so. r.t. speaks to a law professor fighting for the release of a kuantan of mowbray inmate who is subject to shocking torture at the hands of the cia. or. war charges or paul who's. in the uk or. thousands gathered to strike action across france as mass protest against pension reform plans and referred week violence has gripped the french capital with police using tear gas against demonstrators and. the us i should try and do the stories

that sort of feel like it's extreme you know public interest the attacks on me is a form of newsweek reporter launches a blistering attack on the magazine for refusing to run a story he wrote about the alleged chemical attack in the syrian city of duma last year. live from moscow studio where it's currently just past 4 in the morning you're watching r.t. international omar is on the lockridge thank you for joining us. now the abuse of prisoners in secret cia run prisons has been thrown into sharp relief following the release of a report called how america tortures it contains a series of chilling sketches produced by abu musab ada an inmate at guantanamo bay depicting the enhanced interrogation techniques he was subjected to between

20022005 he was captured from a jihadi safe house in pakistan in 2002 and sent to a so-called cia black sites in thailand where the torture took place he was then transferred to guantanamo bay where he's still being held without charge and he was the 1st person to be subjected to the brutal interrogation program which was approved by the administration of george w. bush and a since been acknowledged by the cia here's a quick overview of the beta story. as soon as they locked me up inside the box i tried my best to sit up but in vain

for the box was too short i tried to take a curled position but to no avail for it was too tight the very strong pain made the screen unconsciously. they kept pouring water and concentrating on my nose and my mouth until i really felt i was drowning and my chest was just about to explode from the lack of oxygen . and. the long hours went by while i was standing in that position my hands were tight to the upper bars. it felt like an eternity to the point that i found myself falling

asleep despite the water being thrown at me by the guard. when i visit bade of lawyer who was the driving force behind the top 2 reports told us why his client shouldn't be kept in detention any longer. time works in the water always or the birds roll and i think they are 'd helping 'd understand why he has to be charged. or released or. the movie 'd. because they admit he was never or never gave his very early did not seem to have the united states of america has the transparency issue with what they did. the fact is there were no use for 'd them for 7 queen street is there and they wrote it in one of the. accountability is that it is very good i would love

many people held the 'd hope of war but it turns out. the emerging model right now 'd is 'd the work forward 'd not backwards of course the problem 'd here right now is look if they don't work right words the people who are stuck there are going to remain stuck i believe there are many who feel terrible. about what a gazillion ready. truths it is excess. mass mobilization against planned pension changes has hit france far and wide this tuesday officials say 600000 people are involved across the country under-estimates claim the number is almost 2000000 and what started out as mostly peaceful demonstrations in the capital quickly to send it to violence the defense keep reports. screening joined us here in paris after one piece i'm

still clashes between the police come to the protesters as you can see it's all round us was this march is all you going oh i started saying i can use to plastic or not you will. get a bit of a purely human. just to get through that gas as it is so nasty that gas the police have been warned is dangerous silly news here in france rise you can see everybody's trying to come back up to plus the national to get away from that she got us feeling the skirmishes between the police and the protest this protest has been going on now

a strike for once in his good week a strike that was sparked by the protests reforms that the government has announced and one that is showing the general malaise him front it's not just about pensions this is about so much more the health system says it's creaking shoes are unhappy even at times the police have been out processing i've gained no reforms over macaroons government so of course i'm here today because we have problems with financing for hospitals we have lots of expenses and the right constraints when it comes to procuring materials and recruiting stuff we're here today to say that will lobby public hospitals and we want to say to them. the working conditions of health . it's very difficult for us to live properly on our current salaries there's been no change it's just a trauma. here in solidarity with everyone who's been affected by that reform which is the vast majority of people. everybody should be protesting against them

for they want to become less and it's an accepted was actually. been told that our pensions will be ridiculously small and this would make the situation even worse you can see the police start forming a line just on the street that we were in just a few moments ago the street where all the tear gas was being fired pushes out of it you can see they've formed a huge line the police with white helmets on and in fact they look like they've cordoned off most of the streets around where. sounds like stun grenades going off of than tear gas there. but what was very calm protest just within a few minutes is descended into. just a difficult place to be what we notice is in the last half an hour now some of those what they call the the castors the thugs the break is the police said the

ultra. left but they're also sometimes known as the black box they have actually been systematically hitting points up their street so we saw a post office being attacked many of the bus shelters being attacked as well as just general restaurants in fact at one point when they were breaking some of the gloss on the advertising boards by some of those guys came up and try to harass my cameraman because they thought he was filming them he wasn't but they were incredibly aggressive and that's because they are very sensitive about being filmed when they're carrying out any. destruction work we saw that continuing for about half an hour and it's only now as we got to plastic that the police responded with that here gas and then cordoned this area to try and keep all of the protesters in the government says it won't do a u. turn only the changes to the pension system people say that they remain on strike

but for the moment this strike has turned nasty once again in paris charlotte even ski r.t. paris well after a series of horrific injuries against protesters it's come to light the french authorities were warned of the dangers of using tear gas grenades against demonstrators as far back as january last year also text the company that makes the military grade devices wrote to the french interior ministry about the safety risks of its grenades being used by riot police. the blast the fact of the devices produced by an expose of substance a likely to maim or mortally injuring individual well those within turn sound effects can cause irreversible hearing damage the resumption of production is impossible without completely reviewing the production process. when a letter leaked to the french investigative news website media part of the manufacture warns that defects in the grenades were identified but not resolved

france is the only european country where riot police use the weapon and despite the warnings are still used and on occasion i've been known to explode when simply just being handled the gas grenade caused serious injuries among yellow vests protesters 5 of whom have lost hands and elderly woman died after she was hit by one at a demo in mass they last year and dozens more protesters say they've been left willing to buy the weapons to. oh. oh. oh you never. knew me at the national assembly and people were trying to force their way in the police arrived and threw grenades one hit the guy's leg and he tried to push it away with his hands as a reflex reaction. to this. cup. and to feel i don't want to

kiss anyone but my mother says she had been targeted and we want to trace and did her justice. i will try to fight against the use of july for grenades which are totally from my point of view weapons of war and against rubber bullet guns. or french journalist aymeric mom vill told us he thinks the government is using the grenade as a terrence. but you also mustn't forget the use of the trash for rubber bullets during deserved demonstrations which have her led to several people losing a knife more than 20. for you remember the rest see that there is no political will to stop this madness in my opinion it is very cynical to do it on purpose they want to dissuade people from the most rating and from showing their

anger and during this yellow vests protest they preventively for instance arrested people because they were carrying swimming lessons in order to protect their their eyes from cheer gas it is a way of proving to most rationing why preventing it from being massive. now in other news this hour magazine newsweek is in the spotlight after a former reporter claimed he quit when editors threw out his story on a chemical attack investigation in syria the now public route between the outlet and taric how that has intensified we spoke to him about what happened. i kept pushing to try and do the story because i feel like it's of extreme you know public interest the attacks on me and it is a kind of nit picking on on certain things i was doing in my articles but it was surely on just to be able to target me in an e-mail so after i took pushing kept

pushing the century was told a couple lawyers about why they wouldn't run the o.p.c. w. story and it was a long list of things i've done personally wrong and i was very unhappy about this because you know i've never experienced like this something like this in my in my journalism career. taric how about who you just saw there is a writer and freelance journalist who joined newsweek in september this year just 2 months later he quits after pitching a story on a report by the global chemical watchdogs handling of the alleged chemical attack in syria's duma the outlet rejected it and terek now clears a legal battle for publishing an exchange of corporate emails it followed whistleblowers claiming facts had been misrepresented by the o p c w regarding duma pitched the idea to he said it is to write about the watchdogs leaked e-mails a reminder that the conclusions of the report that the united states france and the u.k. conducting air strikes against syrian military targets again believes his case shows

the failings of the mainstream media. let's look at the evidence that we have available to us at the moment there are scientists from a nonpolitical body of the united nations. that say that the report their findings from the capital weapon site were not representative in the in the final report that was released to the world to me this is you know it doesn't really need explaining why this is a newsworthy story is that these organizations have taken a long time for us to get here in terms of a story called point of view when we shouldn't be weaponized in them to kind of create the public opinion needed to go to war at the moment there are very few. well mainstream western journalists reporting on this so i would say this complete failure of the media. you know our job as john the starts a whole government to account and if the government's going to war on false premises then you know we have good evidence to suggest that now another one is

reporting it then we're not doing our job as journalists well as for the magazine itself newsweek has given the statement saying tyrant pitched a conspiracy theory they couldn't because it goes against objective reporting. the u.s. senate is threatening sanctions on companies time to the north stream to gas pipeline under a new bill we've got the full story after this short break. getting ready for the global showdown central bank that being the i.m.f. in this case versus then you argentina that's why we're here. all of us will hoops it is. a baby but so is a behavior that appears even in death and blind babies even if you've never heard of seen loved you will love if you're tickled by your parents. and then we learn

how to use this in a more complex way i'm one of the. things that we used to have to join in would love to contagiously to love and somebody else loves even if you don't know why they love things. what politicians do. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. for something i want to. let you go right to the press this is what the. 3 of the people are. interested always in the why. question. welcome back now in what may prove to be a major setback for transatlantic relations the u.s.

senate has approved a sanctions bill talks in companies involved in the north stream 2 point plan project the measure aimed at disrupting russia's efforts to increase the supply of gas to europe is expected to be signed into law by president this week my colleague kevin and i discussed this earlier with our correspondent. this has been another milestone in america's mission to protect europe from russia's natural gas and i have and you may want to ask lee ilya what are you talking about because countries do need russian natural gas just to keep warm well let me explain how washington see it here's the deal from the american standpoint if the russian natural gas is delivered to western europe through all pipelines through countries like poland 'd ukraine it's all fine by the way once russia starts playing its new pipelines elsewhere this immediately causes a meltdown in government offices in kiev and warsaw but back to the 2nd option the

way it is seen in d.c. if russia's energy giant gas problems starts diversifying the way its fuel gets to western european countries through new pipelines like nord stream nord stream to that's a disaster that gets europe hoped on putin's gas needle so let's just listen to how a u.s. congressman who was behind the sanctions put it last week this pipeline if completed. would make europe even more dependent on russian energy would generate billions of dollars for putin billions of dollars that would fund russian military aggression so we have learned that the us 2020 national defense authorization act includes a bill that would penalize the companies that are involved in the construction of nord stream to that is a brand new pipeline project that is by the way it's almost complete and it is

intended for direct natural gas deliveries from somewhere outside st petersburg to northern germany and we're talking about these companies these are by far not only russia and there are plenty of german businesses that are who are involved because it is indeed in the interest of european consumers to get a new more reliable more direct route for these supplies now when it comes to the officials in moscow they have been blaming the americans for unfair competition in moscow's message has been very simple what you guys want to do is you don't really care about europe what you want to do is sell your liquefied natural gas across which makes it more expensive in many cases but i just want to make sure that you listen to one american official because you can't just look at how they put it if the gas is russian that is bad putin's gas if it is something that's extracted in

america that's. freedom with the u.s. in another year of record setting natural gas production i'm pleased that the department of energy is doing what account to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of u.s. freedom to be exported to the world ok so you mentioned that when it goes without saying really of course a lot of european countries a huge pipeline project this a lot of jobs are going to be on the line a lot of people been involved in this either which way this pipeline ends up in germany supposed. i have to say about it well just a little earlier the german top diplomat reiterated berlin's stance that these sanctions are unacceptable the german foreign minister called an attempt to influence sovereign decisions in europe but i just want to bring up something very important like i said before north strained to is almost fully complete and i can tell you that this u.s. sanctions bill is believed to open up this 30 day window for the european companies

to abandon their work on the pipeline now i can tell you that the german newspaper built revealed internal documents from germany's energy ministry where it says that berlin believes that this pipeline could be completed within this area and then this could actually lead to a situation when the sanctions prove to be completely pointless but of course we understand that nothing is pointless when it can be aimed at the audience back home the audience that will vote at some point germany's committee chief on the economy and energy told us the burden is ready to respond to any sanctions imposed by washington. if you're going to give but if the u.s. keeps trying to obstruct the north stream project i suggest responding with punitive tariffs on german imports of american gas things cannot continue like this

if we impose punitive tariffs on u.s. gas sales will fall on the u.s. will have to reflect on his actions the u.s. is unhappy that we are not buying their gas they want to boost their own trade and that's why they are imposing sanctions on companies involved in building the pipeline the firstly american liquefied natural gas is obtained through fracking which makes it an acceptable for germany and secondly it is much more expensive than rushing gas by the natural gas we get from russia is high in demand and due to falling production in europe demand has only increased so we plan to import more of it this is why north stream 2 is so important the americans have tried to interrupt our oil and gas trade with russia from the outset and yet we have managed to corporate for many years without interruption both sides need this and we plan to continue whether the us likes it or not. now the russian federal tourism agency has kicked off a premier campaign in the age of pacific region to promote the country's tourist destinations the 1st event of the 2 has been held in tokyo the roadshow comes ahead

of the u.a.e. figure 2020 football championship where the russian city of st petersburg will serve as one of the hosts apart from showcasing tourist hot spots in the country the campaign will promote russia's new electronic visas for asian visitors simplifying the entry process a large number of visitors to russia have come from asia and the figures are only expected to grow in the coming years especially from south korea japan vietnam and china. well that is your update for now we're back here in just over 30 minutes time with more news from around the world see that.

during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was most of my family were unemployed working. there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. of there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today today's america where shape by the 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attack solo down to engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to no i'm chomsky one set of rules for the rich opposite set of rules from. the that's what happens when you put her into the hands of a narrow sector of will switch will is dedicated to increasing power for itself just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks

about the modern civilization of america. you know world big part of the new lot of things and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bad and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe from. the

isolation full community. are you going the right way or are you being led. direct. what is truth what is faith. in a world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or in maine in the shallows. hello and welcome to cross talk were all things considered i'm peter lavelle the partisan impeachment process against donald trump continues apace the framers of

the constitution warned impeachment of the chief executive was an extreme remedy are the democrats in the corporate media trivializing the impeachment process are they attempt things to short circuit democracy itself. from stalking impeachment i'm joined by my guest john karr dello in west palm beach he's the host of america talks live on t.v. in baltimore we have wendy yourself oh she is a professor and political commentator and in seattle we crossed his collar he is an author and media analyst ari cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate as one of my rules on this program i go to the for the person 1st they got up for this program and that is john ok so john let me go to you i said in my introduction to basic things here ok the trivializing of what is really all about and short circuiting democracy because i think the 2

these are the 2 broadest concepts that are being in play right now and they're part of the same thread here because i'm not a political animal i eat and live survive off of politics and i can't even get through these hearings because i don't know what they're talking about i don't think they know what they're talking about ok i mean i i i and i want to be respectful to wendy because when he's the odd person out here and she's going to have ample amount of time to defend her position here go ahead john. well look the entire process is illegitimate they always say when a president impeached there's going to be an asterix in the history books next to their name in this case is going to be an asterisk next to impeachment because it was an illegitimate process this is a coup in plain sight peter that's all this is 1st it was russia collusion they couldn't prove that it was a quid pro quo they couldn't prove that it was obstruction of justice they couldn't prove that that it was bribery they couldn't prove that it was extortion they couldn't prove that so then they trumped up no pun intended fabricated these new

charges abuse of power that they say oh it's a catch all and obstruction of congress which is proposed the wrist i thought it was the executive the presidency is a co-equal yet a co-equal branch of congress you can obstruct your co-equal branch by taking hold on by taking subpoenas to the courts the other co-equal branch this is a coup that todd that's why the republican senate is going to dismiss that it's dead on arrival or they're going to vote to acquit quickly and the american people are sick of it that's why donald trump is now beating every democrat in a head to head match up especially in swing states even though the polls are averaging a plus 6 democratic over sample ok wendy i think most people are in agreement i mean even the most liberals that i know is that in the trial in the senate trump will be acquitted so what's the whole purpose of going through this exercise if almost everybody agrees will be an acquittal go ahead wendy just because someone

will be acquitted does not mean that we should not hell hole.