those decision you quite an interesting mix of absolute european democrat and a spiritual leader in islam when you try to fight islamophobia and open up your religion open up islam from a different angle how do your fellow believers see you i mean do you think you are a true muslim in their eyes in the must live of the clerics from egypt or iraq or maybe don't even care what they think. actually i do not seek the recognitions of of other people i seek the recognition of. but of course it means something to me what people think. actually we had a visitor it's it was the granny mom from the third largest mosques in the indonesia in jakarta it's called it's the mosque the granny mom he has two hundred thousand muslim this it says every friday for his friday prayer he came to the mahdi a mosque in copenhagen he prayed in

a mosque and he blessed our mosque and he blessed the concept of female in months and he even quoted the one of my favorite inspirational sources which is it been out of be here from eleven sixty five until twelve forty and he said the perfect man is a woman so we have muslim spiritual great leaders who support the mosque and of course we also met by a position because when you when you change a patriarchal structure you change the power balance and people will become upset it's natural so in your new reality in your everyday reality what is harder dealing with the national islam of right wingers or religious islamist fanatics i think both i mean there are very similar they're similar both sides both sides they tend to generalize they are manipulating guide katsumi between them and us between being a muslim and being a secure a list we've seen muslims and jews and muslims and and christians and all of these

manipulate the dichotomies you will find it on both sides and this is actually what i try to fight against or what we try to fight against or challenge we try to deconstruct all of these manipulated by cuts and nice showing the world that islam is a religion and it's a peaceful religion and it's possible to be a practicing muslim to believe that the koran is the word of god and at the same time be here a member of secular society. it is possible all right sure and we're going to take a short break right now while we're back we'll continue talking what cher rain on con denmark's first female a mom discussing her fight against islam also be out in europe stay with us.

it's difficult. enough if it. is in the front. yasi will give you the scoop because you are talking to us. about them. at l.f. i think i last did it one on the list to make it easy charities. and that a lot of any of us thought i was good but i'm going up the same as art when i was up the money into the magazine but i'm going to. tell you the long way i left my.

home and. just say to me. that there were places is a long. hallway which of you may pray. for the people who go from zero zero zero zero. that they at least. feel. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murderer i would prefer it be to limit death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict despond innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying the is just

no way the present and that we're even many victims' families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families what that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way. well three. more on the string you don't run don't t.v. .

and we're back with the cher wayne con condom marks first female a mom talking about the future of islam in europe shirin in morocco at the council of islamic scholars is allowing women to officiate marriages in saudi arabia while men have been allowed to drive so there are steps forward in more traditional islamic countries but do you understand that from a western point of view i mean this isn't really impressive this is a very basic sayings that shouldn't have been banned in the first place. yes i agree with you totally. in the marry a mosque we have constructed a new marriage islamic marriage contract that gives women muslim women the right to divorce actually due today in the world muslim women do not have the basic right to divorce it's the right of the husband so and actually it's an islamic principle the right to divorce so we have contracted

a new marriage contract giving women the basic islamic right to divorce and if palagi news for bitten in our contract is mental or physical violence occur the marriage is a no and the woman has the right over the children in case of a divorce we also conduct into religious marriages in the mara mosque as the first one in scandinavia we believe that any person has the right to choose her partner for life and it should be a very basic thing but unfortunately today one of the biggest are not only in the muslim world but also in europe is into faith marriages and the the concept of interfaith marriage is i'm going to do that limbs leaders yes i'm going to come before was it about that and that arab spring activists woman from yemen and libya and they work on women's rights while looking to see a logical foundations ways to interpret in the koran finding their rights how does except our can't one's rights ever work outside religion in islamic communities

where i mean is that for instance feminism in a west isn't tied to religion femen is don't go to st luke course and paul they don't turn to bible and ask them women have rights to so secular feminism even possible in muslim culture of course it's possible it's happening all the time i mean in in many muslim countries you have a population there a secure list and they're not even occupied with religion but i'm occupied with. we form within religion occupied about how we can re read the koran with a focus on gender equality but the secular feminism is i mean it's present all over the world also in the muslim world so when you say down with polygamy down with oppression of women you can be a good muslim and not wear a veil but i'd imagine your religious opponents would say wait well this isn't

really slum at all is islam really and all you can eat cafeteria where you get to pick and choose what you like and discard what you don't like and actually i believe that as a muslim leader as a muslim spiritual leader i mean we shouldn't judge other people it's not our i mean we should listen to people in the area must we have female humans within without the scarf and in that sense we are reflecting reality as it is and i'm very confident i'm happy about that now interfaced marriages you conduct them in your mosque people come from all over europe to get married to get married by you saying that it's impossible to find and elsewhere would do it but if other humans don't do it that means that your religion is against that so is this technically cheating. actually tunisia is the first muslim country in the world they change the law in

december two thousand and seventeen and now they made it possible for muslim women to marry non muslims and i think that that could create a domino effect in the rest of the muslim world not now but maybe in the future because someone has to take the first step we are actually not the only mosque that conducts interfaith marriages it is happening different places in the world but it's happening maybe it's not official officially it's not stated that it's happening but i know that it's happening different places so. i don't mean to offend but i need to get down to the core of things right and like ask you where and whether there are double standards in everything that we're talking about here maybe someone who can tell you that clinging to their religion in such a ways really paying lip service for it what i mean is that if islam doesn't accept hypothetically interface marriages then if i want to marry a hindu and i'm a muslim well maybe islam is not for me if it calls me to me

a sinner for it right and if i'm gay and the catholic church doesn't want me at prayer where we catholics are missing for me was the point if you simply don't sit i mean i do believe that interfaith marriage is legitimate also according to the religion in the koran it stated clearly that a muslim man can marry a jew or christian but it's not stated clearly that a woman can marry a jew or muslim and it's not stated that she cannot but in the koran it stated clearly that both men and women should seek devoted seekers of the one so we find the legitimacy in the koran and we do believe that the right to choose your partner is a basic right it's a basic human right and if you believe that the koran i mean contains an essence on gender equality i mean what goes for the man goes for the woman so this

is actually where we come from and what we believe in now i wonder if you have any ties with women clerics of other religions like rabbis or female christian priests is there any kind of gender solidarity that is crossing religious lines. i mean we are in the area must we call borate with other i mean communities we have very inspired by the jewish progressive jews in denmark and i also recently met delphine in the front i met the french president recently in the company of belief in and we're really inspired by what they do because fema rabbis are doing the same thing as we are doing with a new so i think we have a lot to learn from each other you know we hear many top political figures in europe saying that islam doesn't belong to europe you live in a country with a government strongly against islam does it make it hard for you to get your

message across or the rhetoric of the politicians level on the politicians level doesn't really reflect what ordinary people think and how they treat you. i think it's a myth to state that the government in denmark is against islam that's not the case we have a growing islamophobia or a growing and his i mean rhetorical propaganda in denmark but it's in the right right wing parties so the government in general they do accept islam as a religion like any other religion but. so so at a state level it's accepted and no i don't experience this kind of empty islamic retore at a state level but of course in the right wing parties and a daily basis you experience and seize them a great story can probe again and we try to challenge that so there is a push from muslims in countries like england canada france to create

a separate sharia legality for them since those laws are the way of the face do you think that muslims in non islamic societies should have a separate legal system for themselves. i do not think so i think that it's that muslims all over the world i mean in european countries they should. they should accept and be a part of the constitution that is existing in the existing countries and it's also stated clearly in the koran that muslims have to. i mean submit themselves to the existing constitutions in the countries that they live in so it's actually very basic. and i do believe that the western educational system is quite good and we also spoke about i mean what would it be like if we had a female in my maid or annie my medication and then mike and actually i think that

the west and its u.k. szell system is quite good and it's quite good fundament for being a female. so the culture clash in secular societies gets violent sometimes i mean it. we remember the danish can occur to the prophet challis a bill or the american muhammad movie and how many people died as a result of of all of that. what should come first here the riots of europeans to draw any cartoon they wish or the religious sensibility of muslims. i think that there of course freedom of speech is a universal value and it's a fundamental value and it's not a christian westen no you it's a universal value which is shared by all people all over the world to me as a muslim freedom of speech. is an essential value at the same time i have another essential value which is. the believe that the koran is the word of god or you know

this sensitivity. so i do believe that. it's important as human beings that when we we have this freedom of speech but it's not a freedom to evaluate other people or to discriminate other people so always with freedom of speech there comes responsibility so we all everybody is responsible for how we talk and how we meet people and we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of the dialogue what do we want to use of freedom of speech what do we want to use it to if we want to have a dialogue with people who thinks differently or i mean it's not a very good strategy to speak very badly about these people and so we have to ask ourselves what do we want to use the freedom of speech with what we what what is the purpose of freedom of speech so on both sides i mean everybody has to has to

you know be aware that. you know we have to be responsible when we when we have the power to express ourselves i mean with that with that power comes responsibility so as a spiritual muslim leader i know that i have a certain responsibility and i and you know when you have a power you have a responsibility and i think we should reflect upon that scene when discussing freedom of speech because it's really very important. sure in thank you very much for this wonderful interview we wish you knew all about a lot of luck were talking to cheer wayne hunt con denmark's first female imaam discussing whether islam and european values can co-exist that is it for this edition of sophie and co i will see you next.

but that time i finally was on the non-subject i'm going to now hons a little bit on donkey the part about. wanting to feel you'd be would it be that easy to find and found that out in me. plus is it going to be much to see the little people. it is.

good that i've done my duty by my little bit of a wonderful time i've got out of it that i've shopped at that out of money good to know god much better to wait for the more i've got to get it but it. does it does wonders sly he's. just somebody just. to see. to see. even to look over. i.

thank. the headlines this hour of washington really says the details of its latest sanctions against russia saying they will hit on monday the penalties which are linked to claims that the crime. straight to the nerve agents attack in the u.k. we'll talk at russia's financial success as well as a mom sells to mosque a. being a news channel trump brush occlusion stories again hit headlines t.v. channels are now being poured in the crosshairs. scotland's full methodist minister rejects claims of sexual misconduct leveled against him amounts a legal challenge against the scottish government of the complaints. you can read

about all those stories safer on our website. and i'll be back with the headlines again in around an hour's time right now though it's the big picture. on this week's show this little critter real little you can barely see him but he is running wild this summer and he could make you sick for life but first would you miss the mailman if he stopped delivering on saturdays as the trump administration weighs privatizing the postal service the truth about claims it's losing billions a year holland cook in washington this is the big picture on r t america.

the trumpet ministration is considering privatizing the post office because the postal service loses money two point seven billion dollars net loss in the fiscal year which ended september thirty and that has prompted talk of desperate measures congressman darrell issa who previously chaired the house oversight committee says personally i do not want to see the postal service and saturday delivery or see post offices closed but the postal service is losing ten billion a year and needs to find ways to cut costs if you're confused already he says ten billion the postal service is two point seven billion think net loss will come back to that in a minute net loss what's the difference let's ask mark dimon steen president of the american postal workers union and bart chilton host of our teams boom bust and former u.s. trading commissioner and a long suffering congressional staffer welcome. and thank you didn't one first

brief history lesson from bart you worked on the hill fifteen years ten in the house five in the senate so long before e-commerce and before fedex and u.p.s. became the formidable competitors they are today even then the postal service was under the microscope what was. i mean that you know it used to be that congress funded this up until one nine hundred seventy one that it was actually a post-office department and then it became a self-sustaining it's off budget as it were but supposed to make money from selling stamps and delivering packages and it's done pretty well over the years but they had a rough go of it as you pointed out in your opening and so now people are looking at all sorts of ways to improve and at the scapegoats that are out there with amazon and there's others to fed ex and u.p.s. that president trump has talked about amazon in particular but it's been a debacle for years on the hill because as you point out congress and i say nobody

wants to lose their local post office now that's constituents nobody wants to lose saturday delivery and people want to continue to work folks that. deliver the mail they do hard work and it's important work but it's an ongoing controversy it's been there predict how the postmaster general used to be a cabinet position mark of fast forward to two thousand and six what many americans may not realize is that the postal service gets no tax dollars for operating expenses it sells postage and like most businesses it funded its retiring health care on a pay as you go basis until a lame duck republican congress passed the postal accountability and enhancement act of two thousand and six explain how that law pushed the postal service into the red well that law demanded in the post office something that is the minute of no other agency and no where the company it was demanded that the post office pre-fund

retiring health benefits seventy five years into the future now that's for workers that not only are not at the post office yet they weren't even born yet right that was that took five point five billion dollars out of year because they it was dictated that they had to do within ten years took five point five billion dollars . out of postal funds shifted it to the federal treasury nobody was going to be able to sustain under that kind of service. funding type of mandate and they haven't been able to meet it and actually most of the post the losses that are being talked about in the different figures bandied around the losses it's manufactured by this two thousand and six law which by the way was passed bipartisan and over ninety percent of the so-called losses come from that so the fix isn't as complicated as people make it a key part of the fix is to alleviate this absurd prefunding mandated by the way it's well funded and the retirement plans of the post-office and postal workers are

well funded and this fifty billion dollars and the retiring health benefit plan before the post office is simply paying is they going and meeting their obligations like most companies any other business any of the i can't imagine any line item that should have to fund seventy five years of amortized over ten the internet has disrupted every business and for the postal service it's good news bad news e-mail his whacked revenue from first class letters and e-commerce such as the deliveries depicted in that t.v. commercial we saw are now big business the mail man or woman is stopping by every house six days a week anyway and the postal regulatory commission found that special contracts like amazon's generated seven billion and profit for the postal service last year as i said a minute ago net loss part isn't this a win win oh it's a win win and i mean from my perspective they're already there as you say it can

and they are the last mile they're not doing the whole thing they're not you know flying their own planes and even though amazon as you said is in the spotlight here because president trump has a beef quite frankly it's a political beef with amazon c.e.o. jeff bezos who owns the washington post and the washington post he thinks at least the editorial board doesn't like president trump so this is really. not just political it's personal for the president it appears to me but it's not just amazon it's fed ex its u.p.s. hack d.h.l. is coming back into the us after being gone for a dozen or so years so it may be that all of these are money making for the post office now could be making more money maybe and i'm totally cool with the grieg zammit things but what you don't want to do is cut your nose off to spite your face this is a profit making venture for the post office well margaret who well parts a point to politics permeates almost all of life how much of this push to private ties do you think is driven by fed ex u.p.s.

at all trying to replace the post office if only for the reason part cited the animist of the washington post well i think there's certainly a corporation driven push but i do want to point out the fed ex and u.p.s. also need the public infrastructure of the united states postal service they put of at least according to the postal service fed ex and u.p.s. puts about twenty five million packages a week into the postal system because it's not a profit profitable to go down a dirt road in rural america or some urban centers so you know the last mile they'd they ride the last mile but. but i do think that it's deeper than a personal animus i think there are certainly wall street financial interests and ideologues like the heritage foundation that simply don't believe in the in the public good at all and and public service and public employees so you know we'll

we'll we'll have to see where all this goes because the reality is all this push around privatization. may help with very few but it will be expensive the many including u.p.s. and fighting customers and those who use e-commerce because while the last mile is certainly part of the changing mix letter mails down as you see. holland but e-commerce and packages are up we have a saying in our union internet taketh in the unit given right but thirty percent of e-commerce is returns if you ours is going to work so e-commerce also has to have a strong first mile to be able to process take take back the packages and process those packages back to where they came from that are thaw it it's a changing dynamic it's an interesting time and there's a lot of opportunity how much of this is union busting i think some of it probably is the the workers that at the postal service or are unionized they make good

living wages and decent benefits something that all workers should should have so certainly there's an effort. on the part of this administration to reduce the voice of unions and to reduce the voice of workers that maybe some of it but i think the main thing is the post office takes in seventy billion dollars a year in revenue and those in the private side want to take that and turn it into a profit making machine rather than public service and maybe set their own postal rates well think think think think about if you don't have to go down there we're all road then maybe the only way you get there is a twenty dollars surcharge ouch what do you see going forward from a business perspective and how do you see postal customers impacted well that's a great example if they have to pay a surcharge for going that last march of the last ten miles or for example if you had to pay for a forwarding your mail when you move there's a whole host of options out there you know the post office does a passport.