the international paralympic committee says it will conditionally reinstate russia twenty nine months also the country was. a state sponsor of don't think. through march to great numbers to washington even go to the white house to deliver

more than ten million signatures asking for a spectacle. stepping up the pressure of the united states rules on the possibility of talks with venezuela is impossible socialist government and revoke the visas of some of president must do as officials. and becomes the latest fashion giant under pressure over racism claims off the releases that many say resembles black face we get reaction to that. what they feel is actually we can use it as a marketing strategy will apologize doesn't matter if we have people's feelings it doesn't matter if it's racist if it was a white t. shirt with a black person i would certainly be ridiculing me for being white. it's fun watching all to international live from

a studio with me. welcome to the program. the international paralympic committee has announced it will reinstate russia's membership more than two years after the country has banned over widespread doping it says though that the lifting comes with certain conditions. only conditionally lifting the r.p.c. substantially by no later than fifteen march the i.p.c. will publish. criteria identifying the core high level requirements that the r.p.c. must continue to meet to month in its conditional ring statement of membership of the a.p.c. . my colleagues discuss the recent announcement by the international paralympic committee and the lengthy ballot self. well i suspect that there's more there yet to say terms of what conditions must be maintained and fulfilled for the full time reinstatement the current reinstatement is conditional they promise to publish it by march fifteenth as we've just heard the most important thing voiced in germany

today by the i.p.c.c. was that in twenty twenty in tokyo and in twenty twenty two in beijing during the next two lympics the russian paralympians will be able to go out and represent the country a russian flag and twenty sixteen they missed it completely in rio in twenty. they went as athletes representing russia are essentially not under the country's flag right now it looks like they have a chance to finally compete under the country's flag which is the most important of so many athletes who you know suffer the consequences of the doping scandal and it is of course a recognition of the work that's been done even though there are those conditions there's a recognition that progress has been made in those two years along two years take us back to how all this began it began obviously with the so-called mclaren report published by the world anti-doping agency twenty fifteen the allegations of state sponsored doping system in russia obviously a lot of federations were banned the russian paralympic committee was among those

federations i do remember distinctly that press conference where the previous head of the i.p.c. philip craven was rolled into a wheelchair on the podium and said that the entire russian paralympic team will not be going to the real games and twenty sixteen a lot of who are back then because in the in the case of the paralympic team there was no proof of systematic doping system there i mean these people have suffered enough already and there was a lot of outcry about not letting them go to those games in any case now we have this conditional restatement which is the first major reinstatement of the russian sports body. of the russian anti-doping agency was reinstated early last year twenty nine months is a long time. and for any athlete to be out of international competition russia paralympians of already has two big. although the big face going to tokyo next summer what toll has this taken on them well we remember interviewing several of

those paralympians when the whole scandal happened they were obviously in tears nothing can rectify the fact that they missed out on the twenty sixteen games in entirely and we're talking about champions like. a swimmer or. wrestler they've won so many medals and yet they missed out on the chance to go to rio nevertheless in twenty two when they went to be on chang as athletes representing russia not russia per say they want twenty eight medals which was the second highest result in the entire games now all that is gone they will be able to compete under the russian flag but most importantly today's move represents a major step for clean sport as many have already noted and the russian paralympic committee has done a lot over these years sixty nine conditions they fulfilled as far as i know that's a lot to to have that conditional reinstatement now if you go to the website of the russian paralympic committee you can see a tab which says report doping that's something that hadn't existed before the

scandal so let's just hope that moving forward everything will be clean the athletes will be able to represent their country finally and we can only be happy for them. the venezuelan president. continued to resist america's calls to resign and it's not just a petition demanding washington stop meddling in his country's affairs. will march in great numbers to washington we will even go to the white house to deliver more than ten million signatures asking for respect. and demanding peace i just signed it. should be respected. in the last scene one thousand staines is continuing to dial up the pressure on venezuela's crisis stricken government washington's revoke the visas of numerous officials working for a president who is a ministration american special envoy for venezuela has also repeated calls for the international community to deal with the opposition instead instead of trying to

accommodate the group through come to groups for dialogue we urge countries to recognize one going to always interim president and join us in time for dialogue with the group as long. don't fall into a trap the guru has said many times before where there's a fully dialogue rather than a strong message to him it's time to go now why joe is claiming that he has met with european officials and as we know the united states is very much on his side the united states has said that all options are on the table regarding their support for and they wish for ousting we've also seen countries like russia and china have it in fact and said that he should stay as the president and so on top of that now the united states is claiming that they are not able to get humanitarian aid into venice and venezuela has also made because they found some

cargo that included weapons and ammunition that were made in the usa so there's a lot of different statements going on here but at the end of the day we really have to ask the question about what the people in caracas are actually believe and are actually seeing the u.s. special envoy for venezuela also suggested the president to go into exile to allow for a smooth transition to democracy political analyst tells us washington's actions amount to a brazen the attempt. what we're seeing from abrams is just shameless deplorable on behalf of us interventionism you with imperialism that i mean there's really no debate here it's immoral it's illegal and the u.s. government in the trumpet ministration is using including humanitarianism humanitarian intervention in spreading democracy. but you don't have to be

a left socialist to understand what you know what us empire is doing here we saw how we thought they spread democracy forty five years ago to chile to iraq to afghanistan to panama to grenada the list goes on the venezuelan people have the right to determine their own power will it be they have the right to make their own mistakes. the us secretary of state claims the crisis in venezuela has links to iran and. that terrible bank has been occurring considered a terrorist organization by washington. people recognize that as well as active cells the iranians are impacting the people of venezuela and throughout south america we have an obligation to take down that rest for america and all across the globe political analyst chris bambery says it has been there were present in venezuela it would be extremely obvious and would already know about it. the evidence would presumably be very easy to get because if his ball were to come to venezuela they would have to fly from beirut to damascus and have to take shit from

beirut or not of course and of course that area is under constant surveillance by the americans and others who would immediately notice this the idea of his ball which is it's not a government or sort of state would be sending large numbers of trained fighters to venezuela is preposterous i mean if they knew it they would have been have this really headline news if you had any evidence of this iran hasn't got a history of intervention outside its borders particular despite i was painting again any flight from tehran which arrived in caracas food soldiers or deliver a nuclear missile was going without the americans if they have the evidence should be pumping that out center so i take all this with an immense spencer pinch of salt . there's been a fresh development in the script. reports and in britain security services have identified five suspects in the attack on

a former russian double agent and his daughter in laws last year. has the details according to several reports circulating in the u.k. press this morning u.k. authorities are now looking at five possible suspects in this poisoning saga we are waiting for more details on that to be revealed that has yet to come we have contacted scotland yard who have told us that they don't really have any news to share and that they are continuing to pursue several lines of inquiry now at the same time we're seeing u.k. based opensource investigative team belling cat announcing that they have according to them conclusively identified the third suspect in this poisoning case if you remember previously they said that according to them the names of the first two suspects are to give their dental five those too man. g.r.u. officers now they're saying that this third suspect is

a forty five year old sergei fit daughter of a who according to bell in cat is a senior g.r.u. officer of the link that are saying that all of these three men had their covers created at the same in the same year back in twenty ten and according to them this third suspect is linked to a case in twenty fifteen and bowl garia where a businessman fell sick and was taken to hospital or with a son and his executive and the story very never led to nor the chalk and the substance use on him was not really identified but barely cat is now linking those together and we have heard from the kremlin spokesperson say that it's not really clear where this connection comes from and what this revelation is based off of. we can get some insight now from author and russia analyst martin mccauley martin

thanks for coming on to the program now there were lots of question marks hanging over a lot of the claims first time around in this republican race as it proved hard to find not definitive information what can we suspect to expect this time is there anything concrete that we can. have more insight into what's happened. i think is an ongoing saga because after the i did it to. you officer last year there were rumors there were two more involved now we hear this five three more this one's an ongoing saga and it's quite interesting that they're linking these offices to bulgaria because one thinks back in the soviet era when yogi market would murdered and he was a bulgarian and therefore in the in the british mind when you. think about bulgaria you think of sergei mark of who murdered in london. with an umbrella

poisoned with a number and therefore the the average briton reading that was thinking about that yes that makes sense because market was murdered in london and that went back to the k.g.b. in moscow so therefore it is probable now that there was some link to this group alt case in other words it's it's conspiracy and people love conspiracies and all those conspiracy causes points a finger at moscow all the time and it's no accident that it's become a present because. the united states is leaving the i have treaty and therefore russians be used of a whole variety of things of in fact violating the i don't have treaty that's bad news for moscow this is more bad news for moscow and because we've got breakfast in britain and perhaps authorities thought there's an interesting time to bring this

item up with the president because they're not going to give any definitive information because they would then be revealing their sources but why not bring it up at present because let's divert some attention away from bricks and rotten in this case though it's being in the spotlight for some time now considering the land of the depth of the initial investigation and all the controversy that that entails into the salisbury attack why hasn't this information amassed before do you think. i think it's an ongoing one because from the security services point of view they think in the long term. they will they will look into this case and they will investigate it because they haven't really dealt a fight everything that they need to identify they made accusations with and so on . which are really impossible to to prove and you can't go back and find the

the the of officer or the government official of the government minister or even the president who gave the order so therefore you keep looking and trying to find more information so you build up a network of contacts and people giving giving orders and in this way you keep this a big lie because in the public public's imagination this is a huge story and it's still going on and script polish still not world and he hasn't been released and songs we still so therefore in the public eye this story has to live will continue to build i would do a lot of damage to anger russian relations as it continues for from securities point of view security services point of view they will continue this because they're looking and finally if they can find more contacts if they can link these offices to other attacks in other countries then the bill builds up a network of information which they can use present and hopefully in the future ok

author in russia alison also mccauley thanks very much for coming on to the program thank you thank you a deal between two piles this could signal a final green light for the north seem to pipeline project only to live to paris for more on that after this break. sure seems wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me. yet to shape out just days after. and in detroit because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

when you look back truth case solved problems between. the last kovi i left you to me it's clear that this treaty is coming to an end. because of the lack of interest of both sides all for washington. welcome back to the program italian luxury fashion brand has found itself embroiled in controversy over this polo neck sweater quite a few people were quick to point out that the eight hundred ninety dollars garment resembles a person wearing blackface. balaklava knit top by gucci happy black history

month your i want to hear from the brains behind this design and from the people who approved it for production this is raw you need a diverse workforce for a company of your stature it's really shocking it has since apologized and removed the pollen next writer from its website saying the item will be withdrawn from stores too the company also issued a statement stressing its commitment to diversity. gucci isn't the only big name italian brand to be called out recently with claims of racism in december prada with drew a line of monkey key chains after consumers complained they resembled racist caricatures of black people we got the thoughts of political commentator andrew walker and body confidence advocate joanne morales. i think the fact that it was released during black history month in america shows that it's very intentional toward something i mean this isn't the first major brand to do something so silly

so i think they didn't learn from prada what they thought actually we can use that as a marketing strategy will apologize it doesn't matter if we have people speeding it doesn't matter if it's racist and i think that they they planned every step of the way completely well you would have received the backlash if you'd have had the idea that this looked like a black person which of course it did not just explodes those your viewers who haven't seen it it's effectively a black turtleneck that goes up just to around here and then an opening for your mouth it doesn't look like a black person i've ever see the my life i cannot see any connection firstly with black history month as we were just talking about a second but also ridicule of black people in the only way you can say it's not something that would offend someone because we're not the people that have been offended in history with something so similar it doesn't look like blackface again from the minstrel show it's a huge resemblance and with prada getting it so wrong and causing such backlash why would you then bring our product out so similar i mean firstly can i just point out

that not before me that black people are not black in the same way that white people like me are not fully white if that was a white t. shirt that a black person would have were i would say it was ridiculing me for being white i mean what is that racist look the problem here. is that we are in the international jihad in a great sense of genuine problems of discrimination a dog about. just reopened if we had suffered to make ricin back in back in history back in history how how black people did we would also be offended we can't stand here and say that's not offensive when your when you're not the one suffering from it is actually in fact black people that find it offensive and they have every right to feel of any if they were the ones that suffered racism they were the ones that went for the ok ok ok how many people are offended by this world loosely. rage was just a few members of what i call the racism industry people whose job it is to be affected by this so they could talk about it a living off of the professional deeds race is an industry that surprised us not

real people let me ask you a question do you think if there was a black person in the production team in the management team in the marketing team they would have said yeah no that's fine go ahead of it especially after what happened with prada did you see what happened with product do you agree with product and let me ask you another question why didn't it bring out in every other color why black with red lips was newborn i don't know why i'm not white and pink why black and white why black or red why better we're going to red and pink one orange why do these garments always block because the most ubiquitous color the most popular calder's for garments a black or white why are people offended well actually in truth i think you've offered no evidence to suggest that most people are fed i think very few people are offended but i think the racism industry of course are going to say that if i did it in reality it's a church will make you pull over your face there happens to come in black goodness me it's a ghetto elias turtleneck so black face. france and

germany have reached a compromise on the joint russian german gas pipeline project nor trying to solve the reports that paris was ready to derail it well let's go more details now from our reporter shot into penske in paris to charlotte does this mean the project is back on course to meet its late twenty nine team deadline. where there is a suggestion the project could be slightly delayed as a result of this agreement but it does mean that it will still go ahead that soft france it said on thursday that it was actually going to back an e.u. directive that could have completely east coupled this project it said that it was concerned that russia would become the country that. europe depended on too much for its energy project because this mood seemed to project essentially pipe gas directly from russia roy the way through germany across the baltic sea unglue

merkel had said on thursday the us absolutely not the case. came in and i think it would become dependent on russia because of this second gas pipeline i'd say no not if we diversify at the same time germany will expand its guess terminology for liquefied gas this means that under no circumstances do we want to become dependent solely on russia but russia was already a source of gas in the cold war and will remain one with i'll toss fallen into onesided dependency. well this is no the first time that the multi-billion euro project has come under attack but it's been and they were talking mainly from the united states with the united states suggesting that one point that german companies who continued with the construction could actually be forced common the sanctions there was also on thursday a new resolution by senators in the united states from both the democratic and

republican parties who were looking again to cool for the cancellation of this project and even more pressure on european countries to vote against this project with the ambassadors from the u.s. to germany to denmark and to the european union all trying to pressurize those countries to say no we do not want this project why is the u.s. being so particularly against the move stream to project going ahead well that's because they're afraid that their ability to sell liquefied gas to europe could draw up as a result of this particular pipeline it seems for the moment though that the pipeline will go ahead we are expecting that construction to continue not quite going to be open in the next eighteen months. so for the moment it seems the north stream to project gets the usa and france zero ok thank you.

dubinsky they're reporting from paris that's. a former executive editor at the new york times has been accused of plagiarizing material for her new book merchants of truth an inside look at interference in media is being pulled apart by journalists they say is strained with factual errors and stubborn passages.

milling about in front of the wall by have been and taking issue with the get same

scene now and why is that i think they don't like the portrayal of i saw that i think it's a very balanced portrait. it's hard for me to sympathize for the new york times they saying that they are some journalists you know i come on and i don't view them that way and there is just another example of it where one of their key people engaged in very blatant plagiarism just lifted passages from other people's work without giving it credit and now they pretend that somehow that was an accident when in fact it was very clearly intentional i think it's very hard to attack the new york times directly. in oh the new york times is

a very tough institution and if you run afoul of it in al your journalistic integrity is called into question and so i think that's probably why advice has focused more on the plagiarism than on the merits of the argument. for this hour i'll be back around thirty minutes with the first it's so forth ok.

with lawmakers manufacture consent to the public wealth. when the ruling classes project themselves. with the famous merry go round of lives only the one percent. nor middle of the room six. donald trump second state of the union address was conspicuously light when it came to foreign policy why is this was his aim to avoid disappointing his base while at the same time wishing not to spar with the deep state what are these mixed signals all about is an elaborate strategy for an indication of indecisive.