after sunset, the glow from cooper bicker lights up the landscape yet again. and the threat of the love of becomes visible from tens of kilometers away. all alvaro can do is watch and hope his farm is spared. alexander lurch, al jazeera la palmer. ah! the headlines on al jazeera this hour, at least 13 people have been killed in an explosion in the syrian capital, damascus. it happened on the east bridge and military bus was the target. many people have been injured. the un security council will hold an emergency meeting on north korea after pyongyang test fired a new ballistic missile from a submarine. north korean state media reported that the massage was fired from the same submarine involved in an earlier test. washington, sol, on. so you have condemned the latest launch. these launches,

violate multiple un security council resolutions and our threat to the region. we call the d p r k, to refrain from further provocations and engage in said stand and substantive dialogue and our commitment at the defense of the republic of korea and japan remains ironclad. these launches also underscore the urgent need for dialogue and diplomacy. our offer remains to meet anywhere anytime without pre conditions. a haitian gang that kidnapped members of us based christian missionary group is demanding $1000000.00 for each person. 16 americans on one canadian were taken while returning to port or prince from an orphanage in the town of going to east of the capital. us congressional committee investigating january's assault on capital hill has voted unanimously to hold the ban and in contempt of congress. he was a long time aid to donald trump. at least 24 people have died and others are missing in floods triggered by heavy rains and the northern engine status,

which are canned. the army has deployed helicopters to help with rescue efforts. as roads have been washed away along with homes, forecasts there's expect more heavy rain over the next 2 days. and days are flooding and landslides have killed dozens of people in the southern indian state of carola, many jams are filling to over capacity forcing authorities to release more water into a ready, swollen river. thousands have been moved to shelters and relief camp douglas, palestine in have been wounded under arrested when they were confronted by is really forces in the occupied easter russell, him during a muslim holiday. as really forces moved in on damascus gate in the old city outside the mos compound for the 2nd day in a row. events had been held around there. tomorrow. the prophets, mohammed's birthday will have a check of the headlines at the top of the hour. for now, it's the listening post. thanks for watching in india should be growing. wheaton, the 3rd a ski know workers have had their wounds in the one i want you to investigate. why

so many women having invasive surgery? oh now you know, well peace prize husband maria. restless yet a journalist, a long time without an actress or a world without entry? no, the committee says press freedoms unnecessary for the democracy and peace. hello are mature gilbert and you're at the listening post where we don't cover the news we cover the way the news is covered here or 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 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, that is one of the i've been into how about a boy, a journalist, turned comedian, who has become the go to guy for iraqis looking for political commentary with a little bite. the awarding of the nobel peace prize for 2021 is a sign of the times and not a promising one. the 2 winters were both journalists, filipino american maria, reza, and russian. dmitri more act 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 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 in manila and moscow, ah, 2 journalists was covering different countries defying different forms of authority . both of them now and nobel lawrence, maria, arrested 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 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. a warranty 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, 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, then letting them already, well it's an ira. some to see. i've got some seen and they shouldn't know that

while they're trying to hold 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, why it makes it a want put gymnast who are under 5 with the nobel prizes, put the spotlight squarely on to precedents 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 the military. i says icon, the chickens, i do need 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 at 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 on friends of dorothy when he was talking about the media and the shortest thing. this is the mat

if he tries 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. 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. terse, hey, in maintaining press freedom, that's a lie. the kremlin deed, the minimum, it was required from it on the very same day. and a bunch of journalists were called for matt jones. as a skew, 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 be, is it something that the government can certainly that it is not a slap in the government if you really care about touching 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 moore 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 miss sergeant istic and medicine. she's faced death scene. her home address is 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 flank. maria risk really operate at the intersection of massaging and disinformation with them. and over 500000 social media posts from twitter and facebook directed at 60 percent of those abusive designs trust, erode credibility and trust in her journalism. so they called her alliance 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 handled. i met my address about 6 years ago. i got, 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 see you. i've been dead ah, 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 vaal and asi etzky was the german and got the news while locked up. in a nazi concentration camp. we need to recall climate

pricing that was given to the german journalist who was actually investigated in that see military activities. given the fact that she brave journalist managers and she received that price in 2021 means that we are in that kind of difficult world in terms of the freedom of speech, must feel to many, june, and that they are all parenting in an incredibly difficult dangerous and toxic environment. so the nobel prize eating 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 all 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 to 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 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 a protection and that is by design. the country as 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 it's actually not normal. and they are severe punishments for falling or 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 for prince 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 a symbiotic relationship. but 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 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 the 800 annual military spending issue in question. repentance deployment into competitive online gaming sport in order to recruit young america right now. currently, children on platform such as twitch, are boarded with banner ad bank link to recruitment sign 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 to, to decades my, it in iraq and afghanistan, the army missed this recruitment target by a distance brought them rely on the methods of old, the american airways with 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 if one of the fast growing sectors in the world, in terms of and time, the younger people watching the sports, of course,

in the area of the electronic battlefield. the idea of having technological literature 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 america's army. now when it's full edition, i 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 $11.00 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 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 now 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 attempts by the us to

overthrow the cuban government and the 960. 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 thought. 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 she 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 and straightens out and there have been exceptions. speak up to 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, on 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 been 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 rules 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 since a good has 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 that, but if you forward the money, the pentagon clearly thinks that was the best. it hasn't you, game, and production. american is army 5. as the east for 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 its virtual offensive. but now at 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 here show. it's a satirical program that goes out on the arabic language service of the german public broadcaster deutsche of ella 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, we're closing with

a clip of alba shears election commentary on iraq's female candidates. some of the bazaar campaign videos that they put out. what's the next time here at the listening post? when they applauded, you're the car lot at the command fucking over the tub. i declared o cup and i helped them enough. is it? and how's that out? i just oscar feel i dub. i sit for them and he had an smile and a body, and within a 20 i say allow me, i got the bill so happy it i and i her summer a little shemika the so if you could help me out of not harm to the subpoena in following the habit in my lineage, and i said much value, i'm gonna give you the bar code that we go from, from you guys to from bucket. i'm gonna come up with all of that with that one to said the court has he was, i don't use yeah, i don't, i look on a beer. sit her down at the mitsubishi. she'll not got them. well then i learned the whole dinner and i'm got he did, did with harvard mobile music, maybe a lady said to hold it into her better, better limb, and he had to the a, would he literate in, sorry, in liter 80 work?

a medina to him hub. it's a guy. oh, oh. oh, oh, it was a bit smaller home. hm. he didn't either. most diagnostic maybe huddled that you're for either lisa willard, monitor my family. yeah. or my love and mobile will get a bill at auckland. one moment it would make it one is in my al, called like with one our toilets would or bits would on to admin a threshold, but it wasn't, it could be not gonna be my. and that is one of the i've been, it took about a boy a ganga media censorship, and the rise of all their italian rule. you wake up one day. this system has been turned from an electoral democracy into a competitive with a look at the lust for power in hungarian to the experiences of those who live in every day. that is a pressure on us. but we have to be very careful, of course,

and we have to be brave enough to support how democracy dies. democracy may be on al jazeera. ah, this is al jazeera, i'm danny and abigail with a check on your role headlines. at least 13 people have been killed in an explosion in the syrian capital, damascus. that happened on the east bridge. a military bus was the target. many people have been injured from her on this in a 100 is joining us on the phone from bay roots. what more do we know xena? the authorities are calling this a terrorist attack, or it is a rare attack in the heart of the syrian capital. like you mentioned, the military was the target their images. aren't they television showing a charge? but state media saying that to.