democratic choice. changes to pension rights reforms. after the president. on friday. on the program described. the u.k.'s national health service as. the 1st of its kind of. life changing.

to an experimental treatment. and. if we. want to help companies float on the. all white male. 11 am in los angeles 4 pm and 10 at night here in moscow this friday january the 24th welcome to our 2 international my names you know neil. maass protests are once again gripping fronts over controversial pension reform plans marking the largest shutdown of infrastructure in decades in the country earlier on friday president.

they proposed changes to his cabinet in paris for us r t charlatans. hard cool section of the society are continuing to come out to the streets to take part in these protests let's just take a look at the procession here in paris and you'll get a sense of how full the streets are with those who wanted to come out again today the 51st day of the strike the 7th day of nationwide action to show how unhappy they are about those controversial pension reforms being put through by the french government that pension reform law has been presented to the council of ministers it now because towards the national assembly where it's due to be debated in february and we know that the strikers why they have received some concessions they haven't been able to achieve what they set out to which was the government to abandon that reform altogether so what have they achieved well so far the government has decided to take out all references to raising the pension age to the

age of $64.00 they would do to add 2 years onto the pension age before you could receive pull a pension and the government is also relinquished and said that certain sectors certain professions will continue to have a special conditions special conditions reality is the. law hasn't changed dramatically from what the government sent out to do so in some respects you could say the protesters haven't really got their way the other thing to say about this is of course that this started as a rolling strike action carried out by public transport workers in this 1st few weeks particularly here in paris public transport was paralyzed across the city with issues nationwide as well so what we're seeing now is continuing smaller strike action that knocks like it's being more directed a mood targeted and the reality is while people know that this pension reform is likely to sail through the national assembly go to the senate and also be approved

they want to make sure the government is aware how unhappy they are now the government for its part. edward phillipe the prime minister has been talking about why you this pension reform is so important the aim of this reform is to overhaul the system so it becomes much fairer more solid and more adapted to the transformations of the working world of tomorrow the construction of the universal pension system corresponds to the will of the vast majority of french people workers on the street disagree with that they say no it won't it means we'll work for longer i will have to work harder and perhaps we'll end up with less money in our pockets at the end the government says anybody who works a full career which is some 40 odd years will receive a minimum pension of a 1000 euros a month many people say that is not a lot to live on and while people know that that pension reform has been passed and presented to the council of ministers on friday they want to make sure that the government is aware that they are not happy and they will continue to show their

oni's and their defiance against this new law. across the channel from there the u.k.'s national health service is facing a 1st of its kind legal battle over prescribing children as young as 9 puberty blockers on cross sex hormone drugs one claimant is 23 year old curable who was previously treated by the gender identity development service now she regrets making reversible changes and said no child should go through a she sees that the experimental torture of the cheated shadi adverse daschle has the story. 23 year old care about went through gender reassignment as a teenager but years later she decided to reverse the transition while she lived to regret her treatment she also stopped the clinic putting others through what she did she's leading a landmark case against the tavistock and portman n.h.s. trusts the u.k.'s only gender identity service that deals with patients under 18

years old often without parental consent care of herself as a teenager and says youngsters aren't given proper information on the process and the drugs to take them through the transition i do not believe the children and young people can consent to the use of powerful and experimental hormone drugs like i did i believe that the current affirmative system put in place by the tavistock is inadequate as it doesn't allow for exploration of the gender dysphoria feelings nor does it seeks to find the underlying cause of this condition and care it joins a mother of a 15 year old autistic girl who is on the waiting list for the treatment at the service much of the concern of her mother i have deep concerns that the current clinical approach a gender identity development service means that my daughter will be subjected to an experimental treatment path that is not adequately regulated when no one understands the risks and therefore canada ensure informed consent is obtained almost half of children treated at the clinic are prescribed hormone blockers that help people this gives children the time to consider whether they truly want to

make a transition to the opposite sex but the drug interferes with natural hormone production it's this step that this legal battle is all about a claimant's a calling for an urgent reassessment of the procedure what is challenged is the current and continuing practice of the defendant to prescribe puberty suppressing hormone blockers and then subsequently crossed sex hormones to children under the age of 18 and it's not just former patients and relatives have to worry that medical professionals have also voiced concerns even accusing the specialist clinic for charles gentle children of suppressing negative results while undertaking experimental treatment on adolescent. that's what i found using some unpublished data that i discovered from the telescope today is that after 12 months blockers are they were saying quite pronounced negative. it's believed the girls so girls are became head of their gender dysphoria increase and some of their psychological

problems increased and indeed there is even less slightly increased but statistically significant increase in their thoughts about suicide so these are all quite negative findings but these are not being published by the tavistock clinics here in london say 3000 percent more patients than they did 10 years ago among girls it's up more than 5000 percent with referrals that's a record high it suggests cases of the transition will rise to that there is no data to reflect the number 4 who may opt to return to their biological sex we reached out to the tavistock and portman n.h.s. trust for comment our clinical interventions are laid out internationally set service specifications and h s england monitors our service very closely the series has a high level of reporting satisfaction and was rated good by the care quality commission but while there is no doubt that this service helps young people who feel distressed in their own bodies the full impact of making decisions about their gender at such young ages may not truly be clear to much later in their lives or

former psychiatric nurse susan evans who worked at the development service and was the original lead claimant in the case in fact told r.t. the drugs being administered aren't licensed in the u.k. for use as gender identity medicine. the reason this is a sort of unique case is because it's never been taken in you know or so with the looking at whether asking young children. to consent to an experimental treatment can be and in full consent if we also don't know the outcome of the full side effects of what's going to happen to them you know it's not in fulton terms the medical outcomes you know even the experts don't know the full picture yet we need more research but drugs as a prescribed here in the u.k. are an experimental drug because they're what we call off license so they were developed for very young children who had

a thing called true kosher shiva today which is when they develop too fast into puberty as children but in the area of gender identity medicine. these drugs are not licensed for that it's. ok let's say delve into a story now a stirring up of the business world investment by goldman sachs a's it's going to stop helping start up companies like diversity in their boardrooms go public in europe and the united states we realize that this is a small step but it's a step in the direction of saying you know what we think this is right with it's the right advice and want to position also because of our network to help our clients if they need help placing women on boards and so this is an example of are saying how can we do something that we think you know is right help move the market that. these political correctness culture may just kill me just have the best

people possible on the board no matter what the race or gender i'm tired of people get in positions of power just so things can be diversified. this is dangerous foolish and moronic goldman sachs' tokenism is unproductive for diversity no one should attain a position of power based on an arbitrary characteristic positions of power need to be based on performance having token women minorities on boards to meet quotas isn't diversity the better solution is to get more women minorities into college and graduate m.b.a. schools so they can filter into those positions on their merit. of diversity is the bull's word across a wide range of social spheres at the moment with particular criticism aimed at the oscars and the bafta as well new u.k. for lucking representation at award ceremonies now the debate has also hit tech giant google whose hiring practices have been slam for

a feeling to better accommodate minorities spiked magazines look at distance sees the bank's diversity drive or buy for. well it's a mad announcement you know goldman sachs have made this announcement a time when you know they are part of a major bidding process to be part of the saudi arabian oil conglomerate of pose i.p.o. i don't think that board is going to be particularly diverse and for their business reasons they've actually excluded this policy from all of asia because they know that most chinese japanese most companies across asia will not have diverse boards so i think it's completely hypocritical completely banal completely pointless and i think that actually it's deeply patronizing to the women who do make their way up through these companies and on to these boards independently inevitably goldman sachs is announcement will now mean the allegations of tokenism will simply go up you know the idea will be that you can't get you can't be taken public if you don't

have a woman on your board so anyone now from these companies any woman who receives a place on that board based on merit will be forced to believe that it's merely because they the company wants to go public i think it's wrong. let's bring you to the middle east where thousands protested on friday in the iraqi capital calling for the u.s. to end its military presence in the country the demonstration labeled the 1000000 man march was set up by an iraqi shia cleric or washington is playing down the rallies highlighting his friendship with the country they like what we're doing we like them and we've had a very good relationship. much wanted by the iraqi military. we believe most iraqis we have said that we're not interested in talking with raul because we don't think we should withdraw our economies are issues. with us both the united states and iraq we believe should cover. over our relationship or the

tense situation in the region has escalated since the u.s. killing of iran's top general a senior iraqi militia leader in a drone strike near baghdad international airport at the beginning of january following the assassinations iraq passed the resolution to expel foreign troops from the country but that still needs to be ratified by the prime minister the u.s. president has rejected the move on war and sanctions would be imposed that goes ahead with the military expulsion based journalist mohammed thanks the u.s. will try to find any lupul to stay in iraq until the resolution is finally ratified . the u.s. is trying to avoid. the. this political official political. popular decision to expel us forces from iraq by saying such as my pompei of sector of sate has said that. this is not an

official decision by the parliament considering that there are some members of the parliament who are refused the expulsion of the u.s. forces the u.s. delegate to syria james jeffrey has also today. this decision as not an official one as well why department since the u.s. administration only deals with the with the iraqi government thus the u.s. is trying to avoid. to take responsibility. of their actions and have the same time they are trying to avoid this mass anger against what they have done. we spoke to a number of people about that story but just moving on right now i want to bring in another story has got a lot of people talking there is i cry in front so

a 16 year old blogger received death threats after a partly insulting islam online the girl known only as miller has been told to go into hiding by police and has deleted all her social media accounts authorities are investigating the case. the viral posting spread on social media networks of a video posted by a young girl expressing during a personal discussion violin and horsetail comments about the muslim religion has provoked a multiplication of reactions to in the form of death threats and threats to commit crimes when me this case has received wide attention with some french politicians voicing clear support. we can find evolve but we cannot accept that some people condemn her to death for that in france in the 21st century let us support me look a 16 year old high school student insults and threats and with death or thousands of fanatics for having given her opinion and islam. for all to discuss this story

i'm very happy to welcome onto the program the chair of the islamic human rights commission mustard shed jar and new york observer columnist and ray walker welcome to you both we kick off with you one of the intrigue and others quite a few intriguing aspects to this story but the spike this support the police opened a probe to determine whether the girl's comments amounted to a hate speech are there any grounds for that. well i don't know i mean there's a lot of the nuance of this that will be in french that unfortunately it has a known french speaker i'm not sure about but look there are laws across the world that stop you encouraging violence against people and i think that's right my concern is that time and time again we're seeing blasphemy laws reinstituted across europe remember back in the middle ages europe was plagued by blasphemy laws inflicted by the christian community and i think that we've got a lot better as

a society since they disappeared but now we see plus we lost starting to creep back there not called blasphemy laws and the more they i'm out absolutely to the same thing i have no desire to insult my muslim neighbor i've no we desire to make any rude or crude or insulting remarks against a prophet mohammad but i do believe that i ought to have the right to do that and i think it's important for a free society that we can criticize religion when we want to and it's also important that in those cases where the law does not in shrine blocks from a that we don't allow more brutal to piggyback blasphemy in a extra judicial way that's the concern must sued the blogger said that islam is full of hatred and received a wave of death threats right after not just one or 2 nuts but a wave to a certain degree does that not prove her point. or look 1st the war.

against blasphemy law or blasphemy is something a very christian sort of centric. and it's got no room in between islam and the slam we actually encourage any sort of criticism but what we don't. is the abuse i mean i think there's a lot of difference we all every human being on this stands the difference between criticism and abuse and and you know i think this is one issued the other. issue here is that we can't have double standards so often if you see this sort of abuse against islam and muslims if you actually change there would slam you do judaism and then you know there will be completely different reaction internationally by the authorities and everyone else i think we need to preserve. islam and judaism and indeed other believes in the same way yes

criticize this sit down and criticize one another this is very healthy is the way forward but abusing one another promoting hatred saying that people from one particular faith or group are nothing but barbaric or kill is violence and so what you want us not true we know that there are people within every faith and every group including the secular society and those who are atheists are violent. and we shouldn't associate this and you know i think if the authorities implement freedom of speech we don't favor and read out in the sort of pacific exceptionalism then we will see end of these episodes and great just on one of those points made general respect for other people's faiths are we losing it altogether. well i don't

know if you know would make one point that there was a pretty muslim organization that photo at the staff of charlie hebdo islamophobia of the yes there were unable to collect the award because they'd been shot a few months earlier there is a general feeling and what worries me is this the recent general feeling in the case of say charlie hebdo that yes he said the shouldn't have been machine gold but equally they were just as bad to have insulted the prophet muhammad these 2 things are absolutely no. not the same but i do look at do you think that we are we live in a less tolerant society i think that we do have a problem with things like twitter where people are much too keen to have a go at each other or not is keen to find the middle ground but that does not stop the fact that there are people who want both in statutes out of the in practice for religions to be immune from criticism now i believe that every religion should be criticized in the most simple and i believe that the idea the idea that the idea

that insulting the prophet mohammed should be something you should die for is completely unacceptable and always remember you or it got better when we walked away from these blasphemy rules ourselves and i think it would be great if the islamic world was to follow that example. i don't know i don't know i don't know why you keep on being in blasphemy laws no one no one is actually talking about bringing in blasphemy laws we are saying that you should not be able to abuse muslims under the pretense that this is. under the pretense that this is freedom of speech when you could say this if you say the same thing about the jewish community you will find yourself in jail this is a point that needs to be established and of course i would welcome you or anyone else let's sit down around the cup of tea let us criticize one another's believe but respect one another and i don't see why this should be

a confusing for anyone. well look what you've just laid out it should be it should be battened to be abusive towards islam even if that stress to pursue congratulations you're describing a blasphemy law and that is something that we need to get away from i mean i'm not a no no no what happened remember what happened i don't remember what happened with the mohammed cartoons the mohammed cartoons led to attacks across the world to european embassies and. that is something that is all external there is a potty whether you whether you like it all about whether you like it or not the majority are very intelligent people but there is our sizeable number who would want to who would want to care i would like to see you killed for insulting mohammad that is a fact look let me let me let me tell you something we did the function last sunday genocide memorial we actually dealt with the issue sanctions kills and really criticizing the end of it we actually had the

memorization of commemoration of all man inhumanity to man including the holocaust and everything else and we had 3 minutes silence 2 days later jewish chronicle is same you're anti semitic because we actually talked about genocidal acts against palestinians we are not evil and we're not alone as muslims and people with the brown the skin to actually the commemorate. genocide being all inclusive this is the reality more and more muslims are being targeted with abuse and then you know even even to the head of the watchdog for the prince actually said that muslims are not getting the fair hearing in the press in britain ok andree. today's issue it opens up a even wider debate does it not that you've got blasphemy which is not

a crime in france but making death threats is of course but if you're going to police everybody who say such a thing on social media you're going to have a lot of people in jail should these people face to face you know direct punishment from the state or just throw them off social media what do you do there. yes it's very very difficult because you know if i was to come off and i was paranoid about this debate to go oh i do you know i would i could kill him or i could strangle him that's not death threats i think sometimes these things are exaggerated significantly you know i'm not denigrating people going you know i was just joining to escape or just tuning in this is a 16 year old girl who has essentially had to go into hiding. yeah absolutely i think i think there is a concern that sometimes we're overly policing that's the problem the big problem that we're going to have with any of these things the difference in the death threats and the throwaway remark it's very subjective and it's something that has

to be judged on the case by case basis i don't feel particularly able to say where the law is but i know that there is a law in masoud we have the issue again of the l g p t and the muslim community banging heads again it's becoming a recurring theme is it not. you know i think i think you know the overwhelming majority of muslims have got a different opinion when it comes to homosexuality you know we have a different opinion regarding people who drink we don't go outside the pubs and bars we do we're waiting for people to come up to whip i mean this is crazy we could have a difference of opinion we could have a sort of different principles but we're living in a society and we should not discriminate against one another the reality is what is happening right now that is the exception when it comes to the muslims we you know

look at what i would do we're just getting away from it a little let me just a minute i'll give you the opportunity to finish that this girl. the rainbow flag on her on our website she's quite well known in france and that was responded to by what she called a religious fanatics and she said the majority of them were islamic and that's why she criticized the qur'an. you know they're not they're not shortage of scattered brains on the social media on all sides we cannot judge the whole communities on the basis of few people who go haywire on this social media but what is really important when you're talking about freedom of speech in the last few weeks so many people have lost facebook's because they put a photograph of general salim only on their facebook now i mean you know this is absurd we can sort of talk about freedom of speech and freedom of association and

then behave like this is towards a section of community i mean you know it's like even even if somebody wants to put a photograph of stupid. you know hitler we shouldn't take the site down i mean really i think that is. the way that the freedom of speech is being dished there is a lot of double standard than hypocrisy and ok we have about a minute left under if you'd like to offer any final thoughts you can and then mustered we have about 15 seconds after that well look it's clearly a good bloke and as are the majority of muslims but there is a problem with fundamentalism in our society and most of from the bad place of muslims that not all muslims but most of them are eastern attempt to say that in practice you can criticize as are you cults insult the prophet muhammad you can't be critical of the views that he expressed that is something that is dangerous for

our society and actually i think it's dangerous for muslims as christians because because what he does is it makes these religions much too powerful and in a free society you really don't want. i'm not saying that you can criticize islam and say go ahead no problem let's get together over a cup of tea you can criticize those ones as you want and i will discuss of that you also i mean the fact of the mother is that we need to recognize that freedom of speech is something that we all here to extremism i mean sometimes our british government is extremists and look at the day we really really have to go also regarding identify ok thank you very much i'm sure you could keep this conversation going for quite some time very good spirited debate thank you both islam and human rights commission chair must suit should jar a new york observer columnist and friend of the program and rework or think ok well if you'd like to get stuck into any of those stories this hour to check out our

facebook page leave a comment throw us a like or 2 whatever you're feeling so you say. this is a story about what happens ostracise trade bullets kills a young girl in the street. what happens to her family daughters in florida. is buried in a cemetery dealing with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and what happens in court be. shot after shot smar officer.