reports. songs with an identity card in a push to end his five year confinement inside the country's london embassy. also this hour the us is it will spend 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 there just this year. germany rejects the deportation of a. few supported extremists in syria. could be released as early as next year.

the live from moscow one am now in the russian capital. thanks for joining us tonight. now there's confusion surrounding the wiki leaks chief julian a song ship reports said he'd been handed ecuadorian citizenship it's now claimed he is only been handed an identity card for the country. right in the thick of it next to the ecuadorian embassy in london where a song's remains holed up. the mystery of what happens next in this ever complicated tricky and internationally spanning case of julian assange really continues with some developments trickling in this evening here in london where we are in fact outside the ecuadorian embassy and some of the confusion of some of the reports that have been coming out seems to be stemming from first of all it tweets that julian assange had posted on his twitter page wearing t. shirts with the ecuadorian national colors parking lots of debate and questions

online about whether or not this could potentially mean that he has either has been or is on his way to being granted citizenship those questions of course are yet to be specifically answered by either julian assange himself the founder of wiki leaks or ecuadorian officials what we do know so far is that assange seems to have been issued some sort of national ecuadorian identification number which is easily seen on the ecuadorian website where this particular number coincides with his full name now the questions there are whether or not this is an idea that could potentially be used for him to apply for it with dorian citizenship or somehow changed his status when it comes to this very complicated case that has now spanned over several years what we do know as this comes following earlier statements from the ecuadorian foreign minister saying that it's really time to move on with his case let's take a listen with a peasant companies in those conditions forever. considering the option of

mediation with this they don't have said 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 one well there are lots of questions now about who this potential mediator could be because obviously when it comes to the complications of julian assange being able to actually step out of this embassy. the hind us revolves largely on what his status is in the u.k. because clearly it's been made very clear many times over and over by british officials that even if he does step foot outside the embassy he would be snatched up by them for the simple reasons of having breach his bail when around the time of when his whole case began to unravel so that has been the position of the british officials of course despite having the world seen that organizations such as the united nations have found his detention to be arbitrary that of the swedish

investigation that has been going on for quite some time having dropped the sexual allegations against him there were lots of assumptions there that this would open the door for a son to walk out of the sack with jorian embassy where he's been holed up a bunch of the asli all of this has been based largely on the fact that a songe himself believes that as soon as he walks out he would be extradited to the u.s. which seems to be his biggest fear given the sort of expectation for him to be punished there for his work as a whistleblower with the website wiki leaks having provided so much information when it comes to certain doings of the american government so certainly lots of questions we're going to obviously be watching this very closely in terms of what is this going to mean for songes status not just within ecuador but potentially his case beginning to move forward a little bit more human rights activist peter tatchell believes there could or could be looking for a while you to get a song out of london. the granting of an identity card is of course potentially the

first step towards being granted citizenship of acquittal and beyond that the possibility that he could be granted diplomatic status which would give him diplomatic immunity and the suggestion might be that if he was granted diplomatic immunity he would therefore be free to leave the embassy and travel to work with or the british government would not be able to lay a finger on him that is of course speculation it's a long way down the road yet but clearly the granting of it is the card is a movement a new development which may open the door to further things in the future. and in other news 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 over the coming year that's only a fraction of what the u.s.

has earmarked for its continued military operations there are these what does if 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 quote a sea of thousands of air strikes we filmed this a few weeks ago and nothing's really changed from when we were there last this is what the aftermath of a classic strike in mosul look like neighborhoods that numbered in the thousands it's been reduced to a handful. of the iraqi army in the u.s. led coalition seem to make sure to not leave a square meter on scorched earth it took 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 the medians a 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 module be it the module. i did they enter was little when it was. doing. she said a little hungry i'll get a lot of you know she be going to school in the citizen not. what else is there to do in mosul is why she's been sent to still don't know hala questions like did you feel that if she ever put it to you. as 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 play. to one hundred fifty million dollars or about zero point one percent of what iraq needs and no one seems to have seen any of that but as it is you have to teach your most if you live the good. life or. don't have surely. i love comedy not the shouting here that i would do i should i hadn't this way now my god now one of the magical set had it now after shiny. went up five as i had the start of a dallas market and if that's not file many of us said so lucky rather than send a message that the the numbers are an entirely different leagues what the united states spent on burning isis out of iraq and what the us 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 sense and military pay was hard for a million dollars for one their strike they carried out fourteen thousand strikes in iraq alone and after helping turn a rocky cities into this well the complex is one hundred fifty million dollars the equivalent of two mid-sized passenger jets. that isn't going to change many lives in iraq. let's bring in mike say brahms is the professor of public policy at northeastern university thanks for joining us great to have you on the program as always we heard there just in our correspondents report there there are government

claims they need one hundred billion dollars to rebuild even begin rebuilding their devastated country us pledging hundred fifty million dollars do you think that will make a lot of difference i mean there's no question there's a huge discrepancy between the amount of money required to rebuild iraq and what you know the states is prepared to offer and there's also a huge discrepancy between the amount of money u.s. has invested in iraq previously particularly against the islamic state group but even you know well before that but since some toppling saddam or what the u.s. is now prepared to offer for our humanitarian assistance or iraq or parts of it there are especially the sunni areas in particularly places like mosul or far are just simply and they require a huge influx of financial support to get the cities up and running and yet there

is no indication from washington that the u.s. is prepared to help in a meaningful way but i get the country back on its. i mean the u.s. has spent more than that it since twenty fifteen two hundred sixty five million dollars is the figure i've got a front of me and the u.s. has provided for roxanne's twenty fifteen locals though they've been telling me that little of that money has actually reached them sort of trickle down to ground level so where is all the money going is there some sort of corruption here i mean what what's what's happened. i mean there are certainly well you know it's quite possible thirty is corruption up iraq you already own time historically been very corrupt this was one of the main problems the us court tens of billions of dollars to the iraqi army for example and many of them were sort of on post people say were listed as fighters but really they weren't doing any fighting sir just taking the

salaries that's one of the reasons why most walked out so quickly furthermore the administration is deeply skeptical about the united nations so vice president france for example has openly said that that washington really no longer trusts you when to distribute the koran and furthermore you know we're talking about two hundred sixty five million dollars which might seem like a great your money but it's really not and you compare it to the amount of destruction throughout iraq and so the fact that locals on the ground are being you know with significant improvement in their lot isn't necessarily the result of corruption it could just be the fact that the financial demands are so much greater than the plot the pentagon spent around fourteen billion dollars fighting isilon iraq and syria that's twenty seventeen according to official figures they've

requested another billion for the train and equip program for the country this year that's despite arsenal being driven out of iraq already i mean does that say something about the protests and what actually lie. there's no question about it you know political scientists have found that the meter of the mission really determines the amount of public support for it in the american public is much more supportive when that mission could be defined as one defending u.s. national security so anything dealing with counter terrorism is likely to get a lot more support than simply humanitarian assistance that isn't directly related to u.s. national security or frankly even issues that seem to be predominantly in trouble to a country rather than ones you know involving international relations those are the kinds of things that the american public isn't as supportive of throwing money

around and when you recall that president trump paned to a large extent when it came to foreign policy well against nation building and secretary of state you are soon has recently we expressed this with respect to iraq and so we're going to continue to see friction between the rocky government asking for more money and i think washington d.c. being reluctant to provide it and i think that i d.c. has said essentially look we're not going to rebuild your country but you should look to do a sunni go countries look to iran are you need to find money elsewhere we will provide you know or you know a few hundred million dollars but that isn't going to be enough it's interesting you mentioned you know public support for u.s. interests and fighting terrorism as a priority in one of them because i mean given the fact the u.s. you know invaded and occupied iraq and it was as a result many analysts would say of that vacuum the isis then emerged and you know

created as a problem that the u.s. the subset we had to deal with you would think that investing in rebuilding stabilization programs would sort of fall in line with u.s. interest to prevent this sort of thing happening again so i mean does the u.s. pass some responsibility here in providing those funds in supporting stabilizing an area you know well i suspect very well may make a comeback in an environment of instability and insecurity. that's a fair question i mean there is plenty of blame to go around in terms of the rise of islamic state in the us to serve as well or largely for what you just expressed in terms of removing saddam hussein which created a power vacuum which although dark i know has fewer system. only rock you are in to it to develop and not more into i guess our own men eventually are islamic skiing so in that sense there is perhaps

a moral imperative for the us to continue to help them out said oh mike i do want to point out the u.s. has already in huge amounts of money into iraq it's just that that money hasn't been particularly helpful in stabilizing the country or keeping the terrorists there and so this is one of the problems. is that it's never really clear when to end the occupation how boring it should the united states either in what capacity ok mark saber i was assistant professor of public policy at northeastern university thanks for your take today on that story and r.t. great to have you on as a last truth of. our court in germany has provoked controversy off that block the deportation of a tough decision is likely to also give chancellor merkel a headache she's struggling to form a coalition government. well germany's top court has ruled on

wednesday 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 there 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. more moderate to liberal liberal germany. whole. life in our polls and people think your. 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 a speedy deportations in cases like this but this ruling could spoke in the wheel of those with anybody now able to claim that if they're deported back to their

country of origin they could face inhumane treatment or torture. the ruling comes in merkel's ongoing struggle to form a government following the election in september the chancellor failed to create a coalition with minor parties she's now conducting further negotiations with the leader of the social democrats martin short seed of course previously rejected any offer we spoke to publicist and former german intelligence officer roy in a 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 or to the christian democrats who want to have a criminal or. a new ruling of the federal constitutional court to not be received with greed pleasure by the public at large

. and the u.k. government's rejected calls for a better system of checks and balances the prevent future prime ministers making the same mistakes as tony blair did over iraq a special committee argued strictly investigations should be carried out before entering the country into any conflict inquiry into the war known as the chilcot report led to the establishment of the u.k. national security council it deals with all national security issues coordinate the activities of the intelligence services and formulates defense strategy as well now the chilcote report was published back in twenty sixteen 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 and there was no undeniable evidence of weapons of mass destruction and being used by the iraqi government lindsey german from the stop the war coalition believes it's easy for u.k. in peace to vote for war but much harder for them to deal with the consequences.

chilcote was meant to change the whole why in which these decisions were made it hasn't been implemented it 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 say as we're still saying in afghanistan and libya we know that to raise my is finding domestic circumstance you very very difficult indeed at the moment more is easier for governments like this than to say well ok we have an enemy abroad and to bolster the case for war. pressure is mounting on the israeli prime

minister after a controversial recording involving his son was leaked to the press benjamin netanyahu lawyers reportedly tried to prevent the tape from being broadcast on television. i would forgive me if. i was half way of god you coming over because. i'm. going to go on and that recording you just heard made in twenty fifteen go you can be heard chatting to the son of israeli guest koby my man outside a strip club i'm on is a shareholder at a gas company that allegedly benefited from a controversial law on natural gas drilling rights let's take a further look about what all this means now the legislation itself concerned two large newly discovered gas fields just off israel's coast now it essentially gave corporations control over the development of the deposits with the government arguing it was investment or critics have slammed it they've said described it as

corrupt giving too much power to corporations and demanded it nationalization of the deposits following the release of that controversial video your unit and yahoo denied any knowledge of the plans saying 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 tell the 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 like he's ations but in the meantime he's pushing for a special immunity law which could allow him to avoid prosecution we 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 is not the kind of why 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 all these are either may lead to draw all of confidence and that's the main threat for binyamin netanyahu 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 brains and he was just chatting about

different things but this is not the matter of fact. over to germany now where the army is recruiting an increasing number of under eighteen's us according to figures from the country's defense ministry more than two thousand teenagers and are volunteering for germany's armed forces so sharp increase over the last few years germany is one of the few countries worldwide that allows under eighteen's to volunteer though only in a non-combat role teenagers can apply if they're seventeen and have parental consent or the german military is currently conducting a recruitment drive with officers giving talks at schools across the country the campaign also features an online reality show. i i i i. i i i i i.

i. the program follows army recruits for twelve weeks is one of germany's most popular online projects where it's drawing criticism as well for making the military more attractive to young to this now the un is concerned the recruitment drive specifically targets children the german army has defended its methods they've insisted the training is done under strict supervision earlier we spoke to regional m.p. from germany's left party martin who's against specific targeting of youngsters. they had been a huge campaigns in schools even in kindergartens. to. make the army more attractive to young people there had been some schools who had been working together with the army to put the young students in some kind of camp we support some initiatives called corner bundeswehr for example which c.s. where that education should take place without going this where the people who are

under age to they shouldn't be urged to. get into the army the united nation already in two thousand and fourteen. the german government to stop this and erase the ph of soldiers i think this is a problem. but the main problem is if you do a foreign copilots here with us which is based on dialogue you don't need such a strong army or so many soldiers i think that is the main problem behind the. french culture minister has attempted to dispel rising concerns over president backgrounds 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 they will be getting involved micron's proposal to crackdown on fake news came

a week ago however it immediately sparked a backlash many doubting 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 person who will take care of it is there going to be in and if there is something new in this law here is it not to the press of little since we go more and more in this direction we forbid everything we are 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. the

independent journalist lou grieve told us the crackdown on fake news could be misguided i don't believe in it at all i mean first if it goes to the churches 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 idiots of the new york on which they they put some crazy think terms were complaining about bad sentences and things because they are on the left they know better so if they have to church on waters of fake news it will always be the same that are condemned they feed us things which are not true so it cannot speak about propaganda he's the champion of it and the propaganda that mr michael himself uses the word the uses 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. from myself and the team.

to be with you throughout the night the latest on worldwide news.