here at the listening post i 1st set eyes on boris johnson in the autumn of 1983 when we went up to oxford at the same time. with his huge mop of blonde hair his tie askew and his shirt escaping from his trousers he looked like an overgrown schoolboy yet with his imposing physical build his thick neck and his broad germanic forehead there was also something of me about him you could imagine him in later hose and wandering through the black forest with an axe over his shoulder looking focus to kill this same combination a state of advanced a shovel mountain a sense of coiled strength of an almost tangible will to power was even more pronounced in his way of speaking in boris i finally encountered the real platonic ideal britain's veteran political commentators are for the most part pessimistic about boris's premonition the rational part of my brain is still full of doubts and uncertainties but it a more primitive than a level impervious to reason i cannot help but believe from the 1st moment i saw him i felt i was in the presence of someone special. the next 3 months will reveal whether tha

the story is so important ok we thank you very much a cronies company this for speaking to us from oxford so as you're hearing earlier from kristen the u.s. is deploying troops to saudi arabia as the situation in the region grows tense or the pentagon believes their deployments will provide an additional deterrent some of its over $500.00 military personnel have already arrived at the prince sultan air base south of riyadh's the u.s. with forces withdrew from saudi arabia back in 2003 commits is the former assistant secretary for political military affairs under president george w. bush and he explains the importance of a u.s. military presence in saudi arabia. well the united states has always been very clear about when they deploy troops i don't know particularly when these troops were announced but it is clear that over the last few announcements that are located in has not been revealed likely these are troops that are manning patriot units that are providing air defense protection in case of us in case of an iranian either missile or or aircraft attack or perhaps not knowing their lo

leaders he's an associate fellow at chatham house and maritime security analyst joining us live from oxford thanks very much for being with us on the al-jazeera news hour just to pick up on what our correspondent crystal was saying from washington that the u.s. has now announced this formation of a maritime force sentinel a base ace to provide to its merchant oil vessels. so is this plan on risk increasing tensions in the strait of hormuz in the region or does it help to diffuse the. well whenever we have increased military presence in such a small area there's or was the risk of. accident so we need to be very cautious from the sipping perspective it would be very good to have the formation of an international coalition that will protect the convoys of soups it will make it much safer for them but if we try to look at the general stability of the region then certainly there are. such a decision and the british foreign minister meanwhile are saying this the iran seizure of that british flag tanker on friday according to him raises very serious questions for british and international shippin

of the council on energy environment and water in oxford we have sharon george she's electric kill university who specializes in green technology and in hong kong via skype we have chia he is the director of the institute of public policy at the hong kong university of science and technology welcome to you all let me start with you are not what we've just seen there in his report how widespread is the lack of waste processing in india and one of the biggest challenges that the government faces in trying to addresses. india is one of the fastest urbanizing countries in the world just its urban population would be the world's 3rd largest country by population so against this kind of massive push of people to the cities there is certainly a major challenge of managing solid waste. and most of the whizzed cities don't doesn't get processed so what that does is it has an impact on the local environment in terms of the landfill and the bethany and missions etc it also has an impact in terms of the last economic opportunity that they could get if we decided to use with does a resource rather than on

the iranian ministry of done and maybe that needs to be finalized and if they if they work over the oxford commas in the semi-colons it will take forever if they get a global deal that is agreeable and enforceable with some assurances for the parties that the oil will not be delivered to syria it may happen well france britain and germany have issued a joint statement calling for a resumption of talks to ease with tensions with iran and the iranian president hassan rouhani has reiterated his offer of talks with washington if the u.s. lift sanctions and returns to the 2050 nuclear deal the u.s. withdrew from the agreement last year. they were being cautious in hong kong police tried to clear protesters who were holding out in the city's district of shock turn for hours. i. demonstrated told police who wanted them out of a shopping center the violence came after thousands took part in a demonstration against what bases beijing's growing political influence in the territories of fans to move on dog and housing leaders from hong kong. protesters here tell us they are driven by deep seated ange

he's editor of the diplomatic handbook south wales diplomatic practice he joins us now via skype from oxford survivor thank you so much for joining us here on out now many years ago you were involved perhaps in a similar spat where you ended up being quoted as saying that president george bush was his best recruiting sergeant just tell us a little bit more about that and the differences between what happened to you and what we're seeing happen right now. well my comments about george w. bush were meant to be an entirely accurate portrayal of of who. the al-qaeda would most like to see in the white house and i thought that faced with the choice of john kerry or george w. bush they preferred to see george w. bush who would be more like teacher prosecutes the war on terror but i made the mistake of making my comments conference with that was a strict rule but you could quote people ready but you couldn't attribute it and someone of that content broke that comment but broke that confidence and began headline news with them fairly comfortable results from a difference with him and eric is that wh

for bill kristol go ahead in oxford in oxford. here yeah it's a case of same stuff different day from crystal i'm sorry to say look this is a necessary point of view being put forward it has been put forward individually by a number of people and when you find people as disparate as rand paul and bernie sanders agreeing on american military foreign policy needed to take a backseat to american diplomatic foreign policy and i say that as a diplomat of 26 years experience with the u.s. foreign service then i think something good is blossoming here now if we're still worried about the koch brothers and show us you know half a 1000000 each that's that's a rounding error on their petty cash account sure hey they're not deeply invested here but they're certainly making a point of investing and i think there's a difference ok don you seem to be more of the skeptic on the program react to that . well 1st you know the objective conditions are such that imperial retreat is you know on the agenda of the ceci and trump represents that certainl

in oxford. i'm not particularly worried about the sources of funding i find it interesting that 2 such disparate sources have both decided this is a good idea but that doesn't stop me from thinking that it's a good idea too and looking at the contributors i see in andrew bass of each and there who's very much along my lines of sort of conservative libertarian on a lot of international issues i see parsi from georgetown with whom i agree on almost nothing but the. all idea i would think is to have people of various points of view coming together to discuss these issues and get people outside of their echo chambers that's wonderful don ok i'm going to start throwing some cold war out what water on it here ok you have george soros and his relationship with the atlantic council a very you know that is the mouthpiece of nato it's staunchly anti russian and if you look at the koch brothers they have been supporting this illegal who and venezuela i could go on and on ok so i'm i'm just happy i'm i'm le

for bill kristol go ahead in oxford in oxford. here it's a case of same stuff different day from crystal i'm sorry to say look this is a necessary point of view being put forward and it has been put forward individually by a number of people and when you find people as disparate as rand paul and bernie sanders agreeing on american military foreign policy needed to take a backseat to american diplomatic foreign policy and i say that as a diplomat of 26 years experience with the u.s. foreign service then i think something good is blossoming here now if we're still worried about the koch brothers and show us you know half a 1000000 each that's that's a rounding error on their petty cash account sure they they're not deeply invested here but they're certainly making a point of investing and i think there's a difference ok don you seem to be more of the skeptic on the program react to that . well 1st you know the objective conditions are such that imperial retreat is you know on the agenda of the ceci and trump represents that certainl

books including think tanks and power in foreign policy and foundations of the american century and in oxford we crossed to ted see he is a senior policy consultant and british american security information council retired u.s. diplomat and an expert on strategic intelligence and conflict resolution all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to london. we were talking before this recording about the novelty of this quincy institute coming into being the media has commented on oh it's obviously because of the who's going to be funding it someone very much to the left and somebody very much to the right before we talk about the principles involved in it what do you think of the idea itself i mean it is coming out against endless war wars that do not need to be started in the 1st place i mean there is a need for it and i'm all for it i raise my hand in agreement we'll talk about what's problematic about it go ahead in london. yeah i think well when i read about it in the last couple of days i it was a surprising devel

in oxford. i'm not particularly worried about the sources of funding i find it interesting that 2 such disparate sources have both decided this is a good idea but that doesn't stop me from thinking that it's a good idea too and looking at the contributors i see in andrew bass of each and there who's very much along my lines of sort of conservative libertarian on a lot of international issues i see parsi from georgetown with whom i agree on almost nothing but the whole idea i would think is to have people of various points of view coming together to discuss these issues and get people outside of their echo chambers that's wonderful e put don ok i'm going to start throwing some cold war or water on it here ok you have george soros in his relationship with the atlantic council a very you know that. is the mouthpiece of nato it's staunchly anti russian and if you look at the koch brothers they have been supporting this illegal who and venezuela i could go on and on ok and so i'm just happy i'm left

books including think tanks and power in foreign policy and foundations of the american century and an oxford we cross to see he is a senior policy consultant and british american security information council retired u.s. diplomat and an expert on strategic intelligence and.

now says that just like the oxford party that used to be has declined of this label so he's the guy who knows what all of us a subset of the border looks at it the power to really and i find it very very interesting and marvel a video deal agree with that assessment and that people now will be sympathizing with a whole gone gandhi in your opinion how significant is his resignation in the context of the state of indian politics right now. actually nina in the news that a lot of respect always for noonan ph and in the minutes he was here nonces that position the kind of. big guns because you don't want to distance and then you know he's in the cockpit and the same thing happens with sonia gandhi's or me as i mean he has an opportunity to the brand that is still weak. and then that's happened with gary cole and most of the congressman's because you give the longest space and that has a battery established that she is model to follow. and i think around the beazley something very similar in the sense that all those see them are we really do not black but he's moving a really it's not all fo

alone among them in portland house on london's oxford street the 2011 un backed libyan intervention came with a un backed libyan asset for use to that meant that any libyan accounts in the u.k. were frozen and according to a report by a government committee the u.k. tax man could be scooping tax from those frozen assets the government said make good that its own $17000000.00 pounds in tax on the frozen libyan assets in the process 3 years h.-m. revenue and customs that the tax man here won't reveal any more than mt and now some british politicians want that tax revenue to be put to good use the deputy head of the northern ireland he party has urged the prime minister to use those $17000000.00 pounds in taxes collected from libyan assets in the u.k. to compensate the victims of libyan backed ira terrorism the prime minister will be aware of. the the long standing problem for justice and compensation by victims show the libyan. terrorism in northern ireland did throughout the u.k. u.s. citizens have been compensated by libyan authorities but the u.k. should not that's unlikely say the. x t