to exert force and topple your religion with government should be none of this. is you know. we shall be your he said missiles that lost souls of. you long to duty you would have got to. give notice of this we are ready to join all of those responsible and sensible states to apply the necessary efforts to help the people of a new swell or to start a dialogue and held firm continue to be guided by the interests of their own country. minister. mr john. thank you. so.

ok we're just listening now to the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov he is in algeria at the moment speaking with his counterpart but he did say some very strong words there on events in venezuela claiming that some of the international community is blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of venezuela he said that backing the opposition there in venezuela is effectively creating a very dangerous situation in the country and years the international community to try and encourage national dialogue within venezuela venezuela to sort out the political problems and not try and topple the existing president through violence and that's what was said there very strong words from a circular for of on venezuela. now let's turn to another big story this hour an r.t. it is breaking news because scotland's former first minister alex salmond has been charged and is expected to appear in court later on thursday so let's go to party

boyko he's in the u.k. for us polly what more do we know then about this case and the situation so far. well look alex salmond he's the former first minister of scotland he was in that post from two thousand and seven to two thousand and fourteen and he was of course the figurehead of the scottish independence campaign and he also happens to be a host of his own show here on r.t. now it appears that he has been arrested and charged by police in scotland they have confirmed this they've said that he is expected in court later on today he's currently in a hotel and we're not sure about the charges that he may or may not face later on we've got to be careful about what we we report so as not to influence the legal proceedings in terms of what happened it appears that alex salmond went to the police in scotland to provide

a statement himself and it was while he was providing that statement that news came that he had been arrested now this all comes off the back of a civil lawsuit that alec summons ones recently against the scottish government after it mishandled claims or complaints of sexual misconduct against him relating to when he was first minister of scotland these allegations first came to light last august but they relate back to the year two thousand and thirteen so alex salmond has always denied any allegations against him and any accusations of criminality. ok thank you for the latest on exams remind you is due in court or later today thank you. the u.s. president is not ruling out possible military action over the political crisis in venezuela would use hearing from the russian foreign minister or matic

a few minutes ago donald trump has recognized the opposition leader one point zero is the country's interim president but venezuela's elected president nicolas maduro says it is an attempt to. the citizens of venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the elect just submit to your regime today i have officially recognized the president of the venezuelan national assembly quite go as the interim president of venezuela i have decided to break diplomatic and political ties with the imperialist government of the united states i will sign a diplomatic use giving all diplomatic personnel of the united states and venezuela seventy two hours to leave the country. for without pay should be anything but all options are on the table is that the considering which is all options all this all

options are. the protesters in venezuela have decided to take things a little bit further sort of just blasting the president with violence and rioting they decided to declare themselves to be the government but oppositionist and leader of the national assembly has declared himself to be the interim president. before almighty god and with respect to my call what's in the national assembly i swear to formally assume the powers of the national executive and the role of president of the. what about the people and opposition it was not one any election and there's clearly not a consensus among the people on any of these issues now at this point it's starting

to look like a civil war is a real possibility it's been preceded this attempt by the united states by several years of economic sanctions and by so. militarily small groups of national guard or army individuals inside of the venezuelan government to try to assassinate president mahmoud it was elected twice there were other opposition parties that were allowed to run some chose not to and there are contending forces in the country it's a polarized situation and the hemisphere seems pretty divided when it comes to venezuela this point brazil peru she lay and canada are lining up behind trump in recognizing wedo symbolic ceremony however mexico europe way nicaragua and bolivia are still recognising me as the president now marco rubio the cuban american

senator brought up in the exile communities of miami is also beating his chest for the overthrow of bowl of varian socialism yes the usa is singing a song of democracy when it comes to venezuela but it's starting to look like they're marching the country toward civil war and r.t. new york. protests have also been held outside of venezuela and there were celebrations too when a number of latin american nations recognized as interim president well the french president is one of the european leaders who's expressed support for one point. after the election of nicolas maduro in my twenty team europe support of the restoration of democracy i salute the courage of the hundreds of thousands something musical months who are marching for their freedom my comments that you sound a bit similar to ones made by you to me about france recently to which he took serious objection. all of this you know i mean i side with the millions of frenchmen who

are complaining about a president who is harming the french people since i condemn any acts of hooliganism and violence without exceptions in this whole body later matter salvini also expressed his hope that the french people would free themselves from their president and that prompted a strong reaction from french officials. almost support for for me this remarks were a certain questions to the healthy telling people do they contribute to the well being of the telling people what should be the preoccupation of the italian government and john believes you know do they change anything in the french political situation i don't believe so either so i think these are useless remarks and i want to say more about them as of course the on friendly. while some including the you have backed the opposition led national assembly in venezuela on call for fresh elections others are against any meddling in venezuela's internal affairs the e.u. strongly calls for the start of an immediate political process leading to free and

credible elections in conformity with the constitutional order the e.u. fully supports the national assembly as the democratically elected institution whose powers need to be restored and respected i hope that all of europe will unite in support of democratic forces in venezuela and like madura the problem mentor assembly including the one word or have a democratic mandate from them as well and citizens china always maintains the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries opposing external intervention in venezuela on the mastic affairs and calling on the international community to create better conditions the attempt to use the government in venezuela violates international law the kremlin is very concerned about certain statements suggesting third party meddling in venezuela it's unacceptable you watching r.t. we're going to take a quick break now we'll be back here with morning as intimidates.

what holds a change to do something to. put themselves on the law. to get accepted or rejected . so when you want to express. something want to be. captured right to be close that's what the fuck are you the more people get.

interested falls in the waters of our. first six. welcome back now microsoft has announced its new browser will have an inbuilt app for assessing the reliability of media outlets however the app in question called news god has been criticized by some journalists trying to takes a closer look now it may stand to benefit from the new feature. for a seed with caution just a regular sign of a blind corner an overhead crane area wild animals crossing and news you should be careful with while reading proceed with caution this website general

it fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability there you have it we've already told you about news guard an online tool masterminded by folks like the former head of the cia that flags good news websites is green and those it sees as dodgy ones as read it's been up to you if you want to install the plug in or not unless you're a user of the microsoft edge web browser from now on the features built into the app at least you can switch it off after launch in the u.s. news garant will expand to serve the billions of people globally to get news online so perhaps a little contract with microsoft could be one of the first steps of that expansion readers of any of that red colored carousel caution please by the way this is what we've heard from one of the u.k.'s most read outlands rated one out of five for

credibility. we have in the very recently become the last a nice constant and are in discussions with them to have disagree just me raney's classification resolved as soon as possible with these guys most or all the criteria is fine grain like you're good to go oh bus speeds there in the green zone too because perhaps it never spins out anything unconfirmed or unreliable even the teen green bench in the u.k. has realized something sprog badly wrong here but once i remind you who's behind news guard things will start to make sense i mean do you really expect the brainchild of a board of advisors that's comprised of all kinds of former american security and foreign affairs officials to flag weiqi leaks anything but read anyway nothing to worry about since the golden or sorry green standards of journalism are sacred for

these people i'm not against propaganda every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and i don't necessarily think it's that awful i'm speaking of standards and accountability one of news guards investors has chosen not to do anything about its contract with saudi arabia they don't have a problem taking care of saudi officials p.r. even after the shameless murder of journalist jamal khashoggi anyway microsoft ok with these people being in charge of which color goes where as long as the tech giants get to avoid more awkward questions like why aren't you dealing with all that fake news they can blame us and we're happy to be blamed on like the platform's we're happy to be accountable everyone chooses their own way to proceed with caution and on free will create political commentator notes or write if in the new york observer told us the new microsoft two could be exploited. well i think we

all have a battle to prevent fate gives i mean you look through the newspapers talking about brags it's in the past couple of weeks and it's absolute crazy some of the things they've come out with so i think we all have a duty to try to prevent that fake news from getting out there but look you know there is also an issue with it being used against minority outlets i think it's important for every customer to read the terms and conditions of any of these if these systems to understand where they're happy with them what may be what may be acceptable from one person's point of view is or the exceptional from another and i think this is an issue that we need to address. but we're going to go back to our top story now to get some reaction on the ongoing political crisis in venezuela joining us is a political scientist joseph chang and joseph you very welcome thanks for your time this afternoon just to recap for people who are just tuning in venezuela in a state of political crisis president mature a is the elected leader there but much

of the international community has said that the opposition leader should be the interim leader and it's caused much consternation to put it mildly what's your view on this we heard the russian foreign minister speak just a few minutes ago saying it's wrong and it is blame to interference in somebody else's political affairs well. it is obvious the a domestic quite thin been in. the mid durham industries and dissipated support by russia china and a number of government while the united states and its allies have indicated support for the president of the mess in the assembly one girl sold. the mess to confrontation but it seems that barring interference of pouring into has a limited in the country much depends at this stage on the political stance of the military and the police who have to some effect find some division within the

military and the police at the state but the city streets and certainly is very very. it's getting worse too i mean just listening to sergei lavrov he said that simply by recognizing a second leader in a country that's very destabilizing in itself what point do you think the situation could worsen dramatically mentioned the military there what point to how could they be persuaded to support do you think the opposition leader at this stage. it appears that the opposition proper has may be able to continue for some time and hold it means that the military and the police supporting the material and illustration will be under. pressure so it all depends on how long the process will continue and whether the military and the police will.

will withdraw support from the material government or become much more key by the at that point to make you an illustration we're not able to continue. what are your thoughts on the obvious hypocrisy here you have you have america he's claiming that russia has interfered in its elections and then it blatantly says we don't recognize an elected leader in another country. well. when these two worlds it's a very important country in latin america and at the same time the united states albeit the what light can see that more and more countries within that in america solve a western. position process and a left wing position. he said at this stage many conservative governments on the. upper hand in the continent because quite

a number of left wing governments in the sunken them have not been able to listen to them if you canonically i think this is to some extent polls soaring on the part of the united states mars and within. minutes will swallow remains limited and as i was saying the crucial issue will be whether the protest movement will continue and what the military and the police would change with position but obviously the economy. is in better be very bad shape ok we're going to leave it there was lots to talk about obviously because it talks a lot longer but to wrap it up thank you there was just a chunk of political scientist. either parliamentary assembly of the council of europe has condemned the use of shari'a law in europe questions whether the traditionalism code is in step with basic human rights. certain cherry our

rules are clearly incompatible with the european convention on human rights we've been our second or first class citizens rape has to be proven by at least four male muslim witnesses violence mistreatment discrimination against women abandoning islam is punished by death i think it's fully unacceptable when human rights are concerned there should be no room for cultural or religious exception the resolution adopted at that session states that she really law goes against the right to life the right to fair trial and also the freedom of expression and other human rights we heard from the political commentator about this from david vance and also hamish you think he's from the ramadan foundation. we need to do something about it it's not good enough for the u.k. to just acknowledge these criticisms of what happened here in the u.k. and high for example example many muslim women are treated so deplorably by these

court we need to take action and not basically from my point of view means we have to shari'a courts the idea that this sort of things that we see from the council of europe we see it from the far right groups across europe we see it from the likes of tommy robin said we see it from ukip we see it from david violence somehow that they are champions champions of muslim women of the right of muslims to practice their faith they just go one agenda which is to demonize the whole community country what we are to what we've just heard from mohammed it's not extreme right or passing this it's a broad spectrum of european opinion stating that essentially shari'a law is incompatible to meto large degree with the laws that we have we are governed by one more that is the united kingdom. but actually in terms of inheritance in terms of marriage in terms of other aspects if there are muslims. i want to use their faith

to you know determine what the result is in terms of their personal lives and that's through choice then that should be available to them there is no place in any regard for sharia courts in the u.k. as mohammad just said we've got the british law we should all all of us all faiths or no fears be equal on the british law just a correction there are no shari'a courts in this country there surely are councils which are somewhat different i think that's a really important distinction to be hard david and i don't know the people on the far right were always people on the farm much more support this narrative. about equality david scott of well long record of targeting just muslims if you look at his twitter feed if you look at his record in the last ten fifteen years he deliberately inflames is situation to against muslims according to the council of europe according to the house of lords shari'a. councils are incompatible with

basic the basic rights of people that's what they have said not my words their words so was everybody out of step what muhammad who are these people in the council europe who are those elected i'm sorry if you come from portland and if you come from hungary and you come from eastern european countries where you where you have put islamophobia i discrimination against muslims then clearly the agenda of the far right has become mainstream in our society it's. like you had here earlier now russian athletes are suing the your for the damning twenty sixteen report on alleged state sponsored for four point five million dollars that are to the swiss supreme court cleared the ping they have been banned from taking part in the twenty eighteen m.p. games and also stripped of the medals over dating allegations let's get more details here with r.t. election he's in the studio alexey tell us more than about the lawsuit and what are the chances of them succeeding. so many of us remember the so-called mclaren report

orchestrated and investigated by mr mclaren from canada the lead investigator of the world anti-doping agency essentially that report put rush into wilderness accused russia of state sponsored doping system and a lot of athletes were barred from twenty sixteen games in rio and twenty. because of that report now this report had some consistencies in it but secondly the twenty eight athletes which were later. you know reinstated all the doping allegations although they were named in that report they were cleared of those doping allegations among all these athletes on the report there were five members of the russian rowing team which were barred from the twenty sixteen games in rio now the federation of rowing of russia officially filed a lawsuit against richard mcclaren they actually brought the documents to his door and posted a video online of bringing those documents to mclaren that is something that the

canadian legislation entails the people to do the lawsuit itself was filed back in july but now they had to bring it in in person which they did so now we expect the lawsuit to proceed in the next thirty days richard mclaren has thirty days to respond to this lawsuit just to remind i mention the twenty eight athletes who were cleared of these doping allegations despite being named on the report back in the days we spoke to them that was last year and they had this to say about the about this event. is a little more. has contributed . to your.

just reason. of that is to keep. trying. to warn you. to be pushing news of the opinion leadership in your with the cd it would be a good. thing if you did that. just want to add that one of the members of the rowing team russia's rowing team actually won the appeal against the doping allegations despite being named on the

mclaren report and it's the first official case that a federation rowing federation has you would mr mclaren for defamation as they believe and if the case goes through they might be waiting four point five million dollars of compensation as an aside to this we have the world anti-doping agency that way and just recently it decided not to further suspend the russian anti-doping agency i for a long saga about access to the boat free moscow that decision didn't go down too well with everybody they did it yes and the usual suspects have been criticizing that decision indeed some members of the media were saying that russia should be banned again that it should be allowed back into sport and you know it begs for a question like you guys want clean sport in russia but at the same time you don't want the agency which is supposed to clean up the sport too to operate which is which is we had but there was there's one person who went even further now we're talking about she is the minister of children and equality in norway now you may ask yourself what the children. and equality have to do with doping she also

happens to be the vice president of the world anti-doping agency and the only person on the board of water to vote against a restart is reinstated back in september and this week as well now she said that russia needs to compensate all the expenses that water has suffered over the months investigating russia's laborde stories and trying to see where the restart is worthy of reinstatement that is despite russia has been playing around a million dollars annually to the waters budget that is despite russia's speed fifteen million dollars fine to the international olympic committee based on the mclaren report based on the state sponsored system doping allegations she wants more money despite all that she's not saying a concrete figure but the norwegian press is speculating that could be tens of millions of dollars but as far as we understand miss helen has not yet filed an official lawsuit and we'll see whether she does ok story that's not going away is it thanks. thank you for watching to you with our always good to have you company

we're back again the top here. actually as a natural survival. lesson learned. let's say i'm a strike at least some grease some banks have to fight. thank you thank. you and sorry that's true. slavery. greetings and sal you taishan see the world economic forum in davos is upon

us hawke watchers and this year the world's moneyed elite thought leaders and business banking and global politics were shaking in their louis baton when winning tips who were they shaking was it was it the threat of another a bowl outbreak in africa climate change melting the arctic a possible world war three between the us russia iran israel syria saudi arabia and any other nations currently at odds with each other well no no none of these things got them shaken in their wind wingtips no my friends what had the white gold albino sturgeon caviar turning sour in davos this year was the democratic brushwood representative out of new york alexander ocasio cortez's proposal of a seventy percent tax rate on the super rich here in the united states of america yes clearly the world is now doomed because we.