:00:28. > :00:32.$:/STARTFEED. Hello. Welcome to Dateline London. This week, David
:00:32. > :00:38.Cameron's been on a tour of foreign policy tour trying to tackle
:00:38. > :00:43.terrorism. When a leader goes away, does that mean the going gets bad
:00:43. > :00:48.at home? It has been a shocking week for Syria and the stock
:00:48. > :00:55.markets are the best for ten years. The euros on the up, so, it the
:00:55. > :01:00.euro crisis over. We're talking divorce. Settled by religious
:01:00. > :01:09.courts including Sharia law are closer after a landmark legal
:01:09. > :01:14.decision. Thomas Kielinger, Steve Ricards,
:01:14. > :01:24.Stephanie Baker and Abdel Bari Atwan join me now.
:01:24. > :01:25.
:01:25. > :01:30.When the going gets tough, terrorism is on the cards. It has
:01:30. > :01:35.been a bad week for the Middle East and the wider aya in general?
:01:35. > :01:39.has. When you're talking about the British Prime Minister, David
:01:39. > :01:44.Cameron, on one level he has no choice but to get involved. Issues
:01:44. > :01:48.surface he has to address as Prime Minister, what's interesting about
:01:48. > :01:53.watching David Cameron, you feel history repeating itself and
:01:53. > :01:58.lessons not being learned from the recent past which often happens in
:01:58. > :02:03.politics. Prime Ministers make the same mistakes as their predecessors
:02:03. > :02:08.even though they've evidence of the past. With Blair, Iraq, Afghanistan,
:02:08. > :02:14.with Cameron, not exactly the same but framing the terrorist threat
:02:14. > :02:18.from Al-Qaeda in a very Blairite way. What's interesting, from cam
:02:18. > :02:25.cam's point of view, when he was Leader of the Opposition in
:02:25. > :02:29.opposition, he moved away from this vivid, dramatic framing of the Al-
:02:29. > :02:34.Qaeda threat. But he's abs lutely adopted that language now. There is
:02:34. > :02:40.a great deal of concern at Westminster about the way in which
:02:40. > :02:50.Britain is becoming involved in the Mali crisis and others. In terms of
:02:50. > :02:56.the domestic itch kaigss, -- implications, when he goes away
:02:56. > :03:01.plots stir. Politics does repeat itself in a curious way.
:03:01. > :03:10.Thomas, when we look at the greater region at the moment, the way there
:03:10. > :03:15.seems to be terrorism, what are the main threats now? To some extent I
:03:16. > :03:20.agree and not quite agree with Steve. I understand the
:03:20. > :03:25.grandstanding, he's running away from domestic problems looking tall
:03:25. > :03:32.on the foreign stage but there is a sense a leader has to concentrate
:03:32. > :03:36.the mind of all of us on the threat which is creeping up. We are also
:03:36. > :03:42.looking at a terrorism creep which might come from this or that corner
:03:42. > :03:46.unbe known to us today what will be tomorrow. It is a good idea to
:03:46. > :03:51.alert people who this state of affairs. The question is what is
:03:51. > :03:58.the answer to it. Britain has been very tentative in its involvement
:03:58. > :04:03.so far. You've provided air support and logistics in Mali. I don't
:04:03. > :04:09.quite glean from Cameron's words, much as they might remind Steve of
:04:09. > :04:15.Blair's rhetoric, I don't glean a willingness to go big into these
:04:15. > :04:21.new areas of conflict. He's aware of the problem. What do you mean by
:04:21. > :04:30.going big into these areas of conflict? More troops. Let's see.
:04:30. > :04:35.He think he's indicated there will be more troops made available in
:04:35. > :04:39.Mali. It is a small number? It is a small number but when these things
:04:39. > :04:47.begin, where does it end? Once you start make that can commitment what
:04:47. > :04:52.is the end game? Is the question never posed in any of these
:04:52. > :04:58.assignments. Not in Afghanistan or Iraq and it isn't with Mali which
:04:58. > :05:05.is a much smaller, relatively speaking, commitment. Steve, David
:05:05. > :05:14.Cameron went to Tripoli, went to Libya. Secretly, he did not
:05:14. > :05:19.announce this visit in advance. Libya was actually invaded. There
:05:19. > :05:24.was inter vention, military intervention by Britain, France,
:05:24. > :05:31.the United States. To topple a dictator which was fantastic and to
:05:31. > :05:38.create a new Libya the way they created a new Iraq. He is going to
:05:38. > :05:43.a country which absolutely missed by this foreign intervention. If
:05:43. > :05:48.Libya is a proper country after the toppling of Gaddafi, he should go
:05:48. > :05:53.and people line the streets clapping. So, to go in a very
:05:53. > :05:58.secret mission, it means there is something wrong. What's wrong with
:05:58. > :06:02.Libya now is it is a sufrp of rubbish. There is no proper
:06:02. > :06:06.Government -- dump of rubbish. It is a lose Canon ex porting problems
:06:06. > :06:11.to the neighbourhoods. It is because of the military
:06:11. > :06:15.intervention. We have to admit that. David Cameron wouldn't fix it. He
:06:15. > :06:19.is going there to make sure the business which actually was the
:06:19. > :06:23.motivation for this intervention should go on. But it wouldn't.
:06:23. > :06:27.Stephanie, do you think that's what we're seeing. We've seen
:06:27. > :06:32.intervention in several countries and now a vacuum forming in some
:06:32. > :06:36.where they cannot sustain? intervention in Libya which was
:06:36. > :06:41.considered a great success, the British led intervention for
:06:41. > :06:47.Cameron, is having a spill-over effect in Mali where you have a
:06:47. > :06:56.large number of Gaddafi's old military soldiers, the Tuaregs
:06:56. > :07:05.returning to Mali and displaying unrest there. The fact there is
:07:05. > :07:10.limited success in Libya, which is verging on civil -- civil war. He's
:07:10. > :07:15.decided he cannot ignore Mali. Leave it for the French. That it is
:07:15. > :07:21.the French sphere of influence. The fact he hadn't met the Nigerian
:07:21. > :07:27.President before the cries it erupted shows forward thinking. The
:07:27. > :07:32.idea you can go in, assist the Malian army which is a very weak,
:07:32. > :07:36.problematic force and root out terrorism is somewhat limited,
:07:36. > :07:41.near- sighted. The threat of terrorism in North Africa, to stamp
:07:41. > :07:45.it out in one place, it'll pop up somewhere else. I understand why
:07:45. > :07:50.he's backed the frefrpblgts. There are questions as to whether or not
:07:50. > :07:57.it makes sense for British to be training French-speaking Malian
:07:57. > :08:05.soldiers and whether there will be mission creep. Bari, you've come
:08:05. > :08:10.back from Turkey. What's happening there? Turkey's been a stable
:08:10. > :08:18.country for the past 10 or 15 years. Because of the problem in Syria, it
:08:18. > :08:25.is spilling on Turkey. There are Kurdish problems there, the Cypriot
:08:25. > :08:30.lemon curds who are siding. They are used by as add regime to
:08:30. > :08:38.destabilise Turkey. These ter ist attack against the American Embassy
:08:38. > :08:46.was carried out by a leftist or Marxist group inside Turkey. Turkey
:08:46. > :08:51.is on the verge of a lot of problems. They have 100,000 Syrian
:08:51. > :08:58.refugees. They have about 14 million Muslim people. They are, or
:08:58. > :09:03.most of them are supporting Bashar al-Assad because they are from the
:09:03. > :09:06.same sect. Turkey, because of stability, managed to be number
:09:06. > :09:12.17th as the strongest economy in the world are facing a lot of
:09:12. > :09:17.problem. The wisdom is tested by the situation in Syria. The whole
:09:17. > :09:20.of the Middle East, it is a huge mess. The only thriving thing is
:09:20. > :09:25.violence. This is the problem, because of foreign intervention,
:09:25. > :09:30.the lack of the Arab Spring which did not work as it should. These
:09:30. > :09:38.Governments who took over in Egypt and Libya, they don't have
:09:38. > :09:45.experience. They never had Plan B. Just plan A. To go and intervene.
:09:45. > :09:49.Dismantle the states. I detected a sense of criticism you had about
:09:49. > :09:57.David Cameron's visit, secret or otherwise. You began saying it was
:09:57. > :10:05.a good thing to topple the dictator. Yes, but not by military inter
:10:05. > :10:10.vention. The west is between a rock and a hard place. You need to get
:10:10. > :10:16.rid of these dictators, if you can. This creates turmoil and
:10:16. > :10:24.instability. You can't leave it alone. You have to go back. Thomas,
:10:24. > :10:27.you did, you created this mess and left. No, Cameron's gone back.
:10:27. > :10:33.didn't create strong security forces in Libya to take over from
:10:33. > :10:39.Gaddafi. You can't do it in a year. No end game. It is almost
:10:39. > :10:43.impossible. The difficult is yes, it is brilliant Gaddafi was
:10:43. > :10:48.tomorrowed but no, when you look at the consequences which have had an
:10:48. > :10:55.impact on Mali and elsewhere. So, in each case, was it good Saddam
:10:55. > :11:01.was removed? Yes, what were the consequences? Is a terrorist haven
:11:01. > :11:06.in Iraq with no control from those who invaded Iraq in the first place.
:11:06. > :11:10.Your question, what is the alternative isn't clear. What is
:11:10. > :11:16.clear, these orthodox forms of invasion have terrible consequences.
:11:16. > :11:23.That seems to be a pattern that cannot be ignored. What I think
:11:23. > :11:27.with Cameron, in a way, he learnt from Tripoli like Tony Blair did
:11:27. > :11:31.from Kosovo and he has a much greater confidence about these
:11:31. > :11:35.interventions which I think is probably dangerous. We'll leave
:11:35. > :11:41.that there. We could go on for hours on that. Let's talk matters
:11:41. > :11:45.financial. The stock market's the best for ten years. The euro's back
:11:45. > :11:50.up again. Is the euro crisis coming to an end?. Stephanie what's going
:11:50. > :11:54.on? I think people have calmed down about the euro crisis. That's
:11:54. > :11:58.largely thanks to the European central bank chief who announced
:11:58. > :12:07.last summer he would do whatever it takes to save the euro. As a result,
:12:07. > :12:13.you've seen growing confidence in the euro area. A repositioning of
:12:13. > :12:21.bearish views on the euro which has seen the euro rally. It has had its
:12:21. > :12:27.longest rally in a decade. The risk of Spain exiting, Italy exiting, is
:12:27. > :12:31.considered much less than it was six months ago because of Dragi's
:12:31. > :12:35.comments which has shored up the markets without him dueing pretty
:12:35. > :12:41.much anything. Was it purely comments? It is his words that he
:12:41. > :12:45.would be the back stop to this has restored confidence. In some cases
:12:45. > :12:50.perhaps people are getting too confident. If you look at Italy and
:12:50. > :12:55.Spain, their costs of borrowing have fallen considerably, below
:12:55. > :13:01.what is the sovereign debt risk that's really there. The economy in
:13:01. > :13:06.Italy is still in a sorry state. It contracted 2% last year. 1% this
:13:06. > :13:10.year. Spain is in an even worse situation. There issome some
:13:10. > :13:16.concern investors are getting a lit ahead of themselves. At the same
:13:16. > :13:22.time, I think a strong euro isn't necessarily good for the eurozone
:13:22. > :13:28.economy. It will hurt their exports. It may make it even harder for them
:13:28. > :13:35.to dig themselves out of the crisis. What about the stock market itself?
:13:35. > :13:40.Part is the new year rally. A lot is that it is a response to central
:13:40. > :13:44.banks around the world pumping money into the economy, the
:13:44. > :13:48.stimulus measures. If you're an investor, you're looking at low
:13:48. > :13:52.interest rates. Putting your money into a savings account that is
:13:52. > :13:57.yielding 1% which is below inflation, where are you going to
:13:57. > :14:03.go to get any kind of a return? So, as a result, investors chasing some
:14:03. > :14:07.kind of return are putting money into the stock market. Some people
:14:07. > :14:13.may be we are getting ahead of ourselves on that. In the UK, Steve,
:14:13. > :14:17.we are not getting ahead of ourselves? Triple dip recession?
:14:18. > :14:22.The backdrop to everything in the UK is the precarious economy. In
:14:22. > :14:26.some of the other recessions in the early eighties and nineties, the
:14:26. > :14:31.stock markets boomed. No-one had anywhere else to invest in. So the
:14:31. > :14:36.stock marketed continued to boom. If there is a striple dip recession,
:14:36. > :14:40.as seems highly possible, that will not only be serious for the economy
:14:40. > :14:47.and Government, it is a total nightmare. This coalition in
:14:47. > :14:51.Britain formed to, as they put it, address the economic crisis. This
:14:51. > :14:56.is it for the coalition. A third recession, two under them, one
:14:56. > :15:00.under the previous Government, is a political nightmare. That's one of
:15:01. > :15:04.the reasons why, at the moment, it seems David Cameron and his
:15:04. > :15:08.Chancellor are fragile and Conservative MPs are briefing
:15:08. > :15:11.against them with an intense tiff which has really surprised me. I
:15:11. > :15:15.thought after David Cameron gave his speech on Europe a couple of
:15:15. > :15:25.weeks ago they would calm down. Far from it. They are nervous because
:15:25. > :15:46.
:15:46. > :15:49.Britain was the most vulnerable of all the countries in the recession.
:15:49. > :15:53.George Osborne keeps having to borrow more and more and he had
:15:53. > :15:57.hoped to reduce the deficit. Let's come back to the euro, it is true
:15:57. > :16:04.that, at the moment, it is going through a tranquil and placid face,
:16:04. > :16:08.but it might go back into a crisis orientation. My hunch is, and
:16:08. > :16:12.everyone says this, it is a belief that we need to go into a more
:16:12. > :16:16.systemic integration of the euro- zone. We have to have a union
:16:16. > :16:21.sooner or later because we cannot go from one high to the next low.
:16:21. > :16:24.You have to stabilise it. This may not be democratic in some sense
:16:24. > :16:28.because people will not have a say, it will be imposed upon them by
:16:28. > :16:32.national governments, but I think everyone agrees that, unless the
:16:32. > :16:38.euro is more anchored in a physical union to which every country can
:16:38. > :16:41.subscribe, we will not be out of the one us. I believe there was a
:16:41. > :16:48.lot of exaggeration about the problems in the euro-zone. Last
:16:48. > :16:52.year we were talking about Greece getting out of it, or being
:16:52. > :16:58.dismissed on the eurozone, and Greece is still there, and they
:16:58. > :17:05.manage, actually, to abide with their conditions apply to them or
:17:05. > :17:13.enforced on them by a Angela Merkel. Only with sacrifice. While we were
:17:13. > :17:18.talking about the euro as a bad currency, Germany will go back to
:17:18. > :17:22.the Deutschmark again, I think just a week ago Norway joined the euro,
:17:22. > :17:27.adopted the euro as its currency. It seems in the media in particular,
:17:27. > :17:30.because they don't like the euro, some parts of the media, the
:17:30. > :17:37.Conservative media in particular, they don't want to have the euro
:17:37. > :17:40.zone existing, and we had Mr Cameron saying last week for two
:17:40. > :17:44.weeks ago that he will have a referendum. I think he will change
:17:44. > :17:49.his mind now. Steve was right when it will do that the decision that
:17:49. > :17:53.could be in the spring. I think the eurozone will go up an unfortunate
:17:53. > :18:00.figure British economy could stroke. Stephanie, I just want a brief
:18:00. > :18:04.comment from you. Did we exaggerate it? To you as a crisis? No, we did
:18:04. > :18:09.not exaggerate the eurozone crisis, not by any measure! It could come
:18:09. > :18:12.back to haunt us at any time. we will leave it there with that
:18:12. > :18:16.thought. In the UK, a landmark legal ruling means that divorces
:18:16. > :18:20.settled by religious courts, including Sharia law cords, are a
:18:20. > :18:24.step closer to being allowed under British law. For the first time in
:18:24. > :18:29.British legal history a judge has agreed to prefer a dispute to a
:18:29. > :18:35.religious court. This is an interesting case because this
:18:36. > :18:42.actually involves a Jewish couple who the judge said they would
:18:42. > :18:47.accept the ruling of the courts. You have to read the judge's draft
:18:47. > :18:51.meant Kevin. He checks on the judicial implications and found the
:18:51. > :18:55.decision to go to the Jewish courts compatible with the British courts,
:18:55. > :18:59.but anchored in Jewish cultural tradition, so there will still be
:18:59. > :19:04.an automatic Test, as it were, in cases like that, whether you allow
:19:04. > :19:08.a Sharia court or a Jewish court to rule the cases, whether they are
:19:08. > :19:11.compatible with the law of the land or totally contradicted. If that
:19:11. > :19:15.were the case, if rulings would contradict the law of the land, I
:19:15. > :19:20.don't think a British court would allow a Sharia law Jewish corps to
:19:20. > :19:23.take on... I think the knee-jerk reaction is that, oh my God,
:19:23. > :19:28.religious law is encroaching on civil law, but it is actually a lot
:19:28. > :19:33.more complex than that. I know more about the implications for orthodox
:19:33. > :19:41.Judaism then I do for Sharia law, but from what I understand, it is
:19:41. > :19:50.actually a good thing because the law, as it stands, if you want to
:19:50. > :19:54.get divorced under Orthodox law, it runs in parallel to a civil divorce
:19:55. > :19:58.proceeding, so what is happening is that a lot of Jewish men who have
:19:58. > :20:01.the altar would authority over whether or not to grant a Jewish
:20:01. > :20:08.divorce are using civil proceedings as sort of black male, they won't
:20:08. > :20:13.give the woman a divorce under Jewish law unless they agree to a
:20:13. > :20:16.certain financial settlement and the civil proceedings so that,
:20:16. > :20:21.actually, by linking the Thame, and I think that is the significant
:20:21. > :20:25.thing about the ruling, the judge required that the woman be granted
:20:25. > :20:32.a divorce linked to the financial settlement so that it couldn't be
:20:32. > :20:36.used as blackmail, so that she could dent... Because if you are a
:20:36. > :20:41.Jewish woman and do not get a divorce under Jewish law, you are
:20:41. > :20:45.considered still chattel and not allowed to remarry, your children
:20:45. > :20:50.are considered illegitimate, and it creates enormous problems, so this
:20:50. > :20:59.is not necessarily a scary... could a Jewish woman get a civil
:21:00. > :21:05.divorce but not have this? That is exactly what happens. A Jewish man
:21:05. > :21:12.code demands a certain financial settlement, would refuse to give
:21:12. > :21:21.her debt under Jewish law unless she agrees to the proceedings.
:21:21. > :21:26.Sharia law? I am surprised. It is not Islamic, Sharia, and everybody
:21:26. > :21:29.in the headlines, Sharia law is going to be applied in Britain!
:21:29. > :21:34.What is it to do with Sharia law it? We are talking about a Jewish
:21:34. > :21:41.case, Jewish couples, they decided to go to a religious court and
:21:41. > :21:44.settle their divorce case, and then the High Court endorse it. The
:21:45. > :21:49.newspaper, Sharia law is going to be applied in this country. They
:21:49. > :21:57.don't know about Sharia law. Sharia law is really much better when it
:21:57. > :22:00.comes to women's rights, because the woman has a dowry, and will be
:22:00. > :22:05.paid if the husband divorces, will be paid a maintenance. What is
:22:05. > :22:11.wrong with it? It is Islamophobia. The Paper and Media in this country,
:22:11. > :22:15.anything related to Sharia law or Islam, there is a huge uproar.
:22:15. > :22:21.Would it be the same for a couple under Sharia law, that you could be
:22:21. > :22:25.divorced civilly but not...? No, if you are divorced, you are divorced,
:22:25. > :22:35.there is no contradiction between the two sides. You don't need
:22:35. > :22:36.
:22:36. > :22:40.bears? You don't need bed. -- you don't need both of them. In Egypt,
:22:40. > :22:46.we have a Coptic community, they have their own laws. The government
:22:46. > :22:51.don't apply the Sharia law in the Coptics community, which are maybe
:22:51. > :22:55.20% of the population. They say, we respect your laws. Why in this
:22:55. > :23:01.country they don't want to respect our laws if we ask for it? The
:23:01. > :23:05.second but, if they can settle a divorce cases outside the High
:23:05. > :23:13.Court's, it saves a lot of money, and those greedy divorce lawyers
:23:13. > :23:17.will stay away, instead of having 200,000. It is not bad. If they do
:23:17. > :23:21.seek to settle in the High Court, it will be, obviously, by
:23:21. > :23:26.definition, under British law. When I heard about this case, I thought,
:23:26. > :23:30.how did it happen? A British or English judge would be obliged to
:23:31. > :23:36.apply English law, that is what he has got to do. As Thomas said, if
:23:36. > :23:43.you read it clearly, that is what he has done, as he sees it. The
:23:43. > :23:52.privacy of the British law. That is the key thing. I would be amazed if
:23:52. > :23:56.this led to a huge series of cases where British law is in some way
:23:56. > :23:59.contravened, suspended, authorised by a judge who is in no position to
:23:59. > :24:06.dig out. Asked, said, that is unlikely to happen. You were
:24:06. > :24:10.talking about her glance, one of the big headlines here recently --
:24:10. > :24:18.you were talking about headlines, and one of the big headlines was
:24:18. > :24:24.talking about Cherie and no go areas. Incidents off the youngsters,
:24:24. > :24:28.Muslims, who would produce their own mode of behaviour and take
:24:28. > :24:33.alcohol that they might have with them away from them and shout, get
:24:33. > :24:38.out of this district, this is Sharia law. It is unsettling, or
:24:38. > :24:43.any such incident is unwelcome but police have been quick to apprehend
:24:43. > :24:50.one or two of these youngsters and we have to be careful in the media,
:24:50. > :24:57.I agree, not to go overboard and conclude from one incident like
:24:57. > :25:04.this that Armageddon is near, as it were. I followed this incident.
:25:04. > :25:11.Just a few young people misled people. On YouTube, unfortunately.
:25:11. > :25:14.Exactly. It was condemned by all Muslim organisations. Nobody in
:25:14. > :25:18.London supported that. But the problem is, we have gangsters on
:25:18. > :25:23.the streets and they are trying to impose their laws on people. They
:25:23. > :25:31.terrorise people. There are criminals, like all criminals. We
:25:31. > :25:34.should not enlarge it. Again, the media, huge headlines. I think
:25:34. > :25:38.Thomas hit on it because of the speed of unease at the moment, you
:25:38. > :25:43.have Gucci banned social media, and these things spread. Very briefly,
:25:43. > :25:49.we have little time left, is this going to set a precedent, the
:25:49. > :25:53.divorces? I think it is too early to say. We don't want to go down
:25:53. > :25:59.the road of scaremongering that this is going to open a wave of
:25:59. > :26:02.Sharia divorce cases, because I think you are right. It could set a
:26:02. > :26:07.precedent, but I don't think it will mean that divorces will not
:26:07. > :26:11.happen under British civil law. Thank you to all of my guess would
:26:11. > :26:15.joining us this week. A very jolly conversation there. That is it for