Hello youre watching R T International i am or is on a lot court thank you for joining us and we start with this breaking news a ukrainian aircraft with 180 passengers on board has reportedly crashed shortly after takeoff from Khomeini International airport interferon those reports coming from Iranian State media but have not been officially confirmed yet Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was heading to kiev its a boeing 737 plane and reportedly went down due to technical reasons according to that same report so far we have no information on possible casualties but well of course keep you updated when we get further information and in separate developments in iran the Iranian Military has fired dozens of Ballistic Missiles at bases housing u. S. Forces in iraq. Iran is calling it a revenge operation for the death of Major General kasim saw in money the missile strikes happened at exactly the same time of night as the assassination of sana money 5 days earlier and the secretary of irans supremum National Security council tweeted this image of the iranian flag and thats an apparent reference to trumps tweet of the u. S. Flag just after the drone strike that killed syrian money earlier i talked to our teams paula slayer in tel aviv and caleb morgan in new york about the Iranian Missile strikes and the situation now unfolding in the middle east. Paula lets come to you 1st could you talk us through whats been happening and how is this all being viewed in israel where you currently are all theres been 2 waves of air strikes targeting 2 major iraqi bases where american troops are concentrated one of the bases is just outside baghdad the capital of iraq and the other one is in the north of the country in a deal the question that still needs to be answered is whether or not there were any injuries on those bases and initial reports suggest yes although weve just heard from an american official say that there are very few casualties if any the question of course is whether the casualties are on the iraqi side or the americans it seems as if its on the iraqi side but of course were still waiting to receive confirmation of that now as i mentioned more than a dozen Ballistic Missiles were fired in iraq and the radio revolutionary guards were very quick to take responsibility for this saying it was in revenge to the friday morning assassination by the United States of the ukrainian general the money were starting to hear reaction now weve received a tweet by the Iranian Communications minister in which he says date the hell out of my country at the same time we rein in the foreign minister zarif has said that iran does not want war with the United States. Iran to get concluded proportionate measures in selfdefense under article 51. 00 of you and charter targets in base from which coldly attack against our citizens and senior officials were launched we do not seek escalation or war but will defend ourselves against any aggression now reigning revolutionary guards have issued a statement in which they say it is time to full their promise they are calling this operation revenge a martyr women and theyve acknowledged that tens of missiles have been fired they calling the United States the great satan and in the same statement they say that should the United States respond or should any of its allies in the middle east respond it will immediately take the action. We warned the great satan our Good American regime that any further maoist mobilization will result in a more painful response. Of the u. S. Government which have given their bases to the terrorist army of the country are warned that any territory used for hostile acts against iran will be targeted now thats great about israel not being separated from the United States or something of course the israelis are taking very seriously since last friday the israeli army has been in a state of high alert on the countrys northern and southern borders nar there is an intercept pace and that iran could activate its proxies and thus in gaza and hizbollah and lebanon and in fact weve actually heard. From from iran that should israel responded in kind it will activate hizbullah with some kind of retaliate reaction we havent had any official comment from the israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hes no doubt meeting with his defense minister and top Security Officials and we are expecting to hear some kind of response at least an official statement be made in the coming hours paula thanks for that context in tel aviv clearly a bone to come to you know in new york because so far the u. S. Response has been you could say somewhat muted were actually expecting an address from president on the trip to after there were reports that he might could you tell us whats been said so far in Washington Well we have a tweet from donald trump it begins with the phrase all is well followed by a statement that there is an assessment going on of the casualties and the damage done to u. S. Bases as a result of the attack by the Iranian Missiles furthermore we do have the white house saying that trump has been briefed on the situation and it will this point its expected that will speak to the media regarding the events tomorrow this is what we heard from the white house we are aware of the reports of attacks on u. S. Facilities in the rock the president has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his National Security team now the response from members of the u. S. Congress has been quite different depending on which party they are in. Then we have nancy pelosi the leader of the democrats in the house of representatives speaking about the events and saying that trumps unnecessary escalation seems to have something to do with these events that we have marco rubio a republican and a conservative speaking in support of donald trump and criticizing the anti palosi for her criticisms of the president and the moment in which these missiles have been fired this is the exchange we saw on social media closely monitoring the situation phone bombing star getting u. S. Troops in iraq we must ensure the safety of our Service Members including and needless provocations from the administration and demanding that iran sees its violence American World cannot afford war iran is now openly calling for americans to turn on each other the time will come to debase u. S. Policy tonights american and allied troops have come into direct attack by nation state and americans must come together to support and protect them and respond appropriately may god protect and watch over our troops stationed in iraq my thoughts are with them and with their loft once i condemn irans attacks which targets u. S. Coalition and Iraqi Military personnel in the strongest terms im monitoring the situation in iraq closely and praying for our men and women in uniform the Iranian Regime has made a great miscalculation by launching his attacks. Among Trump Supporters the decision to kill qassam solomonic is being celebrated as a heroic act an act against terrorism however among Many Democrats though they have not much good to say about qassam solid money they seem to however argue that this was an unnecessary ask elation that put american lives at risk so many democratic voices seem to be speaking up and saying that donald trump could possibly be asked to a war with iran and didnt consult the u. S. Congress on that matter so there seems to be some pretty solid divisions about how to assess the recent events between the usa and iran at this time people are waiting to hear what trump will say when he does speak to the media as the new day comes in the United States. But meanwhile people have gathered for the state funeral of Major General kasim silly money its happening in his hometown of he was assassinated in a u. S. U. S. Drone strike in baghdad on january 3rd not strike was awarded by President Donald Trump and has been condemned by iran as an act of war and a terrorist attack for 2 decades sunni money so the commander of irans could which is the external wing of the Islamic Revolutionary guard he played a crucial role in the wrongs a military Decision Making process and helped expand irans role in the middle east he was also a leading figure in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. Earlier president backed down on a threat to destroy irans cultural sites the u. S. Leader calls global along with a series of tweets on sunday in which he said key iranian land could be targeted if the country were to seek revenge for the assassination of Major General sunni money bought on tuesday trump said washington would a Bay International level. We are according to various laws supposed to be very careful with their Cultural Heritage and you know if thats what the law is i like your bay the law well earlier on choose state the Iranian Parliament unanimously passed a bill designated designating the u. S. Armed forces as a terrorist organization. For those who ordered this is well as the perpetrators of this crime the killing of general kassim son the money with the pentagon and their military accounted as terrorists. Well for a bit more context and analysis of this we can now bring in political analyst and a sound or a bruna sandra thanks for joining us lets start here shall we with Donald Trumps latest tweet he said all is well missiles launched from iran at 2 military bases located in iraq so far so good and those the words of the u. S. President donald trump after these strikes on military facilities continue u. S. And Coalition Troops in iraq what do you make of that message given the circumstances. Well my 1st thought is that trump himself doesnt know how to react because hes a bit damned if he doesnt damned if he doesnt. And hes caught in a situation of his own making theyve created a martyr. General sulaimani and the iranians have finished off the funeral celebration the funeral commemorations with the firing of the rockets i think thats important to tie these rockets being fired right after the the funeral was held which is so millions. Come to the streets and i think. I can offer some context in the sense that this whole thing has created a new martyr and in the martyrdom idea is central to she is a. Its almost like the the battle of karbala itself 68080. 00 when. The mom hussein was defeated by a much stronger force of the sunni. Yes 8 and in rather treacherous circumstances and thats thats the context in which i think many iranians and many of the mall as an ayatollah as in iran will be painting. The episode so for iranians there is a strong religious cultural. Cant. Feeling and not actually not just surveillance for shiites all over so essentially the attack on iran on solely money was not just on sort of money or iran it was on all of. All shiites in the region and now and perhaps his advisors have woken him up walking him up to the fact that its not going to be so easy to. Retaliate because that would be really entering a war situation and the iranians will not fight. Simply with rockets fired against bases they will use asymmetrical warfare because thats where they excel thats where generals will and i need excelled and thats where the. Excels and thats where the successor to silly money excels so. Theres no guarantee victory. And to finish off here the unfortunately for you run it doesnt have Nuclear Weapons because if it did i think the money would never have been targeted and we wouldnt be in this very precarious. Predicament right now but it is certainly very useful to get that sort of history and context because revenge is certainly been the watchword that weve been hearing coming out of iran weve been seeing people in the streets calling for revenge on the us and perhaps weve seen the other element of that this is evening with the strikes in iraq on these u. S. Military facilities but how well advised to we think donald trump was before he carried out this attack called Major General sunni money because you know perhaps there are people in the administration that have the knowledge that you do all the history and the likeliness of revenge but dont you think they would have advised him. Well thats the problem. Trump has surrounded himself with i dont want to use the term insane because theyre not but with very misguided individuals throughout the few who were saying reich mattis and the former foreign secretary i forgot his name he was the head of exxon. If eliminated and. Not heard in the 1st place he surrounded himself with people with connections to religious fundamentalists this is becoming a millennial in the sense of in the world millennial. Context battle between religious extremists on one side but the in fact the iranians while my name may appear to be. Illogical is probably of an excellent chess player and i think the kit the strikes were calculated. With precision to put trump into this kind of decision difficulty because if he does attack he knows hes entered the war and many of his voters did not vote for that. And it could give the impetus for a much more. Rapid. Impeachment on top of that so hes delicate and then at the same time hes. Trump has painted himself as a great fighter and nationalist in the very or patriot in the worst sense of the term. So. He might be tempted and with bad counsel to take really dangerous action. So trump the iranians were probably very careful to make sure that the rockets hit the outskirts of the bases causing only mature. Real damage and so far in fact there is no news yet. Any casualties and it is. Early morning in baghdad right now at least so 7 oclock graps so. There should be news the only news of casualties ive heard so far is from. Or potential casualties from a boeing 737 that crashed at around airport earlier this morning around 6 am yeah which is. Alice alice sandro thank you were about to go to some more details on that crash in fact so well leave it there for now but thanks so much for your insights this morning political analyst our Sandra Burnett thank you. So lets return back to that breaking news of an air crash in iran a ukrainian aircraft with 180 passengers and crew on board has reportedly crashed shortly after takeoff from in my home many International Airport in tehran those reports come from Iranian State media who are quoting the director of the airport Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was heading to kiev its a boeing 737 plane and reportedly went down due to technical reasons according to the tracking Service Flight radar 24. 00 play to put the plane took off but then stopped transmitting data there is no indication of any link at the moment to the Iranian Missile strikes in iraq which happened a few hours earlier mind that they have been iraq not iran so far we have no information on possible casualties from this reported plane crash. Saying in the middle east by the mayor putin has paid an unexpected visit to syria for talks with president Bashar Al Assad they discussed the volatile situation now unfolding in the region parties remind kosar of reports. This is a lot of putins 1st visit says syria since the year its wednesday 17 and his arrival is there it comes amid tensions in the middle east following the killing off a top Iranian Military official in iraq after arrival according to Vladimir Putins spokesperson he visited the Russian Command Center in damascus where he held a meeting with president bashar assad and also received a state of affairs reports from the military about whats going on in the rest of the country now in a meeting with bashar assad lot of mir putin. Thats a long way and significant steps have been made to establishing the countrys territorial integrity as well as statehood meanwhile president of syria bashar. Thanked the Russian Military for establishing peace in his country and of course for their fight against terrorism well later on wednesday Vladimir Putin will be holding another top level meeting but this time as president in turkey theyll be formally launching the new turks stream pipeline and also discussing the fallout from a general sort of manis death will of course be following all of that closely right here on r. T. Now the latest a movie by the british the right to go richie has been getting some less than stellar reviews with critics branding the picture as racist and out of touch the gentleman has so far only been released in 4 countries with the rest of the world getting to see it in 2 months time but heres a look at what is already getting people angry. This really will be no yeah. I. Think. Every imaginable demographic gets their moment to be targeted and denigrated the only thing the gentleman finds worth celebrating is the white masculinity. A less forgivable blast from the past however it is a discomforting strain of racially based humor running to reach its original script making flat punch lines of multiple aging characters. Its just a shame that guy Ritchie Falls back on his bad habits casual racism i dont know lynn and lack of female character is problematic but still very entertaining. But good and i am being absolutely sincere much rather watch cats than the angry racist man that is the gentleman. Who put this up for debate with political commentator david vance and social activist lee jasper. This is a sort of bygone bricks movie a sort of muscular reassertion all day we can say what we like. And we dont give a damn what anybody thinks they can tell us about the most foul and disgusting racist language this was a movie about gangsters on hey guess what really gun stores dont speak in politically correct balanced way is thats not what gangsters do when we see movies like this is the following day when those racial epithets are repeated on the street that give cause for concern. Movie makers like guy should have a broader social conscience and responsibility. Producing. If you want to see. Imagined reus ism then thats fine you go and see it if we go to see a gangster movie you know were not expecting to. Find high a philosophy were not expecting to experienced walk culture thats just reality i think is outdated is outmoded and hes not reflecting the kind of future which is of a more inclusive sense of british nationalism you know here we are in 2020 and what were experiencing over this movie is just an early flutter of walk culture of the perpetually offended black panthers one of the most successful movies in the world and its successful economically for a reason i think im not in favor of any artistic ban or any law i do think there should be greater diversity in the production and creative rooms quite amusing that you just referenced black panther and you went on then to talk about diversity if i recall the black panther movie successfully there wasnt a huge amount of diversity in that so if you want equality and i do then i think we have to have the fundamental right to have all opinions of all sorts heard saying and understood. Now lets continue our look back at 2019 and more of the events that marked those last 12 months. We have divided this review of the year into a few different categories so lets take a look at this 1st one disrupt in chief donald trump a dominating the headlines nia that was stirring up politics both at home and abroad and he also found himself as the butt of many jokes in the Mainstream Media and on late night shows but as well as being on the receiving end the president also dished out his own bobs and takes a look at who got the last laugh. What should be the golden rule of anyone who wants to sound or look funny i dont mind a bit of comedy in my work so why is it repeats the same joke teuton arms. Ok so what then happened to the gods of comedy and 2019 because they joked about or mocked the same person 102 times as you can see most of america is good. With the. Lakes. Orange picked out of refrigerator is actually the most accurate way trump has ever described himself. You know like sometimes like you know the way we try to get our steps and hes trying to reach a certain number of lies on his fitbit every single day you know hes like oh i havent had my 10000 yet my dad was from germany yes and 1000 im not really have 10000 i know the law. You know what i actually just bumped into a blog post titled 6 ways to handle trumps impeachment during holiday dinners hasnt gone that bad time for another comedy extract. The everyone flew here for the holidays and i mean even more happy that they did it their impeaching try well they did it teaching trump could we please talk about politics instead. Oh you mean. Definitely get impeached and then definitely getting reelected im good. Yes it has well while some americans will probably be happy to mock or go on about donald trump till the end of time there are others who are sick of it and these folks gotta love a new feature on netflix a button that allows you to skip donald trump jokes now thats what i call innovation although seth meyers who came up with the idea didnt think people would use it. Anyway what about the president he couldnt just sit in the corner and cry right well jokes by trumps previous essers never really crossed the line causing exactly the right amount of modest giggling but the differences between bush and mccain may be just to vest. Its not mean mccain is bushs running mate hasnt the man suffered enough and with that i just have 2 more words to say. Obama. The and 29 tango donald trump took it to a whole new level the high as from his jokes were meant to slap his opponents hard bread and butter have been. Specially raised by the jacksons to remain calm under any condition which will be very important because theyve already received subpoenas to appear in adam shifts basement on thursday Debbie Dingell thats a real beauty she calls me up since this thing thats ever happened thank you so much joan would be so thrilled hes looking to. Thank you so much. And says its ok dont worry about. Hes working. And as a true twitter troll he began to make good use of means. So what then everyone happy happy new year t. V. Shows can save plenty of time on planning just fill up air time with have that fall in the white house be like for at least another year the president can keep on taking aim at rivals by fully mastering mean making and be proud of his razor sharp humor and just in case the publics now got a butt to skip jokes about the maggot man. Bring it on. Well now lets take a look at this 2nd category warning the world 29000. 00 was also a year of hostility from the trade war between washington and beijing to a wave of terror attacks around the world and last year did see a spike in the number of places of worship being targeted as nicky aaron reports while 2019 saw fewer terror attacks 3 years so are more worrying trend with acts of terror inciting a tit for tat circle of hate 3 months into the year we saw one of the most peaceful countries in the world raise its Terror Threat level to high for the 1st time in its history. People around the world were left stunned when a 28 year old man unleashed carnage on 2 mosques in christchurch new zealand. This is one of new zealands darkest days the appalling attack set the tone for the remainder of the year the question was well could have motivated this surge in olds right leanings the obvious song so too many was donald trump the u. S. President who had taken what some perceived as an anti immigrant stance also a man who had the misfortune to be named in the Christ Church attack as manifesto making him the perfect target for education mr trump your awards not. Your policies matter i think the Public Discourse from the president is a factor in some of these actions while politicians play to the blame game a much darker reality was unfolding 9 days off to Christ Church the 1st copycat attack. This time on a synagogue in California Police later found graffiti on the driveway leaving little doubt over whether the attacker had been inspired by the new zealand massacre the po way synagogue shooting took the life of one person and injured 3 others in a chilling echo of the new zealand attack the perpetrator also released a manifesto in which he praised the christchurch terror months later copycat attack number 2. On the 3rd of august 22 people were killed and 24 others injured in a mass shooting at a walmart in El Paso Texas again the attacker released a manifesto revealing how he was inspired by the Christ Church mosque shootings