breaking news this hour. officially granted citizenship for the chief has been holed up in the country's embassy in london for more than five years . one hundred fifty million dollars rebuilding iraq the cities devastated by the war on islamic state a figure dwarfed by how much the pentagon has requested for military operations this year. and germany rejects the deportation of a turkish jarvis to support of extremists in syria. he could be released as early as next year.

and i welcome to our international live from moscow with me. welcome to the program we do have some breaking news coming in for you this hour on the program just coming in the we can exchange. has been granted ecuadorian citizenship a song tweeted this picture within the last hour or so showing him wearing the ecuador football team shirt however he provided no further details so far at least . has been holed up of course in the country's london embassy for more than five years he faces arrest breaking his bail conditions that legal team fears britain will into the u.s. where he faces prosecution laura smith has more. so the ecuadorian foreign minister has come out and called the situation of our sons' living in the embassy here in london unsustainable with a person can't live in those conditions forever. we considering the option of mediation. if that could be done virus that country or individual. no

solution is possible without international corporations or without that if the u.k. which has expressed interest in finding more in terms of the u.k. expressing interest in finding a way out the government here has reacted and it's pretty odd unswayed says that the government of ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is to have julian assange leave the embassy and face justice for their part song his legal team have welcomed this new initiative they're saying if the u.k. wishes to show that it's a nation that respects its human rights obligations and commitments to the united nations then it should. walk free and when they refer to the united nations they're talking to about a two thousand and sixteen ruling by the organization that was being held in arbitrary detention meanwhile the media here is speculating that what ecuador really wants is to push us out of the embassy to get rid of him in september he

tweeted in support of the catalan separatist movement the ecuadorian president tweeted in response saying that keep his nose out of the business of its allies if marina wants to get more reporting on human rights abuses in spain you should see so explicitly together with the legal basis there are other issues at play here as well several days ago the ecuadorian foreign minister also said that our soldiers health situation is very delicate he added that he is receiving medical help but there is only a certain amount of help that he can receive from inside the embassy she reconfirm though that ecuador is guaranteeing his protection he has been living in the embassy in night. chair in london for five and a half years now since two thousand and twelve and there have been several key moments during that time not to the least of which was last year when swedish prosecutors said that they were dropping investigation into rape allegations that he had faced people thought possibly that he would then be able to leave the

embassy but the police here reiterated that if he does set foot outside the embassy he will be arrested for being in breach of his original bail conditions and wiki leaks has always voiced fears that he would then be requested for extradition by the united states several months ago ecuador and officials said that they were going to call on the u.k. to guarantee him safe passage to ecuador but that's something that the u.k. as we just heard doesn't seem to be any closer to doing so for now despite this little bit of movement on his fate still hangs very much in the balance and it's very unclear who or which country might step forward and offer to be that mediator . now the u.s. embassy in iraq has announced one hundred fifty million dollars is to be spent rebuilding cities left devastated in the war on islamic state so only a fraction of what the u.s. was earmarked for its continued military operations that is what i guess the of has more on the story what does this look like to you mad max resident

evil no this is mosul or rather what's left of it to see of thousands of strikes if you'll notice a few weeks ago nothing's really changed from when we were there last this is what the off the mark the vote classic strike in mosul look like neighborhoods that numbered in the thousands it's been reduced to a handful. the iraqi army and the u.s. led coalition seem to make sure to not leave a square meter on school. just for the truth of precision i haven't yet seen a single house and mine still untouched by fighting the neighboring street all but destroyed the street across rubble the street over there it's the same story

wherever you look cities and towns that house millions devastated husks even now in mosul you are never far from the stench of rotting bodies or unexploded bombs help reconstruction no one seen any of that. i did they enter a little when in which. she's never hungry alligator that if you know you go to school and this is not. what else is there to do in mosul like she said it was and just it was during the holocaust. it's of children but it's a. strange the u.s. had pledged to help and do what it's bombs did they're already helping fund reconstruction iraq says it needs one hundred billion dollars to rebuild and the

united states has doubled its pledge to one hundred fifty million dollars and we're about zero point one percent of what iraq needs and no one seems to have seen any of that but a city in your city if you had much if you. did you would. don't have sherman. i love comedy not ashamed about i would do what i said i had to this way now my god now one of the magical set had it now i perceive any south went out fight as i had the saw to. that is marco and if that's not file many of us said so lucky but rather the latter sent a message that after the numbers are an entirely different leagues what the united states spent on burning isis out of iraq and what the u.s. has pledged to repair the damage it did or entirely in comparable numbers the

average cost of a u.s. air strike in iraq at the beginning of the operation very roughly counting fuel flight time cost of bombs made an uncertain military pay was half a million dollars for one of their strike they carried out fourteen thousand their strikes in iraq alone and after helping turn iraqi cities into this all the complex has one hundred fifty million dollars the equivalent of two mid-sized passenger jets that isn't going to change many lives in iraq. now of course in germany has provoked controversy block the deportation of a turkish the hardest decisions likely to also give chancellor merkel a headache she can screw turning to struggle to form a coalition governments are to charlotte to be in ski has already told. well

germany's top court has ruled on wednesday that a person cannot be deported back to their country of origin if they face torture or inhumane treatment in that country now turkish court has said that germany would need to have appropriate assurances that neither of those would take place if a person was deported to that country now this case has been highlighted because of a court case brought by a german born turk who was convicted back in two thousand and fifteen of supporting terrorism the man who's thirty years old had traveled to syria and had supported a terrorist organization in the country including giving funds to that terrorist organization where he received a three and a half year sentence for doing so here in germany but in two thousand and sixteen he was threatened with deportation back to turkey and he decided to appeal that

threat and take it to the court system here in this country now he had support from groups such as amnesty who said that if he was deported to turkey because he had links to a terror organization he could be tortured or abused and that man has two thirds of his sentence left to serve and could be released within the next year and that is highly controversial here in germany because many people fear that he could potentially be a terror threat in the future. the more moderate liberal liberal germany. whole. idea. i'm afraid of the future and germany of course is no. stranger to terror attacks the country's been

on high alert since the christmas market attack in december two thousand and sixteen which killed twelve people and injured dozens others in just weeks after that christmas market attack the german interior minister called for such deportations in cases like this but this ruling could spoke in the wheel of those with anybody now able to claim that if they deported back to their country of origin they could face inhumane treatment or torture a lot ruling comes amid merkel's ongoing struggle to form a government following the election in september the chancellor failed to create a coalition with minor parties susan are conducting negotiations with the leader of social democrats martin short's has previously refused any offer we spoke to publicist and former german intelligence officer rona rope who believes the controversial ruling to keep a potential terrorist in the country may cause further splits between the parties.

this thing is. a few on the fire or anyone and it's not only the fifty but it's loose in the. union. who wants to have a criminal. a new ruling of the federal constitutional court to not be received with greed pleasure the public at large. and the u.k. government's rejected calls for a better system of checks and balances to prevent future prime ministers making the same mistakes as tony blair did over iraq a special committee argued stricter investigations should be carried out before entering the country into any armed conflict now the inquiry into the war known as the chilcote report led to these tabish one of the u.k.'s national security council it deals with all national security issues as well as coordinating the activities of the intelligence services and formulating defense strategy reports it was

published back in twenty sixteen that ruled the u.k.'s military action in iraq was not a last resort the iraqi leader saddam hussein didn't represent an urgent threat there was no undeniable evidence of weapons of mass destruction being used by the iraq government loses german from stop the war coalition believes it's easy for u.k. m.p.'s to vote for war but much harder for them to deal with consequences. chilcote was meant to change the whole way in which these decisions were made it hasn't been implemented that hasn't been taken up and i fear that we are going to get another episode like we've had with tony blair in the past and of course it shows that this government just like the blair government doesn't want to be constrained by anybody the decision to go to war can be taken by a tiny clique of people around the prime minister with very little democratic accountability and of course it's very very easy for these m.p.'s to vote for war it's much much harder to deal with the consequences of war as we've seen in iraq

and as we see as we're still seeing in afghanistan and libya we know that to reason why is finding domestic circumstance you very very difficult indeed at the moment more than is easier for governments like this than to say well ok we have an enemy abroad and to bolster the case for war. the french culture minister has attempted to dispel rising concerns over president mike ross plan to tackle fake news she said the national media regulator as well as judges would be in charge of enforcing the new law on the one hand you have the c.s.a. and on the other judges so it's not the executive there will be getting involved micron's proposal to crack down on fake news came a week ago however it immediately sparked a backlash many doubt of the the government's involvement in the process. it was initially tween fake news machines and the professional media we run the risk of losing the truth the barriers have been destroyed presidential campaigns and almost

all modern democracies have displayed their weakness and our collective failure to come up with a response but i will say that the first ones who make fake news are the presidential candidates who do not keep their promises this is the real fake news that should be banned who will take care of it is there going to be an anti fake news brigade or something said this law here is it not to oppress a floor since we go more and more in this direction we forbid everything we're prevented from thinking so much that we no longer know how to think for ourselves the film almost always come back to george orwell's novel nineteen eighty-four with the ministry of misinformation i really feel like will ready there and the people outside of it. discuss the issue let's cross live to brussels based journalist lucre very for more on this thanks for joining us lou good to have you want today do you believe the government really won't be involved in the process of

tackling this fake news conference i mean the law was proposed by the president himself do you really think that's the case. i don't believe in it at all i mean first if it goes to the judges it's not reassuring because most of the judges in france are on the left side because for example they put a few years ago that the wall of the idiot saw. on which they they put the victims who were complaining about bad sentences and things because they are on the left they know better so if they have to judge on what as a fake news it will always be the same that are condemned that's the first thing the second is that mr mccall is the first to apply propaganda at its worst it becomes incredible not only is the press not allowed next to him anymore he has only one camera one cameraman to accompany him his cameraman and he speaks to his

camera and then it goes to the press so it is the official news only claim a few weeks ago he asked the henson journalist of a two off the second channel the public channel in france. to come and interview him at the palace for three quarters of an hour it was an interview prepared by the two together it was not an interview it was pure propaganda so as a journalist as a citizen one to be allowed to consider that most of my coins may be an arrogant little prick sorry to say that it's not necessarily a wonderful president carter's matic president so this is you know the problem is that before where do you stop with fake news look at the press in france and everywhere in europe every time an islamist shouts and kills people or goes into a crowd with a with a truck immediately the press in agreement with the politicians say that you must

be mentally disturbed and then only it appears that the guy's an islamist etc he comes from a cell in the nice massacre the minister of interior immediately said that this guy had. done it alone and he had to self radicalized on the internet this was not true it's only a week later or more that the police told the people that he was that he had three accomplices or more and that it was a member of a cell that they have been radicalized together so they feed us things which are not true so it cannot speak about propaganda he's the champion of it i mean this proposal's spark quite a backlash online as there's been a hash tag trending invent invent fake news i mean why do you think people are so concerned here i mean fake news has become the word of the year here it is a problem that probably does exist why do you think there's such an outcry. well i think to people i have enough of this soup that is the liver to them the

political correctness that makes it impossible for them to use the right words or to say things that they believe you cannot say certain things you cannot use certain words because they are forbidden to fall into words so they really feel fed up about this and they see that the press works with the politicians to hide nicely certain things you know here in belgium a few months ago during the peak of the migrant crisis there were billboards put on by the national broadcaster public broadcaster saying showing a man with a baby in his arms and a woman with a baby neurons saying these are the refugees no no the large majority of these refugees were young men between eighteen and twenty five no women and they were not refugees but migrants economic migrants so people only learned the truth afterwards and there realize that what they are fed up with by the power by the president the

cozy relationship it has with mr mccall and the politicians and the torah. doesn't tell them the truth so they want an alternative truth may be its alternative but it is the truth. i mean where would you draw the line here between. you know people having the right to a full spectrum of opinions however controversial however politically incorrect they may be tackling fake music mean what needs to change to ensure there's a balance here between getting away news that's not true i letting people have a diverse spectrum of opinion however uncomfortable that may be. well there is legislation if if the press says that i killed my mother in law and it's not true i can go to court and ask for them to be punished and to pay a fine etc and i can ask for. you know retribution. this is the typical law exists you can't complain when people print or put

on the internet on social media that george bush george w. bush organized the destruction of the twin towers in new york this is obviously fake news and mr bush could go to court for that so if something wrong is said about you mr michael you can go to court simply that exists and for the rest. fake news to live it is very difficult in certain examples i just gave you it's obvious and so this can be changed this you can obtain. a modification in the press and be printed the same place if you comply and go to the courts but for all the things which are much more difficult which is the propaganda that mr micro himself use this is the word that says that the press is the victim is the first victim of propaganda no we citizens are the first victim of the propaganda that he organizes ok lou greve a brussels based journalist thanks for joining us giving us your take on that story

here today on r.t. . approaches been mounting on the israeli prime minister after a controversial recording involving his son year was leaked to the press benjamin netanyahu is lawyers reportedly tried to prevent the tape being broadcast on local television. i would forgive me if it. was a half way of. you coming over because. i'm watching. that you were recording you just heard made in twenty fifteen here you can be heard chatting to the son of israeli gas tycoon my man outside a strip club called the miners a shareholder at a gas company that allegedly benefited from a controversial law on natural gas drilling rights legislation concern two newly discovered gas fields off israel's coast now essentially gave corporations control

over the development of the deposit the government arguing it would stimulate investment critics have said the proposal was corrupt given too much power to corporations and demanded nationalization of those the posit or following the release of the controversial video year netanyahu denied any knowledge of the plans he said his conversation was nothing more than a drunken joke i regret the remarks and apologize if anyone was hurt by them in addition the things i said to my mind were a dumb joke and joking around with him as anyone could sell and our prime minister netanyahu is already being investigated in two separate corruption cases the allegations include receiving bribes and negotiating favor all media coverage the prime minister strongly denies all accusations but in the meantime he's pushing for a special immunity law which could allow him to avoid prosecution discuss the latest controversy surrounding the netanyahu family with regional analysts. it looks really bad for the prime minister and it doesn't look like you know someone

who wants to be a leader of a country to have his son running around in a government vehicle doing things you know don't look so complimentary and it's not the kind of line that the prime minister would want to do whether it's a danger to the prime minister or undermines no i mean it's a self undermining thing and the reason he did it is because it looks bad but you know we're in a democratic country and as long as. he's living in the prime minister's residence i may have to answer some questions this is not the first case that we are speaking about corruption in the family of binyamin netanyahu as the prime minister of israel these were you may lead to draw all of confidence and that's the the main threat. that's why they're trying as a family to play with words showing that it's not. a fact but it was just a matter of a guy who was hanging around with his friends and he was just chatting about

different things but this is not a matter of fact. the saying goes hell is other people are nuts especially true it seems on twitter which might be why the devil himself has taken an interest with the church of satan account now becoming a twitter beast. also

had lines for this hour for myself and a team here at the will be back with you in about thirty five minutes full of global headlines see that.

i had a great education a good job and a family that loved me. i never had to worry about how i would eat and where i would sleep. but i'm facing christmas alone out on the streets of london well you know. i thought well before you let you go. you know just like you still give out food for the. and that's. because you don't really feel like a human being you know. and then. that guy just came over to me saw me and gave me a change of this book to. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest in the world

of politics small business i'm show business i'll see you then. time after time here we're going underground as the world commemorates the use of united states weapons of mass destruction against hundreds of thousands of civilians in august saki in japan arguing not to end world war two but to raise the threat of cold war armageddon coming up on the show the big issue as the monument to austerity in the poorest communities and one of the richest areas on earth continues to cast a shadow across the british imagination we speak to the founder of the magazine of the homeless but about call mom and a national prevention unit and. not just what was going on in the

media. the conservatives are. watching policy to speak and saw the council terms of popped into my head elusive street are just the awful daughter gives face to face interview to going underground on the headlines claims and counterclaims in caracas and how the n.h.s. is privatizing. all the civil coming up in today's going underground so the lives of hundreds of thousands of british children in tory britain are apparently under threat according to anti-poverty charity the trussell trust as u.k. children lose access to free school meals during the summer holidays years of blairite labor and tory austerity have been put into sharp relief in one of the richest countries in the world meanwhile record rises in homelessness have accompanied the transfer of wealth from social services to defacto taxpayer benefits for the city of london some believe that all it would have taken for engineer liberal leader jeremy corbyn to be prime minister of britain right now

instead of theresa may propped up by a party linked to far right paramilitaries would have been of the lethal grunfeld tower inferno had happened before and not after june. u.k. general election joining me now is the founder of the big issue crossbenchers lord bird who is proposing the creation of a new body to curb the excesses of capitalism on bird welcome back to going underground so what's the reason is government's response to your proposal for a poverty prevention unit well when i spoke to her previous to the election just before a few days before she announced it. she liked the idea of looking at this how you could make all departments passed through the prism of how does this relate to prevention she like the idea of it are made the point to save or making it that most units never really car use.