this is what makes facebook a surveillance monster show facebook does not have users facebook has used its people their facebook users. huge fire breaks out of one of the world's most iconic cathedrals the knocked down in paris leading to the mediæval spire collapsing in flames. in other news with julian assad is now in jail for it and please hold a media conference outside to show their support for a man they see as a hero we'll take a look at the media's shock you to over the whistleblower. as human rights organizations are crying foul after a palestinian activist is denied entry to the u.s. we spoke to omar barghouti about his experience. with the u.s. administration has been mobilized now to do israel's bidding trying to silence

palestinian and international human rights defenders. of the belgian government center for cyber security that's the belgian government center for cyber security fails to find evidence of any threat from wall way spot the chinese. moscow great to have you with us this is r.t. international. four hundred firefighters have been battling a massive fire that's engulfed paris's iconic not a dam cathedral the building is massive spire has already collapsed in the flames as emmanuel micron declared the place a national tragedy covering events in the french capital for us our correspondent who's been there throughout the evening and it seems charlotte as horrific as this evening has been perhaps things are improving ever so slightly with a firefighting officials told reuters that the cathedral may have been saved from

total destruction so perhaps that they are trying they are actually getting on top of this fire now it seems. in fact we just heard that news are coming. there was a round of pools rapturous applause from the hundreds if not thousands of people who've spent the entire evening here watching what's happening not dumb news coming through that it looks like that they have been able to secure the structure we know the firefighters have been working throughout the evening trying to dampen down those flames we even heard that they had decided not to use aerial water boughs is because they wanted to ensure that that frame didn't collapse and it looks like those reports coming through now that they have been able to secure that so some incredible news that it's definitely given people here some good cheer in fact we've had people singing throughout the evening trying to keep their spirits up as

they've been watching this fire unfold a jewel in the crown of not just paris but in ruled heritage went up in flames we know that the twelfth century spire collapsed about an hour ago that is now irretrievable it seems and the damage inside but we still don't know what that damage is inside because when the fire is finally put out then we will see what's happening they will start to assess that damage i do want to tell you a couple things that have also been happening tonight when news of this fire not spread out the church bells at certain churches across the city rang there bells in solidarity to show that they will all thinking or not to our lady as it is in english now we also know that there's some other good news it's been coming through and this is what we saw earlier which looked like the firefighters they were up

with their lamps in two bell towers those iconic bell towers of not to the dam looking for anything that could be saved through industry and that a number of works of art have been rescued from this fire they are not damaged that's. good news in terms of the heritage to try and preserve that for not to dump and we also understand that the crown of thorns this was probably one of the most iconic and important relics that was contained in not to put on that has also been rescued that is a relic that dates back to at least the fourth century although catholics believe that it was actually the crown of thrones that cheeses a war just before his crucifixion so an incredibly important relic to the catholic church here in france and it's considered indeed to be paris's own the crown jewels of that crown of thorns as well as many works of art and of the relics have been

saved by those firefighters who have been working tirelessly throughout the evening some reaction is well we've had an outpouring of sympathy from across the world world leaders saying that they're thinking of paris tonight thinking of not to the dom the people here describing it as being an utter tragedy we also know that president mccall who is here tonight he came and described this as being a national tragedy president he was actually due to address the nation tonight to talk about what he would do in regards to the bat that's been going on in france for the last few months to try and stem the protests that we've seen on a weekly basis from the l a vest he was here he counseled that television address because not to don cathedral is deemed to be so important and iconic building of a hundred and fifty eight hundred and fifty years old that was undergoing reconstruction

at the moment restoration work that had been going on some of pointed and wondered if possibly that restoration work could have been the start of this blaze but we don't know yet we don't know what caused the. it we've also been hearing from some other politicians forswear feel you may remember him he was a presidential candidate back in two thousand and seventeen and he said in a tweet he said paris in t is we love it so much we will rebuild and that's the view of many people is no matter what damage has been done to not to the dam people want to rebuild it because this cathedral it's not just the building it's the heart of paris it was built all those years ago to represent paris being the economic the political and the cultural a heartbeat of france and it remains just that twelve million people visit it every year it's the most visited site in paris possibly one of the most visited sites

across the world but what we do know is that restoration work that was underway to try and stop it crumbling unfortunately hasn't done anything to stop this majestic crown jewel of france this french gothic architecture and architecture superbly example going up in ashes tonight but that good news coming through in very much welcomed by the people here that it looks like the construction itself has been saved as well as a number of works of art and important relics all have been rescued from the grips of that fire. listening to artist correspondent in paris charlotte dubious good f.a.q. charlotte. let's get some expert analysis on this story now from dr michael his seventies a vatican journalist and a historian a very good evening to. even it's very bittersweet this i mean people are trying to

take some positive certainly the crowds who gather there in paris they're cheering at the news that come through from officials that you know the structure may have been saved but it seems that the damage must be so extensive and you'll be looking at this through particular eyes as a historian how to mystic and how upset tell you by what's transpired. i'm completely completely shocked because this is not just one church but it is after a peters and the vatican and the second most important symbol of christian europe so it is like all the christian europe being in fire they have the most famous most important graphic to freedom of all it's symbol for an era a symbol for a nation christian france which was called the most beloved daughter of the roman church we have the treasury of one of the most important religious of christianity

the crown of phones and scarves this really cost saying this important really good received one king louis the name from the lectern emperor of constantinople in twelve hundred thirty nine after because sailors and conquered the city and it was stolen from constantinople it were stolen from the byzantine orthodox church and it was a symbol of free it divine protection for the kingdom of found some hooking up france also during the french revolution it was a scene of however mockery of the christian religion when the cult of reason was established and the prostitute of paris plus to do it was but was venerated as the goddess of reason by me as absolution though it's not the french revolution with laws and mainly in pak rishon and evolution so so many important things in the long european history good and bad things happen around this country

to enter the scene and claims and to see it from the top when it really is like a burning cross it you know i had she has a my face when i saw it and she has a mazda ness or it on the other hand you'll see the reaction of the. especially of the islamic minority in france but they belgrade ng and. i can only be discussed in a pre-action really are i have to stand together as christians and crews that are our own entity and preserve our culture preserve our heritage and if there is one master of this horrible images was extremely sad images or could be as. a stand up and protect workers' lair of christian europe. michael we've been talking throughout the evening of about the fire in the damages caused which seems really very extensive we saw video of the spire collapsing we've heard that the entire

roof has collapsed at this point well what history taught us can this be rebuilt what would you like to see done would you like to see this and attempt to reconstruct it would you like to see it maybe made a new version. well first of all i'll probably bill it is extremely difficult because. it has a master p. is a three. x. and gothic stone masons which. had them if ology which is very difficult to be. understood and reconstruct it was muppet modern means still on the other hand it's a symbol of paris and i think. meet me half the mission to rebuild it as good as possible and it wouldn't be good to replace it by something new because it would mean. it would be a symbol for replacing tradition by something new with

a probably different meaning here we have a building which is the money for station of the faith and of the christian view of centuries and the favor how anxious to us and we have to preserve it my my opinion is to you know to leave a heap of will of the wounds and in the center of france. would be the wrong symbol it would be a symbol but this is the cops of christian europe and and be and of and not be enemies of our civilization but we use it as a triumph as a symbol of the triumph so my hope is about they rebuild it as close to real riginal as possible and maybe it really keeps us all to rediscover the secrets of the gothic africa and to see how our country too is bigger than our time step by step i mean at least a hundred years ago only

a hundred years ago we built the cologne cathedral that's what i was so drained by god. so i think i want to ration could learn a lot from rebuilding equity as possible after the original. i mean to a layman like myself. this is like looking at the devastation of a work of art a priceless painting if you're going to try and reconstruct that i saw one expert estimate at least ten years i mean just how long is it going to take to try and reproduce something of such calm complexity. afterwards i'm not sure if your meter will will still be alive when it read me now great that again and could be used as a church again so that still you know it's a book of maybe one or two even generations. about to be or a lion behind the mission to rebuild a symbol of christian europe isms and work something which might be healing for our

who is asia and which has already forgotten its heritage forgotten its mission has gotten its christian identity especially in france i mean you know about in the last couple of months the. attacks against christian churches. be. burned a month ago and you're in read yellow west movement and was the radical a fear stand and accuse the. if. it became active and on the other hand of course the the growing muslim population embarrassments hate symbols of christianity so i think it would be something very healing for europe if you sort of all are aligned and and help and contribute in be as great a hurry constructing what is our own pressure how our common european emma pressure how as america it's the market. as i say one of the most important buildings we

have on the european continent and one of the buildings with. the riches in history and. i don't know what the arabs of attendance are at catholic churches around around france what's been very clear is whatever religion i mean this is touch so many people it is saddened so many people maybe not regular churchgoers but they still have a very strong connection to the cathedral which they admired love in many different reasons you think this in a strange way might actually bring a lot of people together to rally behind the church. absolutely that's what i see as they might be the rebuilding is a healing process it can be what the images we see today shock for all of us and it can be a healing a prayer product shark and this ferret p. we need them to awaken to our own heritage one identity through one

mission and people recognized to be really are in fact the art and the carriers of a great tradition the christian position and your open but christianity is the greatest treasure we have and back to churches are places where you put generations and generations we ran away at the creator of the universe the created. venerated got to celebrate the feast of the church now the holy week in the middle of the holy week already and all you want the article sharks are celebrating the holy week next week but he in the lead but means awesome franz and to win it we began yesterday was palm sunday on good friday and everybody was expecting the veneration of the cost of in the ration of the crown a fall and this is something which will not happen. not in the next couple of years at least so we may be defeated but we're missing you know sometimes

when you lose a person you know how much you laugh that you recognize how much you laughed at and before it happened you know it was just something normal for you and now you suddenly recognize this is missing and you will feel the pain of missing something which must be it to you and maybe this is what we need beneath healing this power of politics shock our cream of the school day to rediscover the christian identity of europe. forgive me for being vulgar but i'm afraid the harsh reality of the situation is this is going to be an extreme is all this time consuming extremely expensive reconstruction job and the the church itself it had to put its its camp out and asked for donations had in it for these restoration works that were already taking place that are to ask for donations i noticed at a meeting of church officials there calling on the state to fund the reconstruction do you think the government will step up and do this now in this in these circumstances the government has to do or because according to

a french law our oil should just belong to the government the government has stolen all prop of these wonder drugs at the french revolution and now we have church property or government property or the state of france or the state of france responsible for financing but look i mean in an emergency situation me regularly money appears in pockets of the governments and when mrs merkel did say that to live in me and i have to carry it sadly germany had the money. don't have the money to to build apartments for our homeless but we have money for our guests from the arab world so i hope that the french government government will realize how important the us and. how ours the government of my car government which is not really a question government. mr mccollum as modern everything but being

a christian who he is very liberal and. bad still is the people in france so we need it to be wanted because of our national symbol and theirs as our national identity ukraine's government has to pay for it. we've been listening to the thoughts and expertise of vatican journalist understory and dr michael has some of michael thank you so much for your time. on today's other stories now wiki leaks co-founder julian assange is in prison now ahead of a hearing next month over possible extradition to the united states lawmakers have spoken to the media outside the jail they've been shuttle to meet with the songs in ecuadorian embassy of course in london that was until last week's arrest and has set explosives. i'm outside belmarsh prison where julian assange is being held in custody is a category a prison in south east london now earlier today members of the german bundestag and

the european parliament were in front of the prison holding a press conference per testing against a songes arrest they believe it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide for journalists. journalists he's a whistle blower and needs international protection and not the criminal criminalization we recently he gave. truth he delivered good to see provide the truth to the public about the war crimes you rock and afghanistan and therefore he should be awarded to criminalise he said most of the sins of the knights and. his accusers by subpoena as he kept being in prison for all their life and it's not fair because he only the now's the cases that corruption cases the right information to society to people in the wall now the spanish m.e.p.

and a memorandum of the times talking to area where she received an official invitation from the ecuadorian embassy to visit a songe on monday however this was of course not possible over the weekends we had there were many supporters head right outside belmarsh prison carrying banners with the phrase don't shoot the messenger and since clearly in the sanchez arrest we've seen an outcry from an international audience regarding the potential extradition to the united states if anything though this is made people more aware about the revelations of wiki leaks and about questioning people and political power but the people i spoke to earlier the chairman and pays and the spanish i mean paid well they believe some kind of this information campaign is starting against a songe and they're very concerned about the pick. extradition haring to be held on may the second. debate over whether the wiki leaks co-founder julian assange is a criminal or a journalist is continuing to heat up in the united states in fact r.t.

america's done cohen himself had a bitter exchange with some politicians is his firsthand account. well the house foreign affairs committee tweeted democrat eliot engels statement in support of julian assange just prosecutions saying he is in fact a tool of lattimer putin and the russian intelligence service know there's never been any evidence that proves let alone suggest a connection between we q leaks and the russian state or russian intelligence furthermore we can actually published embarrassing information not only about the united states and its allies but also about russia we could expose files series revealed more than two hundred documents about russian surveillance contractors so i responded with a tweet saying angle statement is an endorsement of president trump attack on press freedom and i called it absolutely reprehensible now the house foreign affairs committee came back at me tweeting quote the first amendment protects free

expression even for russian propaganda outlets like the one you work for it doesn't protect criminals who weaponized stolen information and i thought this was revealing for a number of reasons a song just charged with allegedly helping chelsea manning log in to a department of defense computer under an alternate identity computer that manning already had access to not weaponize and stolen information and that's a reference to publishing stolen or perhaps the leaked e-mails from the recent campaign to prove that the democratic primary was rigged in favor of hillary clinton and against bernie sanders it also shows what many have argued that this charge is a thin veil for in the words of a guardian op ed to punish those who expose embarrassing secrets about its actions about the united states actions and on top of that assad has not yet been

extradited if he even will let alone tried in the united states and there are two men. in the u.s. constitution talk about due process and there is a concept called innocent until proven guilty so the house foreign affairs committee has declared songe is guilty for a crime that he's not even been tried for so this i think many would argue that this really review was the true nature of his prosecution and we've seen many american politicians celebrating his arrest senator joe manchin even went as far as saying he's our property the property of the united states though a few like democratic presidential candidate told c gathered have come out in his defense as has the american civil liberties union they've also criticize songes arrest but they have been in the minority. the songes and getting that much support in the media once hailed as

a hero let's now appear largely to have turned on him betraying him as a villain i guess the looks at what's behind the fall from grace. you want to see just how radically the media you turned on a songe from champion of the press to a leper an outcast all you need to do is watch saturday night live it's comedy but boy does it hit home. thanks to wiki leaks you can see how corrupt governments operate in the shadows and then lie to those who elect them thanks to facebook you can finally figure out which sex in the city character you are i've attacked u.s. military. because i'm an actor james bond supervillain and i'm one step away from destroying the god. because reality is entirely less funny what i songes faced a tidal wave of smear really ugly stuff a little over a decade ago the us military declared war on wiki leaks drop

a plan which was actually need a plan to discredit it and terrorize whistleblowers and it looks like they're winning. wiki leaks uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders leakers and whistleblowers who pass information to wiki leaks personnel or who post information to the website that they will remain anonymous the identification exposure terminations employment criminal prosecution legal action against current or former insider is leakers or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from considering similar actions from using the wiki leaks website back then at the turn of the decade as sanj was a hero of the pundits cheered his leaks exposing bush era war crimes exposing the elites corporations politicians how they loved him for it was outstanding

journalism their words he was given on or after on or including the economist's new media award back then we get leaks was news wiki leaks is an online news organization that specializes in publishing documents alleging government and corporate misconduct we invited judean a song editor in chief of wiki leaks and in pity. how times have changed what was news in two thousand and ten is enemy propaganda now journalistic hero or enemy agent asks the same economist neither reads the subtitle just a useful idiot who the economist awarded for his stellar journalism or take a magazine who gave their front cover to a songe in two thousand and ten now they run virtual hit pieces quoting and

headlining anyone that doesn't like a songe it seems be it hillary clinton or a judge that met him once and labeled him a narcissist gets much dirtier uglier out. outlets that have historically supported and cheered america's wars such as the atlantic put out the seas pact hate mails or the equivalent of musingly enough the hack behind this story first calls out assad just premiss cutesy with facts and almost immediately after says this artist tagline his question more and indeed one might inquire how it came to pass that the spin off of a kremlin propaganda organ and now registered foreign agent in the united states first arrived on the scene i stand ready to answer your inquiry unlike other networks and publications who all learned at the same time that might be leaving

the embassy we could leaks told everyone unlike them we took it seriously we went and documented what happened this is called journalism journalism like what i songe did when he exposed various war crimes he's a publisher buz he's a journalist he. and the material that he leaked we know from the pedestrian mails from the logs is real and credible and was published by mainstream organizations once it was released by wiki leaks that very news organizations that over many days over several decades of which the documents that wiki leaks provided last instantaneously once those documents route turned on assigned him so that rate prodding from the national security state so of course there was an effort to

discredit we and to carry out of very sustained and unfortunately quite effective. character assassination of the shah songe to isolate him and demonize him in the eyes of. at the end of the day come on we all know the exact moment these people and against their former hero. maybe you're kind of picking up where julian a songe was before he went bad because we used to like you know he used to really be doing a good service and then something happened i guess his hatred for hillary clinton maybe is would turn him basically into someone who was a russian. aid really yes yes of course as. hillary never did anything wrong she was perfect wasn't she. let's get back to our top story this evening the huge.