pandemic is taking place in a country facing an armed insurgency with over a 1000000 people displaced due to the violence for jury member and brooklyn, ebay director, epolina, po, he, the festival must go head as an act of defiance. arts is also a weapon, is to tell you about the world that we still exist to tell her world that i'm, although everything is going like that. it is important for us to continue and not tool tool tool agonize ourself. i'm pretending night everything is, is, is so bad and we can't do anything. so that message is very strong for us. i think for every booking of it and doing for sparkle is a message that culture can also help. i'm wor for a cigar, kwan done going to the cinema is a shared experience, and fest bucko is an occasion to spark a conversation in which african films bring the continence world with you. on to the big screen. nicholas hawk al jazeera walker today.

ah, hello, this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. this am i still in afghanistan says it was behind the killing of 48 people at a shame mosque in its halbens stronghold of kandahar in the 100 others were injured . several suicide bombers are reported to have been involved. stephanie deca has moved from campbell, the heartland of the taliban, the seat of power, their birthplace. so that this is significant in the sense that they managed for the 1st time to target something. she almost minority, but still it does send a message that nowhere is safe. and i can tell you, we've just been round some of the ministries here wanting to talk to some of the senior taliban officials and security is very tight, is obviously they've changed the way they operate, that they are now taking this seriously. that it seems to be, you know, a change in the ground here when it comes to these 2 groups that i saw is adamant

on, you know, destabilizing, of course, now the chat about being in power, no longer insurgency, group, the stabilizing them running the country tributes being paid to the u. k. politician david amos who was fatally stabbed on friday. the prime minister visited lay on a alongside the later of the opposition. british police to describing the stabbing as a terrorist incident. se, asia's original block is excluding the military lady from its summit later this month. says the junior has failed to comply with a roadmap to pace, which was a great 2 in april. and 7 activists in hong kong have been sentenced to prison for they rose in pro democracy protests last their sentences range between 6 and 12 months. those are the headlines. i'm emily anglin. stay tuned for the listening post and i'll be back at the top of the alan how many nukes is too many new america has in many ways driven the arms rate parties are much more like the british

parties down to the there are fewer regulations who own a tiger than their, our own a dog. how can this be happening? your weekly take on us politics and. and that's the bottom line. the nobel peace prize has been awarded less, maria read. no journalists, a long time without a world without entry. no, the committee says press freedoms unnecessary for the democracy and peace. hello are mature gifts burden. you are at the listening post where we don't cover the news we cover the way the news is covered. here are the media stories were examining this week. the war against journalism results in nobel peace prizes for 2 journalists. and there's plenty to read into this story. in singapore, the authorities raised the spectre of foreign interference to pass a new law that reporters don't like the look of the games people play,

the pentagon included the video game industry is proving to be a useful ally for the american military. and my, and that is one of the i've been to how about the journalist turned comedian, who has become the go to guy for iraqis, looking for political commentary with a little bike the awarding of the nobel peace prize for 2021 is a sign of the times and not a promising. the 2 winners were both journalists, filipino american, maria, reza, and russian. dmitri more act off. it has been 85 years since the peace prize was the last awarded to a journalist. it was back in the 1900 thirty's. europe was tilting towards fascism and a german news editor wanted for his reporting on ad, off hitler's nazi movement. so the nobel committee decision to recognize ressa and water act off amounts to a wakeup call over the state of global journalism. rest as news site rattler. and

what i talk newspaper no via gets yet to have stood up to harassment repression, even death threats to expose corruption, the abuse of power and state sponsored disinformation, which is why when the offices of president detective and president putin congratulate the new nobel laureates, it rang more than just a little hollow, given that there is the kind of reporting that those leaders tried to find. we have to starting points this week. manila and moscow, ah, 2 journalists, covering different countries defying different forms of authority. both of them now and nobel laureates. maria rest, co founder and ceo of the filipino new site wrangler. when she's not in court fighting off the chair, take government's efforts to throw her in jail. and dmitri moran, the editor of moscow based no fire because of paper that still appears to be critical of those in power. even after having 6 of its reporters killed over

a 10 year period. they are the 1st journalist to receive the nobel peace prize since 1936 awards. that amount to a shop in the arm for journalism. and walk in the face for government focused on committing crime against it showed that the importance of price, freedom in iraq. the fact that the noble committee wanted to acknowledge that importance and the role that the media plays in iraq. and you know, that he's confronting unprecedented challenges of an existence released nature. press freedom, nissan to attack. in fact, in the unprecedented attack, the new has been weapon to curtail the freedom of the legion and his freedom to, to report all of these while the last night doughty booth and melinda morty. what's

an, are some to see? no, i got from c n d shouldn't know that while they're trying to do it, since i wasn't surprised to see you the while. notice on monday august. well, why? she wasn't the philippines and didn't see why he wasn't russia. because the nobel prize is a huge, huge achievement and an update as not as of what y n a want. put gymnast who are under 5 with the nobel prizes, put the spotlight squarely on to precedence who go after their journalistic critics . in contrasting ways, rodrigo do, charity is openly contemptuous of reporters. he galvanized his his bass by attacking the news media and pursues journalists like russia through the courts. when they refuse to stay silent. vladimir putin's government is more subtle using

its justice ministry to brand certain reporters and news organizations as foreign agents effectively putting many of them out of business. so when the nobel prizes were announced, both governments had some serious spinning to do the kremlin initially offered murat off, it's congratulations before the president reminded him that laws written in moscow take precedence over awards, panted out in awesome islam. we did, particularly hon. is cooper mc, she told me that there was to put you in just a little further, assist you 2nd electricals by doing that assessment and, and the official filipino response was more brazen. the government tried to take credit for rest as a warm recipe that is alive, and the proof is even the noble price at white, even the money of it. if there was a nobel prize. as for hypocrisy, rodrigo do tear tay, would be among the nominee. a couple of years ago i saw on friends of dorothy when

he was talking about the media and the shortest. but i think this is the mat if keep trying to call this award for my ref, i think it's going to be a great shame. there was an attempt to highlight maria races nobel prize win as evidence that everything is good in the philip pain. but the same time as this is happening. she's still facing decades in jail. she could potentially spend the rest of her life in a manila prison if she's found guilty on all of the charges she currently has a right against the suggestion that maria's victory is the victory for the the philippines. governments of rodrigo terse, hey, in maintaining press. freedom, that's a lie. the kremlin just the, the minimum. it was required from it on the very same day. and other bunch of journalists were called for matt jones as a sky, the 3 media we praise the journalist,

gives the novel peace prize. we say the right words, but the line, the policy is going to stay the same for both the philippine and russia, the nobel peace prize of law to their image. so the trying to pay off their way out of the perry ball. this would be a slap will be, is it something that the government can certainly that it is not a slap in the government if you really care about it till national recognition that they need to pull it, they need to pull it by repealing in rush. other for an agent law, and they go to, declaimed john, east and desirable. they need to prove it in the pin by lifting and getting rid of all those vix issues last against maria. ah, the reporters working under maria, reza and dmitri mood tough,

are up against online forces that align with the authorities, and are sometimes paid by the state to discredit independent journalists. rest as is a case study in the kind of harassment reserved for female journalists. it's massage in istic and medicine. she's facebook death. seen her home address, posted online, and deep faith, perform the graphic, images of herself, circulated on social media. it's a tactic designed to intimidate and it knows no borders. the online violence campaign thing wage to get women, general flock, maria risk really operate at the intersection of massaging and disinformation with them. and over 500000 social media post from twitter and facebook directed at 60 percent of those abuses were designed to trust, erodes credibility and trust in her journalism. so they called her a liar,

align bitch often because what they wanted to do was to witness the soj as well as the anti journalism, anti free press, marriage sheets that they peddled. i met my address about 6 years ago. i got time, i got join me out on breaks clean pressure in my life and be made miserable, especially with multiple tactics of intimidation. my image was more drawn up for me to do. i did all over the country and you feel like the kaufman has what you did in front of you. and i spoke to mario and she said, i feel you i've been dead. aah! one cannot take the measure of the 2021 nobel peace prize story without can during the time the last journalist to win the award was a newspaper editor. it was 1936, and carl von asi etzky was the german and got the news while locked up in

a nazi concentration camp. we need to break cold climate and i was given you the german journal who was actually investigating in that see military activities given the fact that she great journalist managers and she received that price in 2021 means that we are in that kind of difficult world in terms of freedom of speech, must feel or too many joan and just that they are all parenting in an incredibly difficult, dangerous, and toxic environment. so the nobel prize is in many ways, an attempt to turn all of them. we've heard you, you're not alone, and we want to add your back together. we can say no to government that are using

the law or x. try to go mean to silence. pretty board professional reporting together. we can stand up for press freedom and i think that's what the noble communities inviting us to do. i think this is a very strategic decision by the nobel peace prize committee signaling something very specific. and here that there has never been such convergence of threat to freedom of expression and independent journalist them to critical journalism and the safety of journalists since, well, want to just think about that. i turning to singapore. now where do you forties are taking a page out of moscow's playbook by passing a new foreign interference law? that has some troubling implications for the news media?

nick moore has been following the story. nick, what are the journalists seeing in this new law? what's the concern and you know, it's called fica, the foreign interference counter measures act and it has gender worried because in a country where the flow of information is already tightly controlled, the government now can make things a lot harder fight. it gives the authorities the power to block or censor online content. it can demand user information from internet companies, a can ban apps based on nothing more than a suspicion, a suspicion of foreign interference. furthermore, the government can designate an individual or an organization as politically significant, meaning that they are very closely monitored. and once you go onto that list, it's very difficult to come off. the only way to do it is not to the courts, but through the government. not unless that you want your name on that not. so what is the criteria for being deemed politically significant? well that's the other troubling aspect of it should. the wording of fica is vague and therefore we can change a protection and that is by design. the countries minister of home affairs said

that foreign med lives often hide behind, seemingly legitimate friends. he said the language has got to be broad enough to cover that. that body is apparently normal, but is actually not normal. and they are severe punishments for falling a fall of fica. if an individual is found guilty of publishing information, political information for a foreign principle, they can face fines of up to $75000.00 us dollars. and for organizations it's $750000.00. so what a journal is saying about the law, or are they watching their worth? it sounds like it's comparing belie. he works for a website called the independent singapore. he told al jazeera that whether intentional or not the government is getting a barriers to entry in the media landscape in singapore, which speaks to the larger problems for the media in singapore has been a virtual drop in singapore press holdings that dominates the print side. and over in broadcast, it's a company called media coach. both companies claim to have

a total independence, but they have very close ties to the company. so it is unlikely that they were for the fall of fica, but the same cannot be said for the genesis and use organizations in singapore. okay. actually, anyone familiar with the term, the military entertainment complex knows, it was coined for hollywood and the symbiotic relationship that movie studios have long had with the pentagon, the blockbuster films that glorify american soldiers subsidized by us taxpayers who all the military hardware that the pentagon makes available at no cost, as long as the producers make them look at. however, the military entertainment complex encompasses more than just film and television. video games now re can far more money than the film industry to us. and the pandemic has given the gaming industry a boost. all those people stuck at home with idle font,

given the demographics that play the legions of young players at the controls, the us military is in on that action as well. the gaming world is now a prime recruiting ground. it's a trend that many americans from the gaming community to the halls of congress, or to stop listening post daniel touring now on the military gaming complex. and the messages it is beaming into american home. the. we cannot wait war and military service with this kind of team of 5 format. and with that july 2020. the u. s. congress is debating or annual military spending. the issue in question. repentance deployment into competitive online gaming sport in order to recruit young american right now. currently, children on platform such as twitch, are boarded with banner ad bank link to recruitment, find

a form that can be submitted by children as young as 12 years old. if again, back in 2018 off the spending, the better part of 2 decades meyer in iraq and afghanistan, the army missed its recruitment target by a distance. brought them rely on the methods of old, the american airways tv ads. the pentagon tend to a platform called twitch, estimated number of data uses 15000000, which is like a digital version of hanging out on the couch with your friends watching them play video games. so there's one person that's kind of in control of the stream. they're playing a video game, there's a chat room running on the side and talk to them. does new social media that's really taken over the last few years. so in order to get into that space and talk to kids, the army, the navy, the air force and the national guard have all started e sports teams. the sports people might be really surprised to realize is one of

the fast growing sectors in the world, in terms of and time. the young people watching the sports, of course, in the area of the electronic battlefield. the idea of having technological literacy and technologically savvy, recreate is obviously really, really important. so that's exactly why you would go that the idea that this is all about recruitment has been met with military denials like this one from a member of the navy sport that i had with that that is not the point of this. that's not what the navy official twitch manual. it states that quote, everything done, social media should be aimed at making connections between prospects and recruiters . while the pentagon was new to e sports and switch in 2018, it was already a video game veteran. in 2002, one year into the bush administration, so called war on terror and advanced recruitment. dr. the military, really the game of its own americans. army. now when it's full addition,

they spend $7000000.00 in its setup and they produce that game as a strategic communication. so with a very high quality development team now in terms of its reach, estimation is all about 18000000 people about an account. the u. s. military itself have gone evaluations of the guy and regarded as, quote, and one of the most successful recruitment to themselves is ever devised. most importantly, america's army is freedom. so in an era where, you know, video games cost $50.00 and $60.00, you can get something like america's army. that's comparable to the best shooters out there for free and you're going to get it, especially if you're 16 and you don't have a whole lot of disposable income. ah, america's army is an anomaly in the gaming world. most games that produced independently. and they have never been more popular in terms of revenue,

the video is industry is now larger than the movie and music sexes, combined with 2 and a half 1000000000 players around the world. that includes 2 in every 3 americans and franchises, where you play a u. s. soul joe spied like cool of duty or battlefield regularly total charge. i know you won't fail us with down to being target major like hard. which leads game developers to work closely with military consultants who also contribute to the story lines. and it's here that the u. s. military and intelligence agencies score and now the win depictions of american history that airbrush they ranch it now and demonized their enemies. this is call of duty black or one of the best selling games of all time. i'm playing as

a cia officer during the bay of pigs invasion, the real life attempts by the us to overthrow the cuban government in the 96 the my mission is to kill fidel castro. just as the real see i tried and failed to do. but the game adds a fictional motive to the mud. here, the virtual castro is involved in a plot to ship a chemical weapon to the vietnamese, which conveniently gives the u. s. a pretext for the next thing you do in the game . invade vietnam. a new coal duty comes out every year in 2019. we've got modern warfare. and in this game, there is a mission called the highway of death, where you are in a fictional, middle eastern country in the universe of the video game. russia had invaded this country to try to go to the mouth. it is a wonderful highway of death. the russians bombed it during the invasion, killing the people tried to escape. now that happened in real life. but

america did it during the 1st gulf war. after saddam's army was defeated, it was retreating out of kuwait, the american military, bombs, the army. as it's retreating, they were hit where they stood birth by u. s. bond then by tank thought. because this is a call of duty game because america can't do any wrong. that atrocity has to be pulled out and re attributed to russia. i grew up dutch that she gyptian. and that meant that at some point in my life, i started realizing that most of these games i was playing as people that looked like my dutch friends. and with we know you speak that i was always shooting people that looked like my air friends. and over time of kind of come to realize that the only way you can trace something like the u. s. military as an absolute good is if you slaton everything else into an absolute evil. so the arabs, the russians,

the south americans sort of get flattened into this nest of evil with terrorism. but the u. s. military goes in and straightens out margin came with the have been exceptions. spec ops, the line released in 2012 highlights the human cost of wool. it even shows us soldiers using the deadly chemical white phosphorus as they did in the real iraq. through the game, the player is bike, figuratively and psychologically destroyed by the violence that i commit. you don't mind me asking, what was it like? i just survival this loose and i did that. what is really interesting is wally's, that this is a game made by german developer. so it raises some quite interesting issues about, about perspective there, about whether it took a job developer to make that game. and it also is interesting because not very many

games like that be made since it's important to realize that video games are obviously this mix of art and technology and commerce and that in the end, a lot of these games cost tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make so for every game that gets to play a little bit more risky with their narrative, the role to be a number of games that tell the same old story that gamers recognize and that they have come to be comfortable in over the past. 2 decades tend to good is proven itself to be more decked at public relations than it has been fighting wars. despite the calamitous failures in iraq and afghanistan support for the military estate consistent the high. there's no way to quantify how much video games have to do with me for the money. the pentagon clearly thinks that was the best. it hasn't you game and production, america's army 5. as for the sport,

if amendment is specifically to blank recruitment practices and funding for recruitment practices on platforms such as twitch, dance. to mean when you're in congress, voted that amendment down, leaving the military free to continue its virtual offensive. but now with the military gaming complex is here to stay. and finally, iraq is just held a general election where one of the issues was apathy, low voter turnout, just 41 percent of those eligible to cast a ballot. did so, for many iraqis, a popular source of information on the elections was the alba sheer show. it's a satirical program that goes out on the arabic language service of the german public broadcaster deutsch avella created in 2014 by iraqi journalist, turned comedian ahmed alba. sheer,

the show racks up millions of views primarily on youtube, which is where most iraqis catch it. we're closing with a clip of alba shears election commentary on iraq's female candidates. some of the bazaar campaigned videos that they put out was the next time here at the listening post. when we apologize for the harlot, it took me forever to come. i'd like to look up and help them enough. is it? and house that out. i just oscar feel i dub. i sit for them and he had an smile in body and within the trenton, i say allow me, i got the bill so happy it. i and i her sammy, a little shamika, the soft fiancee, out of the hobbit a subpoena in following the havoc in my linear. and i said most value, i'm with the buckeye difficult. would you guys perform buckhead? i would get my book about the law with one to said because he was, i don't, he's yeah, i don't, i love albia just heard on that. he was the best use your mike got them. well then i learned the whole, you know, and i'm got he did with harvard mobile music maybe ality said the whole into her

little better lemon here to neil. would he literate in sorry, indicate any work a medina to him instagram? oh oh oh, did you? oh, it was a bullet, hold on. mm hm. it had been hot, moist diagnostic made the shit, huddled that your for either lisa willard, martin, i shamela. yeah. or my la and we'll get a binoculars moment. it's would make it more to see my alkali, a good one, our toilets. would i do a bit foot on to admin a thruster? i thought it wasn't the could not give me mind that is one of the i've been to how about a boy on counting the called the battle for influenza in latin america. after seating round to china, the u. s. peak still went over its neighbors with billions of dollars. the new investment and online learning took off during the pandemic, but can be had to take thought, i'd turn a profit. counting the cost on algiers here.

oh thing the powerful to account. as we examined the u. s. shoots roll in the world on al jazeera ah, united in grey's prime minister, barak johnson m u k. opposition later paid tribute to a fellow in pe, david amos, who was fatally stamped ah, hello, i'm emily anglin. this is al jazeera live from doha, also coming up. i so says eats behind friday's suicide attack on a mosque in kandahar that's killed. 48 afghans, a snob for the later of me, and must june to the block of southeast asian countries. bands men on the lie from

its summit later this month and on the red, corporate, famous producers, actors and directors will.