north korea could be preparing for a new missile launch increased activity at the site near pyongyang comes two weeks else talks in geneva kim jong un and president trump ended without an agreement came unstuck missile launches of relations between the two countries and proved these latest reports come just days after different satellite images allegedly showed pyongyang out stop the rebuilding iraq at the site. while time will tell but i have a feeling that our relationship with good career kim jong il and of myself chairman kim i think it's a very good one i think it remains good i would be. surprised in a negative way if we did anything that was. not per our understanding but we'll see what happens look when i came in. under the obama administration north korea was a disaster i inherited a mess with north korea and right down you have no testing you know nothing let's see what happens but i would be very disappointed if i saw

a test. by karen al-jazeera when we come back the founder of the notorious u.s. military contract a blackwater admits to al-jazeera that he didn't meet trump's campaign team but that's not what he told congress plus. this. abuse rejected and humiliated would be to nigeria and human trafficking victims more in that state. hello the rains a little early but it seems to be sailing persistence or china vast amounts of cloud way of going that direction and really where the rain is going with feeding in warms from the south and the cold relatively speaking the north not by injuries

where the rain is developing for jan and particular including hong kong shanghai looks fine in fact the yangtze valley is fine back to junk who is temperatures in the high teens if you're lucky with the exception of shanghai where used to go normally now the rainiest sort of creeping offshore for time may just about leave you in hong kong with a dry evening on monday temps just say much the same inland as far as normally breeze for the course you can feel different in the sky should be launched the blue then is a bit of a gap which we've been seeing now for weeks really for the philippines most the southeast i should stop sickly shower the concentration of heavy rain part from these dots it showers around driver is far east west papua for example some parts of sort of circulation there you'll notice she's drifting slowly south towards australia just taking all the energy with it so far from scattering shasta born every born you have an increasing cloud in the philippines so much dr picture than

you might expect so it may be in singapore. the weather sponsored by cat our employees. real men killed a mother and son on their way to an appointment sadly the insurgents don't wear uniforms water is synonymous with the was the american occupation of iraq matthew has an old american prince to account trump tower twenty sixteen how come you didn't mention not meeting to congress and i did i don't know they got the transcript wrong. i don't think you're that sharp that you can tell the difference between a polish guy a french guy holding a yard charging at the head on a jersey or.

welcome back a quick recap of the top stories here this hour rival demonstrations have been held in the streets of that as well as capital between supporters of the president with the rope and opposition leader one. of the country's remain without electricity for the third day one of the worst blackouts in decades. algeria's government is over the closure of universities is the largest amount of government protests in decades continue they'll shut on sunday to exam scheduled for the spring break student protesters said the move won't tell them. and us back fighters in syria say they're about to launch a final offensive against i still buy booze is the last remaining area under control the kurdish led s.d.f. recently pulled the fighting to allow civilians to leave. more on the crisis in venezuela medina is a form of venezuela diplomats who resigned in twenty seventeen to protest against the duros policy as he wants more international involvement in venezuela. the

constitutionally interim president should out upon the needle of their people and to requests not of me terry intervention but i mean turn national humanitarian intervention with military support and that's why article one eighty seven eleven over national constitution allows the zero three station to request for a military cooperation to come into our country when we have hundreds of people dying every day at least in the last forty eight hours only because of the lack of electricity more than a hundred people have died well it usually is nine hundred people daily time believe today was also a great answer from day united states judicial sector when there was an indictment on the former vice president telling a lie sammy wherein he has been already owned he was undertaking being out sanctions in today he had and i mean done an indictment and therefore where he leaves now he knows this is not a joke he will be apprehended and i would say i would invite the u.s.

to come into his well after a hand all these criminal officials from his regime and their truck and pay their prison time in the us there's a lot that the u.s. can do is more a whole eastern international cooperation from latin america erik prince the founder of the private u.s. security company blackwater has admitted to meeting members of the trump campaign in all this twenty sixteen that's despite him telling congress that he had no connection with the trump team at the time when questioned by the house and al-jazeera has had to head program the former blackwater c.e.o. said the public transcripts of the congressional hearing could be wrong. what you didn't tell congress is that on august third twenty sixteen you were at a meeting during the campaign at trump tower with don jr trump son which stephen miller then a campaign advisor to trump with george nader a former blackwater colleague of yours who acts as a back channel to the saudis there moralities you're supposed to be convicted paedophile and also joel's imo an israeli expert on social media manipulation how

come you didn't mention that meeting to congress given it's so relevant to their investigation. i did as part of the part of the investigations i certainly disclosed in the any meetings the very new i had on in the congressional testimony you gave to the house we went through it you didn't mention anything about august twenty sixth meeting in trump tower they specifically asked you what context you have and you didn't answer that i don't believe i was asked that question you asked whether any community for communications or contact with the campaign you said apart from writing papers putting up yard signs know what you said i've got the transcript of the conversation here. i mean i might have been i think it was at trump headquarters or the campaign headquarters might be our august third twenty sixteen years of war and is really due to a back channel to the emirate in the saudis don't jr and even miller were there to talk about iran policy hulet about iran policy don't think that's something important to disclose to the house intelligence committee while you're under oath he did you didn't we just went through the testimony there's no mention of the

trump tower meeting because twenty sixteen were not i don't know if they got the transcript wrong. or they got the transcript wrong so we could i don't know i remember i remember certainly does dismiss it that we didn't get you because we know that robert muller he hasn't been able to establish collusion it but he has got a lot of guys for lying to the authorities and not telling the whole truth is that the problem now even if you accidentally didn't tell them that could come back and haunt you. fully cooperated i haven't heard anybody i haven't heard from anybody in more than nine months i mean i mean members of congress after they discover this media have talked about certain witnesses not telling the truth but you believe you told congress about this meeting even if no in the transcript just to be clear i believe so it. should have a chance he has more now from washington d.c. members of congress had already said they were dissatisfied with eric prince's testimony last year to a congressional committee this obviously isn't going to help it is quite striking that he didn't have a better answer prepared because this is been rumbling away since last may when the

new york times wrote the story about this meeting which the new york times said erik prince himself organized and which subsequently donald trump. confirmed erik prince after meeting with several of those one acting apparently as an emissary for the saudis and the u.a.e. according to the new york times the other fascinating part of this is when prince was pressed he said that he was there to discuss iran and that's interesting because the new york times account said the discussions were mainly based around a social media campaign perhaps in order to help the trump campaign and general discussion about the saudis and the amaranth he's hoping the trump campaign which incidentally would be illegal but not about iran but and we know that later on. the lebanese american businessman who was at that meeting was touting a plan to economically sabotage iran using private mercenaries so the public is definitely think thickening we don't know whether anything illegal was happening at

this meeting whether this was just the normal not normal gray area of foreign lobbying and illegality which is quite common but certainly certainly this is terribly interesting and will be interesting for congressional committees i'm sure . britain's prime minister is warning that brags that might not happen at all if a deal is rejected by parliament on tuesday millions of u.k. citizens and other european countries will be watching closely portugal is one of the most attractive destinations for britons working abroad as long as the reports now from lisbon uncertainty over the u.k.'s exit from bloc has begun to take its toll on business one of the myths about british people in europe is that they like to live in places like portugal so they can get a round of golf in before moving on to gin by lunchtime but very many more move to places like this for work we brought this group together they all have different questions they cannot get answers to me and many many other people can see you it's the same concern. about health care will that continue obviously with people

wanting to move between countries and this whole process. not knowing whether i'm going to be able to take people's goods between countries having said all of that work already by businesses running rental apartments and my concern is . a large chunk of the forty percent of our market which is currently a bridge from a bricks in residence you info people are going to be able to come across here to see the value of the pound and what's going to happen there is in speculation so we're not really sure many more money but what's going to happen more than twenty percent of all people who fly it's a portugal the british such is the love affair with the place so it's hardly surprising the portuguese government has raised the possibility of special lanes at passport control the british tourists so they continue to come after all would be

a massive dent to the economy if the golf courses were half empty. like other european countries portugal is trying to ensure the rights of british citizens who want to live in their country as well as simply visiting but that only works if portuguese citizens in britain have the same rights and that is still not guaranteed we decide that we're going to give all these rights to the u.k. citizens resident in portugal in the expectation that there will be resupply city so all the contingency measures that are being taken that the you level are in a lateral master. unilateral measures they are temporary measures and we hope this will be sorted out soon will. i would ever a real answer for that british consular officials in portugal are accused of being vague in their advice to u.k. citizens living here nobody was made available to speak to us but you can reasonably suggest it's hardly their fault he repeated complaint from british

people who live and work in continental europe is that the british government is making it their responsibility to find out what their rights should be after the u.k. leaves the european union has just three weeks to go now until that's supposed to happen as with so many other things it all smacks of complete uncertainty gloriously al-jazeera in lisbon for the third time in a month and a boehner treatment center has been attacked in eastern democratic republic of congo a center in but was targeted hours before a visit by the head of the world health organization the latest outbreak of the virus has killed five hundred seventy eight people since august first. soldiers dragged a suspected attacker through the forest close to the temporary bella center in the democratic republic of congo is one of several men said to have fired shots into the buildings where medical teams battling to contain the spread of it after

finding myself a barrier to well i was washing glasses when i heard bullets i wondered what's going on one of our colleagues who was busy burning but garbage began shouting but the attackers were already entering the treatment center from the main entrance. it's less than a week since the potential center reopened after it was attacked in february is said north kivu province source of the republic's latest to beller outbreak saturday's attack came just hours before a visit by the head of the world health organization. who. is. dozens of groups are reported to be operating in the eastern congo some allow

health workers to deliver vaccines and track people infected with hiv but others are hostile to outsiders. some aid agencies have criticized the military's response to threats they say intimidation and violence is making it more difficult for medical staff to contain the virus and the number of cases is increasing barbara and out to sarah. people traffickers smuggle tens of thousands of africans every year in armed conflicts in some parts of the continent of course trafficking to increase the u.n. estimates women make up half the total who are trafficked those of nigeria often go through mali and algeria government believes is up to twenty thousand of them and start to repatriating some of the victims in january nigeria's national agency fighting human trafficking recently said many of them were tricked with promises of getting jobs in europe then a sex slaves in mali one woman who escaped told us

a story. i misplace trash and. i actually trying is. almost quite frightening through all of the knowledge that is good montreal and makes me with life. really neat thing that results. are so many clear that there really is it's very very very small say outright that if you want to have serious doubts you want that's one of two theories posters as there was this almost worn out not long before. the crowd from its influence is really small and close. as the smiths fist see guys in self or. any boards in the house surely it's. surely since they are all mad that we are all starts with just salute the man.

i miss if you are your mistress surely must have sex for you to read and if they are else there in. dumas is. a look all printed more than my fear is. all like this which works with. let's all speak to a truce between rejected due to the kind large camps that think that it's moving that fast i'm talking to you and. i really don't mind. if they even say we can remind you of paying our lead to multi-cell follow us or find out that you called. so my parents any time if you truly want to sit in peace if you do moderately remove rogue's me no point in this but.

you are saying i can. he has been released from jail after he paid one hundred sixty one thousand dollars zero in child support kelley was charged last month with sexual abuse of four alleged victims three of whom were minors at the time and he denied all charges and was released on bail but he was taken back into custody on wednesday after failing to pay child support demanded by his former wife and their three children pakistan's government has officially complained to cricket's governing body for what it says was an inflammatory gesture by the indian cricket team the indians will army style caps during their match against australia in a show of support for the military tensions are high but in new delhi and is now a bad after an attack on indian troops in the disputed kashmir region. a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera rival demonstrations have been held on the streets of venezuela's capital caracas between supporters of president

maduro and opposition leader one. part of the country remain without electricity for a third day one of the worst blackouts in decades. speaking of his so-called untamed perilous march president maduro called a us puppet. look at philip can we have defeated their coup they tried illegitimately to tell a person into a president and now today it is obvious to the world he's not a president not anything he's a clown and a puppet delinquent citizens. calling for more protests to pressure the president to step down. he said it before the regime wants to wear us out g.m. wants to wear us out brothers and sisters and yes the road has been very long the road has worn us out but we will never tire in the search for freedom and we will stay in the streets as government is over the closure of universities as the

largest anti government protests in decades continue their shot on sunday two weeks ahead of schedule for the spring break student protests to say the move won't deter them. well as in surrounds and nine women protesters have been sentenced to twenty lashes and a month in jail for rioting comes a day off to president omar al bashir or the release of all women detained over anti-government demonstrations students have continued to protest in the capital khartoum despite a state of emergency wrangling the government for detaining protesters during the last three months of demonstrations. u.s. backed fighters in syria say they're about to launch a final offensive against isis but use the last remaining area on the isis control the kurdish led s.d.f. recently posed fighting to allow civilians to leave. satellite images released in the us by the news outlets n.p.r. suggests that north korea could be preparing for a new missile launch increased activity at the side near pyongyang comes two weeks

of the talks between kim jong il and president trump ended without an agreement. right those are the headlines that is continues here on al-jazeera after inside story and that's what i thought. how do you stop misinformation online you tube and facebook take new steps to host the spread of fake content but also show media companies doing enough and this is inside story.

i don't welcome to the program i mean there's a purana fake news the term often in the headlines it's a common cry from donald trump to discredit news stories critical of him but the description also highlights one of the biggest challenges on the and to net how to stop the spread of misinformation on line social media companies on the increasing pressure to stop publishing misinformation and lies and do you choose introducing and such as hoax and fake to flag suspicious videos and forty indian soldiers were killed in an attack in india administered kashmir last month seven video is said to show the attack went viral it turned out to be fake you tube is rolling out the new alerts just before and did elections due next month and hopes for a worldwide system soon. now buzz feed as a us internet media news and entertainment company report upon of the explains why misinformation on you tube is such a major problem and india we are

a big country as one point three billion and. so far only about five hundred million indians are online but last year they've been getting access to cheap so forms they've been getting access to. cheap internet plans on these cell phones and as a result this is their religion. and that they're not able to differentiate between you know what what's real and what's not. and that's one of the main reasons why you have such a big misinformation problem in india. now britain's upper house of parliament is calling for a digital authority to oversee government bodies in charge of safeguarding the internet the house of lords report says tech companies have failed to regulate themselves facebook is one of the companies under political pressure on thursday it removed more than one hundred thirty profiles and pages which it said so part of a u.k. based misinformation network the social media firm accuse the network of setting up fake accounts to spread hate speech and divisive debate on religion immigration and

race at least one of the fake pages said one hundred seventy five thousand followers now don't trump often talks about fake news during his election campaign and twenty sixteen russians were blamed for targeting u.s. voters and using facebook to widen political and social divisions the following year british university researchers found a counseling to russia spread misinformation on four attacks in the u.k. and last year in india at least twenty seven men were beaten to death when rumors on the messaging site whatsapp wrongly accuse them of being child kidnappers whatsapp users can no longer afford messages to more than five people or groups. well let's bring in our panel now joining us from new delhi is pocket she's a writer at quartz and dia who covers politics and technology and skewed

a netherlands via skype we have technology ethicists know in goods and in london michelle sauce three senior lecturer at king's college london who researches the dissemination and consumption of digital content a very warm welcome to all of you. start with you in the indian capital where you tube is rolling out this new feature how much of a difference do you think it will make to the proliferation of misinformation on you tube and india and then beyond. i think it's definitely a good step that you tube has taken they're rolling out these information panels that contain debunks to bits of mint misinformation that are circulating on you tube as well as elsewhere and these are populated by the fact checkers that you tube has approved as you know trustworthy sources of fact checks and i think i think it's a good step definitely but i think some of the. some of the things that it won't reach are are when you videos are embedded for instance in whatsapp chats or

circulated on other platforms people will be able to see these information panels and a lot of misinformation that circulates in india is shared on private chat apps especially whatsapp and so if these information panels are only appearing on search pages that depends basically means that the only people who are going to be seeing them are people who are actively searching on the you tube platform and are people who are receiving these videos from other other sources as well and i think that broadening out i think it's definitely a good step sorry no please continue so i think broadening out it's definitely a good step. it's definitely a good step that this company is taking and lots of different social media companies have rolled out individual steps towards countering misinformation but a lot of work still definitely needs to be done in the next couple of months as india approaches its general and we'll of course we talk about what's happened what

the other companies are doing and a lot of detail but if we do stick with you tube and this feature for a little bit longer mr good a good first step is it in the us could they be doing more and do you think that they should why don't they take the videos down. well i think that's an excellent question because. really it's a big step a seventy five you have to ask. if you label a video as folks does that then lead people to the assumption that everything not label must be true. at the same time there is the big concern that the framing of some videos in one direction sort of implies a counter framing in the opposite direction. so you can imagine that when you will out of that like this you have to keep clear that there is going to be so many more videos so much content again as was previously discussed shared other format that the craving really has to be thought out much more intricate so i think this is

certainly going to keep track of this information about you tube but they do it alone and can they do it at scale the south a candidate do it and can they do it in scale and what do you think of the step of yes i think it is always going to be the issue because you tube has literally become the largest platform with. huge numbers of videos out there huge numbers of videos being uploaded every single day and or a small army of human paktika is going to cope with that i think this is a careful balance that needs to be drawn between being completely right which they need to do so that they don't mislabeled something which is not fake as fake. and then also managing to catch all the fake radios that are there and the human fact checker is one way of making sure that they are absolutely sure when something is labeled as fake that it is fake or at least as a very high degree of confidence that you know it's been checked by professionals

who are doing fact checking but scale and making sure that it works for all the videos is going to be a huge huge challenge and i really don't see a way to do it without a really good directions and mr how do these companies willing to put in the resources needed to do something like this and also it is a lot easier isn't it to fact check on you tube on facebook on google but not on whatsapp as you mentioned which is private messages and which has been a platform that's been used for i mean. criminal purposes in india. definitely definitely that's a big issue and it's something that. the company has the company has tried to address the misinformation issue in various ways including but through public education programs ad campaigns basically telling people to share joy not rumors

but one thing they've really stood firm on is that they don't want to break and incursion because they believe that the privacy that affords informs their users is something that they're not willing to compromise and so big when they come to regulating content on their platform they completely take the actual issue of what that content is out of the question and they only are cracking down on bulk messaging so if i share if i share something with you if it's misinformation they're not going to ban my account or do anything like that but if i'm coordinating multiple like hundreds of different phone numbers to send out messages at an automated automated scale basically that's the kind of that's the kind of messaging regardless of what the content of it is that they're trying to crack down on and so that's it's one way to sort of target maybe the worst of certain aspects

of politically motivated misinformation if you're talking about propaganda that's being spread out by political actors but is it a way to exactly eradicate news that's being circulated on whatsapp that's it's certainly not i think the company has definitely made their stance clear on that and when whatsapp took the step of limiting the ford feature the number of people you could forward messages to following that spate of you know mob killings and india and what's happened was used to to spread misinformation about child kidnappings didn't turn out to be true did introducing this whatsapp feature limited the forwarding that has an impact. it's difficult to say experts will tell you different things i mean some experts that i've spoken to say that. it really didn't feel like it made that much of a dent in it especially because most of the misinformation and much of the

misinformation problem in india is by people who have a political and often a financial motivation to do it and so. if political parties are paying people to circulate misinformation they might just have to invest in a few more hands to do that. but it is something that it is something that if you're talking about people who aren't necessarily actively motivated to spread misinformation but just might otherwise have sent it to everybody in their contacts and now they can only do it to five it you could see it as maybe decreasing the velocity of spreading that kind of misinformation messaging that you look at policies and we've just heard from you know britain's parliament that they're calling for a digital authority and the house of lords report saying that tech companies have failed to regulate themselves as a digital authority. the onset to better regulation. right and i think there is

ways to think about it on the one hand these companies and certainly become too big too quickly i think certainly faster than they themselves expected and this has given them sort of an outsized role in the public sphere. so you can certainly imagine why we need more steps towards international and national local regulations the mayor at scale at events just the other night asked me about whether they should take it in a more active role in police excessive media on the other hand you have to ask why people are engaging in these practices in the first place and you can imagine thinking about things like hoaxes fake news but we're just discussing a whatsapp a sort of a canary in the coal mine that maybe this is really played to get larger political issues that are different than additional or technological issues and that really what we need to think about isn't about the role of social media in the public sphere but what it means that social media has in many ways were placed the public

square. well i mean that's a much bigger question then isn't it mr sastry now you're no longer looking at where the technology itself is alone to blame or it's it's humans ourselves and our own biases and what we're attracted to. yes i mean so we are all known to be prone to several kinds of bias so there is something called a confirmation bias which is basically you do you ignore things that you don't believe in so if you're let's say a conservative and you see a liberal viewpoint or if you're a liberal and you see a conservative viewpoint and you probably will discount some of the even if they're if they're facts you kind of discount the facts that that are being expressed in such cases so i think the real problem as the previous speaker was saying is really news and information as well as news and fake information can spread much faster than it used to be able to spread before and they're being enabled by these digital

platforms and so how do we put the brakes on it so that you don't have an internet consequences of it and you know should we demand that the news algorithms don't amplify our worst instincts and again is regulation at least part of the answer to doing that the european commission has been critical of google facebook twitter who signed up to a voluntary code of practice last september and the commission is saying that you know they aren't living up to their responsibilities as a sas three. yes so i think this is this is a very very carefully it should be very carefully thought about because on the one hand there definitely needs to be some sort of a collision or at least there seems to be some sort of technical slash policy interventions that need to come in because the current state of affairs is not really where we want to be on the other hand if you think about the effect that

these a collations will have so let's take for instance the words that the limiting the number of forwards so what if there was actually a tsunami going on and i needed to reach a thousand people in ten minutes time and the only way to do that would be to forward it to. all my contacts and they forwarded all their contacts and so forth so by limiting by creating these technical interventions or recreating this policy interventions you are you are also placing brock's on legit demand information which might need to spread if you're broken down on social media you're blocking down on user generated content remember the whole premise the whole exec went to work is the genetic the content was that anybody anywhere could upload anything. back in not just ten years was the first time when before news journalists could upload or they can use item others were able to make it visible or say going to be affected. democracy as we know it not the modern democracy digital i'm obviously

not going to be possible with you if you place too huge a regulatory regime on top of social media this factor i could see wanting to come in earlier. well i just wanted to add that i think i think that another big issue here especially in the indian context is. is the role of the media and the role that the media has to play in all of this and i think if you see a lot of the misinformation that was shared most widely especially recently after the terrorist attack in fish and after the border conflict between india and pakistan a lot of misinformation and out of context videos were shared on news channels and in both india and pakistan and i think that i think that that's another another

type of content that will be difficult for for social media companies to sort of determine whether or not they should take down you know a ten minute clip of a news a new segment that's done if for instance shares if it for instance uses an out of context bit of footage so i think it's it's going to be difficult calls that the social media companies and any regulation that tries to tries to police what type of content should be removed or not will have to sort of set difficult barriers there and that brings us back to something that mr kurtz was saying earlier that you know the flow of information misinformation rather it's not just a due to technical factors but human to. how open those who consume false near is fake news whatever you want to call it to being told that it's not realistic. you know i think that's a very important question because you can imagine. for many people it's possible

that they're not even really reading what they're sharing this is why there is such a focus on social media but the headline that is attached and you can see the number as journalists often on social media pushing back this is happened to me actually having to explain you know just just read the article the headlines are not representative so you can certainly imagine that there is something about the nature of social media and the nature. of human biases that sort of creates this sort of unholy alliance where people are sharing without as cliches a share of that character because you know you get more attention more likes and basically every person on facebook sort of operates like a mini facebook sort of advertising themselves trying to package content for as many eyes as possible so you really have to think about numerous factors simultaneously at work here and the idea that if it's just people not understanding

what they're sharing i think that really misses the point and how do you get a gift and how do you get around something like that you know a round people not understanding what they sharing all as you call it sharing without caring. rattus sighed again this is kind of what i was trying to say earlier that there are larger issues at play and they're trying to sort of retroactively push back against every single misused social media possible basis sort of the social political cultural factors that are really motivating these kind of practices in the first place so i think what really begin to think about is why are people spending so much time on facebook on twitter why are people sharing as much as they are are are a few biggies really decided in bogus of a who's business on twitter are purely meant to talk this much to each other and

really think about you know how quickly culture has transformed and whether we've really caught up to what we're doing it right and until we again figure out and those actually what are much bigger questions while we do spend so much time on social media in this disaster and bring this back to you how do we regulated in a way that is you know over strikes misinformation that is often tending out to be dangerous having an impact on election day around the world while keeping the internet the sort of free and democratic and open to all ideas. i think what's what's happened is as years have gone by the amount of information that's being thrown out is increasing exponentially so the amount of time that each of us can spend to words any individual piece of information

decreases until are just browsing and so if you're just skipping them swiping through hundreds or maybe tens of hundreds of articles every day clearly you're not getting the whole picture and somehow but the only way that you can get at the human aspect of this is. two is to change the way information is being consumed and this is again something that completely goes against the way the u.i. the the. the way in which these platforms have been designed their been designed for us to fall into the top of consuming more and more information because that's how they get that money from by showing us ads that that correspond to the articles that we are seeing and so maybe the technical level the only way to change this is to change the design of the social media batons that encourages slower reading more careful thinking and more critical laws tell us how to do that what are sasha three

months you know what will tech companies do that especially if it's not the way they have made money so far. yes well i guess some part of their business model might need to change some point they will need to do that and you're on to you're already seeing that they're doing some of this so the fact checking the fact checking by now that it's coming on you tube is a is a good example is a good very initial baby steps are the example of you are encouraging critical thinking abilities so if you're if you're seeing a video in your suitcase think carefully about it sort of like the surgeons are do is forming that says you know cigarettes are dangerous and ok we agree not to have very long left in the program and i would like to ask mr and mr gets to very quick questions both with the indian elections coming up imminently you know the world's biggest democracy and the european parliament elections coming up in may what needs to happen in both places for misinformation to not have a really negative impact on these crucial votes in the south or i'll start with you

you have about a minute. yeah i think it's it's a very difficult question and it's important i think ensuring transparency in political funding of political ads is something that both google and facebook have been pretty proactive in announcing their initiatives for and so that's i think very important thing for ensuring the integrity of election related content on the platform i think i would like to see an expansion of. at least a conversation about expanding the understanding of what kind of content should get taken down from the platform because if for instance hate speech graphic violence and other types of speech are regulated wind maybe why not misinformation if it can be used in such a violent potentially violent way thank you very much mr good's you have about thirty seconds. misinformation but for the by political entities is actually itself

also information so it also kind of gives us some insight into a certain groups think about the public that they're responding to when they give the misinformation so that facebook or you tube or whatever just we're moving in this information actually kind of will mean the fact that these groups which are allied to the first place which itself is its ration that we need to go thank you very much for that and i want to thank all of i guess for this very important and fascinating discussion it's great to get your expertise on this that's in new delhi nolan gets an m. sc a day and michelle in south three and london and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion to go to our facebook page that facebook dot com forward slash a.j. and side story you can also join the conversation on twitter ahead of us at a.j. and side story from am is a product of the home team here i finale. thank

you. it's a daunting climb to one of the holiest sites in due time tiger's nest ball astri seems to defy gravity every few cities is expected to complete the pilgrimage to ensure peace and happiness what it became a democracy in two thousand and eight the time put happiness at the center of all political policy inspiring the un to pass a resolution urging other nations to follow petards example but how do you measure it were many brits unease happiness is what we ensure it's if it is quantifiable

but by simply turning its pursuit into policy the time has done what no other country has. a nation where corruption is endemic embroiled in a battle to hold the powerful to account. how does this radical transformation occur. i mean if i mean if you want to shedding light on the romanians pressing for change and there unconventional methods to eliminate corruption remain people on al-jazeera. over a hundred and sixty years ago a musician started a band in an outing straight in cairo. that brass band was so popular it gave birth to an entire musical genre. a century and a half later the sound still resonates with many interruptions today house of the

people's music on al-jazeera. as women's rights and gaining acceptance of the world we are asked what's the status of global gender equality and how can progress be made executive director of un women from. hello on down join in doha with the top stories here on al-jazeera rival demonstrations of unhealed on the streets of venezuela's capital between supporters of president nicolas maduro and opposition leader one glide bill this is parts of venezuela remain without electricity for

a third day in one of the worst blackouts in decades but during a call for the rally in caracas to protest against what he called imperialism from the united states says it was a puppet being used by washington trying to oust him from power. we have defeated who they tried illegitimately to tell a person into a president and now today it is obvious to the world he's not a president not anything he's a clown and a puppet delinquent citizens. when all opposition protesters have clashed with police in caracas security forces tried to stop supporters the one from setting up a stage says the power outage is another example of government corruption is calling for more protests to pressure the president to step down. he said it before the regime wants to wear us out. to wear us out brothers and sisters and yes the road has been very long the road is worn out but we will never tire in the search

for freedom and we will stay in the streets to isabeau has more from that opposition rally in the face. initially the demonstration that was expected to take place today they have asked people to gather in three different points all had ak up but because very very early in the morning people tried to set up a page here and they were detained and that's why people thought it turning on coming here massively in order to protest against the government of nicola motherhood of this demonstration is happening in the middle of what many say is a bigger power outage in the country what we have seen in the past two days here is a country that has been completely in the dark suspects in most of the oxytocin that they've been in a way that according to our sun that in many cases have not been working we have spoken to what to do you know that are trying to some firm how many people died because of this power cuts and they're saying that until now at least sixteen

people have lost their lives many of them were on life support in hospitals around the country and that's why people are coming here massively they're saying that the current theory is that prices there is more to do the food or medicine hyperinflation that is affecting this country's most vulnerable and that's what they're saying that there needs to be change and that change is represented a maybe a vision leader up in. the government in algeria has a lot of universities to close early for the spring break as students lead the biggest under government protests in nearly thirty years they'll shut on sunday two weeks ahead of schedule no official reason has been given but young people have played a big part in demonstrations against president bush a state that is too though the city assists him in office. lawyers in sudan say nine women protesters have been sentenced to twenty lashes and a month in jail for rioting comes a day after president omar al bashir over the release of all women detained over anti-government demonstrations students have continued to protest in the capital

khartoum despite a state of emergency and they're angry with the government for detaining protesters during the last three months of demonstrations officials say thirty one people have died in protest related fallen so far human rights watch has put the death toll at fifty one. u.s. plant kurdish fighters are preparing for a final push against isis last on plate in syria fighting in bugaboos was poor to allow more civilians to leave on saturday and i still feel i could still be seen in the town aid groups say tens of thousands of fled the area since the start of the offensive by kurdish fighters last month and protestors a bit out on the streets of paris for the seventeenth successive weekend this time it was women leading the march when calling for equal treatment just a day after international women's day the protests were mostly peaceful with a number of those taking part fell to its lowest level since demonstrations first began in late november as anger at the president emanuel macro economic policies

which protesters say favor the rich well those were the headlines and news continues here on al-jazeera after head to head staging times watching. may very well be one of the most controversial companies in our country's history that quality usa is being called the largest private economy in the world you're in washington convicting four former blackwater security guards in two thousand my guest tonight is the controversial founder and former c.e.o. of blackwater erik prince you do it move learnt a lot of personal and q. two billion don't you disagree that branded a war profiteer and a super mercenary by his critics princes were made over a billion dollars out of the so-called war on terror that also highlighted the clear danger of using private contractors on the battlefield and yet now back on

the scene trying to privatized the war in afghanistan but offering to replace u.s. and nato troops there with his own private security force but will handing the war to print really help end it i'm in the house and i've come here to the oxford union to go head to head with erik prince a former navy seal and the founder of but quarter i'll challenge him on war crimes in iraq his plans for a private army in afghanistan and his loyal support for president donald trump. tonight i'll also be joined by sean fête a former private military contractor former officer in the u.s. army and author of the book the new rules of war. an award winning guardian journalist from iraq who's covered conflicts across the middle east and colonel tim collins a former commander in the british army and founder of new century a private military consulting company.

babies and gentlemen please welcome erik prince. prince is currently the deputy chairman the second of director from two years services group a hong kong based security and the just. erik prince thank you for joining me on head to head they show me your back in the news with a new plan to privatize basically the u.s. led war in afghanistan but you were the founder and c.e.o. of blackwater perhaps the world's most notorious private security firm which during the iraq war became a byword for violence corruption lawlessness and yet you've never apologize for any of. i think that's an unfair characterization of the company did exactly what the u.s. government asked us to do which was to protect diplomats reconstruction officials visiting. u.n. or or other congressional delegations we did more than one hundred thousand

missions no one under our care was ever killed or injured and people try to characterize the company as overly aggressive less than one half of one percent of all those missions resulted in a discharge of a firearm in an era when you had lots of violence in the capital i mean baghdad really was the center of gravity of the insurgency and so we had you know forty one of our men were lost in action doing that mission so you mentioned that the u.s. government asked you to do a job and you did it you mention that you lost a man on your watch but you didn't mention is that you also killed a lot of people. you say what percentage is great let's talk about individual cases in two thousand and five blackwater guards fired seventy rounds into an iraqi civilians call forcing the state department to investigate in two thousand and six according to leaked pentagon documents blackwater guards fired indiscriminately iraqi civilians killing among others and ambulance driver in two thousand and seven but what a guard shot and killed fourteen iraqi civilians in what's been called the square massacre or baghdad's bloody sunday that is the rec ord that

a lot of people around the world remember when they hear the name blackwater sure and when you do one hundred thousand missions it's easy to take some things out of context but remember you had many thousands of insurgents actively trying to kill americans and not just american servicemen but the most newsworthy americans their diplomats and with the state department as you would be i'm mentioning weren't insurgents you killed your men killed a mother and son on their way to an appointment a sense as i mean it kills a nine year old boy sadly head sadly the insurgents don't wear uniforms they would drive ambulances filled with explosives they would drive so you remember those they were shooting at insurgents. a car bomb doesn't give you much time to decide there was no call bowman missile square in two thousand and seven actually right. before mr square event there was there when i was still square there was no callable scuse me less than five minutes before that event happened there was a large car bomb that went off where there was a protective team of ours protecting us the idea official and sadly that that car

bomb went off the team decided to move through their. and a support team went to block the traffic circle so that. the fleeing team could move through smoothly and not be ambushed when the when the intelligence provided by the state department the u.s. government says be on the lookout for a white kiya in all the other cars in the traffic circle stop except for a white kiya sadly sometimes the guys have a split second to make that the smallest black what to say the white kids thought of as you well know because you've discussed this far more than i have all of the eyewitnesses say that there was no white kid heading towards you the us colonel who turned up on the day said that there was no enemy activity involved he said it was a criminal event and an excessive shooting a us court of law in december prosecuted one of your men for first degree murder for killing and his mother and. three others to hold on let me finish three other men were prosecuted for manslaughter four of your men murder and manslaughter in the iraqi courts u.s. courts that's right they prosecuted them four times and they finally got a conviction the first time it was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct guilty

they found the guilty you know the first time it was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct the second time it was overturned the third time it was a mistrial the federal government finally got them into d.c. circuit in a d.c. jury on the fourth time that you see jury not a legitimate jury i would say a jury of your peers does not really compare to the rest of america no that's ok ok so some juries are legitimate some not like so-called judges that language before but they were prosecuted for murder amounts would you have any regrets for the people who died a nine year old boy shot in the head was an insurgent of course we did of course we we hired as the company we hired the prosecutor that prosecuted saddam to go find each of these families to pay salacious to make amends as best as possible to reach out to them did i personally know i haven't no i haven't found all of them but we certainly apologize to the ones that had contact with and it's not just these killings and the these killings that documented it goes beyond just god as you know but what about billions of dollars in u.s.

government contracts and billions more than a billion dollars in new. government contracts to an area are over twelve years and yet a scathing u.s. state department investigation found that blackwater quote was over billing the state department and manipulating personal records its guards were partying drinking and even crashed an armored car and saw themselves as quote above the law pretty damning the u.s. state department saying this but the company they've given contracts to over billing and manipulating we never paid any fines for anything like that that's a fact you paid fines for a lot of things the only thing we paid a fine for it was a elation and i gave an example of the o.t. said the only thing you paid a fine for you paid seven point five million dollars fine and twenty twelve to settle seventeen criminal charges you paid a full million dollar settlement are a department in two thousand and ten for illegal arms sales. two thousand and twelve it already sold the business i saw that in two thousand and ten but the cases go back beyond two thousand and ten the criminal charges raided all sorts of things that went back years including south sudan you broke u.s. sanctions to try and sell weapons to south.