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 iran 2nd most powerful figure cost him 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. 00 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 7000 kill weights 13000 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 us for everything were doing at 1st but saudi arabia and other countries to dow 30. 00 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 former Deputy NationalIntelligence 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 us 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 country is paying certainly and i dont think that theyre paying some serious wish to host 6000 american soldiers now and certainly 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. 00 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 Decisive Action in International Relations is very hard to do theres been strong inclination on the 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 were 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 then because President Trump says the u. S. Doesnt need middle east oil and wants to get u. S. Troops out of the region so whats the main reason then why the bases the still there one of the actually doing. Yeah 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 you for the 1st time since 9 159. 00 the u. S. Has become a net exporter of energy and alternative sources to petroleum are rapidly rising so so that is true the u. S. 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 and my life times and therefore the middle east is a strategic the vital area and i dont see us using our National Interests there in that regard any time soon there glenn lets just take a look if we can irans posture in the middle east i mean we know it has proxies in 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 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 one 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 or frozen as a result of the. Sure 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 you can tighten their belts a bit more so that you can buy more guns i mean 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 the time when 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 and is a strong presence in the middle east where he began by asking toast and voss 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 east the market is pretty robust for us 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 ross 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 has also reshaped global meat markets and the government looking overseas to satisfy domestic appetites katrina you reports now from beijing. Pork stew 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 i know you would if prices keep going up like this then i will order and eat less pork or even try to not eat out as frequently as before. African swine flu has wiped out heart of chinas hope heads up to 200000000 farm pigs have died or been culled since the outbreak began a year ago harmless to humans the contagious disease kills pigs within 10 days there is no vaccine. China has 26000000 people farmers it and industry is crucial in impacts and many other sectors of this short asia has caught everyones attention including Farmers Consumers and the garment. The Chinese Government has released more than 100000 tonnes of strategic pork reserves to ease demand and lifted environmental restrictions on farming china consumes hoffs the worlds pork and during the Chinese New Year holiday demography. To address the truth into the Chinese Government hasnt. Quite the new spring to buy more. And its pushing a poor price as bold white beijing has ramped up pork imports from the European Union and despite the trade war 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 port which could affect the capital in the long tan. For now pork remains chinas pay for meat but with no went to the shore she did cite 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 Change and 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 a leading expert in this field from tracked in the netherlands we have Justin Sherrod and justin is the global strategist on Animal Protein a 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 me. Thank you derek i dont think were addicted to mates 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 rice you know why 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 this. 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 yet 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 do need to deliver on the World Sustainable Development goals the 20 yeah 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. 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 pull 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 2018 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 wildcats 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 time 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 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 and air around the elal will catch as 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 in lets just talk about the move to non meat based products like plant based plant based sausages we see Companies 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 a plant based at the plant by sausage citrus the 1st point to mike i 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 the worlds population of feeding the worlds population protein in the future as a category in general in places like north america and europe weve probably saying graduates 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 i 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 this category you probably have at the moment somewhere around 200000. 00 tonnes of these products being consumed per year now while that might sound like a big number 200000 tonnes you probably need to compare that to Something Like 16000000 tons of meat and seafood which is being consumed at the same time just ensure we have to leave it there thank you very much indeed for talking to aljazeera thank you don now Silicon Valleys big tech giants of off have 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 an