that was. donald trump imposes yet more sanctions on iran saying the restrictions will stay in place until iran complies with washington's demands on top of that the u.s. president flips the idea of a new military alliance in the region. nato. and then you have middle east you know they told me i said what a beautiful name. the u.s. and other western powers accuse iran of accidentally shooting down the ukrainian passenger jet on wednesday killing all on board iran says the plane is scientifically impossible and invites foreign experts to take part in the investigation. meanwhile police used tear gas to disperse crowds in paris as protesters gathered to join a major nationwide strike over pension reforms now into its 36 day.

life from moscow where it's just past 2 in the morning you're watching r t international welcome to the break. we started this president donald trump has approved a new raft of sanctions against iran following the latest escalation in the region the american leaders says they will only be lifted when iran complies with u.s. demands. they're losing a tremendous amount they getting heard very badly by the sanctions can in very quickly but as to whether or not they want that's up to them not up to me it's totally up to them so we have the united states slapping more sanctions on the islamic republic of iran saying that these sanctions will continue unless the islamic republic complies with the demands of the united states iran has responded warning that the recent missile attacks are not the only kind of revenge they're

capable of in response to the killing of qassam solomonic it's also interesting to note that in his remarks u.s. president donald trump indicated that he might be open or interested in the possibility of expanding the nato coalition to the middle east nato and then you have to me middle east you know they told me i said what a beautiful name nato personnel in the region to know you're supposed to us to be honest with you because this is an international problem the trumpet ministration is on the defensive saying that its decision to kill top iranian general qassam solomonic was necessary they say solomonic was engaged in planning attacks against the united states that they had no choice that it was absolutely necessary for u.s. president donald trump to take this action without congressional approval the intelligence assessment made clear that no action allowing so the money to continue his plotting and his planning his terror campaign created more risk than taking the

action that we took last week there are members of congress who have seen the classified information that is available to members of the u.s. congress and they just don't buy it they say based on what they've seen the evidence just isn't being presented to make the case for what pompei o and the administration insists his the unclassified version of what trumps and congress after the hits on some of money from all we've seen including the redacted parts here and the briefing the facts do not show an imminent threat it is not acceptable. officials within the executive branch of government i don't care whether they're with the cia with the department of defense or otherwise to come in and tell us that we can't debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against iran it's un-american it's unconstitutional it's room now many members of the u.s. congress have argued that by taking out and killing qassam sallah money without congressional approval that this was inappropriate and it was essentially not not

correct for the administration engage in this activity that congressional approval is required before taking these actions furthermore they've said that the evidence for the trumpet ministration made this decision should be provided to members of congress they can see the information on which this decision was based however the administration insists it is not necessary to provide this information to the congress and furthermore that it could be a dangerous thing to do it could lead to the information being compromised when it comes to intelligence we have to protect sources and methods and so there's only a certain amount that we can share with every member of congress but those of us who have seen all the evidence know that there was a compelling case of an imminent threat now this fits a longstanding pattern of members of congress not being given and provided with the evidence to back up claims coming from the administration we heard claims from the obama administration accusing russia of hacking the democratic national committee

that information was not provided to members of congress other allegations against russia in ukraine have been similar furthermore at one point there were claims that iran was planning an attack against the united states that information was also not provided so it seems increasingly we see the executive branch of the u.s. government approaching congress the legislative branch and saying just take our word for it this seems to be a longstanding trend lots of lots of debate and criticism about it from members of congress but the administration stands by its policy. well the death of general sort of money and the potential for a new start in the region these are just some of the issues discussed by artie's afshin rattansi and the rain in ambassador to the united nations office in geneva you can watch this interview in full in the latest episode going underground on saturday but here's a short taster that by that assassination the united states has already served because the reclines distinguished from better varies them from

civilized rules of engagement ok but will there be any more revenge now from iran for the trump assassination of. this is the beginning of a very. i guess exciting of his or. it was a wake up call for the people in the region and beyond. this was. an action an act of self-defense by going on forces against us but are they told you i think this is the beginning of a i hope not a long process that the people of our region would be get rid of. the american presence in the region because their prisons in our region has brought nothing except of. misery war and hatred.

well for a bit more analysis on this we can now cross live to psoriasis all rika is an independent researcher and right to survive thanks for joining us i want to start here in fact because the house has just passed a resolution to limit president donald trump's war powers against iran we've been following that this evening and we can now see that that has happened the measure does not carry the force of law this is trying to withdraw u.s. forces from conflict with iran within 30 days if he does not get congressional approval what's your take on this. well i'm fortunately i think it will be stocked in the senate as i don't believe this president will be able to abide by this because sanity is on its side and even if the senate does vote for this bill stopping him he's capable of the heat away unless they get $66.00 senators that will agree with the house's bill so it's

a nice gesture by their dancing to it it's it will be an effective one so you don't think it's going to be legally enforceable but how much do you think it points at divisions between washington washington and also some republicans may be supporting withdrawal of some of trance powers within iran. i think it will have some support among republicans at least one or 2 of them but i don't think they will get the overwhelming majority again the problem is the trunk has the took power and we know there's this there's a division in america right now and it's never been more divided than it is to the state but at the same time there seems to me that the democrats are trying to be more law abiding whereas the republicans entranced coverts are trying to be bully america into following class action and this is really. it's a surprise to me because if you've used to recall when he was running for office he

said i could stand in the friend in the middle of things i knew and shoot somebody in the middle of a crowd or something like that and i couldn't lose a single vote now he has stood in the international arena has has assassinated someone has opened the act of terror general on foreign soil and has not losing any republicans so this is the state of the americas to use today in some ways internal conflict in america is perhaps more dangerous than anywhere else because it will boil over again truly i mean there are so many people who even see the possibility of the civil war in this country because it is so divided and trump is just counting on that division to stay in office other so i want to talk about these sanctions as well because donald trump did say new sanctions have been placed on iran following the missile strikes in iraq but he hasn't yet specified what the measures are going to be but how is this going to affect an already highly volatile

situation. i don't think it's going to affect anything at all i think what trump is doing i mean how much more can you sanction the iranians who sanctioned them 2 or 3 times and in fact his action to the point where iran is the country on has are becoming more and more self-sufficient so in a sense although it's taking a huge toll on the iranian economy and it's been very hard on the iranian public and it's really as i described sanctions as an act of terror although he has done all that iranians are emerging out of windows in some ways because they have become so self-reliant again there would be a price to pay there would be patients who will die because they don't have access to medicine and cetera but iran will come up on top because sanctions or technology has always been an improved tool to give the tools to that they give the technology to 3rd world countries which iran used to be but they would refuse to give them the

know how so they would that country is full dependency and would always be reliant on the country that's providing them with this technology and whatever they need and iran has broken out of that chain iran is no longer reliant on america's technology so although it had a horrible price to pay it it truly is is winning in this war of sanctions that america has waged it's a it's a very complex topic there's a lot of different moving parts in this development today we want to keep you and come back to you on a separate topic so i'll just say thanks to. all rika depend of research on writing we'll see later in the bulletin. now western powers including the u.s. and u.k. are claiming that a ukrainian plane that crashed in toronto wednesday may have been accidentally shot down by an iranian missile canadian prime minister justin trudeau said intelligence reports point in that direction. we have intelligence from multiple sources

including our allies and our own intelligence. the evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an arena and a surface to air missile. this may well have been unintentional. well iran for its part has in fact sickly rejected that version of events the head of iran's civil aviation authority said it's scientifically impossible that the plane was hit by a missile the iranian government has asked canada to share its information about what may have brought the plane down and said that any country which lost citizens on the flight is welcome to send investigators don't quarter now take a look at the storm of speculation building up in the media before any probe has been carried out. illogical rumors that's what iran called chatter in the mainstream media that ukranian flight $752.00 was no accident anonymous pentagon officials accused iran of accidentally blowing it out of the sky with nothing except their belief to back it up it all started with speculation from ukrainian

authorities that a russian made missile was the culprit a rocket strike. system is among the main working theories since there was information on that into in that boat elements of the russian missile being found near the site of the crash it wasn't long before mainstream news outlets began to roll with it c.n.n. boiled the cause down to either a bomb or a missile and the possibility it was an accident pushed to the background it was a photo circulating on twitter that formed the basis of a new conspiracy theory that a russian made missile was somehow to blame for the plane crash the account was suspended probably for spreading fake news after all who knows where when and by whom this photo was even taken but that didn't stop the b.b.c. from giving the idea some air time while the 1st one is the possibility that that plane was hit by a russian mission just off to take off the independent even published an article citing an organization called the o.p.'s group it says people should just assume

the plane was shot down like m 817 until there's evidence proving otherwise shoot 1st ask questions later sky news telegraph and newsweek also reported this ukrainian speculation and even donald trump chimed in with his expertise in aeronautical engineering and it was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake as some people say it was been can it go i personally don't think that's . even a question personally all this hype and exactly contrary to what the ukrainian president asked for. i'm every woman. refrain from speculation or conspiracy theories hasty conclusions and unverified emergence it's not at all that behind you what is more nowadays it seems like geopolitics comes before evidence. for this we cannot cross live back to. break independent research and right to

survive thanks for staying with us on this because want to get your opinion on this what we're hearing coming out in the media because western powers we had just introduced their leader of canada and of course canada lost a lot of citizens in there to this crash claiming in a rainy a missile may have unintentionally brought down the ukrainian plane iran for its part is saying that's impossible does it surprise you that world leaders are coming out and making these claims before any investigation has been launched. it doesn't surprise me at all and 1st of all i'd like to extend my condolences to all those family members who lost their loved ones in this incident but like mr trudeau the daily newspaper in canada the toronto star seems to be far more forthright and yesterday they had an obstacle. kind of like outlining all the problems the boeing 707 has been having throughout the years and for the western powers for the english speaking democracies to jump on and blame this on

a russian missile it's simply dickless but it was surprising because they were able to sell this to the public in 2014 if you recall in july of 2014 that was the lazy airliner that came down and there was an individual very quickly from ukraine that claimed it on russian and even told them a kind of missile had been used without being there and because they were mad and it's very interesting because at that time maybe a month before that a poll by gallup had come out which showed that the russian people view president putin. very favorably 83 percent of the most worship him and one behold we have we have a missile that prince. plane and blames it on russian president putin specifically and even here to this not dissimilar when very very loved revered commander of the i.r.g.c.

was assassinated by america the people's outpouring was over 80 percent and they were mad as hell and iran of course you talented by sending a few missiles over to you rock without causing casualties and somehow it's as if this is being disciplined it's being pushed on the missile coming from iran and russia being dragged in to diminish from the popularity. and you know. if the united states has let you go i was just enjoying right now at the moment and i think they had a problem blaming it on the iranian missiles because if you recall a day or 2 ago even going back about a year americans think tanks and experts were sounding the alarm about the accuracy of the power of the iranian missile system a game they were saying said couple of days ago they were how wonderful they were so they couldn't really languish of the iranian made missiles and they blamed it on

a russian it's all both to drag russia into the us who's been an ally and iran although all each country is very much independent sovereign but they have been allies in adversity faced with america's ambitions so they drag. rushing into this but it's very very important to also focus on boeing itself i wrote the toronto star made. talked about the 737 here because if you go back using years i mean because we didn't have internet we didn't have the world wide web is instant as didn't come to our attention if you go as far back as 2002 there was a chinese airline 5611 with a lot of taiwanese on it and it blew up in midair and they've blamed china's missiles on it and so after years or the past months this decided that was not the case and there have been other is again that was a 747777 forgive me. there was a t w

a flight. that was leaving j.f.k. and that blew up in $1000.00 active and that was a $747.00 and they said it was terrorists and they had a car and a homeland security at the f.b.i. the police department everybody is looking into this but it was not it was accidental and i guess thanks for that background in that context i think obviously the point here is that. all sides are laying speculation and. media is quick to point political motives and that's something ukraine but i think the point being here as well that the investigation has not yet been carried out so we wait to see the results of that. independent research and writer thanks for your time. another news the longest transport workers strike in france in decades has now entered its 36th day it was called over planned pension reforms and today paris and other cities are witnessing another major mobilization supported by people of

different classes and occupations in the french capital crowds gathered to comb the government to withdraw its plans according to the local unions 370000 protesters descended on the capital although the interior ministry claimed it was a fraction of that size challenger bensky reports from the center of the protest well we've already seen tear gas deployed on several occasions by the police as they were trying to control the crowd see paris and the crowds are huge i just want to get you to go up and get a sense of looking down this street this is delivered to mission and put you much all the way down to the last of the publique it is chock a block with people people who've come out to support this strike now in its 36 day this is the 4th day of nationwide protests and as you can see it doesn't seem as if the support is abating a tool many people thought this strike would only go on for maybe 2 weeks but hey

we are not 36 day going into the 6 week and it still looks like it's getting huge amount to support in terms of have the strike is going there is more public transport that is operational at the moment in paris are we seeing trains operating fairly normally metros operating fairly normally in the mornings and in the evenings at the during the large parts of the day little is operating apart from the automated lines that's one whole scene now in terms of the general support for this strike the polls in france show that most people are still supporting the strike people very unhappy from across the board about these changes. to the pension system to the reforms that the government wants to make it wants to put $42.00 different pension systems down into one universal system to end many of the special regimes it says that yes actually it's still offering many special regimes

to the police to sometimes but work is set to in a bid to join get the strike moving to try and get the impasse say to cross that the other big issue is raising the retirement age up to $64.00 it's currently $62.00 a with a front so they want to add another 2 years on to that but of course that won't affect anybody who's retiring in the next 17 years say the government they say will only affect those who turn 18 in the next few years but people are furious say they're saying you know they don't want to sell out their children speeches that grandchildren's features and that's why they determined to come out into the streets to keep protesting tensions are rising here towards the end of the protests that just want to get you to have a look back down there that's too would sun lazard in the center of paris you can see those crowds of tear gas in price don't tear gas still raining down on the protesters as the police try and control the situation here you can head out of the

people in the crowds and shouting everyone hates the police that's a chant we take quite often but you can really feel that tension right shooting up a in paris at the end of this protest that has been largely peaceful a tear gas has been deployed throughout it and we have seen some individuals arrested individuals who apparently throwing objects to the police that sounds like some grenades but it could also be tear gas coming down this but you might be able to see the lights coming up on the fly as it sounds like that was a sound going to aid going off that people saying that they won't get even live to enjoy their retirements and they deterred. to stay out in the streets and to make sure people know there are happy this is a protest now say just 6 days this is the 4th day of nationwide protests across france i know as you can see it doesn't look like it's about to be bright. well

dramatic scenes in paris the well that is your own thing for now we'll be back here with the rest of the team at the top of the hour with more news from around the world see that. one almost sure seems wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me. yet to shape out these days to come after. and indeed try to be close to trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. good food descriptions sound up a tasing even for the owners so how to choose the cat food industry is telling us

what to feed our pets really more based on what they want to sell us than was necessarily good for the pet turns out that food may not be associate as people believe we have animals that have you know diabetes in arthritis they have auto immune disorders the cat allergies we are actually creating these problems it's a huge epidemic of problems all of them i believe can be linked to very simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their pets last treats the larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving the value of their food because they're already making it a $1000000000.00 on it and there's no reason to do that research.

happy new year i know welcome to the alex salmond show where we bet if i know i'm fond farewell to 2019 by looking at some of our program highlights from the year it was a political year totally dominated by pricks it but we took the opportunity to offer their viewers a welcome break with kids alex what was your top interview from 21000 that was show business related as opposed to political because well i had the chance to interview royalty my own. boyhood greatest ever hero robert the bruce in the form of argus mcfadden whose new film under bruce taught build the edinburgh international film festival last.

stand. me. good faith. you've changed me. if change the king county and the land we live in. gaza comes to a fight some of us might not see the sunset but that is the true nature of war. and knew this. now. in your eyes. you felt her fear and her teach. at the office so if

wept tears and if she took blood and just touched the cold crude skin of her death. we. have scotland clutched in the cricket team. and now. we set her free. is that not worth fighting i had. a huge break in the international block plus the brave and you played the robert the bruce was asked to come in for the english prince and it and i said because of the writes about sports and not our oh you want to play robert the bruce. but you can't because it's been offered to a movie star so forget about that come in to meet mel and talk about this role so what did i do i went in to have a no work for 9 months. and i and he said so you want to talk about the role of the

englishman i said nama here to talk about that hit talk about robert the bruce you told me you could be dead with the 2nd yes as opposed to so have a cigarette case that's correct and i was in there for an hour and a half and it was like look at me go and the casting director like why is he talking about this and he said so ok well it was great to meet you you know want to talk about the other guy i said no i'm good good luck with the movie and i left and kicked myself for days afterwards and i had worked for 9 months women doing but i got a phone call 10 days later and i was asked to come back to see him i was a crisis over there now i'm something wrong you know and turned out that the actor who'd been offered the role was trying to get. a role in the other scottish from which would be made at the time the robbery one which was considered there's all the beer script so 'd everybody wanted to be in the other one this one was like the cheesy hollywood i think right. got invited back and it turned out that this other actor had let go the day go by by which he should have accepted the offer so they

withdrew it and gave it to me so as a sort of element of destiny and that was a great movie from the period of the course of run before i respect fighters determination to play robert the bruce and the coincidence of the liam neeson rob roy film he could have ended up playing unfortunately with the 2nd you are a member came to a very sticky end so tell us what was your showbiz highlight well my favorite is the one actor hugh managed to pee in both rob roy i'm braveheart and is now biting mccrae civil wave and they hate sure succession and this week he's just won the golden globe award for the best actor in a drama see that is the connection between brian cox and his fictional character look at roy s. of course that bought hail from the city of 20 let's have another like frank cause let's start with the succession this sensation which is storm flu this year another series so.