illegal and cynical the russian president has strong words for the latest anti russian sanctions proposed by washington. germany's economy minister warns of possible countermeasures if the u.s. goes ahead with those new sanctions which will affect the russian energy sector because e.u. officials fear that european businesses will also be. in other news this hour a long time aide to a number of high profile u.s. house democrats is arrested on charges of committing financial fraud while trying to leave the country but that's only one of the many controversies surrounding the style.

with you at all t h q six pm today here in the russian capital going to start with breaking news this hour russian president vladimir putin has been giving his reaction to the latest round of possible u.s. sanctions on russia saying they are illegal and cynical let's go live to finland which is where the russian president is visiting at the moment i correspond of is that tell us more about was mr putin say. well insults about the u.s. sanctions against russia that are being discussed in the u.s. senate he said although we haven't seen the final draft of those sanctions yet sanctions yet he did call them extremely cynical and illegal from the point of view of international law let's have a listen. these sanctions are completely illegal

they go against international law and the rules of the world trade organization being very patient and very reserved some point we have to respond you can't always put up with such an attitude toward your country. and putin also expressed his regret that because of these sanctions or russia u.s. relations are worsening at the moment while u.s. internal political problems are being solved and that we are putin was also echoed by his finnish counterpart the finnish president who called us for a dialogue especially with the latest is going on in the. curse most strongly worded response we've had to any of this yet and certainly food for thought on the other side of the atlantic for now the man called sort of a friend and thank you. of course as we've been reporting today germany's economy

minister says there's a possibility the e.u. will use countermeasures against america's anti russia sanctions bill those proposed restrictions are aimed at punishing companies with ties to russia's energy sector that's raised fears of disruption to a major russia e.u. joint project the north stream two gas pipeline. it was bad that the us has left the common line it's had was europe for sanctions against russia there is a possibility of counter sanctions against the guinness we've heard from the german minister of economy in energy there. but she's not alone in those that have been critical of the so latest round of sanctions that's been proposed by the united states we've also heard from the austrian chancellor christine care he posted online saying that these were unacceptable he said that politics and a business should not be mixing when it comes to making decisions like this such as putting sanctions in place on another country we've also heard from unions as well

who are concerned about potential impact on their members that work within the energy sector there's been a meeting a conference taking place from the german committee of e.u. economic relations there and they've described the sanctions as they are written right now as unacceptable and fact the managing director of that organization which represents german business interests throughout eastern europe spoke to r.t. he had this to say to him picked off the plan sanctions notice a very negative form. especially for the energy sector because of the sanctions under the threat of sanctions especially energy pipeline exports from russia over in the united states we understand that serious players serious big multinational corporations were lobbying representatives before they went into vote to try and convince them not to support this bill that didn't work but the names on the list include of course energy giant such as be an exxon mobil but also other big

multinational search is ford and boeing as well so i think it stands we're still going to have to wait to see what the ultimate reaction will be from the european union if the sanctions go ahead plus hours. and could the nuclear option be triggered which would be the e.u. placing economic sanctions on the u.s. business it's certainly an option it's still on the table if you take what the german economy minister an energy minister had to say earlier on on thursday we're keeping an eye on this of course. and i t. consultant and aide to some of the most high profile congressional democrats in the u.s. has been arrested on bank fraud charges while trying to leave the country and run work for house democrats for more than a decade and with dozens of officials he reportedly had access to some of the d.n.c. chairs personal electronic devices artie's jacqueline burger takes

a closer look at the case. a former congress i.t. aide was arrested by the f.b.i. on monday when trying to board a flight abroad that was for alleged bank fraud and well possible bank fraud in fleeing the country doesn't look good for him on the one his case gets more interesting the deeper you look i. i . i . mean one family has a few skeletons in their closets back in february they were accused of charging congress workers double the actual cost for i.t.

equipment and pocketing the profits and other reports suggest that they have been stealing and exposing sensitive data to outside sources and some people on the hill fear that the group may have been blackmailing house members i don't know what they have but they have something on someone something is wrong then mark interestingly enough they remain on washington's payroll and despite the accusations the ones enjoyed an unusual amount of loyalty from congressman one even saying the claims were based on this law a phobia i wanted to be sure individuals not being singled out because the nationalities of the religion they provided great service for me and there were certain times in which they had permission by me to access some of my dates among the family patrons was debbie wassermann schultz including when she was still democratic national committee chair she gave them wrong a one direct access to her i pad which contain e-mails which infamously appeared in the d.n.c. leak schultz also reacted badly when capitol police attempted to search one of her

laptops is a member loses the equipment is free and it is found by the. but the police are your staff and it is identified as that number members apartment it is supposed to be returned yes or no depends on the circumstances under my understanding the capitol police is not able to confiscate members equipment when the member is not under investigation i think you're violating the rules when you when you conduct your business that way. and should expect that there would be consequences surely that warrants a bit of attention however the story never made it to the headlines of any major outlets in theory and this story should be huge it's got all the right ingredients politics hacks sensitive data leaks and even blackmailing but of course it's nothing one very popular trend a finger pointing at the kremlin. r.t. washington d.c. we spoke to john had john from the u.s. middle east alliance about this he says that stories like these are reported on with political bias mainstream media are in cahoots with the d.n.c.

you know they have just turned a blind eye it just seems that that means you media is intent on doing the bidding of the democratic national committee i'd never thought that that journalism in this country did reach such a low as to be so you know unfair in their analysis to be so politically motivated in the way that they cover because they cover cases there's so many questions so i hope it doesn't go away and i think it's important for the non-mainstream media to kid to beat this drum so that it gets the coverage it deserves and that concert there are consequences for any illegal activities that that may have taken place. a man was killed in venezuela on wednesday during the first day of a national strike told by the country's opposition the protest comes in response to president maduro its attempts to redraft the country's crisis and constitution.

and. i. been speaking exclusively with the venezuelan president he told us that the opposition there has been attempting to undermine the socialist government for years. i think the opposition has been doing this for eighteen years first against hugo chavez and for the past four

years against me there's no other way to resolve conflicts in the country than through democracy and elections in may for three and a half weeks i tried to establish direct dialogue with the opposition i wanted to include them in parliament but they refused it's a period of political isolation they drifted into right wing radicalism they were imprisoned by a strategy of violence and ignoring those who voted for them. but i've been as waylays ready for any scenario i think is insane for the extreme right in the us to be talking of a blockade against venezuela in fact they've already started an indirect blockade against our financial systems this was the cause the crisis over the past three years that we have economic strength in venezuela always pays what it owes and fulfills its responsibilities in two thousand and seventeen two thousand and eighteen and two thousand and nineteen our country will continue to fill them. the suspected mastermind behind illegal operations with the virtual currency pick when

alexander been explained arrested in greece on a u.s. warrant with his correspondent daniel hawkins he's got the latest on this financial scandal now what do we know about these arrests well as a russian national is round in his thirty's thirty years old he's been charged with a series of fairly serious allegations a lot of four billion dollars over the course of about six years and he's been charged by the u.s. attorney's office in california with twenty one counts could face up to twenty years in prison all together if of course he actually it is charged and found guilty you know i don't expect to list a lot of them but in a nutshell what's he been charged with indeed while he is alleged to be the criminal mastermind of an international network that launder money for gangs individuals associated with a whole range of serious offenses trafficking fraud and identity theft all very serious allegations here he said to be the brains behind. the whole operation. now allegedly how to do this he used what is because it's

a crypto currencies digital not controlled by any government so it's very hard to regulate allegedly he used a form called b t c e now that's an online exchange where people buy and sell because exchange of currency speculate on its value as well which by the way rose by seventy five dollars just today so it's very much in demand increasingly popular among users and also increasingly popular it seems among criminals to launder money now b d c e as a platform has been banned in russia just last year so he's been using it from abroad or alleged to have been using it from abroad now what we do know about b.d.c. ears a bit shady plot for whatever you know who works for it about its structure but what we do know is that it's gone offline in recent days this is a statement on their twitter page they're saying we continue to perform our maintenance will be back in five to ten days whether that's linked somehow to the arrest of vinick we just can't say but certainly that could be the case if we were to speculate now what we also do know he's obviously been arrested in greece the

greeks are negotiating his extradition with the americans and the greek police have described him as a internationally sort lost the mind of a crime organization so certainly seems to be a big fish for security services. about the money though where it's got obviously it's not physically actually there is no assets to recover because it's all digital you stored so really it could be anywhere so quite a complex case here to be decided show us what you think we do know is going to keep a lot of lawyers very busy for a long time right don't hold concerns very much for that. the russian lawyer at the center of a scandal involving team trump and ties to the kremlin says a prominent investor has lied to congress we've got the details on that for you after the break. the future is to strengthen the partnership between the member states and the

security of your discourse and this partnership tonight has to be governed by one basic understanding your point. really makes this a group behavior try to have the flexibility to undertake the programs and to achieve results and. must do more to create. people words all of them but speeds. if we take for instance the size large enough to destroy a city say forty meters or so of the million or so asteroids out there and we have discovered perhaps a percent or so of that ten thousand of those. so in other words i means that ninety nine percent of them are undiscovered so you should expect that the great majority of asteroids which come very close to the earth come as a surprise. again

you this hedge fund investor william browder who lobbied for the first set of russian sanctions known as the magnitsky act has been testifying in the us congress it's part of the investigation and moscow's alleged meddling in the us presidential election and he's given his account of the infamous meeting between team trump and the russian boy i tell you it's guy and that's cos life to ati's calabar across this force what's been said of the hearing. well we've just heard bill browder speaking before the senate judiciary committee in washington d.c. now his testimony it really kind of focused on the foreign registration act of the foreign agents registration act law in the united states which monitors the activities of people directly working for foreign governments he argued that he

felt that this law was not broad enough was not sweeping enough it is important to note that bill browder is one of the main people who pushed for the magnitsky act was the primary imposition of sanctions on russia now in his testimony he certainly used some rather inflammatory rhetoric and talked about russia and some rather harsh terms let's take a listen to what bill browder said before the committee it turned out that in putin's russia there are no good guys no empathy and no morals the russians are liars if threaten me with death they threaten me with kidnapping the russians will do anything they can get away with it even stuff they can't get away with to arrest kidnap torture and kill to take people's properties away admiring your courage and tenacity in the face of evil black mirror putin now in his testimony and bill browder also spoke about the russian lawyer who had met with eric trump and donald trump jr vessel in the sky and now she said that she believed

that what was going to be said in the testimony would be false she spoke about how her position in the united states was mainly she worked to lobby against the magnitsky act and she is in no way connected to the russian government and she expected that browder would give testimony about her that was in accurate this is what she had to say directly to r.t. . well i'm sure that i will use a script when testifying right more the script had been prepared for him beforehand and it was already posted on the atlantic i read the transcript carefully there's nothing new in there has already said all those things before and i can tell you with certainty that mr brown who will give a false testimony on sky has also she has talked about how she is willing to go before the committee and give her side of the story she's perfectly willing to speak to the same committee that mr browder spoke to today she would be willing to give them her side of the story she's pointed out that she is not working for the

russian government she's in no way connected to the russian government or security services she is simply a russian lawyer and this is what she had to say. the person who he talks about in his statements i'm also ready to testify and prove to anyone in the united states or any other country that mr browder is telling a lie so i'm ready to defend my good name in any court with knowing the negative attitude towards russia which is prevalent among americans today knowing their hatred towards their own president i'm not sure the u.s. is ready to give me that chance if we follow the democratic process that they love so much we will need to have a public hearing and give every side a chance to present their case since the americans decided to be the judge in this situation and surely every participant must be guaranteed safety. based on bill browder is history and reputation it's likely that many of the people who watched his testimony around the world and that some of his statements with skepticism went ok a lot to get through there thanks for making sense of it for its kind of open in new

york. a new study claims that many german media outlets are failing to pay attention to the public's concerns over the ongoing crisis or consistently putting a positive spin on the influx it found that coverage has overwhelmingly ignored many of the problems caused by such a high number arriving in a relatively short space of time. up until late autumn twenty fifteen hardly any editorials dealt with the concerns fears and resistance of a growing part of the population the report also reveals that on average new sources carried seventeen articles a day on the migrant crisis during the summer of twenty fifteen many promoting the success stories of those who came and settled it also states that dissenting voices were excluded from the discussion echoing the message from the authorities. it's come to offer and it's important for us not to follow those who would call a hatred in the heart sick to exclude others while claiming german their identity

for themselves a considerable part of the population believes that journalism is apparently forced to manipulate information a recent poll showed that more than half of germany feels it's being lied to by the media around a quarter of people there say they believe the government works with the press to manipulate public opinion political scientists develop ourselves told us he believes that biased reporting is eroding the country's faith in traditional news outlets. germans usually trust the media and fear for it was quite an exception that they felt that there was a split between what they were observing and what the read in the newspaper during his month or so great influx of immigrants the media said well we have an educational function we really have to show the germans there things are different than both think but actually the media firms elsewhere are carrying their point too far and this came as

a deception for many germans and we could measure in the polls at the clyde in trust to the media is a reaction on the side of the media journalists started to apologize for having not properly fulfilled their professional duty is during this migration crisis. now there is a complex and technical board game on the market that simulates all out war between europe and russia it's not exactly flying off the shelves and the few people that have bought it have been left more than a little confused while the book is how to go herself. hi gary pauly i'm going to be reviewing a new game that's coming to our attention here who's in strikes very robust box it could be bulletproof but i'm going to be on boxing it and telling you all you need to know about it in order to find out what this game is all about.

very hard to unlock oh there we go face of the man himself very complicated instruction manual here you can't have a board game without a board see it all the wall the mall because nuclear strikes i have recruited in our office engineer bed i'm going to be an external conference room in order to give putin strikes its first sortie. where we go to your front of board games. this is the instruction manual. there are these markers the russian forces the nato forces it's one join. yeah i'll be russia obviously. i'm going to put the russian ones where i think the russian ones should go but everywhere you put your nato ones are using the nato ones going to

get a. great . so you planning on taking crimea back so what's what's going on here now unlike most war games the movement fuck does and the units all depend on coming to . i think you actually have to be a nato general or a russian in general to understand how this works you know this this game doesn't have to reflect reality it's going to pepper the. but the russian battalion is do we have any left it uses the any option ok thank you very very much ben. ok guys say that was a little taste of pretend strikes for you mr you just pretty special is probably the only one you're going to see of this game because the man in the specialist store when we bought this said that we were the first people to ever practice putin strikes if you'll like it chained to restore justice to the world order this is

a pretty good place to start or stick to scrabble probably right join me in just over half an hour for your next world update including the increasingly angry reaction to potential u.s. sanctions against russia which the russian president described within the past hour also as illegal and cynical this is r.t. from moscow.

i would need to make this manufacture consent instead of public wealth. when the ruling classes to protect themselves. when the final merry go round lifts certainly the one percent. we can all middle of the room signal. diluted i mean real news is really cool. flurry used to be a professional hockey player who won a stanley cup and a moment the girl who was living the dream but his success had a dark side in the time i was fourteen to sixteen i was raped one hundred fifty times by a cold trayvon i was more us in a dark room and so you know every time i close my eyes i couldn't sleep after many years of silence he speaks up and unites with other victims so you are going from

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promised to never be like it said one does not need a funeral the same as one enters the mind gets consumed with this one quite different speech because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. whether they are. good with a little building. and with a day when will you have time to meet and of what i. see. pulling will fill you with all my little toes and you're no wilting water intake was only as appealing to a little of. the want to get off and leave me. with the water intake while corners

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