the top un right sexpert says the united states jailing of whistleblower chelsea manning for refusing to testify against the wiki leaks founder is tantamount to torture. place in hong kong make hundreds of arrests on new year's day as an estimated 1000000 people turn up for the 1st big anti beijing protest of a new decade 2020. cold dry january french wine produces and the government denounced the alcohol free health initiative describing it as an attack on the country.

good evening welcome to the program just to 6 pm here in moscow now live from the arts international world news center i'm kevin 0 in with this i was round the 1st in a senior u.n. official has launched a scathing attack on the united states over its ongoing detention of whistleblower chelsea manning saying her treatment amounts to taut ship special repartee. made the claim in a letter to the us government which is written in november but isn't it just come to light the practice of coercive diprivan of liberty for civil contempt involves the intentional infliction of progressively severe mental and emotional suffering for the purposes of coercion and intimidation at the order of judicial authorities such deprivation of liberty does not constitute a circumscribed sanction for a specific offense but an open ended progressively severe measure of coercion fulfilling all the constitutive elements of torture or other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. chelsea manning was a u.s.

military intelligence analyst but was arrested in 2010 for supplying classified information to wiki leaks she was then convicted in 2013 and sentenced to 35 years in prison over it all other twists president obama then commuted his sentence just before he left office but she was arrested again last year for declining to testify against wiki leaks publisher julia sanj global affairs on this project henningsen told us this un letter now is going to be a boost for supporters of both manning and the sanj war lawyer and activist kevin zeese explain to us just how he thinks laws being used to coerce manning. in a grand jury which is a secret process before someone is indicted or you go for it prosecutions occurring to determine whether someone should be prosecuted this is a power of the court to coerce someone into testifying now this law can allow a person in the united states to be held for the length of the grand jury in order to coerce them to testify before the grand jury and no longer serves the purpose it

was intended to serve it's now become a weapon of prosecutors it was initially designed to protect people who are being investigated the reason they're kept secret because it trying to protect people being investigated before they're indicted so you don't know that they're being investigated but in the longer serves our purpose and now serves the purpose of being a tool for prosecutors that's abused and i think chelsea manning is a victim of that abuse the report by niels meltzer does give an additional air of legitimacy to the case of manning to really back up all of the things that manning supporters that the song should really have been saying now for over 6 months i mean this is unjust this is unfair the trying to create something new this is the whole point of coerced trying to coerce manning to come up with something that the o.j. can use to make a real case against the sunday shows you how flimsy this is this is the degree

degradation of the justice system in the united states and also in the u.k. as well in the case of the songes more like more resembles a banana republic style facade of a state judicial apparatus this is all part of a campaign to reframe and to reframe julius on and we as a from a journalist and a publication to being a cyber criminal in a hostile foreign intelligence agency the entire case all the indictments against dishonor are based on that really framing principle. and they are trying to get chelsea manning to give them something a key to actually make that marriage didn't work and she's not she's not volunteering anything and this is frustrating the u.s. system tremendously. heading into a new decade joining the sangean ferry much better he's also behind bars in a british prison after being dragged out of the ecuadorian embassy where he'd spent the previous 70 is there with the latest on him themselves to tell their reporting

next. few buildings in the wilds have ever come under as much scrutiny as this one here ecuadorian embassy. in those 4 walls for 7 long years possibly the most famous whistle blower who time to get a staunch withhold up until port 2019 to 48 world was sensationally dragged out by british authorities. that work for the wiki leaks founder this was a huge betrayal by the latin american country that had sheltered him since 2012 aquittal said the relations had soured with the sand and his bad behavior trick of them opening the door to the police and revoking his asylum but it's worth noting that just a bit acquittals bank account got an almighty boost with a $4200000000.00 loan from the i.m.f. where the u.s.

has huge voting rights a staunch is currently sitting in belmarsh prison in the country's capital serving out to meet sentence but jumping bail in 2012 but many are saying that what he's actually been handed is a death sentence because over 60 doctors wrote an open letter to the u.k. government saying that he might die in prison britain for its part denies any wrongdoing the allegations mr son she was subjected to torture unfounded and hold false the u.k. is committed to upholding the rule of law and ensuring that no one is ever bomb it but london's defense rings hollow in light of the reports by many organizations including the new web which claims that as a scientist health continues to deteriorate authorities are simply standing idly by the blatant and sustained arbitrariness shown by both the judiciary and the government in this case suggest an alarming departure from the u.k.'s commitment to

humor. rights and the rule of law unless the u.k. urgently changes course on the alleviates the inhuman situation mr songes continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing him his life but his songes battle for his well being is not only fight on his hands ever since wiki leaks exposed gross misconduct by the us government washington has been pushing for his extradition on espionage charges giving him a helping hand the british government despite international outcry the u.k. home secretary signed a us extradition request putting us on one step closer towards being charged for publishing classified information and conspiring to hack from a computer the 18 charges that washington has put forward could carry a maximum sentence of 175 years behind bars the reaction

all over the wild people are crying foul they say that this is not a case about punishing a crime but of silencing a voice julian or singled out for special treatment for one reason only here's the truth he's such an innocent important man is because he is a freedom fighter however much you dislike. his case is the most important for me give you freedom this is just. miss rule of law and operation. washington's bid to get us on stateside was also helped by not the european country sweden the scandinavian nation was investigating a rape allegation against the whistleblower and would have been within its rights to request his extradition to face trial since that case predated the u.s. request london would have been obliged to send a songe to stockholm fast but sweden has now closed that investigation conveniently

removing the. final obstacle for the americans funny how it all worked out a sanchez extradition hearing is set for factory 2020 but in light of these recent talents of the band's fears are growing that does little chance of play this close to sure i mean what and so of course what news most of the united nations special report or on torture certain how corrupts and how in stress that the entire system in the u.k. including the judiciary and the media has to call in when it comes to julian. you know before you call course earlier this year and this sort of was a confirmation that what neil smelters said seems to be true that you. just love to have a potential for severe trial into while one always hopes that lead to justice will prevail u.s. authorities have rather spared a kind wired for

a start so it might well turn out that when a country is to secrets risk of being exposed justice that is a word that's up for interpretation so as to tailor r.t. one to another year and another set of new trouble for hong kong it saw the new year with more violent protests with his pretty good turnout in fact they said it was a 1000000 overall seems to around 400 arrests with police blaming radical protestors for causing the trouble.

it was a really heavy scene is that again hong kong police a masked riot has recklessly vandalized public facilities as they put it in several areas the authorities moved them to try to end the rally early that's when it kicked off in the clashes erupted washington supported the protests from the outset but hong kong based political scientist joseph chang thinks it's more to do with building wider political leverage against page. united states part of we will support hong kong but don't notes from administration most likely to hold on to shield and gave me as human rights issues in china as bargaining chips to exert pressure on china people would like to see a novel nice asian process a reconciliation process but apparently 18 and the hong kong government have maintained their stand and they have used to me any concessions to the protestants

and to do of their moccasin. crosscuts 12 parsecs in the evening here in moscow and then we got breaking news story coming and russia's state run sputnik news agencies announced that shutting down its bureau in the stone capital tallinn after dozens of its employees resigned saying they fear criminal prosecution let's try to find out what this is about those kicked off or yes we did a culture that was across him again oh yeah a so serious what's happening there than the well the sputnik. agency published a statement on the 1st of general saying 35 of its staff members in estonia had to terminate their labor contracts and resigned fearing possible criminal prosecution the sputnik agency in the study is controlled by the russian state media organization and i see it now last month telling us or it is told in estonia that staff members could be prosecuted due to a european union think sions against russia and if that would have happened they

would be facing up to 5 years behind bars you just on the added her in chief said that during this were actually receiving letters from the financial intelligence unit of the is done in police and the border guard board and which they were threatened with criminal liability unless they could work ties with the agency earlier in autumn also a study in officials phroso the bureau's assets and ask sputniks employees to vacate these rented offices by the february moscow sees the demands as an obvious attempt to silence and as a also a blatant attack on freedom of speech and actually the russian president also commented on this situation he offered his support for the terminal those who work for the agency. but if you do a lot that seems to still pure activity you can go unnoticed i'm very surprised

because russia is always accused of illegals including pressure on independent media and they do the same they accuse. measures such as restrictions because you will hold those who are. between the countries we can't allow it you must try to work in those countries the risk of your information. the astonishing government continues to insist that they are not doing. anything wrong the foreign minister of the country said that targeting sputnik was about enforcing e.u. sanctions now earliest witnessed on and called this whole thing situation out violation of freedom of speech and said that they would. the situation to a number of international organizations. would consider the actions of the stone in the thordis to be blatant. and planned to be used to such international organizations as the un the council of europe unesco and e.c. h.

are demanding a proper system and to of this unprecedented case of violation of freedom of speech in recent years and measures to ensure the rights of all journalists to carry out their professional work to the concerns about the situation have been foisted by sound my european officials in particular the representative on the freedom media called on this dani and to refrain from restrictions against journalists meanwhile sputnik estonia's website will not be completely shut down it was reported that the website well continue its work as it will be reorganized in a way that avoids permanent pressure from the estonian authorities or do the things the figures can stress so early into the new year ok keep crossover for us now with 29 t. dusted let's take a look back at more of the events that defined the year just gone.

so let's crank up the big memory machine sure we can see what we're talking about this socially politically and beyond 21000 calls a fair bit of upheaval to our lives worldwide fair point but for some the march of modernity was paying for as we head into the 2020s is even more than a few people food about their much loved heritage case in point the next story. it's a tradition that seem to be under threat in france it's called dry journey let's look at this in more d. . there's anger over a proposal to adopt dry journey what it sounds like upsetting from alcohol after the excesses of the holidays good for your health french wine is of course as much a part of the dinner table as the food itself so this health preserving plan is proving very hard to swallow show to do with some other ideas on how best to freshen up from a hangover without having to work have a cook put in your culture. when you raise a gloss of wine or beer in florence it's customary to say so and say which means

health but if you waking up with the sore head off the celebrations on new year's eve you may be wondering if all those songs done you any good after all and instead of trying a hair of the dog you might think that it's time to join the millions of others across the world in having a little bit of a breather from alcohol that's right it's time for to roy january a month of alcoholic abstinence it's been so popular in the anger from world that there were even plans to introduce it here in france but to the french who are famous for their love of a little plonk even you know what dr january is try january. no it's not possible it doesn't exist in france dry january i have not heard of it i have heard of many other traditions like move imber is that it move into

something like that but with wine i don't think it's possible no no no not at all no with free no no i don't understand it this really exists so pretty much a resoundingly nor perhaps all the more reason to kick start the idea given that alcohol kills tens of thousands of people in france every year that's exactly what france is health agency salt a public false. do but after explaining to prisons what right gender is what they think about it i'm what. a month without drinking out whole it's difficult for the french. i could try it but i'd rather not it would not be too pleasant without wine. all the french are going to die. well that would be the reaction i mean why. it's like not eating because they're not used to it

he drinks more than me i don't know how to respond it seems for once president mccall really has his finger on the pulse of what the french are thinking for he's said to have fiercely opposed to promoting a moratorium on alcohol in january or perhaps it any time of the year and given the choice will parisians be raising a normal colics all day for dry january well if they slaughter anything to go by probably not. i would prefer some tea maybe mixed with a bit of alcohol just a bit i'm like those women who drink discreetly in the kitchen. or smart ip for a while and frankly all this was in a small meal and even when you had it i prefer why you know. what wine is it if it's a very good wine then wine is. well that settles it dry it january is definitely not

a french thing and all not know it from us here in paris bone is salty. but small serious matters as some more breaking news coming to tell you about this time of the turkish parliament has voted to back we hear the un recognized government in libya giving the green light into a troop deployment there all makers approved the motion during emergency session earlier today thursday let's try and work out what this is going to mean remind ourselves before we talk live to market about it the background here libya has been in a state of war since protests in 2011 and the ousting of the country's leader moammar gadhafi in recent months the u.s. government has been losing ground to the rival administration of general khalifa haftar who leads the libyan national army now the government of national accord formally requested military aid from ankara last month and it will consume. what's happened now but general have to as forces currently control most of libya's territory crucially including our oil and gas resources so markup is on the line

but the prices research institute a their market was expected this was going to happen i think correct me if i'm wrong what's it now going to mean than. well you know the turkish government has a big majority in its parliament so it was clear that what they wanted to pass was go through the problem is it's not clear what has been authorized some people say that it's just going to be kind of technical assistance advisers to the forces of the libyan government in tripoli others say that's quite serious either turkish forces troops themselves or perhaps some of the fighters who've been involved in syria have lost control turtled in syria the turks may be going to ship to tripoli to do the infantry work on the ground either way it's going to raise the stakes of the conflict in this area where oil and gas are big issue but also tensions between turkey and its nato allies like france and greece are really sawing over this potential direct intervention so this means really that the u.s. government that will it really depends on what the deployment is as you're saying is self what's your best guess on what's going to be deployed there and where

that's going to put the u.n. back government that's currently there. i think what the turks perhaps hope is that the threat that some serious turkish military power is going to be deployed will make our star and his supporters agree to some kind of peace settlement there is a proposal by the u.n. to have a peace conference in violin but these have come and go in libya over the last few years and they haven't really settled issue and that's partly because there are really deep seated tensions because in addition to whatever is driving individual libyan groups to fight each other and there are many of them there's also this big tension over oil and gas in the mediterranean between on the one hand the turks and cattle and on the other hand saudis the u.a.e. and egypt and now also israel and greece are getting involved because they're agreeing to build a pipeline across the mediterranean what 3 territory which the turks claim their own so it's a really messy issue of complicated civil war international tensions and in a way before being

a part of traditional alliances where on the whole most of these states would have been seen until very recently as all being on the same page yeah you mentioned the word crazy messy that messy going to get me. we've also 'd heard donald trump make a statement about egyptian president make a statement about it could really kick off there i think there's a quite a serious risk partly because each side thinks the other one is not going to do something stupid isn't going to go too far and that of course means that you may decide yourself to push a little bit too far forward or before you know where you are turkish are often bringing perhaps troops and visors to tripoli shot down by an egyptian airplane working on behalf of hotter and that sort of thing could really then blow up the whole situation was general have told relationship with the west that well it depends what we mean by the west he has pretty good relations with paris terrible relations with rome he has had several words from president trump but if you like the foreign policy establishment in washington sees him as the as the source of the trouble but in a way he couldn't be trouble he didn't have powerful regional allies like the

saudis like the u.a.e. and like egypt on the other hand equally the government in tripoli couldn't survive very long if it didn't have the backing of powerful countries like turkey and qatar and so on who been supplying it with weapons and so on in breach of the u.n. arms embargo the problem is the u.n. arms embargo is even more than issues over places like syria a dead duck and is just openly despised by all the participants market leave their mark harmon's right to the crisis research institute thanks for your thoughts when you go correspond policy is process as well hey there put one bullet yeah you know kind of expected this is going to happen but the question is what is going to be the size of it what's going to be the scale of it details still sketchy what you know. well we don't really have any confirmed information in terms of the details what we know is that this emergency session took place this afternoon in ankara as you correctly say it was expected that this vote would happen we did see opposition from the main opposition party and then major concern is really that it will

tensions in libya and that is a concern that's been expressed here across the region that number one we could see the libyan situation becoming more and more inflated and at the same time tensions trickling over elsewhere into the region now the initial mandate we understand is that troops will be sent for a period of one year of course quest saying that this deployment is vital for turkey for her interests in libya and also her interests in the eastern mediterranean last month an agreement was signed between her and libya and according to the turkish president in that agreement he was requested by the tripoli prime minister fires to send such troops and as you've correctly been talking the government has been embroiled in but her fighting with the military commanders khalifa have tar and his libya's national army now they've been unable to reach the city center of tripoli but there has been particularly in recent weeks a lot of fighting around the capital we will bring you the updates on exactly what

this agreement says assoon as we understand it ourselves. thank you very much before i go if you want to keep up to date with more details on that check out our social media of course r.t. dot com ok we're now in for the rest of the team in russia this late thursday afternoon this coming up to 20 which is after 26 past 6 in the evening season's greetings thanks for watching our channel of international standby for our next show coming right up. alone welcome to worlds apart the limits of my language mean the limits of my world

the loss of our lives with conspired sat in a 1922 why then the following century of booming linguistic studies have only confirmed that if our languages indeed shape us as much as we think we shape them do we ever really speak our mind well to discuss that i'm now joined by letter but i did speak associate professor of cognitive science at the university of california san diego professor bird it's a pleasure and honor to talk to thank you very much for your time thanks so much for having me now i know that you have long been studying the relationship with the mind through language and the world around us and i think you come to some very humbling conclusions as much as real like to see ourselves as the masters of our thought and our boards it works in the opposite direction to our language shape our experience in some very profound ways how does that work well of course we all have many years of experience speaking

a language and we absorb so many habits and so many important structures from the language each human language is exquisitely structured there are about 7000 languages and all of that experience of speaking the language hearing the language around you trains your mind to focus on some things and not others there's always potentially an infinite set of things you could notice about the world you could potentially try to remember about the world and language stream and to think about only some of those things to focus on only those things that the people before us who built the language over many generations those things they thought were most important those things got built into the language and so now those are the things that we tend to. focus on in the structures that we tend to conform and the heat works also in very subtle ways we do not necessarily we kind of appropriated to ourselves through our own free will but without necessarily realizing that there are forces that imposing certain structures on ourselves you know we all take the

language that we speak for granted it's like the air that we breathe we don't notice it and in fact most of us believe that we simply perceive reality the way that it is in fact we know through many years of psychological experiments so that's very far from the truth we don't see things just the way that they are instead the world that we the internal world we live in is highly constructed by the structures of our brains but also by the structures of our languages and cultures that tell us how to put things together you often talk about the symbiotic and reinforcing relationship with bin language and culture and it's very hard for me personally to resist thinking about that relationship in cheek in that terms enough to sort of struggling with it for some time i wonder if it's actually a fitting metaphor or not in terms of what comes 1st but in terms of how the to encapsulate reproduce one another yeah so i think of language as a part of culture language is a really good way to make

a part of culture very long term and universally distributed so if i make something like dramatically gender a part of the language well all speakers of that language are going to have to use that structure it's not going to be optional if you're speaking russian you can't just speak russian and not use grammatical gender no one's going to recognize you as a real russian speaker and so it becomes something that's then universally distributed through the culture and the languages can lose genders can add genders that process is going to have to take a very long time whereas other cultural practices can come and go much more fluidly and may only affect some portions of the popular but how far do you extrapolate from that relationship the fact that english and. to some extent russian and both adventists they are quick to assign blame or responsibility doesn't have anything to do with the incarceration rates in the united states and russia being among the world's highest it's really hard to draw a straight line from language to.