health care plans with fewer benefits critics say it could mean spiraling costs for people with preexisting health conditions the presidential order comes after several failed attempts by the trumpet ministration to repeal obamacare through congressional action. the latest round of breaks it talks have ended in deadlock. negotiating michelle bonnie said he was disturbed by the lack of progress he said talks had reached a dead end over high much britain should pay when it leaves the e.u. and he ruled out discussions on future trade with being allowed to start next week for. police in new york and london are investigating sexual assault allegations against hollywood film producer harvey weinstein more than thirty women have now come forward accusing him of sexual harassment and in several cases of rape weinstein has denied all charges of nonconsensual sex.

you know asco the u.n. organization known for its heritage sides it was created decades ago by the us to give people all over the world clean water decent schools but donald trump sees it as a money pit as a platform to bully israel today notified the u.s. is out. in berlin this is the day. the. united states met the player in a school and unesco made this point united states politicization of unesco last year say has taken a toll on the organisation if we have this large platform put into cultural dialogue for human rights for freedom of expression. for fighting for

literacy and for a for against ignorance i think we need everybody on board if you go back into history we will see not only that. united states is a founding member of unicycle the whole idea that you can build peace through education science a culture of communication that is basically an american idea. also coming up tonight a gay russian you tube sensation fighting homophobia with a camera some tongue in cheek humor and a glass of milk. yes. given that the comments on to the video will literally help. decent people with writing we're going to kill you. them up start the who the hell are you you should all hang and you'll burn in hell to know that sort of stuff. oh we begin the day with

a canceled membership the united states has announced that it is withdrawing from the un's cultural organisation the us state department said that the decision was due to concerns about unpaid do is a need for fundamental reform and what it says is the organization's core continuing anti israel by. seeks to promote peace worldwide and is read down for its world here and its program protecting cultural sites like the statue of liberty as well as promoting girls' education. well since the one nine hundred seventy s. us presidents have complained about the political leanings and the economic large yes at unesco in one thousand nine hundred three wrong reagan yanked the u.s. out here's how the state department justified the move at the time the decision to withdraw was made by president reagan on the recommendation of the secretary of state the recommendation was based upon our experience that unesco as extraneous

lee politicized virtually every subject deals with as exhibited hostility for the basic institutions of a free society especially a free market and a free press and as demonstrated unrestrained budgetary expansion. well no doubt many will applaud us president trump for repeating reagan's decision but in one thousand nine hundred three the allies of the united states were not terribly worried about the white house being the epicenter of a movement to dismantle the global order donald trump is completely different his overt suspicious and even disdain for the u.n. and multilateral agreements have led many here in europe to question u.s. leadership and u.s. reliability trumps presidency his tweets his rhetoric are fertile ground for a resurging anti-americanism all that has prompted foreign policy experts here in

germany to sound the alarm today in the influential weekly newspaper some of the most influential names in german foreign policy penned and signed an open letter entitled in spite of it all america of the letter is an appeal to resist the temptation to use the presidency of donald trump as a catalyst for anti american foreign policies. and here's a little bit of how it reads it's turning away from the united states would bring insecurity to germany and ultimately to europe some analysts and political actors in germany endorse a strategic reorientation for germany some strive to decouple europe's foreign and security policies from the united states and others to place their faith in a german french mini version of europe some recommend that germany should maintain and equidistant between russia and the united states some even recommend that germany should go further and align itself with russia or china in the future all

of these propositions are costly or dangerous or book. well joining me tonight here at the big table are two of the eleven authors of that open letter joined by peter berger she's at the american jewish committee here in berlin and john tesh now you have the richard holbrooke form at the american academy here in berlin to both of you welcome to the day this is an open letter. but you must have had certain people in mind when you wrote it to whom is this letter addressed. we were very concerned a course about the impact of the current us administration on chairman policy we have a new government it was clear that a new government was coming in germany and we very much hope that those who are negotiating a coalition agreement take notice of what we're saying so dressed to the new government the new government is one of the target audiences quite clearly there is a dynamic now you know a negotiation process has just started about forming

a new government but of course there are other target audience as well you know there is of course this this group of people that were addressed in the quote that you just used the people that are actively thinking about basically turning their back on the u.s. and this is a tremendously dangerous trend as we think it is and we wanted to also address to those people specifically and explain to them why we thought that they were on the wrong track who are those people or are we talking about people from the far right party d.f.t. or are there even people in the mainstream parties yeah i mean this is a first of all it's not one single group obviously but what has been our primary concern is that you have those voices now coming in not just from the political fringes but they usually reside but they also coming in from really from the from the central part of our political spectrum that this kind of lingering anti-americanism that has always existed in this country feels kind of freed up now the trumpets in office and people are pointing at trump and saying you know look

this is the real face of america we always told you and now it's finally the time as they sometimes say you know that we should liberate ourselves from atlanta says a man that we think is tremendously dangerous and so you know a lot is at stake and so we thought you know one of talk to those people directly this letter reminds the reader here in germany of the shared u.s. german values it's similar to how the german chancellor congratulated donald trump when he won the election last november take a listen to what she said back then. so i chant what i mean because intuition beatified when germany and america are connected by values democracy freedom and respect for the law and for the dignity of human beings independently of origin skin color religion gender sexual orientation or political influence. on the basis of these values i am offering the future president of the united states of america donald trump close cooperation. trump and says i'm loving.

now you know we were all struck when she delivered that congratulations you know it wasn't bubbly it wasn't that warm it was very like calling every reminder of the fundamentals. do you what would you say though how real is the risk that you've got policymakers here in germany who are forgetting about the shared values that germany in the us have i think that of course everyone recognizes that there are these shared values but in terms of everyday policy it's easy to drift off it's easy to say look at what the united states is doing out there not interested why should we be let's be more concerned with europe asia is something we need to turn our attention to some of it is indifference there which can be as great a danger and i think the anti-american sentiments that just referred to

is a long tradition in germany that predates the nazis and it's very easy for it to flare up and it's this is no longer a question of left or right the world is changing and this is a question of anti modernist forces challenging those very values that chancellor merkel spoke about when president trying came into office in the letter you write united states inventor and guardian of the liberal order currently does not see itself as system guarantor so my question would be who is stepping in for the us now is it germany that's what we have heard a lot of talk about but even on the best of circumstances the germans or even the europeans as a whole we think do not have the strength and the structural power to really actually step in the unification process especially in foreign policy and this is mostly a question of upholding the liberal international its foreign policy the e.u. has not turned itself into a strategic player it is it is not capable of enforcing that kind of order and of

issuing credible security guarantees to others and as long as that's not the case they will not be able to step in now that doesn't mean that we should be doing more we certainly have to do more germany specifically is asked to actually you know carry more responsibility and also to pay more. but you know even of all of that is forthcoming the us remains the indispensable kind of building brick in this kind of construction this architecture and so you know that's what we're trying to say here know even under the current prevailing circumstances even under a president that we all find you know you know if any difficult to get to deal with even under those circumstances the u.s. remains in the sponsible and we have to live with that the the article that you wrote you know it was on page ten of it so i did a short view was what it looked like would you say that this letter is a handbook for germany on hell to take on more responsibility while the u.s. is out to lunch well it's certainly

a recommendation to do so and it's not that the u.s. is out to lunch i think there are forces going on in europe as well the people it can easily overlook their forces of dissolution we have facts that going on we have a weakened france struggling with its economy so that it can take the role that it needs to take we have independent strivings as we're seeing with catalonia europe is very preoccupied with itself as well we have a populous nationalist forces certainly not just in the u.s. but in europe too so again i think our recommendation is let's not forget in the midst of all this turmoil and uncertainty that there's really a rock bottom relationship that's the security karen terror for germany for the us for us all with the it's a strong transatlantic underpinning of security we can't guarantee our liberal western order isn't there's something there you know that we all in our generation have in common is there was this one was this this given that there would always be these exchanges between americans and germans and europeans there was this back and

forth across the atlantic is that still a given i mean we see cutbacks in the united states with the fulbright program for example there's always talks about cutting that back i mean that those cultural those people mixers r r. they threatened right now. i'm not i'm not so sure that we are heading towards some sort of you know nation asst rupture or something like this you know one of the dirty little secrets of the transatlantic relationship is that actually most of it is quite boring and fairly established and very regular you know we have a snappy working groups and people meet at all kinds of levels all the time it's the high politics that is the problem you know we have these two layers of issues one of the agenda items you know what's the current issue of the day and then we often disagree with us on issues but then there is this underlying fundamental issue of auda you know of how to preserve the liberal international order what the european security architecture should be about you know what the burden sharing in the alliance is all about those things should not the question that even when at

the agenda level you know we have you know quite a big disagreement and you know it's very important to distinguish between the two even when the american president often fails to distinguish between the two of them and we also have an appeal to civil society in our recommendations because as you say cultural diplomacy is an extremely important component of this relationship and there will be cutbacks for sure there have been there will probably be more and we cannot neglect this part of the exchange the exchange transatlantic values happens at many many levels also local levels and maybe it's time to do even more not less would you say this letter is basically optimistic and is telling people just hold your breath and when trump is gone the problem will be gone as well is that the take away no not really i mean there is of course you know it's we do make a fairly sophisticated argument as to what should be done holding your breath as

part of it but it can't be the entire solution there's a large group of that it says you know just sit it out we'll survive another three years of this and then after that you know we can start over again that's not going to happen first of all the movement that pushed trump into office. would still exist after he's gone. those forces are at play and they're quite powerful in the united states and so we have to be aware of the fact that that will still be around and we can have a fixation on trump himself that would be a big mistake but at the same time it's also clear that trump and trump ism is not the same as america and so in a sense if you want to talk about optimism there's optimism the sense that we have a lot of trust in the stability of the ultimate stability of american democracy in the end of the day even when you know in the meantime you know some pretty pretty you know undesirable things can happen all right well it's good to have you both on the show burger with the american jewish committee and you want to share with the american academy here thank you very much for coming in thank you well still ahead

on the day the final installment of our series on be gay in russia. she is using shock and i have to it meantime it's disgusting time i am doing to. put in russia you can make money with homophobia. they fixed a piece of wire to my little finger and switched on the current. game in russia a d w special series that this week on the day. oh the european union's chief breaks it negotiator michel barnier says he's just urged by the lack of progress in talks with britain already a says he will not be able to recommend the e.u. leaders that talks move on to issues such as trade now that's because britain still hasn't settled what it's willing to pay to leave the e.u.

. the new british one pound coin which officially replaces the old one on sunday. the deadline is looming much like bret's it there the key question is how many billions of these should the u.k. handover to divorce from the e.u. . michel barnier the e.u.'s brics negotiator believes the answer is still a long way off. still said regarding the financial settlement we are at a deadlock that's very worrying for thousands of project promoters everywhere in europe or you know and also worrying for taxpayers will. be bought. up bonnie as british counterpart david davis has been sounding a more optimistic note he said the two sides had moved closer on citizens' rights and i'm like barney i called for the next stage of talks on a future trade deal to begin to make good progress particularly relating purely

with rule we believe these issues are dependent on discussions on our future relationship before we are ready and we're prepared to start those discussions but davis knows full well this goes beyond the gray walls of brussels twenty seven e.u. leaders must first be convinced progress with stage one has been made german chancellor angela merkel's among those adamant in the patience stick to the timeline you know what it's legalized has returned to europe but after a sad decision by the british to leave the european union these negotiations are important and will conduct them in such a way that there is as little damage as possible for us here in germany. back in brussels face shook hands again this was the fifth round of talks the clock is still ticking. all this week we have brought you the stories of gay men and lesbian women struggling sometimes die for

simply being gay in russia but tonight in our final report we mett meet a video blogger who was using his you tube channel to fight anti-gay business policies in the process he discovered some pleasant surprises and he drank a glass or two of milk. that the when you tell people you're gay you have to bear in mind what country you live in. new york i'm a blogger apparently my blog helps some people i want to use it to explain that being gay is normal and it's nothing bad it's an individual choice.