he said if we don't know the outcome of the full side effect of what's going to happen to the. broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is an international i'm sean thomas. and 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 and emails sent to followers newsagency 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 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 it's one of the primary sources for breaking news within the borders of the islamic republic the fact that it has been taken down and does not appear to have its website up 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 accost commemorations in jerusalem take a listen we must also stand strong against the leading state purveyor of anti-semitism . against the one government in the world to do. the holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe israel off the map against the islam of 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. strategic analyst gregory copley told us information warfare is becoming a major part of the iran u.s. standoff 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 in 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 the agencies are out there to use the internet we're seeing news being increasingly manipulated a 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 bigs the question as to how go of 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 for. mass protests are again gripping france over sweeping changes to the pension system on friday president micron presented the reforms to his cabinet and he's from the defense he has the latest. 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 pool pension and the government is also relinquished and said that certain sectors certain professions will continue to have a special conditions special conditions reality is the. law hasn't changed dramatically from what the government sent out to do so in some respects you could say the protesters haven't really got their way the other thing to say about this is of course that this started as a rolling strike action carried out by public transport workers in this 1st few weeks particularly here in paris public transport was paralyzed across the city with issues nationwide as well so what we're seeing now is continuing smaller strike action that knocks like it's being more directed a mood targeted on the reality is what people know who 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 because struction 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. defiance against this new law. u.k. national health service is facing legal action for prescribing puberty blocking hormones to children as young as $91.00 claimant is 23 year old cura 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 are these shoddy edwards 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 to this get children the time to consider whether they truly want to make a transition to the opposite sex but the drug interferes with natural hormone production it's this step that this legal battle is all about a claim it's a calling for an urgent reassessment of the procedure what is challenged is the current and continuing practice of the defendant to prescribe puberty suppressing hormone blockers and then subsequently crossed sex hormones to children under the age of 18 and it's not just former patients and relatives 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 i discovered from the tavistock clinic is that after 12 months on t.v. blockers are there were some quite pronounced negatives. it's believed the girls so girls became had their gender dysphoria increase and some of their psychological problems increased and indeed there is even less slightly increased but statistically significant increase in their thoughts about suicide so these are all quite negative findings but these are not being published by the tavistock clinics here in london say 3000 percent more patients than they did 10 years ago among girls it's up more than 5000 percent with referrals that's a record high it suggests cases of the transitional rise to that there is no data to reflect the number 4 who may opt to return to their biological sex we reached out to the tavistock and portman n.h.s. trust for comment our clinical interventions are laid out internationally set service specifications and h s england monitors our service very closely the series has a high level of reporting satisfaction and was rated good by the care quality commission but while there is no doubt that this service helps young people who feel 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 nurses susan evans who were going to 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 gender identity medicine. the reason this is a sort of unique case is because it's never been taken in law so with the looking at whether asking young children. to consent to an experimental treatment can be and in full consent if we also don't know the outcome of the full side effects of what's going to happen to them you know it's not in full did in terms of the medical outcomes you know even the experts don't know the full picture yet we need more research but drugs as a prescribed here in the u.k. are an experimental drug because they're what we call off license so they were developed for very young children who had a thing called trip kosha shiva today which is when they develop too fast into puberty as children but in the areas gender identity medicine. these drugs are not licensed for that. investment banking goldman sachs has said that it will stop helping start up companies who lack of diversity in their boardrooms to go public in europe and the united states we realise that this is a small step but it's a step in the direction of saying you know what we think this is right we think 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 foolish and moronic goldman sachs tokenism is unproductive for diversity no one should attain a position of power based on an arbitrary characteristic positions of power need to be based on performance having token women minorities on boards to meet quotas isn't diversity the better solution is to get more women minorities into college and graduate m.b.a. schools so they can filter into those positions on their merits. this fall as a recent global media storm over the lack of diversity at film awards ceremonies including the oscars and the bafta as the rate has also hit high tech giant google with its hiring practices under scrutiny spiked magazines that look at gatos believes goldman sachs' diversity drive could actually backfire on them. well it's a mad announcement you know goldman sachs have made this announcement a time when you know they are part of a major bidding process to be part of the saudi arabian oil conglomerate. i.p.o. i don't think that board is going to be particularly diverse and for their business reasons they've actually excluded this policy from all of asia because they know that most chinese japanese most companies across asia will not have diverse boards so i think it's completely hypocritical completely banal completely pointless and i think that actually it's deeply patronizing to the women who do make their way up through these companies and onto these boards independently inevitably goldman sachs's 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 moot because the way the company wants to go public i think it's wrong. the diplomatic route is 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 it was hit by a car your us both in the summer at the time the accident occurred and for drey sion of her 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.'s extradition request it would certainly 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 and so cool us should return to the u.k. we are now urgently considering our options. a reminder of the case in august 19 year old harry done writing a motor cycle died in a head on car ash outside a us military base in northampton cherian england the driver was and the wife of an american intelligence officer working there she has admitted to driving on the wrong side of the road and she was officially charged with his death in december but had already claimed diplomatic immunity and fled from the u.k. to the united states after answer kulis was charged her lawyers said that she would not return to the u.k. and described harry dunn's death as a terrible but unintentional accident we heard from the lawyer for the dunn family . we are in presidential waters as far as we're aware this is never happened before this is the 1st time the united states of refused an extradition request from the u.k. in 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 that to allow somebody who's accused of a very serious crime in a country so e-bay justice that is what would be studying a troubled 'd 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 the vienna convention makes it absolutely clear that if you commit a crime in any country that you stay in your host country and face the consequences this is actually just a request and will hang around for ever whereas we know that president trump and michael kay will not be around forever and if necessary this family who i represent little how please. wait patiently until the next administration comes along who perhaps believes in the whole of the 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 the iraqi capital calling for the u.s. to end its military presence in the country the demonstration labeled the 1000000 man march was set up by an iraqi shia cleric however washington is playing down the rallies highlighting its friendship with the country. they like what we're doing in we like them and we've had a very good relationship the mission is much wanted by the iraqi military in by we believe most iraqis. i've said that we're not interested in talking about withdrawal because we don't think we should withdraw any conversations that the iraqis want to have with us about the united states and iraq we believe should and must cover the entire gamut of our relationship. it turns situation in the region has escalated since the us killing of iran's top general in iraq in militia leader in a drone strike near baghdad international airport at the beginning of january nations iraq passed a resolution to expel foreign troops from the country but that still needs to be ratified by the prime minister u.s. president has rejected the move and warned sanctions would be imposed if baghdad goes ahead with military expulsion based a journalist mohammed quote thinks the u.s. will try to find any lupul to stay in iraq until the resolution is finally ratified the u.s. is trying to avoid. the. this political official political and this 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 explosion of the u.s. forces the u.s. delegate to syria james jeffrey has also today. this decision is not an official one as well why the parliament since the u.s. administration only deals with the with the iraqi government thus the u.s. is trying to avoid. to take responsibility. of their actions and have the same time they are trying to avoid this mass anger against what they have done. and as a whistleblower edward snowden has sat down for an interview with the former president of ecuador rafael correa snowden claimed asylum in russia back in 2013 into still wanted by the u.s. on espionage charges he told creo that he would return to the u.s. if he believed he would get a fair trial. i mean nice 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 perspective and i think this is what people miss against the distinction between the more reality and the legality of the 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 provided 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 tried 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 or do i think you're a hero if you did something really brave but no no this isn't really 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 to be there for him and he sat in on them just to 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. and what 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 going to 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. when someone asks you what are you going to do about it the answer is everything that i can there's a from a i'll be back with headlines of the hour stay with us are 2 international. looks pretty good. all over 7 7 7. the. 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. understand that a cost of doing business is buying and building support in washington d.c. and that includes stuffing 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 a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the streets. what happens to her family and daughters in florida the mother daughter is buried in a cemetery in meaning messes with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and what happens in court b b b b. shot after shot as far as society we feel. we don't know she'll share this for the. end of this unfortunately you. will still not know what childress. you know world of big partisan. lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. is the president thank you very much for speaking to at this difficult time for your country difficult period which is what my 1st question is about your recent absence during that all will cain eruption and people have been worried this has been widespread concern about that absence and about your health are you still feet to be president. you know. we stood up believe media specially developed. piece of this theory and the u.s. are you us before they made the announcement they did they did not go i was 2 days earlier then i went. when it came back last night i went directly again to the evacuation areas so i do not believe that. kind of got to be being. dished. up which is an american see a fund there. and we've just been. where they have not paid the taxes and. we have questioning them because media must be 100 percent owned by the country philippines. for on its own by american and so it does violate because it will sort of seize the media oh depress should be owned by 100 percent for the people. while you were there when you went back to the volcano you promised to repeal in the volcano and take edith's ashes is that part of a new government policy power.