the only show i go out of my way to. is there really. is the john oliver of our two year marriage. we are verily better than. the sea people you've never heard of. jack the. president of the world bank very. seriously send us an e-mail. breaking news this hour twitter says it has dropped advertising by all accounts owned by the channel. twitter included darting in its report to congress on alleged russian meddling despite offering this channel an exclusive and pricey advertising campaign ahead of the us elections. i i i also to come this hour catalonia future is in the balance thousands gather

in barcelona according to the regional government come up with a concrete answer on what is next and the u.s. will release classified files into president kennedy's assassination after a fifty year deadline passes the lid on one of the country's darkest. welcomes just turned seven o'clock in the evening here in moscow you're watching r.t. international start with breaking news because twitter has blocked all advertisement from accounts of this channel to discuss this further and i joined by r.t. downhole conceives in the studio first and covering events than it is a complicated story just run through what certainly is only very much developing story mall today the latest breaking news of course over the last few minutes as you say is that. twitter has now officially out why aren't all. over

the. sister sites platforms r.t. america german russian arabic and french as well as well as well as the sputnik news agency now twitter have justified this they say they believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power but i also want users to feel safe when they interact with our site so somehow users must feel unsafe when seeing the advertisement of the latest news we have now all this is quite ironic given the context of the relationship between twitter and r.t. and how it was in the lead up to the twenty sixth the us presidential election r.t. have taken the decision to release some information about negotiations the took place between twitter and our two years early as april twenty sixth in fact way before the election r.t. offered r.t. was offered rather a package by twitter this was an exclusive custom tailor made package specifically

for coverage of the u.s. election it would have contained many perks products to customize the moji hash tag election analytics research solutions even a dedicated team of twitter experts to help with media strategy now all this was offered by twitter to create to deliver an unbiased point of view of the us elections with an edge utilizing the powerful technology of twitter distribute the message in real time so very much something that would have given r.t. a huge scope a huge hold on the social media market and increase its amount of viewers now already chose not to take that offer up the price tag was to have went over all the budgets for social media and that was subsequently rejected after the go now what's really happened here in from trusted media partners offered us the most packages to an entity that's been banned from even advertising over the last year as we. no

over the last year and a half there's been this his theory over russian election interference russian bots russian trolls russian hacking on social media somehow over the course of that eighteen months r.t. has been moved from trusted media organisation partner to being effectively on par with these trolls bots and hackers quite how that's happened is really beyond me but it's very characteristic of the pressure that r.t. has faced not only from social media but for example registering under the foreign agent act in the united states as well though on the first of the twitter will go before congress to testify on the issue of russian election interference no doubt r.t. will also feature heavily in that as well. in chief who the simmer down in and one of her tweets has said she very much hopes that twitter will make sure in that version of events where they actually approached r.t. with these advertising offers and she's also called this a very sad state of affairs for media for germans who said that as a result of this. it's particularly american media in russia may

well suffer some sort of consequences as well indeed she does have a point i mean imagine if twitter face some sort of restrictions or buy ins in russia that would indeed. quite justifiably raise a media outcry so it's a very much a developing story we're yet to see where it goes and it will be very interesting to see in a few days' time what the two are presented is of course a before congress and how they present that story sure ok thanks dan that was daniel hawkins there for it breaking things down well the decision to block awarded for just minutes from accounts on r.t. and support it was immediately followed by reaction online to some have expressed their discontent with the move on the social media platform itself sounding it for being connected to the white house and looking news outlets that contradict its he says. we get the thoughts now of any mash on she's a former m i five intelligence officer and let's see what she thinks about all of

this good evening to you annie what's your reaction then to this move by twitter. i think disappointment because twitter actually stood up see american authorities when we. became notorious about five years ago unlike some of the other social media platforms they actually fought for their users so i'm sorry to stress to see that they're doing this but the key point i think is so what if countries pay a certain amount for adverts so what in the american democratic system there are things called the political action committees that will raise money and advertise on behalf of electoral candidates and they will do this for presidential elections as well and these are cool super pacs and they are anonymous the. top line is all for how much any corporation any person can actually contribute to these organizations and they can go out and advertise and they will spend millions

or billions promoting their electoral candid it so you know for twitter to have received you know a few hundred thousand first facebook have received a few hundred thousand so what is that really going to shift the electoral result in america i don't think so what you make of the timing to given that twitter is about to testify in congress shortly. it sounds like they're running scared i mean there's been a big build up on the pushback against russian media we know that i mean i was on our tyranny a few days ago talking about this where they are trying to shut down freedom of expression where they're trying to allege that anyone who appears in r.t. and has a dissenting voice towards the western consensus the american consensus must therefore be putin's useful idiots we've seen this campaign build up over the last year there's been think tank after think tank producing reports there have been lies promoted in the western media particularly in the washington post and there's been a blacklist that was published in the washington post could probably not which is

some of the best alternative news websites in the end defend world by the way so it seems to go on and on you know where is this going to stop what sort of outcome do you think more get. with this inquiry and what we'll hear in congress i mean people who come forward with a lot of opinions and what they don't like with the end of the day they have to produce facts though to back up what they're saying. presumably yes and the facts seem to point to the fact that you know there might be russian companies paying for adverts on twitter to the tune of almost three hundred thousand dollars so what you know compared to what the super pacs and the pacs the political action committees pay into the candidates promotion in american elections this is peanuts i mean just to give you a few figures in twenty sixteen in the presidential elections jeb bush received support to the tune of eighty six million dollars market receive support to the

tune of fifty six million dollars and hillary clinton received support from to the tune of one hundred thirty three million dollars apparently and this was all done through legal channels in america through these political action committees and these super pacs so how on earth is you know a few hundred thousand dollars apparently paid by russian organizations to social media to make a huge difference. connection i mean it is it i mean you wouldn't expect. a question to be asked in congress about all of this. one would hope someone would prompt some sort of congressional person to ask these questions i don't think it's going to happen because of course all the congressmen and women are also funded by these pacs and super pacs this is a problem this is a subversion of democracy in the sense that if corporations who since two thousand and twelve by the way can donate as much money as they want to support their

preferred electoral candid it if they want to make sure that they vote in the way that they would choose they don't have to bribe them they don't have to do anything they just have to support the election through advertising so you know is what any other country does what any other corporation does to your sort of impact you think this could have. generally on relations between russia and the west because at the moment it seems it's relentless we've heard an inquiry is now taking place in the u.k. about potential russian interference in breaks and also the elections there i mean it's doesn't stop does it i mean it must have an impact as much we can diss the fact that doesn't appear to be a lot of hard evidence here it continues. of course continues and you know you say a lie once it's a lie you say a lie a thousand times it becomes the truth i think that was gerbils from the second world war it's a disgusting truth. but we have a situation where for example during the french elections this year said that

russia was hacking his e-mails and it turned out when the french intelligence agencies investigators there was no evidence whatsoever the russians done it the same with the german election so this is a lie this is being peddled i think one of the things that people need to be most concerned about is because of this narrative of russia trying to hack elections russia trying to democracy russia trying to buy influence that we're now seeing big social media corporations like facebook and google bringing in algorithms to try and stop weed out. if new sources and we are seeing this already in the west since he's out with them to put in place in april where. websites that have had huge numbers of visitors suddenly noticing a huge deep in visitors because they are being hidden on google searches and this is censorship by any other means and also i would suggest that what's happening on twitter is also censorship ok and you look really good to talk to you thanks for your time tonight i was only mash on a former m i five intelligence officer thank you. ok well let's talk further now

with r.t. social media coordinator i've across here about what this latest blog by twitter can mean for r.t. iver good to talk to you again and let's just run through then we know that twitter has said ok r.t. you can no longer advertise on our platform just talk generally though in terms of r.t. you how it functions what does this make. well i guess it's probably important to distinguish kind of organic growth from from you know campaigns and and kind of commercial activity on the platforms. this is where platforms make their money their you know advertising space on those platforms to organizations they want to grow their. the the band effectively blocks all members of the ecosystem so that's the arabic french german english russian and spanish channels from campaigning on nine hundred seventeen live other ways as well from campaigning and

you know getting out there and kind of trying to reach. your followers or reach reach new audiences. are did the you know the ecosystem is quite vibrant anyway there's a strong level organic growth there and there certainly was in the early days as well when we really started growing in twitter kind of two thousand and thirteen two thousand and forty before we signed a partnership deal with twitter although i have to say you know the level of growth that we experienced after the campaign with twitter probably didn't. i found personally disappointing. at the time so it basically effectively stymies us from kind of campaigning from advertising. on the platforms where we're very well recognized very well received if for example you take the campaign was very successfully carried out in washington d.c. in london and blame them you know mr train and all of that kind of stuff you know where you build a brand new build ideas and you spread the word around you know and for the

integrity of the product. basically we're being prevented from doing that. by the organization now you've built up a. good relationship with. twitter. so it's a. doesn't it just explain what sort of relationship. relationship with. you know through the partnership that was basically set up in twenty fifteen . twitter's changed a lot since then as well and america has changed a lot since then so you've got to give you know you've got to have the context in place to try and understand what's actually going on on a partnership deal with twitter and have a fantastic relationship with their senior you know senior executives in the new space you know and still do you know in many ways. the decision then to pitch r.t. for the for us election or in general as part of a partnership and the u.s.

election came up under that kind of discussion that was you know was entirely twitterers they came to us they came to visit moscow it was great we welcome them it was great to have them here and the conversations were very interesting we had some meetings afterwards and. basically decided to campaign to the extent that we did around the u.s. election entirely within the parameters and best practice parameters set down by twitter you know we've never broken a rule i dare say given the climate in america right now how do our team broken a rule we'd be very quick to hear about a right now but we haven't quite clearly and in fairness to the guys it's where they haven't kicked us off the platform. but it seems to me like that there's a certain desire to squeeze us a little bit in terms of you know how to reach across the digital and up and so they've never really expressed concern about the content or any of these concerns

that they've expressed today no there were. no expressions of concern about our content we've always been on the contrary you know we've always tried to be very innovative digital publisher we certainly have embraced periscope we would have loved to have. strengthened our three hundred sixty degree form our product on twitter but that was in the wrong or they discontinued you know we were we were big users of the. a minor news discovery product that was then refused to us by the minor after some bad press in the states as well. it's reasonably. well look it's unfortunate that some of these things got in the way but either way as a news agency twitter is the most vibrant platform in the world to be on the online user association and everybody will tell you any news that breaks happens first on twitter and you know that's why it's a very very important platform to us at the same time it's it's really surprising. unfortunate that they've decided in this decision unilaterally to very different

campaigning but in my opinion it speaks it speaks more to the kind of level hysteria level of hysteria that is in america and the actual nuts and bolts of our relationship whether. uses of twitter or the companies that used to. be wary now given what's happened to us today it's very difficult to say on the i don't think so no i really don't think so the again i think any risk analysis around that would probably focus on the kind of russian history and russia good stuff. that we fortunately too much and would see our team just being called up and not kind of whirlwind you know. having to respond to that as you did or you know you tube was certainly part of a. fairly high profile discussion in the new york times last week and facebook is being called to the british. yeah you know well there's

a lot of social platforms out there you know but you have to look from our point of view as a really important platform for us we certainly deeply regret or were shocked by it we deeply regret that you know we couldn't have spoken about this before hundred he's given given each other some heads up and you know quite clearly adamantly you know stand our ground in terms of the integrity and the quality of the products that we publish on our platform bloody good. believe it i was alive across the social media coordinator for us thank you thank you buddy. well as we touched on there british lawmakers have revived attempts to find any trace of russian interference in the outcome of last year's brics it referendum and to see chalk and has more on that. well the anti russia hype continues now here in the u.k. following the brave but quite futile example of this we've seen in the us of trying to implicate russia in election results that were seen as a unfavorable now we do know that here in london

a committee within the house of commons had sent a letter to the c.e.o. of facebook mark zuckerberg asking him to provide details on russian ads linked to not just the bracks it referendum but also the last u.k. general election now this is part of an investigation being carried out by this committee and inquiry on feek news trying to determine whether or not for an actor's are getting involved by using online platforms to interfere in elections now the russian ambassador to the you can exonerate prevent go so he was surprised to see this kind of reaction from the u.k. given that the brits at referendum was called of course by the previous conservative government he's asked a question of it's not clear who the british government is if russia is able to influence these kinds of things now this comes just days ago we saw a labor m.p. within the british parliament also say that it's important to enquire into any participation by russia in terms of interfering in western democracies and really

all of this is seen as a sort of repetition of this having been carried out on a also quite wide scale in the us facebook had said that russia linked accounts had bought one hundred thousand dollars worth of ads but obviously this was seen as largely seen as very little proof of anything given the multi million dollar budgets when it comes to the election campaigns in the us so really all of this despite the lack of any tangible proof really showing us that the show must go on considering russia has become everyone's favorite bad boy it seems i was on there with a little i did speak about this story with russia's ambassador to the u k. once there was a decision to make this referendum for brig's it it was done and the country is still divided because half of the country is for braggs it out of the country

is posing this i'll tell you even the government is this divided the parliament is divided some newspapers and even the officials there saying that one way or another russia. meddled this decision of the british people but for me the doesn't look. quite convincing it looks even funny because in this case definitely it looks like the outright insulting for we were both the british government and the british people that was their decision we don't have any effect from any single publication in the british press and most of them are very negative every day that russia interfered i mean almost everywhere and but the key question is where are the facts as the riggers said where is the be. we don't have them so basically i'm quite sure that there will be some ill again. but no facts this will be the outcome.

now in other news today the catalan president. has given a long awaited statement he said he would not call a snap election and the many had expected him to make the spanish senate meanwhile will start debating applying article one five five on removing catalonians autonomy and then votes in it on friday. you almost are more than willing to put forward an election as long as there's a go and see the vote will be validated and treated with respect there's been no such guarantee to date. while many people have been left confused by the apparent inaction of the region's government the president was expected to make a decisive announcement today on the region's future but once again left the situation in limbo and throughout the day people have been rallying in barcelona demanding that the catalan government deliver on the results of the independence referendum and break away from spain well r.t.

should have been skis in barcelona and sent this report. there was much speculation that colas put your mood would you use his speech on tuesday evening to class not election here in catalonia many people including many reports in the local spanish media had been speculating that the catalan president would make that announcement because that would be one way of stopping a very crucial vote that's due to take place on friday evening the spanish government even with which that is opposed to the article one fifty five now if senators in spain vote full article one fifty five essentially you could move to a regional autonomy that catalan has held for the last three years that is of course something that many people here are unhappy about this comes a bit stout almost a month of tensions between the governments in madrid down the government in catalonia a good the feature of this country since many people millions went to the polls at the beginning of october and food t.v.'s in

a referendum on independence now the president old cuts of a new color speech you won't talks about why he didn't call that snap election he said that he attempted to get the warranties for these elections to make them happen but he said he couldn't get those warranties and so therefore there was nothing a new guarantee that the justifications he wanted to cool the election would happen that he has enormous pool that snap election he had did go on to say that no one can say that he's not been willing to sacrifice he has been deadlocked to looks pretty much throughout the day in fact he canceled this announcement twice because he's been talking to people from all sides of the spectrum here in catalonia before he made that announcement that they will not be a snap election however what he has said is that the food the measure is in to go and see this crisis between bitrate in fact in libya will now be in the hands of the council movie in parliament and there is

a chance the catalunya parliament itself. just saw it on whether we should declare outright secession right independence from spain that would be something that will happen we will find out more about that in the next few days if that is something there is trying to do but for the moment this puts the ball back in the spanish court which is they are due to go to more on article one fifty five now i can tell you that we were at a protest on wednesday many people at that protest said they supported staying part of spain however they were unhappy with article one fifty five they didn't want catalonia to lose its regional autonomy so this could actually spoke even mood division here in catalonia we could see people move regionally unionists who wanted to stay in spain actually deciding to change their vote because the way that madrid has handled this crisis. it's hard to pinsky there later today a new light could be shed on one of the twentieth century's darkest episodes donald

trump's administration is allowing the release of classified documents into the assassination of president kennedy that as the fifty year congress deadline passes to keep the information secret well kennedy was killed in dallas in november of one nine hundred sixty three he was in an open top car with the first lady when shots rang at the killer was lee harvey oswald he was swiftly arrested but was shot and killed two days later while under police escort a story of long discussed his motive and his past and he did have an interesting if brief experience in the soviet union. we traced his footsteps there. where might you find the most drama harvey oswald's life story before the events of november nineteenth sixty three well it could be his short but eventful stay in this city for years before he was president kennedy.

most of the places which form part of extraordinary trip still exist like the. railway station where he arrived from helsinki in finland his last stop in a western country before reaching the u.s.s.r. . also old stayed right here at the hotel berlin which is now the savoy it's just a few minutes walk from the kremlin and the former k.g.b. headquarters. his visa meant that he only had six days to get a soviet citizenship so he wasted no time in trying to secure his hammer and sickle passport which began with this letter i believe harvey oswald requested that i be

granted citizenship in the soviet union i want citizenship because i am a communist and a worker i have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers are slaves i do not want to return to any country outside of the soviet union there was interview after interview with the k.g.b. but couldn't convince officials he should be allowed that passport then back inside hotel berlin his russian guide in reality a supervisor that is assigned to every foreign visitor. inside the bag. inside one of these rooms he'd slashed his wrist attempting to commit suicide doctors managed to save oswald's life he was allowed to stay and wait for mercy from a higher soviet authority with this confidence boost to the extreme asked american diplomats to revoke his citizenship then he agreed to an interview with one u.s. journalist i would say he was extremely superficial. very immature

and very misinformed and. it took the former u.s. marine an enormous effort more than two months to get a soviet passport only for one year the day after he got hold of the document he set off for minsk and bell reuss the capital of one of the u.s.s.r. small republics to work out a soviet factory he boarded his train ride on this station and minsk oswald met his first soviet lover but she turned down his marriage proposal because she was afraid to marry an american and just two months later he met a nineteen year old marine a person his future wife and mother of his first child yet with a drab job and nothing to do outside of work according to oswald himself he would soon make the decision to leave the u.s.s.r. for good along with his family.