>> good evening to viewers across the world. this is france 24. you're watching lfp -- "live from paris." the u.s. house of representatives is voting on pushing up the country's debt ceiling limits after negotiations between the white house and the house top republicans. 400 members are about to publish star votes. an oil refinery struck by a pair of drones in the early hours of wednesday morning igniting a fire just 50 kilometers to the east of russia's biggest oil

export plate. the who initiative hopes to persuade governments to hold subsidies to tobacco farms in favor of food for no tobacco day. it is good to have you with us this evening. the u.s. house of representatives is voting on suspending the country's debt ceiling until 2025. the vote has been hotly watched the world over after weeks of negotiation between the white house and u.s. house leader kevin mccarthy, 430 five members are deciding of spending cuts considered by the administration go far enough. if a deal is not reached by

monday, the u.s. will default on debt obligations and trigger financial unrest that some experts say would surpass the 2008 financial crisis. such a default has never happened in u.s. history, though it has come close on several occasions. let's get morneau from washington. joining me is "the guardian's" bureau chief. -- let's get more now from washington. what exactly is it that republicans are taking umbrage with? >> that's right, and with the clock ticking, there have been weeks of negotiations.

perhaps both wings of their respective parties have objections. publicans think kevin mccarthy has seeded too much ground and failed to rein in government spending. they argue national debt grew too much during the coronavirus pandemic and needs to be reduced again. on the far left, there are several parties who feel joe biden conceded too much ground, welfare, food stamps and other benefits, funding for the internal revenue service which could potentially control taxes for the wealthy. the bill, for example, approves and natural gas pipeline in west

virginia that progressives are not happy about. some have said they will vote against it. some republicans have been very vocal in saying they will vote against it, and yet, i think biden and mccarthy are pretty hopeful they found a sweet spot in the middle of those two extremes, and they are feeling fairly confident this will go through as a bipartisan vote and then head to the senate. >> as you said, time is ticking. that deadline now on monday. the house rules committee has to vote on this to allow it to be discussed in the house, and that vote never got through, 7-6, 4 of which were democrats. how tight is the vote likely to be? >> part of the motivation is that the consequences of the

alternative are just too dreadful to contemplate. you have seen party leaders -- obviously, kevin mccarthy, the republican leader, the democratic minority leader, endorsing this, acknowledging that this is an era of divided government as republicans control the house, compromises have to be made. not everyone will get what they want, and that seems to be the prevailing view. although there are some noisy objectors on both sides of the aisle, it does seem to have enough votes. kevin mccarthy and republicans would hope to avoid the embarrassment of being numbered by democrats, and it may speak

to his leadership to a degree. i expect this to pass the house and had to joe biden's desk for signature, and america will breathe a huge sigh of relief at dodging a bullet. >> it is a tight deadline, though, isn't it? will this all get done by monday? >> i think it should. when push comes to shove, congress is fairly accustomed to working late through the night. we saw that with kevin mccarthy and they voting in the early hours. again, i don't think people realize the bipolar importance of this, that they have to get the job done.

hard-line republicans in particular are known to throw some spenders in the works to try to slow it down, but it will probably not be so successful. i'm sure joe biden will waste no time at all to get it signed. even now as we move day today, it has threatened america's credit rating. even before june 5, you have seen credit agencies discuss lowering the u.s.'s credit rating. >> thank you for joining us. wednesday was a day of tit-for-tat strikes between russia and ukraine. 24 hours after drones struck buildings near moscow, both sides once again traded fire. pressure claims to have destroyed kyiv's -- russia claims to have destroyed kyiv's last worship -- war ship.

the biggest strike happened around 1:00 a.m. when two drones struck russian oil refineries on the black sea about 50 kilometers east of the country's biggest export terminal. no responsibility has been claimed. >> these sorts of incidents first and foremost play into the kremlin's hands -- i should say into warsaw's hands. we have heard comments from various high-profile russian politicians, calling for russia to take kyiv. one and p even saying russia's nuclear weapons should not remain sheathed -- one and p -- one mp. the quinlan has two options,

either negotiate, which means effective capitulation, returned to 1991 borders, including crimea, or double down, and this also affects of course public opinion because the kremlin's line has long been that it is defending russia from attack from a hostile west. of course, with the looming counteroffensive, russians try to also cause maximum damage to ukrainian air defenses. they are having some serious doubts expressed by military analysts, even by figures expressed by the wagner chief. we are very much likely to see an escalation from russia in terms of scale, the intensity, and the frequency of drone

attacks in the coming weeks on russia and ukraine. >> wednesday is the world know vacco day, i will help organization initiative which looks to raise awareness about abuse of the substance and focus on the negative impacts and hopes to encourage governments to stop subsidizing growth of tobacco and replace it with food crops. >> a yearly celebration dating back to 1987, world no tobacco day was founded by the member states of the world health organization to warn the public about the avoidable disease and death caused by the substance. according to the who, tobacco use significantly increases risk to cardiovascular disease as well as 20 different types or subtypes of cancer. the organization points out 80% of users come from low or middle

income countries and that the majority of tobacco-related deaths also occur once these countries. the theme of this year's celebration is group food, not tobacco. the aim is to encourage governments to support crops which could feed millions of people. ongoing conflicts, the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and the effects of climate change have fueled a global food crisis, worsened by tobacco farming according to the who. >> 350 million people having hunger and food insecurity issues, and many of the country's issues are also concerned about growing economies. in africa, for example, in the last 15 years, the growing of tobacco has gone up by nearly 20%. >> the organization also

underlines that swapping tobacco with food crops would improve the bottom line of tobacco farmers as many suffer ill effects to their health. >> for more, we bring in a professor. thanks for joining me this evening. i think anybody would say the risks of smoking at this point are quite well-known. why is something like this who initiative still needed? >> thank you. i think it is just a reminder that millions upon millions of people smoke. millions upon millions are addicted, and maybe it is encouragement for them to perhaps have that initiative it takes to try to kick the habit, which is not easy. we have perhaps a new year's resolution and maybe halfway through the year, it is nice to celebrate and encourage people to do the same thing. it is also a reminder that millions take up the habit each

year and legislators might be prompted to do something about it. there's conversation going on around the world in terms of tobacco legislation, e-cigarettes, targeting children , and i think today is an important day to remind us that we need to constantly keep an eye on this and try to force change through. >> you are a professor of marketing. a good question for you -- cigarette ads have been some of the most iconic and recognizable adverts of all time. i'm thinking of the more burro cowboy, obviously. nowadays you are not even allowed to have the company logo on packs. how has the marketing of tobacco products changed over the years? plexi -- >> the marlboro man is said to be the most famous men

in america, more influential than jesus. from a marketing perspective, it is actually genius. people interested in living up to those ideals, it is part of identity. that is what marketing is about, about cultural relevance, trying to link with people's sense of self, their social identity, and it sneaks different products, different brands into that sense of self, and that's very insidious and dangerous when it comes to habits such as smoking. the idea of antismoking legislation to restrict marketing, to have plain packaging, to remove these brand names, remove the iconic imagery associated with smoking perhaps makes it harder for people to

think of it as part of their identity. it just removes a lot of the glamour and excitement and temptation that surrounds these products. >> has that marketing had a big impact on the level of consumption of tobacco products, in the western world and elsewhere? >> it is hard to prove or disprove marketing. the marketers are able to i behind the notion that individuals decide what they want to do, but realistically, marketing does have a huge impact on people. data suggests visibility of tobacco brands content -- tends to decline quite rapidly. what i would have to say is

marketing is not just about the communication of a brand but the convenience of delivering a product to consumers. i think the most powerful way to disrupt tobacco use is make it less convenient to buy these products. the main one is to make it much more expensive. australia and new zealand have led the way in terms of adding a tax e-cigarettes, and that may cause users to kick the habit purely based on the cost. >> thank you so much for that. >> thank you. >> time now for business.

>> calls for regulation have been mounting as hey i tools -- ai tools have been taking the world by storm. it has been called a complete game changer. let's take a listen. >> within the next weeks, we will advance a draft of an ai code of conduct, of course also taking industry input, taking input from independents, and inviting colleagues to sign up for the drafting in order to have very soon a final proposal for the industry to commit to momentarily. >> inflation in france eased further in may according to new data.

prices in may were 6% higher than a year ago, down .9 percentage points driven by a sharp drop in energy prices. food inflation has also eased slightly but still stands at 14.1%. consumer spending, the traditional engine of french growth, remained weak. let's have a look at some market action of the day. wall street closed lower taking a cue from european markets earlier in the day. there are worries the u.s. could be headed for historic default and recession seem to have retreated. a series of economic data weighed on investor sentiment. more of the day's business headlines we are covering this wednesday, petrol prices in nigeria have tripled since the company announced -- the

country's announced an end to aid that was costing the government. a state oil firm proposed a price hike soon after that. the announcement sparked anger and panic buying as many nigerians consider petrol -- consider cheap petrol as a right. land rover is recalling eagles saying the battery use could overheat. jaguar has received eight reports of fires since 2019. and a rare 19th-century century japanese stamp is expected to fetch millions of euros. part of the reason why is

because of an error. stamps with printing errors are highly appreciated. if you have seen the film "angels share," you know many investors have been diversifying their assets and one spirit has become an increasingly popular product. >> stored floor to ceiling, there are some 9000 whiskey barrels. once filled with a mixture of fermented grain, yeast, and water, the 200-leader casks have a starting price of almost 100,000 euros. the distillery says casks could double in value within five years and triple within 10.

>> some have managed to find exciting returns on bottles and casks in the market. who's to say what the market may deem it is worth? >> long called liquid gold, some whiskeys fetch far more than they precious metal. a cast of ultra-rare risk -- whiskey from 1970 five sold for 15 million pounds, but it remains largely unregulated and potentially risky investment. >> you need to make sure where it is coming from, so provenance is important. you might want to visit the warehouse they say they are stored in. >> the rarity of some single malt, an increase in demand for whiskey, and investors

diversifying their portfolios has created an average price increase of 20% per year over the past decade. market is expected to reach $100 billion by 2030. >> worth more than gold sometimes. >> incredible. next time i go to the supermarket, i'm going to tell myself it is an investment every time i buy a bottle of whiskey. >> every time you say, "make it a double." >> exactly. time now for our daily fact checking segment. good to see you. in today's segment, italy's mount etna volcano corrupted and so did the fake news. >> yes, mount etna limiting more co2 than man has ever created.

together with this video that shows this volcanic eruption of mount etna, this has been retweeted over and over again. another con that has been many times on this segment, so keep an eye out for this one. it says calling all carbon tax supporters, in a 12-hour period, mount etna sent more co2 into the atmosphere then men since we first crawled out of this one. >> do these claims have any level of accuracy to them? >> first of all, we search for the image we see in the video, an image we found published on february 17, 2021 on the bbc where they write, mount etna ash

clouds as sicilian volcano the ruts, so an image that belongs to the last eruption from 2021, not 2023. here is a comparison of the images and the fake claims and the video of the bbc from 2021 where you can well verify these are the same images from 2021, not 2023, so reason enough to be suspicious of these claims, claims that cannot even be proven because one expert says poor weather conditions this time actually prevented the measurement of co2 emissions during this year's eruption, and the operators of the italian national institute and bergen -- volcanology were not even able to approach the site. since these measurements usually have to be taken in an atmosphere that is transparent. >> theoretically, could volcano

eruption emit more co2 than mankind has created? what do experts have to say on that? >> we spoke to the director of research at the cnrs and asked if any type of co2 emissions from volcanic eruption be greater than that of humanity, as they say in the claims, and here is what she had to say. >> [speaking foreign language] >> especially well said. she said that the co2 emissions

of etna's volcano eruption is ridiculous compared to the emissions of all human activity and in fact, according to recent data, but out by nasa annually, human activity puts out about 1.5 million times that of the planet's volcanic eruption's, and bookend interruptions actually an important role in cooling the planet. this is not the first time nor the last that we will see these claims unfortunately. here we have two examples from last year, 2022, where users will say mount etna has released more than 10 thousand times the co2 that mankind has released. but it's once again debunking everything for us. thank you so much.

we are going to take a quick break, but stay tuned. i will be right back. ♪

05/31/23 05/31/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> dirty deal attached to the debt ceiling limit is not only an assault to the folks of west virginia and virginia who have been fighting the mountain valley pipeline for eight long years. amy: as the house prepares to vote on a deal to suspend the