A cathedral faster than a mosque and later a museum now istanbuls landmark hagia sophia is being reconverted back into a mosque but is this an act of religious significance or political narrow minded yes this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program im adrian fenty and one of the worlds most famous landmarks the Hagia Sophia Museum in istanbul has been turned back into a mosque turkeys president but one says the site will be open to muslim worship in less than 2 weeks after a top court ruled that the buildings conversion into a museum in 1904 was illegal built one of the half 1000 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral august affair was converted into a mosque after the awesome and conquest in force 153. 00 while unesco a greek russian and other Church Leaders have denounced took his decision its Foreign Ministry insists that its a domestic issue of National Sovereignty will bring in our guests in just a moment but 1st a report from aljazeera said im close to istanbul. Doesn
ahead. i ll speak with the family of paul weiland, another american, the kremlin has locked up on espionage charges and a group of military families gets the tragic news. nine service members killed when two black hawk choppers crashed. cnn has a crew right near that save. plus tension in the house from paper tossing to hallway shouting in your face. debates are getting heated on the hill. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper, and we start today with our world lead. top u . s. officials are strongly criticizing russia after an american reporter was detained on charges of spying. evan gersh covic appeared in a moscow court today accused of trying to steal russian state secrets. his employer, the wall street journal, says it quote vehemently denies those claims. but now gorshkov itch faces up to 20 years in prison. and today , lawmakers on capitol hill are accusing russia of using this journalist as leverage, and the white house is dismissing the charges.
A court in Brazil has denied requests by the United States and Russia to extradite an accused Russian spy posing as a Brazilian citizen, the country's justice ministry said Thursday.