that's the. theory. that you get it on the. according to. obama triggering. coming up on r t the united states withdraws from you now let's go claiming the organization is anti israel will tell you israel's response and the impact the decision could have on the u.s. . and one of the worst outbreak the wildfires in california history over twenty people dead and hundreds missing. then a family freed from the taliban after more than five years the story later in the show. it's thursday october twelfth five pm here in washington d.c.

i'm ashley banks and you're watching r t america we began today with the news the u.s. has announced it will formally withdraw its membership from the un's world heritage body you nasco the state department cites the main reasons for the withdrawal are the need for fundamental reform in the organization and its alleged anti israel by its prime minister benjamin netanyahu welcomed to the us his decision to withdraw saying quote this is a brave and moral decision because you nasco has become a theater of absurd and stead of preserving history it distorts it shortly after the us made the announcement to with the drawl netanyahu instructed israel's foreign prime minister foreign minister rather to prepare israel to withdraw from the organization as well r.t. samir ican has more 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. back in one thousand forty five over the agency's alleged 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 the us go irina bokova said she received notification from secretary of state rex tillerson adding that she expressed quote profound regret over the blue 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 has been 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 but you doesn't mean that we will stop the ring. i will appeal once again for the ships 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. territory the rest stop on the street over to the palestinian authority as a pursuit doesn't live in 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 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. they continue discussing unesco i'm joined now by author and investigative journalist maxim blumenthal thank you so much for joining mac. now you as you as you know the u.s. has withdrawn from nasco claiming the organization participates in anti israel by now what do you say we actually heard israeli defense minister avigdor lieberman call the unesco 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 ali abunimah 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 no other circumstance with the u.s. they kate 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 u.s. and now and said would withdraw israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu also announced israel will be withdrawing from unesco 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 u.n. 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 the real question here is why was israel ever. are allowed into your nest go in the first place this is a nation that is responsible for decades and decades of taliban level destruction of historical in 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 you 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 then the former foreign policy advisor to breath president barack obama criticized trump's move by withdrawing from unesco saying here's what the drawing 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 it's actually ran out of time there thank you so much for your and safe that was all there and investigative journalist max blumenthal thanks and thanks for having me. to california where firefighters are calling this outbreak of believes is the worst state in

california's history artes and talk this week as live in our los angeles borough with the latest from the tata. getting the nationally you know with all the devastation we've already seen fire officials predict that the worst is still yet to come the national weather service has issued a red flag warnings saying winds could pick up on friday saturday and sunday as you may know winds already got up to seventy miles per hour scattering the fires now burning in at least one hundred seventy thousand acres the death toll now climbs to twenty nine with hundreds missing 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 livelihood so many people go there to vacation or get married and the p.g.a. golf tour was just there last week some one hundred thousand jobs are widely based as well as thirteen billion and their economy dramatic photos of wineries burned to rubble was her break not only for the owners but the community as well and while

grapes can be replaced people cannot the number of missing people continues to climb and for jessica cheeriness not being able to find her mother is her worst nightmare. and my mother calls me three forty three to tell me her house is on fire. and sure i'm telling her to run a get out get out describe the house 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 in the spot here the smoke alarms going off and just coughing coughing and. i'm throwing her you love her and she tells me she's going to die you cannot overlook she's going to die and the phone call drops like you get her back on the phone forty percent of the state's firefighter force or end mates and reportedly make two dollars

a day malibu conservation camp number thirteen has roughly two hundred incarcerated women fighting fires. people's houses are good to help people and it's really gratifying and empowering 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. this woman must have a record of good behavior officials estimate this group or woman in malibu has collectively worked three million hours in a year fighting one hundred seventy seven fires and actually well there are many firefighters working around the clock the fires are continuing to spread expression late with this red flag warning in effect thank you so much for this update in the story of the woman whose mom is missing was just so heartbreaking natasha sweet reporting in los angeles thank you so much. to dig a little deeper into the california wildfires i spoke to a fire ecologist at audubon canyon ranch sacher burrow men and i asked her how were

the fires able to spread so quickly but 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 ducted 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 . fifty to sixty mile per hour winds or sometimes even higher extremely low humidity 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 and in 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 the 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 there 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 but in the meantime they're they're burning together experts say october is one of the. deadliest months when it comes to wildfires burning in california but is there any way that these fires could have been prevented.

if we over the last hundred years have been doing mechanical treatments and prescribed burns on a regular basis across or landscapes on the landscape level then this would not necessarily have had been and i hope that once the smoke clears and as we move forward toward the future we can actually implement that act of land management and prevent this from happening again as it pertains to the short term priority is what our fire and medical crews focusing on right now. really focusing on saving people and protecting human life and human property to some extent but life is the priority these fires are burning toward multiple cities they've been able to contain the part of a fire that was burning toward callisto they're 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 rebuilding communities and homes but also stabilizing the landscape through the fires have burned because of its extreme weather and the heavy fuel loading and there's 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 we're going to kind of plan landscape level strategies for maintaining a more balanced and fire resilient landscape in the face of climate change all right thank you so much sa show that was fire ecologist out audubon canyon ranch sasha brolin thank you so much thank you to puerto rico where it's been three weeks since hurricane maria made landfall on the island eighty four percent of residents are still without power the state department said quote power restoration crews

continue to arrive on the island additional priorities remain hospitals and communication within the encrease focus on isolated reagents only sixty four percent of residents have drinking water and fifty three percent have cell service the e.p.a. has warned against tampering with sealed and locked wells or drinking from these wells as it may be dangerous to people's health by the lack of resources president trump tweeted on thursday morning that the much cannot last in puerto rico forever and said electric an all in from structure was a disaster before hurricanes adding that congress must decide how much to spend. again avian man his american wife and their three children have been freed from the taliban after being held hostage for the past five years the family was supposed to be flown to either canada or the u.s. but the husband is very few going to go our days alex my holiday because in toronto

with the latest alice the family is free and in the hands of pakistani authorities what can you tell us about their ordeal we're talking about american caitlin coleman she's thirty one and her husband joshua boyle thirty four years old they were hiking through afghanistan as tourists five years ago when they were kidnapped by the haqqani network which is an affiliate or a part of the taliban and they have been held ever since in captivity they had three children she was actually pregnant while hiking in afghanistan as a tourist with her husband at the time so now they are free after the pakistani military found out that from u.s. intelligence actually that there was some movement of these hostages from afghanistan into pakistan where they were freed now the u.s. confirms this intelligence coming in from pakistan they confirm that the pakistanis were actually involved in this and that they did get the word from the u.s.

they did not know how the pakistanis would react go to this information so the u.s. was ready to go in alone if necessary now through all these twists and turns we have learned obviously that pakistan was very involved in this and president trump is very happy about their actions this is what do you have to say. yesterday the united states government working with the government of pakistan secured the release of caitlin coleman joshua boyle and their three children from cat captivity from the county network a terrorist organization with ties to the taliban. the pakistani government's cooperation is a sign that it is honoring america's wish that to do more to provide security in the region and i want to thank the pakistani government to think pakistan they they were very hard on this and i believe they're starting to respect

the united states again it's very important i think a lot of country right now a lot of countries are starting to respect the united states of america once again . so is it respect or is it the fact that millions of dollars have been held back from pakistan since mr president trump came into effect and of course general mattis was a big player in that the general mattis and the military the u.s. military have not been very trusting of the pakistani military as well as their secret service agency which they say is a tightly tied to the taliban itself so is this one of these situations where they're just doing some good or maybe they want a couple bucks on their way allan from their every mentor thing twist to this story what can you tell us about that. well joshua boyle the husband did not want to get on the plane leaving pocket start to return either to canada or to the states via germany and he did not want his children to be checked out by medics he's afraid

that he's actually going to be questioned in even imprisoned when he gets back to north america and there's reason for that he was actually married at one point to omar carter's sister omar carter was held in guantanamo bay for ten years he was a fifteen year old canadian that was captured for throwing a grenade at a u.s. medic some call him a terrorist some say that the kid was just trying to save his life either way the sister is a radical and this guy was married to her so there might be some questions on the way thank you so much alex alex mahal of his reporting and toronto thank you now to turkey where the wall street journal says one of its reporters has been convicted of producing terrorist propaganda a logger aka has reportedly been sentenced to two years and one month in prison over rocks conviction came after she wrote an article in two thousand and fifteen focusing on the conflict between kurdish militants and government forces however the paper reports a journalist can appeal her conviction on the charge more than one hundred

journalists have been imprisoned in turkey while approximately two hundred media outlets have been shut down as part of a government crackdown targeting alleged members of a movement blamed for last year's failed coup. 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 eliot engel voice of support for the deal saying north korea's leaders won't have an incentive to negotiate if they see the iran deal collapse even the committee's top republican representative adam ways said the united states should honor its commitment to the d.l. earlier i spoke with author historian and director of international studies at trinity college v.j. parishad i first asked him if the u.s. is a move to decertify the deal or a ploy to antagonize iran this iran deal was not just

a bilateral agreement between iran and the united states nor was it merely a multilateral agreement between sort of the europeans the united states and iran this was the duty that was actually rectified by the un security council in twenty fifteen in un security council resolution twenty do could be one so this is a deal which has the in burma told the international law is that as far as the security council is concerned and all the agencies through the various and the excuse of this the youth's 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 for the american government to walk away from the deal which has been sanctified by the security council resolution v.g.a. 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 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 of 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 decertifying 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 so certainly israel is playing a major role in the trump white house on this rather irrational policy regarding iran. and philadelphia last summer officials say two amtrak maintenance workers who were struck and killed by a train had drugs in their system at the time of the accident on tuesday a group of house democrats push transportation secretary elaine chao to require workers in the industry to be tested for prescription opioids the two workers who were struck sixty one year old joseph carter jr and sixty nine year old peter john how to move age tested positive for cocaine and prescription opioids respectively transportation workers are governed by testing protocols stablish in one nine hundred eighty nine to check for use of alyson substances and finally an asteroid came a little too close to earth earlier today asteroid two thousand and twelve t c four

as it's been called since it was discovered in hawaii back in two thousand and twelve grades past antartica at a distance of twenty six thousand miles while the asteroid posed no threat to our planet many observers have been tracking the minor planet as a part of the t.c. for observation campaign to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking that network as a right now and won't be until another one hundred years before an asteroid might impact the earth. well that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america also check out our website r.t. dot com port watch america you can also follow me on twitter actually thanks underscore r t and don't forget to question the war. for decades the american middle class so it's been railroaded by washington politics. big body corporate so let's throw out

a lot of boards that's how we use them the culture in this country. that's where our economy. i would still want our to europe i'll make sure you don't get railroaded you'll get the straight talk in the street. to. 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 and a tie in dark beaded colors and has short hair and so larry isn't sure if he should hold the door open for her like that might anger her because it's sexist or something larry's not making fun of. but 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 opposed 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 he also pokes fun at the idea of weaving 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 twat 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 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 egger people get offended over comedy on both sides the dog made fun of trump and clinton and it was all funny and so refreshing 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.