it. was revealed that three ukrainian ships illegally entered its territorial waters and weapons and ammunition on board the international community's been quick to back kiev and moscow in the. spot european pledges to support companies defying u.s. sanctions on iran the french petro chemical giant has pulled out of the largest gas

project in the country with a lucrative contract snatched up by china. five international humanitarian groups called on the us to halt its move to support the saudi arabia of the war in yemen stressing if things continue as they are some forty million people could starve to death. joining us this is r.t. international. released video testimony of three crew members currently detained in russia following sunday's clash in the straight incident russia and ukraine close to conflict the commander of one of the ukrainian ships claims that they consciously ignored russia's orders to stop. i'm going to melissa boy commander of the navy division of the ukrainian military forces of the code straight after crossing of the russian border we had visual contact with the

russian border service vessels i consciously ignored their commands to stop on our boat we had small arms and a machine gun with ammunition i was aware that the action of the ukrainian vessels in the coast straits provoke it if i was following my orders to move our ships from the port or for this to mario pull the standoff took place in the kits strait that lies between the russian mainland and crummy peninsula and crane says it ships were intercepted after they left versus territorial waters let's hear from i guess do you have been following a court hearing for some of the crew detained because in london with more on the international reaction. well twelve of the detained ukrainian sailors and officers have been charged with illegally crossing the russian border they've been arrested now until the twenty fifth of january the rest will be charged presumably with the same accusation charge as the others at the late to date but the federal security

services again released more details as to what was in these ships and that all of this the federal security service has now released for example documents that they found aboard the three vessels that were in that that are impounded now here in kutch was in time with talking about the matter grenade launchers for them i believe six machine guns other weapons as well pistols we're talking about thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition of the incident itself to place pati in the territorial waters of the russian federation the strait of kutch in the territorial waters that were part of the russian federation before they were union with crimea in two thousand and fourteen. contrary to the un convention on russian border ships carried out today frankly aggressive actions against the vessels of the navy of the armed forces of ukraine.

russian federal security service. reported that brought this ukrainian naval throughout the flip hill. to agents count to espionage agents of the ukrainian intelligence agency. s.b.u. two of them something that ukraine has since confirmed the russians believe that the order to do so came from the very top from ukraine's government to justify the ensuing martial law that we've seen established across many regions of ukraine the ukrainians however is adamant they're saying that this was an act of war

provocation by russia that russia behaved aggressively towards ukraine that they shouldn't have done this that they had filed a notification of intent to pass through the strait of courage but that the russians had carried out this aggressive action let's go to london. correspondent in the u.k. where palmer has been discussing the developments today what's been said polly. well it wasn't in the plan but politicians demanded an urgent debate on the situation in the sea or was over and they got it except i would say that it wasn't much of a debate because the condemnation of russia's actions was pretty much unanimous president putin's actions have redrawn barstools the borders of the european nation for the tonton second will rule we must never forget or normalize the united kingdom will certainly continue to be committed to the crane's independence sovereignty and territorial integrity of the putin's approach is very similar to

the idea of heating a frog in water that he keeps on pushing things and keep from pushing that he will not be what you said instant reaction there was talk of russia being a pariah state ignoring the international rule based system also talking about showing russia the consequences of its actions and debates on how to show ukraine practical support there were a few questions about making sure that president poroshenko of ukraine doesn't abuse this martial law that he's going to be putting in place making sure that he sticks to the elections that are scheduled for early next year perhaps the brightest note struck from that debate was from the foreign minister saying that the u.k. really wants to have a good relationship with russia if only moscow would behave better now a similar attitude coming from across the poland the u.s. state department announced today that it condemns russia's aggressive actions as

well canada issued a similar statement saying siding with ukraine calling for russia to release the captured vessels and we heard from the russian foreign minister as well today he was actually in paris meeting with his french counterpart to join even a drea and according to the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov this was all a provocation but not from the russian side from the. craney insight take a listen you're using your i don't see any need in mediate if the ukrainian side and his partners in europe are interested in not having such incidents those ukrainian allies should send strong signals you know that such provocations never happen again but on a practical level local border authorities on both sides could have discussed any technicalities if the ukrainian so i didn't understand something they use the existing procedure back in september. well sir as is the case with the recent history you've got the international community saying one thing and russia standing

firm and saying that's not how we say it. journalist part and some as please russia was on to a lose lose situation in the straight no matter what. whatever you do you're going to be rolled so if you let the ships through what you've done is you've created a precedent where they will think that they can come back the next hour without going through the procedure and they will so you can't really do that but if you stop them then you then you are made to look like the bad guys because you're stopping people most people don't know that there's an agreement about how to use the strait so are they don't know that the ukrainians always up to now have fulfilled that agreement so as far as they're concerned the russians seizing ships well that's the russian seizing ships it's an example of their of their bad behavior but of course they don't know the background of course nobody's going to explain the background to them either i'm quite sure that most of the parliamentarians for british parliament have no idea what the agreement with the straits is and haven't bothered to look. at months of rumors it's been confirmed

the chinese feel giant is replacing france's third trial in iran's multi-million multi-billion dollar southpark gas project and as daniel bushell explains now the move might come as a surprise to some. self palls is the angelina jolie of gas fields with by far the biggest reserves on the planet is the industry's star attraction yet toto the desperate bid to keep its paws on poles have been well a total failure who wins from trumpeting its own ally france his biggest bugbear china of course china sea and b.c. has officially replaced the tile in sound spars but it has not started work practically talks need to be held with c. and b. c. about when it will start operations or about europe's pledge to stand up to terrible mr trump in gas industry lingo hot air mr michael will fight for his nation's top employers unless it means shirt front in washington and crush it we

are going to start a strategic trade war with the united states over iran and so i repeat very clearly we're not going to sanction all counter sanction american companies. in response to this subject we will not force companies to stay and that is the reality of the business life of the president of the french republic but he's not the c.e.o. of total never fear you both you cut to the rescue of all people diverse as the european commission we have the duty to protect european companies so we now need to act and this is why we're launching the process of activating the blocking statute from one thousand nine hundred six. any one thing that blocking statute to stop us sanctions hurting europe no we're very angry at you mr trump and we're just going to let our companies fail as royal regions take over german italian investors quit iran's huge rail upgrade russia and china step in india's actually doubled purchases of iran's crude member america's least diplomatic diplomat pledging to

torture tehran we're going to do everything we can describe is iran hard as the british say to make to squeeze them until the pips squeak their squeaking sound that's actually europe's top firms as they dropped by e.u. leaders so. alvey the thing e.u. independence so much for europe standing up to trump. economists told us the opinion in subtly unable to protect its own companies. if you look at your union. with. john carr you see that it's basically an organisation. maybe the russians are out there america is one of the perpetrators the european businesses know that nothing will happen. on one of these is. just the facts of the of the power that americans are able to blackmail you know

one of the kind of the companies you better stay out and they will and this is exactly what happens to companies because the e.u. is not able and not really to protect their own companies. international humanitarian groups have called on the us to halt its military support for saudi arabia of a riyadh's ongoing campaign in yemen and a joint statement the five charities sounding the alarm stressed as many as fourteen million people could starve to death unless urgent action is taken. the united states is one of the most generous donors of humanitarian assistance in yemen but these contributions pale in comparison to the harm caused by u.s. military support and diplomatic cover to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates if the us does not cease its military support for this saudi you eat coalition its too will bear responsibility for what may be the largest famine in decades. the

civil war in yemen which led up into into fifteen soon saw an intervention by a saudi led coalition which back to the government's fight against toothy rebels conflict and lead to severe widespread famine as well as shortages of medicine as of now more than ten thousand yemenis a phone victim to the war and some killed in fighting others succumbing to disease or hunger. and spot a mounting international pressure on saudi arabia over the war in yemen as well as the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi the u.k. has carried out joint military drills with riyadh involving british and saudi royal air force is we heard from joe shani executive director at the norwegian refugee council usa one of the signatures of the joint statement to the us government it told us that both warring sides in yemen are contributing to the famine. there is a complete economic collapse that is primarily responsible for creating the famine

conditions at this point in other words people don't have the money to buy there are delays in getting goods in to young them in then on top of this you have the conflict you have parties to the conflict that are preventing us from gaining access to vulnerable people on the coalition is bombing food granary and programming the production of food in some areas in the north on sarala for their part they are often preventing people from moving to a safer place. as to where they might be able to find either. room or konqueror. hopes a clearer picture would emerge as to where the former wiki leaks from julian assange will face challenges in the state's been put on hold after hearing brought by a journalist have official information unsealed was adjourned and has the story for

judge has asked both sides to come back in one week with supplemental information and a response so no conclusion at the courthouse in alexandria virginia now essentially what is taking place is that the reporters committee has filed to make it public any charges facing julian a son of the co-founder of wiki leaks now essentially we've had a grand jury in alexandria virginia that has been hearing testimony related to julian massage and at this point there are no public charges that been filed however they document has been made public a case file from the prosecution and that led many to believe that there were going to be criminal charges pending against julian aside now at this point there is no public record of that in the court will neither confirm nor deny any charges prosecutors say that any charges against assad can't be made public until he has been arrested and apprehended however the reporters committee is saying that this

should be a matter of public record and it should be well known now to speculate the jew in assad could be charged for releasing the u.s. military material that was classified related to iraq and afghanistan other speculate he could face charges related to the diplomatic cables that were classified that he made public now still others suggest that it's possibly the cia cyber security programs however the guardian newspaper in the united kingdom has recently come out with a story alleging that secret meetings took place between julian assad and paul man a fort at the ecuadorian ember. and that apparently paul man afore visited julian assange in two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fifteen and the spring of two thousand and sixteen just a few months after one of the alleged meetings between julian a songe and a paul man of fort wiki leaks revealed that some of the democratic party e-mails had been stolen by russian intelligence officers now many are suggesting that it's

possible that the charges against julian assange are related to his meetings allegedly with paul mann afford however wiki leaks has this response remember this day when the gilligan permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper's reputation wiki leaks is willing to bet the guardian a million dollars and he said it is that metaphors never match is sown outside the courthouse in alexandria virginia supporters of join a songe have made a public presence and displayed their words the reason that the reporters committee in particular is particularly interested in this manner and this because of the possibility or at least suggestion that's been made. that. the criminal charges against mr signs are predicated on his publication of information i think there's a public interest certainly weighs in favor of disclosure we'll have to see i think how the court ultimately comes out. people living in a small community in germany have been warned not to eat the local fish due to

talks of water the pollution has been blamed on the nearby u.s. base. national gun card i'm thinking more and more about my baby people here are increasingly learning they have cancer i think that a lot of it is linked to the jet fuel this topic is sometimes raised locally but mostly everyone is scared to touch it and this is not the news that every other person has cancer this includes me i have cancer my boss at work also has cancer it

involves everyone and every day is just that not many think about it until it involves them. the number of cancer patients hasn't changed in the last ten years the same goes with the other diseases cancer for the root cause of the risks you need research that would cover a much larger number of people you need a good database on diseases if the local hospital hasn't found a spike in oncology disease that doesn't say anything about a possible connection it's not the way it's established. the problem is that there are too many risk factors that influence our bodies in the end it's very difficult to find at least the want to blame. god we need to find who to blame but who will go against the americans nobody will order them to leave this topic will always be denied coverage. but i reckon rent

apartments here and pay good money to the trust where the tenants if they were to leave all that income with this is just an additional hit. according to a german government report and twenty sixth in the country spent more than three hundred thirty thousand euros cleaning the water around the base seventy five percent of the cost will be refunded by the us armed forces we've asked the american side to comment or bring any response that we receive. it was back to one of our previous stories just a moment ago we talked about this because hopes a clearer picture would emerge as to whether the former wiki leaks from julian assange will face charges in the u.s. that he put on hold after a hearing brought by a journalist have official information unsealed was adjourned i speak now to form a five intelligence officer johns on the line from the u.k. . why didn't the charges were sealed in the first place is this an attempt to

conceal information absolutely it's been an open secret for many years that there's been a secret grand jury convened in virginia trying to find a charge any charge help of the make up a new law just to prosecute julian assange wanted to avenge for the fact that he's shown a very bright light on some very murky and dark details of what the american state was doing and the fact that it sort of got leaked a couple weeks ago by accident apparently the fact that he's now in new order in his ecuadorian embassy in london and apparently even his lawyers don't have access to him which is against all humanitarian norms across the planet and it's very concerning. well the judge asked for more material on the stand before making a decision does that surprise you to think that they will be able to produce the information required. i think it's a very difficult one for any judge particularly because there was a ruling only a couple of weeks ago which actually gave first amendment protection rights freedom

of expression to the former m i six officer christopher steele who notoriously produced the debunked dirty dossier on trump a couple of years ago in the run up to transfer election as president and even though he's a brit and he lives in britain he was allowed first amendment rights so i think with that ruling under the judicial belt in america it's going to be very difficult for another judge to say well an australian living in the ecuadorian embassy granted asylum in the u.k. can't have the same rights as someone like christopher steele so i should imagine that the judge would be asking for more information more evidence despite the fact the secret grand jury has been convened he is trying to find any way they can try and get julian assange. the guardian says just to be meeting with for do you think that could be a reason to seal the charges. i think there's been a amazingly clever conflation going on with the american establishment ever since

the trump alexion where they've been trying to link alleged russian links between trump's officials trump's advisors in the run up to election with russian hacking and then by extension trying to make a link between wiki leaks for leaking the democratic national congress e-mails and hillary clinton's e-mails in the run up to that election and trying to pin that on the russians as well so they're trying to conflate the idea that there's some sort of russian collusion with trump's team and definitely russian collusion with wiki leaks and yet this is despite and in the teeth of all evidence which to this date as i understand the american establishment has refused to take so for example there is technical data out there conducted for example by the former technical director of the n.s.a. william binney which shows that the information that came out of the d.n.c.

the information and hillary clinton's e-mails was actually a leak because of the speeds she was downloaded not a hack that could be conducted by an external actor such as russia. and we have evidence as well from other people who've worked with wiki leaks showing that actually the information they released on this subject was given to them by someone who was discounted coming out of the d.n.c. so there's all this information swirling around but it's very very useful for the american establishment and the democrats particularly to conflate everything with one big mass that you know pullman afford the move the probe don't trump possibly big sort of russia gate type thing was actually one picked. details none of that hangs together whatsoever and i think julian sanchez now becoming a bit of a pawn in a very high stakes game that in american politics washington politics it seems like somebody must have got this wrong wiki leaks so that there was no meeting between the former chief of man of ford lying the guardian has made

a very big mistake or perhaps british police just missed that this high profile meeting in the embassy that they've been watching so who's got it wrong. who can tell i mean you know just because the police were watching the embassy the ecuadorians apparently watching embassy. and i didn't comment of what was particular profile at the time when he was alleged going to meet julian assange which we just don't know. what we do know though is that julian has been under huge amounts of pressure huge amounts of threat he's been effectively isolated over the last almost a year now which is effectively solitary confinement and you know inhumane and the u.n. rules a couple of years ago that the way the brits had been dealing with him in isolation in this busy in stopping his free access to open air and all the rest of it isn't even conduct two so i think the british government has quite

a lot to answer around how they've. conducted insults around someone who's been granted political asylum which is not an easy thing to get and not easily given by any country and i'm very concerned ecuador now to speak caving to american pressure to rescind what is very important right for anyone who's been persecuted. annie great to speak to you thanks for your time i guess an emotional form and i five intelligence officer. in other news french firefighters went on strike today in the city of leon demanding better paying conditions the firefighters block the streets of the city as they march with torches and banners walk out was just ahead of the world famous festival of lights the dracs thousands of visitors to the city from around the world. and france has been rocked by angry demonstrations nationwide to get fuel tax increases it's been led by people wearing bright yellow vests president today reacted to the mass discontent that his reforms of course. the move

more this movement has generated significant protests and also an acceptable violence in france as mainland and in its overseas territories what was said during the presidential campaign has to stand up regardless of whether you backed me in the election we can't run a monday be in favor of the environment then on tuesday begins fuel price increases we can decide some years ago to have a tax increase and we now to denounce it that several hundred thousand people have now taken part in what's become weekly demonstrations on protester told us they won't stop until micro reverses his policy. joy that i was hit in the face by a grenade from the riot police there was an explosion close by this will not change anything what we want is to raise the minimum wage and cut fuel prices the environment is not a priority for french people at the moment will keep protesting and this room stop us despite the victims it is shame that had caused such violence. a group

of high school students in america avoided punishment for giving what appeared to be a nazi salute in a group photo investigation willed no action could be taken due to the students first amendment rights which protect freedom of expression. we cannot know the intentions in the hearts of those who were involved more over because of students first amendment rights the district is not in a position to punish the students for their actions. in the photo taken back in may students from baraboo high school can be seen raising their right arms some told the media they were simply waving to their parents but everyone's convinced though the image of a viral and there was widespread call for action we put the issue up for debate. when it comes to first amendment i mean that is a very tricky thing and as far as i'm concerned wisconsin legislative house just passed a year a year ago they passed a legislature that if you actually do any type of protest or some kind of action against the right or the neo nazis you actually get punished

some kind of curious how they're perceiving that there's no consequences for doing that kind of behavior but then at the same time they're willing to punish somebody who's willing to stand against i definitely think it was right not to punish the students i don't even think it should have brought the first amendment into that he equation because it diminishes the first amendment which has bigger fish to fry in this case i think to be dismissed as a prank so if you have an image especially photograph it's created that's it's not natural image so the question is who was the person who was taking the picture and who was the person giving basically direction to the kids to wave that way so that i mean that's i mean for me that's i think one of the most important things to take into consideration kids oh always want to do something stupid particularly in the picture i've done silly things in pictures making my face look

silly or wearing something dumb that's why i had an immediate instinct to defend these kids even though i would give them a few hours of history classes i would look at the bearable kind of city or the county in general it's not a four percent white clearly out so that kids in that county have a little exposure to other cultures about diversity that maybe inclusion education is not what it should be and i believe these kids should get much better education not understanding of what that salute means in fact actually the history of the saloon is very calm. plex it goes back to roman times and it's actually the first visually known military salute so it has a long history it's not necessarily tied with heat of the time it became a symbol of hate perhaps in the one nine hundred twenty s. and thirty's this is somebody told them to quit and the idea.