heat and humidity of a city not far from the equator. the stadium was designed to be as airy as possible . and it's an impressive piece of architecture. but there's little danger, funds overheating in here. even when the local team managed to salvage draw, in this case it's me just 0 minutes. ah, let's take you through some of the headlines here now just here and now us president joe biden is declared a major disaster in the state of kentucky off the tornadoes ripped through its towns and areas in 5 of the states. search teams is still trying to find survivors after friday nights. disaster. hi, the joe caster has more from the town of mayfield in kentucky. i spoke with one gentleman who is an attorney here. he pointed out, down from where i'm standing,

the hospital in which he was born. that has been destroyed. now he owns a law firm on the other side of the street where he went to work every day that have been destroyed as well. i mean, this is not just physically, the town of mayfield that has been leveled, but it is decades of history of memories, of things that mean tangible memories and mean thing to these people. and so they are, of course, grieving for the loss of their town. u k. prime minister borrows johnson is warning of a coming tidal wave of the army kron variant. the government has raised the current of virus threat level and is urging people to get a 3rd vaccine shot south africa. presidents sir, ram opposers tested positive for covey. 19 his office released the statement saying he felt unwell after a state memorial service for former president f. w. the clerk is being treated for mild symptoms, ram, oppose that has been vaccinated against the virus. austria has lifted

a partial lockdown for people vaccinated against cope with 19. it allows van as christmas markets to reopen. those who haven't been jobs will continue to be banned from many businesses and venues. foreign ministers from the g 7 group of nations of warned russia it will face massive consequences if its invades ukraine. brushes, military build up near ukraine's border has dominated the 2 day meeting. moscow denies any plans as a military offensive. south korea and australia have signed the defense deal worth $1000000000.00. president moon j in and australian prime minister scott morrison also confirm the florentine free travel bubble between the 2 countries. it's the listening post. now stay with us. oh, there's a lot more into al jazeera than t v with our website mobile app, social media,

and podcast. al jazeera digital is the world award winning online content. and each week on portal will bring you the very best of it. they're trying to frighten the people to leave it to go somewhere else. but the truth is that it got nowhere else to go. so if you missed it online, catch up here with me. sandra, got men on al jazeera is raised and it's all right, and can you list it on a massive dana with shawn went ahead targeted with thousands of journalists and political regulators around the world. military grades. my. we're a nation state government agencies to lead a white crime and terrorism warner to dis, burden. you're at the listening post where we dig into the coverage and look at how news is reported. here are the media stories we're examining this week, pegasus. the israeli spyware tool exposed by journalists earlier this year is now

in trouble with the american authorities and big tac. christmas comes early for the british news, media and dead. aah! there feasting on the latest scandal plaguing boris johnston's government. the messaging of oil companies has changed with the times, denying the reality of climate change is out on delaying what to do about it is an and johnny cash fans. avert your eyes now, you expect more from amaco and you get it a look back at the singer side household promoting the oil industry. that will leave you different feeling hurt. israel with its booming technology sector, likes to brand itself, start up nation now its infamous cyber surveillance export. the spyware tool that's known as pegasus looks like it's on its way to being shut down along with the company that built it. and i, so earlier this year, an international consortium of journalists revealed that pegasus,

which was marketed by the israeli government as a means of fighting terrorism and crime has been used by client states to target the phones of journalists, activists, human rights groups, even politicians, blacklisted by the u. s. government facing legal action and lawsuits coming out of silicon valley. and as so story has shed some light on an industry that does most of its work in the dark. but even if the company goes down, there are other surveillance firms out there. other spyware tools on the market, and some of their best customers are governments. the same ones that are in charge of regulating this industry and fixing this problem. our starting point this week is and as those offices in southern israel, when en, eh, so the cyber surveillance firm, based in israel, developed the tool, it calls pegasus. it said the spyware was designed to be used against criminals and terrorists when the israeli government licensed pegasus for export to other

countries. it insisted on a custom made feature designed with its most important ally in mind. so pegasus does not work when targeting any phone numbers starting with plus one. 6 the country code. 8 for the united states, but some american officials like diplomats work overseas, sometimes they buy local funds and use them plus 256. 6 is the country code for uganda? and as apple recently informed the us state department, pegasus works there. there ethan, talking of 9 us diplomats, and shatter all claims by innocent group that it satisfy where in savannah's technologies, health governments, at fight terrorism and crime. spyware is a threat to human rights is a threat to diplomacy. it's a threat to international rules based order and world peace. and now that this threat is closer to home, we hope that a tips, the biden administration,

and they were opinion, didn't sanction anissa group. and banned the use of this technology. this just shows how little human riots matters to washington. we knew that journalists were having their phones sabotaged and track that dissidence were being targeted, potentially even killed because of this software. this was a threat to everything we're supposed to stand for on the global stage, and we did nothing because they simply didn't care. not when it compared to the value of having another surveillance asset. another way to hack into people's phones and to spread the surveillance network even further in this goes back to about 2060 when cyber security researchers at the university of toronto citizen lab started investigating packaging. then amnesty international got involved, and the journalists at the paris based forbidden stories gathered evidence on which governments were using the spyware and who they were targeting. it took until last

month, however, for the u. s. department of commerce to officially blacklist and so, and another is really company can do. and i saw was also headed to court in the works taken there by apple and facebook mega companies that are suing the israeli firm for de value and products that consumers can no longer trust. like apples i phones and the facebook owned what's on and a so in general is really cyber offensive. cyber industry has now put itself at odds with perhaps the strongest forces in the world, which is not white house, but big. the american big tech establishment views them as actually more russia like evil actor, like the fact that can euro had their clients to exploit. microsoft and so allowed people to exploit. apple put them at odds with 2 of the biggest tech companies in america. once big tech turns on you, the white house then you know,

needs to pick it's battled. if the tech industry is our only safeguard against this sort of tracking, then we're in a very dangerous place. we've seen how apple has selectively protected its customers privacy to enable government surveillance of our icloud accounts circumventing all of the hardware protection on our iphones. and while they may be doing the right thing and standing up to n s o group, i worry that, you know, these sorts of efforts to push back could turn into nothing more than publicity stop. governments were not 10 years if they were buying or not the biggest spy were we were adding a lot of victims can do basically nothing. and they were just notified that they were the victims. it's how to be a victim of hyper attack. it can change your life, it can destroy your life. the, all the secrets are now in the ends of people who are surveying you. so we are

really at the beginning of a beacon for israel. cyber surveillance industry is an illegitimate officer of the occupation. the west bank and jobs that have been used as elaborate by israeli military surveillance specialist who wants their army services complete and take that expertise into the private sector. and to companies like it's a similar story in other countries including china, where some surveillance vantage the authorities developed through targeting muslims in the province of sion. janet are now used on the rest of the population, blacklisted lawyer up, and so has been made into a horizon, but with so many other companies making spyware in so many places. this problem extends well beyond the israel and chinese israel. of course phase one of the top traders of surveillance tech and the 80 percent of those companies are

founded by a former idea of soldiers and intelligence officers. companies like i can do route and sell brides, have been implicated in human rights violations from hong kong to india, to mexico to venezuela. but germany, france, and others also have been hosting companies that sold surveillance technologies implicated in human rights violations in countries like saudi arabia. in egypt and others. so it's not only about the anna so grew and in that sense i would be very scared of. and so to fall apart, because it's all that all these people will now start, you know, volunteering, and you've tried to vendor ways. all this talent will now find a new home in companies whose names we don't know serving clients that we have yet to report anything about. i think it's the end for, for, and so in that that might actually have in the long term negative effect because they'll kind of disappear off or read radar. new companies will be formed, new clients will be found. the problem is not within

a so is about the market. the babies of finance are everywhere. and not only in israel, but a so in other countries, without regulation, with a strong decision, not only from the us, but from all the governments. i'm not sure that we will see some progress me, which is where the summit for democracy is supposed to come in. the gathering was caused by the biden administration this past week on the challenges facing democratic governments, including the threat posed by cyber surveillance. it was a virtual summer president biden screens were loaded with more than $100.00 global leaders, many of whose governments use surveillance technology on their own populations. the exercise also had a slightly cold war field. and since neither china nor russia, which have produced and exported some of the most sophisticated spyware out there weren't fight, we've seen him change and just

a pattern of grotesque human rights abuses. it has been the birthplace of so many surveillance techniques later export it around the world. but i also don't think we can simply treat chime as an outlier here in the us. many of the same techniques, facial recognition, augmented reality policing, social media monitoring, protective analytics. these same tools are being used in our communities, and yet we treat it as if it's different simply because it's a different government. it's a threat no matter where it happens. the u. s. and democracy summit should not be used for political scoring. it's a force, an opportunity for world leaders to finally come together and tackle this global problem evidenced by the recent scandals of venice or group and the use of its pegasus spyware. just the fact that and there is this intention of forming a coalition of human rights respecting countries, is a good signal to the surveillance companies that it's no longer business as usual,

that there might be accountability coming. it is a global problem. manage requires global solutions. turning to the okay, now we're cobit 19. the ghost of christmas parties passed and a practice session for a news conference. have all landed prime minister boards, johnson's government in the headlines monoxide. robbie is here with the details. the should. this is a story all about government spin. it's lies actually. and how borders johnson and those around him have repeatedly broken. the coven lockdown rules that they have imposed the left leaning tabloid. the meter broke. the news that at this point last year, when court cases were spiking across the u. k, and the country was in lockdown, prime minister boris johnson, reportedly hosted a party, a christmas party for about 50 people at his residence, number 10 downing street. now the prime minister's office, he needed to deny that such a party had taken place. but more and more details has since come out exposing what

one commentator calls the carelessness and contempt of johnson government. then this league video shows up on i t v. news showing johnson spokes person rehearsing for a press conference, and that video richard takes the government spin and shattered that electron stratton who was den johnson's press. secretary can be seen taking questions about the christmas party from her colleagues. she's hurting her answers and it's all one big joke. dissing, what was interesting, there was a down to try to to recognize that she's more recorded instructional policy with the business needs. so she just struck design. the day after the video was leaked, the prime minister said he was sickened by what he saw, and yet he still denies that a party ever took place. johnson's adept, though, talking his way out of difficulty. yes,

but this looks and feels differentiated. the day after the video was leak, not a single conservative m. p was willing to come on to the media to answer questions or to defend their boss, bbc on its morning, show me the point of this by leaving an empty chair on said. and here's what it visa because had to say, we are still waiting for somebody from the government to turn up today. we. we certainly are the lot is available. yeah. if any conservative m p, anybody connected to the government is watching. and you would like to take your dooce an answer to those people, the 140000 people who lost family members walls. people parted in downing street, if you light to come and address those constituents, we would love to have you. and it's never a good sign for a government when unsavory news shows up on entertainment shows as it did on the reality tv show called i'm a celebrity. there categorically. deny any suggestions that they have the party on this fix, your party definitely didn't involve jesus. why you all are

a secret santa even and prime minister. 6 duty media all over the stony richard. ok, thanks to the aftermath now of the cop $26.00 climate summit. last month, nearly $200.00 countries signed the final agreement, the glasgow climate tact, and for the 1st time and comp history, that agreement mentioned slashing fossil fuel emissions. but the shortcomings are in the details. early drafts of that agreement called for a fossil fuel phase out a phrase that was subsequently diluted to a phase down. and that is language that has the fingerprints of the oil and gas industry all over it. after years of outright climate denial fossil fuel companies are now out to delay downplaying, the urgency slowing efforts to curb emissions and their advertising continues to take the true nature of their business and misrepresented, tucked away somewhere in their playbook of p. our strategies is

a tactic called green washing, designed to protect their interest. listening posts talking off and now on the evolution and the impact of propaganda emitted by the oil and gas industry. mm. fossil fuel companies have never had trouble getting a seat at the table. a climate summit like carp this year with different companies like b, p, and show were told they weren't welcome a cars 26 despite months of intense lobbying, but that didn't stop. hundreds of operatives from the world of oil and gas swarming glasgow unofficially with a delegation larger than any country. there were $503.00 tell fossil fuel industry which made them the largest delegation of any cop. and i don't think that we should be surprised because they've been involved in the process from jump this cop and glasgow was the very 1st one that they said. fossil

fuel can't sponsor anything to cup, but it didn't amount of the process they're, they're, they're in force. so when you got to cobb, it's not like you walked in and it was like sponsored by shell, right? screw. like sponsoring cob, if you can get people in the room that's even better, right? this is the 1st time that we've even mentioned fossil fuels at all in the text. and so while that's a historic moment, it also really shows the scope of this industry's influence on this entire process . and that's not really that surprising if you know anything about how oil and gas companies are able to market themselves in the 19 seventy's fossil fuel executives were advised by their own fine to have that bonding, that product would lead to catastrophic global warner. the continued funding climate and all anyway in june if you're a senior lobbyist, exxonmobil was secretly recorded during a thin white activist agreement. this is how he described decade long campaign will

dis information. did we aggressively fight against some of the science? yes. did me join some of these shadow groups ought to work against some of the really efforts? yes, that's true, but the climate to non of the past doesn't wash anymore. instead the industry of now pushing the delay. they're really not trying to say then climate change isn't happening or even that and fossil fuels to contribute to. and so they've really embraced. instead, this tactic of trying to delay action as long as possible. and there's pushing non transformative solutions, carbon capture, and storage can remove with a 90 percent of c o. 2 emissions, the exxon is very, very big on carbon capture. it's almost all they're advertising right now. it's one of the ways exxonmobil is advancing kindly. felicia,

you would think if you just watched their ads, that all they do is carbon capture. but in fact, they invest less than one per of their capital in anything other than fossil fuels, oil companies have become very good at recognizing ways to phrase what they want you to hear, which is that they're acting on climate, was continuing to produce oil and gas one across the p, we changing a great example of this that i've seen pop up more and more is the phrase low carbon. we creating new and improved low carbon products. the phrase low carbon doesn't mean anything though. i mean, it's very easy to be lower carbon than a barrel of oil or a pile of coal. over the last few years, we've exhaustively studied the climate communications by excell mobile. what we found was systematic discrepancies between on the one hand, what exxon next to mobile scientists said in academic circles and behind closed doors, versus on the other. what the company told the general public on the open page of

the new york times and elsewhere. we found that they publicly fixates on consumer energy demand and on the role of energy efficiency rather than on the fossil fuels that they actually supply. this has the overall effect of shifting responsibility for the climate crisis away from companies and onto their customers. exxon mobil told us that public statements about climate change and have been truthful, fact based, transparent, and consistent with the views of the broader mainstream scientific community at the time. but fossil fuel companies can see the writing on the wall, so they're no longer selling a product. the selling an idea. they want consumers to know that they are indispensable partners in a green new future. and platforms like facebook and instagram a, where they're targeting audiences with ads that detoxify or green wash that image.

facebook ad library is a window into how these companies position themselves as part of the solution like this one which features some of the brightest minds that show. i say i work in renewable energy and they gave me money for that. i talk about the solar panels and feel people's rooms, the big wind turbines. i help the energy that those things produce, getting people. these campaigns are subtle and increasingly aspirational playing when i desire to travel and explore the world. all you have to do is follow the rules. 60 things live to the full shall and conical phillips topped different types of influences for the different types of audience that they wanted to reach. i found this one influencer who took the shelf sponsored trip to joshua tree and had this really beautiful sepia video of her wandering around joshua tree. what i also saw was shell,

starting to use social media to green wash their products, but thanks to show there's a way to both explore nature and to reduce carbon footprint. they told customers that they could buy oil, that then shell would purchase what's known as an ox that and the people they kept for this campaign were environment photographers, wildlife photographers. now more than ever, it's important. we protect these beautiful place. it was very clearly we care about the environment you do to, you should buy our oil. i show folks told of we are letting our customers know through advertising more social media, what lower comp and solutions we offer. so they can switch when the time is right for that. the public relations industry emerged 100 years ago. the response to rising public distrust of big business, an early adopter. these doc us with an american called ivy league. li,

pine s p r techniques like press releases and corporate philanthropy while working for standard oil company sid and reviled in equal measure. in the 1970s, a successor started boy mobile, which later became excellent, launched a campaign that continues to this day using pate content disguise of editorial, unfair tools that were printed on the opinion page of the new york time. this is one of the largest and most systematic efforts to influence public opinion in the history of odin america mooreville. and then exxon mobil took out as materials starting in 1972, every thursday for 29 years on the op ed page of new york times, and then every other thursday for another decade after that, in the eighty's mo book, she concluded that there had materials had affected what they called the collective unconscious of america. they had got into the minds of opinion leaders,

who and this is a quote molded general public opinion. let's call it by its proper name, the propaganda industry. it is, you know, using informations and stories to change people's minds at a, at a group level, at sort of a mass society level. and they are very good at john w. hill, who's like the guy who created the tobacco industry's science denial campaign. he was working for the american petroleum institute and texaco at the same time. you see these techniques show up later and you're like, well, yeah, because they're all working for multiple industries at the same time. and they definitely share information. oil and gas companies helped invent a lot of modern advertising. they've always been so good at best. they're really good at this. i never really saw myself working for an entity company that the more learned the more motivated i came to make a difference. and i think that what people really need to start doing is really

questioning what's behind the messaging. we know we really need to stop using fuels as soon as possible and any solutions that don't get us well, search to that and they are not real climate solutions. it doesn't matter how many buzzwords you put on it. if you're putting emissions into the planet, it's not a climate solution. mm. and finally, one last example of messaging from the fossil fuels industry from a half century ago. back then oil and gas companies were still getting a relatively free ride from critics. some of their tv commercials were fronted by the kinds of celebrities who wouldn't touch oil money today for fear of the stigma . johnny cash, for instance, was a legendary country singer, a voice of the working man. cash was also the face of some of america's biggest polluters at the time. companies like amaco and standard gasoline. he was an

influencer long before instagram came along. we'll leave you now with johnny cash walk on the line. on behalf of big oil cnx time here at the listening post. hello, i'm janet k shows. when we were kids, we all dreamed of owning a car of our own from day. well, for most of the dream came truth. even if it isn't brand new, you still want to take the care of standard gasoline can help. folks have always close to that standard quality. them a coil is doing all they can to get more energy to us. but until a short a jesus, it's up to all of us to make what there is go further. there's a shortage of energy, but not of the american spirit. keep your spirit up. the spirit of conservation for the sake of america. oh, this likes caliber is a mighty fancy set of wheels is something different and this i'm

a call super premium is different to it's high. octane is lead free, and they tell me it's even heavier than other gasoline. and it's not just different to be different. it's different to be better you expect more from amaco and you get it the political, the base show that's challenging the way you think i have 8 agencies fail hated the situation is was the need one before the digital sound bites and digging into the issue is a military advancement, going to stop the family ticket i is on that complete seizure right now. people out of die. how will climate migration differ for those who have and those who don't have lots of countries see, we will pay poor countries to keep refugees there upfront with me. markham, on hill, on out 0 on counting the cost, all rich countries ready to put the bill for a global, a court,

and demick preparedness. hypersonic missiles are driving a new arms, right. so what's the big deal behind them? and solar powered vehicles, we explore the cars that are harnessing the stop. counting the cost on our g. m. ah, this is horrible. is that the mission of hell on earth? a desperate search for survivors underway in 6 us states devastated by tornadoes. ah, i'm sammy's aid, and this is al jazeera alive from dell hall. so coming up, there is a 20 wave of omi, called the u. k. rams up it's cove. it boost to vaccine program, with the prime minister. warning of the threats of ami kron to grind rebels, re take the histone.