i was presented with a photograph of one of the most sacred places in jerusalem but the image had been altered to show the jewish third temple on the site where the islamic dome of the rock is currently situated the third temple is a biblical reference to a new place of worship to replace an injured one which was destroyed u.s. embassy. was asked for an apology and saying that the envoy was unaware he was being given a doctored picture of the region is still reeling from deadly protest against the relocation of the embassy to jerusalem here's our middle east correspondent policy or a photograph immediately sparked fierce criticism from the muslim world saberi cut who is the secretary general of the palestine liberation organization the p.l.o. says that friedman expressed to quote rude and hypocritical behavior you then have a tb who is an arab israeli law may care and comes from the israeli arab dominated

political alliance called the joint let's and he has responded to the photographs by saying that this madman wants to bring peace a good thing you didn't put the embassy there at the same time we're hearing that the american ambassador has apologized freidman was not the word thrust in front of him when the photo was taken. he was deeply disappointed that anyone would take advantage of his visit to create controversy the u.s. policy is absolutely clear we support the status quo on the jury's temple mount now i hear which is the organization from which the man who gave the president came from has expressed its own concerns about the incident it says that the man who presented the picture actually acted on his own behalf but the problem is that the american ambassador already has a record of controversy even before this event he is a supporter of israeli settlements in palestinian territory and in the past he's also called on the u.s. state department to stop calling the west bank israeli occupied territory and this

incident comes at a very unfortunate time it follows the inauguration of the new u.s. embassy in jerusalem from its original base in tel aviv and as you well know that sparked a barrage of both international and regional criticism this might provoke further tensions it builds the rhetoric against the u.s. policies it would pressure governments to go in face of by and against the interests of the united states and at the same time there would be protests which are already being organized for quite some time right now in the past in territories over the two months we lost under thirteen people thirteen thousand injuries. already so this would only add fuel to the fire. meanwhile the united states ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley has also been on the receiving end of some sharp criticism she went to the university of houston to make a speech and got the following walk. i'm here today following

a very busy few weeks in american foreign policy. you continue to sign up on the genocide of the native people you were taught little thank you very much like you who. i. think you're. right. it only now has a new prime minister and he has no political experience we'll take a look at the point the means for the country after a break stay with us. our senses did a remarkable job of keeping humans alive four million years in terms of being able

to hear see taste feel but now says the algorithms in the machines of the robots have evolved past humans capabilities to see more hear more understand more feel more we as humans have to prepare for the fact that we are now becoming extinct. what hope to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president and you. want to be rich. to going to be press which is what before freedom or can't be good. i'm interested always in the water.

our welcome back this is art international we start with the breaking news just coming into the newsroom syria's sohn news agency is reporting that the u.s. led coalition has bombed two syrian government positions in the eastern province of adair's or the strikes are said to have taken place near an energy facility close to the iraqi border where i saw militants are thought to have been gathering we will keep you updated as the story develops. it is been two months coming but italy has now named its next prime minister just said picante has been approved for rome's top job by the italian president after emerging as a compromise candidate put forward by the euro skeptic five star movement and of the far right league party department ends and eleven week long political impasse artie's daniel hawkins has. italy's new prime minister is neither

a familiar face nor name in fact googling conte will bring up an altogether different leader world football manager at least which has already been the butt of much humor of course while one continues to try to steer chelsea to trophies separate conti has a tougher job taking the reins in italy and he's already been accused of lacking experience and even exaggerating his quite impressive twelve page academic c.v. . law professor nominated to become italy's next prime minister he's facing allegations. of his c.v. now question. time and. new york. there are a lot of questions swirling in both the italian and international media about his background some of the inflated elements of his curriculum his resume about where he may or may not have studied but that hasn't put him off the scholar law professor has already promised

a government of change taking his biggest legal case yet as the italian people's defense attorney well italy first is the slogan of the day after all. i am a law professor over the course of my life i took on the causes of many people my aim now is to defend the interests of only tell you that on the international and european stage i am proposing to be the defense attorney of italian people being the figurehead for the army's e. coalition of the populist five star movement on the right wing likud party won't be an easy task they must implement an ambitious anti austerity government program deal with a shaky stock markets and an even more nervous brussels which will be keeping a close eye on the euro skeptic government described as allergic to bureaucracy he's affirmed his commitment to slashing what he calls as useless laws in the country a pet hate of both parties. the choice the italian people have made is

a step towards freedom for the whole of europe away from constraints and insecurity we want to rebuild europe based on people not bureaucracy we want to be listened to otherwise all these sectors and industries that are suffering from injustice because of european treaties and directives will have to be reimbursed his first task will be to form a cabinet after a two month deadlock in italian politics there is now some momentum but can conti deal with the pressure with brussels on its block weighing down on him is the question many are asking today i think it will be so the agreement of the coalition agreement put together by the. last week which has been quite an interesting almost in terms of of the of a political agreement because they basically. including the stance towards the euro including taxation and pension reform the problem however is how much prime minister will be

a leader or somebody who puts in action a coalition agreement. nearly two thousand near nazis in germany are in legal possession of at least one firearm according to the government's own figures the green party leaders are sweeping the problem under the carpet reporting from berlin here's what his brother. here in germany almost two thousand people identified as far right extremists have a permit to possess a firearm that's according to the government's own statistics twelve hundred of that number described themselves as reich citizens and since november of twenty sixteen around four hundred fifty of them have had their firearms licenses taken off them by the state but he was right citizens and dangerous right citizen is a catch all term for a loosely affiliated bunch who claim that the federal republic of germany is

illegitimate and say that the pre-war value mark constitution remains in effect that's the same system that allowed hitler to take power well today's reich citizen groups come in several shapes and sizes but almost all of them have some link to either neo nazi groups or far right ideology. the historical revisionism forms an ideological link that connects various right wing extremist currents and right wing extremists among right citizens use those connections to cause confusion to provoke authorities and to create a social platform for right wing ideology it's estimated that there's around eighteen thousand of these right citizens in germany and some are allegedly preparing for a day when they'll rise up and take their country back but these aren't just hollow empty threats eighteen months ago a policeman in bavaria was killed during

a shootout between officers and a member of one of the sorites citizens' groups the number of people in significantly significantly increased violence. has increased in number if the numbers go on to increase if these fever really used in. for a tosing in resisting reduced. then indeed it is a challenge for the state opposition politicians have accused the government of trying to sweep the extent of germany's problem with far right violence under the rug first the federal government explains the right wing terrorist groups can form spontaneously and have a strong digital network but then many of their actions are not counted as right wing terror offenses the impression is that the federal government consciously accepts blind spots in the recent past berlin hasn't pulled away you from publishing intelligence findings that showed as many as seven hundred radical

islamists could be in the country and a capable of preparing a terrorist attack but it does seem that they're less forthcoming when that threat potentially posed from elsewhere we now are facing the end of less being intellectual dominance and culture in politically gemini and under system bred a lot of grown writing populism of course right in the radicals right wing extremists protect it the german state district do they have all the power and strength it has germany has very strict gun control laws thankfully gun deaths are rare occurrence here but perhaps one way to keep it that way would be to not allow people who the government considers a threat to the public to have access to firearms piece or all of. it final word on this from the german government which says that although the threat posed by right wing extremists is reportedly increasing the overall threat level from such groups remains relatively low. so back to our breaking news story

here on r t international syria's sun a news agency is reporting that the u.s. led coalition has bombs to syrian government positions in the eastern province of dario's or the strikes are said to have taken place near an energy facility close to the iraqi border where i saw militants are thought to have been gathering let's now cross live to a local journalist muhammad ali who works for press t.v. thanks for being with us on such short notice what more do we know at this point what's the situation there on the ground. yes one official a minute for the source syrian army source issued a statement just about thirty minutes ago confirming that sack and saying that some of the syrian army position were under attack and described it as an aggression by the u.s. but coalition attacking from syrian army position between book and me me area those are in syria's eastern desert what is important to note too according to the

syrian army treatment as fronts and aggression as the syrian army described it to come out there were dies also known as i told terrorist gathering nearby and the syrian army said that the aggression by the with the coalition only left behind. material damage without noting that there were any casualties definitely this is not the first time that the u.s. but for this in the time syrian army position do you think that's happened near as also where u.s. troops are positioned also happened in the u.s. at the time and that of the no instance in september two thousand and sixteen and not at that time led to the killing of kinds of syrian army soldiers and also led to the i phone control over a three strategic area at the time we saw that again there was so this is actually the second time that the syrian army note that the u.s. led coalition has attacked me as there are

a detained time i feel terrorist in nearby positions and this to syrian army is no think directed at us that solution is striking in support of i call terrorists in syria. all right we appreciate that and we know that as this situation develops we hope with it we can cross again to you to get the recent updates also cross alive today linda our founding editor of the online news site and this can't be happening . dave i know that we were going to talk about china you're in beijing right now but as events happen around the world we're glad that you have the adaptability so thank you for that what do you make of this news if it is confirmed why do you think that the u.s. coalition would hit these are particularly pernicious. you mean by surprise here i i would suspect this is just in line with what the u.s. has been doing for some time supporting. elements of the. of the ins

and as you mentioned was in the area so we know the u.s. has been supporting in arming elements of. rebels against assad and that that's what they're really up to in syria so it wouldn't be surprising that if they saw syrian forces for being some threat to elements that the u.s. is supporting that they would. you know continue the policy of attacking syrians why has there been no announcement this time from the u.s. led coalition in the past they've kind of forecast their moves this is really kind of out of the blue. well it's not the first time that they've syrian positions without letting them know they they telecast pretty much what they're going to do if it's going to threaten russian forces because that could be something that could

trigger world war three if they weren't careful but with regard to bombing syrian forces they have. casualties on syrian side. and we're having a little bit of technical difficulty so bear with us but why do you think this area has been chosen we know that it's reportedly near some energy producing science. yeah that's a little. side of my ability to answer i don't have the details yet but you know i mean you could speculate that. that if they. are if they're supporting forces in taking over a syrian power plant or something that would be. a fairly major act of supporting resistance to assad now we know that syria

recently specifically around damascus they've secured all of the suburbs around damascus for the first time in a long time. which puts them in a little bit more of a position of strength what do you expect from syria in the government there what do you think the response will be from your sabra team. i mean do they do this bombing action yes. he can get aren't they as a say aggressive behavior by the us we need us to has no legal right to be in syria that's the thing that has to be remembered it's a sovereign nation it's part of the un it's recognised by the un and the us is not there at the invitation of the syrian regime that the us position is basically that . you know syria's in a civil war the us is supporting it actually elements that want to. overthrow the

assad regime all right we appreciate you switch in gears with us on such short notice that dave lindorff hopefully we can have that conversation about it china at some point in time soon founding editor of the online news site this can't be happening has for being with us here on r.t. international. all right switching gears completely a number of advocacy groups in the u.s. are urging amazon to stop selling its facial recognition software to law enforcement across the country they say the tool has become an inexpensive form of mass surveillance which could be used not only to target criminals but also to spy on the general public we demand that amazon stop a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country as advertised recognition is a powerful surveillance system readily available to violate rights and target communities of color. well amazon recognition is

a powerful software tool which uses artificial intelligence to identify faces it's able to detect in real time objects and people in a wide variety of settings and it can also track explicit images and content the software is able to produce a positive match even when a person's face is not fully visible here's how amazon explains it and the song recognition video extracts many data from this video by detecting objects and activities. with amazon recognition video customers can track persons even when faces aren't visible tracked persons that are fully or partially leave the scene and. on response amazon says its technology has many useful applications the tech giant also defended the sale of the tool adding that just like any service users will be made to comply with the law activist sue who signed the letter to amazon believes the potential for abuse still remains high. i don't

think it's developed for the public good i don't think amazon really acts with the public good in mind it's not their mission right it's to make money for their for themselves and their shareholders so that's that's why they developed it it's useful for them it's a useful technology for them and they can make money selling it to law enforcement and other agents for any new technology or any new way that law enforcement increases their i guess their their presence in our lives it's always to get the bad guys but too often they tend to use these tools against the general public and you know i mean if we want to stop crime we can lock everybody up but we don't do that because there's a cost benefit analysis and. the cost of this technology to our basic freedoms and privacy and having an open society are really very real.

go back to our breaking news this hour syria's son on news agency is reporting that the u.s. led coalition has bombed two syrian government positions in the eastern province of dares or the strikes are said to have taken place near an energy facility close to the iraqi border where the u.s. alliance has been supporting ground forces against islamic state there let's cross live to jim johnson who is a former u.s. diplomat who can give us some unique perspective on this when things like this happen jim you're one of the people that i want to talk to so i'm glad that i get to do it unfortunately again it always seems to be in these types of situations. so how would you assess this development if the u.s. led coalition really did hit syrian government positions again. you know what's their motive what's the reason behind it and why now. well to start with let's let's note this is certainly not the first time we've had many instances

where u.s. planes or coalition planes have hit cities syrian government or allied forces in eastern syria especially let's remember. who are a few years ago when that was surrounded by isis we had american airstrikes that almost seemed coordinated with isis attacks on the syrian position now that doesn't seem to be the case here this seems more similar to the case we heard about a few months ago where a number of russian contractors were reported killed at some point because the syrians were making a troop movement and then were hit by american forces it seems that there is some decision on the part of the american commanders to make sure that the syrian army does not make progress against terrorist forces these are you know let's be honest jihad is to forces whether they're isis or al qaida or whatever they are and especially in this area dare this is according to reports i've seen an ear which isn't far eastern syria at an important border crossing point with iraq now about

that area specifically. what is the significance of these specific facilities. to what extent is it likely to have been linked to the energy facilities that are there and isn't that hurting the infrastructure for the syrian people. of course it is and i think that was one of the purposes of that and it was and again the same thing was true of the strike a few months ago that had to do with some of the toilet facilities the conoco oil facility there i think that's a part of it that we remember we have very tight sanctions on the government held areas of syria not on terrorist held areas of syria and i think one of the other points here is that all the talk about isis isis isis is really a cover that has really nothing to do with our presence in syria or any illegal presence in syria i should add it's really all directed against the iranians to start with and also the assad government which is supported by the iranians has

been a lot of course also by russia so you mentioned that this is an aggression against the assad government the syrian government. but what about the terrorists who are gathering at that location you are saying now that you believe that this is kind of like the facade in that the real action is going after iran can you expand on that a little bit. yeah i think i think again to the if you look at the boogeyman and what you see is the sort of the stablished and american thinking about this is this notion of a shiite land bridge between iran iraq syria and then of course hezbollah and lebanon so they want to protect it prevent this linking up between iraq and syria across the border crossing in their border crossing points out there in the desert it really is a desert area there now are there are things out there there's this energy plant and so forth but i think this kind of horizontal link from iran is the real target here and that's why we see not only the continued u.s. presence in eastern syria basically northeastern syria but even talk of bringing in

some kind of a sunni legion bringing in saudi and other troops there to augment or perhaps at some point replace the americans that would serve as a block to this east west corridor and for the viewers at home who might not know just give them some context traditionally. syria and iran are allies which would lend credence to that idea so nothing happens in a vacuum jim what do you think the international reaction will be from the international community. i don't know it when we say international community at least remember we're not talking about a unified or monolithic presence and you know successive administrations in washington have very glibly talked about the international community when it really means the united states and our various allies and satellites it doesn't mean russia doesn't mean china so i don't know what the reaction will be here i think primarily this will be a question of the countries that are directly involved in syria and that means

primarily on one side the americans the saudis and the israelis on the other side it means the russians the iranians and the and hezbollah as as a separate force that's there and the russians have been playing their cards very carefully in syria they have not gotten directly involved in defense of syrian forces by these strikes by either the americans or the israelis other hand everybody has gone out of their way to make sure they don't strike russian assets because i think they believe there would be a substantial response so speaking of responses there's one response that everyone wants now about and that is the assad regime what do you think syria will do about this. i don't know i don't know that they i don't think there's any expectation they will come back and target american or coalition forces it seems that what they generally have done in the past is if you will stick to their game plan that after

now cleaning up all the areas that were held by the terrorists around damascus they are proceeding to try to clean up some areas near daraya in the southwest of the country which brings them within proximity of the golan heights which are could be chilled by israel and of the same time they are going to try to clean up these further areas in the east and take control of assets that they think are possible weather strikes like this again i heard it was two planes according to news reports i'm not sure that's going to stop them from from reaching their objectives out there in this part of the country and some ways it might just be a little warning shot across the bow if you will. here's a weird question in the past the u.s. has kind of forecast their intentions there's been some saber rattling ahead of events like this and definitely some acknowledgement to two russians so that there isn't this. the start of world war three if you will why was there no announcement this time from the u.s.

led coalition i couldn't say why there wasn't and will see if there's an after the fact the description of what they say happened and again as we know with this war there's been so many claims that are so contradictory from the different sides as to what happened it's anybody's guess where the truth is i'm sure a lot of americans would like to say well if our guys say it it must be true i think experience from the past leads us to take that with a grain of salt so we'll see i don't i wouldn't put too much stock in the the question of whether or not it was announced. so if you can help i mean. and i know i'm going to ask you to kind of. open pandora's box if you will or try and explain the unexplainable but many people don't realize how complex the situation is and you alluded to just a second ago the different sides that are involved but it really is a complex situation you have a civil war within an area that is also being challenged by isis and other groups

and you have this loose coalition of. terrorists or you could say. revolutionaries if you will depending on what side of the fence you're on could you help explain what exactly is happening in syria so that people can wrap their minds around this in them and then we can understand. seven years of war and thirty seconds ok well to start with it people look just at the time they'll call it a silly syrian civil war and it really is the not that you have many people who have gone there are americans people i know that have gone there and they say look most of the people that are fighting against the government they're not even serious eighty to ninety percent of them are not syrians they're from someplace else they're from all over the sunni world they're armed and funded by the by the saudis the qataris the turks and so forth and they're simply there to overthrow the government of syria this has nothing to do really with a division among the.