the deal was approved by democrats in congress after republicans agreed to try to solve the fate of thousands of migrants brought to the us illegally as children and now facing deportation. venezuelan security forces have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators gathered to pay tribute to a rebel helicopter pilot shot dead last week in a shoot—out with soldiers. the protesters were trying to move to a cemetery in eastern caracas where oscar perez was buried on sunday. three executives have resigned from the governing board of usa gymnastics as former team doctor larry nassar is about to be sentenced for sexually abusing dozens under his care. athletes have been giving testimony, for five days, many saying they felt betrayed by usa gymnastics. nassar is already serving a long jail sentence on child pornography charges. now on bbc news it's hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk.

i'm sarah montague. there aren't many people who are recognisable only from their make—up, but mention a zig—zag of black flames around the eyes painted on a white face, and millions of people around the world will know you are talking about the frontman of the rock band, kiss. take away the makeup and you have gene simmons, a man so canny about business that he realised he could make more money from marketing the kiss brand than from selling records. his famously long tongue has also proved a loose one. he's frequently invited on chat shows and revels in scandalising his critics. but is that also all part of the act? gene simmons, welcome to hardtalk. thank you.

wonderful being here. is it all front with you, promoting an image and a brand through both your music and your opinions? well, i mean, i think it's fair to say we all wake up and stand in front of a mirror and try to see how the rest of the world sees us. if your own shakespeare says "the whole world's a stage" then we're alljust players. i mean, all of us to some effect, we're alljust trying to figure out what to wear, what to say, and how to act, in some ways it is all real. the only time we are as honest and purely innocent without trying to figure out what anyone thinks is perhaps when we are at home alone and there is nobody there tojudge us. but as soon as you leave your home, people have something to say, look at, think about, and so on. so, of course, everything

is all an act in the same way as you. you are a professional, but of course it's an act. ok, but as far as the music is concerned, there are people who say it was always about the front rather than the music. yeah, they don't care. i mean, take whatever you will from it... but for you, what was it? well, it's a combination of both. we wanted 44 years ago to put together a band no one ever saw on stage, to write the songs that we believed in, and so on, and to make, you know, quite honestly, a complete spectacle out of ourselves, because critics say that we are. and you're damn right we do. we believe in giving folks bang for their buck. and the idea ofjust getting up there cross—legged with some incense and an acoustic guitar and charging people 100 bucks for a ticket is anathema, which is a big word like "gymnasium," we won't go there. we give bang for the buck. but only recently, when you look at the critics of... can i react to the word "critics?"

well, the guardian writer, one of the guardian addicts talked about your concert earlier this year, he described it and all earlier concerts as "a masterclass in self—parody from day one." well, thank god the guardian thought that. no, listen... but perhaps it is something you agree with, though. perhaps you set out to say... no, not at all. not at all. look, i appreciate the good will and good—natured fun, but i have a few houses the critics have bought me. if those are bad reviews, please bring them on. but you have also been honest about how much is spectacle rather than the music. it is clearly both. i don't want to get up on stage with a band i am so proud of and just play the songs. i believe that would be a slap in the face of the audience. we also don't use backing tracks or anything fake. it is a legitimate hard—rock band that goes up on stage, and we prefer to give the audience something more than just incense. you said yourself "i am not an artist."

non, i think that's highly overused. no, i think that's highly overused. it's not up to me to decide if i am. it's always up to the people. of the people, for the people, by the people. when someone goes up there and says "i am an artist," i would say, "who are you?" there are some people who write and sing because they feel driven to do it. is that the same with you? i don't want to tell you the facts of life about those sorts of things. those people will tell you what you want to hear, it's beautifully poetic. then privately they go back to their mansions and love it in the same way we do. and the attention and the attraction of this sex or the opposite sex, it's all part of the game. the real question is would anybody or everybody do this if they did not get a single penny? ok, but do you still write music? are you still moved to do so? i wrote a song two weeks ago called your wish is my command. did you write it to make money?

that is a good point. so, the people who create stuff and write stuff are in the creative process and afterwards they want to make money. but there is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting down and being hired by somebody, because you are hired by the wonderful and iconic bbc, to sit here. you know full well what you are going to be doing, you are going to be paid money. what is bad about that? 0k. and foryou, i mean, as a band... you mean america's number one gold—record award—winning group of all time in all categories? it is hard wired into your dna, isn't it, to promote? well, you snooze you lose! if i'm gonna wait for the bbc or anyone else to tell the world how fantastic we are, we will lose. that is why early on you invented band merchandising. but you did not do teacups and coffee cups... "tea cu ps ! " how english! i love it. ..or t—shirts! haha! you went so much further!

you have 5,000 different licensed items! yeah. anything from kiss condoms to kiss caskets. we'll get you coming, we'll get you going. the latest, the box set that you're selling at the moment, is called the vault. almost. it's called genesimmonsvault.com. that's actually the title. one of the most extraordinary things you're doing with it, is people can pay extra for this material and get you... well, let's go one step at a time... no, because i don't want you to list various options. fine. but you can pay extra to have you personally hand—deliver it to their house. yeah. that's because when i was a child elvis did not come to my door and say "hey, gene, check out my new album." i am very well—off and the fans gave me this opportunity, so i wanted to change the way things are done. the largest box set of all time is the box set i am putting on the website.

0k. but wait... it is three feet tall, 38lb, and spans 50 years of songs with bob dylan and van halen and many people. but i will hop on a plane at my own cost and hand deliver it around the world. i don't know how early sales have gone... huge! oh, so you are travelling a lot next year? i will start injanuary and be out there for 12 months. so you will not get tired and a little frustrated? i will, but so what? when you go run around hyde park, you get tired. for those struggling to think, you know, what is a kiss band? they may not remember. what planet did they come from? we have a clip. well, let's have a little listen. do you notice how attractive i look?

that is from last year! in a way, the offering has not changed much in more than four decades. you are now approaching 70. 68 now. do you not get a bit tired? oh no. putting on the make—up, and... do you? but seriously? it is a privilege and an honour. it's more akin to warpaint, the idea... the entire... you know, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the grease paint, the whole process is so exciting. you are backstage and playing music and hanging with the guys and stuff like that and you start

to hear the crowd. you know, that thing. there are very few things that get you excited during the course of the day. come on, you are looking forward to traffic... but to do it for five decades, and you are still having to perform some of the early songs to keep the... of course, we are! and proudly so. of course. it's wonderful. what betterjob is there? we have more fun than the pope! ok, now when you first realised... you were formed in 1973... 1873. in 1973, it was a struggle to begin with, but there was a point when suddenly you started selling records. well, it wasn't about records. we started selling out stadiums within a year and a half of debuting. we sold out in anaheim stadium. we were headlining above bands around for decades. and something happened before records, voicemail, before anything, really, and itjust happened naturally. critics never gave us a quarter to get on a bus. and it happened because of the people! and we continue... 0ur strongest base, our strongest,

you know, "at a boy" comes from the people. and that's our favourite thing. and for running up debts to get the band going, the money really started rolling in. 0h, big. i remember... my mother's from hungary and she continues to say "how is the orchestra?" she has this wonderful... she still has no clue who pays the money or who i work for. she's been to one of your concerts? she goes all the time and she does my, you know, the hand gesture, and all that, says, "i love you." initially she went up to paul, my bandmate, and did not realise i was on the other end of the room. my life is so amazing... but your life changed as a result of that and as a result of the fact that you were starting to make money, it must have just changed so dramatically. well, it dramatically changed because i moved to hollywood

and i sold out. i became ensconced, which is a big word like "gymnasium" and "power and corruption," all that, but never drugs, never booze, never alcohol. i have still never been high or drunk in my life. i don't care if anyone thinks i am making it up or believes it. "oh, that's a lie..." that is my choice and life and you can do whatever you want. i would never break my mother's heart. she was 1a years of age when she was in the concentration camps of nazi. i have no right to disappoint her in any way. my mother is proud of her son, i have done myjob. and it is because of your mother that you thought i will not do something that affects her health. you are her only son. it's not about health, it's about not breaking her heart. she is 92 and just kicking a. i'm not supposed to say that other word. she's continues to be the inspiration that keeps me going straight, that prevents me from drifting off to the dark side,

because, you know, the papers are littered with people who self abuse... but including your bandmates, two of the original members of the band have written about their own problems with drugs, coke and alcohol. 0ne, peter chris, said, "i had a coke problem at the time, it was ‘the‘ thing." everyone was doing it. i wasn't. ineverdid... i was so stupid and naive about it, i went in to a recording studio and there was a mirror there, and sweet and low, the artificial sweetener, had just come out, and i had artificial sweetener in my coffee, i was watching my girlish figure. there was some there, and i thought someone had spilt some sweetener, but it was coke. i did not know what it was, and someone stopped me using it. i rapidly learned to stay away from losers. that is why you got rid of two of the original members of the band. three different times.

they came around three different times and lost fortunes every time. peter, when writing about it, said it made him work harder, it was fuel to him. oh, that's nonsense. everyone gets delusional with chemicals inside their body. "without it i would not be creative, that kind of..." it is an enabling device. the truth is you are born with everything you need. anything else you put in your body that numbs your body and mind, it is your enemy. what was it like within the band if you are alone are teetotal? paul was also a teetotaller. what was it like? there was huge tension. we had argument and fights and lawyers got involved. and of course, invariably, you had to get rid of them. because how can you imagine playing in a football team if you can not depend on them? you pass them the ball and they are too high to understand it and then you lose it. well, you don't lose, we all lose. you did not touch drink and drugs. the women, though, that sort of third element of the rock

and roll life, you really went to town there. it's all true. 4,800 women is supposedly your record, your tally. well, you know, one or two, that's all in the past. i'm married. yeah, you know, one or two, whatever that is, yeah, that's in the past. i'm married. i know. i love my wife, shannon, and i waited like a jackass... are you allowed to say that word? that's fine. i'm a jackass and i have been all my life, i'm a lonely child and it's like living in a bakery and being on a diet, you're in a rock band and everything gets thrown in your face, the bad stuff, women, all that stuff. i didn't want to grow up, i was caught up, i was arrogant, self—engrossed and all that. it took forever, it took shannon, my wife, my two kids, nick and sophie, to kick me in the nuts and make me grow up and be a man. your wife made you burn the polaroids which were the proof of the 4,800. it was a public thing, it wasn't a secret.

you put it all behind you but you have run into difficulties very recently because of the things you said when you went into fox news, you were banned for life because you barged into a staff meeting... i didn't. you didn't? certainly not. the story is you barged in, you opened your shirt and you said, "chicks, sue me!" what is your first name? sarah. i go on social media right now and say sarah met me backstage and she said, and i can say whatever i want, it goes on social media and if it's at all... so what happened ? nothing. here's how i wear my shirt, someone there apparently had the goods in for me and called the daily beast or something and said whatever they said i did. i did nothing. i aways have people around me, like when i come here, i've got handlers and everybody sees what i'm doing. you can't go into a public area and do anything. but let me finish. the problem with social media today is nobody calls you and says, "do you have a comment?" the story was printed and of course everybody exploded. and fox, they're nice people, i like them a lot, but they're closed ranks and they're afraid of getting sued by everybody

— nothing happened, i stand by every word. nothing happened but they banned you? that's right, that's exactly right. i stand by every word ijust said. you will know the hash tag #metoo,, where women are calling out behaviour where they have suffered in the past sexual harassment at the hands of men, and your name has appeared in a couple of tweets. why would i want to do anything... look, i'm not even going to hold up the hypothetical. nothing happened. all of a sudden, 44 years on in a rock band somebody‘s coming up and saying this guy's a bad guy, it's not true. i think the climate is horrifically bad and yet at the same time empowering to the right women. there are some really bad guys out there, ijust happen not to be one of them. 0k. when you read what women are saying are happening to them, what do you think about the culture that you and in one sense everybody lived through? the women who were going after the weinsteins of the world? yeah.

they should go to the cops. the police are here and the court system is here for you to do what the women did with bill cosby. you have a complaint, go to the cops. going through the court of public opinion on social media is maybe exactly happened the way it happened. why don't you get yourself a lawyer and do due diligence? isn't there a question of changing the culture, the kind of stuff you maybe don't go to the police over but you think, "i'm going call this out because women don't have to accept it any longer." there is an organisation in england, i saw it yesterday on a chat show, a woman heads it, about the victims, the men who are committing suicide, who were wrongly convicted of all kinds of nonsense. what about them ? do you think it's gone too far? i'm not saying it's gone too far. i'm saying go to the cops. let's turn back to your mother. now i like you. clearly the single most important person in your life. it should be the single most important person to everybody‘life. it's because of her background, she was a survivor of the holocaust, and also because when she arrived in america, she was with you,

single mum, you were aged eight, and you remember that time and it seems to have had a huge effect on you throughout your life? well, our... ..my father... i always fall back on our because it still hurts. my father abandoned me when i was about seven years old, and my dear mother took on the reins and the responsibility the way so many millions of mothers around the world raise families as a single mother, whether they're married or not. we came to america when i was eight years old and i was totally unprepared for everything and my mother had language difficulties, she only spoke hungarian, i spoke hebrew, hungarian and one or two other languages, none of us spoke english. it was enormously hard for my mother and what i saw was the most empowering, inspirational human being i'd ever seen in movies, television, anything, and it was my mother, who would wake up at the crack of dawn and go to work every day

and make sure her son would turn out 0k. that's why i have a lifelong responsibility... you're going to get me choked up here so i'm going to stop now. 0k, go ahead. i wondered how it makes you feel about what's happening in america now with attempts to stop immigrants? well, i am an immigrant, i'm an illegal immigrant, i don't know why anyone would care what a guy in a band thinks about immigration or politics, but you're asking so i'll give you one citizen's opinion. that is that legal immigration is the right thing because at least people know who you are, where you come from. some vetting, it's called due diligence in business, but you want to vet who comes and goes, and i give that power to the government. i willingly say i want you to know where i am if i'm pay taxes and so on, if i commit a crime, i want you to know where i am, here's my fingerprints, i'm all for that. there are 11—20 million illegal immigrants in america. now, my heart goes out to anyone

that comes to america or england for a better life and all that. i get it, i get it. emotionally and sympathetically, i'm with you all the way. but unfortunately, bad guys come along with that as well. i just want to say the following, the pope, who i'm a big fan of him, i think he's a good human being, he said walls around your land are not a nice thing. maybe so, but the vatican has an enormous wall going around it. but your own daughter said, "we're a country built on immigrants and survivors..." legal immigrants. .."and what's happening right now when we're closing our doors to that is shocking to me because my family wouldn't be here. both my parents are immigrants." i love sophie, she's the rights holder of anybody, and when you're 20 and 25 years old, i did too, immigrants is all encompassing, it's not. when you're illegal immigrant there's a vetting process, if you keep the doors open, i'm going to suggest

in your country, let anyone in, without any vetting, are you for that? what about the children of illegal immigrants, the dreamers? it breaks my heart and i don't have the answer because if i was here illegally and i had a child, i'd say do whatever you want with me but please let my child have a better life. that's the emotion and romance of it. you have said about trump, "give him time." it's president trump, and i'll tell you why. i don't necessarily like ordislike him. did you vote for him? he was duly elected and i'll tell you why i won't answer that either, i may not have, but the reason your founding fathers, and in america they have those curtains when you vote, it's nobody‘s damn business who you voted for and if a citizen asks you that, you're just going to get into an argument. i wonder, given the record you've seen so far whether you'd be prepared to vote for him for a second time? i know the man personally a little bit, i also know president clinton

and president bush. you've worked with him as well, haven't you? yes. president trump doesn't really care how you think about him, he's really a lone guy. that's neither good nor bad, it is what it is, he doesn't pretend to be a politician and he really doesn't care what you think about him. this is either going to turn out to be good or bad. i know he's hurt a lot of people by the things he's said, it's unfiltered, what you see is what you get, he's not an ideologue, he's neither republican or democrat. don't think for a second that because i'm saying this, i'm for this. i don't trust politicians, neither side would have me, socially i'm very liberal. gay rights, lgbt community, if you want to worship a rock or be an atheist, i'm on your side, i will march right with you, don't tell me what kind of life to have. but foreign policy, i'm as conservative as you would imagine.

fiscally i'm very, very conservative. what does that make me, a member of the american party. let me ask you finally then about family. finally! i thought we were going to be here for the whole day. you arrive with your mother, you're eight years old. you look at where you are now and how successful you have been, she feels proud of you? oh, yeah. my mother... wow. she'll take a book or magazine or something i have been in and she will start crying. from her perspective of being a concentration camp survivor and seeing her whole family, to being in israel and then coming to america and seeing her son scale the heights and all that, she's taught me to be fearless and look bbc right in the face and say, "to thine own self be true." take it or leave it, i don't care how you feel about it, i am clean inside and this is who i am and i learned that from my mother. gene simmons, thank you for coming on.

it was a pleasure to see me. hello there. we're sticking with a mild theme for the next couple of days, and if anything, today looks very mild in places. we import that air from the south—west. it's going to bring about a considerable fall of any lying snow across central and northern areas, too, and with weather fronts bringing outbreaks of rain and the thawing snow, we could see standing water around. it's going to be a very mild start. those are the temperatures we're expecting this morning. but it's going to be a breezy one, a lot of cloud through tuesday, maybe a little bit of brightness here and there, and there could be

a couple of weather fronts straddling the country. we start off with rain in england and wales and another one pushing into northern ireland and scotland. this is going to produce some moderate bursts of rain. it's going to be quite persistent across some of the western hills of scotland. add on to the snowmelt, with temperatures between 9 and 11 degrees, as i mentioned, a lot of standing water around. a warm weather front across the eastern side of england gradually clearing away. something a little bit drier in between, pushing into wales and the south—west of england. there's going to be a lot of low cloud, mist and murk with these weather fronts too. always the case when we pick up these mild south—westerlies. a bit of brightness at times across central, southern and eastern areas. that will really push the temperatures up, but there'll be more rain into western areas, and some heavy showers into scotland and northern ireland. look at these temperatures, though, into the afternoon — double—figure values for most. we could even make 1a in one or two of the brighter spots. and then on into tuesday night, it stays blustery. becoming very windy, with gales across western areas.

an area of persistent rain moving in. briefly some snow on higher ground, but milder air continuing to push northwards, it's going to be a very mild night across the south, 10 or 11 degrees at the lowest. this area of low pressure will move through on wednesday, it could cause some disruption. it's going to deepen and bring about some severe gales to scotland. maybe gusts of 70mph here. but it's going to be a very windy day elsewhere, widespread gales, a band of heavy, squally rain spreading southwards and eastwards through the day. brightening up behind it, but it is a cold front. it's going to start to introduce cooler air, which will eventually reach the south—east by the end of the day. and then on into thursday, we're all into this cooler air mass. that's through thursday and also friday. quite a blustery day again on thursday. perhaps some sunshine, though, across england and wales, before some showers, maybe even long spells of rain. those temperatures back into single figures for most of us. so, to end the week, we're back into the cooler air briefly.

there'll be sunshine and showers, and it will be quite windy. but then, as we head on in towards the weekend, it looks like things are set to turn milder once again. this is the briefing. i'm samantha simmonds. our top story: the american government shutdown is over for now. republicans and democrats have three weeks to find agreement on immigration. 0n trial for reporting the rohingya crisis. two reuters journalists face court in myanmar later. a war on the predatory starfish, but will australia's multi—million dollar campaign do anything to save the barrier reef? in his first trade move against asia, president trump slaps tariffs on solar panels and washing machines. i'm sally bundock at the world economic forum in davos where official proceedings get under way

today and it all