the water where politicians you. give the go ahead. in a phone call the presidents of russia and turkey greater prioritize anything about series it lead province amid rising tensions between their forces and after the troops killed in syria a turkish official now says they will no longer stop directing genes from crossing into big it's reported large groups are already making their way to the greek border. and is bernie sanders in the polls one billionaire donor to the democrats tells the party to unite behind any party but bernie claimed the socialist senator cannot be trouble.

though they're just gone midnight here in moscow you're watching r.t. international our top story this hour the rising tensions between russian banks syrian forces and turkish troops in sports at $33.00 turkish soldiers were killed during an offensive by syrian government forces the presidents of russia and turkey have held a phone call in which they discussed holding a high level meeting about the escalation earlier russia's foreign minister spoke out in support of the syrian army's right to respond sissy's 5 violations and also called for cooperation between all sides within the great framework. we reaffirm our commitment to agreements reached by the presidents of russia and turkey a suggestion is that everyone should already start fulfilling their was a the syrian army have every right to respond to regular violations of cease fire from inside their either observed on to neutralize terrorists cannot restrict the syrian army from fulfilling requirements written in the u.n.

resolution on fighting terrorism you. the syrian army has been engaged in a very violent fight to defeat the last militant stronghold in syria and the province according to moscow the turkish troops that were killed on thursday were among terrorist fighters involved in a large scale offensive against the syrian army but the russians say they weren't even informed of the presence of turkish troops until they were hit by that airstrike on february 27th near the settlement of b. whom turkish soldiers who were embedded with terrorists came on to the syrian army fired at the same time according to the coordinates transmitted by the turkish side to russia there were no turkish troops or units in the area and the russian reconciliation center says that they immediately rushed to the aid of the injured turkish troops after discovering what had happened it's certainly strange they weren't informed in the 1st place since the center maintains regular contact with ankara and the russians say that the data turkey provided suggested that there were

no turkish troops there although ankara recently denied this and said that they did inform russia of their troop locations the banker also called for a consultation with its nato allies following the attack leading to an emergency meeting of the military alliance and there's even been speculation that article 5 could be a vote now what that means is article 5 would potentially draw turkey turkey's allies into a war against syria and russia but again as of now that is that's just speculation but we also heard from the country's minister of affairs and he said that syria will be held accountable for what happened to her he is determined to continue to it fulfills its objectives in accordance with its legal rights the murderous regime and those who encouraged it will account for their betrayal in the most severe way now a lot of this chaos stems from disagreements over a cease fire that came into effect earlier this year on the one hand turkey accuses syria of violating that cease fire with this stuff. and so against the militant

stronghold in ad lib and on the other hand syria and russia accuse turkey of not holding up its end of the bargain apparently ankara was supposed to remove terrorist groups from the region while negotiating with the more moderate groups but making a firm dividing line between the 2. possibilities between groups there but the efforts that it's made to that effect have been quite ineffective and more talks are scheduled in march actually between iran and turkey and russia on the issue so we'll have to see if that yields any results of that can solve the crisis currently going on in this syrian province. don't go to their will meanwhile nato has held a special meeting in brussels at the request of its 2nd general says that the airlines stands behind ankara but did call in or sides to you to find a peaceful solution. constantly looking into what more they can do to provide further support for. nato allies are engaged in trying to move forward in the

efforts of the un there 1st and find a peaceful solution we call on turkey we call on. russia to fully engage in such a u.s. led offensive on the peaceful solution we spoke about this with mark almond he's a political analyst and also the director of the crisis research institute he believes that nato you support though will remain largely. i don't think major forces will enter syria in support of those turks who gone are the problem to turkey use the nato alliance as principle is an attack on war as an attack on all but the turks might be risking trying to say that an attack by one nato states brings in all the others to support it and i think was also reluctant to see move to come into a confrontation with russia so there's quite a lot of powerful voices in nato who support the turks desire to see the syrian

army's offensive stopped but i'm not sure they want to go beyond words and perhaps symbolic gestures now as military conflict is continue in the region large groups of refugees continue to head for europe earlier on friday there were reports of a turkish official saying that the country would no longer stop refugees including syrians from crossing into the european union these pictures from our video agency show people into some of them here carrying children reportedly making their way to the border with greece in greece itself these new pictures show migrants arriving on the island of lesbos spied on entities have been meeting them with blankets and essential supplies but protests have also grips creek islands in recent days with locals opposing government plans to build new migrant camps there mark almond again believes that he is easing tensions around the migrant controls to blackmail europe for support. several crimes in recent months 3 turkish government spokespeople who

are himself. first of all turkey has through a hole through 3 quarter 1000000 refugees that its painful cost or maybe we were pretty and should do more for them or let them go to europe and she could be what he's now doing this crisis is saying to the europeans if you don't back me or i have a weapon i can use your society as remember what happened when the moon and the whole refugees arrived in germany in 2015 will spin off on politics and to appear important and so in a way a person who understand your friends will. me but if you don't i think black we've opened the floodgates to perhaps 2 or 3000000 refugees trying to enter the european union. when all the. trying to hold a gun to your head as well as with his other hand a gun to the head of a. bigot is in the us democrat party of being unite behind anybody but bernie sanders a wealthy donor has made the play you believe in that sound as could not be donald

trump in the next presidential election so now reports they say money can't buy you friends or happiness but might be true but they could just buy you the white house methadone a bernard schwartz has been digging deep in his pockets to help the democrat cause but it's not entirely a no strings attached situation we should know who is the best person to be dull trump and with all due respect bernard son there's going to be trump so which horses shorts betting on well he's not fussy but either of his friends from the billionaires club will do who just like him aren't shy on splashing the cash and since we're already here together let's look at just how much cash with king take joe biden now he's discovered that he can't just rely on his instagram a bromance with obama to take him all the way so decided instead to drop a 6 figure sum in just one out for good measure though he did keep in some

a bar minister. this is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary career in public service you've got to admire him though if i were trailing 12 percent behind the top candidate and had my own backers jumping ship i'd be a bit tighter on the past strings by the way biden still pales in comparison to what his buddy bloomberg has spent so far it's estimated the x. new york mayor has dropped a casual 400000000 on his campaign but hey it's only no point 6 percent of. his $64000000000.00 fortune so no biggie also at least he's having some fun with it not even the aspiring us president is above a cheeky trolling campaign and it seems to be paying off because he's risen from the very bottom of the polls to somewhere near the top of course let's not forget he is an old hand when it comes to knowing just what money can get you all of the new democrats that came in put nancy pelosi in charge and gave the congress the

ability to control this president i bought i got them hoops well let's look farther afield now at some of the candidates like a judge to its credit p. sense that people might not be found of this whole exclusive club of the rich so decided to play the role of the average joe just the man on the street you know i'm the only candidate on those debates stages in this race the major candidates who's not a millionaire or a billionaire what's this a penniless candidate and big money politics well if you believe bunny not quite we're going to contrast our views with mayo to judge 40 billionaires who are contributing to his campaign the heads of the c.e.o.'s of the large pharmaceutical industries the insurance companies and so forth well since bonnie's made an apparent let's peek inside his coffin he might be all about divvying up the cash once he gets his hands on those government funds but until then it seems he's more about treating himself he has dipped into his funds and brought out around

$14000000.00 for just a few t.v. ads so it seems that no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on you know that to win in this case you need a lot of the green stuff to help you along the way money is always played a big part in american elections especially since 2010 with the u.s. supreme court ruled in a case called citizens united that you could spend as much money as you wanted on candidates. because corporations spending money on politics is free speech spending money is free speech corporations are people that's what this supreme court decided that's a travesty and that's really undermined american democracy even more and made it more of a money game then ever before there's a big problem in the us money yes and the role of money is growing even more but you know i don't think it serves a point where

a movement like sender's could still prevail. now a new report in the u.k. has found that minority creeps are being overrepresented in the media black asian another ethnic minorities have twice the presence on television they do actually have on the streets of britain and the same also applies to the l g b community where one of the channels looked at in the report does say it is actually simply trying to reflect reality cannot foresee claims that its main goal is to reflect modern diversity in its output but sekret excess saying it has gone too far. grobe our endeavors characters to refer demographics or world provide. you don't know what else is overrepresented on t.v. they hate for white people that it's even worse there are 4 characters here well to have to be nonwhite and one must be gary the country isn't 50 percent nonwhite and

a quarter again we put the issue up to date the new york observer columnist andre walker and also the human rights activist peter tatchell. these highlights the ludicrous idea of having quotas for everything i genuinely believe that in television like all the rest of life you should have the best people for the job but you know what if you can have quotas that when white middle class heterosexual men are under represented then you've got to throw somebody else out but we don't have a quota system in british t.v. there are attempts and have been successful attempts according to these statistics to redress the marginalization exclusion and collect past decades and i think that's a great thing to celebrate because it does show that we are a more accepting understanding inclusive society this is about normalizing the fact that we live in a diverse society this is not about diversity it ought not to be about diversity what it should be about is the best person for the job television is bad to tell humans so you pick the best guy for the job or the best woman for the job who acts

in the best way all the social change that peter tatchell is talking about all of this let's get a gay person cause that kerry or black person has a black it's just a load of 970 s. rock i'm certain that all those black and gay actors are chosen not because of their race or sexuality because they happen to be good actors we need to fight discrimination we need to ensure that people who are disabled or gay or black and not discriminate against the idea of just let's just pick this person whoever they are just in order to fill a quota is not doesn't serve you know everybody's doing the right. they choose good after you get a piece of pizza i love you to pieces if you're out of date. over to the u.s. state of montana now were a total of 4 city council officials there have asked the prosecutor's office to drop charges against the whistleblower brandon bryant who is famous for lifting the lid on civilian killings in u.s. overseas drone operations well the air force veteran had been charged with threatening city officials in the you tube video and is currently in detention over

the past few months he's attended multiple city council meetings criticizing the way tax monies being used brandon's mother does claim his incarceration is politically motivated and she's launched a campaign in the hope of raising $100000.00 for his but. my son was the u.s. air force the civil war who broke the code of silence on the joint program now he's in jail in the sense that it's still that he has no criminal record and yet he is in hell and $100000.00 bail under detention he's isolated from this family. and it's really means in terms of plea i mean indeed an emotional support animal brennan bryan served as a u.s. air force drone operator from 2006 until 2011 having left the military began exposing cases of what he alleged to be civilian deaths resulting from american drone strikes brian claim that commanders often prioritized the elimination of

a target over accuracy resulting in innocent people being killed in the process as revelations then one him a german whistleblower award in 2015 and also intensified a debate over the use of a german air base by american drones here's how brandon described his experience to us back in 25th. i actually talked with a lady whose husband. was killed he was has been and brother was killed in a drone strike i talked to her face to face and she asked me why her husband and brother had to die and they weren't bad guys and i just looked at i don't know. not really the best thing that i can tell someone who is asking questions about why someone that they cared about was killed and they need to know the answers and the really true hard answer to say is that i'm sorry that.

the mistake happened and i'm doing everything that i can prevent further mistakes from happening. well authorities say that bryant was recently arrested on the. had allegedly exhibited threatening behavior. and on top of that he threatened to eliminate members and he. however. doesn't believe that brian's current predicament is connected to his past revelations. this does seem to be more retaliation for his having spoken out about the drone operations and the fact that they were killing innocent civilians more so than what he's now done typically with the whistleblower they look back in your personnel file 1st to see if there's anything bad that they can use to discredit the messenger and if they can't find anything bad bad in someone's background or

personnel file then they wait for the whistleblower to you know make a small error or mistake and the draw was a blow or are in a fragile emotional state already as you can see with all the veterans they suffer from p.t.s.d. and we know from many other cases of retaliating and persecuting was of lors that that seems to be that the standard of the government is in perpetual war and so the war goes on for ever that means that even if you speak out even years ago and if specially if you continue to speak out about the wrongful actions and the war crimes it's going to continue this is not to negate the fact that brandon certainly he erred if he made any threatening remarks or comments he certainly should be corrected and he should receive more treatment but i don't think he should be punished the way he's being punished. bronzes been angered by comments made by the

ambassador of his ally mali he was critical of french anti-terrorist squads in the west african country coming wednesday picks up the story. tensions have risen diplomatically between mali and france following those comments by the mali and to france in which he criticised and denotes the actions of french soldiers on the ground in his country. there are no desirable some elements of the army because we see it all we see to all over and we don't know what they are doing on the streets of the marco at night and it's not good for the image of france. all those remarks have provoked anger here and francois hollande ambassador was hauled in front of the foreign affairs ministry to explain those actions meanwhile the french armed forces with the stuff of a large party didn't know most of this being false and also i think sceptical this was a statement from her ministry rather than channeling and spreading false accusations

we expect the ambassador of mali to devote all his energy to implementing the post summit and achieving success for everyone it comes just off the frogs held 'd a big summit just a few weeks ago in the south of france to discuss the future of the soho region and operation volcano this is francis the largest overseas operation with all the $5000.00 troops stationed across 5 countries in the sawhill region including mali now president merkel also said at that summit that french soldiers were paying for the conflict in blood let's have a look at some of the recent attacks in the sawhill region.

it comes amidst other tensions such as protests on the ground against french troops being stationed in bali protesters saying they're not welcome but also saying that from the system treating the country as if it's a colonial entity and it comes of it's the fact that the moment president himself has admitted that his government has nothing to do with your hardest in a way to find a solution to the conflict now we know that mali is sending its foreign affairs minister here to paris to try and smooth things over but the reality is this latest diplomatic and incident is going to raise more questions about the why of french

soldiers in the ground possibly offering up their lives to fight for a war that's not their own. germany's top court is upheld a ban on judges and training is wearing headscarves were ruled that the clothing violate the neutrality of the courtroom before all of reports. germany's constitutional court has decided that when it comes to wearing islamic headscarves courtrooms are a special case i'd like it ban on religious symbols similar to what they have in france isn't favored in germany but when it comes to wearing islamic headscarf in court that's a different matter the court has rejected the constitutional complete against the ban on wearing a headscarf for certain official activities all those obligation constitute an interference with the completeness freedom of belief and other fundamental rates this is justified the case was brought by german rocket legal training you argue

that the state of pace's rules that she couldn't wear red scarf while carrying out certain official duties was constitutional the ruling by the constitutional court has raised a few eyebrows on social media with people asking the question why a crucifix is allowed in a court room but a headscarf is not on the one hand the state may prohibit women lawyers in training from wearing the headscarf in court in order to maintain ideological and really just neutrality on the other hand. germany a courtroom must be relieved neutral hands the head scarf ban also germany. headscarf ban because the court should be neutral at the same time crucifix on the wall because it is known not to be a religious symbol has scarf bans target the group that is most discriminated against in germany in making the ruling the constitutional court pointed out that headscarf can be worn in the court building there only prohibits its carrying out

public duties in the court itself i spoke to people on the streets of berlin and asked if they made this decision ok. i think it's absolutely landslide believe in a free country and everyone here has the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. in this nation are unknown. no i think that it's wrong because it concerns religion if a legion obliges him to her it then you have to do it no matter where you go that's why i don't think it's right that it's forbidden. that. we are old people they have their own culture and we have our culture those people have to adapt to where they are i have nothing against it those people who come to germany they have to adapt but i have nothing against the headscarf germany 16 states have differing rules when it comes to religious symbols in this case the court ruled that the

trainee lawyer couldn't wear a headscarf as it went against the neutrality that a court room must show however it has led to questions over there being one rule for christians and another for muslims this is not a job this is something we need to do so this is something it's belong to the law and the constitution only needs to represent the constitution and it should be neutral all all we know about you out of here in the country was a christie only to remain a that was the only change and they need to respect that and the main of the people a lot of people in this going to they don't want to see a lot of muslims on of their allegiance who are going the symbols of privileges to presenting the constitution in the court this isn't something we are told know yet about the main constitution of the country and they make us more we're going to need people will be who to present the law without any other religions to be mixing in this law. donald trump's middle east peace plan held by the west

ministrations the deal of the century has come up against further resistance 50 formally does and ministers from across europe have now written a joint letter expressing their concerns about the proposal for a slayer reports 54 may european foreign ministers and leaders have expressed outrage over this. deal of the century they say that it is a kin to apartheid and of urge for action to oppose it to prosperity is not a roadmap to a viable 2 state solution nor to any other legitimate solution to the conflict the plan and visitors of formalization of the current reality in the occupied palestinian territory in which 2 people fall even side by side without equal rights such an outcome has characteristics similar to apartheid a term we don't use lightly now the peace plan includes jerusalem as israel's undivided capital palestine is to be demilitarized and its capital is to be in the outskirts of jerusalem palestine is also to comprise of the west bank and the gaza

strip and these 2 areas will be connected through roads and tunnels and $50000000000.00 of investment is to be made to palestine both the american president donald trump and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu have welcomed the deal my vision presents a win win opportunity for both. a realistic 2 state solution that resolves the risk of palestinian statehood to israel's security it's a great plan for israel. it's a great plan for peace now the palestinian president mahmoud abbas was quick to slam the deal on the same day that it was announced he said that you were still is not for sale dear friends we heard a little while ago from president trump and prime minister netanyahu talking about it would be a cool the deal of the century would we describe it as the slap of the century we will say a 1000 times no to this proposal so you now have

a situation there 50 european leaders as well as the official european union russia took in or 22 countries of the arab league are against this deal now the palestinians have been given for years to come to agree with it but it certainly seems in the long run that this is going to prove to be a fruitless effort for washington. there so that's why we're things looking on r.t. this evening we're back again with the headlines more stories in about half an. luck. leg.

length. that's geysers. they say to the girl. to the zip this is a central plank so for dying a common problem right now so you stop to. hello

and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle in london julian assange standing trial on whether he will be extradited to the u.s. to face espionage charges the stakes could not be higher liberty even life is on the line freedom of speech is also on trial though you wouldn't know that from the mainstream media. talking julian assange i'm joined by my guest in london joe lauria he is the editor in chief of consortium news dot com we also have taylor she is an independent journalist and co-founder of action for a song and we're joined by alexander make your us he is a writer on legal affairs as well as editor in chief of the duran dot com or across the.