president vladimir putin and donald trump held a telephone conversation the topics discussed included syria iran and north korea. google open a virus to de franco altie and sputnik making it harder for them to reach a wider audience is despite the tech giant itself previously admitted it found no violations when it investigated artie's popularity on you tube. and palestine freezes ties with the u.s. after the palestine liberation organization office in washington loses its license .

you want you all to international live from our moscow studio with me in india today welcome to the program and we start our program with breaking news this hour former lebanese prime minister hariri has just arrived at the airport in beirut this is the first time he's been in the country since his resignation and landed in saudi arabia on november the fourth he's reportedly going to the presidential palace to deliver his official resignation as prime minister to the lebanese president. meanwhile the lebanese army is prepared to counter any possible act of israeli aggression that's according to an official statement by the army's chief it comes as arab nations led by sandy arabiya moved to crack down on lebanon's hezbollah militia. picks up the story. this announcement by joseph he's the head of the lebanese military telling the army to be in full readiness along

the border with israel saying that israel daily commits violations of lebanon's sovereignty and so the country must be ready to face any aggression from the southern neighbor and of course it all comes in the background of these increasing tensions in the region we've seen the head of the israeli defense force the chief of staff gul eyes in court saying very openly actually that he's ready to have complete cooperation with saudi arabia and to share intelligence with them on what they both see as their common foe iran and by extension iran's allies in the region groups like hezbollah course we've seen all of this coming in the wake of the arab league meeting over the weekend convened by saudi arabia to condemn iran and of course again there are allies like hezbollah like the who sees and other groups which are fighting in resisting against saudi arabia in yemen as well so all of

that coming together in that sense that meeting didn't go exactly to plan there were several arab countries which didn't vote for saudis motion poll country quite tense actually that's the atmosphere here as they all wait to see what will happen not just in the domestic politics of lebanon but also regionally. the russian president vladimir putin has spoken over the phone with donald trump the conversation lasted almost an hour trying to have reports on what was discussed. after quite a few reports some of them came from d.c. from across the atlantic some of them were from tsotsi we finally got the confirmation from kremlin which makes it official president putin and president trump have been on the phone the kremlin says that the two leaders were quite poppy about how it went although we don't find out that much from the statement on mr

putin's website but here's a couple of things they did bring up north korea syria also iran and mr putin told his american counterpart that russia still the nuclear deal to hold and absolutely no surprise syria and every time i talk about some sort of communication between the presidents of america and russia i always mention these names but let me tell you why syria is most important at this point on monday a lot of our putin welcome to the syrian president bashar al assad here and saw it she it was a surprise trip he doesn't leave the country that often and mr putin and mr assad agreed that the anti-terrorist mission in the middle east country was nearing the end after all indeed islamic state only controls a few villages and the country they've almost been completely thrown out but it

still leaves damascus and the opposition at war the civil war in syria is still ongoing as sad though told putin that he is ready for reforms and compromises and middle and wednesday the three countries as you may remember are behind the syria peace talks and asked enough and we are expecting vladimir putin to speak here and saw that she just after the talks conclude and wind has his own an official statement on the president stressed the importance. of ensuring a stable and unified syria free of terrorism. the executive chairman of google's parent company alphabet has vowed to deal rank on the news agencies put nick in order to make it harder for the outlets to reach wider audiences his comments came at a security forum in canada when asked about artie's use of google's absence service . i had

a subscription for google alerts in german language and getting them every day out of ten results between five and ten every day we have sputnik news which is a russian german program no outlet and when i clicked on them they will monitor rise to that sense is it really necessary to monitor rise russian propaganda outlets would google it and so we're well aware of this one and we're working on detecting this kind of scenario you're describing and again do you ranking the ranking those kinds of sites it's basically artie and sputnik are the two and there's a whole bunch of coverage about what we're doing there but we're well aware of it we're trying to engineer the system to prevent it we don't want to be on the sites eric schmidt who you just heard there has a long time relationship with the democratic party leadership which lost last year's presidential election in the u.s. he was reportedly a donor and informal adviser to the obama campaign later becoming an advisor to the obama administration according to documents revealed by wiki leaks schmidt also

donated to the clinton google launched an investigation into alleged russian meddling but it found no evidence r.t. had manipulated you tube in any way to achieve its status as the most viewed news network despite that google dropped us from its you tube prime list in the u.s. without any notice or explanation it only explained later as a congressional hearing where the firm was grilled on why it hadn't carried out the movie before. mr sell gado why did gould google get preferred status to russia today a russian propaganda arm on you tube. there was a period of time where russia today qualified really because of algorithms to participate in a an advertising program why didn't you revert artie's preferred status after the i.c.a. came out in january two thousand and seventeen it took you to september of two

thousand and seventeen to do it the removal of r t from the program was actually a result of the as as i understand it is a or is a result of some of the drop in viewership not as a result of any action otherwise so there was there was nothing about r.t.e. or is its content that. meant that it stayed in or stayed out. media consultant neil wallis is certain google's actions against a politically motivated. i don't think it censorship you don't have to like the stories that russia today covers you don't have to want to read the material coming from sputnik but i really do not believe it is in any way except a ball that a bunch of politically correct. democratic party supporting people sit in silicon valley should decide what i should or should not read i think it's

the height of arrogance where does it start and where does it stop who decides that google today will attack our tree but tomorrow the same sort of pressure may get may make them decide to attack the daily mail here in here in britain another political viewpoint they might not like this is suppression this is censorship i think that i am quite capable of watching r.t. reading sputnik and deciding what i do or do not want to take from it what i do or do not believe i think this is extremely sinister as i say meanwhile eric schmidt's remarks have been contradicted by a google representative who said no concrete plans to develop russian media including r.t. were in place and on the topic of google whistleblower julian assange has alleged on twitter that the firm gave the matter data of journalists working for wiki leaks to investigators into his case back in twenty fifteen.

now the palestinian national authority is freezing ties with the u.s. after it refused to renew the license of the palestine liberation organizations office in washington the palestinian presidential spokesman slammed the us decision this us measure is unprecedented in the history of us palestinian relations it could have serious consequences it's going to serve as a blow to peacemaking efforts and as a reward to israel. the palestine liberation organization was founded in one thousand nine hundred sixty four since then it's been recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the people of palestine by some one hundred states it also enjoys observer status at the un we spoke to dimitri did loney revolution council member who says the u.s. is backing israel's actions against palestine by not renewing the license. that is further assurance to the state of israel that the state of israel can continue to

rally the human rights laws the international laws. and get away with it and on top of that get more support the united states is given a green light to destroy israel to keep on committing the atrocities and the war crimes that it's been committing since the first day of occupation that was supposed to be ending after all israel agreement in five years and that did not happen and one of the reason why didn't happen because the united states policies have been inconsistent with its own. set of expressed believes about equality and human rights. a group a group of u.s. state department officials has accused the u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson of breaching a u.s. law on child soldiers according to a confidential memo to listen violated the act in june when he removed iraq afghanistan and myanmar from the list of countries that enroll child soldiers in

their armies the move was made despite the department acknowledging this country's as uses of children in the armed forces according to reuters taking the countries off the list silicates providing them with u.s. military assistance well we've got more details on this from our correspondent caleb maupin who's joining me live now from washington caleb can you tell us more about listens decision and the reaction to it. yes now every year the u.s. state department publishes a list of countries that have violated their rules around child soldiers they're considered child soldier offenders well in twenty seventeen iraq man maher and afghanistan were removed from that list now we know according to a report from the reuters that there were twelve different state department officials who signed a letter protesting that decision by rex tillerson so today at the u.s. state department the spokesperson was pressed on why this decision was made why is

it that these three countries were removed from the list what changed their designation this is what happened when pressed on the issue of them are big human rights report issued for. trafficking we believe. that the do. we treat cheaters to the. institution to. create ability in this regard there are countries that use lots and lots of children there are countries where maybe one source might say that they heard a child had been a border guard i'm just making that up we can't back up that information if it is a report that only lists you know one or two. the belief was on the secretary's to part to not put those types of countries on this list too many. so the question

that's a fair question. now at this point reports indicate that iraq still uses children in its popular mobilization forces furthermore me and mars has laws on the books still that allow for the recruitment of children human rights watch spoke up about the changing of the designations voicing strong objections to this decision that was made by rex tillerson but at the moment it appears to be the fact that these three countries have been removed from the u.s. state department's child soldiers offenders list and the reasons for that decision is really not clear as you just heard as the spokesperson for the u.s. state department was pressed on the issue and couldn't quite explain why this decision had been made ok thanks for the update on the story and their reporting from washington. it's been an unsettled start to the week

for germany after talks on forming a coalition government collapsed chancellor angela merkel attempted to seek advice from the country's president however there seem to differ as merkel's declared she is ready to head back to the polls if necessary while the president of the parties to reconsider their disagreements if you put it isn't that time in his own party is elected to the bundestag have a show to serve their country i expect from all parties a willingness to make possible the formation of a government in the foreseeable future if you elections come i should see that's not something i'm afraid of during the election campaign i thought for a four year mandate my point of view is that new elections would be the better path but merkel now struggling to find a way out to peter on the breaks down the recent developments. the day after the bundestag election in september angola merkel said that she was confident that by christmas she would have a ruling coalition government in place or fast forward through weeks of torture

a sit times negotiations with the green party and the pro-business free democrats while the wheels of that coalition health fail off well and truly with christie and of the free democrats delivering the killer blow we have the other one is that we will not abandon our voters for a policy with which we are not convinced it is better not to govern than to govern badly ingrained differences between the parties on key issues such as climate change refugees and the budget saw the so-called jamaica coalition break down.

just hours after coalition talks with the free democrats in the greens collapsed under merkel was turned down by another coalition suitor this time the social democrats martin schultz saying there would be no return to a grand coalition if. on september the twenty fourth the grand coalition lost fourteen percent so it's clear we were shown the red card in view of the election results we are not available to join a grand coalition without off the table one other option available to angela merkel would be to rule over a minority government most likely with the green party. but a minority government. would be unstable at best and would certainly require horse trading on gargantuan proportions with the other four parties in parliament if the government was to well pass anything more than just time in the chamber it's also

worth noting that this would be a first in modern german history and wouldn't exactly fit the profile of the german voters who do love stabilises so where does this leave us the other option would be we go back to the polls for fresh elections. so back to the polls we go well step forward german president bush steinmeyer it's predominantly a ceremonial role and she doesn't whether it's keep that's really fun for somebody has got to be responsible for that the federal chancellor created this situation she's been in power for what feels like a hundred years and now she should be asking herself maybe i have something to do with this situation. mrs merkel has failed it's time for her now to take a step back. that night the end of the merkel era began europe's biggest economy is heading into uncharted territory with current polling suggesting that

a new ballot wouldn't return any results too different from what we had in september it does seem that there is no immediate solution to the current instability in the next period or the next four a person would take over she has no policies at all she is a woman without principles she betrayed so many conservative core values. abolishing subscription making putting the end to nuclear power abandoning the traditional schooling system she does all she can to stay in power it's not her lack of ability the it's not that she cannot compromise she has no principles the fault lies with the other parties who cannot agree on common grounds and it is no surprise the idea of open borders no borders no nation everything free to everybody for everyone and without any cost is ridiculous why that was the only thing that made. people were absolutely against not looking at another one million one point

five million people to come to this country the next year people are strongly opposed to that she got the worst result she had ever since she was in power and her party also suffered heavy heavy blows this is because she did not listen to what people really wanted to do or what had to be done and now she's paying the price. they were going to go back to our breaking news story this hour now former lebanese prime minister hariri has just arrived at the airport in beirut we're going to get more details now from our correspondent mary with a national who is in this area what can you tell us about harry's arrival. well first of all has to say that this is a long awaited to return lebanon's prime minister saad hariri has returned to beirut after he spent more than two weeks outside the country i have to say that these were really hard and turbulent twenty days for lebanon it started as

a normal official visit to saudi arabia but already next day mr hariri an expectedly announced about his resignation in a televised address while speaking from the saudi arabian capital he then explained that the major reason behind this to station is the influence and the terror of spider military and political forces backed by iran to meddle into the policy politics here in lebanon and throughout the region mr hariri also mentioned that he fears for his life and warres about t's family's safety it immediately sparked speculation that mr hariri was held in saudi arabia against his will and that he was poorest to resign that was the opinion shared by many politicians i have to say including here in lebanon including the country's president he did not accept this so-called remote resignation he accused saudi

arabia of holding a lebanese prime minister against his will and he said that he would only accept the resignation after talking to mr hariri personally on lebanese soil after that mr hariri tweeted many times and the read to rated in the interviews that he is a free man and that he can leave saudi arabia any time he wants and as a proof of that he in several days left saudi arabia going to france and everybody of course was speculating what was the reason to go particularly to france but. it wasn't that surprising for us has been playing a very important role in the life of lebanon it's lebanon's former colonial rule and it has many many ties with lebanon on and many lebanese politicians used to spend time in lebanon including mr saad hariri he spent five years

before becoming a lebanese prime minister in france he has a house in paris and the current lebanese president a used to live in france for fifteen years before becoming the leader of levanon so he wasn't that surprising that in that hard moment mr hariri decided to go to frogs but again it sparked speculation that he would ask a political exile and then france's president. rated many times that he considers mr hariri prime minister of lebanon and this is exactly the status he is accepting and inviting mr harry. to france in that he is not offering any political exile to mr harry after france mr hariri went to. visit we know for sure cairo many there were some stops

in between and now he's back to lebanon and he is expecting to take part in the independence day celebrations that are going to take place here in beirut tomorrow but of course everybody is waiting for explanations over his resignation and he has promised that he will give more details and he will clarify everything while he is back home so let's let's wait and see what how it will be progressing. certainly caused a norful of media attention and we're all waiting with baited breath method of reporting from beirut thanks. almost a million dollars of taxpayers' money has been paid out in harassment settlements by the u.s. congress this year that's the highest figure in a decade of a pool released by the office of compliance reveals complaints ranged from sexual

harassment to racial discrimination. has more details for almost a month now the u.s. public has been facing an avalanche of allegations of sexual harassment leveled against men in the public eye on an almost daily basis well it turns out that members of congress are no exception the person basically offered me. an opportunity to flirt with him in order to access to excel in my career this member asked a staffer to bring them over some materials to the residents. and the young staffers a young woman went there and was greeted with a member in a towel and this talk it sort of happened over and over and over and finally one day i said you know it knock it off this is just not appropriate it's not right and it's not cool now there's actually a special body on capitol hill set up to deal with the allegations but you might be surprised to learn that some people think this body is actually part of the problem we have a system in place that allows for the harasser to go unchecked doesn't pay for the

settlement himself and is never identified so the office of compliance to which a victim must apply or complain is a place that has really been and then able or of sexual harassment it's the american taxpayers who end up footing the bill it's already cost them over seventeen million dollars in awards and settlements since the office of compliance was established in the one nine hundred ninety s. on top of that the u.s. public doesn't even know what they're paying something the person behind this scheme has admitted needs to change is the taxpayer basically being charged for the activities of someone stuff a person or a member of congress it should be made available to the public so how does this scheme sit with the people who end up paying for it i don't want to pay for it i think that the that the that the set whoever the perpetrator is should be paying not the taxpayer. to pay for their own defense really i don't think the economy

taxpayer should pay for that they should pay their own way. so who says we have to pay but i don't think they should be sued i think they should be prosecuted congress is attempting to rectify this situation with a bipartisan bill so in the future when taxpayers have to cough up the bill they'll at least know who's transgressions it is that they're funding kaleb mop and r. t. washington d.c. . a controversial in the u.k. budget expected to be unveiled tomorrow has angered. many in the british capital human rights associations and engineers have come out against a planned benefit scheme that could plunge of a four hundred thousand citizens into poverty they've delivered tons of the nation's outside downing street as a symbolic gesture nora smith explains. but this is a pretty rare sight we're in the heart of white wall behind me you can see downing street and if we just turn the other way you can see that tons of food has been

delivered to whitehall and it's all piled up and it's part of a national day of action again by the people's assembly run by them to highlight the fact that the rollout of a new benefit system will force thousands more people to rely on food banks this winter i spoke to from the people's assembly and he told me what it was all about he has. this because we feel that the government's policies are driving people into poverty. meaning thousands and thousands of people that she. now relying on food banks on a regular basis the role of things like universal credit has already been widely criticized. by campaign is politicians in areas. they've seen a thirty percent increase already in food bank usage which just about. looks like food thank yous are going to be a lot higher and we think in one of the richest countries in the planet it's

a disgrace that people are having to be forced to use the food to have to use food banks to feed their families that this protest is being organized on the day before the budget is to highlight several things first of all it mentions the danger of universal credit which is a system that aims to roll the benefits into one it means to make the.