17 productions have been short listed for the best form award. a festival has been running for more than 50 years and represents a rare opportunity for african storytellers to showcase their creations on a global stage. whereas more and everything right here, al jazeera dot com ah, just a quick look at the top stories now and taliban is pledging to step up security at she are mosques after the 2nd major attack against worshippers in a week. a mass funeral has been held in kandahar following a bomb attack on friday, which is now known to have killed 65 people and wounded more than 100. i sell in afghanistan is claim responsibility. it's a group's 1st large scale attack in the south. stephanie decker is in cobble

kandahar is police chief vowing to increase security with special police units at cio mosques, across kandahar. this attack claim by i so significant in the sense of the 1st of its kind in kandahar kandahar is the birthplace, the stronghold of the taliban. and i'm really what we're seeing over the last couple of weeks is an increase in pace and increase in geographical scope in these attacks. initially, there were more centered around dallas, about in the east of the country. they moved to cobble moving to couldn't do in the north. and now in the south, in kandahar we've also noticed it here in the sense of the taliban beefing up security. we went round a couple of the ministries to day and the security procedures were tighter and different than before. was the fighting continues and all than ethiopia, hunger is also continuing. millions of people have been displaced by the conflict from in to grey. children is suffering from severe malnourishment. rest of area is

on the blockade by the federal government in the u. n. says just 14 percent of much needed aid has made it through since june. but no medicine has reached the regional capital mckelly. thousands of demonstrators of rallied near the presidential palace and hard to miss to dawn, grapples with its biggest political crisis since the asking of president bashir in 2016, a calling for an end to the transitional government that supposedly the country to its 1st elections off to 3 decades of dictatorship, a prime minister says it's causing the countries was crisis, and it's transitioned to civilian low. and the head of me and mas military gender has been excluded from a summits of regional leaders. later this month, neighboring nations of frustrated over the military's failure to comply with a road map to peace. more than a 1000 people have been killed in the unrest since the military seized power in the country. a mourn everything a bit later on. i'll have another update for you in about half an hour's time after

the listening post, which is next news news news. the nobel peace prize husband maria restless journalist have long exposed time. the world a world and trust day is the know the committee press freedoms necessary for the democracy and peace alarm and forgives 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 journalist and

there's plenty to read into this story. in singapore, the authorities raise 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 at the heart of 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 promising. the 2 winners were both journalists, filipino american maria restaurant, and russian. dmitri moved off. it has been 85 years since the peace prize was 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 toss newspaper no via gets yet to have stood up to harassment repression, even death threats to expose corruption, the abuse of power and state sponsor 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 in 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 territory government's efforts to throw her in jail. and dmitri

moran, the editor of moscow, based no via because of paper that still dares 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 crimes against it showed that the importance of price, freedom in iraq. the fact that the nobel committee wanted to acknowledge that importance and the role that the media plays in iraq. and you know, that is confronting unprecedented challenges of an existence released nature. quest freedom, nissan to attack in fact, 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, who then melinda morty, bullets in iowa, some to see how i got from seen, and they should know that while they're trying to do it, since i wasn't or one just to save you the while. notice on monday august. well, why? she was 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, why it makes it 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 as his base 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, would it be creditable as cooper mc she told me that there was to put you into a little trade. i says icon, my chickens. i didn't notice as met in 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 10,

would be among the nominee. a couple of years ago, i saw a press conference when he was talking about the media and the shortest thing. this is the man it 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 found guilty on all of the charges she currently has. right against the suggestion that maria's victory is the victory for the the philippines governments of rodrigo, deter, say, in maintaining press freedom. that's a lie, the kremlin deeds, the minimum, it was required from it on the very same day. and

a bunch of journalists were called for imagines 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 terry ball. this would be a slap 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 prove it. they need to prove it by repealing in russia or for an agent law. and they go to, declaimed john is 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 reporter is 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 on live, 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 waged against women generally flock. maria risks 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 panel 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 in, which was more. i don't want to do, i did all over the country and you feel like the kaufman has what you out there in front of you and i spoke to maria and she said, i feel you. i've been that 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 was given to the german journal. it was actually investigated 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 to many, joan, and 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. the freedom of expression and independence journalism 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 genesis 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 that can band 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. 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 they can change reputation 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 come out and 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 and broad costs, 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 tax payers, 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 the listening post daniel touring now on the military gaming complex. and the messages it is beaming into american home. the. we cannot wait for a 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 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 fixing 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 twitch 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 rich estimations, all the 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, but 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 a blanket 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 air brush their action and demonize 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 attempt 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 for the modem. 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 of russia had invaded this country to try to go to the mouth. it is

a wonder the 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. but because this is a call of duty game, and because america can't do any wrong, that atrocity has to be pulled out and re attributed to russia. i grew up dutch that should gyptian. and that meant that at some point in my life, i started realizing that in 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 tre, 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 american sort of get flattened into this nest of evil with terrorism. but the u. s. military goes in and straightens out and they have been exceptions. speak up to the line released in 2012 highlights the human cost of wall. it's even shows us soldiers using the deadly chemical white phosphorus as they did in the real iraq. through the game. the player is by figuratively on psychologically destroyed by the violence that i commit. you don't mind me asking, what was it like? i just survival. this who said 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 perspectives there about whether it took a germ developer to make that gain. and it also is interesting because not very many games like that be might, 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. so be a number of games that tell the same old story that gamers recognise and that they have come to be comfortable in over the past. 2 decades since a good has proven itself to be more adept at public relations than it has been fighting wars, despite the calamitous failures in iraq and afghanistan support for the military estate consistent the hi. there's no way to quantify how much video games have to

do with that, but if you, for the money, the pentagon clearly thinks that was the best. it hasn't, you, game, and production, american is army 5 as the east. 4th, 5th amendment is specifically to block recruitment practices and funding for recruitment practices on platforms such as twitch damage. to me, when you're in congress, voted that amendment down leaving the military free to continue it's virtual offensive. but now at the military gaming complex is here to stay. and finally, iraq as 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 here 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 albus, sheer the show racks up millions of views primarily on youtube, which is where most iraqis catch it were closing with a clip of alba, sheer as election commentary on iraq, female candidates. some of the bazaar campaign videos that they put up was the next time here at the listening post. what they thought joy, the hall up at the finance company will to come up and i help them enough. is it and household outage as it us, going to sit for them on a smile. nobody would allow me to be so happy. i will get you off the happy hobbit and wildly me. i said, i'm going to give you the boss. would you guys perform bucket? i'm going about off the one the one to said because he was, i don't see, i don't,

i love to talk to us if you got them, he wasn't allowed to know and i'm glad he did them in how that a mobile music. maybe a let the said the whole into her better and better live any to the already literate in sorry, little work a matina to him. i don't know how much had been how the most magic, maybe how to get your full how the lead. so a lot more time when i come away. now my love and we'll, we'll get it, but i don't know what i mean. it would make it want to see my uncle die. it will not deal. it will i will bit foot on 3 minutes. russia. i thought it was not to be my that is one of the i've been to, how about a boy ah

ah, both of them told stories from asia and the pacific on al jazeera. ah, hello i mariam mazda in london a quick look at the main stories now. and taliban is pledging is step up security as she a mosque soft. the 2nd major attack against worshippers in a week. a mass funeral has been held in kandahar following a bomb attack on friday that killed at least 65 people. i still as crime responsibility. the group's 1st large scale attack in the south. stephanie deka is in cobble.