time there was certainly not any criticism of any of israel's extreme use of force by anyone in the trumpet ministration hamas terrorists backed by iran have incited attacks against israeli security forces and infrastructure so israel is not responsible for shooting mostly peaceful palestinian protesters some of whom were just children shot down by their own soldiers but if you're a place israel with syria suddenly nikki haley's heart bleeds for the dead in far less clear cut situations. yesterday morning. we awoke to pictures to children being carried in the arms of desperate parents yes all the talk about human rights does not apply to palestinian protesters they do not get america's support because they're not protesting in the right country. big protests in iran the people are finally getting wise to how the money and wealth is being

stolen and squandered on terrorism looks like they will not take it any longer do us is watching very closely for human rights violations with israel all bets are off on world press freedom day heather now it was all about championing the rights of journalists that is until somebody mentioned gaza we see all too often that journalists continue to take great risks to pursue this important work would you also condemn the recent deaths of journalists journalists in the gaza strip look there are unfortunately a lot of journalists who die all around the world i'm not going to be able to list every single death of a journalist and we understand that israel has a right to defend itself back in april yasser move taja palestinian photo journalist who was wearing a jacket clearly marked press was shot by israeli sniper now if this was intentional it could possibly constitute a war crime by israel but heather nauert thinks it was self-defense either way she doesn't have time to talk about every journalist who's been killed and apparently

his death doesn't fit in with washington's agenda caleb mopp an artsy new york. a rift between the e.u. and the us is deepening over the iran nuclear deal russell's energy chief committee has reassured tara that the book remains committed to the agreement the statement came during his first visit to iran since donald trump pulled out of the accord the european union did. the muslim in the united states this impromptu we were told from the joint complacency of black. there was absolutely unanimity amongst the of the government that the union will defend disagreement will stick to the commitments make and the disagreement looking at the latest decisions of president. someone.

with friends like that. when we walk french finance minister bruno lemaire has urged europe to resist u.s. sanctions against firms that trade with iran is good news except are we going to accept the us is the planet's economic policeman do you accept one way domination with no respect for international rules so obviously your response must clearly be noted. after america quit the deal us officials told their allies to fall into line and stop doing business with terror on under the room and sanctions have been partially suspended since twenty fifteen but on friday the european commission launched a process to prevent you firms from being hit by u.s. sanctions european companies will be able to claim compensation and loans if they're affected france's finance minister added that firms working with iran should continue to do so. we're going to do everything to protect french companies

in iran because it's in our economic interest there are dozens of french companies who have lawfully invested in iran and are doing business there and they must continue to have the right to do so. financial analysts shabbir razvi believes the e.u. is unlikely to cave in to pressure from the us regarding iran. i don't think the european union is in the mood for listening to washington dick tut at this moment yes mr macron had a wonderful reading in a washington a. few weeks ago where mr buck broad has probably decided to become washington's pimp in paris however the other european union countries particularly germany is in no mood to listen to washington on the business relationship that they have developed with. iran over the years it's not in the interest of anyone

to create huge distances between iran or the nuclear deal. the longest bridge in europe linking mainland russia to crimea was officially opened on tuesday it took only teen years to build and will reduce the region's reliance on sea and air transport and allow more tourists to visit.

well the first pedestrian to use the new link was for footage discount which lives in the area of feline has its own social media account where this video was posted and has enjoyed a strong following. well the russian president was soon to follow in the cat's footsteps making the journey from the krasnodar region in southern russia could all the crimean peninsula. or even was words.

were that of a putin drove across that the nineteen kilometer bridge in a communist truck a team of construction workers joined him for the ride. however not everyone is so pleased about the new bridge an article in the washington examiner suggested kiev should blow it up or write or even went into detail about how it could be done political commentator john boehner mitch believes the article goes beyond free speach. it's par for the course the people who pose as journalists in washington are nothing more then weaponized lobbyists and so when a lobbying firm attempts to get its bills or its or its funding through for new weapons systems or war systems they often call on one of their in gauged journalists to do the dirty work of saying something publicly that they couldn't dare say and then using the right of freedom of speech in america the journalist

can call for anything he wants murder execution bombing attacks on civilian bridges and so on so that's what this is and if we're talking about a new level yes we've hit a new low a new low outward call by a journalist so-called journalist for an attack on a civilian structure. russia has raised concerns about the safety of its journalists in ukraine itself to security forces raided the kiev offices of a russian media group and detained its director kittle vision skee who's in charge of video noticed is ukraine bureau was detained on choose day on allegations of treason. the security service raid lasted more than eight hours the homes of journalists working for the agency were also searched many organizations are accusing the ukrainian government of an attack on media freedom and demanding missions his release. from human rights watch says complaints about media freedom

in ukraine are on the rise. under no circumstances should a government be criminalizing speech and media activities that groundlessly and ukraine i think this is out of line with ukraine's these raids and the detentions are out of line with ukraine's obligations to protect media freedoms there's a there's an obligation to provide some kind of transparency about what exactly is grounding treason charges that an extremely sure serious charge that carries a hefty prison sentence so they better continue to come forward with what it is that's causing the grounds for this charge because working for you know working for ria novosti or having a russian passport or not grounds for treason charge we and other organizations have been expressing i think more frequently concerns about media freedoms in ukraine. africa has long promoted itself as

a destination for safari holidays catering to well off travelers throughout that such as this. but it appears the reality is often less rosy safari parks have been looking to expand their territory and any study claims this is led the government of tanzania in east africa to affect indigenous communities on a wide scale and actions began over fifteen years ago but tensions rose last year after twenty thousand people were reportedly left homeless in august and september alone and six thousand homes deliberately damaged some of those affected have been telling their stories. we got to come out of the fight. on the we got the model

was kind of like that across the uk because i want to forget that it was when i met . about that. on the white that there are no we don't but i forgot that while you're. on the go with a come on he's in to get an a for like a lucky. you know so uniforms are. close and yet here was a sub. quarter why do i. need to know my cousin. got an awful lot when i. go to. who our mom when the one visit to one is over people he says come on in the legislation and land lawyers in the name of conservation the government or tanzania has been dispossessed in the indigenous kluges these legislations have been used to be sickly deny them aside their access to grazing lands their access to water holes

but not just that it has allowed some of the safari companies that are operating in the area to conclude that the local officials who have been intimidated who have arrested and beaten the villagers because they have tried to use their ancestral lands we also find that they have been violent addictions and these are all being carried out in the most rewarding tourism arsenal dinars and in the absence of food it has led to widespread hunger managership and disease the kind of disposition that the record priest you shills are going to they're not to be forced out of their homes and lands with their messiah being forced out of existence thompson safaris one of the firms mentioned in the report called the allegations simply untrue but local activists tell a different story. if i look for example what happened back in. government i've looked at people from this hour and five times and yet the

pastoralists i don't well tells much of my relation and their world where the houses where there are you know all so. excited to go. there was a law in the planning well. you know when you live in a place you wrong you have structure you have your social services and now you hold it just to the forests so if you ask me well i must say how. well they out you where you've been whole. nicolas maduro has been reelected as the president of venezuela with almost all the votes counted from sunday's election most opposition parties boycotted the poll over allegations of ballot rigging foreign powers including the u.s. have called the election illegitimate but the venezuelan leadership has hit back accusing washington of trying to sabotage the election and urging voters to defend

their democracy against imperialist aggression early and i do row said attempts to derail the vote wouldn't succeed. but yeah they don't there has been a fierce campaign on the part of the trump of ministration to try and the venezuelan elections and they haven't succeeded they tried to stop the elections in venezuela but their attempts proved futile and like i said come rain or shine on sunday may the twentieth there will be elections and here we are costing offloads. or president maduro has now promised to restore the economy and counter the effects of international sanctions but political analyst gregory will put says the measures may not be enough. these sanctions and the economic kind of almost and specifically there's an interview could not meet our financial blockade against venezuela that's something that the government has attempted to correct by cracking down on the

black market but by itself i think the incentive for making money is to large that simple crackdown on black markets is not going to fix the situation so other measures need to be taken then i think that petrol is certainly a step in the right direction because it's a process of introducing a new currency that is not tainted the way the current one is by hyperinflation but it hasn't really caught on yet and it really depends on what the government does when to promote a new currency and to make it much more than that for it to play a much larger role in the economy and that we don't know yet. on wednesday north korea threatened to cancel highly anticipated talks between kim jong un i just don't know tromp pyongyang is furious about ongoing joint military exercises conducted by washington and south korea.

there are exercises that are legal there are planned well well in advance we will continue to go ahead and plan the meeting between president chopping kim jong un. well the latest dispute comes despite a recent saw in relations between the two koreas in april they held their first summit in will than a decade but soon afterwards a top u.s. officials suggested north korea could suffer the same fate as libya but i guess they have looks at the mixed signals coming from washington. we all know what carrot and stick diplomacy is but these these goes beyond that way beyond their will get private capital that comes in north korea is desperately in need of energy support electricity for their people we can deliver that and as i said earlier this week we can create conditions for real economic prosperity for the north korean people that will rival that of the south talk about extremes not

so long ago people were seriously talking about nuclear war those with a penchant for the dramatic really made the best of the opportunity north korea best not make it work threats to the united states. they will be met with fire fury. like the world has never seen well north koreans must be sighing in relief instead of fire and fury they're now getting the carrot will they have to do is give up nukes nice let's just hope they have short memories so i think iran is on notice and they are going to have to make a choice are they willing to go down the path which i think ultimately will lead to greater prosperity and security for brom. giving up. the acquisition of nuclear weapons or will they continue down

a path that is going to lead to confrontation or quit the radians gave up on nukes dismantle their program complied absolutely with every requirement in the end it didn't matter they gave up nukes and then america took back the whole the prosperity thing we'll see how we do with the rand probably we want to very well with them but that's ok too they've got to understand. life because i don't think they do understand life when life gives you lemons make lemonade so long as trump doesn't take the lemons to regardless perhaps this time things will be different iran was a one off right wrong i am pleased that the united states and north korea yesterday reached agreement this agreement is good for the united states good for our allies and good for the safety of the entire world in one nine hundred ninety four bill

clinton made a deal with north korea north korea could tales its nuclear program and the us builds two nuclear reactors for it to compensate energy loss gives it a half a million tons of fuel per year and normalize relations they never built the nuclear reactors they never sent any fuel and they never signed an official peace agreement you're seeing a pattern here right perspire it seems to be the carrot except what no one seems the realizes it's for dangling not for tasting that just life they've got to understand. life because i don't think they do understand life. for more on these stories go to our otherwise i'll be back with more of the week's headline news at the top of the scene.

join me every thursday on the all excited i'm sure and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sport i'm sure i'll see you then. hello and welcome to crossfire where all things considered i'm peter lavelle the transatlantic alliance system has weathered a number of storms during its seventy year history we are told this is because of

sustained american leadership but can the same alliance system survive the storm named trump. crosstalk in the transatlantic alliance system i'm joined by my guest mark sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have dimitri bob he's a political analyst with sputnik international and we have alex christopher or he is the director and writer for the duran dot com all right gentlemen cross titles in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate mark let me go to you first here. i'm the oldest on the program right here and i have a good memory of the transatlantic alliance system that had its ups and downs but this is turning into a sustained one we're looking at security we're looking at international agreements to rand comes into play we're looking at energy and we're looking at in demand i will talk about italy a little bit later in the program there is a swell grassroots well of populism problem. here is that i mean there seems to

be a cascade effect there's a lot of elements in play right now and i'm taking it seriously yeah i mean this is a serious incident and certainly if you went simply by the headlines in the press on both sides of the atlantic talking about the of the west and the breaking up of the transatlantic alliance deutsche welle saying can it have the transatlantic law. but unfortunate we have all been here before you know during the eight law in the bush years books were being written comparing the us to mars in the e.u. to venus and talking about their differences and we had a similar break up with reagan when there was all just there was a coalition quote unquote of the willing when it came to the invasion of iraq i mean there was but if they did pull it off and that's something i'm willing to pull

it out of the germany said no at the time and actually sided with putin we remember we did as well but we're going to go to the russian angle on this here go ahead i mean it was venus the bomb believe it for example it was the french president who decided that you know he had some very reliable information on. president sarkozy. reliable information for all to not only be that you know go. global this. was someone who just went to leave it talked to a few insurgents and said that we need to save these muscles he said going to ward off much of the soviet troops in one thousand nine hundred eighty s. so basically i think that a moment of talk about a rift in the transatlantic alliance you know there is not such a big disagreement over iraq but like a new thought that it did instruct them well i'm going to even though i just don't

think there is a me go to alex here because i mean the threat of sanctions against european companies here i mean not only is there a looming trade war and we can talk about the specifics of that but now you know basically going at the end threatening the european companies there and the europeans have reacted with a blocking measure i mean this is different gentlemen this is very different than we've had in the past go ahead alex you know this is very different because i think we're seeing the neo liberal honeymoon is definitely over. and i was eight years with obama where you had obama and cameron and merkel and all these people with this new rat pack of buddies that were you know running the world you know doing whatever they wanted to do and you're seeing that come to a very decisive end with trump and trump is very much like it or not trump is keeping many of his campaign promises especially in the foreign policy area and most notably moving the u.s. embassy to jerusalem of course pulling out of the iran nuclear deal so i think that

you're starting to see europe react to what is essentially the neo liberal community and the liberal policy come to an end and that's that's due to the trump effect you know alex this thing with you i agree he's keeping his campaign promises and he doesn't care about the consequences marc talk about that because you said when we have we're going back to the iraq war there were of france and germany were hesitant agreed with the russians and now we see agreement with russia even more so is this a diplomatic opening for russia because i mean merkel is going to sochi twice recently just just like there in the bush years russia will of course make take any opportunity to find room between europe and the united states that has always been its policy and understand that it's room for maneuver is you know if they can make this crack wide in is extremely limited well i think we have the iran

and the iran deal and we have energy which is very important to the german and europe and this is the biggest news in the last week is that trump is waging an economic trade war on the world at this point they're lodging a war of tariffs against china they've launched tariffs on steel and other things against south korea their ally in the pacific they've dropped out of the trans-pacific partnership something that i actually agree with but they've they've put new sanctions sanctions. sanctions after sanctions on russia they've renewed saying sions on iran and promise to go further north korea syria now they're threatening sanctions in two ways against europe and the first way is over the iraq and the right which the e.u. is bringing up a one thousand nine hundred six blocking statute to vainly trying to combat and the other way is they're attempting to now dictate the e.u.'s energy policy and energy security saying if germany completes the nord stream to pipeline with russia that

it will it will possibly in that sanctions the same sanctions against russia against e.u. completely let's let's let's remind our audience of the rational because trump wants to do but the europeans not by of american energy cannot be i mean if you you know most of america first make a little bit of sense he makes them an offer they cannot refuse he began but look i think it's another case of chickens coming home to roost at this program we discussed several times that this campaign against his election anyone before his election it reminded us of that campaign say against the vilified dictators so-called dictators in ukraine you know in syria iraq then it was used against trump against the american president in the same way that war sanctions which the united states has been waging against russia against other countries now it is turning against europe you know something that the you never expect that to happen they thought it would be used against other people now it's used against them so

that's a very interesting moment. brings up a really good point because what has happened here is that the european union is essentially left itself defenseless it really has very few options because it never expected it would be this kind of breach that would face them go ahead alex yeah and i think he's right because let's face it the e.u. paint itself into its into a corner into its own little box and let's not also forget you have a lot of dynamics outside of trump that are literally. to a lot of chaos within the e.u. and nato you have turkey which is which is very iffy on its alliance with nato and the west now you have an e.u. which is very divided internally from north to south and eastern europe to western europe so you have a lot of dynamics which are causing a lot of chaos for the for the leaders in brussels and trump is going to play on that and i think also russia will play on that it's very interesting because there is very little unity right now within the european union and russia has always complained that it doesn't know who to speak to and in your opinion because they're

not unified well we have it in spades now i think the e.u. will wait donald trump out be that two years four years eight years and i think we've seen this before but i'm far more worried about the internal. stresses within the european union the election of a joint far right far left government in italy noises of dissent in hungary and paul if you really think the europeans can wait that long it seems to me it seems to me that the mid-term elections in november in the united states will send an indication of what the european they mean wait a few months i don't think they can wait years see you blocking statute his interest it's a nineteen ninety six provision med to be used to protect european companies from the u.s. blockade on cuba so what it's going to do is it's going to ban e.u. companies supposedly from recognize from obeying the rule though it's impossible to judge or and force and it bans european courts from

recognizing decisions against companies because of these sanctions and it will open up the european investment bank but german officials have already admitted they can't protect european companies this is an outdated measure they don't know how to update it the russian duma is actually dealing with a nearly identical provision to forbid russian companies from recognizing sanctions against russia and they're not having much luck with that either but these. so the european companies that already announced that they're pulling out of iran toto all the french energy giant may or tankers the danish shipping giant alliance the german insurance company danieli the italian steel manufacturer and china and russia i just think you very much because i did exactly what i did actually exist that bid and swoop up then you got to get everybody out of the break there are plenty of players who will that will fill the breach here this is why sanctions are .