awareness of these issues develop depression anxiety and if you see other kids like this don't bully them don't name call them don't treat them badly treat them with respect and i think that culture form of young age most young kids understand that they get the message i think it i dealt panicked about this issue whereas young kids are able to take it on board david you were shaking your head a bit when peter was talking it is only a children's book why you still objecting to this. it's because of the issue i mean it's actually delving into something that young minds are far too young to deal with and cope with the idea of gender and changing gender and changing sex it's not something that is ever been something that people consider naturally a young age and there is gender confusion and gender chaos coming into very young primary school kids and the numbers are growing you said at the beginning of the piece it's growing by one hundred percent every year in sweden the number of

children who refer themselves in britain it's in the last two years it's grown sixfold the number of children who have this gender confusion and it's because they're being exposed to these materials if they once they would just happily go on their own way being boys and girls yes there are differences in people who are boys and differences in girls and their temperaments and their behavior and their likes and dislikes but that doesn't mean that they're going to be transgender it doesn't mean the ok listen you're going to have a when this or that i'm afraid said to construct brilliant ok david london assembly member. human rights campaigner and director of the peter tatchell foundation thank you both for coming on to the program on airing those views thanks thank you. ok that's. all of our top stories for now i'll be back at the top of the hour with more.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle the political crisis inflicted upon lebanon by saudi arabia appears to receded at least for now is this a sign of things to come as the saudi royal family changes so to saudi arabia and the region is it time to buckle up and brace for impact.

across talking saudi arabia and the region i'm joined by my guest jamal khashoggi and washington he's a saudi commentator in beirut we have charmaine now one the she is a journalist as well as a middle east geo political analyst and in toronto we cross the mohammad marandi he is an associate professor at the university of toronto are across the uk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much appreciate jamal let me go to you first in washington as we saw this situation play out in lebanon and i don't think it's done yet we'll see what the next move is here but looking at what's going on in saudi arabia critics can make the claim that the the lebanon episode was to deflect from what was going on in saudi arabia and vice versa i mean how are they connected or they're just very different things happening at the same time go ahead in washington no i tend to believe the two different things happening in this. saudi arabia house legitimate to make

a complaint about. it is not only in the burden but in syria and in yemen maybe. issue was introduced was too hasty in and such an impulsive but it succeeded. issue of his will on the table and now even the flinch to make any statements about how the law should be. should be viewed. first of all law should not have a free her. so this is ok so this is all about a foot of it and this is all about hezbollah and let me go to show i mean in beirut i mean one can easily make the claim that saudi arabia is meddling in lebanon and in yemen ok i mean i i don't see where you find the moral equivalence right there ok i mean so in beirut here i mean what is in play here because. seeing

a country like saudi arabia claim it's making reforms considering it's a talk or see religiously talk recy and it's reaching out to the west saying it's reforming and it wants to reorder the middle east i mean. that's destabilizing in itself because we don't know what the outcomes are at home and we certainly know what the outcomes are abroad ok go ahead in beirut. that the saudis are in a very precarious situation i mean you know if you're going to take an aggressive stance in your neighborhood or at home one of the things you have to do is make sure you have cover so if you're going to move forward with aggressive foreign policy you have to make sure you have stability and cohesion and at home. mohamed bin some on the crown prince or we often call him m.b.'s is in a dangerous position for himself because at home he's he's taken on the purging of the religious establishment and the royal family and even the business

establishment at the same time as he has. rockets and mortars coming in from yemen a war that he initiated. and neighboring states and many conflicts around him in the region most of which saudi arabia has had a hand in so you're right to criticize hezbollah for enter ference an arab affairs. it is a mockery because there is no country more aggressively pursuing interventions in regional states and neighboring states than saudi arabia and we should point to the arab league meeting on sunday which we have to do for. sure yeah but at the same time hezbollah is a political party and has been elected by the people of lebanon i think that it's an important distinction as well it is and it's not for the set it's not over the top not for the saudis were not to me there's no doubt about me show that i'm ok i

have to let me let me i had to focus i had a feeling this was going to have a political one let me let you know it means let me bring in professor marandi so we'll all go to the mix ok i would had a question but i think you've heard enough professor marandi to answer what you've heard already on the program go ahead please well hezbollah is a part of the government and the government recognizes. the has it will our armed wing in lebanon and it is universally recognized that the only thing that another israeli attack on lebanon is hezbollah are and if people look back the reason why hezbollah was created in the first place was the the our israeli regime five patients of lebanon attack on the country and effectively they expelled israelis. soul has

a very popular in fact it's the most popular party in lebanon it actually gives its seat in the cabinet and in parliament to its own allies it only keeps a minimal number of seats just to be sure that they're in the debate. and to compare saudi arabia to hezbollah is really extraordinary we just recently heard and i think all your viewers should watch the interview of the former prime minister of qatar when he spoke on i thirty t.v. not on here but on t.v. and he explained that at the very beginning of the situation in syria. he went to saudi arabia and they began plotting against the syrian government and of course we also have other documents like the fence intelligence agency document of two thousand and twelve and so on that shows that saudi arabia from the very beginning was export in terrorism to syria and the prime minister also acknowledged that the nostra front was being funded and that back then the national front was

actually a part of isis because isis back then was i.s.i. this state of iraq they created the most are from a struggle for syria and then again when we look at when we look at yemen the saudi regime is creating a start it's creating starvation maskil unprecedented in human history seven thousand people seventeen million people are on the verge of starvation or and the united states the western media the british million they are all silent about this which is quite graceless but there is no comparison is that i mean saudi arabia and anyone else to me and i point out to our viewers the sixty minutes report on c.b.s. was absolutely disgraceful in its bias ok jamal let me go back to you because if it's two against one here. what. i mean i i have a hard time go the anywhere in the world let me go to show me and other again you know that this is healthy you have to make sure your back is covered and your

flanks are covered and you can see what lies ahead he's the you know hezbollah and iran interfering in the in the affairs of states and back to the arab league meeting on sunday the arab league charter. says that there are you know states the inviolability of not just sovereignty and territory territorial integrity of all arab states but independence as well and the first time in their history that they significantly veered from this and intervene in the affairs of state allegedly to support a population against its government it was in libya and in syria and now they are doing so in yemen when when when the arab league takes these decisions and sideline syria and looks to sideline other countries potentially like lebanon they have no right per their charter you have an arab league that is being hijacked now and there are very few members of that league that actually subscribe to to what mohamed wants in the region i mean it's saudi arabia it's. not even the u.s.

. but her reign that has no voice any longer and maybe some sort of half steps by some of the others but this is a very dangerous situation where one country is pretty much saying we can violate every occasion to be around us i want to and we have the right to do so we have about forty seconds before we go to the break go ahead mohammed interim if you want to respond to that go ahead i think the big issue is that mohamed bin saddam mom is behaving in a very erratic manner he's not talc relating things or thinking things through he one week he has a huge conference from foreign investors at the ritz carlton the next week he arrests all the billionaires princes and ministers and puts them in the ritz carlton. that's basically saying to all foreign investors and leave and all wealthy saudis to leave the country as well. ok gentlemen and lady i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on saudi arabia and the region stay with art.

in america a college degree requires a great deal. decades of debt. studying so hard it requires. going through humiliation to enter society. sometimes quite literally. wants of the true colors of universities in the u.s. . everybody i'm stephen. every

proud american first of all i'm just george bush and r.v. news. and. welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing saudi arabia and the region. can you explain what we all know that the crown prince and it's assuming that he will become king very soon can you explain his reforms i mean mohamed interim talked about this i guess a better word is this really a shaking down of members of the royal family that may or may not have committed massive acts of corruption ok fine but is that the way to move forward i mean because if you want to have the rule. so you break the law to have the rule of law you east a key take assets from people illegally but believing foreigners will we attempted

to legally enter your in the saudi market i mean can't you see all the contradictory. to this with he is doing that are you seeing is the wrong way i've been very much supportive of reform in saudi arabia i called exactly for many of the things well how much money is doing it often used to have it even asli in saudi arabia yes it unfair really need to beat him don't need to be districted. to be a load but it. from the state they should not. live as if they own or a share of the state it shouldn't equal citizen to us we the people of saudi arabia . he is there when the ice sings in saudi arabia but he is doing it in a hasty manner they will never be an economic development in saudi arabia.

they won't get their tea without fighting corruption but in the same time to house to beat that are transparent see in an in an article a lot in the washington post i question with that he is becoming president fourteen where he would just go that all the poet around him. wouldn't like that for saudi arabia i would like to see how well you know not what i'm hearing we have elections call me up when saudi arabia starts having elections and i'll be interested and by the way i do not have much near the political parties to what i'm hoping for right ok that may assure me that when i'm watching it with us. today it's we have donald trump treating them as has subhuman and any the close of the relationship yes the more unpopular the saudi regime becomes but i'd like to also point out a couple of other things about what's going on in saudi arabia and why i think that . this is very dangerous for the war where they're slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people due to disease and starvation although the western media for

two years has been saying ten thousand people have been killed they don't want to tell the real numbers but then we see what he did in the tatar and outrageous behavior that the saudis showed tours that had he people and they still they tried to strangle them as well they humiliated the prime minister of lebanon and forced him to grovel in front of the king how would investors come to a country when even a foreign prime minister has no protection in the country but the most important thing i think is that saudi arabia something is a bit like libya it is not my egypt or iran we and it's a nation state with an identity it's founded upon him in the view was founded upon one person and when he was killed when he was here when he left the scene the country fell apart and saudi arabia if if mohamed bin some money grows weaker as a result of the the immense amount of money that he's wasting in yemen in killing

the and all the other crap multiple crises at home and abroad if saudi arabia grows unstable i don't think that the country will remain intact in jamal i know that you are a critic of the saudi government presumably maybe one of the ones where you're living in the u.s. if you could give the crown prince advice what would that advice be and what would be the advice to israel and the united states for example if he was the void one despite all the temptation or are all the spoiler told smart is the end with the start of the current database but it's hard to say but he is indeed doing the opposite it's a risk isn't he doing just the opposite. but i thought law but that was my advice to avoid being a one month rule he need to broaden the consensus he need to create some form for the bucket to see out about him he enjoys the support of the people did is no question of that it timoci in saudi arabia. it's very quick solution could be

something like the chinese communist party would it have a huge membership of. people who could contribute and share power saudi arabia is going through a major transformation that existed to get to the country and that should not be looked did you think the ideas of what you think saudi arabia can survive this transformation it's seems to me really in severe doubts that it could on the past years on right now yes no i think. in the short term you're saudi arabia has enough forward enough legitimacy enough for us to sort of oil you for. the coming years but challenges from within isn't even facing one hundred and some months high expectation that he measures that people don't know how it is it will have any of those things go ahead go ahead and does it have power and legitimacy how does that

saudi arabia have the power legitimacy to carry through any of its agendas the arab league is as good as gone the g.c.c. is as good as gone you know am no no no no no initiatives doings that only we were it on let me just on and they're very plain a very detailed does which are economic meanly some difficult even five six it is with most what with much more challenges but he house to fix the unemployment problem. is that a serious risk let's face it let me let me go to mohammed he had he could add that if we're rapidly running out of time mohamed let me go to you i would i would i would put forward the following is that all of the problems that saudi arabia is experiencing internally and its foreign policy are all self-inflicted wounds every single one go ahead. well look look at first without a doubt the saudi regime basically is. is is is not is

putting the lives of people like john mark who's defending saudi arabia right now cannot go back to his own country this is the state of affairs in saudi arabia and the so did the united states when they occupied iraq they were infinitely more powerful than saudi arabia and look what iraq did to the american economy saudi arabia is engaging in mass murder in yemen it is spending its money like there's no tomorrow it's confronting a tad it's confronting syria iraq it's been it's been the confronting iraq for years and now lebanon and iran it is at home it's now dealing both with the clerics as well as the royal family ministers and it's arresting generals as well this is definitely not a regime that has the sort of harm it can put on sight i'm sorry i wish i'd like to get away with it but with run out of time fascinating discussion many thanks to my

guests in washington and in beirut and in turn around and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk. was . jamie as a hunk on the you. know at the five a good lesson but because hell i don't know him but that never. seemed like him to make the one you have me or the m e-mail. up to grab me it's because he sees when i lived.

with islamic states on the back foot in syria the leaders of iran and turkey and russia agree to host an all inclusive syrian talks to kick start the country's post-war political process. lebanon's prime minister says he's putting his surprise resignation on hold off to the president asked him to reconsider the p.m.'s bond to recent political crisis two weeks ago when he said he was stepping

down. and the international olympic committee makes another ruling in the russian doping scandal banning for russian skeleton athletes for life .