclear Arsenal thats something the last administration wanted to do and at the time they said it was going to cost more than a trillion dollars over thirty years this plan would undoubtedly be even more expensive and that has not been something that congress has been really willing to fund at this point. U. S. Also wants to build a new kind of weapon a Nuclear Warhead with less impact but critics say that could make nuclear war more likely they are literally having weapons that give the president more options to start a nuclear war and that is becoming dangerous piggly we have this president who we all know is impetuous irrational and not always unsound mind recently three high ranking former diplomats went to capitol hill with the warning that the Massive Destructive force of a Nuclear Weapon was no longer appreciated or even feared by some in those days people seem to have an appreciation of what would what would be the result of a Nuclear Weapon it ever used i fear people have lost that sense of dread the u. S. Under President Trump is trying to improve its Nuclear Arsenal and the potential reasons to use it they say in order to improve the odds it wont have to particle hane aljazeera washington. Just before we speak to i guess i want to put all this and sort of perspective of got a Global Nuclear map here actually a advent diagram remember those from metz classes in school list of thing which basically shows the countries in the left hand circle are the ones which have Nuclear Power the ones on the right are the ones with Nuclear Weapons and the ones in the middle have both so its the usual suspects United States france russia india the u. K. China but also notice theres actually belgium and the netherlands there not necessarily with their own weapons but under agreements with the United States or nato they will house and facilitate Nuclear Weapons in their territories so its those countries in the middle that were talking about and were talking about it with china white is an assistant professor of Political Science at the university of nebraska joining us via skype now from lincoln nebraska and it is good to have you with us i guess we need to be fair hair and look at it on both sides the Current Us Administration its argument is that we need to be prepared for the world that exists now not the world that we would like to have hence lets before power austin ill and make sure that where ready for all of this its an argument. Yet thanks again for having me on so its an argument that we weve always sort of heard being me and let me look at the Nuclear Posture review that just came out and its actually being its coming out in writing now when obama stood in prague and basically gave the speech about getting to zero or at least his his ideal goal of getting to zero you know the world. So one could argue that this is kind of a natural progression where the Nuclear Posture review is going in terms of wanting to increase Nuclear Production modernize the arsenal and do all those different kinds of things but the reality is that you know while the United States may want may want to at least under obama want to scale back its reliance on Nuclear Weapons the rest of the world sort of went the other direction particularly with russia and russia faces an extension threat from United States but the United States and its nato allies have a much bigger military and then the russians do and so they are going to rely more on Nuclear Weapons as a way of deterring what they would see as u. S. Or nato aggression and what does that do to us if its us into a corner so as to interrupt or when where or about when we talk about the modernization in the sense of russia and china particularly what does that mean does that mean bigger Nuclear Weapons does that mean different ways of of delivering them what do you think. Absolutely so theres two different kinds of proliferation weve got vertical proliferation and horizontal proliferation horizontal as is new people getting Nuclear Weapons but what we really like to focus on with respect to china and russia is this vertical proliferation meaning are they building new types of Nuclear Weapons. In this case russia has placed a big emphasis on tactical Nuclear Weapons right so those are smaller yields that can be used on the battlefield they came out a few years ago with a policy statement called escalate to deescalate which basically meant that if they were losing a conventional war they would try to use a Nuclear Weapon to try to get the other side to back off which really lowers the threshold for nuclear use if you look at the Nuclear Posture review that just came out the United States is now trying to addressed escalate to deescalate by basically also making the argument that they might use lower yield Nuclear Weapons at a much lower threshold than previously we would do tom have had a question from one of our viewers on facebook and this is also related to im not sure if you heard it before but our Previous Story about north korea apparently violating sanctions and selling. Nuclear and chemical weapons themselves people saying here if the u. S. And israel and their allies can sell arms then why cant north korea and other nations sell arms or indeed have them why is this such a concern now not that might be a sort of simplified look at it bought there is some truth to that as well if one side can have oms then this is sort of what the United States is saying well if they have got them well have them as well. Yes i mean certainly the the accusation of hypocrisy at United States and other large arms producers is it you know theres some truth to it why cant the North Koreans be doing you know the same thing because what else do they really have to sell other than arms and a couple of other things that we may find to be illicit. But i mean when it comes down to it the United States and russia is still i think were trying to exert some kind of sphere of influence that they thought would be stabilizing fundamentally stabilizing to the International Order and i think when you look at what north korea does and some of these others you know the large powers the big powers see that is fundamentally destabilizing so you know theres theres certainly the claim of hypocrisy there and im not claim to defend either side but i think thats the argument they would be very balanced augmented as to tunnel white thank you so much for your time to appreciate that. At the end of last year i can the International Committee to abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and al jazeera got the exclusive interview on that one it was conducted as you see there by james bays and fall about to bow out with questions from the audience in real time as well it was a special live event which you can watch for yourself in our special series section if you just search for the nobel interview i can i see a. Thank you for your questions that have already come in if you want to send a man heres how you do it hashtags a. J. News grid on which have a platform youre choosing to watch or interact it might be twitter where were monitoring the hash tag a j news grid and the account of at a. J. English which you can reply to tweets there facebook dot com slash aljazeera is where the live stream is up and running every day and you can comment as you watch the watch that number is passant seven four five zero one triple one four nine for comments questions and contributions we will move on. Corsica are actually nationalists on the French Island of corsica want more autonomy and they have hit the streets to make their demands known the protests come just three days before president emanuel mccrum is to visit since nationalist parties one Regional Elections of december they have become shall we say a bit more confident they include officially recognizing their language and freeing Political Prisoners so far politicians have not followed the example of for example spains catalan nationalists and made a full bid for independence