this hour's top stories here. the u.s. congress debates a new war authorization bill introduced by some of the. critics the. president. we've gone through seventeen years of. this proposal will have one hundred seventy more a loaded gun in a desk drawer of the president ready for him to take it out and shoot it but every what. the house of lords. members falling asleep during sessions on the program we get reaction on the streets of. this place . in the.

russian president vladimir putin. which is expected to. be. mourning here in moscow this is the international. top stories. the u.s. congress is about to decide whether to widen the war powers off the president a new bill allows the president to decide whom and where to fight with critics capitol hill is full many giving away its controls and the bill has been met with fierce resistance this was on wednesday. we've gone through seventeen years of war . he would drop this proposal will have one hundred seventy more a loaded gun in

a desk drawer of the president ready for him to take it out and shoot it whatever it wants and it will put war making on autopilot do i want my sixteen year old going to war against al shabaab in somalia my boys have never lived in a country that has not been good for both of them my son probably can find small on a map and probably very few people even in this room know who all shabaab is came korver passes that there are no limits on war let it be known that there were at least some of us who warned. of the new bill seeks to replace the two thousand and one war authorization act it grants the president the right to include new groups on the terror list again with only having to notify congress rather than obtain its consent to the proposed law also allows the head of state to keep secret what's added to the terror list now interestingly one of the legislators behind the bill claimed that a congress has been granting a license to wage war for too long and some us media mockingly allege that

legislators don't know what's in their own bill and despite the bill extending the president's war powers here's what the bill's authors think about donald trump. the president has great difficulty but for a. moment he's proven himself. unable to rise to the cage and you know who i don't trust. i wonder donald trump. donald trump doubtingly they like the idea of the president being some sort of a king we go to war when he wishes what a disconnect here you have these two and many others in washington calling trump in a mentally unstable and all sorts of even worse things and then you want to give him the authority to go to war when he wants crazy war is what washington that's made of war is washington's number one export discography officially throwing up its arms and saying you know what we give up it's all over we're just going to sit

back sit in front of the camera collect our paychecks and do nothing. to the u.k. now where the house of lords has been stung with a new memo on bad transgressions according to media reports the list includes shouting or double conversation and falling asleep on the spot a boycott explains why a may day nothing positive meant it's not such a good idea. most members of the house of lords which is the chamber of the british parliament have been around the block for quite some time the average age in the lords chamber is sixty nine and from the breadth of their experience the lords job is to scrutinise british law and that can be pretty tiring so much so that even the most hardworking and conscientious lords and politicians can get a little sleep paid. well

rumor has it that the lords have now received a quiet telling off for falling asleep in the chamber according to the times newspaper a conservative peers have received an email telling them that their behavior and that isn't up to scratch and it said that the other political parties are sending a similar reprimand to their lords but according to your established parliamentary convention perry is all allowed to quote rest their eyes so i mom with photos of sleeping lords all sleepy looking lords and i want london as to help me determine which of these are just resting their eyes on which all most definitely in the land of nod definitely he might be resting his eyes they've just been told

off the sleeping too much in the chamber guy's lost control of his neck so he's definitely sleeping but i think he'd be asleep and he won't be rested when i don't know all right i'm just looking down his and i was just ok so you're not guilty not guilty what about what about these to. slee. resting his eyes they should. allowed to have a little camp in the chamber that's lots of. scrutinising legislation i would think this place i would be let's have a nap before i went to work say washington i'd love to be paid for having a campaign in my office think they should be allowed to have a little kip in the chamber they can do whatever they want as far as i understand their old gentleman and they deserve a little bit of respect. for a long day they're just listening to other people all day long so they get on a bit. although to be fair britain is far from the only country whose parliamentarians do not offer their one exception might be frauds when lawmakers are complaining that the new president's energy ethic reforms drive is giving them

no chance of arrest. in recent weeks we've sat for eighty hours per week we've sat for the last seventeen days consecutively this is not how a parliament normally functions it is not allowing us to really carry out legislative work to make good laws we are exasperated and for some of us exhausted this isn't the normal life of a parliamentarian staying night and day we're not trying to tug on the heartstrings this is not a good way of legislating. and i tear in just one year in office and i was introduced new legislation in various fears from education to the rail sector some of the nationalists how many sessions have lasted longer than usual and lawmakers say that's not a good way of legislating. well our later in the day the russian president will feel questions from the public in his annual q. and a televised address this year's session putin's number sixteen is expected to

be different though from what we've seen in previous years as well i guess dia explains the biggest change this year is that vladimir putin will have a huge screen in front of him on which she'll see text messages as well as video messages and receive phone calls from russians from all over the country with problems that they might might have questions all issues and this year governors and regional authorities leaders have been asked to free their schedules because now the last of me or putin might call them up to our answer for any problem that their constituents might be having so we should make for an for an interesting discussion these q. and a sessions generally turned into a marathon the longest one was in two thousand and eleven which lasted for four and a half hours the shortest one was in two thousand and one which went on for about

two and a half hours generally there focused on domestic affairs problems that russian sat in the social sphere with wages for example with health care taxes sometimes corruption but every so often we'll hear an international question and much more interesting themes for for the wider audience. the past three days israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has been on a european tour lobbying with leaders of germany france and the u.k. to drop their support for the iran nuclear deal his efforts though appear to have been in vain. but i've been very consistent about my opposition to the. to this nuclear deal that we believe that the run deal is an opportunity for a certain time it's better than what we had before along with france and germany they continue to be the best route to preventing it was because if you listen

despite these are various forms of unity among european leaders some e.u. companies and institutions are playing to a different tune the european investment bank for example seems to be siding with washington is daniel bushell. e.u. solidarity nothing but a house of cards after europe from energy better he must talk to the makers of persia and see paul in a bit this scrapping billion euro iran projects a two brutes the european investment bank owned by yes the twenty eight members of the e.u. of. supports the e.u. but ignoring sanctions is incompatible with its status of course and it gets worse brussels is painful new u.s. tariffs on europe's metal however some see all this as a calming plan business these days especially european union in american business is whether their bangs automobile companies ip companies and the other business

they're so interconnected that america will continue to use that leverage to try to penalize some of the european companies who may be doing business with iran charmer tehran again breaking up the transatlantic marriage e.u. ministers write an angry open letter demanding america exempts them from iran's sanctions as close allies we expect that the extraterritorial effects of u.s. secondary sanctions will not be enforced on a u. entities and individuals and the united states will thus respect our political decision and the good faith of our economic operators within the e.u. legal territory. and while we await washington's reaction there's the small matter of friday's g seven or is that g six plus one it will be a g six plus one the united states have decided to raise to

a response to. that decision he's unjustified this is very unfortunate it is unfortunate because it will. cause a lot of damage to us the limited medium industry it is unfortunate because this is further weakening the transatlantic relations even union wanted to avoid this situation you wouldn't want to be your accra right now. as your top firms betray the party line or the world dodging bullets from the trump administration. the world cup is just around the corner and football fans are already eagerly guessing who they think will make it through the group stage as is r.t. host and star jones a marine you know here are some of his picks. for the window. period. of the road and. in the world the. alone will still relate to the total of portugal is

going to finish second in the world well for more about the magic the united manager's predictions head to our web site r.t. dot com also if you think you know better you can challenge him just head to facebook or twitter and use the hash tag match meridia meanwhile here's what happened behind the scenes when marino was making his predictions. so.

let's just. get. you to something. else. let's. go to the. senate. and sort of see you. have to see. the program continues in just

a moment. we've signed one of the greatest. but there was one more question and by the way he's going to be our coach. guys i know. he's a huge star and. you have to be the center of the. great. you are the rock at the back nobody gets to you. go. alone. and i'm really happy to. meet the special one. latest edition.

i could have you with us for the program today a german drug pesticides make a baby closes its largest up a foreign take of on thursday. the largest u.s. producer of genetically modified seeds and i grow cultural chemicals the german giant is hoping to strengthen its portfolio in the health and nutrition sectors with the acquisition but given monsanto's legacy that may not be so easy as some reports. one of the world's biggest brands and most controversial are cultural companies monsanto will soon be through this as we know it will be bought by bayer

the german pharmaceutical giant and the company has announced that it will be shedding the monsanto name one which used to make headlines as thousands of protesters hit the streets across the globe. bit. like the fact that monsanto will no longer exist bayer will be inheriting each and every lawsuit that taps the company around four thousand of them in the u.s. alone on top of that approximately two thousand legal hearings are still pending and one of the biggest trials to come this month is based on accusations that the company hid that its products could cause cancer for decades.

at the center of all of those lawsuits monsanto's leading herbicide round up and its main ingredients like the safe according to the international agency for research on cancer it's quote probably course in the genic to humans their study has also found strong evidence of a link between life estate exposure and lymphoma. you know the vote what provokes me about some surveys that we can sell is poisoned year after year nobody cares what provoked me is that there is only l.c. it's day one since there has been implicated in the scandal in various ways court documents released last year showed that monsanto manufactured scientific studies and bribed a scientist to publish them but at the same time the company claims that round up the state. glacier state based have the sites. by one of the most. extensive world wide human health and environmental databases ever compiled for pesticide products. months into his new owner has provided

assurances that the merger will make things right as they are great here but it's how we aim to deepen our dialogue with society we will listen to our critics and work together where we find common ground agriculture is too important to allow ideological differences to bring progress to a standstill. you're talking about progress to try and find a new herbicides that simply hasn't happened and they may have reached the end of their life if you're talking about progress to try and convince americans and the rest of the planet round up is safe well they've been doing their leaked documents show that when they knew that the world health organization was going to declare glyphosate a probable human carcinogen they created an entire plan to quote orchestrate the ghost wrote studies they ghost wrote opinion pieces documents also showed that they had their own man inside the e.p.a. working quietly on behalf of monsanto and blocking additional research that might

have indicated it verified that it was a core synergy so i don't know exactly what they are means by progress but it doesn't look good. but dealing with the eleven dangers of monsanto products is not the only issue bothering the public there are fears that you can companies will form a monopoly that farmers are. they're looking at a very big conglomerate now because monsanto was a shi'a and bear is a giant in health and agriculture and now you're combining those when you create a giant company that controls all of these assets it makes it harder on the smaller companies that just specialize in one or maybe two of the functions of bayer so it's going to affect farmers if i did it will affect all of us in the long run. puerto rico's government will release all death certificates issued since hurricane

maria hit in september as people say the official number confirmed by the territory's health ministry is far too low a newly released report says the actual death toll is over four thousand. the u.s. government says it's working on the issue but puerto rico says it's still not been able to recover from the devastation has been insufficient meanwhile with hurricane

season looming again donald trump is promising a rapid response. as we enter the hurricane season again here we go right here ready. we're entering this is it we are marshalling every available resource to ensure maximum preparation for rapid response that's what we had last year. however the u.s. government is accused of wasting money according to a recently revealed document says spend more than seventy million dollars on hiring a large ship to accommodate aid workers that had double the housing capacity needed critics say that the money would have been better spent on direct aid and he said he looks into the story. put there rico is still reeling from last year's devastating cataclysm but it's already time to plan for the new hurricane season and that's why donald trump has arrived at the aged care of the federal emergency management agency with melanie as the parents alongside him all day really drawing

more attention first lady maloney in trouble just made her first appearance and before the media for the first time in twenty six days first lady malani a trump attended a female briefing with her husband today her first time in front of a camera nearly a month the first lady malani a trump was with her husband the president this afternoon for a briefing about the hurricane season it all comes as where expecting the release of all death certificates following hurricane maria which will shed light on the real scale of the tragedy is thoughts the official death toll of just sixty four has been severely underestimated nevertheless has that changed the high opinion the trump administration has about the way it dealt with the disaster does the president still think his response to the hurricane. center. is to me almost part. of the federal response once again was a historic proportion we're continuing to work with the people of puerto rico do

the best we can to provide federal assistance particularly working with the governor there in puerto rico and will continue to do so while the mayor of san juan in puerto rico believes the u.s. response to the hurricane was a historic failure the fact is that the trumpet ministrations bureaucracy and neglect created a climate of inefficiency that cost lives their inability to meet our needs and their lack of empathy continues to be responsible for the slow pace of recovery. the federal emergency management agency actually did spend significant sums to aid puerto rico providing some one point three billion dollars in support to survivors however some many allocations are raising questions in particular the cruise ship which was books to host fame aid workers and first responders the so-called floating hotel docked in the virgin islands the main island of puerto rico cost them seventy five million dollars for a four month runs and that's actually more money than the money dished out to help

the village an island survive this as of march first more than seventy million in themis individual assistance has been distributed there reckless the survivors so how them get back on their feet to make matters worse the floating hotel remained hof and the contract that has been defended by carnival the company which owns the fleet it stresses the way the ship was to be used was never part of the obligations we commit to who use of a ship for an extended period of time whether or not fema was go into the ship or not or feel that with relief workers that wasn't part of our obligation this time around with the new hurricane season approaching fema may now be more prepared for the storms the troublous puerto rico's not. well we asked at the u.s. federal emergency management agency to comment on the issue they said they would respond as soon as they could. well an eighty five year old pensioner from northwestern russia has decided to give all his money away after saving up all his

life is aimed to help those whose lives are just beginning. and their sheer. horror. he's just his there are. actually you know. whether for. a horse out or the sorrow that. he.

plans to do here i do you know. there are so you know more of our providers have called. for says. when you see money we didn't know him before and from the documents we knew that he just turned eighty five and so we decided to get to know him. thanks for sharing your time with us here on all of the international we are returning soon with many more if you talk with stories.

of the chief family was engaged in massive political financial corruption and was led to a concentration of wealth and ultimately the downfall of that country so in america a similar corruption playing out as we call it money in politics and people try to get rid of the lobbyists and this is cycle is being played out all over again and so the question is is it inevitable. the events of april twenty eighth one thousand nine hundred six in the historic town of port arthur tasmania for ever change the course of history here in australia with thirty five souls lost their lives to a gun means madness massacre was the catalyst for the australian government to enact massive sweeping changes to the laws regarding ownership by and selling a firearm maybe it's time for the united states to start looking for help.

i. this is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. i'm bart chilton and thank you for watching coming up today the new acquisition by there of monsanto creates many questions but one thing is for sure there will be getting rid of the name on santo a company many environmentalists love to hate conservative t.v. and radio host steve malzberg and the author of bet the farm fred kaufman join us to take a look at the lay of the land for the new massive agro chemical company and the united kingdom is a member of the world wants to be a member of the world trade organization the w d o it is a member by virtue of being part of the e.u. now well they want to seek their own place in the w t o after breakfast which is

due to take place next march the c.e.o. of straw mark henry ford will help take us through a look at what it means for everything plus the imperial valley in the south eastern part of california bordering new mexico and arizona arizona is big business for agriculture but there's a big problem in the cereal valley sultan see the once booming getaway for the likes of the beach boys and the others are to correspond to the touch of sweet looks one get to the story stopping today's headlines change has arrived in italy as the new prime minister just sepic ponty is taken office after his second try by the coalition between the year for mr five star movement and the right wing immigrant league mr conti made news in his debut speech before parliament repeating anti immigrant rhetoric and declaring that his government would quote forcefully seek the overcoming of the dublin regulations which determine which country.