over a party americans do the same we are verily better than. the sea people you've never heard of low down to the next. president of the world so very. seriously send us an e-mail. coming up on r t the united states withdraws from you now let's go claiming the organization is the anti israel will tell you israel's response in the end packed the decision on the us. and one of the worst outbreaks of wildfires in california history over twenty people dead and hundreds missing. when lawmakers on capitol hill lapse trumpet not to decertify the iran nuclear deal of the stuff later in the show.

it's thursday october well of course me i'm here in washington d.c. i'm ashley banks and you're watching our team america we began today with news the u.s. has announced it will formally with the draw its membership from the un's world heritage of body unesco the state department cites the main reasons for the withdraw all are the need for fundamental reform in the organization and its alleged anti israel by its prime minister benjamin netanyahu welcomed the u.s. as decision to withdraw all saying quote this is a brave and moral decision because you must go has become a theater of absurd and said of preserving history it distorts it shortly after the u.s. made the announcement to what the drawl netanyahu instructed israel's foreign ministry to prepare israel to withdraw from the organization as well r.t. samir khan has more the state department has just released a statement announcing that the us is officially withdrawing from unesco the un's.

cultural body which the u.s. helped found back in one thousand forty five over the agency's a legit anti israel bias citing the need for fundamental reform washington said that the move will take effect on december thirty first according to the statement however washington will remain in the organization as a quote nonmember observer state in order to contribute u.s. news perspectives and expertise this all comes as unesco's voting to choose a new director the current director general of unesco irina bokova said she received notification from secretary of state rex tillerson adding that she expressed quote profound regret over the move washington's move she said was a loss for multiculturalism and the un family we deeply regret that today i received a letter from the secretary of state the decision case being taken and it's just according to the constitution and the rules that they will form when you leave your next begin to put two thousand page team. doesn't mean that we will stop partnering . will appeal once again for partnerships on this i think very important to make

this we chart a common value which we share with united states last year israel suspended cooperation with unesco after the agency adopted a controversial resolution which made no reference to jewish ties to a key holy say in jerusalem the resolution also criticize israel's activities and holy sites in jerusalem as well as the occupied west. bank from the rest stop on the square or to include the palestinian authority as a pursuit doesn't leaven washington now owes over five hundred fifty million dollars in back payments it's worth mentioning however that president trump has criticised funding to un institutions as a disproportionate contribution the us funds about a quarter of the un's regular budget and over a third of all u.n. peacekeeping efforts it will be interesting to find out whether or not this decision will provoke a domestic backlash like we've seen in the past after every decision made by the trouble administration. although it's quite doubtful as there is almost always

bipartisan agreement on this particular subject as i mentioned earlier the u.s. suspended its funding to the agency over the exact same reason under a democratic administration so this seems to be just an extension of bipartisan policy on the issue in a broader context it's unclear if this is merely a symbolic move but it's also quite difficult to predict what the organization will become without u.s. presence but this is hardly an unexpected move as director general of unesco stated that the organization is becoming more and more politicized to continue discussing you nasco i'm joined now by author and investigative journalist maxim blumenthal thank you so much for joining me now do you do you as you know the u.s. has withdrawn from a unesco claiming the organization participates in anti israel bias now what do you say to that we actually heard israeli defense minister avigdor lieberman call the u.s. go an anti semitic organization which means that it opposes all the world's jews apparently so this is inflammatory language and what we've seen with the u.s.

leaving as it appears to zero five hundred million dollars to unesco you know it doesn't have to pay off this organization to pay its dues to this organization but what we see is a case of donald trump's america first agenda being really revealed as. put it at the electronic intifada as an israel first agenda can we imagine the united states withdrawing from unesco or any other world body because of anti french bias or anti german bias no on under no other circumstance would the u.s. vacate a major world body within the u.n. so this is actually a very revealing episode and it might be actually a welcome development surely after the us an ounce and would withdraw israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu also announce israel will be withdrawing from you nasco as well was this at all a surprise. this is

a case of the tail having to choreograph its movement somewhat reluctantly with the dog it would prefer to just have the u.s. do its bidding and for israel to actually stay involved in new nasco and hackle of the united the united nations and perform its traditional role as a routinely sanctioned troll at the un but in this case israel actually has to follow the united states out and i think that's a very welcome development israel could follow that by leaving the united nations entirely now the real question here is why was israel ever allowed into unesco in the first place this is a nation that is responsible for decades and decades of taliban level destruction of historical an archaeological sites it is actually supporting within the israeli government the temple institute and in the temple movement which is a movement dedicated to the destruction of the compound in jerusalem's old city which has been declared a threatened site by a nasco the replacement of it with

a third jewish temple this would lead to a region wide conflagration and that's one of the reasons why this conflict has broken out with unesco you look across the holy land and you look at the destruction of palestinian historic villages and their replacement with suburban style jews only communities so the question is why was israel ever allowed into nasco in the first place given this history of destruction and desecration. ben rhodes the former foreign policy advisor to browse president barack obama criticized trump's move by withdrawing from u. nasco saying he's withdrawing from this paris climate accord and looking to just certify the iran nuclear deal why would any country trust us to keep agreements does he have a point absolutely absolutely especially on the in the in the case of the iran deal and trumps pledge to decertify which actually goes against the wishes of his own defense secretary jim mattis and his own national security advisor h.r.

mcmaster there's pretty much a consensus within the u.s. national security state in favor of keeping this deal because of the damage that it would do with not only with relations with iran but to the u.s. his ability to conduct diplomacy anywhere and of course decertifying the iran deal is likely to empower hardliners in iran which is undergoing a pretty admirable process of internal reform now this is trump acting on the basis of his relationship with the pro israel billionaire sheldon adelson who supported his campaign and who also supports the political fate and political fortunes of benjamin netanyahu the israeli prime minister so once again it's a case of trump putting israel over american interests and looks like she ran out of time there thank you so much for your and say that was all there an investigative journalist max blumenthal think something's for having me. to go for you know where firefighters are calling this outbreak of blazes the worst and

california's history of art isn't talk to sweet as a live in our los angeles bureau with the latest natasha. that afternoon actually you know despite all the devastation that we've already seen fire officials predict that the worst is yet to come the national weather service has issued a red rock red flag warning saying that once could pick up on friday saturday and sunday and as you may know winds already got up to seventy miles per hour scattering the fires now burning at least one hundred seventy thousand acres that toll now climbs to twenty three and now at least forty five hundred homes and businesses have been damaged or destroyed this includes fifteen wineries which is a huge part of napa's livelihood and so many people go there to vacation or get married and the p.g.a. golf tour was just there last week and some one hundred thousand jobs are winery based as well as thirteen billion and there are economy dramatic photos of wineries burned to rubble was her breaking only for the owners but for the community as well

while grapes can be replaced people cannot the number of missing people continues to climb and for jessica to miss not being able to find her mother her worst nightmare. and my mother calls me three forty three to tell me her house is on fire. and sure i mean i'm telling her to run and get out get out describe the hose and i told her to go to the front of the back so i can't i can't you know there's fire everywhere fire outside fire i can't get out of my hose and she's like here the smoke alarms going off and just coughing coughing and. throwing her love where it. tells me she's going to die here get out of her she's going to die before you call it drop like you get her back on the phone. forty percent of the state's firefighter force are mates and reportedly make two dollars a day malibu conservation camp number thirteen has roughly two hundred incarcerated

women fighting fires you get to save people's houses and. it's really gratifying in powering when when you're driving by and people are holding up signs saying thank you firefighters and they're crying because you just saved their home. all these woman must have a record of good behavior and officials estimate this group of women in malibu has collectively worked three million hours in a year fighting one hundred seventy seven fires and actually while many firefighters are working around the clock the fires are continuing to spread expression with this red flag warning in effect thank you so much and for this update thousand tajiks we're reporting in los angeles to dig a little deeper into the california wildfires joining me now is fire ecologist at audubon came to the ranch showgirl men think is so much for joining me sanjay i want to jump into if you can explain to us how these fires were able to spread so fast and such a short amount of time. yes so basically what we have here is over

a hundred years of accumulated fuels from not enough active land management we haven't been doing controlled burns on a regular basis we haven't been doing mechanical treatments to take out the extra fuel and this is a fire dept and landscape so all of our plans are directed to fire happening on a regular basis but now it's been a really long time you add to that the extreme weather that we're seeing right now . with fifty to sixty mile per hour winds or sometimes even higher extremely low humidities and. you end up with this situation and so. it's something that we've known was coming but. we couldn't do enough to stop it in time now the fires are still uncontained some cases some fires have even joined together can you tell us how difficult it is to contain these fires and how some of the fires are able to join together yeah right now there are enough resources and

resources that we do have are largely focused on saving lives as a priority and and with these fires burning so close to these urban areas that's really the focus are so many people to evacuate to make sure that they're ok and that they're safe and then trying to provide for all those people who have been evacuated that the resources are stuck on that and so the resources are all focused on that and are able to actually focus on stopping the fires the best they can do right now is try to slow them down and keep them from entering the areas that are populated. over time and as the the weather kind of dies down a little bit that will change in they'll be able to focus on actual suppression all the way around them in the meantime they're they're burning together experts say october is one of the. deadliest months when it comes to wildfires burning and california but is there any way that these fires could have been prevented.

i'd say if we over the last hundred years have been doing mechanical treatments and prescribed burns on a regular basis across or landscapes on a landscape level then this would not necessarily have happened and i hope that once the smoke clears and as we move forward toward the future we can actually implement that actively in management and prevent this from happening again as it pertains to the short term priorities what are fire and medical crews focusing on right now really focusing on saving people and protecting human life and human property to some extent but human life is the priority and these fires are burning toward multiple cities they've been able to contain the part of a fire that was burning toward callisto there vacuuming parts of sonoma at this point and will be trying to prevent it from burning through sonoma as well as of a few other cities throughout the region and so that's really where all the focus is are you know once these fires are finally contained what will be the long term

priorities for northern california when it comes to recovery there's going to have to be quite a lot of effort of course on on rebuilding communities and homes but also stabilizing the landscape through the fires have burned because of the extreme weather and the heavy fuel loading there is the fire burned really severe in certain areas that will have to be taking work to prevent landslides over the coming winter. and then over the long term working to kind of planned landscape level strategies for maintaining a more balanced and fire resilient landscape in the face of climate change all right thank you so much sacher that was fire ecologist at audubon canyon ranch brahman thank you so much thank you. let's talk now about the iran nuclear deal several congressional democrats who had been previously opposed to the twenty fifteen deal are now urging president donald trump to uphold the international

agreement at a hearing wednesday representative elliott angola voices support for the deal thing north korea's the leaders won't have an incentive to negotiate if they see the iran deal collapse even the committee's top republican representative adam ois said the united states should honor its commitment to the deal joining me now to discuss this further is author historian and director of international studies that trinity college v.j. parishad you so much for joining me v.j. now there is an international consensus that iran is fully complying with the deal therefore is threatening to decertify the iran deal a move my a move by washington meant to antagonize iran. well the problem is problem for the united states is that this iran deal was not just a bilateral agreement between iran and the united states nor was it merely a multilateral agreement between say the europeans the united states and iran this

was the do use that was actually ratified by the un security council in twenty fifteen in un security council resolution twenty two thirty one so this is a deal which has the imprimatur all the international law as it were as far as the security council is concerned and all the agencies through the various and axes of this deals have so far said that iran is maintaining its end of the bargain so it's not that easy for the american government to say that iran is in violation and it's even more difficult it seems to me what the american government to walk away from the deal which has been sanctified by a six security council resolution the day you wrote that secretary of state rex tillerson said the u.s. government was committed to overthrowing the current government and iran by peaceful means so is washington the real intentions to pursue regime change and

iran. well it's been the american position since one nine hundred seventy nine that the current government in iran is illegitimate and it's attempted through various means to overthrow this government i mean there's been no. change in policy since nine hundred seventy nine whether it's been a democratic administration although a republican administration we can say that the temple or the attempts to overthrow iran have had a different kind of feeling under different administrations but the broad policy exists now what to listen said is quite interesting he made a distinction between forcible regime change and peaceful resist regime change look as far as the iranians are concerned as far as the united nations is concerned as far as international law is concerned there is no distinction between the school regime change and possible regime change both of them essentially against the

sovereignty of the of the people of iran the day in your opinion how much does israel's animosity towards iran have to do with trying to certifying the iran deal given its close relationship to netanyahu it's very clear that the europeans are uncomfortable with this attempt to decide to fire on after all your a relies on energy from iran its sources of energy in russia have been cut off its sources of energy from libya have been compromised so the european partners are not interested in deserted trying iran and going back to a position of sanctions the israelis are very interested in such a policy largely because israel sees iran as a major strategic problem in the region so it's you know should be fairly clear therefore that the united states is following as it were the israel advice regarding iran and not the european advice certainly israel is playing a major role in the trump white house. on this run

a good policy regarding iran v.j. iran's missile program is to deter foreign aggression especially as it is encircled by u.s. bases and to run afghanistan and israel now is this deterrent capability one that worries israel but i mean don't all nations have the wall for right to basic self-defense and deterrent capability. well in my opinion there should be for instance a nuclear free zone around the world you know i would like to see no nuclear bombs anywhere i'd like to see in nuclear free zone in with asia iran could and i think has often said that it would be a party to a nuclear free zone agreement israel is the only nuclear power weapons power in the region and refuses to come to the table for any middle east nuclear free discussion so here i think the iranians are on some solid ground when they said they would

like some sort of missiles shield to protect iran from aggression after all iran has not attacked countries in the region in its history in the modern history iran was attacked by iraq backed by the gulf arab states in one thousand the iran has been attacked by others but it has not gone out and attacked other countries it has participated in was outside its own territory as it's now participating in both iraq and syria but there the iranians argue they are doing so with the invitation of those countries so iranians mishan policies it suggests the defensive policy right makes sense if you see that it's adversary in the region israel refuses to demilitarize on the nuclear front and create a nuclear of a pretty middle east every day we're going to have to leave it there thank you so much for your end sight that was author historian and director of international studies that trainee college the jaipur shot thanks. to spain now where the prime

minister has set a monday deadline for the catalan president to decide whether or not the region has adopted a declaration of independence artie's anastasio turkana reports from barcelona is a scene of clouds filling this whole square and joining streets that are around here thousands of people if you can see covered marching from that direction towards the square they're still continuing to come in here carrying out is carrying all flags. not just to gather this is not for you to see protests all of these people are coming out to speak in support of keeping taxes low with in spain as the major crisis continues to grip the country and the region this is what people here have been telling us we believe here for fifteen years who got married had children and grandchildren who are spanish catalonia together

that's all we want you to know that they have to apply. for these to get a better news space because it's the better for all the know you should stay with spain for sure but i think that the government should take these then for the people to get to know what what we actually wonder what the don't have people one day president of the year two because by only to the law you should assume because it was. right minister to the. until sunday to either it's such a low to have actually in fact it cleared and the players. come out on tuesday and make a statement that the. result. of. this is that for several days they may see discuss details with the train while the spanish prime minister mariano rajoy has made it quite clear that the deadline he's

giving to the council on leadership is this monday to. else whether they're in or out because so far they're saying the only thing they see is confusion let's take a listen to the council on president has to confirm whether any of their authority has proclaimed independence of got along here or whether his speech count on tenth of october included a declaration of independence it's a simple question if the answer is positive or there is no answer at all we will demand mr president to revoke the independence to gratian so obviously developments on rattling quite rapidly here and that's a load for these people the question is not i don't think that's region to me but we have to keep in mind that so many people have already and that's quite right they're losing interest in the superintendent's clearly despite this political crisis that they're bringing him because so many people voted on the toughest referendum and this is going to issue that's been so important for this region that

it's all bad to the for now for more on the stories we cover and go to you tube dot com slash our team erica also check it out web site our team dot com port forward slash america you can also follow me on twitter and actually banks underscore r t and don't forget. larry you're watching our amount per student more. curb your enthusiasm is back for another season on h.b.o. and i would just like to say thank you thank you larry david you're just what this

country needs right now because you actually managed to just be funny without ramming a social issue or cause or snark down our throats i can't tell you how great it felt to just watch the first episode and laugh and it's not like the shows stayed away from political stuff they talked about gay issues and international politics but they still did it for not the left ramming lefty ideas down our throats or the right ramming radiate dia's down our throats but just from the place of funny for instance right out of the gate were introduced to a gay female character who looks very masculine traditionally like she's wearing a vest an attack in dark muted colors and has short hair and so larry is unsure if you should hold the door open for her like that might anger her because it's sexist or something larry's not making fun of people for being sexist or making fun of gay people he's just making fun of himself for not knowing what to do in this world where the rules are changing so quickly it's something we can all relate to it times it's not right or left it's just true that's what comedy is the post to be

a way to laugh at ourselves to better understand ourselves not to be all snarky toward one political party or the other and you also poke fun at the idea of wading into politics without having a great deal of knowledge about them and then getting burned by that when he makes jokes against the ayatollah of iran and then ends up having f a trois issued against him he's not trying to say iran is our enemy or our friend he's just making fun of the idea that he doesn't really know the whole deal with iran and how wading into politics without knowing everything can get you in trouble the entire episode. it had me cracking up and it just felt so good to just laugh again without someone trying to brainwash me politically the same thing happened when triumph the insult comic dog just went on the view and just made jokes that would anger people get offended over comedy on both sides the dog made fun of trump and clinton and it was all funny and so refreshing and after seeing that and curb

your enthusiasm i'm starting to feel more positive like america is actually getting ready to laugh again i sure hope so because when a society loses its sense of humor as much as we have it's a very serious matter. it's . not easy in the world. number one. total room going to. be. over night he did not know. all your ego to post due to the move for you.

guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america fits into the greater media landscape our team is not all laughter all right but we are a solid alternative to the bullshit that we don't skew liberal or conservative and as you can see from this bar graph we don't skew the facts either talking ad lefties talking at righties oh there you go above it all to look at world artsy americans in the spotlight now every really i have no idea how to classify as and it actually took me way more time and i care to admit. it.