see people you've never heard of love attack tonight my president of the world bank so kate was really seriously send us an e-mail. european think tank funded by the u.s. the u.k. and the seas publishes a list of thousands of aunties guest and a controversial report on this channel's policies. with her toenails what it calls a great success the defeat of i saw in its former capital round card but despite massive million casualties and the syrian city being reduced to rubble. also students of cambridge university are being issued with warnings of a potentially distressing material in classic literature a move that some have called 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 neil harvey appreciate you joining us here on r.t. international. as talk r.t. if you'll indulge me artie's become the target of a full scale which and some are saying by a european think tank this is been funded by a u.s. embassy and other leading members of the western establishment the group calling itself european values issued a report on our channels programs it listed thousands of people who have appeared as guess what's wrong with being a guest you may ask to see the church has the details it's a bit of a surprise for you the party bashing continues now and this particular report the issues that artie's guests are having really a dig at themselves this is a report by a 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. was 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 appears 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 tease 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 underwent a 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. hello my name is neil and. what. 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 guests 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 pushing program one agenda or 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 archie's 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 the european parliament the u.s. embassy in the czech republic and we do know that the author has been doing some work with the atlantic council which of course is known for certain anti russia hype so really no surprises there we'll have to wait and see what kind of reactions

we see from all of those thousands of people who have been coming onto our channel to express their views. because speaking to george barber who's an environmental activist and a social justice campaigner and was also on the list of showing george bush. a little bit sorry for you nobody likes being called an idiot but then i look to the company you're keeping john mccain you show a bomb and now and think this is pretty good you could put this on your c.v. a budget on the perhaps how do you feel about it. i'm not sure i'd want to be associated with term mccain much as a relative to trump and he may look like a sane alternative but you know the reality is that r.t. like any now your major international news network has all sorts of people associated with it you know not least people like larry king who found a more a more open platform on r.t. than they have regrettably on on u.s. networks and in. the me it would have been it would be very interesting if this

report were about the political economy of news organizations you know i am i'm not naive i'm and i'm under no illusion that he is this magically neutral news source any more than i'm under any illusion the b.b.c. or c.n.n. is any magically neutral news news source and equally you know there are different kind of systems working in all cases but the reality is there is a dissident voice in the u.k. the only very rarely gets any airtime in the mainstream media alongside sort of spectacular political actions which forces space in the informational sphere. is the only place that has been providing a regular platform for what used to be dissident voices in the u.k. but and now much more mainstream voices and i think i mean certainly i haven't read this entire report but much of it is incredibly disappointing in that it clearly is not pretending even to give any kind of serious consideration to the other side of the argument here so i can but see it as as

a fairly standard piece of propaganda. yet the already thick isn't it i have to ask that one of the claims about the so-called useful idiots is that they are polluting the information space now this is very topical if we look at the number of platforms now that are being vetted you know the fears over fake news it's lead to an era now where people are deciding what is acceptable news what is acceptable truth. is there is there are worry now that we are deciding what is good information awardees bad information. absolutely i have a phrase which. is poaching and that's an acronym for the principle of anticipated capture and hollowing out and the idea there is that whenever the powers that be with vested interest whether it's in russia the u.k. or anywhere else when they take hold of a popular demand and supposedly respond to it inevitably they'll both take over that process and hollow it out of impact so the relevance here is that. in

supposing the name of dealing with fake news and obviously when you see is just sort of made up for no good reason and it's purely designed to create this information no one would would have any issue with trying to do something about about alerting people to that but in fact this is become a pretext for a huge internet companies that have their own vested interest involved in them to push progressive websites hugely down there and so many many of the most successful progressive websites that are expressing a view that i would suggest is much more based in reality than the mainstream media and now disappearing off such pages so this is very much a political football and the idea that this report is coming from a neutral space and on the other hand is this pure propaganda network i think you know if they were not naive and if they don't expect other people and i be naive they'd realize that you know of course everybody has their agendas but i think he has certainly not tried to constrain my expression or the expression of many other

people i know i work with a network i'll be honest i'm not going to watch russia today to get what i feel is a totally objective view on what's going to russia any more than i'd watch the b.b.c. to get a totally objective view of what's going on in britain but i don't think that means that anything that is shed on that platform is invalidated and i think it's important to add it's precisely because they couldn't take on the arguments of dissidents that in now voyager mico been bernie sanders and i was becoming very mainstream that they have to fall back on this demonization of russia which is obviously an old and to me and for anyone that has any questions about the. media system in the west as well there's a very famous book by noam chomsky that home called the propaganda model the political economy of the mainstream media and their list five main ways the west i mean the us media in the case of this study manages and manipulate information and one of those five necessities is a demon that can be used in the media narrative to blame stuff on and in this case as it was for much of the last seventy years russia is now playing the part of that

demon and to be clear i'm not saying that russia is in this in everything is going on in the world absolutely not but that's not the issue that is on the table here. do you know i'll say it russia isn't innocent of everything going on in the world neither is any other country i think we may just solve the major mysteries that many thanks george barda is my guest environmental activist and social justice campaigner. now the pressure on our t. it was ramped up last month when the justice department demanded r.t. america register under the cold war era foreign agents act and russia says that the move in does the channels work in the us and will have serious legal consequences with pressure growing r.t. has also been pulled from you tube premium advertising list in the u.s. and that was happening with no warning in response moscow has said that it's not ruling out countermeasures against u.s. media outlets working here in russia the foreign agent deadline that's now passed

on to america still hasn't read it but in a putin has warned any attacks against the russian media they won't go unanswered. she just. what we are seeing right now and what is happening around our media isn't comparable and much less powerful than argue worse 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 they take and we will take action fast as soon as we see any steps being taken to restrict our media outlets the newest addition to the alleged russian meddling frenzy comes from the u.k. a labor party m.p. is called for a probe into moscow interference in the briggs's vote given the widespread public concern over foreign and particularly russian interference in western democracies. this house but 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. in response to the claims made there in the u.k. parliament a top briggs it campaign finance says that the m.p. just can't get over losing our bank said it it's sad that tedious myth of a russian conspiracy is still being used writer and broadcaster married to jessica told us alleged russian meddling is only a 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 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 in washington the consensus there 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. and i think a lot of thought was crossed the atlantic. monte rushes through has been making headlines for months now it started with alleged moscow meddling in the u.s. election it moved on to the french election then the german election the view has been suggestions russians they can't allow the independence vote one of the loudest complaints is coming from the politician who claims that russian interference lost the presidency. many members of parliament have been hacked by russia.

and france its campaign was hit by a massive cyber attack just before their presidential election. you know the evidence that russian hackers our q e mails sits in more than is not possible to so you've obviously as stated silversea a criminal group it really can be anywhere it's like it's still the simplicity of the technical part can make us 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 and on london underground from one russian state funded propaganda stored bragging watch r.g. and find out who we are planning to attack. the fact is they're also opening a new scottish bureau. a group that

claims to be fighting what it calls russian propaganda has been caught red handed trying to bury a news story the. proper not us the buzz feed reporter not to cover a story on the cia arming syrian rebels and potentially explains all so one of buzz feed senior investigative reporters went on twitter to say that his colleagues have demanded answers over cia's 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 you so troubled by this can have an easier time hunting them down and bombing their whole neighborhood you'd like that wouldn't you what 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 be called some very important serious real.

organization or just really a website prop or not is it propaganda or is it not it claims to be deep in can propaganda sites in fact of course it is a propaganda site 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 now this revelation came in the latest travel alert for the country it refers to the al nasra group now known as tyrrell shall receive defense ministry says it is the first admission of its kind that follows 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 centers in damascus aleppo how mar daraa holmes it lip and dare is or provinces of italy province which you had mentioned in the state department document has had only one widely known deadly chemical attack on it so alarmed that took place in the town of consequent in april it killed dozens it washington apparently did not consider terrorists responsible quickly instead blaming government forces. yesterday morning. we awoke to pictures to children of beautiful little babies being carried in the arms of desperate dance these heinous actions by the assad regime. cannot be tolerated if they

absolutely claim from the outset that the only people that use all have even the ability to use weapons of this type in syria is the government of president assad and of course that would then make him responsible and him alone responsible for these alleged chemical weapon use and despite the fact that of course the rebels in this case of 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 true 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 has never denied this. the u.s. led coalition has confirmed victory against the islamic state in serious rock are

doing its operation in the country will continue until the group is being eliminated the pentagon is hailing the operation a great success in the fight against isis were having great success against what was once known as the core caliph like iraq and 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 iraq are perhaps don't give quite that sense of success given that it's virtually a ghost city the destruction you can see here was caused by a combination of i saw militias shelling and coalition air strikes aid agencies say that a huge effort will be needed to end the humanitarian crisis there i still claim drucker as it's defined capital in twenty fourteen the first major offensive against terrorists began two years later they used to be one of syria's largest cities now it's little more than rubble.

recently called mission affluence is we're ready to demolish the whole building to target one member of i say they have no problem killing civilians. we ran from death and fear any human being would be afraid the sound of the planes makes us afraid they were shelling the civilians destroying buildings and houses rakhal was destroyed by coalition aircraft only ten percent hit their targets the rest hit civilians. the un estimates that's an average of twenty seven people are being killed in iraq every day. and they seem to be no real escape for these civilians their level of suffering friends relatives family

of the children exceptionally. strikes targeting. william shakespeare's literature is mistimed too with a trigger warning by lecturers at cambridge university to avoid causing distress students have been warned which texts contain scenes of sexual assault or violence by the book or ask why the board's work is raising concern for centuries later. okey me from their worse than killing lust and tumble me into some loathsome pit whenever man's i may behold my body do this and be a charitable mudra so should i rode my sweet sons of that fee no let them satisfy their lust all the that's a snippet from shakespeare is a first tragic. 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 timetables 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. 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 simulate 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 department as a whole by the way when the globe says to stage tied to some johnny three years ago several people fainted from the graphic violence including one of the things he said 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 an. anything bots and now there are growing concerns not just in academic circles

that modern students are being too morally called old if they can handle the content in classic literature how are they going to cope with life in general. but there is a growing backlash social media users have questioned whether students have become could it be possible oversensitive warning people can no longer cope with fictional violence how will they deal indeed with the reality. and there's also being slammed by experts the artistic director of the cambridge shakespeare festival says students shouldn't study the literature if they're not aware it works for trade file it's the same warning could be applied to other classics. psychs batters nancy to death and have 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 people's half devil and half child. his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and restored dawson scarred with the numerable puncture marks finally thrust the sharp point home press down the tiny piston. or my sinewy forearms are off to make a nice cup of tea want to do the same i'll see with the latest news headlines at the top of the hour.

i. that's so. but also dead to the ship. it was suggested well proved and a fairly strong one there were two thousand. and the study it's a very extensive study done by a well respected scientist. do chemicals that down the advertising really

increase the risk of cancer. known to infuse them in the launch into a shared skepticism they do not believe that risk is is truly by independent scientists and in the industry did you for this. compensation for my time as was the others why is that in the media hobby. doing if you want to learn more you'll get a definite on the flop. you're not back. is it big business against health. started. selling you on the idea that dropping bombs brings news to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battle. for new socks for the tell you that gossip and

probably worthwhile for the most important. of advertising tell me you are not cool enough to buy their product. we. will watch. hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle we are in salt in the south of russia attending the discussion on this edition of the program we discuss. and its impact on u.s. russia relation.