this is. heard of. down to the. president of the world bank very. seriously send us an e-mail. european think tanks funded by the u.s. and u.k. and the seas publishes a list of thousands of guests in a controversial report on all the sites. the pentagon hails what it calls a great success the defeat of its former capital despite massive casualties in the syrian city being reduced to rubble. and streams of cambridge university being issued warnings over a potentially distressing material in classic literature a move some are calling ridiculous. if you're reading literature you should expect some surprises i think the problem with the world these days is that there's just so much focus on being offended by everything that people are just so scared of

what they can actually say or do. very good evening to you my name is this. let's start by talking about r t which has become the target of a full scale which some would say by european think tank it's funded by the us embassy and other leading members of the western establishment the group calling itself european values is issued a report on this channel's programs and it lists thousands of people who have appeared as guests what's wrong with that you might think. can you explain. it's a bit of a surprise for you the r.t. bashing continues now in this particular report the issues that artie's guests are having really a dig at themselves this is a report by think tank based in the czech republic called european values reporters

called the kremlin's platform for useful idiots in the west an overview of artes editorial strategy and evidence of impact now what this report does is neatly compile a list of basically all of our t.'s guests because it features thousands of people and it's not just you know a round of list not only are there seven categories in this report dividing our guests into us politicians and political figures british politicians european and other international politicians writers journalists academics and so on so seven categories now not only are they broken up and that but they're also listed in alphabetical order and if that wasn't enough it also indicates the number of times each guest appeared on our teeth and links to some of the most relevant episodes it's clear that this particular think tank really worked hard at watching r t here in the u.k. in the states and all around the world he doesn't really mince words when it comes

to our team gets not only is the report dubbed useful idiots but it also calls the guests naive and oblivious to our t's intentions so certainly something that is not being too nice to people who have chosen to come and express their opinion on our network and here is why the report decided to really look into all this the purpose of this list is to identify individuals who either due to an awareness of political agenda or indeed explicit support of it and instead names and credibility to see. and proxy agents of the kremlin is pretty clear we need to start to know the most hello my name is neil and faulty what. are we need to be ashamed about a missing one the two things what have i done what have you done what have we done wrong well apart from looking at all of our gas of course this wouldn't be a proper think tank report if we didn't actually try to get our tea itself it does

say that the goal is to look at the history agenda the evidence of impact of the channel that they describe as quote pushing program on a gender under the guise of free speech and alternative journalism now not only does this report claim to be debunking certain what it calls myths about the channel such as being a reliable news source saying that it's not harmful and also goes into key points such as saying that our team is whole goal is to denigrate the west and our tea is rooted in the denial of truth we can say that some of the sponsors behind this piece is mostly private donors but as well as open society which is obviously a george soros foundation. ok let's bring in the guests now is an m.p. from the swiss people's party is also the longest serving member in the swiss house of representatives do you need to lose it now i've got mixed blessings for you here the good news is you were described in the report as being useful the bad news is

you were described as being an idiot but more good news because you're among the likes of sigma gabrielle who's the foreign secretary for germany a very prestigious company so i consider that to positives there how do you feel about being named here oh dear this is such a disappointment we did have the sound from you lose it because you at the moment. so we're going to have to try and come back to you in a moment but we will indeed try to do that. but let's stay with this because the pressure on r.t. increased last month when the justice department demanded r.t. america register under the cold war era foreign agents act russia says that that move in does the channels work in the us and that it will have serious legal consequences the pressure growing it's also been pulled from you choose premium advertising listing united states with no warning in response moscow has now said it is not ruling out counter measures against u.s.

media outlets working in russia the foreign agent deadline that's now passed on to america hasn't registered or happened in his ward any attacks against russian media will not go unanswered. so just. what we're seeing right now and what is happening around our media isn't comparable and much less powerful than our u.s. and u.k. counterparts i don't even know what to call it they're flipping everything upside down. we're going to mirror any action the tick and we will take action fast as soon as we see any steps being taken to restrict our media outlets. very pleased to say we have regained our connection with lucy stand m.p. from the swiss people's party lucy i was just saying that this report's calling you one of those useful idiots how do you feel about that and the fact you're in this report. i laugh in a certain way but the development is. it gets more and more aggressive across

europe apollo the cold breeds one of these games. they are destroying the reputation of politicians they're not like it doesn't seem very balanced just in the way the reports put together to be insulting people in the headline what's that what's the motivation behind it. ah and you see the development in europe is relatively dangerous you know that the west has been and aggressively attack in iraq syria is a disaster the attacks of libya that was tremendous a negative and hand in hand with these dangerous developments it is more aggressive people they don't like personalities that don't who who are not aligned with their own opinion and are trying to be destroyed and a claim made in this report is the guest such as yourself are polluting get the

information space that makes that makes me think of joel george all sorry george orwell unfortunately is there such a thing as good information and bad information ah it is dramatically how history is repeating itself it has always been that they are trying to destroy you with words and the part of the hill opponents. you can say fortunately five hundred years ago they killed them and they burned them to death and you have the religious fights in europe also the catholics and the protestants and people who are put to death by a fire and cetera now a days they are just think much highest and they are criticized and polluted in a very negative way but let's hope we all can survive the head of the clinton recently had some rather unflattering things to say about the channel boris johnson the british foreign secretary has lashed out at opposition m.p.'s in the u.k.

for pairing on the china we're talking about a lot of democratically elected politicians people like yourselves who were trusted by the people to run the country but some reasons are not considered fit to speak in public. development is relatively dangerous because even person out of personality is i didn't think is it possible are starting to say negative things you wouldn't believe it even the chancellor of the german chancellor angela merkel is criticizing people in a way to myself. and here correctly and across europe. people who lead a country not to speak of hungary but austria etc etc these people who are presidents of countries are often in no way this is very negative very frightening

and i always believe you should follow the money when this controversy this organization has made this report european values one of its sponsors is the us embassy in the czech republic now surely at this point the us embassy has to go yes that's what we wanted from them money well spent oh surely they have to issue some kind of apology and say we're not going to be funding them again this is a complicated question in the following sense was the second world war money or was it nationalism or is it now it is even religion who knows but money is one of the problems and the ones who have the power in this world and the ones who can print the money obviously very dangerous. lucy indeed it was a pleasure to speak to you and so you appeared in this report unfortunately it seems to be one of the perils of appearing on the channel we appreciate your free speech and pay from the swiss people's ponty. the newest addition

to the alleged russian meddling frenzy comes from britain as a labor party m.p. has called for a probe into moscow interference whether the interfering brags that focused on. given the widespread public concern over foreign and particularly russian interference in western democracies we are sure sure this house that the government and the electoral commission will examine these reports very carefully and reassure our country that all of the resources spent in the referendum from permissible sources. well in response to the claims made in the scuse me u.k. parliament are top briggs it campaign finances says that the m.p. simply can't get over losing that vote banks says it's sad the tedious myth as he put it of a russian conspiracy still being used writer and broadcaster married to jet ski told us that alleged russian meddling is just the pretext. this is less about

russia russia as a sort of a convenient peg to hook other things on that this is being used by people opposed to the british leaving the european union and that what they're trying to do is to find some pretext so that they can maybe challenge the vote it's been so unchallenged if you like in washington you know if you read everything that's coming out of washington or if you're in washington the consensus that is so pervasive it's so powerful that russia was involved in somehow manipulating the american election or that it's extraordinary difficult to contest that and i think a lot of that has crossed the atlantic. and to russia a story has been making headlines for months now starting with alleged moscow meddling in the u.s. election and it moved on to the french and german votes that we've been suggestions that russians hanks' the catalan independence vote on the loudest complaints is

coming from the politician who claims that russian interference lost the presidency . many members of parliament have been asked by russia. and france crown campaign with help by happen after cyber attack just before their president. now the evidence that russian hackers r.q. e-mail supports and more is not possible to so you've obviously a story to tell with your criminal good people really can be anyone in the attack itself the simplicity of the technical part. think it's just

a simple person who created it and so this person can be in any country with any kind of motivation. maybe you've even seen the ads in a london underground one day on propagandist or bragging watch r t and find out who we are planning to. the fact is they're also opening a new scottish bureau. and we love you too hillary now a group that claims to be fighting what it calls russian propaganda has been caught red handed trying to bury a news story the website proposed all the buzz feed reporter not to cover a story on the cia arming syrian rebels with more is it into trying to. sell one of buzz feed senior investigative reporters went on twitter to say that his colleagues have demanded answers over cia campaign to arm the rebels in syria

a group called prop or not which claims to be fighting russian propaganda and fake news responded with criticism here's what these tweets said more news buzz feed news just filed a freedom of information act lawsuit against the cia for all documents on arming syrian rebels of the trump declassified program. guys don't do this it doesn't help of course we supported syrian moderates democrats we should have done it more please don't muddy waters in the syrian rebels we armed worse well fellas when she won that information to get out so public opinion would be influenced why so trying but it's going to have an easier time hunting them down and bombing their whole neighborhood you'd like that wouldn't you want other twitter users wondered why whoever's in charge of the problem or not twitter accounts thinks that the us taxpayers should know where their bodies go and when it comes to arming foreign

militias the reply was basically if classified info gets released then regimes that are quote unquote caught to war with the us may get hold of it and since washington is backing syrian rebels that could be damaging both for the us and their allies in syria the question though is whether that justifies why the group claiming to fight against fake news asking another media outlet to bury a story that could potentially become some very important serious real. this organization or it's just really a website prop or not is it propaganda or is it not it claims to be deep on can propaganda sites in fact of course it is a propaganda site of its own and then when you look at the coverage that it got for example in the washington post and elsewhere you really once again as we said many of these web sites as we so many of these think tanks and other groups you have to

question i think where the funding and backing for these kind of organizations is coming from meanwhile the u.s. state department has officially acknowledged another anti assad force using chemical weapons in syria that's aside from islamic state this revelation comes in the latest travel alert for the country and it refers to the al nasra group now known as tyrrell's sham most as defense ministry says it's the first admission of its kind owing years of allegations that only the assad government carried out chemical attacks in syria. tactics of isis hyatt's to here and other violent extremist groups include the use of suicide bombers kidnapping small and heavy arms improvised explosive devices and chemical weapons they have targeted major city senses in damascus aleppo how mama daraa holmes it lip and dare is all provinces will it live province which was mentioned in that state department document has only one widely known deadly chemical attack on its soil that took place in the

town of concha cool in april killing dozens of washington apparently didn't consider terrorists being responsible quickly blaming government troops. yesterday morning. we awoke to pictures to children of beautiful little babies being carried in the arms of desperate parents these heinous actions by the assad regime. cannot be tolerated if they absolutely claim from the outset that the only people that use or have even the ability to use weapons of this type in syria is the government of president assad and of course that then would then make him responsible for him to learn sponsible for these alleged chemical weapon uses despite the fact that of course the rebels in this case it's have had every incentive to use these weapons. if you like a false flag to prompt western intervention and of course that intervention in the

last attack did happen and the un security council have come together to investigate what's been going on in syria in respect of chemical weapon use looking more deeply into it don't forget detailed investigation is due to report very soon and it may of course for all we know report that actually it's untrue that rebels don't use chemical weapons and so it may be that this is an early attempt to if you like preempt that by saying well the american government is never denied this. u.s. led coalition has confirmed victory against the islamic state in syria is iraq are adding its operation in the country will continue until the group has been eliminated and the pentagon is telling the operation as a great success in the fight against isis. we have a great success against what was once known as the core caliphate iraq in syria and now we're actually in the beginning i think the stone age and why for the calculator's rocket however the latest pictures from morocco are well you might not

consider it to be a great success if you look and see that it's a virtual ghost town the destruction you can see was caused by a combination of eisel militia shelling and coalition air strikes aid agencies say a huge effort is going to be needed to end the humanitarian crisis there are so claimed rock cars it's defacto capital in twenty fourteen the first major offensive against the terrorists began two years later he used to be one of syria's largest cities now it's little more than rebel. recently corelation air forces were ready to demolish the whole building to target one member of isis they have no problem killing civilians. we ran from death and

any human being would be afraid the sound of the planes makes us afraid they were shelling the civilians destroying buildings and houses that killed is destroyed by coalition aircraft only ten percent hit their targets the rest hit civilians. the u.n. estimates that's an average of twenty seven people are being killed in iraq every day. and this seems to be no really the scale for these civilians their level of suffering friends relatives family of the children essentially. it's just getting. fierce clashes have continued between iraqi and kurdish fighters up to government forces took full control of the disputed province of code cook iraqi troops retake

the area following a three hour battle with kurdish peshmerga fighters the kurds retreated to positions to the north of the region along the road between edible and care to cook by dad's forces began not oppression on monday the strategic oil rich city of kirkuk had been under the control of good forces since the fall of saddam hussein back in two thousand and three now the government operation to retake the city began after the kurds it held independence referendum last month. iraq's prime minister declared that move illegal iraqi government said the military operation was to quote impose security despite previous u.s. support for the kurds washington is now talking about a unified iraq with federal elections looming american explains. ever since the invasion of iraq in the early two thousand the internal politics of the country has been of great importance to us especially when it comes to the region and the u.s. has now found itself in a tight spot over its alliance with the kurds but the kurds were once a top u.s.

ally i think we need to arm and train and equip their pressure help the kurdish government deal and they're strong and. we should be using we should be turning the kurdish region to be that this matters really proving to be the most really doing just what the law stands for supporting the kurds or the peshmerga who are on the front lines fighting us and now us trying to government troops are clashing with kurdish forces in care coop and the pentagon is trying to downplay the conflict this all comes at a pivotal time for iraqi kurds right after september independence referendum which the us has shown no sign of supporting we hope for a unified iraq to annihilate isis and certainly a unified iraq to push back on iran so if the us has named ron as the second greatest threat after. so countering iran could very well be the driving force

behind the us abandoning its support curt's i don't want to use the word betrayal but we definitely feel the united states has been negligent iraq's upcoming election set for april two thousand and eighteen may become a make or break moment for the us and could possibly affect its objectives in the region april's election is a choice between the vice president the leaking all to describe the subtly and tell us and ron and the current president a body is that all it's with what you have here at the moment you have a prime minister in iraq who is supported by the americans the previous prime minister who is working in the wings which is the extreme part which is very close to radians and the united states made it clear to the kurdish leadership before they're a friend. of this. so that they wished to delay the refer them at least to after iraqi election in next spring so if the us seeks to resolve a body's problem the kurdish resistance washington will be forced to choose between

two allies it's apparently not the kurds simulcast on washington d.c. . we shake speare is literature has been stamped with a trigger warning by lectures at cambridge university to avoid causing distrust students to be warned which texts contain scenes of sexual assault or violence asks why the bard's work is raising concern now for centuries later. ok to me from their worse than killing last and tumble me into some loathsome pit whenever mans i may behold my body do this and be a charitable murderer so should i rolled my sweet sons of their fee no let them satisfy their lost on the that's a snippet from shakespeare as a first tragedy titus andronicus the play features graphic violence gang rape and fourteen murders and now certain english lecturers at cambridge university

operating special warnings on their time tables when they're going to be covering potentially distressing topics like these they're going to have to have a lot of disclaimers with the works of shakespeare though some of his plays can be very gory they feature things like incest rape murder and suicide they also happen to have kept people talking about thorny issues like claws relations race relations and anti semitism for centuries i want to know what the people visiting the famous shakespeare globe theatre in london have to say about the warnings i think. demis down the students. in the churn for smart enough to be able to handle this without a warning. for them to juice the show. being good enough for them. if you're reading literature you should expect to have some surprises you

expect to be shocked to see or similar at that particular student i think the problem with the world these days is that there's just so much focus on being offended by everything that people are just so scared of what they can actually say or do cambridge university has told me that any warnings that they put out are the initiative of individual professes and that it's not a policy adopted by the english to. meant as a whole by the way when the globe theatre staged titus andronicus three years ago several people fainted from the graphic violence including one of the theater critics reviewing the show that very same critics still gave the production an exceptional review art isn't always comfortable the most challenging art can be anything but and now there are growing concerns not just in academic circles that modern students are being too morally called old if they can't handle the content

in classic literature how are they going to cope with life in general. but it seems there's a growing backlash social media users have questioned whether students become oversensitive others of warmth that if people could no longer cope with fictional violence well how would they deal with the reality. and the measures have also been slammed by experts the artistic director at the cambridge shakespeare first of all says that students shouldn't study his literature if they're not aware his works betray violence on the same warning could be applied to other classics. sikes batters nancy to death and bet the corpse is so deformed that the person who

identifies a body is so scared by the experience that they're led away in a straight jacket. on. your new court sullen peoples half devil and hard child. is eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm restored dawson scarred with the numerable puncture marks finally thrust the sharp point home press down the tiny piston. you know before we know it they're burning books i warn you now join me at the top of the hour for the latest news.