i think it must. be. in a new round of clemency don't trump the pardons. convicted. as well as. the father president's son long. time in office pools the closure president vetoes us the fence built branding it on the constitutional. and the french government backed controversial green passports and allowing travel out of the proximity to be allowed for people vaccinated against. critics say the move everyone else into 2nd class.

life from the school was you know it seems rational with. cheating in from well as the pro. second wave of clemency from donald trump to see more allies get an early christmas present the outgoing u.s. president has drawn that a full pardon to his former campaign manager pulled out a full political operative roger stone and charles krishna who's the father of his son in law. or pool metaphors conviction as them as special counsel is investigation over supposed rush of collusion roger stone was convicted of misconduct by a special counsel miller's team while charles crucially had been convicted over tax evasion and lying to the federal election commission little trumps choices of who to grant a pardon spock fewer. it also includes military contractors jailed for killing civilians in iraq but no whistleblowers despite calls from rights activists are

a lot more pain picks up the story. well it is the holiday season and the outgoing presidential administration seems to be in a mood for clemency and there has been a wave of anger and criticism of who it is that the president of united states has decided to show mercy to now one of the people involved is george papadopoulos this is an associate of trumps who was caught up in the russia collusion investigation and charged with lying to the f.b.i. the white house made the decision to grant him a pardon at the time that mr papadopoulos allegedly made the false statements he was not represented by counsel and after he was arrested mr papadopoulos gave additional information on his prior statements to the special counsel today's pardon helps correct the wrong that mueller seem inflicted on so many people now in addition to george papadopoulos there has been widespread outrage about the trump administration's decision to grant clemency to some members of the blackwater

military contracting company these were guards who were employed by blackwater who killed civilians in iraq or the north american southwest or. that they were dead bodies everywhere and this means no humans going to be the only 2 people and it's going to be among the dead bodies the ministry has a ritual that was in the room of 7 years old. paul slow evan liberty and dustin heard were convicted for involuntary manslaughter

and the individual nicholas slotting who opened fire and 1st started shooting into the crowd of iraqi civilians he was. convicted of 1st degree murder but now the white house is letting all of them off they will no longer be in prison serving their sentences they have been pardoned this is the feeling of the white house about why they made this decision when the convoy attempted to establish a blockade outside the green zone the situation turned violent which resulted in the unfortunate deaths and injuries of iraqi civilians further prosecutors recently disclosed more than 10 years after the incident that the lead iraqi investigator who prosecutors relied heavily on so very far that there were no exigent victims and to collect evidence may have had tunnies to insurgent groups himself now at this point there is widespread outrage this seems like the trump administration is almost approving of the killing of iraqi civilians 2 children were among the 14 people in the crowd who died as

a result of their gun fire but at this point people are also looking at the fact that trumps education secretary betsy to vos is the sister of the founder of blackwater erik prince now there's also been a lot of outrage about who is not on the list of trump's pardons among the 15 people pardon and 5 sentence commute meant the names that were missing that many were optimistic and hopeful about were julian a son gen edward snowden these prominent whistleblowers had many people calling for the trump white house to grant them clemency among those who called for them were not just activists and advocates of civil liberties and for the protection of whistleblowers but also representatives of the united nations take a listen on hoping that he will julian assange it's the right thing to do donald trump since you're given pardons to people please consider pardoning those who at great personal sacrifice expose the deception and criminality of those in the deep state if president trump is true to its values i think the least you could do is to

end the suffering. the purity response to pardon him this man has suffered enough for the interest of the public to war now trump still has time to grant a pardon to edward snowden and to julian assan he can grant clemency up until the moment he leaves office he could do it at the very very last minute however the number of people that were pardoned to end the information about who they are seems to have many pessimistic many of the activists supporting the whistleblowers feel like this indicates the trumpet ministration is moving in a very different direction with its clemency this is what every country that hosts us occupation's us bases is told it's a matter for us justice when u.s. soldiers and u.s. contractors and mercenaries kill rape and pillage in your country we'll handle it well here's the message the united states will not handle it it will not treat

these cases in the way that it would treat a case of mass murder in the united states those of us who did not support from selection as support dropping the demand for extradition of julian a son for crimes that amount to a commission of acts of journalism i don't care who julian a son she is what his politics are what horrible things he's done he performed a great service for the world he behaved as a journalist and a publisher he worked with the legitimate whistleblowers who were doing services for the world he took care to limit any damage that could be done as he was performing this service he ought to be pardoned and i hope he will it certainly seems more likely still that trump will pardon him and then that president biden when he's newly into office will drop the case at all and trump has conducted one of his final acts of defiance as president to veto in this $740000000000.00 defense

bill that's the spy that's wide bipartisan support in congress but it's not the hefty cost that the outgoing u.s. leaders got a problem with his concerns all the unraveling of some of his previous moves saying it undermines national security. the act fails to include critical national security measures include provisions that failed to respect our veterans and our military's history and contradicts efforts by my administration to put america 1st in our national security and foreign policy actions president trump has essentially said that he was going to veto this defense bill if it came to him in the shape that well it came to him in essentially the bill which is $740000000000.00 is also known as the national defense authorization act it is an act passed every year for the last almost 60 years by congress to fund the u.s. military and every year it seems like the amount of funding for the military grows but it's also usually packed with items that are not necessarily specific to funding the military in this case there are a couple of different items that are listed within the bill that the president has

a problem with one is the renaming of certain forts and military installations in the united states that have the names of confederate soldiers one of those as fort benning in georgia the president does not want to rename those military installations but the bigger issue the one the media here doesn't really want to talk about is the issue of the fact that this bill actually prevents president trump from being able to withdraw our troops from afghanistan as he has said repeatedly that he desires to do and that he will do here's some of what president trump said about it numerous provisions of the act directly contradict my administration's foreign policy particularly my efforts to bring our troops home i oppose endless wars and as does the american public this act purports to restrict the president's ability to withdraw troops from afghanistan germany and south korea not only is this bad policy but it is unconstitutional nancy pelosi the speaker of the house spoke out about this saying that this is the wrong move by the president

that it puts our men and women in the military in harm's way she didn't explain how that happens he's not talking about defunding the military obviously it has a massive budget it's the largest budget in the entire u.s. government but. it what she also mentioned is that this bill undermines she says the will of congress in a bipartisan way the president's veto of the national defense authorization act is an act of staggering recklessness that harms our troops and then our security and undermines the will of the bipartisan congress next week december 28th the house will take up the veto override with bipartisan support you know what's fascinating about that is congress in the united states can't agree on anything certainly they have difficulty green on any issue except for military spending and the expansion of wars around the world and that's what this bill does it takes an extraordinary step that actually prevents a u.s. president from being able to withdraw troops without congressional approval that's

the caviar in this bill congress would have to approve the removal of troops which is not constitutional only the commander in chief has that authority however under the u.s. constitution interestingly congress does have the authority the sole authority to declare war something they don't want to do so to summarize under this bill congress would not declare wars they would simply prevent presidents from india them. alive now it's executive vice president of the eurasia center. to get his insight on this thanks for joining us good to have you with us today from says this bill undermines u.s. military security says some sections actually facilitate the spread of foreign business information online quite a serious allegation do you think that congress really would have let that sort of thing pass i think there's a lot of extra interest in the think this information part probably why merely of

around section 230 i mean basically it's a mirror that allows. that information providers for hoster such as facebook or or whatever to for other people 3rd party people providing information and that could be other governments that it could be entities within our government . or within our own organization or our country. to provide information and the liability that protects the the content providers from any type of liability so that in that way you could kind of interpret that but i think the broader issue here that he's not really addressing is. is also the the content providers have the ability to control information themselves centrally to censor information to eliminate information or block information that that they don't necessarily agree with that ridge really was for hate crimes and for for anti

think they were against the federal laws but it kind of grew into. to become more politicized and i think we saw that. you know significantly this last presidential effort and i i'm sure that that has a role in in determining. determining that and basically the tech giant to become the control the. control mechanism for per the flow of information it with impunity because they're not liable at all they have no liability whatsoever on the type of information that that is released or whether that's just sent from ation or whether it's actually factual information that they don't deem appropriate for the public to hear and sense a sense for it and that's it but as you said that the house is going to override trump's veto anyway on december 28th so what's he trying to achieve here i mean he's only going to spend it on republican politics. and the democrats are definitely not all but i would say most huge you know the bill had great

bipartisan support. the question is is to override the veto you need 60 percent of the legislature on both sides to do that. will that happen it depends how many republican side with the president you know expects there with him. at least right now it appears he's going to be transitioning out of office are they willing to take the risk that he will not still have a role in the in the party so do they want to offend him and go with the go with it in over right at the door or will they backed down so that's the big question i think i think he has a lot of good points i don't agree with everything but but i think he has an excellent point especially with troop withdrawal. and.

you know and the naming of bases i think those are those are things that destroyer history and also we're trying to get out of work but yet the bill seems to continually to support continue president and perhaps open up avenues to increase that so yes we'll look at overridden i have a feeling it's going to get overridden but i think it could be closer than people expect running out of time here but just to quickly one more question i mean this feature risks the defense bill not entering law for the 1st time in 60 years that's unlikely of course but what does that tell us about the water picture here about the u.s. credit will system in terms of getting vital legislation through and decisions being made. i think there's a lot of predicament inside and i agree with you on that the other side is i think . we've got what we've got here we've got important legislation we've got people putting in their own agenda of the inside which which are which has been historical but i think from putting

a putdown here or trying to. in that area thought we'll see what happens. i think the bill will get passed but i think that i think you'd be nice if anything changes when it. was an executive vice president of the eurasia center thanks for joining us circuits have you on the program today thank you. the french government is pushing for the reintroduction of so-called green passports allowing greater freedom of movement to covert immune people critics say those who decide against getting vaccinated will be essentially treated as lesser citizens as the latest polls suggest some 6 in 10 people in france don't want the job at all artes paul asli have reports. france is preparing to end its health emergency by april the so says the famous fine minister john kass takes he's presented a bill in the national assembly ended establishing a so-called long health emergency management list she simply is vaccination

and those opposed to it might just find themselves in trouble even if they just planning a trip around the city. the prime minister made on to the plan measures make the movement of people and their access to transport subject to presenting test results showing that the person is not infected is falling vaccination or remedial treatment could to some politicians the nation believe i'm vaccinated people feeling as though they 2nd class citizens if this bill has really been tabled it must be fought but all elected officials and citizens committed to democracy and freedom in the face of this senseless deviation it is up to us to bring the government back to a semblance of reason this is the bill establishing a long term health emergency management regime which has just been introduced by cast tax read the following in this law the prime minister can make you a 2nd class citizen if you refuse the vaccine we must wake up it flies in the face of a promise made by french president emmanuel mccord in his government they should skeptics

their feet and covet vaccination which begins on sunday would be purely voluntary i want to be clear i will not make the vaccination mandatory but the idea of a stick to certain freedoms for vaccinated people has been mentioned several times in public debates since this presidential announcement for example a member of the union of democrats and independent party valerie 6 has proposed the issuing of green pos folds to people who have been immunized with we could take the example of israel which grants each vaccinated person a green passport allowing them to get to places of culture and to restaurants and to get back to normal living the french inoculation program will target the most vulnerable members of society 1st such as the elderly and only oscar and medical examination and come since he has given it's a great start but it's what comes next that has people here worried policia out see

paris. earlier we spoke to a member of the french national rally party who believes the government has gone a step too far. you know emanuel mccrum the prime minister and the health minister promised us there would be no compulsory vaccination they would leave the freedom to choose to the french in fact thanks in particular to marine le pen we see that the draft laws speaks of a measure completely veiled aimed at limiting the french people to certain rules in their public lives thereby deciding for them whether they will be vaccinated or not i think it's shameful in fact it's a restriction of freedom which moreover contradicts the constitution this is a manifestation of dictatorship it seems to me that the government does not understand that today the patience of the french has run out the agreed to strict discipline for many months they said yes to the introduction of corentin said yes

to the imposition of a curfew the agreed to everything that was imposed on them the next day the government came up with nothing better than to further curtail their personal freedom if the government wants the french to get vaccinated they must restore enough in the sphere of trust that's the voice of wisdom. spain is also ready to start vaccinating people with pfizer biotech vaccine after it was given the green light by e.u. regulators the country's health ministry is saying a record will be kept of anyone who turns down when. it is considered important to record cases of rejection of the vaccination in the vaccination registry in order to understand the possible reasons for a locked in sin different population groups according to latest polls just around 40 percent of spanish citizens are ready to be inoculated against the covert 1916 percent said they need more proof it's effective almost

a 3rd will refuse to get the job all together. you know where i'm going to bed i'm not going to get vaccinated i don't support it i don't want to be registered anywhere neither the government the city council nor anyone else has to know what i do. i believe it violates our privacy and they should not interfere at the moment no i'm not going to vaccinate. it doesn't seem right or wrong to me i think people should get vaccinated but without forcing anyone everyone should do as they choose. i am one of those who doesn't want to be vaccinated it seems wrong to me i don't want any government to have to tell me whether or not i must be vaccinated because it's my decision. the u.k. and european union may be finally about to announce a post trade deal or reports are masters of preparing to meet on thursday it's christmas eve the start the rise of occasion process so that it was that as more.

boris johnson and his european counterparts have been working 'd tirelessly and they say they're closer than ever before to getting a trade deal of course they would be closer than ever to getting a trade deal considering the amount of time left the deadline is obviously the 31st of december but today is widely seen as a deadline day the final day for any provisional agreement as both sides are quite keen to get a deal in place by christmas all that said fisheries is still one of the main stumbling blocks it's still one of the key obstacles it has been throughout all of the talks throughout the year and it is still today in fact the loss what we heard from banja the chief negotiator just last night he said that the u.k.'s latest offer is absolutely unacceptable for the european union so it is quite hard to see that we're really getting to a breakthrough moment but it seems as though it hasn't it's all to do with how killing now the amount of percentages in the waters at the e.u. and the u.k.

are now negotiating but when we look at the wider context of rex's that we know that brics has almost been the political death of david cameron and indeed theresa may 2 prime ministers before boris johnson we know 6 that he has predicated much of his political career that aside all breck's it in the u.k. is general election much of it all boiled down to breakfast the very eager to get the best deal in place for britain and in fact many m.p.'s within his own party are holding to ransom on that very fact saying if he doesn't get a good deal for britain that if essential he should quit if mr johnson fails to reach an acceptable trade agreement with the e.u. the prime minister will also feel the people of the united kingdom as a lifelong member of the conservative party i believe that mr johnson's position as prime minister would be untenable well in terms of ratification then that could all be done and dusted here in the united. and within

a day or so the day that has been pencilled into diaries for m.p.'s here in the united kingdom is the 30th of december over across the channel then for the e.u. 27 member states a little bit more complicated they could all agree though on video link but parliament would have to ratify it to their suggesting that they would then ratify it potentially alter the event that's also not quite ideal because if anybody objects to anything well it's already been provisionally applied but all of that being said that's quite forward thinking that because still the e.u. and the u.k. need to sign on back down to the line they need to get that deal in place. is really government has collapsed after months of parliamentary wrangling failed to secure a new budget the country's no heading for its 4th election in 2 years of course it takes us through the story. really seems like tuesday's budget roadblock was the last straw for israel's 7 month long ruling government coalition now benjamin

netanyahu party and benny gantz is blue and white party or both blaming one another for the impasse and with these new elections scheduled for march i think we could possibly be seeing the end to 11 years of the premiership of benjamin netanyahu but netanyahu doesn't seem very worried. when i'm not afraid of elections we are prepared for that we will win the public and israel knows who's bringing in millions of vaccines for peace agreements who's blocking iran who is bringing security and who will restore the economy with great impetus while netanyahu is ratings are actually at an all time low but he's still projected to do better than dance in these new snap elections but he polls are actually saying these not projected to win a majority like in these previous instances i mean after all his political career has been followed by a corruption case which he's denied any wrongdoing in and and also people aren't very happy in israel about the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic

we've seen protests gripped the country for the past 6 months and they're not really showing any sign of letting out. there. was really politics have been deadlocked for a long time now a lot of people are saying that another election isn't isn't going to fix the situation it's just going to lead to a 5th election down the road but i'm happy that we have a full selection. because i will live through a good thing we will never have an election again. we prayed that the dictatorship would take over. i think now the situation is critical and that we don't

have the money and the time for the elections and it was so much i mean i think that the election is completely unnecessary it will cost us more than 2000000000 new israeli shekels if not more and we're in the middle of kroner virus people can't make ends meet why spend 2000000000 new israeli shekels now what for. a statue of confederate general robert lee has been removed from the u.s. capitol building following a long running campaign against symbols associated with slavery now being moved to the state of virginia which is the legal owner of the sculpture of 3 eneral lee was a prominent figure in the coalition of southern states during the u.s. civil war and also a slave owner has become a hate figure for racism campaigners but is still seen by many in the american south as a hero because of his military she wants and bravery for the way you can support

will be taken by us that you have black civil rights activist barbara johns democrat house speaker nancy pelosi has welcomed the move the removal of a statue of robert e. lee and its forthcoming replacement by a tribute to barbara johnson virginia is welcome news there is no room for celebrating the bigotry of the confederacy the capitol or any other place of or not in our country and numerous symbols of america's slave owning past have been removed in recent months the movement slow ball off of the death of george florida minneapolis back in may through an altercation with police is spread to several other countries with activists the strong or removing movements or social most monuments associated with historical racism. thank .

you thank you thank you attempt was a still firing off of that somewhere if that 3 top the land to get perspective from both sides we spoke with conservative commentator christopher harris and historian gerald ford. even today there are more symbols of statues honoring races and slaveholders then and races and the slavery happening and this is outrageous badges in berlin there were still statutes honoring herman gerbils or at all 'd hitler for example the i would be considered outrageous it may be true that you cannot undo the past but certainly you can honor the best up the past and you can remove the worst of the past i think that's what this statute or property believe its removal

it's all about it's trying to say that slavery was wrong all that slavery never should have taken place and certainly no statue honoring a slave owner never should have been erected in this country i believe that the statues that were put up were celebrated democrats some great in the confederacy so i think it's just odd that democrats are the ones who put them up and they don't want the rest of the world to know that they're the ones who put them up they don't want the rest of the world to know that the confederacy was pretty much all democrats but now they want to celebrate and they want to be they want to get the credit for taking them down as if now they're such great fighters against racism and slavery when they're the ones who put them up there removing these statues so they can remove their own. their own just horrid the history was in the hawks up next the team and are back in 30 minutes with the latest join us again.