military operation in you haven't was launched against two three rebels who control vast territories in the north the saudis have repeatedly insisted they do not target civilians the coalition has carried out a number of its own investigations into a strike that have led to mass casualties as rights groups continue to call on saudi arabia to end the conflict former cia director mike pompei o has been sworn in as u.s. secretary of state more news today given a ringing endorsement by donald trump the president said he believes the appointment will reenergize the country's foreign policy establishment. i must say that's more spirit than i've heard from the state department in a long time many years we can say many years maybe many decades it's going to be a fantastic start a fantastic day and that spirit will only be magnified only with this man right here i know that for a fact right. now

it's official praises a true american hero my palm pale has been sworn in as the nation's chief diplomat and he's vowing to make department great again i talked about getting back our swagger and i'll fill in what i mean by that but it's important the united states diplomatic corps needs to be in every corner every stretch of the world executing missions on behalf of this country and pump a speech was well received by everyone from the media to other officials some didn't even wait to compare of the tillerson saying that he was more open than tillerson ever was pump a i did however stress the concept of american exceptionalism which is generally considered controversial in some circles least i talked in my my hearing about the fact that this nation is so exceptional and so incredibly blessed this is a unique exceptional country russia is unique but not exceptional and he's wasting no time taking the reins of us predecessor my pompei was spent his first days as

secretary of state showing support to israel and that was just before israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu made from an laboratory claims against iran accusing the country of lying about a secret nuclear weapons program for years but pompei was tough stances on iran and other supposedly hostile states aren't new. i can't think of a thing that has put america in a better position as a result of this deal every has a single action the iranians have taken has been bolder and starker than the ones they took before the agreement. a very real danger they are ever closer to having the capacity to hold america risk with a nuclear weapon. and it is difficult to imagine a stable syria that still has assad in power he is a puppet of the iranians and therefore it seems an unlikely situation where assad will be sitting on the throne and america's interests will be well served this is the same man who made a secret trip to north korea to pave the way for historic meeting with kim jong il

but bringing peace to the korean peninsula has become a top foreign policy priority for the u.s. administration but judging by the hawkish track records of those surrounding the president you might have to wonder what their real intentions are samir khan are to washington d.c. . after a series of trips abroad will now spend the coming weeks in washington picking up where is pretty to listen left off nuclear studies director we heard from told us that he fears u.s. foreign policy now there will quickly become more bellicose and. donald trump in announcing that tillerson was going to be leaving office said that he disagreed with tillerson about iran policy so that was a key factor is not going to disagree with pompei o and that's why the europeans are so frightened and it's why one hundred foreign policy experts including fifty retired military officials said to trump wrote

a letter saying we should not break this deal with iran it's in the united states interest it's a good deal and iran has been following it clearly pompei o is among the real hawks when it comes to iran policy he's going to reinforce donald trump's worst tendencies along with john bolton the same thing with north korea so north korea right now looks very very positive but we know that between now and the time when this deal is concluded there's a hundred ways that it could blow up every day if pompei zero wants to be a moderating force a north korea that's great i will hope it will also be a moderating force when it comes to iran but i doubt it can a big changes ahead for the boy scouts of america and it's causing a major row of gender politics tell you about that after the break.

join me every thursday on the alex simon chill and i'll be speaking to a guest in the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you. twenty eight team coverage we've signed one of the greatest goalkeepers of the but there was one more question and by the way it's going to be our coach. guys i know you are nervous he's a huge star and a huge amount of pressure you have to be the center of the beach but how would you . agree. you are the rock at the back nobody gets past you we need you to get down there we go. alone. and i'm really happy to join the team for the two thousand and three and world cup in russia meet this special one. meets just at the reno

team's latest addition as we go. again so there connick boy scouts of america are about to undergo a reprinting of sought saw for one hundred a year and it seems the decision to drop the word boy from its name which let nearly next year's organization welcomes girls into the ranks is no the popular one . i. know you're right we wanted to land on something that evokes the bast but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward we're trying to find the right way to say we're here for both young men and young women.

girl scouts is a premier leadership development organisation for girls we are and will remain the first choice for girls and parents. let's be honest the boy scouts as we knew it is now effectively dead girls are not supposed to be a part of the boy scouts they have their own organization called go scout as a form of boy scout i say this is a terrible idea boys need to be with other boys at times without girls being present to be boys the boy scouts raping the dualistic girls due to losing membership and money feminists and loving the boy scouts move not realizing it may destroy the women run kind of scouts. so progress in all from being heralded as long overdue inclusive party to claims

that it's another move to demonize anything that gender specific scouts moves so far a discussion with me actually last night. there isn't a great deal of evidence to suggest that only boys want to do traditionally male activities and only girls want to do traditionally female activities there is very very obviously there are a lot of girls dr like climbing trees and there are lots of knowing there is like baking cakes and to try to say to young people you have to only do this what we should of course to do is give them a range of activities on sunday letting them actually encourage them to try new stuff because that's what. our what is right our file that's not what this is about and you know if there was an absolute determined effort to destroy whatever was left of this thing called the jones are it's now considered almost like races or inappropriate to do anything to distinguish boys from girls who are playing it so safe we've got a helmet there was a time when if you were

a red blooded american male that's not how they're always learned to have kids you know his writing large and cried i read here and there i mean fine and there was nothing wrong with it i'm kind of concerned with the idea that it's somehow great to encourage boys to to be super tip super rough unsupervised with each other i think that this is two thousand and eighteen and the idea that it's somehow good for young men to be thrown into some sort of boxing ring i think that we should offer young people boys and girls a whole range of activities and there are definitely arguments in favor of allowing them to do some of those activities in an environment where definitely arguments in favor of allowing them to do at least some of those activities mixed environment what you're seeing is the woods sophistication of just boys and girls and how we are just turning their men to just these these i don't know these hominids or these kids who don't play who don't enjoy doing things like i did like we did being

a boy and roughhousing those people think that this is absurd kids are not allowed to pete. anymore if you look at the kind of science of it where do young people do best it turns out perhaps surprisingly perhaps unsurprisingly that goals seem to thrive better in single sex environments for things like that but boys actually seem to thrive better in mixed environments it seems like having some goals join in maybe takes away some of the sort of culture if you like people are afraid that there are genders and that boys like to do boys stuff and the girls like to do girls stuff it's not accurate to stick it's true. facebook's looking to regain its users trust in the wake of that huge data harvesting scandal involving cambridge analytic the social media him off snow introducing a number of changes them to the platform including a personalized news filter. takes a closer look facebook is working hard to revamp its public profile in the wake of

the privacy scandal and the platforms move to eliminate fake news from your feed is one such example i have your responsibility news is two things make sure people get trustworthy news and platform and we're doing our job to help build the sense of common ground in society now who's to decide what news organizations are worthy the companies two billion users the social network has already started using the result of the user surveys to determine what news publications will be popping up in your feed and which will be suppressed and the range of an outlet is based on two simple questions have you heard of them and how much do you trust them and that means what's to be believed is based on the opinions of the internet not necessarily facts even flat earth errors and bertha's may have cast their votes. we put that data into the system and is acting as a booster of suppression and we're going to dial up the intensity of that over time we feel that we have a responsibility to further break down polarization and find common ground some

other one after goals given that the internet isn't exactly known for bringing out the best in people there's also surely a risk that such a system will only cause people to further dig in their heels not break down polarization as a brick hopes a result that was seen with one of facebook's previous attempts at tackling fake news last year the company pulled the plug on its initiative which had third party fact checkers red flagging disputed articles as it didn't have the desired effect academic research and correcting misinformation has shown that putting a strong image like a red flag next to an article may actually entrenched deeply held beliefs the opposite of fact to what we intended the big issue here is what. they mean is this credible or informative new source is it what fits mark zuckerberg political view is it what it's facebook's political view. in the terms of unbiased independent journalism i don't see a big success at all i don't see anything which puts a private corporation like facebook who has shown to be not the most trusting of

sources of late i don't see anything that putting them in charge of this kind of responsibility could turn out to be successful in a way shape or form for independent journalism so here we are again watching and waiting to see how facebook's latest attempt at social responsibility pans out. facebook's also facing criticism over its filtering of new sources that some activists are calling a form of censorship one organization which is called you as conservative leaders claims the suppression of right wing news on social media is ridge crosses point they say outlets from both sides of the political spectrum should be respected and given equal waiting online but with recent gains in major elections across the globe we asked new yorkers what exactly they know about the right wing. sunday's elections in austria where the latest example of a shift to the right in europe's politics this this shows that the far right wing has won it's prevailed polls in germany predict that

a far right party will interpret limit the term right wing is being used pretty liberally these days we decided to ask americans what does far right or right wing actually mean let's see what kind of answers we get what is far right mean here but wait but that be like a nazi and your extreme we capitalist is probably a more militant version of right wing. maybe a little more inner. anarchistic view on the world. but just as probably a more extreme viewpoint a far it far right means very far right. what does that mean on the right side very far ok donald trump is far right i think he's trying to come to the sent to because he has to administer right and he was more far right before he became the president i think he's all over the place to tell you the truth i don't know that he has an ideology other than donald trump no not necessarily and

he's right of center definitely yes but i mean the fact is he's a former democrat he's not that far right any world leaders that you would consider to be far right. right fundamentalist leaders are far right. and. i think he's right yeah maybe putin but like i don't know you you want i'm not sure. he's considered far right dick durbin may be. prime minister of austria perhaps. i don't know there might be a few others it seems that in politics words can be rather hard to define caleb mop and art see new york former u.s. diplomat jim jefferies plays there's a multi-faceted effort by social media platforms to sideline views that don't fit with the company's political agenda i think there's a real concern that the conservative voices are being discriminated against in

social media not only facebook but twitter which i use quite a bit and google and the the idea would be to marginalize or stigmatize conservative voices as somehow being beyond the limits of legitimate discussion and we also have practices what they call shadow banding where there are there are ways to downgrade content if it's politically not correct so that it has fewer viewers that they try to deem monetize conservative voices so that they can't actually support their platforms in the way that voices on the left are able to do it which evidently is more acceptable in the circles and that in which the managers of these platforms operate. well as the weather uses shaping up so far this there's a nice typo so light is twenty four seven knots you don't count.

palm oil is one of the most controversial products about sign that it's a salted vegetable fat that's very cheap. twenty seven c. in production grew to sixty three million tons that rapid growth in international demand for cheap oil has led to the massive expansion of palm oil plantations which means the destruction of rain forest. get into the zero a lot more than ten million hiked as of unique rain forest has been destroyed and it's a process that just keeps going. price perceives news and. prices you end up with things. sell here when you manipulation in markets and there if you have to enter such

a zero and you can borrow money in zero percent you have an unlimited credit line and you can muscle prices around it well that creates fake prices and then if you have robots report against a crisis on the financial media for instance then the robots are going to report on the fake crisis driven by the fake news created by robots and have a virtual or a not so virtual cycle of fake news and fake breasts and then that people interpret that as reality. welcome to the alex salmond show from the white house and washington d.c. and from some manic about the radical forces m d a stylish meant one thing in

common they're both fun now by the presidency so it's going to be a change in come to be a come to revolution from the left the washington establishment get back in the driver's seat today i speak to a pulitzer prize winning journalist and one of washington's key commentators they have very different views over the state of politics and the public. but first thank you for the tweets messages and emails let's look at a few nelson says rachel as usual enjoyed the whole kit revival idea after last week's show i was inspired to knap up to dunfermline mind the videos carnegie boating anyone going should miss the rebirth place museum free and she always a bonus i quite agree and i thought really recommend people going to college shirley says your us item on our new game made excellent viewing he certainly left a legacy as regards the world he paid my granny season one thousand and eleven for a degree at edinburgh university the sort of gift that keeps on giving it might be

said absolutely a lovely little story there shirley garden says always an excellent show with great interviews well done to myself and to alex jones says hi tazz and alex love the shoe one thing that stands out from other shoes is alex's easy manner and lack of aggressive interview technique so broadly used in most of the other shoes great to hear answers don't change a thing he said to me when joe thanks for that and finally dying by the arm and says i'll examine could you do an us and them challenge you to compete with b.b.c. question time no holds barred just truth i'm not sure about the us and them id we try to avoid confrontation but it's an interesting idea that will certainly tick i'm bored now back to alex who is in washington d.c. with commentator at anchor and shields. welcome to the alex sama the sellers my pleasure thank you but what's new you've been commenting on the american political scene from a variety of platforms for

a substantial number of years i want you to tell us how people are becoming adjusted to the trump presidency and let's start with the establishment republicans are they reconciled to donald trump as a president and do think he'll be the candidate in two years time well to start with i think the uniqueness of donald trump is nobody owns him there's no political organization that he's loyal to there's no lobbying firm that he has to answer to he came to washington as an outsider as a businessman to upset the apple cart and he does it on a daily basis the man wants to do business and he wants to do it in a way that washington is not used to see being done and i think that his pace of trying to get things done totally works against the culture of washington you know the rules of the senate the senate is about all cogitate take your time

trump is not at that pace at all and so the republican establishment has had to figure him out and move at his pace if they want to get anything done and i think that it's just been two cultures clashing in washington too after that collision of the adjusted to the. instantaneous son volatile president i don't think you're ever going to be able to adjust to donald trump because he's so unpredictable and that in itself is the attraction is that the people in middle america feel like there is somebody that will go to washington and is in washington now with power that will go after anybody to get things done and. he has lived up to his campaign promises in generic sense most of them ok he can't live up to all of them but he did get the tax cuts he did get

a conservative on the supreme court he has deregulated a lot of businesses he has taken a different approach to the environment which business likes it so first year and now we're into his second year he's got a little bit more head wind but the fact is he has accomplished what he said he wanted to do on the campaign trail and the republican establishment wants to do one thing and that stay in power and if they can use donald trump to stay in power then they'll jump on the bandwagon as quickly as they can if they can't then they'll pull up the machete so less time to the the other side of the fence let's turn to the democrats are they still harboring notions that they might nail donald trump through impeachment of the basically saying we're about to get down into selecting an alternative for two you know still alex i just don't think it's the democrats i think it's the mainstream media in general the majority and now they don't like george bush but they hate this guy in they'll do anything to see him fail i

honestly believe that their anchors wake up every morning thinking how they can get this president used to work for somebody you got to work for me well i can tell you stories about how they muzzled me quite a bit and the fact is that their whole mission is to defeat trump they don't want to see him successful they don't they don't like him on a number of different issues and he's corporate america that they don't like he's wall street that they don't like and he's also a nationalist that they're not willing to accept and so he's taken all of these people on on a daily basis he uses twitter to go directly to his followers and that's what they are there believers and as much flak as he's taken in the mainstream media i think his ratings are relatively strong based on what he's had to put up with the. democrats and the answer about the democrats they will do anything to defeat. they they will obstruct they will connive they and all of this is

a residual of the election that they're still terribly furious that hillary clinton lost they're looking for somebody to blame it on and putin is standing right there and he's a good target no by the way trump said some nice things about putin so that just throws fuel on the fire and so i think that trump is going to weather this storm as much as i have issues with some of his policies i think that he's going to weather the storm i really do i think he's a tough new york fighter and what's the possibility and substance in the the democrat side. type thing just as we had in the subject so it was even a public a nomination of the democrats have an identity crisis right now in the identity crisis was created by donald trump because donald trump went out and told the working people of america i'm going to do something for you i'm going to take on china i'm going to do trade deals that have been getting really your jobs and outsourcing them overseas the democrats have been telling you they were going to protect you for years but they've never delivered for you so he saw an opening how

the donald trump win pennsylvania ohio michigan and wisconsin he did it because he went in there and he told these american workers that he was going to be true to his word and fight like kill to keep their jobs and the democrats were outflanked and hillary hillary clinton never even went to wisconsin. she never went there she was only in michigan late in the campaign and by that time it was over so by one stage in your career you would know him as the the liberal commentator who can speak to the masses is that a politician going to match who can pull off that trick well i think the best chance right now is bernie sanders and i think that he may run again now we're light years from twenty twenty and who's going to run but he's proven. he has shown the democrats in the progressive movement in america what's the model twenty seven dollars a month means something your voice can count he made people believe that their voice could count now there's an identity crisis for the democrats are you

a bernie crack the a fall of bernie sanders and be a real progressive and go hard on universal health care go hard on medicare for all go hard on education and go hard on these minimum wage issues and fairness and equality go down that road or you to be the clinton democrat be the terry mcauliffe next clinton democrat is that we're going to go and i think the democrats have got some serious questions to answer about who they're going to follow and what they really stand for in november twenty twenty will donald trump be still up pennsylvania avenue or will be back to his golf course i'm not going to. trump. is a winner he figures out a way to win in he will leave no stone unturned this will not be an easy presidential election for the democrats if trump runs and i think that's the question i think he does want to run i think he i don't believe that the midterms

are going to have a big. weigh heavy on his decision about whether he's going to run he wants to accomplish things and if he thinks he's on the right track to do it i think he's going to run again a really to the don't trump has been famous for has that impatience of some of his employed to devices and he's got a read of a whole crew of people i brought hadn't a new team they're thinking about that new team that's been brought to him is not going to affect his attitude to foreign policy. to live there we're going to last a year as well and he'll bring in another squad was forty obvious donald trump falls in and out of love about four or five times a day he's a hard guy to work for apparently there's been a high number of turnover with quality people i don't think there's anybody better than rex tillerson he came highly recommended from the republican establishment were former executives in the government said this is the guy you gotta get and i thought that he was undercut quite a bit and i think it was very hard on rex tillerson when he left because he does

not come from a culture of failure he's one of the most successful businessmen on the globe and i think he was terribly frustrated at the manner in the way he was handled and the way he was managed pump aoe is a hawk that sends a real message to north korea now north korea knows that there is somebody in the ear of the president that wants to take military action and i think that that plays into the hand of china and russia coming together and making a military alliance in a new founding between the two superpowers that was never there before i think there i think trumps got the globe nervous not only with the way he talks but the people that he. around him with movie that's just to make him the nice guy and compile of some of the people he's appointed he has a way of wiggling out of just about everything there's no question about that but he clearly has a hawkish fraternity around him right now and whether that is going to be good for the globe i'm not sure yet thinking about individual foreign relations. the

potential trade war with china just positioning the rapprochement with putin which clearly doesn't go down well with many many forces in the thank you states and in particular donald trump going against iran well first of all there's this big wall it's called ego he didn't do this deal somebody else did and he wants to go in do a deal and put his signature on it not as fundamental of the simplistic is that he has i believe that's really at the heart of it all he loves to go up in berate obama and berate bush and any other president who made a deal because he's the deal maker and he's the guy that's going to go on to negotiate something better i think it's as much ego as it is anything else. i don't think he understands the complexities of the middle east i don't think he understands. the culture and history of the middle east and i think his attention span and is dangerous when it comes.