02/02/2013 Dateline London

$:/STARTFEED. Hello. Welcome to Dateline London. This week, David

Cameron's been on a tour of foreign policy tour trying to tackle

terrorism. When a leader goes away, does that mean the going gets bad

at home? It has been a shocking week for Syria and the stock

markets are the best for ten years. The euros on the up, so, it the

euro crisis over. We're talking divorce. Settled by religious

courts including Sharia law are closer after a landmark legal

decision. Thomas Kielinger, Steve Ricards,

Stephanie Baker and Abdel Bari Atwan join me now.

When the going gets tough, terrorism is on the cards. It has

been a bad week for the Middle East and the wider aya in general?

has. When you're talking about the British Prime Minister, David

Cameron, on one level he has no choice but to get involved. Issues

surface he has to address as Prime Minister, what's interesting about

watching David Cameron, you feel history repeating itself and

lessons not being learned from the recent past which often happens in

politics. Prime Ministers make the same mistakes as their predecessors

even though they've evidence of the past. With Blair, Iraq, Afghanistan,

with Cameron, not exactly the same but framing the terrorist threat

from Al-Qaeda in a very Blairite way. What's interesting, from cam

cam's point of view, when he was Leader of the Opposition in

opposition, he moved away from this vivid, dramatic framing of the Al-

Qaeda threat. But he's abs lutely adopted that language now. There is

a great deal of concern at Westminster about the way in which

Britain is becoming involved in the Mali crisis and others. In terms of

the domestic itch kaigss, -- implications, when he goes away

plots stir. Politics does repeat itself in a curious way.

Thomas, when we look at the greater region at the moment, the way there

seems to be terrorism, what are the main threats now? To some extent I

agree and not quite agree with Steve. I understand the

grandstanding, he's running away from domestic problems looking tall

on the foreign stage but there is a sense a leader has to concentrate

the mind of all of us on the threat which is creeping up. We are also

looking at a terrorism creep which might come from this or that corner

unbe known to us today what will be tomorrow. It is a good idea to

alert people who this state of affairs. The question is what is

the answer to it. Britain has been very tentative in its involvement

so far. You've provided air support and logistics in Mali. I don't

quite glean from Cameron's words, much as they might remind Steve of

Blair's rhetoric, I don't glean a willingness to go big into these

new areas of conflict. He's aware of the problem. What do you mean by

going big into these areas of conflict? More troops. Let's see.

He think he's indicated there will be more troops made available in

Mali. It is a small number? It is a small number but when these things

begin, where does it end? Once you start make that can commitment what

is the end game? Is the question never posed in any of these

assignments. Not in Afghanistan or Iraq and it isn't with Mali which

is a much smaller, relatively speaking, commitment. Steve, David

Cameron went to Tripoli, went to Libya. Secretly, he did not

announce this visit in advance. Libya was actually invaded. There

was inter vention, military intervention by Britain, France,

the United States. To topple a dictator which was fantastic and to

create a new Libya the way they created a new Iraq. He is going to

a country which absolutely missed by this foreign intervention. If

Libya is a proper country after the toppling of Gaddafi, he should go

and people line the streets clapping. So, to go in a very

secret mission, it means there is something wrong. What's wrong with

Libya now is it is a sufrp of rubbish. There is no proper

Government -- dump of rubbish. It is a lose Canon ex porting problems

to the neighbourhoods. It is because of the military

intervention. We have to admit that. David Cameron wouldn't fix it. He

is going there to make sure the business which actually was the

motivation for this intervention should go on. But it wouldn't.

Stephanie, do you think that's what we're seeing. We've seen

intervention in several countries and now a vacuum forming in some

where they cannot sustain? intervention in Libya which was

considered a great success, the British led intervention for

Cameron, is having a spill-over effect in Mali where you have a

large number of Gaddafi's old military soldiers, the Tuaregs

returning to Mali and displaying unrest there. The fact there is

limited success in Libya, which is verging on civil -- civil war. He's

decided he cannot ignore Mali. Leave it for the French. That it is

the French sphere of influence. The fact he hadn't met the Nigerian

President before the cries it erupted shows forward thinking. The

idea you can go in, assist the Malian army which is a very weak,

problematic force and root out terrorism is somewhat limited,

near- sighted. The threat of terrorism in North Africa, to stamp

it out in one place, it'll pop up somewhere else. I understand why

he's backed the frefrpblgts. There are questions as to whether or not

it makes sense for British to be training French-speaking Malian

soldiers and whether there will be mission creep. Bari, you've come

back from Turkey. What's happening there? Turkey's been a stable

country for the past 10 or 15 years. Because of the problem in Syria, it

is spilling on Turkey. There are Kurdish problems there, the Cypriot

lemon curds who are siding. They are used by as add regime to

destabilise Turkey. These ter ist attack against the American Embassy

was carried out by a leftist or Marxist group inside Turkey. Turkey

is on the verge of a lot of problems. They have 100,000 Syrian

refugees. They have about 14 million Muslim people. They are, or

most of them are supporting Bashar al-Assad because they are from the

same sect. Turkey, because of stability, managed to be number

17th as the strongest economy in the world are facing a lot of

problem. The wisdom is tested by the situation in Syria. The whole

of the Middle East, it is a huge mess. The only thriving thing is

violence. This is the problem, because of foreign intervention,

the lack of the Arab Spring which did not work as it should. These

Governments who took over in Egypt and Libya, they don't have

experience. They never had Plan B. Just plan A. To go and intervene.

Dismantle the states. I detected a sense of criticism you had about

David Cameron's visit, secret or otherwise. You began saying it was

a good thing to topple the dictator. Yes, but not by military inter

vention. The west is between a rock and a hard place. You need to get

rid of these dictators, if you can. This creates turmoil and

instability. You can't leave it alone. You have to go back. Thomas,

you did, you created this mess and left. No, Cameron's gone back.

didn't create strong security forces in Libya to take over from

Gaddafi. You can't do it in a year. No end game. It is almost

impossible. The difficult is yes, it is brilliant Gaddafi was

tomorrowed but no, when you look at the consequences which have had an

impact on Mali and elsewhere. So, in each case, was it good Saddam

was removed? Yes, what were the consequences? Is a terrorist haven

in Iraq with no control from those who invaded Iraq in the first place.

Your question, what is the alternative isn't clear. What is

clear, these orthodox forms of invasion have terrible consequences.

That seems to be a pattern that cannot be ignored. What I think

with Cameron, in a way, he learnt from Tripoli like Tony Blair did

from Kosovo and he has a much greater confidence about these

interventions which I think is probably dangerous. We'll leave

that there. We could go on for hours on that. Let's talk matters

financial. The stock market's the best for ten years. The euro's back

up again. Is the euro crisis coming to an end?. Stephanie what's going

on? I think people have calmed down about the euro crisis. That's

largely thanks to the European central bank chief who announced

last summer he would do whatever it takes to save the euro. As a result,

you've seen growing confidence in the euro area. A repositioning of

bearish views on the euro which has seen the euro rally. It has had its

longest rally in a decade. The risk of Spain exiting, Italy exiting, is

considered much less than it was six months ago because of Dragi's

comments which has shored up the markets without him dueing pretty

much anything. Was it purely comments? It is his words that he

would be the back stop to this has restored confidence. In some cases

perhaps people are getting too confident. If you look at Italy and

Spain, their costs of borrowing have fallen considerably, below

what is the sovereign debt risk that's really there. The economy in

Italy is still in a sorry state. It contracted 2% last year. 1% this

year. Spain is in an even worse situation. There issome some

concern investors are getting a lit ahead of themselves. At the same

time, I think a strong euro isn't necessarily good for the eurozone

economy. It will hurt their exports. It may make it even harder for them

to dig themselves out of the crisis. What about the stock market itself?

Part is the new year rally. A lot is that it is a response to central

banks around the world pumping money into the economy, the

stimulus measures. If you're an investor, you're looking at low

interest rates. Putting your money into a savings account that is

yielding 1% which is below inflation, where are you going to

go to get any kind of a return? So, as a result, investors chasing some

kind of return are putting money into the stock market. Some people

may be we are getting ahead of ourselves on that. In the UK, Steve,

we are not getting ahead of ourselves? Triple dip recession?

The backdrop to everything in the UK is the precarious economy. In

some of the other recessions in the early eighties and nineties, the

stock markets boomed. No-one had anywhere else to invest in. So the

stock marketed continued to boom. If there is a striple dip recession,

as seems highly possible, that will not only be serious for the economy

and Government, it is a total nightmare. This coalition in

Britain formed to, as they put it, address the economic crisis. This

is it for the coalition. A third recession, two under them, one

under the previous Government, is a political nightmare. That's one of

the reasons why, at the moment, it seems David Cameron and his

Chancellor are fragile and Conservative MPs are briefing

against them with an intense tiff which has really surprised me. I

thought after David Cameron gave his speech on Europe a couple of

weeks ago they would calm down. Far from it. They are nervous because

Britain was the most vulnerable of all the countries in the recession.

George Osborne keeps having to borrow more and more and he had

hoped to reduce the deficit. Let's come back to the euro, it is true

that, at the moment, it is going through a tranquil and placid face,

but it might go back into a crisis orientation. My hunch is, and

everyone says this, it is a belief that we need to go into a more

systemic integration of the euro- zone. We have to have a union

sooner or later because we cannot go from one high to the next low.

You have to stabilise it. This may not be democratic in some sense

because people will not have a say, it will be imposed upon them by

national governments, but I think everyone agrees that, unless the

euro is more anchored in a physical union to which every country can

subscribe, we will not be out of the one us. I believe there was a

lot of exaggeration about the problems in the euro-zone. Last

year we were talking about Greece getting out of it, or being

dismissed on the eurozone, and Greece is still there, and they

manage, actually, to abide with their conditions apply to them or

enforced on them by a Angela Merkel. Only with sacrifice. While we were

talking about the euro as a bad currency, Germany will go back to

the Deutschmark again, I think just a week ago Norway joined the euro,

adopted the euro as its currency. It seems in the media in particular,

because they don't like the euro, some parts of the media, the

Conservative media in particular, they don't want to have the euro

zone existing, and we had Mr Cameron saying last week for two

weeks ago that he will have a referendum. I think he will change

his mind now. Steve was right when it will do that the decision that

could be in the spring. I think the eurozone will go up an unfortunate

figure British economy could stroke. Stephanie, I just want a brief

comment from you. Did we exaggerate it? To you as a crisis? No, we did

not exaggerate the eurozone crisis, not by any measure! It could come

back to haunt us at any time. we will leave it there with that

thought. In the UK, a landmark legal ruling means that divorces

settled by religious courts, including Sharia law cords, are a

step closer to being allowed under British law. For the first time in

British legal history a judge has agreed to prefer a dispute to a

religious court. This is an interesting case because this

actually involves a Jewish couple who the judge said they would

accept the ruling of the courts. You have to read the judge's draft

meant Kevin. He checks on the judicial implications and found the

decision to go to the Jewish courts compatible with the British courts,

but anchored in Jewish cultural tradition, so there will still be

an automatic Test, as it were, in cases like that, whether you allow

a Sharia court or a Jewish court to rule the cases, whether they are

compatible with the law of the land or totally contradicted. If that

were the case, if rulings would contradict the law of the land, I

don't think a British court would allow a Sharia law Jewish corps to

take on... I think the knee-jerk reaction is that, oh my God,

religious law is encroaching on civil law, but it is actually a lot

more complex than that. I know more about the implications for orthodox

Judaism then I do for Sharia law, but from what I understand, it is

actually a good thing because the law, as it stands, if you want to

get divorced under Orthodox law, it runs in parallel to a civil divorce

proceeding, so what is happening is that a lot of Jewish men who have

the altar would authority over whether or not to grant a Jewish

divorce are using civil proceedings as sort of black male, they won't

give the woman a divorce under Jewish law unless they agree to a

certain financial settlement and the civil proceedings so that,

actually, by linking the Thame, and I think that is the significant

thing about the ruling, the judge required that the woman be granted

a divorce linked to the financial settlement so that it couldn't be

used as blackmail, so that she could dent... Because if you are a

Jewish woman and do not get a divorce under Jewish law, you are

considered still chattel and not allowed to remarry, your children

are considered illegitimate, and it creates enormous problems, so this

is not necessarily a scary... could a Jewish woman get a civil

divorce but not have this? That is exactly what happens. A Jewish man

code demands a certain financial settlement, would refuse to give

her debt under Jewish law unless she agrees to the proceedings.

Sharia law? I am surprised. It is not Islamic, Sharia, and everybody

in the headlines, Sharia law is going to be applied in Britain!

What is it to do with Sharia law it? We are talking about a Jewish

case, Jewish couples, they decided to go to a religious court and

settle their divorce case, and then the High Court endorse it. The

newspaper, Sharia law is going to be applied in this country. They

don't know about Sharia law. Sharia law is really much better when it

comes to women's rights, because the woman has a dowry, and will be

paid if the husband divorces, will be paid a maintenance. What is

wrong with it? It is Islamophobia. The Paper and Media in this country,

anything related to Sharia law or Islam, there is a huge uproar.

Would it be the same for a couple under Sharia law, that you could be

divorced civilly but not...? No, if you are divorced, you are divorced,

there is no contradiction between the two sides. You don't need

bears? You don't need bed. -- you don't need both of them. In Egypt,

we have a Coptic community, they have their own laws. The government

don't apply the Sharia law in the Coptics community, which are maybe

20% of the population. They say, we respect your laws. Why in this

country they don't want to respect our laws if we ask for it? The

second but, if they can settle a divorce cases outside the High

Court's, it saves a lot of money, and those greedy divorce lawyers

will stay away, instead of having 200,000. It is not bad. If they do

seek to settle in the High Court, it will be, obviously, by

definition, under British law. When I heard about this case, I thought,

how did it happen? A British or English judge would be obliged to

apply English law, that is what he has got to do. As Thomas said, if

you read it clearly, that is what he has done, as he sees it. The

privacy of the British law. That is the key thing. I would be amazed if

this led to a huge series of cases where British law is in some way

contravened, suspended, authorised by a judge who is in no position to

dig out. Asked, said, that is unlikely to happen. You were

talking about her glance, one of the big headlines here recently --

you were talking about headlines, and one of the big headlines was

talking about Cherie and no go areas. Incidents off the youngsters,

Muslims, who would produce their own mode of behaviour and take

alcohol that they might have with them away from them and shout, get

out of this district, this is Sharia law. It is unsettling, or

any such incident is unwelcome but police have been quick to apprehend

one or two of these youngsters and we have to be careful in the media,

I agree, not to go overboard and conclude from one incident like

this that Armageddon is near, as it were. I followed this incident.

Just a few young people misled people. On YouTube, unfortunately.

Exactly. It was condemned by all Muslim organisations. Nobody in

London supported that. But the problem is, we have gangsters on

the streets and they are trying to impose their laws on people. They

terrorise people. There are criminals, like all criminals. We

should not enlarge it. Again, the media, huge headlines. I think

Thomas hit on it because of the speed of unease at the moment, you

have Gucci banned social media, and these things spread. Very briefly,

we have little time left, is this going to set a precedent, the

divorces? I think it is too early to say. We don't want to go down

the road of scaremongering that this is going to open a wave of

Sharia divorce cases, because I think you are right. It could set a

precedent, but I don't think it will mean that divorces will not

happen under British civil law. Thank you to all of my guess would

joining us this week. A very jolly conversation there. That is it for