wiki leaks editor jew leader song has been granted an ecuadorian i.d. card but the country's push to resolve his case is being met with resistance one week you take up. a new u.n. report says iraqi refugees are being forced to return home by the country's security forces to areas that are still deemed dangerous. and will germany get a coalition government all eyes are on the country's top politicians as they try to hammer out a deal on the final day of crunch talks. a very warm welcome you are watching on c.n.n.

international with me and carol good to have you with us this hour. now a new development in the julian song case the wiki leaks co-founder has been granted an ecuadorian i.d. card is a step towards ending ending his five year confinement in ecuador's london embassy laura smith is across the story the after awhile of nothing no movement from inside the ecuadorian embassy there's been a series of developments in the last twenty four hours julian assange posted a photograph of himself in an ecuadorian football shirt which gave rise to a lot of speculation about what that could mean he generally doesn't do things unless they mean something and then we saw reports surfacing from quito which said that he had received a national identity number so he's been entered into the tax register essentially which is something that will only happen to citizens of ecuador so the strong suggestion is that from this national identity number he will then possibly get a passport we went onto the streets of quito to see how people that felt about it

i'm with you on the border because he does need human rights and i think that's what the government will give him there is also a health issue because we know he's enclosed in a very small. there are many things that cross my mind is he healthy enough to stay there the muslim middle of all of the first is to use a refugee policy and support him in this way this follows a statement earlier this week from the foreign minister of ecuador saying that the situation of our son's living here in the embassy is unsustainable and asking for the first time for a third party mediator either another country or another person to see if they could help to resolve this issue with a person can't live in those conditions. we're considering the option of mediation . of said that could be done virus that country or individual. no solution is possible without international corporations or without that of the u.k. which has expressed interest in finding one and it's no wonder that she wants

a resolution because of course it's been five and a half years since i first went into the embassy behind me cause there have been developments in his case along the line most notably possibly last year we didn't drop the investigation into sex allegations against him but the u.k. authorities still say that if he sets foot outside this embassy they will arrest him because he of course jumped bail when he went into the embassy and wiki leaks still fears and onward extradition to the united states so what we're seeing ecuador making moves quite concerted moves to try and resolve the situation but the u.k. government still remains intractable on the issue even after all this time it's very unclear when and what will be the ending of this saga. the u.k. foreign office has refused a request from ecuador to grant a song's diplomatic immunity and allowed to us the f c o stressed that it would not discuss the matter except to say that the case would only be resolved if

a songe leaves the embassy in faces justice we spoke with wiki leaks supporter clarke stoically who says it's in no one's interest if the situation drags on ecuador has been trying to find a resort lucian possible to help julian get out. is been detrimental to his health it's been detrimental to the work that wiki leaks does and and also you know i have to assume that it's not good for ecuador's relations with the u.s. the u.k. and even sweden for this to continue on this is only costly for the wonder and police departments and is futile it's there's no good reason so all of this seems very hypocritical it seems like they're kind of using it as some kind of diplomatic currency. iraqi security services are forcing refugees to leave camps and return to their homes not despite these being in unsafe

areas that's according to a new report by the un refugee agency is there's more than thirteen thousand families were forced to come back to dangerous zone as those who returned faced a number of problems from tribal conflicts to booby traps left by fleeing islamic state fighters the report also says at least fourteen were tourney's have been killed we spoke to people in a refugee camp about their fifth of returning home. we moved to this camp three years ago we don't want to return to our home yes we're afraid of tribes our houses are destroyed we have no place to live the fields with it houses the looted even the ones are torn out of the walls and there's lots of booby traps five days ago our neighbors there started to find

a warm some water something went off and now they kids are in hospital he's so scary that. there are very few people from our village who returned home there's nothing left there no electricity in the water supply doesn't work we may return in the future but only when the area will be suitable from living. it's clear that humanitarian considerations are not first and foremost in the. minds of the national authorities who are taking these decisions and so then we have to look at what are the one of these one of the interest behind that the government of iraq that is you know driving this this set of violations you have to force people back into their home areas against all security precautions and in unsafe areas as this is not this is

not the right way of doing things and it's a involving all sorts of violations of human rights so i think that it's for the reasons of the elections coming up and to ensure sufficient voting voters present in the each constituency. the iraqi prime minister has denied that refugees are being forced to return to unsafe areas he says that is misinformation spread by his political rivals. tunisia has seen a third consecutive day of violent protests since the first rally on monday more than six hundred people have been arrested with one killed and around fifty injured . wow. when i witness in the third day of violent

protests across china as they are both in the capital of china's and in at least ten other locations now the protests started peacefully but since monday night they've taken a violent nature and just last night wednesday more than three hundred people were arrested the army has been called in to try and deal with the situation they're being used to protect government buildings they and the police have a truce protesters are attacking government officials of trying to take up the shopping centers of blockading roads for example whereas the protesters in response have accused the security forces of using a heavy hand in conducting a heavy crackdown all of that is in response to the government's announcement at the beginning of january of the two thousand and eighteen budget plan and now this budget plan has seen a dramatic increase in taxes on basic goods so you have for example fuel increases you have techs hikes on food items and all of this is of course being met with fury

and outrage on the streets of tunis at the same time we do witness some of the protests happening in another country also focused on the economic situation and that of course is iran but there is a noticeable difference while there has been international outrage against the situation in iran and the way the government is dealing with it there when it comes to tunisia basically the international community is keeping mum so for example with iran you had the french president not calling you had the head of the european union high commission and you had the american president donald trump basically calling for regime change here region is the same situation. and yet we're hearing nothing from the international community and it might be because back in two thousand and eleven at the start of the arab spring tunisia was the first country to asked a dictator in a move that the western world widely hailed as democratic change but since then there have been no less the governments in place engine is here and none of them

have been able to get a grip on the economic situation there. it's crunch time for germany's two largest parties as they try to hammer out a deal to form a coalition government on the final day of talks here's what the two party leaders had to say before they got down to business. because there are big chunks you still have to clear out of the way and i'm sure. there are still large chunks which have to be cleared out of the way it will be a tough day. for more let's cross live to our to do bensky hi charlotte are people expecting a coalition to be announced before the day is up well there is of course more than one hundred days since the german people went to the elections and since then anglo merkel has been unable to form a coalition many people are watching the chancellor she's under pressure now people saying this is her last chance saloon to do that with the best that's because the

talks with the coalition with smaller parties have already failed anglo merkel went into these discussions saying that her party was ready for compromise if it was in the interests of the german people but martin short's the leader of the s.p.d. has stressed that there has to be change. here we are now on news of. the last day of exploratory talks we will make clear above this must be a new start for the european union if we join a government could be on the condition that it makes europe strong. well there are big divisions between the parties including europe and the military but probably the most tricky division is that over the subject of refugees and migrants of course the s.d.p. and the cd you see us you coalition had in the past welcome more than a million migrants into germany but the conservative side merkel's party say that

they wanted to stem the flow and to halt the families of asylum seekers in germany coming to germany but the s.p.d. has said that it wants those family members to be able to come here to germany and it certainly feels that it is in a very strong position in these explorers she talks they are exploratory talks there is a chance that they could be extended if there is a resolution on thursday there's also the chance that angela merkel could decide to leave them herself and form a minority government although that is seen as unlikely but if there is an agreement that talks should take place over a coalition that will not happen tomorrow and there is the chance that any talks in the future could still break down and the german people could be forced to go to the polls yet again thanks for that shot about r.t. shall i do penske speaking to us live from berlin where the crunch talks are taking place as we speak now while germany watches the coalition talks closely a group of researchers one does a lot of city have found that there's

a link between a politician and a parent and the votes they get now ask people to rate different german politicians from zero unattractive to six very attractive and here are the schools.

in other news the british army is trying to keep up with the times by recognizing that its soldiers have emotional needs here's a look at how the new approach compares with the old. i know nothing about how they are going to face. it all but. but the more you hate me the more you all are. told that. there's always someone there to talk to. you can just make. a british army id as part of a campaign to attract a more diverse range of recruits here you can see the new ads compared with much older ones former u.k. intelligence officer philip ingram says he doesn't hold out much hope that the new

inclusive approach will be used to recruit us it was quite surprised to see these videos that are coming out i do understand that there's been market research done suggesting that they should target more minority groups but if they can't recruit enough people from the majority groups that the british military have traditionally recruited from i don't see what the senses and targeting of these minority groups but i think the whole program the advertising campaign is flawed because they're spending an awful lot of money on this because the british army spent until september last year ten million pounds on this recruiting come here. but one. piece of press from the not looking after one of the veterans or one of the current serving soldiers is enough to do that ten million pound company and the best people to recruit are the soldiers themselves and if they can come up with positive stories to say what it is that they've achieved their academic achievements their

training achievements the adventurous activities that they get involved in the team spirit that they build up and then they can take that and reflect whenever they come back into society again as veterans and veterans come out with a good experience of not just how they've been looked after when ever they served but how that set them up to go into civilian life. so that's has in the us have named him appear to the number one threat to democracy in europe and america we have more on that after this short break stay with us. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the

world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. this is an amazing story because that we're seeing real geopolitical impact of that going on a g. twenty country g seven countries japan actually spending power the culture the rise of big going in the millions of people who are buying it in japan the multi billion dollars that they have appreciated in value is causing a genuine effect in their economy and this is going to be the year twenty eight points of the currencies of this year political influence.

welcome back to me a puritan is the number one threat to democracy in europe and the u.s. last according to a new report published by the us senate democrats it took more than a year for its authors to compile the two hundred page documents the report collects the most frequently voiced allegations against russia everything from political assassinations to state sponsored doping and cyber attacks it also contains a wide range of proposals aimed at protecting american democracy from alleged russian meddling for example it proposes the creation of an international coalition to deal with any interference from moscow and suggest spending millions of dollars to help europe and eurasia protect themselves we discuss the report with political analyst charles alltel. it's really shameful it's fake accounting of history it's not objective it doesn't really have a proper context and i think serious objective people when they look at this and they try to weigh up the various ways in which we could spend money this won't be

won i don't think that that committee reflects. the will of the american people or even indeed the will of congress i think democrats tend to vote as a block in this this report which must have been in preparation for many months is yet another tour really used to continue to sell. the anti russian look and there are over the to sell the russian collusion delusion when a new senate is seated perhaps with a stronger republican crop led majority you're going to see very different reports coming out of the committee. now police in vienna have charged three men with provocation for waving israeli flag at pro palestinian demonstrators the rally in december was in response to donald trump's decision to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel the israeli activists deny they were being provocative claiming they only produce their flag after having anti semitic abused hold at them and.

it all started with slogans in english like down down usa or down down israel then we heard them shouting intifada child murder israel and death to israel the president of the belgian league against anti semitism ses action should have been taken against the pro palestinian demonstrators. that's right police. have arrested those people in. the months russian word smiting slogans we saw several incident talk last weeks and months in europe following the direction of u.s. president on the night from regarding terrorism. but also even more violent those last year in several european countries in paris in. brussels and other places in company. work because there were so we are

facing a violent wave of semitic actions and even to killing of jews in europe today. now another twist in the stateside russia saga donald trump's lawyers say they intend to sue the people behind the infamous dossier on alleged collusion with russia a transcript of an interview with glenn simpson one of the men behind the dossier was made public his group fusion g.p.s. commissions the report on the alleged russia trump ties some republicans say it led to the whole f.b.i. investigation despite containing salacious details that trump himself described as fake news a large part of simpson's testimony is devoted to the meeting of trump jr well the russian lawyer one of the key moments that those who support the russian collusion theory r.t. as he goes down i've met with that lawyer that's hardly ever so let's discuss the latest revelations newsnight given the simpson that you've known the person behind

this testimony glenn simpson for quite a while now tell us more about how your relationship came about when. we met for the first time in twenty fifteen during my first visit to the united states before that we exchanged e-mails we were introduced by lawyers who were hired in new york to rip. and our client a russian businessman in a case initiated by the notorious mr broder in twenty thirteen during our corporation he showed excellent information gathering and analytical skills including the ability to distinguish truth from gossip i was very excited about reading the testimony he delivered back in august this long document almost three hundred pages covers two different topics the first is the so-called trump dosia the second is about his relations with me when last year i found out about the connection of glenn simpson to the trapdoors here i could hardly believe it reviewed to the dean of the jim clark you've mentioned

a discrepancy between the quality of simpson's work that you used to and the quality of the infamous trump dossier why did simpson allow something like that to come out under his name even one of. the drum does year is an anonymous report if people who had been working on it did not admit that publicly we would have never known the authors of the report what raises questions is that the sources are not named why did words by unnamed and unverified sources form a basis for an investigation conducted by at least four different government bodies of the united states not only does this investigation distract politicians from real issues but it is also wasting taxpayers' money it focuses on many different things well failing to establish who actually said them natale of us on this guy has just mentioned bill browder who's also mentioned by simpson he was an investor in russia and later was accused of masterminding a large scale tax evasion scheme his attempt to lobby against russia was one of the

main talking points between battle with fire and trying to junior. because going to be liberal dream or the thought among the talking points disclosed in the memo besides the russia trump collusion of course bill browder in it simpson slams the former businessman on several occasions with using him of being obsessed with russia while being actively implicit in tax avoidance schemes and even money laundering can you give us your judgment on the situation. well that but much of that won't. browder is obsessed with russia he's tied to russia not only by his desire for revenge but also mentally here in russia he got married to a russian woman he has half russian children his ties to russia strong as mine after all his crimes he should be grateful to russia for not throwing him behind bars while he was still possible. condition as to a board of congress he will not withstanding the gravity of the allegations mr browder to testify before the us congress during the summer of twenty seventeen

mainly talking about the alleged complicated collusion scheme. mr rather you have given us a firsthand insight into putin's russia you may have done more to fight corruption worldwide than any other individual and i appreciate what you have done thank you for uncovering the facts and i'm sure how i can tell it's difficult to talk about the life and tragic death of your friend and someone who is your colleague i want to join my colleagues in thanking you for being here today and admiring your courage and tenacity oklahoma to us but do you think the u.s. perception of mr browder will change following the publication of simpson's testimony. yeah i can use the weapons mislead you but i don't want to sound naive but i really hope this hysteria will end with a victory for common sense you can have your say on the day stories by following goes on social media i'll be back in about thirty minutes with the latest headlines to join us then.

unfortunately it appears that wants people learn that you have reported in a sexual assault or may have been involved in an incident that they become scared of you instead of being scared of the perpetrator. and. the two thousand and eight economic crisis turn some countries into pegs these are the countries with weaker economies that needed austerity policies if you are in a situation of flow bloat even the recession austerity is a very bad idea it doesn't work and it makes millions of people very unhappy those who are unemployed see their wages decline almost a decade how good are the results she saw all of it when you joined peaceful by the

people gathered in greece to watch her all get people to see what you are doing a choice that if you treat it beautiful blue she clematis i mean if a legal. challenge must deal with this young girl who is always think it she somehow think that i'm not getting paid while the same measure is still in place to one of the consequences to weaken labor dispute although i will first be one of the suits the truth be considered is the consequences are actually quite acceptable to the decision making. greetings and salutations all right we begin today with some truly frightening

moods hawk watchers and i want to i want you to get prepared i want you to prepare yourselves for this get your prayers ready prep the underground bunkers all right prepare yourselves did you know that because of the brand name in chief one donald trump consistently watches fox news like most republicans across the land that actually makes box news a prime target for russian and chinese espionage and influencing done done. though the organs yes in today's latest edition of i can't believe i'm actually reading this that is the dire warning positive by a former cia counterterrorism analyst aki perrette in the washington post perspectives section parrot smears is that given sean hannity's and fox and friends unadulterated influence on trump's twitter feed that if he were a spy a master in the employ of a hostile foreign service he'd devote some significant effort to penetrating one specific private institution fox news channel he goes on to lay out the aisle

tactics those evil russian spies might use he writes a truly aggressive intelligence that would not just monitor what's being said on the network it would target the on air talent as well as the folks behind the scenes who make the networks programming possible this might range from opening friendly contacts with these employees to outright recruitment. now i tell you hawk watchers this this this is this is truly truly disturbing news i mean i thought i thought it was my job and our job. bred the evil russian influence across the lands now deep state intelligence community influences are influencers are telling me that fox news may be the compromised russian propagandists. i'm confused i'm a little hurt a little hurt i guess is just another day of living in the upside down alternate reality insanity that has grown out of russia gate and the new cold war two point

zero now let's jump on our b.m.x. bikes pop some reese's pieces and turn the upside down right side up and start watching the hawks. get the. real thing. as you leave the ball out of it. with the like you know that i got. this. week so. well done one and all the watchdog so i am i rolled windsor and on top of the law i'm also very confused i don't but i'm no man apparently now fox news is the propagandists they were there or they could be the evil foreign intelligence agents.