British intelligence during the cold war to help spread the soviet propaganda. To do life the r. T. World news center this wednesday 15th of january its kevin over here just coming on to you too great to have your company then i hope youll stick around for at least the next half hour as we take you through the main stories of the day as youll know if youre watching in the last hour the big news of the day was that putin speaking to the Federation Council its kind of the state of the nation annual speech hes proposed a major legislation shift in that that would see russias pm cabinet ministers no longer appointed by the president but by the state duma that suggestion came while president putin delivering his annual state of the nation address to lawmakers. Across all this watching him talking to various greater good down there today there is again hey one of the priorities outlined by the russian president including what we said there about the way might be made up in the. Decide in the future. Kevin good afternoon well 1st of all i can tell you that we were expecting to hear where russia is supposed to head in the year or 2020 but it looks like todays speech expanded to further in the russian future because quite surprisingly mr putin ended his speech by talking in speaking volumes about the proposed changes to the russian constitution that he was mentioning several aspects but perhaps the most important one is about appointing the washing government pretty much the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers previously it was his job its now the proposal is to change that all together and have a listen hes. So through its just that you according to the constitution of the Russian Federation hes the president needs only the state dumas consent to make official appointment with the president appoints the cabinet his deputies and was the minister this is i propose shifting this power to the state duma and also the approval of the russian government chairman if he who used and at the chairman suggestion or the deputy Prime Ministers and federal minister this will have to be appointed by the president without the right to reject and you candidates that it preaches that hes getting further changes to the russian main legislation the russian constitution may include putting that document above some elements of the International Law which is very important although i did hear from some of my guests here that this isnt something that russias western partners should worry about which we do expect some more explanation as to whether what exactly these things where they could lead their way to plus there are tougher restrictions on the future tell you then she can do that in russia and that we should expect for example making sure that before. A candidate takes part in the election should he or she should have lived in russia for at least 25 years plus there was a ban on having any foreign citizenship or even residence permit so these are the things that are very important but we do have to understand that piece all these changes take place and before they are actually written lets say. Before we see the ng can the russian constitution these changes have to be approved by the entire nation and what mr putins proposed was a vote so perhaps we are to expect some kind of vote for the entire russian population now we do have to remember that back in 2018 also 2019 mr putin brought russias next generation weapons capabilities he spoke a lot of valid to the development of for instance hypersonic missiles and that was russias response to the International Situation as it is right now for example the most important thing is the withdrawal of the west from the intermediate range Nuclear Forces treaty for instance and some of the other decisions that we are seeing being taken by the Donald Trump Administration in Washington Well we didnt hear much about that today but it was very important that mr putin said that all the plans that russia had for these aspects have been fulfilled and heres what else mr putin said about the responsibility of russia and its Global Partners and what it comes to global strategic stability and also of the weapons disarmament but i see you used to just get to speak to him in that bit you know we didnt have 5 Major Nuclear powers are responsible for the preservation and development of mankind russia is open to strengthening cooperation with all interested partners we do not threat. And anyone and do not seek to impose our will for the 1st time in the history of the existence of Nuclear Missile weapons we are not pursuing anyone but on the contrary all the states have to create weapons that russia already possesses. Of course it is always crucial to hear what mr putin ends with but its no less important to go focus on what was said at the very beginning of the speech and mr putin focused on social issues domestic Economic Issues all watch what is really now the priority of the russian government what mr putin thinks that should be it is supporting families so he was mentioning certain number of sums that are supposed to given annually and monthly to the poor layers of the Russian Society he was talking about supporting families that gives birth to 2 or more children and there are actually sums like mr putin said that are enough to go to help families. Cover their spendings in some russias regions of for buying property thats enough to accommodate entire families so again this speaks volumes about the priorities that the president has said for the country at this point so please take a listen to what the russian president said exactly when it comes to that just if you speak to us as a result of our future depends on how many people live in our country how many kids are born into russian families in one year in 5 years in 10 years demographic issues dont have universal solutions every step we make every law we adopt every state program must be evaluated from the point of a Higher National priority to keep it multiply the russian population. While the. Springs me to the. Hopefully i do have to say that we have someone very important possibly be coming here to talk to me and hopefully kevin ill get back to talking to you in about a couple of minutes but for now back to you or i really wish youd spill the beans they are not going to tell us you put us on a high suspense now though i know who that is so when come back she was a particular in central moscow theyre ok were fine i was talking to you soon or out loud got someone told so much of a call a hey there martin im not a chance to say cheaper prices for and hopefully can hear me Martha Macauley is on the line martin potence proposed changes to the constitution that will essentially lessen his own powers are you surprised to have heard that what we make of. That surprised me because everyone expects him to step down in 2024 or perhaps become Prime Minister against what is really for so in fact it may be the load because he commented short time ago he has to work again. Here because hes hes a broads who often he has problems with whom he has to sort very very very very hard. Beginning to cry out resume he wants to lessen his load but of course he will remain the key Decision Maker he will pass some of the decisions to others which is the end he is the key Decision Maker i think the headline that came out of it was that no longer would the Prime Minister the government be chosen or the names put forward by the by the president would come from the people who come up words good plan yeah. Yes but then if you look at those who are in positions in the running the economy and so on. Theyre obviously there because of tension with the duma and with the people and so on and many people are now concerned about this publicly so therefore one russian one russian citizen and 6 is no loving living below the poverty line and therefore the people will want to know whos going to be the new minister who are you because youre going to solve this problem pushing the economy forward. To said weve got a 400000000000. 00. Economic project underway and that looks improving the Economy Health education and so on but if you look at the chamber has recorded its. Investment last year and it. Could be the target so therefore those projects we love in fact we achieve by 2025 but the average person is more concerned about the economy by Living Standards things out and they want ministers who can solve the problems you can make the economy grow faster and make their living make their Living Standards higher and make life more comfortable for them. And its got a long standing thing as the demographics were a worry there is again a push to try to get people to have more children so we want to get of more sure but that if youve got to work and stuff at the same time how its all going to work how do you encourage people to have more children its a huge responsibility to take all each debt that goes on for years and years it is a huge liability. Per but the problem is that a cohort which is coming on to the labor market and would have children now is really the co what from the 1990 s. When the population within the birth rate was very low because of Economic Crises so there for theres nothing really present the government can do short of saying those who are of that age should have more children but of course theres grants for them so its because the average person will say thats very difficult for us because youve got a job. Youre working wife is working as well and therefore we cant really have more than one child in fact some of them are saying we cant really afford one child so therefore youve got really i think to wait for another 10 years before the population then begins to increase because there are many more born after 2002000 to 2010 quarter is quite large so therefore the demographics will remain a problem but present but i think that 10 years time when published will increase and keep on increasing but there are demographers who say that. Russias population will actually decline between now and 2350. And russia can attract immigrants from central asia north caucuses ukraine and so on to make up the population deficit but this is declining because russia trying to develop a. Labor of another can begin as it did before so therefore were looking at i would say a 10 year window and in 10 years time the population will almost certainly increase where it forgets just now that all the despite all the economic difficulty 20082011 nonetheless russias gold reserves i what its got in store there for a rainy days back up to levels before you surprised to hear that theres some money to spend on this kind of stuff now. No not surprised because if you look at the the budget deficit Budget Surplus is the president and the oil price of gas prices a lot of military from there if you look at the reserves hard currency reserves of the central bank of russia the now Something Like 55540000000000. 00 which is which is very very high indeed and gold is part of that so therefore the from from the states called you theres no economic crisis thats reverend a very comfortable decision for a debt as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product a very low level from a financial point of view the russian state is ok but the real problem is the growth of the economy which is only about one percent if you like the economy is ticking over at present it works in the present model works which took a little bit only one percent and for those in poverty they want to see that increases and the real problem now is how do you mean crease the. Rate of growth because this huge huge 400000000000. 00 Infrastructure Project force education for health and so on thats underway not all being spent so therefore thats a real problem really quick one that it wisely really quick we talked about whats inside russia some of the stuff that was mentioned what about russia seen the rest of the world i would interact to the rest the world put in stress russia isnt a threat to the everymans now play catch up he said what message does that give to other foreign leaders what i mean by that. Well it means by that that russia is now a great power and its now in libya play a major role in libya its in syria its in iraq its in the Central African republic its you know other parts of the world and latin america is village as well and so on so therefore russia if you like is a major player in the world and what is saying is were sitting at the top table and if you want to show the problems of the world you have to talk to the us where we are a very big player and we will help restore those problems but you cant ignore us you can it sidelined us its a russia not longer important and we can reach major decisions without russia the future belongs to a world in which russia is a major player and the United States will accept that. China has accepted that so if you look at russia china the United States those are the 3 major countries of the world and they are playing an increasing role throughout the world russias expanding its influence middle east. And so on and playing a major role in shouldering those problems the major problems so putin isnt a very strong point of view from the point of view of foreign flawlessly the influence of russia is growing and people respect now other countries spec russia and expect help from russia and the outlook for the economy is the major problem you have to accelerate if they accelerate growth if they can do that then theyve solved their major problem. Martin mccauley political analyst thank you as ever coming on and give initial thoughts from over there in london way thanks very much thank you a lot more to come on this as well as hopefully were going back to sleep or trenker as well later on hes got an important guest that we think im going to tell you with this stick with us want to get the cats out the bag theyll be going to him shortly lets look at some other news before that they were going to go full out with this. We dont miss our special guest when she turns up now the u. S. Secretary of state has again been justifying washingtons assassination of a top iranian general in a drone strike at the start of the year but in a thinly veiled warning also said that russia and china could be next in whats being called the did terrence policy kellam open picks up the story. In u. S. Foreign policy buzz words are everything administrations love to have a single term they can use in order to explain their International Actions so lets review some of the greatest hits showing defending the actions of the white house in dealing with international adversaries of the United States might pompei owes new favorite word seems to be deterrence reestablishing deterrence real deterrence military deterrence deterrence is hard to establish an easy to loose so according to the white house and its surrogates the killing of top iranian general qassam solomonic was necessary as part of this deterrence strategy but want to lay this out in context of what weve been trying to do theres a bigger strategy a strategy to this we have reestablished deterrence but we know its not everlasting that risk remains we are determined not to lose that deterrence but the iraqi Prime Minister has a different version of events according to the iraqi Prime Minister soleimani was on a Diplomatic Mission he was trying to make peace when he was ruthlessly cut down furthermore reports seem to indicate that somani was not the only official to be targeted reports now show that a different iranian general was also in their sights but the strike was unsuccessful so who else could now be on the list as the United States claims it has the right to assassinate top iranian general extrajudicial lee and explain later well mike pompei o has thrown not only iran but also russia and china into the mix we saw not just in iran but in other places too where american deterrence was weak we watched russias 2014 occupation of the crimea chinas island building too in the South China Sea and its brazen attempts to coerce American Allies undermine to deterrence so if the United States dislikes you it can pressure you economically diplomatically isolate you or brutally assassinate you this is geopolitics in the age of deterrence. Mask scum and ask this idea of supremacy that we we have you know this is you can call it american supremacy that we can do whatever we want and its up to us to decide who is a threat or not this is really really disturbing and very dangerous i think and its not normal to hear this come an hour to somebody who is running the state department this is extremely disturbing and im very disappointed that demo ticket Political Class is not speaking out against this. Crazy idea that we can go ahead and just kill anyone we dont like it doesnt mean people are not guilty of things but if we take this principle and this. Approach to every nationality to every country we are going to have a really really mess and our. Next controversy on the 2020 Campaign Rally president Donald Trumps been out again this time heaping praise on protesters in iran claiming theyre now supporting the u. S. He says. Have you seen whats happened in around the protests are shy horse. Track they put these big american flags on the street and the arabians thousands and thousands of radius were supposed to walk on it and trample the step that beat the hell out of it every