donald trump blames congress for deeds railing relations with moscow accusing representatives of forcing him to sign a flawed sanctions bill and raising concerns of a constitutional crisis in the u.s. . as well the world of politics party rules russian athletes will continue to be suspended from track and field competitions amid doping concerns. thursday marks the first working day for the new constituent assembly in venezuela elected at the weekend following violent protests in u.s. sanctions on the country's president.

even to you my name is neil harvey you're watching r.t. international donald trump has accused congress of bringing u.s. russia relations to an all time low in a tweet the us president said that it's thanks to the people on capitol hill who forced him to sign the anti russia sanctions bill he said that he had to abide by that decision made by the lawmakers after their landslide vote last week gave him no other chance one way congress can now check trump steelmaking potential is by stopping him from lifting russia restrictions the new law requires the president to obtain congressional approval for any such move earlier i discussed the growing political crisis in washington with any patrik. i guess no president would like to be donald trump shoes right now times really are getting tough as they can get for

the president you know being america's top man in charge but at the same tommy think of it not being able to exercise his power and even worse being cornered into making the decisions he doesn't want to make just to keep order and as we've been hearing from the white house spokesperson who's been explaining that very signature under that sanctions bill the president signed that countering america's adversaries through sanctions act congress has encroached on the power of the presidency and he signed it in the interest of national unity well you can really just look at the latest votes first of all the crucial bill that very one on the sanctions that was landslide votes in the house that was a landslide vote in the senate but then also trumps much cherished healthcare bill you know that was the pillar of his white house campaign yet it has been destroyed by the american lawmakers and as we have been seeing both the democrats will that

is kind of obvious but also of course the republican party which is technically trumps party teaming up against the president and giving him quite a troubling month after month week after week and the criticism and the pressure has been building up what was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for i worry about the president's understanding of some of these issues. these are race baiting seen a religious bigot and a ludicrous pretend for his hate campaign this president does not care about the united states of america so in these kind of circumstances under so much pressure it is little surprise that donald trump is giving in to the congress and you might argue that this really puts america on the brink of a constitutional crisis. and wednesday donald trump reluctantly put a signature to that anti russia sanctions bill despite claiming that it's flawed

and that it contains unconstitutional provisions while i favor tough measures to punish and deter aggressive and destabilizing behavior by iran north korea and russia this legislation is significantly flawed in its haste to pass the legislation the congress included a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions. a number of provisions to displace the president's exclusive constitutional authority and those comments live a lot of questions in their wake the president states that even though he sees the legislation as unconstitutional he signed off on it as president trump swore an oath to preserve protect and defend the constitution of the united states but he seems to be openly doing the opposite upon approving the sanction this bill of course is it is a terrible bill. benefits the people of no contrary not the united states not germany or italy not russia syria not any of the people is the constitutional crisis our government is set up to

where there are three branches that constantly struggle one against the other. so that in itself is totally unexpected but i do believe that these side shows are out of keeping with the traditions of the united states and how our government functions but what looks like a constitutional crisis brewing in the us is not the only problem trump is facing sanctions that hit russia's energy and defense sector are infuriating america's partners in europe those who work with moscow and those areas so these things can seem to be leaving hardly anyone happy trumps being forced to go against his constitutional beliefs yes worse revelations take a further hit and america's closest european allies go on the defensive to counter what they see as measures potentially in violation of international law when these statements from trump and with the president claiming that he can make far better

deals with foreign countries than congress but with measure such as these being passed may be prevented from doing just that. washington d.c. . former u.s. congressman ron paul believes that the new sanctions are a big mistake and will hurt playlists. the deep state. and the media are very very powerful and they can put a lot of pressure on the president so they ganged up on him and i thought he had sort of a mediocre position on this i was strongly opposed to it and i volunteered my advice which was totally ignored but he went ahead and signed it i think it was more like a political thing but i don't think on the long run this benefits he i don't think it benefits america it certainly doesn't benefit you know peace in the world between europe and russia so i think it's a terrible thing to have happen but there are some those who coached qualified to be participants in the deep state they are determined they are determined almost

obsessed with making sure that there is no friendship between the united states and russia between putin and trump i think that is tragic you know even when russia and the soviet union existed we actually were quite willing you know when necessary to talk and work out some problems but now we're moving in the other direction of the country that's been talked to by washington's recent sanctions is wrong the countries officials have already played the move breaks the terms of its current nuclear deal with the u.s. and of the will power was. you know view the nuclear deal has been violated and we will surely appropriate and proportional reaction to this issue the main goal of america in approving these sanctions against iran is to destroy the nuclear deal and we can discuss this now with former advisor to iran's nuclear negotiation team and also author of the soon to be published book iran nuclear record and the remaking of the middle east that's our big cover welcome we've heard the response

coming from the iranian side is the nuclear deal really under threat in your opinion. absolutely and we have seen a string of nuclear deal initiatives by the u.s. these list later sanctions being deprived example that threatened the world being and the longevity of the nuclear agreement which is a net plus for non-printing proliferation and a common good for the international community and unfortunately despite the fact that the tramp administration has little heated new certified iran's com plans with the nuclear agreement it continues to take these cantar productive the steps that threatened the. illicit date in the end response as we have seen by the iranian parliament sanctioning american entities and iran for the fifth time complaining to the joint commission iran's deputy foreign minister though said that europeans

wouldn't allow trying to destroy the nuclear deal do you think there's anything in that. absolutely because the europeans are reaping the economic benefits of the oil by signing wanted billion dollar deals and we've seen that bit early and number of other countries. in comparison to the u.s. that has self sanction in song companies by disallowing them till you know take the benefits of this nuclear breakthrough so the europeans will stand. to trump they have not followed their. footsteps on these sanctions on iran's program which is really a conventional issue and part of iraq's look conventional deterrent capability not nuclear and it's not in violation of the. you know the un resolution or the

accord itself or the constant source of the international legal community so the europeans are really hesitant to follow tromps lead on this and we have seen a lot of voices of discontent recently one has to believe that donald trump never wanted this deal to last the previously called it the worst deal ever do you think that trump is capable of coming up with a better deal. i doubt it and we heard from the secretary of state tillerson just the other day that he has disagreements with the white house on the iran nuclear agreement my hunch is that the sun is more in favor of this deal than is sticking with it can't bear to some hard line is operating against it within the white house and you know some of the neo cons in the u.s. congress etc unfortunately the trans administration has been much for free that it's see it on policy in the hands of these you know hardliners in the u.s.

congress who want to torpedo it but you know fishing for every dance in order to find iran in noncompliance of the nuclear agreement will not be easy and iran has also resorted to do you want to tommy agency which is put in charge of monitoring iran's compliance with this in order to halfs offset any at them by the trump administration to undermine the deal. ok covey we appreciate you coming on to speak to us coming after say abi who is former advisor to runs nuclear negotiation team thank you. my pleasure. meanwhile a new study into which country people fear the most has produced some rather surprising results forty thousand people across thirty eight countries took part. as a story. the world is a frightening place disasters wars terror and paul the team make us a fearful people but fear can be measured who would you say people

are most afraid of the usual suspects. who cheney but no none of the people in the thirty eight countries that polled feel most threatened by the united states this is pew research one of the most respected pollsters in the world doesn't seem to know it's doesn't seem that stable at the moment the us if it's a world works for the i do understand why they perceive the united states as a threat well i guess this has to do with the tone of our political change and that doesn't surprise me it's very disturbing it's concerning it's scary sort of our image now sort of a lot lot more anger towards us and within us i mean i guess that makes me feel

better meaning that we have a strong military someone said it's better to be here than love so it's an old story big bad america big bad russia china we've heard it all before what's striking here is that it isn't america's enemies that increasingly view it as a chief threat it's washington's friends canadians for example now see the united states as more of a threat than either russia or china that is outright animosity within nato and among allies turkey south korea japan spain greece and germany view washington as the most threatening state in the world that's as many. seventy two percent of respondents how's that for friends in europe you have. at least some understanding of the united states behaves in the world that you do

not have in the united states you have germany now of closing u.s. sanctions on russia you have the public you know this is not the german government this is the german public this is not the swedish government this is the swedish public so you have people who are opposed to war opposed to militarism opposed to nato expansion of those two u.s. bases in germany expressing their viewpoint and that's you know not typically in news in europe and especially not in the united states. you know you could say that over the last four years trump and obama helped make america great again or at least a great threat. voted to uphold it spot on the russian athletics federation after presenting a road map to anti doping compliance auntie's honesty it can have the details. we

have the international association of a flat expectoration basically decide to not reinstate russia's membership this comes just one day before the london world championships kick start here were only nineteen russian athletes are going to be competing under neutral flags now the russian sports ministry has described this latest decision as quite unfortunate he said that he is thankful however to those countries that did vote in russia's favor saying that it does show that trust is growing but obviously more work will need to be done on this issue i mean let's keep in mind that all of this of course comes from a back in november twenty fifth dean where russia was suspended from the i a the very controversial mcclaren report played a huge role in terms of what happened with russian athletes of course if you remember following that report the russian a team was basically banned from the rio olympics and all of russia's paralympians were banned in participating and this obviously was quite controversial and was

a very big decision that was largely discussed at the time now we also have to keep in mind that now wada has the world anti-doping agency has a new road map where they have decided that the russian sports ministry and the russian olympic committee are going to have to accept all of the findings the full findings of the mclaren report in order to move forward with this situation but this is something that's at this stage seems to be quite unlikely we did see the international olympic committee say that wada itself do not see the findings of the report as sufficient enough to bring successful cases. an expert cashmore he's a professor of sociology at amherst and university. lecturer a good evening to you obviously not the result the russian of the fix for the ration was hoping for where does it go to from here. i think it just has to grin and bear it it's disappointing used but let's face it not entirely. unexpected

i mean the sound coming from the our there has been rather dismal over the last few months in particular who's the head of the organisation said that he's not been impressed by the progress that russia has made and i think every sign pointed to the fact that would be not simply extended but extended indefinitely i think that this is the really punitive part russia doesn't really know what he has to do next and he doesn't know how long the bad news for this is just going to go on. already and the olympic games the world championships begin tomorrow and so they miss two major tournament next year we have the europeans so we really don't know how long this is going to go on for i personally think that there has to be some kind of

clarity from the on what does it want russia to do what does it have to do next to gain readmission to say well i think i will let's talk about one of the things that i think they do want and that is not just an apology but they they want everybody i think involved in in russia i thought it timed in the government to to say that all of the findings of the mclaren report were correct so they're looking for a full scale acknowledgement that this was state sponsored doping they did receive today and i thought a very contrite and full apology from the president of the russian athletics federation but will they get a full acknowledgment of them the clown report was spot on and all departments will be at the see that we won't get that and this is the stumbling block russia has always insisted that they want to see evidence of the so-called state sponsored doping that is referred to in the mclaren report. as you point out no i think there has been a hesitation to produce. results or what would count as evidence

and i think russia is quite white so hold that and said well hang on before we actually admit that the was state sponsored big let's examine the evidence in fact let's let the rest of the world who saw it and that evidence is not being forthcoming so the contrition that the i declare has been waiting for has just not materialized and i think probably with good reason i don't think the meat retracted and will confess and say ok we realize we were wrong all along in the mclaren report was right chapter and so we're just caving in that isn't going to happen and i think as long as this kind of let's not call it conflict but a difference of perspective continues then this ban is probably going to continue that's the unfortunate part about it this is the further unfortunate part so to

extend this. but i think this is important for all of us to note is that a lot of innocent athletes now get out they had nothing to do with the state sponsored doping they have registered an unclean doping test they are for all intents and purposes innocent people who just want to compete honestly major athletics events around the world and they can't do that yet just to add to what you just said i think it's nineteen russians who will be competing at the world athletics championships but can't compete as russians so the question is will shouldn't they have been competing in the olympics and how many innocent people suffered in the meantime but just to come but at this point you made about evidence because wada itself admitted the mclaren report didn't give sufficient evidence of the state sponsored doping so as you said russia the athletics federation in between a rock and a hard place now. i mean what's the solution here this sounds like something that

could just go on forever if the world of athletics is suffering in the main town i think it is and although this hasn't been disclosed i think that must secretly be hoping for some kind of breakthrough now let's let's first put the statistics aside because there was a resounding vote to extend this ban the are something like eight to one so that there was almost a unanimous acceptance that russia must stay on the outside looking in where do we go from here i don't really know who i don't have the answer that by the do have the answer to one question and that is that the idea is suffering from a commercial sense in a commercial sense. don't forget these major athletics events depend on income from cost and the longer they continue with the ban on russia or the suspension shall we call it indefinite suspension the longer russian broadcasters the going to

say hey we're not really interested in showing these major events because frankly they don't really mean that much without russia russia is a major power in the world about letting us and really even the olympics or the world championships are all quite the say without russia so we're not going to show . on our channels and that means it doesn't have the broadcasting revenue which is substantial from russia so the longer it continues the longer they war continue to be hit in the pocket and ice great to get your views thanks for joining us on all this cash more pressure sociology at aston university in sports author and lecturer thank you so much. my pleasure. and thursday marked the first working day for the new constituent assembly in venezuela that was elected at the weekend the vote was followed by violent protests the now been unrest in venezuela for some four months with the opposition demanding that president maduro step down

monday washington post sanctions against the president's private assets in response madeira claimed he would be intimidated by what he calls the imperialist power he spoke to attorney an investigative journalist eva golinger she told us that the u.s. is openly undermining the power of the venezuelan government. but dora himself he joined a very exclusive club including you. should. go on in terms of the brutal repression of his people and in this case the abrogation of the constitution with the with the costume shop with the with the assembly constituent assembly there's no question that the u.s. is engaged in a direct regime change policy in venezuela you know it's been going on now for over a decade but it's increased every year and now we're seeing it sort of accelerate rapidly they certainly have a plan in action i have no doubt about it it goes well beyond depending on you know

the opposition as well as you know there was a two thousand and two who again. unraveled two days later that was backed by the united states funded by the united states and then subsequently you know the u.s. has only increased its channeling of funds from agencies like usaid national noun for democracy amongst others you know cia special missions all kinds of things to try to undermine the venezuelan government first under chavez now and now we're seeing at they're not even trying to cover it up they're just doing it openly expressing you know the fact that either mature or decide to leave or they're going to take them out so i mean it's it's completely outrageous violation of venice our sovereignty and i mean it goes against all the promises that trump made during his campaign of being less interventionist now we're seeing the direct intervention aggression and pure violation not just of venezuela's sovereignty but of international law you can't just say you're going to go in and take out a president who was democratically elected by his people. telling authorities who

sees the boat belonging to a german group the rescues migrants released by the italian coast guard shows the authorities impounding the ship which was intercepted wednesday is part of a government initiative designed to counter the surge of migrants mostly africans trying to get italy from libya officials claim crew members from the boat working with people smugglers. in several cases these interventions see by the boat were carried out not to save people who find themselves in imminent danger but simply to pick up people or school at it by libyan traffickers. it comes after italy presented a controversial code of conduct to aid groups the code demands a police presence on ngo vessels and bans the transfer of refugees to or the ship's phone calls or flares for mencia vessels are also forbidden as they could be used to signal when it is safe to send a boat to say six of nine n.g.o.s operating in the mediterranean sea have refused

to sign that document my colleague kate partridge discussed the issue earlier with italian journalist marcela for a martin doul the who is a german left wing politician. in the moment europe is responsible for the destructions in africa a lot and look at that it's necessary to open legal ways for refugees but europe shouldn't leave her alone to countries like italy like spain like portugal with a problem but all european countries should take responsibility and so all the people who are. members on this ship and on other refugee have bought as well they just want to save lives because in the last ten years there was more than forty thousand people dying in the mediterranean sea and they just don't want to see the people joy i see very clearly that this is not are you money to. help is not the money to an s.o.s. but it's helping those people arriving in italy and the refugees that are

coming in are paying huge sums to human traffickers this is immoral and i would say that it is true that. the destruction of libya was a mistake of historical mistake but i don't see why a country a single country like italy should pay the price for it so it's a huge problem neatly and finally the government decided to take some action to stop these kind of. how there are renewed hopes today that peace efforts have taken a significant step forward in syria this is after a new deescalation zone came into force in the country it's a late. video that we've just received from one of the checkpoints in the military officers have been searching vehicles for weapons and ammunition in checking the identification documents of drivers and passengers establishment was confirmed by russia's defense minister. a little bit of what it was according to the agreement today on the third of august starting from the local time moderate opposition

forces as well as government troops will cease fire from all types of weapons well this latest the escalation zone as a result of intensive talks in asked another capital and also in cairo there were four deescalation zones discussed in total two are already in operation in southern syria this is the third one put in place it encompasses around eighty seven towns and villages in those areas of syria one hundred forty thousand people living there so very substantial progress in deed now while the ceasefire covers effectively all sides and all weapons as we mentioned just there of course. are exempt from both internationally recognized terrorist organizations and will be fair game for all parties as always the rebels the moderate rebels in these areas they will be tasked with actually pushing them out as general kardashian koff said let's take a listen. what is this thing that they go to according to the agreement the

moderate opposition assumes responsibility for pushing eisel and really it's out of the areas it controls. not only has russia played a key role in the negotiating table bridging this very major differences between these opposing sides that are all on the ground russian military police will be observing the cease fire really closely they'll be separating the warring parties as well as controlling some crossings and checkpoints that also have a very important humanitarian role in making sure humanitarian aid medicine etc gets through to the areas where it's needed and facilitating the evacuation of wounded civilians they will also have the chance to be treated in russian field hospitals in the area to ensure they get the treatment they very much need now the opposition has also agreed to open a key road between homs and hama two major cities which was previously a stumbling block in those negotiations in total well there's over two thousand.