illegal and cynical the russian president has strong words for the latest anti russia sanctions proposed by washington. germany's economy minister warns of possible countermeasures if the u.s. goes ahead with its harsh new sanctions against the russian energy sector because. european businesses will also be hit. it turns out russia there are no good guys the russians are liars and some strong anti russian sentiments in the u.s. congress as hedge fund investor bill browder testifies as part of the investigation into. the russian last year.

there thursday evening seven o'clock here in moscow. and this is an international law to update you on this hour to first of all that response we got. to go now the russian president vladimir putin's given his reaction to the latest round of possible u.s. sanctions on russia saying they are illegal and cynical. so in the news of coolness these sanctions are completely illegal they go against international law and the rules of the world trade organization we're being very patient and very reserved but at some point we will have to respond you can't always put up with such an attitude toward your country. or that is all after u.s. lawmakers passed a new round of anti russia sanctions in response to moscow's alleged meddling in the us presidential election bill still needs president trumps approval and if it's

implemented it will target russia's energy sector as well as mining and metal industries president putin says ties between moscow and washington are falling victim to america's internal problems which in asia still it's very disappointing that russia u.s. relations are sacrificed while solving internal american issues on your question whether we are sorry about it i can say we are because if we had acted together we would so very pressing issues effectively and which concern both russian and american people meanwhile the proposed sanctions of also triggered angry reaction from europe with germany's economy minister warning that the e.u. could come up with countermeasures that's because the planned restrictions could end up punishing european countries with ties to russia's energy sector. it is bad that the u.s. has left the common line it's had with europe for sanctions against russia there is a possibility of counter sanctions against the guinness we've heard from the german minister of economy and energy there. but she's not alone in those that have been

critical of this 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 on acceptable he said that politics and 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 they've described the sanctions as they're written right now as an acceptable the americans have in mind their own interests and it's written down that they do want to export more of their elenchi.

solve therefore it's not excluded that they also follow that they also follow their economic interests. we don't complain about that unless it does not affect our own interests but right now it really affects our own interest negatively 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 in exxon mobil but also other big multinationals searchers ford and boeing as well so i see 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 as planned 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 however u.s. sanctions haven't always proven effective in the past let's take north korea for instance last year the u.s. imposed its first stand alone restrictions against pyongyang however that asian countries economy grew at the fastest pace that it had experience for nearly two decades that's according to estimates from south korea's central bank north korea's also boosted its exports and as we know continues to develop its nuclear capabilities but it's not just pyongyang who's also seen a degree of economic success it's a spite of the u.s. sanctions around too that being forced to diversify its economy finding new trading partners as a way of coping with the measures saigon reaction earlier from international oil economist octomom to sell in may he told me that the us foreign policy is becoming modeled. p.c. news section sanctions are illegal because they're out of big.

names or fresh and meddling in the american elections in twenty six. thirty is the biggest economic blow in the world and they have the economic bow out of behind them and they can the easy. ball is sanctions on american companies and medicaid interests but i think the that it can. fight him but as he is becoming the mud the it is they make it as they go with it day off but today we see changes which must fill it deeply all. hedge fund investor william browder who years ago lobbied for the first sets of until russian sanctions known as the magnitsky act has been testifying in the us congress is part of the investigation into moscow's alleged meddling in the u.s.

election last year and he's given his version of the infamous meeting between trump and the russian boy in the sky let's go live to new york awful this force the skull of open collar but good to see you again what was said of this hearing that well this was a hearing of the senate judiciary committee and there was a strong anti russian sentiment the star witness was former hedge fund investors bill browder and he testified as if he were a kind of expert on russia and many times members of congress made a point of congratulating him and commanding his courage thanking him for his work etc this is some of what we heard before the judiciary 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 but even stuff they can't get away with to arrest kidnap torture and kill to take people's properties away in the face of

evil i don't think there's any other way to characterize mere putin now bill browder is a hedge fund investor from the united states who hired surrogate magnitsky and magnitsky died in a pretrial detention center in russia in two thousand and nine he was also suspected in a tax evasion investigation now u.s. officials then went on to accuse the russian government of being complicit in the death of magnitsky impose sanctions on russia however russia denies any wrongdoing in the case now since then browder his goal has been to punish russia for magnitsky is death and he lobbied to pass the magnitsky act now and then tell you a vessel in its sky says that the magnitsky act is what she went to discuss with donald trump jr that was what she went to discuss at the meeting with donald trump

jr however she says that bill browder his painting the meeting as an example of collusion or somehow the trump campaign having worked with russia out of a personal vendetta against her she recently defeated him in court and she says now this is this is revenge this is what she had to say to our team. well i'm sure that i will just quit when testifying right more this group had been prepared for him before he had and it was already posted on the atlantic accurate in what i read the transcript carefully there is nothing new in there he has already said all those things before and i can tell you with certainty when i stood my ground and will give false testimony browder has basically been given a free hand to testify and to make accusations against a vessel in the sky however she says that she would be perfectly willing to get up before the exact same committee and present her side of the story however she says that she suspects the us congress would be reluctant to hear what she has to say

this is what she told us. she did it as a person who talks about in these statements i'm also ready to testify and prove to anyone in the united states or any other country that mr browder is telling lies 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. now based on bill browder is history and reputation it's likely that many who watched these hearings today and heard his testimony met many of his claims and statements with a dose of skepticism. thanks for breaking it down for us.

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 in 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 berger 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 to them 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 his lawn 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 with 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 equipment and it is found by the. we saw your stand and it is identified at 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 conduct your business that way. and should expect that there would be consequences showing that warrants a bit of attention however the story never made it to the headlines of any major outlets in theory 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 finger pointing at the kremlin. r.t. washington d.c. we spoke to john had to choose from the u.s. middle east alliance and he says stories like these are reported swith 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 the mainstream 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 the cover 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 keep to the beat this drum so that it gets the coverage it

deserves and that concert there are consequences for any illegal activities that they may have taken place. as venezuela's gripped by a violent national strike called by the opposition we have exclusively from the country's president that and more after this break. it's. selling you on the idea that dropping bombs brings peace to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battle. for new socks for the tell you that gossip the template file for reporters. tell me you are not pulling out. all the hawks that we all. watch.

in. the future used to strengthen the machine retrieve the member states and the secret of course and this partnership. has to be governed by one basic understanding. really limits disaggregate your trip had to fix ability to undertake the programs and. must treat. people once all of member states. was killed in venezuela when stage during the first day of a national strike called by the country's opposition the protest comes in response to president duros attempts to redraft the country's crisis head constitution.

my. wife and. i. was going on we were not until we were my feet. artie's 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. what i mean is 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 system this was the cause the crisis over the past three years but we have economic strength in venezuela always pays what the owners and fulfills its responsibilities in two thousand and seventeen two thousand and eighteen and two thousand and nineteen our country will continue to fulfill them. next a suspected mastermind behind illegal operations with the virtual currency bitcoin alexander vinick has been arrested in greece on a u.s.

warrant artie's daniel hawkins gave me more details earlier. well this really is a very serious set of allegations vinick a thirty year old russian national has been charged with lording over four billion dollars over the course of around half a decade he's been charged with twenty one different counts by the u.s. attorney in california for which if he's of course put on trial and found guilty or could face up to twenty years in prison very lengthy term indeed no one expected to list them all daniel but in a nutshell what's he charged with well the accusation is that he's been the mastermind the criminal brain behind a whole host of money laundering operation laundering money for various groups involved in hacking trafficking identity theft fraud a whole range of issues and he has been the as we said the brains behind the whole operation here how is he supposed to of this amount of money well very simply using corn is of course a crypto currency it's all traded on lines it's not really controlled by any sort

of government it's very hard to track now there's a number of online exchanges where people can buy and sell this crypto currency and vinick is accused of being involved in one of the largest exchanges called b t c e now this particular exchange actually been banned in russia since last year very little is known about it structure what we do know though is that it released a statement just a couple of days back on its twitter page basically saying that the site is currently down for maintenance it's not accessible but they will be back in five to ten days now whether that's anything to do with the next arrest we can't confirm other. actually comment on this case but it may well be the case now we understand from greek police that they're beginning to go she is with the u.s. about six shorting vinick to face those charges they have described him as an internationally sought mastermind of a crime organization now of course the money itself four billion is going to be

little harder to track down because it virtually quite literally can be anywhere so . complex investigation to take place here. a new study claims that many german media outlets are failing to pay attention to the public's concerns over the ongoing migrant crisis while consistently putting a positive spin on the influx it found that the 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 have called

ness 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 separately a recent poll show over half of people in germany feel that they're being lied to by the media and around a quarter of people say they believe the government works with the press to manipulate public opinion political scientist told us he believes the biased reporting is a road in 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 this month or so great influx of immigrants the media said well we have an educational function we really have to show the germans that things are different than both think but actually the media are carrying their point too far and this

came as a deception for many germans and we could measure in the polls or decline in trust to the media is a reaction on the side of the media or journalists started to apologize for having not properly fulfilled their professional duty as during this migration crisis. next a report from one of the world's leading human rights agencies says the u.s. led coalition airstrikes have killed twenty nine civilians in syria's racker which is ourselves defacto capital the report from the syrian observatory for human rights hasn't been confirmed but it's believed that eight children could be among the dead this comes as syrian democratic forces backed by u.s. strikes are waging an offensive against the terrorists there and have already managed to retake about half of the city tens of thousands of people who have fled the violence there in recent months and according to unicef about half of them are children we can talk about that now with brad so who's

a representative for unicef in syria welcome very welcome to the program thanks for joining us by the numbers but the u.n. report states that over one hundred thousand people have been displaced from rocka since april that was number half of them children that how many more could be displaced to free the city. yet the fighting has resulted in massive displacement from broke out in front of number more than two hundred thousand people including half of them. displaced some of them has further been displaced i've done a very nice neighborhood in a very government needs and some living in camps and informal settlements with. the harsh conditions in the scorching heat. i myself have visited one of the counts in an ethos and i cannot imagine a harsher environment than that especially in the summer months where the heat wave

is really really. suffering on this children who has been traveling for weeks the stories that they share very hard i mean most of them traveled for weeks four weeks six weeks and then they are i very weak and hydrated in the camps and some of them are returning. areas because they don't want to be far away from their homes so that they can go back quickly when i can so they are in day out of need and we also know that in the coming weeks more people could be displaced because the fighting in the fighting is intensified by a day. a bleak picture for people who've managed to escape what about the ones who are still trapped inside because of the fighting there was always so preventing them from leaving the city it's the the numbers no you know how many people are trapped inside rocka the exact number can be cut we cannot know the exact number

but we estimate that between us thirty thousand to fifty thousand people remain trapped. and half of them are children i again both are estimates because as you know humanity can workers has not been able to access for the last three years and even much more worse in the last few months. but the situation that a force that we are hearing. situation is dire people have been cut all. from electricity and water for a month now and some are resorting to water sources such as from the effort that's reaver. unsafe and we are concerned that this continue they are they will be exposed to water borne disease and beyond that children i have exposed on a daily basis. to violence and violence and they are.

very high. yeah for sure this is all over the psychological scars are just going to carry on for years if not decades in your estimation what are the civilian population america really need in this situation and what couldn't organizations like unicef and other agencies do to help. in the uk us see we are a soon as we get safe access we out of radio by i'm in the sunshine of the first thing is like lifesaving assistance because like food is not available for the prices for the. skyrocketing so people cannot afford cannot afford to have access to basic needs so the priority is to restore basic services and to provide children with cation and psychosocial support service as you rightly mention these will have

a profound effect on the future of children so we are ready to respond as soon as there is access often in the neighboring come where the displaced people are arriving we are already providing some thought so unicef trying around four hundred thousand liters of water on a daily basis we have also mobile and community. psychosocial support center in the camps that needs out a barrier and many people are arriving on a daily basis so we need to scale up the response area as well. charters like yours but we wish you the best thank you very much for outlining what it's like that brought her from unicef in syria thank you you thank. stay in touch twenty four seven with news alerts from the all taps on your mobile devices that's it for me the finale and instead to keep you across developments in about half an hour.

greetings and sell you taishan it's already said hike hike hike my heart watchers because in just one week the biggest money making professional sport in the world the national football league kicks off their pre-season here in the united states but this year's twenty seventeen season of pigskin gridiron glory as two very large storm clouds darkening its sunday afternoon horizons not only has former super bowl caliber quarterback collin capper nick capron exposure to land on the team this offseason has raised some serious questions about an unspoken blacklisting of the quarterback by team owners for his activism and support of black lives matter but this week also saw the n.f.l. as ongoing battle with with and over traumatic brain injury taking it a startling turn.