detonated his explosives after being surrounded by police and interior ministry spokesman says there were no casualties and that the attacker was a wanted man this comes just a week after 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up while targeting police in tunis killing one officer in the process a u.s. navy seal charged with committing war crimes in iraq has been acquitted by military jury special operations chief edward gallagher was accused of fatally stabbing an eyesore prisoner who'd been wounded in an airstrike in iraq in 2017. germany's defense minister live on delay and has become the 1st woman to be nominated as the head of the european commission that's the body that oversees the affairs of the european union now probation politicians in hong kong say it could cost around $1300000.00 to repair the damage at the legislature building which protesters ransacked and vandalized on monday special task force has been set up to look into recent mass protests that were triggered by

a controversial bill which would allow extradition to mainland china all those are the headlines i'll be back here with more news after the listening post stay with us. malaysia plans to abolish the death penalty dividing. it with more than 1200 prisoners on death row one on one in this city. on how does the. chance of his ready 1st cut off just published. the prime minister of this country i think that's why. i'm sorry yes you do have a barrister but there are questions that got. lower much you just heard in your at the listening post here are some of the media stories that we're covering this week the british prime minister in a way to boris johnson a reporter turned politician who is now running circles around journalists.

and has made this neighbor of his hip hop in donald trump and the rape allegation given short shrift by american news outlets and iran just ain't what it used to be the persian t.v. channel based overseas the traffic in this culture boris johnson the odds on favorite to become britain's next prime minister had one distinct advantage going into the race to succeed to reason may name recognition when the u.k. media dropped that name boris britain's know exactly who they're talking about as it happens the news business is where johnson got his start where his troublesome relationship with the facts 1st surfaced back in the late 1980 s. after getting fired from his 1st reporting job for inventing a quote johnson wound up as a correspondent in brussels where he produced a slew of flimsy euro skeptic stories that readers found amusing stories that could well have sowed seeds in people's minds for an eventual brecht's it fast forward 30

odd years and there was johnson a key asset on the leaves side in the 2016 referendum campaign saying the same kinds of things about the. as a politician that he wants to read as a journalist these days the british media finally seem to have clued into the fact that entertainment value isn't everything that boris johnson falls dangerously short of the qualifications for the job but he already has one foot in the door of 10 downing street so there's no awakening is looking like too little too late our starting point this week is london. we live in populist times in 2016 americans elected a former reality t.v. star a triumph of soundbites over substance to the white house. last year italians voted a party formed by a comedian beppe a grillo into

a coalition government 2 months ago ukrainians elected another comedian from limited selenski president in alliance. where does britain's boris johnson fit in these parts entertainer like donald trump part comedic side show like grillo and selenski or as one british columnist put it johnson is a character which lets him get away with things a serious politician wouldn't mr johnson's seriousness in short this is most effective political weapon and that's a pro johnson voice writing in a paper that wants him to be prime minister. and comes across as an amiable buffoon in a long tradition of upper middle class british characters. it's not really what he's like at all he's ruthless. the idea that boris johnson gets up in the morning looks in a very says what can i do for the common man today is palpable nonsense he's

concerned only with his own advancement he's a huge opportunist but he also has engaged in really really talk forms of politics legislation that is detrimental to marginalized people and. immigrants and that is overlooked in favor of thinking about him is this character of. we're facing the same problems that the american press. facing with trying. how do you hold a lawyer to accounts and in this incredibly difficult because our. very. only guard and they're overwhelmed. and you can see concerted elements of the press working together to promote which is still.

johnson is well aware that most of the u.k. print media do have his back but not all of them and when the guardian broke a story this past week that a neighbor of johnson's overheard a domestic argument between him and his girlfriend and was concerned enough to call the police johnsons carefully calibrated amiable buffoon act was put to the test on the airwaves can you just tell us what your partner. was trying to. think that story dominated coverage of johnson this past week at the expense of another significant exposé last year reports emerged that johnson was being advised by steve the old right former white house operative who has ties to white supremacist band and was reportedly behind president trump's efforts to ban muslims from. entering the us johnson repeatedly denied that he and bannon were working together but just last week this video of dan and came out shot in july of last

year congress is a give a speech incumbent. let's go through this with back to the daily telegraph as a columnist. talking to him all we can about the speech carol cadwallader broke that story in the observer isabel oakshott is a former political editor at the time a paper that has employed johnson they see this story in distinctly different way you know i. don't press it to get a comment and 1st of all he said it's just not true and then i said well you know we've got we've got video saying otherwise and then he said come back and instead he came back he said oh it's just all ridiculous conspiracy they dropped it in oil i mean this is all nonsense i don't think boris has a particularly close relationship with steve ballmer boris knows all sorts of people and sure he's taking and listening to advice from the wide variety of characters someone reputable than others but it doesn't mean that there's some kind

of conspiracy cooked up here to take world politics lurching to the right. perhaps not but less than a month after bannon made those comments about working with johnson mentioning the daily telegraph this appeared in the paper a column written by johnson trumpy and in tone and content saying that muslim women who wear the niqab look like letter boxes and. we don't know all the specifics of the relationship between boris johnson and bannan been another way it doesn't matter what matters is that he is trading that the same kind of politics that steve allen is boris johnson likes to run part of the hatred toward certain groups of people at particular times and at this moment there is ramping up hatred towards muslims which is an existing sentiment in. the daily telegraph and boris johnson have a relationship that goes back decades one that has had an impact on british journalism and politics johnson made his name as the paper's brussels correspondent

from 1989 to $94.00 there he hit on a formula filing stories on the arcane bureaucracy of the e.u. pointless regulations that supposedly mandated the size of bananas and condoms or threatened to make some of britain's favorite snack foods illegal that the stories bore little relationship to the truth was of no apparent concern to johnson or the paper employing him johnson's reporting helped set the tone for the way the e.u. was seen in the u.k. and eventually for the bracks that referendum of 2060. what boris johnson's euro skeptic innocent did was to be simmering your skepticism within the conservative party. but possibly more important it set the tone for 25 years of british media coverage of europe because every news editor in fleet street

forbes what boris johnson was producing was much more interesting than the usual grain dull that came out of brussels and they demanded the same i know this because i was a brussels correspondent for 3 years myself at the end of the 1990 s. so come the referendum. the referendum wasn't lost in those 5 weeks whatever it was in june 26th seemed to be not over the previous 25 years can we blame boris johnson for britain's fundamental euro skepticism tracing that back to a couple of decades ago almost when boris was churning out these ludicrous stories exaggerated stories it was a colorful made great copy and people lacked a top but i'm sure also people took it with a little bit of a pinch of salt. boris johnson's ongoing relationship with the telegraph remains central to his political ambitions because the current prime minister to resign may

resign before her term was up her successor will be selected on july 23rd not in a general election but by the conservative party membership and until then the telegraph will continue to provide boris johnson with a weekly platform a direct pipeline to the 160000 the conservative party faithful who will choose britain's next prime minister. the daily telegraph is the bible of the conservative party. and our next prime minister is being chosen not by the british public but by the north point 25 percent of the electorate who happen to be tory party members so his column in the daily telegraph is immensely important i think it's quite extraordinary to me breaches every code of journalistic ethics i cannot understand how he or the telegraph gets away but. if the politician and the paper

do get away with it it will be because the line between politics and the press in the u.k. between those elected and those supposedly holding them to account has long been blurred by mutual self-interest. boris johnson is just the latest beneficiary of that and if the polls prognosticators and bookmakers have got it right he will ride that relationship all the way to 10 downing street. we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our reproducers flo philips flow we're still almost a year and a half away from the u.s. presidential elections in 2020 but the campaigns are up and running there were those 2 televised debates on the democratic party side this past week but the coverage seems to be overshadowed by coverage of president trump which once again seems to be falling short in the us news media yes richard that very same u.s.

media saying that what same papers that have done a lot of self-examination about mistakes they made mistakes that could well have played a part in trump's 2016 victory now 2 years into his presidency it seems that much the media is still struggling with how to deal with him to this past week no shortage of potentially explosive material over which to question him lots and lots of stories about the inhumane conditions at those to tell. centers down on the border with mexico and yet when trump sat down for an interview with n.b.c.'s chuck todd on meet the press told let him get away with some blatant lies but i ended separation i inherited separation from president obama not trying has said that before blaming president obama for those family separation policies but he's been knocked down not only did todd let him get away with that but the meet the press

twitter account later posted a tweet echoing trump's lie before eventually posting a 2nd tweet noting that trump's claim is false and all that from a program that used to be one of the holidays hitting political interview shows on the american air waves usually tropper trucks saturation levels of news coverage when that doesn't happen it's actually noticeable and there was one such case this past week where the follow on power verge of an allegation didn't really hit the mark far from it rich just over a week ago the advice columnist carol published an extract in new york magazine an extract from her upcoming book in it she accuses president trump of raping she says that he attacked her in the dressing room of the department store back in the 1990 s. now that's front page news for most people not it seems for many of the top newspaper editors the only one that gave it top billing was the washington post the new york times ran the story in its book section treating it as

a story about an upcoming memoir and not a rape allegation against a sitting president on the t.v. side carol did appear on m s n b c but none of the major networks a.b.c. c.b.s. n.b.c. fox devoted more than a passing reference to the story brian stelter who's the host of reliable sources the media analysis show on c.n.n. so there's a fear eyes about media fatigue fatigue that is about now more than 20 allegation of trump's harassment and sexual abuse of women it's media fatigue now what kind of hope do we have for the coverage that we're going to get down the road we are still almost 18 months from these elections ok thanks for. the latest stare down between washington and tehran over iran shooting down of that u.s. drone made for plenty of scary headlines the threats of military retaliation from president trump eventually came to nothing but this is a situation that is being closely followed by oppositional iranian groups including

crown prince raise a pox levy the son of the former shah of iran the prince has recently offered many an exclusive interview to western news outlets presenting himself as a credible democratic successor to iran's islamic leadership that is debatable given that the prince's father ran an authoritarian regime protected by a brutal force of secret police until he was toppled in 1979 however the monarchy remains popular in large segments of the iranian media diaspora channels like the u.k. based manila toti v b.b.c. persian the is stamboul based gem t.v. and cash t.v. which comes out of los angeles those channels have pioneered a genre of programming you might call the stage of t.v. documentaries and entertainment shows that skate right past the repression of the shah's reign and focus on the social freedoms of those times listening posts i mean actually ravi now on the iranian media diaspora its penchant for an astrologer and

the rose tenting of iran's pre revolutionary history. every friday night my new t.v. a persian language satellite channel based in london invites viewers to turn back the clock sal and that's when there's a month or so made it into nearly is our money or time time no delivers a feast of archival footage showcasing life even on under its last shot mohammad reza pahlavi. what the u.s. see is a vision of a liberal and stylish it on led by a benevolent king it's enough to make you wonder why the. 1979 revolution and the overthrow of the shah ever happened you see women out and about on the beach on university campuses in the workplace participating in and spore images of the shah and his wife his 3rd wife usually the empress of fat are always looking very

beautiful looking very glamorous the idea is look at how how beautiful and happy and fashionable everybody was in the past and like we are now where their mom. and i found it quite extraordinary when i visited iran a few years ago to find out that almost every person in iran was familiar with monitor. what guarantee the channel success was the access to run archive footage from the period before the revolution. that's moscow boffin macoutes i as well because any of our ancillary such a last name the best yardy that. matter tour started it. broadcasts for audiences inside iran to provide them with entertainment and news that they would otherwise not receive certainly all the channels inside iran are censored certain topics are taboo. matter to provide those topics such as monica

which has been the biggest. when monotone launched in 2010 it entered an already crowded market iranian media outlets broadcasting in exile. the 1st we will get on an immigration took place in the lead up to the 1979 revolution. mass protests against the shah his oppressive government and his brutal secret police the starbuck would bring him down. the popular uprising eventually coalesced behind the country's new leader ayatollah khomeini and in 1979 the islamic republic was born. many iranian immigrants ended up in last.