you know it when i. see my name about. the russian foreign minister warned moscow is ready to end ties with the european union if it imposes new sanctions on key sectors of the economy. we don't want to distance ourselves from the international community but we need to be ready for this if you want peace prepare to war. a member of the world health organization just back from the coronavirus epicenter in china tells us that humans probably did not catch the virus that directly from bats but from other animals instead. and outrage in france it grows over american values supposedly being forced on the country as a renowned paris opera val's to diversify performances after complaints from black dancers we don't have reaction. i think this is

a kind of release into the intellectual process where they say well we're going to copy and paste and they come and they tell us how rude we. are broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is arch international and john thomas certainly glad you're with us right now the russian foreign minister has warned that moscow is ready to break ties with the e.u. if it imposes new sanctions that harm key sectors of the economy. use who you will still wish to we're good to us we just thing that we're ready to do this if we see once again like lucy numerous times before the brussels imposes sanctions that pose restore economy specifically to the most sensitive 6 years once again we don't want to distance ourselves from the international community but we need to be ready for this if you want peace prepare for war as well it is

a pretty straightforward message especially coming from a veteran diplomat which serve certainly is but here the russian foreign minister he's rather showing his hand he's explaining what will happen if the e.u. decides to follow through with the plan to impose new sanctions and if these sanctions are crippling to any of the key sectors of russia's economy world this is what will happen but again moscow has already confirmed that it will not initiate the process and will only react to what the e.u. will do this frustration it stems from from his meeting with the use foreign policy chief joseph burrell even moscow some about a week ago sergei lavrov clarified moscow's in reiterated moscow's position that the these swap at the swapping of the suspended sentence for a real one for legs in a valley it's an internal matter but at the same time djoser burrell called on

russia to release the kremlin critic and world saying that this case is politically motivated is politically charged and according to. the e.u. diplomats in including jos are borel they are being strong armed into a tough into an unreasonably tough position on russia and essentially they are stripped the ability and the opportunity to do their job of diplomacy or goodness knows where you're. sure to travel to us knowing the complicated situation many were against his visit and publicly declared that he shouldn't come to russia until we quote fix al behavior not only e.u. foreign policy chief burrell but also his. predisposes do not have the capacity to negotiate the whole you point of view was focused on the idea that we could turn this novell me into a political prisoner but there are russian state laws and they need to be respected as for human rights i reminded mr burrell that we've long shown readiness to hold a constructive dialogue based firstly on facts and secondly not on the unilateral basis for this little glitch and from the very get go joseph burrell was put in

a very tough conditions by his e.u. counterparts because there were critics who were saying that he shouldn't visit prussia at all but when he came back from that visit all hell broke loose they did the diplomats in the e.u. parliament they didn't mince any words moscow to be used the visit of high representative bordello to you merely aid and offend the european union your ill executed visit you know not only ashamed to european citizens you also helps putin and harms direction people who are real and the on the other hand made a fool of himself last week you must go wake up call that finally prompted you member states and yourself to to adopt a more realistic and principled russian foreign policy and to move toward sanctions finally among others to inclusion of human rights under sanctions list and to suspension of north stream to which use country european and its you security

police but this quiet car plowed quiet of condemnation it was interrupted by and i wish member of the european parliament who pointed out that as she sees it the the only reason that election of only gets so much attention is because he was jailed in russia and that the e.u. is using him simply as a political pretext to slap more sanctions on moscow imus happy as anybody else to stand up for anybody's rights including not found nice but let's be honest about this and he's got 3 shifts i don't see in the current racist and made before proceeding. sense of the support and we wouldn't be discussing him oh if you've been arrested anywhere else other than in russia so sergey lavrov made the following point as well he said that russia is already independent of him militarily so russia does not rely on anybody or russia is in arms expects it's exporting arms and basically saying that russia should do the same thing but with

its economy that if anybody decides to impose more sanctions and cripple some crucial economic sphere of russia then you should just wave goodbye and say well if you're closing this door we won't we won't be standing there knocking political analysts to gilbert doctorow believes a tit for tat strategy could lead to enormous economic damage on both sides. if the 1st year which came to me gently to gesticulate in. russia's economic existence as they did as they rested a turning off access. to iran where i could see the drastic extreme we order for action in the economic sphere taken by russia the way it was given the war. so you actions that have long been

destroyed among the national russia haters in the west and western your specific of all the destruction of or energy security we did in the air is getting used to frustrate. the north to project which was always getting the remind you can be an states. or it was risky because the russians could turn off the capsule castro plans to be shipped out here can cause enormous to both sides but it can lead us. to be. a member of the world health organization team just back from china has told r.t. that it probably was not bats that passed corona virus on to humans he says that even if the disease originated in bats it was likely transferred to humans through other animals scientists like me are dead cough has been investigating the source

of the pandemic in the chinese city of. i mean we know from past epidemics for example sars cove and mares cove that bats are the source of the epidemic moreover they contain genetic cells close to the ones that caused the pandemic but we also know that the transmission of the virus did not occur directly from the bat the previous time sars was transferred from a civet cat mers from a camel so there must be some other intermediate animal it is the most likely have participated on our knowledge. of the virus was 1st detected in the city in december 2019 the team says its initial findings debunk claims that the disease originated in a laboratory however the us thinks that beijing is hiding facts from the experts

science needs to lead us out of this pandemic and in preventing the next one geo political battling has already made that path harder it's time to trust in the global systems we set up after world war 2 and give them a chance china gave them very controlled and limited access and got a report that was inconclusive and supports narrative. we asked. about how much access his team added was on he says beijing has been quite transparent. how successful was our mission i believe that we have fulfilled our program this was only the 1st part of our investigation and we didn't expect to determine the origin of the pandemic already the w.h.o. team and chinese specialists work together as scientists it was something like a huge conference where we shared opinions and information analyzed scientific literature that already exists discussed hypotheses and assessed possibilities i

see no reason for the chinese side to hide anything they probably didn't do that because in the scientific world it is very difficult to conceal something information could be hidden from the public but it is more difficult if it's people who really understand the issue. there are 2 hypotheses about how the virus appeared the 1st is that the virus may have been induced the suspicions have already been refuted says we're not even considering this the 2nd is that a natural virus came from the lab we were at the institute of observing the work with viruses and concluded that everything meets safety standards and leakage could not have occurred this lab is far enough from the market if there was a leak we'd see signs of it therefore such a leak is practically impossible we looked at hypotheses in the probability

category it's likely that the virus came from space so it's impossible. french intellectuals are stepping up their attack on what they call american values they claim the fashionable leftist ideas imported from the us have no place in france and say they pose a threat to french society although these warnings are not particularly new for the country and have been raised before by the president and other officials. certain social science theories entirely imported from the united states with the problems which i respect and which exist but which is just added to. there is a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from american university some national thinkers blame the us for france's mass protests against police brutality similar to america's black lives matter movement america's me to campaign on

awareness about sexual abuse has also gained traction with french feminists are too shallow dubinsky explains the transatlantic headache. french intellectuals and politicians are said to be up in arms over the cancelled culture ideology seeping over from the united states and spoiling well the french way of life i think there's a kind of laziness of the intellectual process where they say well we're going to copy and paste and they come and they tell us how wrong we are black lives mark 2 are examples of movements that flew over the atlantic and spread their wings here now that's led to debates over race gender preferences crackdown on islam is still going on is asians and demands for the country to fess up to its colonial past they come and they tell us that we all racists we phobic about our universal values on nothing. and quite frankly i mean this is

a combination of incredulity and. annoyance i wouldn't even say anger because we don't think it's rather that europe has existed for a long time. i think we can live without american christian will theory for a few few years and it seems the french should really had enough of council culture so when the director of the paris opera issues it diktats saying that he wanted to diversify staff and band black face the editor in chief of one of france's biggest daily papers and took issue making works of art disappear echoes the cancel culture which has been a national sport for america and aims to wipe off the map culture and creators symbolizing the domination of the white male and the oppression of minorities some say this problem it's much deeper it's a threat to its political identity is

a threat to the republic and to french democracy and to the functioning of the state it's not a matter of cultural identity i do. i think that there is a big threat to civilized life and obviously freedom of speech and so on by these kinds of movements while imposing ideas on race inequality feels for many a little bit rich coming from the u.s. considering the state to race relations in america right now it doesn't look like there are solutions works so well so i'm not sure we need them really but the other thing is that there's this whole speech discussion about how colonialist it is to impose a different culture on the unsuspecting populations and the french are saying well you are imposing something that may or may not work for your country but it's not working for france i mean after all isn't the whole point of freedom of speech also having some respect for the point of view of others what is actionable in

this room is the idea that instead of having a discussion or a debate or even an argument about it that there should be this should somehow become sold and so we are dealing i'm sorry to say this it sounds rather rude but we are dealing with the difference between intelligence and stupidity it's just stupid to talk like that of course we can all disagree about napoleon or any other historical figure but that's what makes this civilization that is what civilization is there's a claim that this fight back comes from a small frightened republic that's in decline but isn't it just possible that perhaps france a country with a long proud tradition of intellectual debate the country where the enlightenment movement was birthed is perhaps still ahead of the curve well at least compared to america and for now it appears that the left culture just isn't cutting the must it

in france so let's even ski r.t. paris. paris opera is promising a radical rethink. approach to diversity but not everybody is ready to see the classics get a 21st century reboot as we discuss africa or break stay with us. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. must not conflate all elites with corruption there are many bureaucrats and many public servants that are. that are patriotic that know what civil duties and if

anything must be associated with the new order that comes up that many of the success stories and. intelligent leaders and these movements tell you know people or the corrupt elites on the other side look we will give you a fair chance and we will give you an honorable exit from the system if you let your peers which are clear and which have no blood on their hands come in and manage this with us. welcome back this is our international now facebook's privacy policies are in question once again the platform has disclosed it cooperated with u.s. law enforcement sharing private data of those who took part in the riot on capitol

hill on january 6th. we were monitoring this out in real time and made appropriate referrals to law enforcement this includes helping them identify people who posted photos of themselves from the scene even after the attack was over we're continuing to share more information with law enforcement in response to valid legal requests as they continue their investigation number one snitch in america big brother is facebook surreal farce the storming of the capitol building last month has so far resulted in charges against a reported 221 people if found guilty they could face up to 20 years in prison democratic officials have dubbed the offender's domestic terrorist the f.b.i.'s task of identifying offenders was aided by more than 2 $100000.00 photos and videos mostly from social media and it has it not all gone without consequences for facebook the tech giant has lost more than $30000000000.00 of market value as

investors have been spooked by the platform's coziness with the feds the f.b.i. has revealed it is giving users personal messages from the platform in order to trace suspected capital rioters analyst and commentator all rasmussen thinks innocent people could have been caught up in the sweep. a lot of people don't realize that being a lot of your peers on your date is why do the other thing is that. facebook changes your policies and what may have been acceptable. 6 months ago may not today and in they may come back and go oh you did this and that's against our policy so we're betting for most people i would say hundreds of thousands of people really did nothing illegal whatsoever there you had if you had some absolutely but but the majority of people in fact some people that are being turned in and turned over investigator were not in the capitol they were perhaps on the

capitol grounds but that's a completely equal eat well until recently completely legal and open and public space so there was really no violation of any type of wall whatsoever but we've kind of twisted that and interpret it differently and facebook seems to be and i would gather other social media platforms are turning over extensive amount of information and probably you've probably got a lot of business probably review of a lot of c.c.t.v. drone footage is or other types of video information is probably being looked at as well. another key day for wiki leaks founder julian assange and his long fight for freedom the united states has filed an appeal against a british court's decision not to extradite and that is despite a petition being sent to the u.s. department of justice calling on president biden to drop the case against a songe it was signed by many prominent groups including and the international and

the american civil liberties union. the indictment of mr assange threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that gen the single routinely and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do in our view such a precedent in this case could effectively criminalize common journalistic practices in a shocking ruling a british judge blocked songes extradition to the united states because of concerns about his mental health but while the move was good news for him he was denied bail few days later press freedom groups were also left dismayed because the judge largely supported america's case against assad now the u.s. has indicted him on 17 counts of spying and one of conspiracy to hack a government computer he would face up to 175 years in prison if convicted he is known to the world in part for exposing what some commentators have

characterized as u.s. war crimes from one this week now to john kiriakou who's a former cia analyst and a whistleblower himself who was the 1st to confirm the u.s. was using waterboarding thanks for being with us here again on our international my pleasure so if we get right down to it was there ever any doubt the u.s. would appeal the court's decision and what are the chances they will actually get extradited. i think there was no surprise at all that the united states appealed the decision i was disappointed that they appealed the decision because i thought you know perhaps there was a chance that the incoming biden people may have told the british well you know maybe you should take this off our hands that wasn't the case in the end there's really no surprise because look at who the new director of national intelligence is it several he needs every haynes was the deputy to john brennan both at the

national security council and at the cia we know from the obama administration that john brennan has a nick sone an obsession with the national security leaks these are people that have that have a real he treatment of wiki leaks and of julian assange they want to teach him a lesson so the appeal announcement came at virtually the last minute as it happening any sooner. well you know i think that they really did have to take a close look when i say they i mean the justice department have to take a close look at what the chances were of winning this appeal i think the chances are very very slim because really the judge's decision was based on the fact that people commit suicide in u.s. prisons because of the way the united states uses solitary confinement julian is going to be in solitary confinement if he is to be extradited to the united states and it's because he's famous and he's political and he would be in danger so the

british courts are not going to have to determine if. if the united states is correct when they say that he would not be in danger when we already have proof and precedent that he would be in danger don't forget that the united nations has declared the us practice of solitary confinement to be a form of torture and the guideline is no more than 15 days in solitary confinement while there are u.s. prisoners who have been in solitary for 40 years 44 years in one case that's not humane. speaking of humane and many human rights groups down the border calling for the u.s. to just drop the case against assad why doesn't washington appear to be listening. i think because the justice department whether it's run by donald trump's people or joe biden's people. doesn't want to be doesn't want to appear is being weak this is such a political and politicized case i think that at the very least the biden people

want to be able to say that they tried to extradite songe they failed to extradite songe and that the thing is over all right john kiriakou former cia analyst and whistleblower you're the person who we want to talk to when it comes to situations like this thanks a lot appreciate having you. paris opera is suffering a diversity scandal after black performers complained about almost entirely white casts and also the use of blackface in performances you're going to artistic director agrees. we're not here promoting a climate of censorship or dictatorial actions from the leadership the whole point of this initiative is we want to put on opera and ballet by 21st century artists for 21st century audiences the pledge to hire more people of color is part of a $66.00 page report by the theatre the artistic director was also quoted by the newspaper warning that some performances would disappear from the repertoire if

they are deemed insensitive but the plans have sparked condemnation from traditional commentators in french media and from a nationalist politician marine le pen here's some of what the reaction that we've been hearing. this year is really political correctness gone mad because they actually do have 5 bloc ballet dancers in there so i really don't know what the people who are calling for change here are all worried about we have some talented people here who are forced to leave france to express that then and this is a huge problem and what alex underneath is saying now is he's take he's taking the problem to the roof that's mean that in the recruitment he's changing the way off recruitment. and it's a very new thing in france because we know that this is a very elitist what you should do in every case is pick the best person for the job the most talented most skilled person for the roles the parasol they have their

ballet school and they've changed their admissions procedure to let people in from ethnic minorities and black people to come in and as they come in through the system they're actually going up into the opera so this is already happening and hopefully that those people that come through will be selected because they are talented and skilled we need of course the best dancer to be in but before that we need to open the door the thing is to close for the and a minority this is the right reality is to have the most talented people in this new director for example what he's doing he's a low black man so for example to have the dress who much with the color of that set lots of because a lot of young dancer west pushed away just because they didn't fit to do to do white tour i we can say we need to adapt the density of the people who only was worrying about the whole debate here is that they're actually talking about reducing the repertoire and changing the kind of performances they put on because

some people have chosen to be offended about things that have been there's been no problem with for decades or centuries region of the classic is the right this is the origin but we have to say that france and england and u.k. and germany and do you. it's today in 2021 it's not the same france. or france the u.k. and the population in europe is different to i wouldn't agree at all i don't think that we need to change performances in the way that they've been written this is this is a conservative opera house conservative company it is there to put on classical performances they shouldn't be changed just because a few people this year decide they should be changed in a certain way what will happen in 20 years time 50 years time someone else might come along and say oh well we need to change them again and again and again look they should stick to the classical way it should have been down the way that they've always been done that's what audiences want and that's what they should be

sticking to that wraps up the sal be back in 31 minutes with another look at your new stay with us. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and obviously going to get a feel of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then . hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm keenly bill how do you define the word reality something like this the state of things as they

actually exist as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them to say the least this is a philosophical definition let's throw in politics now is there one political reality can and should one be enforced with this in the end produce a ministry of truth. discuss these issues and more i'm joined by my guest tom reilly engram and she is a contributor with real america's voice in austin we have daniel bunn of it he is a professor of philosophy and human dimensions of organizations at the university of texas austin and in paris we have john laughlin he is a university lecturer in history and political philosophy all right tell me cross up rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it let's go to.