lebanese prime minister saad hariri finally arrives home following his surprise resignation in riyadh over two weeks ago. president vladimir putin and donald trump have held a telephone conversation the topics discussed include syria iran and north korea. google openly values to do you rank r t and making it harder for them to reach wide audiences that is despite the tech giant previously admitting it found no violations when it investigated archie's popularity on you tube. or broadcasting live direct it is in moscow this is aren't international thomas glad to have you with us now the lebanese prime minister minister saad hariri has

arrived at the airport in beirut this is the first time he has been in the country since he resigned in a speech given in saudi arabia on november the fourth he will reportedly make his way to the presidential palace to deliver his official resignation as prime minister to the lebanese president. as the details on a story. 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 attempts by

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 worries 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 mr hariri in several days left saudi arabia going to france france's president. rita rated many times that he considers mr hariri prime minister of lebanon and this is exactly the status he's accepting and inviting mr harry. to france in after france mr hariri

went to high road many there were some stops in between and now he's back to lebanon he is expecting to take part in the independence day celebrations that are going to take place here in beirut but of course everybody's waiting for explanations over he's resignation. and he has promised that he will give more details and he will clarify everything while he is back let's let's wait and see what how it will be progressing. meanwhile the lebanese army says it is prepared to counter any possible act of israeli aggression that is according to an official statement by the army chief it comes as arab nations led by saudi arabia moved to crack down on lebanon's hezbollah militia or his i saw early 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 girl 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 there who sees an 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 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 conversation lasted almost an hour to see any potential 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 toppy 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 welcomed 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 mr putin must have tried to send this message across and make it more convincing during that phone call also mr putin and mr trump have previously said many times that they want the deescalation zones in syria to work so the two presidents could have talked about further. steps in that anyway as you can see there is loads going on and there was a chance that we will find out more very very soon tsotsi is hosting the. iran turkey summit on wednesday the three countries as you may remember are behind the syria peace talks and asked in uk and we are expecting a lot of our putin to speak here in sochi just after the talks conclude the

white house has also issued an official statement on the call saying both presidents stressed the importance of ensuring a stable and unified syria free of the terrorism. executive chairman of google's parent company alphabet has vowed to direct our t.v. and 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 our team's use of google's ads and service. i had a subscription for google alerts in germany thing rich getting them every day out of ten results between five and ten every day we have sputnik news which is a russian german program note that and when i clicked on them they wanted to rise to it since this is really necessary to monitor the russian propaganda outlets with google it's and so we're well aware of this one and we are working on detecting

this kind of scenario you're describing and again the ranking the ranking those kinds of sites it's basically put in a car 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 systems to prevent it we don't want to ban the sites. eric schmidt who you just heard from there has long time ties with the leadership of the democratic party 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 from it also donated to the clinton foundation and it is believed he was the tech mastermind behind the campaign of defeated democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton he has not confirmed any of these allegations now artie's editor in chief has slammed the remarks made by schmidt saying google's own congressional report found no evidence the channel had violated or manipulated its policies now under pressure

from u.s. authorities google launched an investigation into alleged russian meddling but it found no evidence r.t. had manipulated youtube in any way to achieve its status as the most viewed news network despite that google dropped us from its you tube prime ads list in the u.s. without any notice or explanation it can only be explained later at a congressional hearing where the firm was grilled on why it had not 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 its content that. meant that it stayed in or stayed out ok media consultant neil wallace is certain google's actions against r.t. are 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 simple that a bunch of politically correct. democratic party supporting people certainly 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 r.t. but tomorrow the same sort of pressure made it 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 dirang question 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 method data of journalists working for wiki leaks to investigators into his case back in two thousand and fifteen. palestinian

national authority is freezing ties with the u.s. after it refused to renew the license of the palestine liberation organization's office in washington the palestinian presidential spokesman slammed the us decision this us measure is unprecedented in the history of u.s. 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 eighty four since then has been recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the people of palestine by some hundred states and also enjoys observer status at the un we spoke to dmitri fatah 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

violate human rights laws the international laws. and get away with it and on top of that get even more support the united states is given a green light to the state of 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 small 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 the u.s. secretary of state is facing allegations that he violated a u.s. law against countries using child soldiers that story and much more after a short break watching russia today.

hillary clinton fans democrats they have a problem putting all their efforts into chasing the fake russia game hoax and they're not therefore they don't have the resources to go field new candidates that might have a chance of twenty. if they were to drop the russia gate and focus on just finding candidates running twenty eight they might have a chance but at this rate they don't have a chance which means that they probably won't have a chance in twenty twenty. like for many flips over the years so i know the game and so i got. the ball isn't only about what happens on the pitch to the final school it's about the passion from the families it's the age of the super money. and spending to twenty million. it's an experience like you know fidel slaughter because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful guy greek so well for trends for.

the greeks going to. welcome back you're watching r t international today 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 a confidential memo alleges tillerson violated the act in june when he removed iraq afghanistan and myanmar from the list of countries that enroll child soldiers in their army's decision was taken despite the state department acknowledging those countries has users of children in their armed forces according to reuters taking the country's off the list allows the u.s. to provide them with military assistance artery correspondent get them up and comment. 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 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 being human rights report issued just to. try if you can we. do. we treat shooters to. be sure and. institutions 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 to move. to the question that's a fair question now at this point reports indicate that iraq still uses children and it's 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 depart. since the 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. it has been an unsettling start to the week in germany after talks on forming a coalition government collapsed chancellor merkel sought advice from the country's a president but they appear not to see eye to eye merkel has a declared she is ready to head back to the polls if necessary while the president has urged political parties to recommit to hammering out a coalition if it isn't but time zone parties 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 calm i should see that's not something i'm afraid of during the election campaign i thought for four year mandate my point of view is that new elections would be the better path with merkel

now struggling to find a way out artie's peter all or breaks down the recent developments. the day after the bundestag election in september angela 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 fell 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 they 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 angola 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 stabile a t. 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 frank volt steinmeyer it's predominantly a ceremonial role but when it comes to installing a government that's where the german presidency has executive power it will be up to mr steinmeier whether he decides that he accepts anglo merkel as the head of

a minority government or whether he dissolves parliament triggering elections and for the long serving leader mrs merkel that could well prove to be a storm she doesn't weather is good but she's been in power for what feels like one 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 now to take a step back that night at 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 germany is facing and of course the implications that has for the why do european union peter all of a r.t. berlin we discussed the issue with hugh branson a member of the f.t. he says that merkel's time at the helm is over with her migration policy having

proved the last nail in the coffin. this is definitely the beginning of the end machall knows that this is the last time she will be chancellor and in the next period of the next four years there will be a point when she resigns and a new 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 that without any cost it's ridiculous well that was the last nail

in the coffin people were absolutely against it they're 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 wanted to be done and now she is paying the price and doesn't for me i'll be back in about thirty four minutes watching r.t. international stay with us. the

political crisis inflicted upon lebanon by saudi arabia appears to receded. it least for now is this a sign of things to come as the saudi royal family changes so does saudi arabia and the region is it time to buckle up for a stream. of hate everybody i'm stephen both on the terrorist hollywood guy you know suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george bush in our view to say this is my buddy famous financial guru that will use a little bit different i'm. going to tell or no no no no no go with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the road to have fun meet everyday americans . and hopefully start to bridge the gap this is the great american. people.

oh. i'm beyond this we need this is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. coming up we'll explore the global surgeon i.c.a.o. is the future of digital currency markets then we'll also take a look at how luxury products have compared with traditional stocks as a good investment and told us that's paul nassif increase in fees just hurting middle class americans the first let's check today's top stories around business and finance news. bitcoin has hit yet another record high of eight thousand dollars on friday while it did drop to around seventy five hundred it jumped back

up to the seventy nine hundred mark by the afternoon this follows quite the week for the cryptocurrency which fell to fifty five. just last weekend in the time that's passed that quincy market cap rose from ninety two billion dollars to one hundred thirty three point five billion dollars and that debt can be attributed to a delay in an upgrade to the bitcoin network that was supposed to make transactions faster but that would have caused a hard for another bitcoin spinoff would have been created it's been avoided for now but there's still no guarantee that a hard work won't happen in the future. the federal communications commission just reversed a decade's old rule that will make it easier for media companies to merge the agency voted three to two to eliminate the ban on cross ownership of a newspaper and a television station in a major market and that's not all the f.c.c. also voted in favor of allowing media companies to buy several stations in the same market and for local stations to jointly sell ad time it will also become easier

for companies to buy several radio stations in some markets and the decision is expected to pave the way for sinclair broadcast group to buy tribune media which has been widely criticized no word on how it impacts comcast and rise in the thames at acquiring twenty first century fox though. oil exports from singapore grew faster than expected in october jumping twenty point nine percent year on year but significantly higher than the forecasts compiled by reuters which estimated ten percent growth in back in september exports actually fell one point one percent the biggest chunk of it went to china where shipments increased over fifty percent followed by twenty six point one percent to the european union but sells to singapore's other major trade partners like taiwan hong kong and indonesia declined since last year according to the government g.d.p. growth will come in at three point four percent which is greater than the initial

forecast so that figure could change next week when the ministry of trade releases new data. as the digital world continues to evolve more and more people are jumping in and that includes investors over one point two billion dollars has been invested in the first three quarters of two thousand and seventeen in the u.s. alone the investments are made and i ceo's are initial point offerings i see those are the.