consent to an experimental treatment can be and he said if we also don't know the outcomes the full side effects of what's going to happen to them. abroad has a lot of direct from our studios in moscow this is our team international and sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us all right an iranian news outlet has apparently fallen foul of u.s. sanctions fars news agency says its international website has been taken down amid an increasingly hostile relationship between the 2 countries such as came up and has the story it appears that the most popular news outlet in the islamic republic of iran has been removed from the internet by the u.s. treasury as we hear fars news has put this on their twitter take a listen. the photos news dot com websites is being blocked on u.s. treasuries orders an e-mail sent to followers news agency by the provider clearly stated that the treasury's office of foreign assets control has argued the agency to the sdn specially designated nationals list if you visit the web site fars news dot com it is unavailable the web page does not load now it's important to note there is a web site fars news dot i r that i are standing for islamic republic that has just been created but that is only in farsi the language of iran not other languages even though far as news generally publishes in different languages those are not available now fars news calls itself an independent news source generally it has been labelled by western media outlets as being a mouthpiece for the iranian government is one of the primary sources for breaking news within the borders of the islamic republic and the fact that it has been taken down and does not appear to have its website up 8 and is blaming this on the us treasury seems to fit it on standing a long standing pattern for example earlier this month press t.v. the english language t.v. network based in the islamic republic of iran was removed from you tube however google backed down from that decision but regardless that was a moment where we saw a news outlet from iran have its access to the internet and social media cut off or tampered with now we can recall in recent months the escalation between the 2 countries qassam solomonic the top iranian general was killed in a u.s. airstrike near baghdad the iraqi capital and then we saw iran respond with a barrage of missiles directed at u.s. bases in iraq this feud between the leaders of the usa and the islamic republic of iran wasn't even put on hold during the whole cost commemorations in jerusalem take a listen we must also stand strong against the leading state purveyor of antisemitism. against the one government in the world that denies the holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe israel off the map against the islamic republic of iran. now sanctions have been imposed on the islamic republic by the united states and there has been constant threats of military action and it seems that this effort to silence news agencies and remove them from social media and from the internet itself fits into a longstanding pattern of efforts by leaders of the united states to covertly undermine the islamic republic of iran. now it's crossland to gregory accompli editor of defense and foreign affairs website thanks for being with us here on r.t. international. great to be with you so do you think this looks like an unintended consequence of u.s. sanctions or is this a direct attempt to stifle the iranian media. well i don't think it would be an unintended consequence the reality is that the great proportion of the war between iran and the united states and iran and other countries is informational information dominance is the key to success now we haven't had any official confirmation that the u.s. treasury did in fact bring down the father's web site well though it's probable probably the case but the reality is that a number of iranian news outlets have been used obviously to further the iranian cause particularly also to communicate with their supporters in the middle east and elsewhere and prosecutor and he was was in fact during that the question is. how do you use your powers in the information dominance spectrum and the u.s. has immense powers in this regard because it does and can control a lot of the internet. sourcing and therefore the ability of. agencies or outlets to to use the internet so more of a philosophical question kind of going down the rabbit hole a bit do you think that journalism itself should be protected even at a time of extreme tensions between countries does this set a worrying precedent to take new sites offline. not really we're seeing news being increasingly manipulated either willingly or unwillingly look at the domestic u.s. situation right now where the majority of the news outlets being manipulated by one political side of the spectrum so you don't have a free press anywhere in reality having the freedom to distort begs the question as to how valid the free press is. and it also raises the issue of how the internet itself through blogs through twitter and so on is used to counterbalance what should be a free and fair press the reality is that we've seen is growing distortion of the free press over the past couple of decades since electronic media have basically impacted the ability of the print media to to be objective and to have a viable and economically profitable role in surviving so the news media and so has distorted it so in order to be economically viable that's diminished the respect which a lot of people have for the news media so i think we're going to see an increasing . game plan if you like of using all forms of media in the information dominance war which which is typifying where we get in the 21st century as we are now you know a century of total war and not in the sense of of the 20th century but in the sense that. we're seeing all segments of society being able to go to war with other societies whether internally inside a country or internationally and we're seeing this use and misuse of. words and images not just by governments but by by pressure groups and the like and academics indeed all right thank you very much for your thoughts it will be interesting to watch this play out gregory copley editor of the defense and foreign affairs website thanks for being with us thank you. mass protests are again gripping france over sweeping changes that to the pension system on friday president micron presented the reforms to his cabinet artie's trial dubinsky as the latest force. 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 will not be passed on to 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 full pension and the government has 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 at a mood targeted on the reality is what 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 picture with. 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 then he 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. u.k. national health services have facing legal action for prescribing puberty blocking hormones to children as young as 91 claimant is 23 year old kira bell who was previously treated by the gender identity development service she now regrets making irreversible changes and says no child should be subjected to such procedures shoddy edwards dusty reports. 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 and claimants are 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 that are worried 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. it's what i found using some unpublished data that i discovered from the tavistock clinic is that after 12 months on t.v. blockers they were saying quite pronounced negative but 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 our suicide so these are all quite negative findings but these are not being published by the tempest or 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 at a record high it suggests cases of the transition will rise to that there is no data to reflect the number for 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 the stress 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. former psychiatric nurse susan evans who worked at the development service and was the original lead claimant in the case told r.t. the drugs being administered are not licensed in the u.k. for use as a gender identity medicine. the reason this is a sort of unique case is because it's never been taken in law so with sort of 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 outcomes the full side effects of what's going to happen to 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 ok 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 kosher shiva to 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. investment bank goldman sachs has said it will stop helping start up companies who lack of diversity in their boardrooms to 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 now 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 food lish 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 merits. this follows a recent global media storm over the lack of diversity at film awards ceremonies including the oscars and the bafta the debate has also hit tech giant google with its hiring practices under scrutiny spiked magazine's look at ghettoes believes goldman sachs diversity dr could actually backfire on them. well it's a matter now you know goldman sachs have made this announcement a time when you know by all of the major bidding process to be part of the saudi arabian oil conglomerate. 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 think we patronize ing 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 nell from these companies any woman who receives a place on that board based on merit well be forced to believe that it's me because the way the company wants to go public i think it's wrong. so-called 1000000 man march has been held in iraq against the us military presence that story and much more still dominate program this is r t international. most people think just stand down and this is this you need to be the 1st one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice or the biggest read. truth to stand losing this is just the dance the right questions and the right answers. question. operations understand that a cost of doing business is buying and building support in washington d.c. and that includes staffing up with former members of congress put them on your payroll you want to hire a chief of staff from a powerful senator or a committee. member get their chief of staff put them on your payroll as a lobbyist this is what washington does on a bipartisan basis in fact i think it's the only point of true bipartisanship in d.c. is corporate influence over government. this is r g international diplomatic brewing between the u.s. and britain washington has refused an extradition request for an american intelligence officers wife charged over the death of teenager harry done harry was hit by a car near a u.s. base in the u.k. last summer at the time the accident occurred and foods duration of his stay in the u.k. the u.s. citizen driver in this case had immunity from criminal jurisdiction if the united states were to grant the u.k. 6 additional requests it would set an extraordinary troubling precedent i called the u.s. ambassador pressed the government's disappointments about this decision we feel this amounts to a denial of justice and we believe i'm so cool as should return to the u.k. we are no urgently considering our options. a reminder of the case in august 1000 harry done riding a motorcycle died in a head on crash outside the u.s. military base in northampton sharon england the driver was an sekulow the wife of an american intelligence officer working there she's admitted to driving on the wrong side of the road she was officially charged with his death in december but had already claimed diplomatic immunity and fled the u.k. months earlier. after and cyclist was charged her lawyer said that she would not return to the u.k. and describe carried on the death as a terrible but unintentional accident we heard from a lawyer in the case we are in precedented waters as far as we're aware this is never happened before this is the 1st time the united states that refused an extradition request from the u.k. the long history of the extradition treaty to say that it would set a truckler troubling precedent if she were to return or the family would simply argue to allow somebody who's accused of a very serious crime in a country so e-bay justice that is what would be setting a troubled person framework was brought in 1960 is to protect diplomats who are opposed to hotspot countries and to keep them safe for instance if they were killed by a lawless regime it is not intended and that that would be a convention makes it absolutely clear that if you commit a crime in a country that you stay in your host country and face the consequences this is actually just a request will for every where as we know the president trump and michael klare will not be around forever and if necessary this family who i represent little happily. wait patiently until the next administration comes along who perhaps believes in upholding the rule of law a little more than this one and it's one step along the road but i can assure your viewers tonight that we are more competent than ever that answer to this will be coming back to british justice in the u.k. . thousands protested on friday in iraq 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 shiite cleric however washington is playing down the problems. like what we're doing we like them and we've had a good relationship is much wanted by the iraqi military we believe most iraqis we have said that we're not interested in talking about withdrawal because we don't think we should withdraw are in a conversation. with us about the united states interact we believe should cover in terms of our relationship between situation in the region has escalated since the us killing of iran's top general and a senior iraqi militia leader in a drone strike near baghdad international airport at the beginning of january following the assassinations passed resolution to expel foreign troops from the country but that still needs to be ratified by the prime minister donald trump has rejected the move and warned sanctions would be imposed if baghdad goes ahead with a military expulsion based journalist mohammed clay thinks that the u.s. trying to find any will porter stay in iraq until the resolution is firmly 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 by the party 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 at the same time they are trying to avoid this mass anger against what they have done. and that's a whistleblower edward snowden has sat down for an interview with the former president of ecuador rafael correa snowden claimed in russia back in 2013 and is still wanted by the u.s. on espionage charges he told that he would return to the u.s. if he believed he would get a fair trial and he needs in the beginning many media outlets were supportive of astonishing yourself nowadays we can say that the mainstream media has changed its tune they should be defending access to information the freedom of the press not just for americans and of everyone else why are they now against you both because while the government in the united states currently has not tried to put journalists in prison on a massive scale they have in a few exceptional circumstances. they have thought well. how can we get the media to support our narrative how can we get them to support our perspectives and i think this is what people miss again it's the distinction between the more reality and the legality of a thing sometimes the only moral decision that individual happens is to break the law and the question is not what is this disclosure of legal or illegal the question was and the question is is the information that they provide and true or false is the information they provide a useful society to society harmful to society the question is would you rather not know what's really going on there already i mean how do you feel about the fact that back home you can be charged under a law that could land you the death penalty this is why i said there is no fair trial that's provided on the espionage act and despite the craziness of this law i have argued to the united states government i have said i will return and volunteer myself for trial on a single condition which is that i get to tell the jury why i did what i did and the government has refused instead they sent me back a letter signed by the attorney general that says well we promise not to torture you when we see the failures in the system it is incumbent on us to do something about even in small small ways you know people make this big question for me because of course i have so many critics i have so many supporters who are hero or traitor or hero or traitor which one are you and i say i'm neither i'm a citizen there are no heroes i'm just an ordinary person who did something unusual because i think you're a hero if you do something really brave but no no this isn't family i don't we really and i think this is better when we say things like you know i'm not a hero. i'm saying that in the context of there are no heroes there are only horowitz choices in many sattar just a fish i'd like to ask you would you do it all over again. i would definitely do it again. i have to say it's unexpected because i have paid a real price i can't return home when i'm in a country that's not one not of my choosing. but i'm actually. more satisfied and more connected in the work that i do today than the work that i did before the thing that i'm most proud of. and the thing that gives me the. confidence to say that i would do it again is that when somebody asked me what are you can do about it i have my answer. and this is the thing that i think all young people need to hear when we're living in a truly historic time where everything is changing. what someone else you wouldn't going to do about it the answer is everything that i can. desire to international. many call the impeachment trial of donald trump in the u.s. senate a political show well if it is it's not buried entertaining in fact it's quite boring repetitive and tedious clearly this entire process is a blood fest to play for keeps but what about the institutional damage left in the wake of this low energy process. one on one with should some member of donald trump's impeachment defense team on this problem. politicking i'm larry king my special guests is an old friend alan dershowitz him.