moving a former party treasurer a little boy says he'll remain in power until the end of his term in twenty twenty . but this motion goes against the very much needed stability in spain as debility that has been safeguarded with the recent approval of the state budget there's no confidence vote damages the economic recovery is bad for spain for the spanish people it reduces uncertainty and goes against the interest of all citizens colombia will become nato as first latin american so-called global partner next week the cooperation includes links to organized crime terrorism and cyber security president juan manuel santos says a partnership with the military alliance will improve colombia's image on the world stage partnership follows the signing of a peace accord with fogge rebels which ended fifty years of conflict colombians go to the polls on sunday to elect a new president along with keeping the peace agreement with fark the new leader will have to deal with emerging rebel groups our latin america editor lucien human

reports. a year ago more than five hundred. came to this camp to begin a transition into civilian life as part of. an extensive land reform now more than half of them have left to join a dissident. giovani castro is still here but like many since the government deceived them. one year after signing we see that those who refused to disarm right my respects they were proven right while we live here humiliated in a room made of materials that produce cancer. many tell us they feel frustrated and betrayed by their own leaders the problem with the peace process goes beyond land distribution and economic aid just as importantly the government vow to guarantee the safety of the demobilize rebels instead they are

now sitting ducks with no protection. this area was once undisputed fark territory controlled by the rebel six front. its former commander. says that in the last few months at least seven of his men have been murdered. we wanted to abandon many sectors that want to push us back because the territory that was under our control is now in the hands of many different groups. one of them is a new rearmed version of the e.p.l. people's liberation army which recently put out this video showing off its new weapons hunt down fark members. the leader of the indigenous community tells us that the e.p.l. is trying to take over their land and recruit members in this lucrative drug trafficking region just like the final state. in this territory there is now the

presence of the e.p.o. c.e.o. . the dissidents and also other illegal paramilitary groups. here and they are spreading throughout colombia quickly filling a power vacuum. dashing the dreams of rural communities and former rebels who believed however briefly that the ont conflict was. seen in. colombia. let's take you through some of the headlines here now in syria now folks can think has begun an island after friday's referendum on relaxing abortion laws exit polls suggest around seventy percent of people voted in favor of repealing what's called the eighth amendment official results are expected on saturday afternoon. need parkers as a counseling center in dublin. many would assume that this would be

a very very closely for race somebody even protect predicted that they may be a recount in some parts of the country when it might be very very close indeed but even if there is a huge margin of error this looks very much like a landslide for those that are after thirty four years of waiting for this war to be overturned have got what they wanted. u.s. frozen dog trump says he's had very productive talks with north korea getting a summit back on track and first day he canceled the meeting with kim jong un but in his latest tweet trump says the talks could still take place on june the twelfth and singapore. has made landfall in oman bringing the strong winds and torrential rains seven people have died across a man in yemen forty others missing thousands of people have been evacuated from

coastal areas the u.s. house of representatives has approved a measure acquiring the pentagon to investigate whether american troops tortured detainees in yemen hundreds of men have reportedly gone missing after a search for the fighters u.s. defense leaders say their forces did question detainees in yemen but deny any knowledge of human rights abuses. indigenous people forced to leave their forest home in kenya are still waiting to return despite winning a court case against fiction a year ago the organic people won the right to remain in the bow forest but the government hasn't helped them to return paid two million dollars in compensation or apologize they say the government wanted them out so illegal loggers could steal from their ancestral lands its listening post now stay with us. getting to the heart of the matter if. the supreme leader calls you today and says

let's have talks would you accept facing the realities what do you think reunification of look like there are two people think the peaceful unification is the only option for prosperity of south korea hear their story on talk to how does iraq. saudi arabia where several women's rights protests with the rest. of what i thought in the speech on trade and accusing. women's rights leaders getting ready women in this. last play by taking us back. hello i'm richard burton you're at the listening post here are some of the media stories we're covering this week saudi arabia jails women's rights activists in the media ask is the crown prince driving real change or hitting the brakes one journalist arrested another one sentenced egypt keeps tightening the screws on the news media in mexico and government advertising those ads keep some media outlets

afloat but that comes at a price and read my lips badly britain's royal wedding reworded if you wore a hot dog and you got a hot dog why put almost dome. tracking developments in the middle east one keeps coming across the increasingly assertive hand of saudi arabia and crown prince mohammed bin salma there's the war in yemen the blockade of qatar the jostling with iran and last year's palace coup that left the prince they call m.b.'s in control of every important arm of the state his promises of reform the anti-graft campaign the opening of cinemas and the decision to finally lift a ban on women drivers had many in the international media putting a brand new face on a kingdom that still lacks any meaningful form of democracy which is why just weeks before the lifting of the driving back the jailing of women's rights activists and their labeling as traitors with links to foreign powers feels like the same old saudi arabia and it will probably have eyes rolling at the p.r.

firms most of them in washington to whom the saudi government pays millions of dollars to burnish its image through the news media to global policymakers and the public our starting point this week israel. the richest of the woman driving us give us the look of it a bit of a surprised single newspaper discovering that. we did not need this in fact. to tell you. where rights are granted by a royal decree not when it. by act. it doesn't not just the rhetoric this is a reform in country because it's arresting in the rights activists the right even the machine of the kingdom is having a difficult time defending put the decision. the question for the saudi authorities

is why do this now of all times why just as the global media were busily churning out good news stories of saudi women preparing to take. we've been the last contrie on the planet which had banned them from drive with the government choose this particular moment to arrest seven activists five women and two men accusing them of colluding with unspecified foreign powers to destabilise the king the truth is those activists have been under the gun ever since last september when the crown prince's father king solomon announced the battle was coming to an end i would not surprise about the news of the end rest knowing that last year when the kingdom announced lifting the power this same day ironically they called women's rights activists and they asked them to remain fine and without saying many women's rights

activists condemned into signing day after venting their twitter account talking to the activists have been depicted by media traitors. they were accused of forming. trying to stabilize the country fortunately this is not the first instance where human rights activists and any for political dissent is linked to the national security front we have seen cases where people are arrested simply for tweeting criticisms of saudi arabia policy and of course this plays a huge role in stifling any form of human rights activism dissent and any form of you know of expression association assembly in the country should have been celebrated next months with women at a lower to drive in saudi arabia they should have been given a credit for their war they are the one who could do issue a life so well in riyadh need to check and see how this decision was made and fix

it. the narrative now emerging around the saudi story seems to be at odds with the one of the crown prince mohammed bin solomon managed to create after becoming the presumptive heir to the throne last year was the government dinner. called an anti corruption crackdown got good reviews in the western media despite legitimate questions that were being asked such asked was m.b.'s using the andrew graft effort as a smokescreen justification for locking up his rivals within the royal family between some ingratiating editorials in papers like the new york times and a softball interview conducted by c.b.s. is sixty minutes program m.b.'s attracted the kind of positive news coverage that his rhetoric may have merited if not for his actual record known by his initials n.b.s. his reforms inside saudi arabia have been revolutionary the nature of the interview was almost fawning they were talking about his great work ethic working hard. they

never really pushed too hard on issues like human rights abuses of the war in yemen and that is this really an open in free society so if they mention this crackdown corruption they didn't trust how mohamed than some man got his money how would my personal life is something i'd like to keep to myself and mohamed been so modest but now the world's most expensive painting was expensive home yet he calls everybody else corrupt and interviews like the sixty minutes one failed to really hit on that another instance thomas friedman's column where they say that saudi arabia is arab spring. you know where the arab spring is ground up kind of movement while this top dollar or while stifling these kinds of collectives and stifling the formation of n.g.o.s and human rights groups. there's little to no mention or connection between that and the right to freedom of expression association. this is really where the coverdell side really completely fell short. of the it's

impossible to really gauge credit if one can call it that for saudi arabia's sometimes successful spinning of its own story particularly in the us may well lie with the multiple public relations firms it has at its disposal under american law p.r. and lobby groups are required to disclose their foreign clients at least three washington based p.r. firms work on the saudis behalf b g r squire patton boggs and hogan lovells and that's just the p.r. sign the saudis have also set up their own lobby group also based in d.c. there has been an investment on branding of been some money. and this has been taking place through different tools and methods one the regime set up along be called fabric this will be the so the american relationship committee work

intensive flee to promote its mohammad image in the u. s. also brother prince khalid was appointed as the ambassador. in washington we want to empower you think looting women and he is a regular guest a very candid t.v. when the gulf crisis began last year that's when we really saw a lot more money being spent both on law vs and on p.r. firms the goal of all this is been to create this image of modernizing liberalizing kingdom it's hard discern what the intention of that p.r. trip is what the american public thinks doesn't really have any ground water governments really should saudi arabia does at the end of the day though the saudis have the money that they're willing to spend on p.r. efforts it doesn't really seem to bother that if the current. wants to have a good image but to depend only on b. of companies and promise is this is short lived the list of those.

activists is a proof of that the woman the new skill all it all that is gone and no if anybody is talking about again this luck of political free that was saudi arabia so basically what will fix the image of saudi arabia is. back to the question asked at the outset why now there's really no clear answer to the p.r. led charm offensive and the m.b.'s interviews were targeted at the international media and foreign politicians the arrest of the activists and the discourse a chilling message that that sent were designed primarily for domestic consumption if that created a few unflattering headlines in the global media then so be it the image that the crown prince projects at home power above all else is the priority that's always been the way in the house of saud and for all the talk of reform and the generational change of the guard in riyadh it hasn't changed.

we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers johannah who's joe a series of developments coming out of egypt over the past few days intensifying the pressure on journalists and bloggers there give us a rundown there are two main developments richard first there's a story that we have been following for more than two years and egyptian military court has finally sentenced journalists and academics is my legs on draw me to ten years in prison alex i'm drawn he was charged with obtaining and publishing military secrets joining a band organization the muslim brotherhood and publishing foals news abroad alex on draw nice work was often critical of the c.c. government's policies especially with regards to the war militants in sinai and that's a clear red line for the government now he was arrested in two thousand and fifteen and he's been in jail ever since he will be waiting for the verdict to be ratified before it can be appealed the second case involves activist and blogger abbas he's

been missing since an overnight raid by police of his house in cairo i was last post on facebook is cryptic and says simply i am being arrested his friends and colleagues have been posting this news online hoping to draw drum up attention and save us from becoming just another of egypt's disappeared and there are hundreds of such people moving on now the coverage of the most recent school shooting in the us santa fe texas has people there talking once again about the way these stories should be covered and the way they shouldn't be covered what are they focusing on in particular the issue richard is with the wall to wall coverage of the perpetrators showing their photographs going over details of their lives theorizing about their motives that's what happened in the coverage of santa fe as well and there are more and more people arguing that if in this age of celebrity these murders just want to make names for themselves well then the media provides them with that through their coverage i spoke to jacqueline shields proud of the state university of new york an activist with the no notoriety can paint and author of

a book called mass shootings media myths and realities. we know that these individuals are seeking fame and notoriety not only through their actions of carrying it out on a very public stage but in a lot of instances these individuals leave behind manifestos whether it is a written document or it's a multimedia package like we saw with the virginia tech shooter who then actually sent this manifesto to n.b.c. news so that right there is saying hey i want you to tell my story but i have already constructed my story and how it's going to be told these people as when they're going out to commit these acts or understanding that the media are a chore to get their identity and their message out there but what about the public interest angle here considering that what we're talking about often is live coverage of a breaking news story that is still unfolding absolutely end quote is fairly clear and that she isn't getting for no coverage at all. in an ideal world the coverage

of mass shootings would be very limited in terms of the perpetrators now that's not to suggest that it shouldn't be said if the scene is active as it was in parklane absolutely get that individual's name and face out there the notoriety campaign doesn't save for an all extensive blackout of the names and the image of the shooters they're saying to refocus not publishing their manifestos not publishing their their name extensively or their image extensively and really just trying to refocus on the details of the case the what happened how did it happen where did it happen and why did it happen and not giving the credibility to who made it happen but richard here's the reality we're not going to know if the coverage of these kind of shootings is going to change unless or until it happens again ok thanks joe since coming to power in two thousand and twelve mexican president and the b.k. pending echo's administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on government advertising he's thrown more pesos the media's way than any president in

the country's history and that's helped keep some media outlets afloat however the ad revenues can also cost news media their editorial independence when a media outlet relies so heavily on the government to keep it in business investigative reporting critical journalism and exposes can all be diluted deferred or censored and that's of journalists haven't already self censored on the first of july penya told will come to the end of his presidency and despite all of the money spent on promotion his party the pre looks like it's heading for a defeat in the general elections the listening posts of some of these are all now on the politics of government advertising the news outlets that have grown addicted to it and the effect that that has had on the fourth estate in mexico. i mean if you really read you this week on t.v. the mexican you'll have to sit to plan b. c. the government store and president and they get in you don't know what political

this is. an elected leader apparently larkham in criticism well that's what it sounds like. good news for mexican journalists work not for the fact that the news organizations they work for depend on the revenue from these kinds of political ads to stay in the business. it's a fairly straightforward paradox if your main client is the government you cannot criticize the government because if the government pulls the plug your business cannot survive. the amount of money handled is dangerous but the way it is distributed is even more so because there are no controls to determine which bits are receiving it and how much is being allocated to disseminate certain messages that the governments are. simply.

insane easements state advertising isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself but what is bad is when it becomes an exchange currency which can be used to either punish or reward and which can be used to control media content. in the past few years billionaire does government has fallen short on promises to be spending on education health social services but it's still found two billion dollars worth of public funds to spend on government ads that's seventy percent more stipulated by law. costing giants televisa. both get around ten percent of their ad revenue from the federal government the country's newspapers of records like millennial excelsior rely on the government for millions of dollars to keep them going at casablanca we can't let twenty fourteen journalists. broke a story on a radio show. revealing how the president's

wife. had bought a luxury home from a company. any government contract. a firestorm ensued and the m.v.s. radio network days employers fired her and her team of reporters citing internal issues unrelated to the reports no one bought that story this is or was his campaign. previously the owner of the radio network said that that report which directly affected president and. would put them in a complicated situation that it would be difficult for them to defend themselves because a communication company is because that depends largely on being on good terms with the government it became obvious that they preferred to stand by the interests of the government instead of defending the journalists who work there there is a program and whatever else but it was. comparable to when i broke up any of these what this often leads to is journalists actually opting out of doing an

investigation because they know it's just not going to get published newspapers would rather bury the stories because they know it could be costly for them not to so there is clearly a correlation between how critical you are the more serious journalism you do the fewer the state resources you will be able to access this is the government's approach you either take the carrot or you get the stick. s. but i think i mean there are not a market it's almost seen as the norm that at some point you'll be required to cut down your art tweak the headline make it more low key all journalists will experience this practice at some point and then there's the problem of self-censorship which is hard to pinpoint but we can only see it shadows it's hard to say what the real magnitude of the problem really rests in as i was that might make. the same biotech relationship between the mexican state of the press goes way back in the one nine hundred seventy s. president said of the media i didn't pay for them to beat me. and withdrew

government advertising in process so the only major independent weekly. deal was the leader of the institutional revolutionary party the party who ruled uninterrupted for seventy years during which they were rarely held to account. when they were voted out in two thousand successive governments promised a freer press but the complicity between the media and the state persisted when pena nieto on the body were voted back into power and twenty twelve he pledged to bring spending down instead he spent more than any other mexican leader in mexican history media watchdogs for taking the government to court on this matter and last year the same preen court sided with them demanding more to curb spending and for it to be distributed in an unbiased way but those pushing for change so the rules drafted the toothless to emotion no more you're right that's all we got

a big surprise last year when the supreme court recognized that the opacity and the lack of regulation in the governmental advertising has a direct impact on the freedom of speech in mexico unfortunately what we saw is that the lawmakers pretended to meet the requirement they passed a law but they didn't take this is stored opportunity to change his perverse relationship and to create a free media in the country where say the consumer just leave it as an adult buy it and he call it is the way in mexico the media industry as a whole was really born out of the system of kind to this others in which bartering is predominant among the media and politicians are going to be discovered or president particularly for your or. your pile of magick on the wall the or you. will the company will be. this inertia is something that's been at work for decades the incentives for the media to carry on with this mode of self preservation are just too strong too powerful that's why it's so difficult to put

a stop to it. these are tough times for the mexican media declining circulation budget cuts staff layoffs. for all the criticism government do you give media outlets a lifeline but it's also a system that lends itself to corruption some outlets taking advantage pocketing government money without generating any real news content. it creates a strange sort of market mexico is a country where there are a lot of newspapers and they just keep producing more given that this is not a country where people read a lot and we also know that there is this crisis in the written press this practice just allows for a false market in the evolution. have you seen this is there a formal media outlets in mexico than is actually necessary and that starts to state our ties in publications that sell one thousand two thousand five thousand

copies in a city of twenty million inhabitants we have all these media outlets that don't need to have a readership because what they are after is advertising revenue is what we see of each year. one outlet that says it remains untouched by that source of revenue is not in a zone and politico last year put the government on the spot when it revealed that the department of education spent more of its national budget on public relations than on the training of teachers. animal political and other alternative sites like d.c.'s and refer to a feeding the public's hunger for muckraking journalism as a presidential election approaches if the polls are to be believed disenchanted mexicans will be voting the ruling party out of office but whether the next president changes a habit of a lifetime in cuba as media outlets and their addiction to government advertising remains as a serious business. and

finally we've been fans of the you tube channel bad lip reading d.l.r. ever since it became the breakout head of the two thousand and twelve u.s. election campaign the format is simple take a video clip could be a song a t.v. show a political speech and then overdubbed it with some completely inappropriate words that just happened to match the speaker's lip movements the channel has more than six million subscribers and is now approaching a total of a billion views but no one seems to know who's behind b l r reportedly it's some anonymous producer somewhere in texas whoever he or she is they would have been licking their lips at the prospect of last week's royal wedding in britain and the raw material that that provide was here next time you have the list of past. interest and problems as the standard with problems said. harry. who is your favorite harry potter character.

not correct. i don't like the conditions. just because. it's pretty bad you know i have a surprise for you. so. i don't want to. present as a fan. you know what. i didn't leave. oh. good. because for a good cd sells. and.

thanks love to make amends to some friends because behind the suffering a millions of taxpayers because those taxpayers never go away is a new one born every single day a nineteen it is an urgent national missile city and we could be officially request the education of the support mechanism we created together because i happen to live in creeks somehow i'm a sinner i'm a bad person. that's machine at this time. it's. yeah may be a phone this some roots got a funny thing is a problem in massive debt to. transform the shrews is the name of the rich are important they recognize the record music is really going to trip my life for a very young age to make up for to make up what i feel that. talks about justice

the point of the book so often organisms are crazy music of the rest of us to be rather that much of it is right i'm especially proud that i think this is kind of all in all the right wing assault on our freedom to oss questions and generally all freedom of expression and people you know are being taught it's like students teachers activists filmmakers rights it's place all of them have been exhibited the front of a respite and people are on the street see the protest has reached our doorstep soft and rich as a weird legs all attempts to contradict something it's. a new series of rewind can bring your people back to life i'm sorry and brand new updates on the best of al-jazeera documentaries in liberal i was the global thing and now i'm like any other student rewind continues with joseph's journey this is. the struggle continues book.

rewind on al-jazeera. counting gets underway an island but exit polls suggest a referendum to ease abortion laws is poised to pass. this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up the u.s. president's rekindles hopes talks with north korea's leader could be back on track . in the sweeps through our mom causing flooding and leaving people in the dark

plus. kenyan indigenous communities celebrates victory against the government but is still waiting for justice. vote counting has begun an island off to find days referendum on relaxing abortion laws exit polls suggest nearly seventy percent of people are in favor of repealing what's called the eighth amendment officially. salzhauer expected on saturday afternoon the vote comes thirty five years after another referendum enshrined some of the world's toughest anti abortion laws into the constitution needs barker is in a vote counting center in dublin joins us live from there and as i said neve results expected in saturday afternoon expected to be quite a dramatic one. definitely

a result that seems to have caught both sides of this fierce debate off guard with almost all of the count stations now conducting the count to clean here in dublin where i am it does look already is if this is turning into a landslide for the yes come.