at least four countries claim a former american marine who's been charged with espionage is that citizen that says media speculation claims the man's being used as a bargaining chip by russia he says up to twenty years plenty of time to be small. retaliate and was revenge in some way by the russians. also this hour the french government's hard insistence against the best movements claiming it's trying to bring about security it comes as president micron's popularity rating hits record lows. we can national emergency because of the security of our country i absolutely know we can do it i haven't done it i may do it i may do it but we could call a national emergency and build it very quickly. another round of talks to end the

almost two week u.s. government shutdown shows no sign of progress but president saying he made a national emergency to build a border wall without congressional approval. from the russian capital you're watching international welcome to the program. our top story the u.s. u.k. canada and island have to form a u.s. marine charged in moscow with espionage is that citizen the man detained in the russian capital last week is already at the center of much media speculation and my colleague discuss the story with our correspondents both here in moscow and in london. what more do we know then about this case andrew haven't we lately rather gotten used to here. russian spies being caught in america i can definitely come up

with a few such stories from the past few years this case though is exactly the opposite an american national a former u.s. marine paul wieland was caught in moscow he was arrested and one of the city's most posh hotels but back when the news broke who would have thought that diplomats from a total of four countries would end up going he's our guy so now we have the u.s. the u.k. canada and the latest country to make such a statement was our island however if we go back to canada poll brother couldn't even confirm whether he still had a canadian passport or not which does sound very strange but that's the way it is right now he's now in detention in moscow having been charged with espionage although his brother says that the only reason he went to russia was to attend

a friend's wedding party the us ambassador had been given permission to see the suspect then so he did mr whelan's lawyer is seeking bail for his client for now we aren't really aware of any other details but journalists all around the world are talking about it and speculation is rife he faces up to twenty years in a russian jail deal of classics plenty of time to be small to dispose of. what's most likely as we'll as a pawn in russia just play to get back one of its spies after maria patino here in the united states the re of boots do you believe the arrest of your brother was retaliation and was revenge in some way by the russians. you've heard many are linking this case to the case of maria bootie no who was arrested in the u.s. in july she eventually pleaded guilty. two conspiring against the u.s.

with a russian government official and at least another person without notifying the u.s. attorney general but the fact is that the charges that have been brought against paul whelan and maria bhutto are completely different now to london to dispute and our correspondent there nasty we're hearing the also is a british citizen must be the reaction men in the u.k. it was actually the american embassy in moscow that had contacted their british counterparts to inform them of this arrest and this case we know that so far the foreign office has their spokesperson has said that quote staff have requested consular access to a british man detained in russia also the u.k. foreign secretary jeremy hunt has said that the u.k. is not liking the idea of individuals being used for political chess games our

position is very very clear individuals should not be used as pawns of diplomatic leverage we need to see what those charges are against him to understand whether there is a case or not we're not ruling out any series at all at this stage as to why this might have happened this case of paul whelan comes on the heels of the biggest scandals in twenty eighteen between russia and the u.k. involving a double agent being poisoned in seoul's very in the u.k. back in march leading to diplomatic expulsions leading to one of the biggest droughts between the u.k. and russia and russia in recent years so whether or not this one is again going to add more fuel to the fire and exactly how much this scandal blows up of course remains to be seen in the days to come. the french government spokesperson has accused the yellow vest movement of trying to stage a coup the comment signals a toughening stance from the authorities following weeks of violent protests. picks

up the story well not a great start to the year for president machen with the latest polling showing that seventy five percent of french people responded that disapprove of the president that's despite the concessions he's tried giving the yellow vests movement over the last few weeks and that comes as his cabinet met for the first time on friday since the start of the new year yellow vest movement something on their plate to discuss and afterwards the presidential spokesperson discussed at the l a best movement describing them as agitators who wanted to overthrow the government. says the announcements of the manual macro the yellow vests have become a movement of agitators who want insurrection and to overthrow the government moreover those who call for debate don't want to participate in the great national debate well that's not something new to the other best movement has long said many times when i've spoken to people out in the streets though that one of their aims

that they want to change the political system here in france and that one way of doing that could be to overthrow the government those protests now have been engulfed in france since november seventeenth and some cities have seen the worst pointing in the whole of a century as a result of that and it looks like this movement is set to continue into two thousand and nineteen with the so-called act eight planned for saturday with a number of demonstrations already been notified to say that they will take place and many more are expected to be notified at the very last minute on saturday now it also comes as an open letter was penned to president back on signs from angry france criticizing the president saying that he just hadn't listened to the movement let's have a look at an excerpt from that letter bridge will turn into hatred if you and your companions keep seeing people as my. consider them and think they mean nothing and

it's not just the yellow vests or the causing much a headache it's also being in this head of communications is to step down from his post now this is for him he's credited as being the person who shaped the presidential campaign that went on to win in style back in two thousand and seventeen and he's been a long term confidant of the president around him for about two years he's not the only person from the backroom staff which of course on top of that we've seen a number of resignations from the cabinet team including the interior minister back in october that was you and also the interior minister nicolas. resigned as well as some of the other cabinet members in two thousand and eighteen so while president might call might to be hoping to sway some of that discord from two thousand and eighteen under the carpet it looks like two thousand and nineteen could be the same

. another round of budget talks between congressional democrats on the white house seems to have led nowhere that says a partial u.s. government shutdown is close to entering its third week house democrats have put forward legislation they say would end the stalemate but it doesn't include funding for a border wall prompting president trump to pump promise still veto the bill trump says it's possible he could declare national emergency to build the wall if democrats refuse to support have you considered using your mergence the powers to grant yourself authorities to build this war without congressional approval and secondly i have to go you have yes i have and i can do it if i want so you don't need congressional approval to build well we can use a salute we can call a national emergency because of the security of our country. absolutely know we can

do it i haven't done it i may do it i may do it now trump did indicate after the meeting when he spoke that he would actually consider calling a national emergency in order to construct his wall so that he could do so approval of congress trump also to summarize the meeting the result the meeting was reductive but the representatives seem to have the other idea we had a very very productive meeting lengthy and sometimes contentious it's very hard to see how progress will be made unless they open up the government we recognize the democratic side that we really cannot resolve this until we open our government he said he'd keep the government closed for a very long period of time months or even years trump also said that in the meeting nancy pelosi the house speaker of representatives the speaker of representatives the speaker of the house of representatives that she told donald trump that she had no interest in impeachment they were not looking for impeachment that's the quote

now there has been a call to get the ball rolling and kind of jump start impeachment proceedings against trump from some democrats one democrat in the house of representatives actually used some rather colorful language to make this call police don't end up beating don't because we're going to go in there we're going to be some other. while trump said that he was told by nancy pelosi that quote we're not looking for impeachment in the meeting that just happened nancy pelosi has elsewhere said that she would be open to the impeachment of us president trump this is nancy pelosi speaking on another occasion we shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason and we should avoid it pietschmann political reasons so the u.s. federal government has been shut down for fourteen days at this point talk of impeachment is taking place on the democratic side on the republican side trump is doubling down and saying he does want his wall saying that he could perhaps declare a national emergency in order to build it without congressional approval. so it's

quite quite a day out quite a moment as as usual with a new year and the new congress at this point once again we are facing gridlock with capitol hill divided and no clear consensus in american politics we'll have more stories for you after a short break. we're

continuing our special episodes here in the new year celebrating not only twenty nineteen but ten years of kaiser reports at some point in twenty nineteen i'm not sure exactly when that is but we'll keep you posted. welcome back to r.t. the first funerals underway for the victims of the deadly building explosion in the russian city of magnets of course the search and rescue operation came to an end on

thursday after the last body was recovered from the site in total the tragedy claimed thirty nine lives we managed to speak to one of the survivors of the explosion he shared the story of his escape exclusively with r.t. . you should look to see if we were voted out by a loud noise and at first i couldn't work out what had happened so i told my family to get dressed and grab their documents i went to open the door that was confronted by nothing just this drum and by smoke and fire. there were four of us and we also met our neighbors everyone was in total shock we managed to escape by climbing from a balcony to that of another flags. were

good no we should move when we got out onto the street all the emergency services had already arrived it took them about fifteen minutes to get there they were already helping people. so i'm introducing you to me my wife for holding up the most important thing is that we've survived of our children were traumatised they will need counselling i'm very grateful to the people who are likely to go for their support and to the emergency services. and investigation is under way in germany into a massive cyber attack which led to the pestle data of hundreds of german politicians and media fake is being leaked online while the probe is in its early stages some german media outlets already claim to know who's to blame piece all of that picks up the story. but german press are running hard with this story on the

data of hundreds of politicians and includes members of the cabinet here in germany chancellor angela merkel herself and the president of germany frank fall to steinmeyer among many many others but it's not just politicians that have been the victim of this said this data breach also comedian bottom and and rapper teddy are also caught up in this now because if there is talk of hacking and data breaches the knives immediately come out for russia and that is what's happened in a lot of the articles we've seen here so far what we do know about the data that had been hacked into is that it's being called non highly sensitive data it includes things from the politicians this is like job applications a party memos and lists of party members now a spokesperson for the german government said an investigation is underway into this hack. the young the federal government is taking this very seriously the only thing we can say about the hack attack now is that we're working on that the

thirty's are working very hard to understand what happened leaks like these have to be handled with great characters biggest fake information can be propagated however the government can say that now sensitive political data was published so far no official claims that russia was behind this and no evidence presented to that end but this isn't the first time that we've see a big media campaign in germany pointing the finger of blame at russia when it comes to online shenanigans before the twenty seventeen elections the papers were rife with how well the russians going to interfere with our elections post the twenty seventeen elections there was a lot more navel gazing article saying why didn't russia try and hack or interfere in these elections as we heard from the spokesman person from the government there this investigation ongoing we'll be looking into this as it develops. believes the main beneficiary of the scandal is not. russell seems to be the first

loan for everybody that ever but it doesn't make any sense when we sum up the threats first not when we were going to her and secondly russia i cannot imagine of any reason russia but russia could get all of their sandro over quite. a little bit into another direction where you are sequentially quib or not especially when you consider that there is the start of a media campaign so there must be high interest behind it you have a bunch of people who want to get rid of the the clue democracy which is in germany granted by the bill of rights and you need some sort of stand or to get the full of decisions to make a new boss or permanent serviceable vision of the internet if this were as nice a jar as we not only car but. it would be easy to either playing russian or of them somebody from the f.t.

in other ways it would be useful for the same group uses for their purposes. at least five people were injured in the explosion at a bus stop in santiago chile on friday morning one of the victims whose affairs here old women received serious wounds she was immediately taken to hospital authorities say the blast came from a device hidden in a rubbish bin a radical environmentalist group called individuals tending towards the wild known by the acronym i t s and spanish reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on its website chiles and terry minister says the incident is being investigated as an act of terror police don't yet know what kind of explosive was used last year i.t.s. took responsibility for a possible bomb attack resulted in only superficial damage. britain has spent almost two hundred thousand pounds protecting the welfare of hate

preacher abu qatada after he was deported to his native jordan to face terror charges revealed by the times newspaper has sparked anger among both m.p.'s and the public. these payments are ridiculous the money we have spent is an insult to the british times but the government have succeeded in deporting qatada burst back to the rule of law at each and every stage of the process the deportation of abu qatada has taken twelve years and cost more than one point seven million pounds in legal fees for both sides that is not acceptable to the public and it's not acceptable to me we must make sure it never happens again. so i was going to decide them in the u.k. and nine hundred ninety four as he claimed he had been tortured in jordan but as the u.k. arrested him after nine eleven terror related charges qatada was sent back to jordan twelve years later after receiving assurances that he would not be to bear

his deportation cosi a k. a pretty penny at least one point nine million pounds was spent on his deportation including payments for legal fees. and then two hundred thousand was spent off to his deportation for monitoring his condition and assuring he wasn't torches the government's committed to montreal up to three is the last payment was made in two thousand and sixteen we put the issue up for debate with our experts. in the first place. should never have been granted asylum here by can one thousand four hundred when you think about it all the money all the wealth for payments he and those around him are parasite did off the u.k. a taxpayer until such times as he was deported your recipe is one for and the key you say should never have claimed asylum in all reality we are at the hottie to the convention like most civilized countries which means if somebody claims asylum and

they can show a genuine fear of persecution we are obliged to grant them asylum for you to suggest that i am claiming i am my recipe is a suggestion for an icky what you're suggesting is a much greater suggestion for anarchy because you're suggesting it's appropriate that the you care taxpayer should pick up the bill for a terrorist mastermind who was going to get three rule of anything you care i'm still only going to do i don't know which is different you gotta let me finish now and i on a second i gotta finish you're suggesting that the you care taxpayer should take to pick up the bill for a terrorist mastermind to come to the u.k. live off benefits and then when he does get deported back to jordan we further pick up an extra two hundred thousand now if that's not well nihilistic perhaps is a better word than anarchistic but either way it's pretty imbecilic the fundamental fact is that this guy was by any definition an al-qaeda terrorist mastermind

i'm glad that he was deported i mean i am disappointed that we've had to spend two hundred thousand pardons to look after his well for in jordan when that money could have been spent much better for example keith here in the u.k. looking after british victims of our qaeda violence wouldn't you agree with me with me on that point where would you like to see the want to spend on another universe or is victims who chose i'm only slightly disturbed david but. it seems to be that your opinion as to whether somebody is wrapped up in criminality or not is sufficient to convict them i actually like living by the really intelligent so if you rave if you were to accuse me i'm sure you are a criminal offense to serve i'd like to let me finish please if you were to accuse me of a criminal offense i would like to think that it wouldn't be you who decides on that it would be a jury and the fact is that jordan already having convicted him in his absence then had to acquit him when he was retried for exactly the same thing because it was

discovered that the evidence was tainted now it's not you are missing with. the matters as to whether you think he's a terrorist or not it's the rule of law room where the loot can be proved or not that's what matters keith people keith with grip with great respect kate you seem to be ignoring the fact that it's not my opinion that he was a terrorist mastermind it's a matter of numerous reports by various heads of intelligence services if an intelligence service alleges somebody is a world known terrorist or something like that but if those countries yeah not provide the evidence to support those contentions then i'm afraid inge and i'm not prepared to listen with deep credence to any intelligence service is that alleges something against somebody simply because it suits them politically to do so in essence what keith saying must be must be music from heaven to the years

of any prospective terrorist wanting to get into the u.k. this guy was a he was a really bad rogue with the u.k. is far better off without him and yes initial point we should toughen up our laws much much more robust from to make sure that such wicked terrorists do not enter this country they can go to jordan or forever else they want but not in the united kingdom. for fear chaos. nice appealing to snowflakes and sophia addicks and its attempts to swell its ranks but it's just how many would be willing to swap screen time for the front line here's a quick look at the army's t.v. ads and see the slow. menus useless.

the idea behind the your army needs to campaign is that every weakness can be turned into a positive for example the snowflakes compassion could prove useful a binge game a strife could make all the difference phones on base would have great focus while familiar is the self bully this is how the u.k. defense ministry explained its move to. the new campaign is the third execution of the this is belonging series showing how the army finds potential beyond gender and millennial stereotypes and identifying the essential skills needed in new army recruits such as compassion self belief and focus well we went out on the streets of london to find out what people think about the army's new recruitment efforts but i think you appeal to younger generation i think they're all offensive like that people feel like a different message thirty five connotation put in the military in a bit of a strange light this would be quite rude to make any sense. because the difference

on these it doesn't actually mean anything to do so believe that it's appealing to the same sorts of people as the people who ways of thought about the army being for them. for details on a program started out calling this just a click away i'll be back if eighty minutes with more updates be that. you will be and that is your last yes does do you know that was what gave us the

people most of us are not all what i mean. i mean if there was one other. thing. really a lot to get me from him he can see he has nothing to do but if. you're in a couple whether you get. on with him or with the baby when was the number one most most and even many balls up in the phone while. i was at defense.

and then at any moment. what about. the battle of. how do. you. feel like you hello my name's pizza and i've been living in a bush now for about seven years and this is a film about just some of the crazy things i've got soaked through in the time. the stimulus bullshit who will be the first one you will full scale before good boy you

will see me if you believe that. you wouldn't believe it but this beside the area a place called should make you feel you might expect to see some maybe a minor it would definitely help people seeing in this case thank you as you wake up a good deal but look at each of them look good what you're going to make. sure you get those good professed every spring and thousands of people fill kids a speedo mounts in your mouth. so when just behind the star ok yeah. well. it's almost impossible.