this hour's headlines stories russian lawmakers voted in favor of giving moscow the power to classify media foreign agents and similar to those made against. the united states. the response to washington's actions the self-appointed guardians of global press freedom usually quiet on the treatment of artes u.s. channel. reveals that volunteers attempting to help refugees crossing international borders are being treated as criminals but. we hear from one humanitarian aid worker who fell foul of the authorities. believe. the humanitarian. help.

your chiming in from right around the world this hour welcome to moscow into r.t.e. international my names you know neal good to have your company our top story lawmakers in russia's lower of parliament have voted in favor of requiring media outlets which are funded from abroad to register as foreign agents in eight days in response to similar pressure placed on our team in the united states breaking down the details for us. first of all we wouldn't be hearing this news from the russian parliament if it wasn't for the american department of justice which forced r.t. america to register as a foreign agent in the us the russian government promised to fight back and we can see that it's happening but to make similar demands for foreign media in this

country to register as foreign agents russia's own legislation required amendments and they have just been approved by the russian duma and now the draft bill will be moved on to the upper chamber of the russian parliament for a final vote the amendment has its that a media outlet may find itself on the list of foreign agents in russia if it receives money from foreign countries i.e. their governments international organizations or foreign organizations for an individuals as well as russian legal entities which are funded from any of the sources that i mentioned above if a media organization becomes a foreign agent whatever it publishes has to come with a disclaimer plus it has to provide the russian authorities with regular reports on their finances something that was also discussed at the same duma session was a recent buzz feed piece titled secret finding sixty russian payments to finance

the election campaign of twenty sixteen but the first thing that comes up on your mind if you're reading this headline is that it's a groundbreaking investigative report on russian meddling in the us election the article tells you about citibank money transfers intended for russian embassies abroad wow the problem is though that russia also had its parliamentary election back in september twenty sixth and there were polling stations opened at russian embassies around the world for russian citizens who couldn't vote at home and that required some money. russian officials did confirm that the cash and these transfers was spent on that but to read about this in the original boss feet article you really have to scroll down and scroll down a lot so this bit of quality investigative journalism by buzz feed or

maybe not was also brought up at the duma session earlier this wednesday. when we got in touch with a number of global press freedom organizations to get their reactions to r.t. america being coerced into the turning itself a foreign agent but the response has been strangely meted out against the of explains. washington has had enough of. russia today a russian propaganda arm why have you not shut down r t on you tube it's a propaganda machine mr walker r t push what we might call fake news it's can't just shut it down but making life miserable that it's caton by law america will now have to put this disclaimer on all of its work if we show you a video of a fireman in texas rescuing a kitten well that's rude to you by the russian government every twitter account of

america where it's correspondents has to have that disclaimer in its bio problemi is that it doesn't fit into the bio which means that america can't be on twitter. will also have to send copies of everything that publishes to the us government reports videos and even tweets within forty eight hours everything must be ready for inspection at any time. so how is journalists reacting freedom of speech groups and all that well here is how outraged they are i'm afraid i'm not we'll enough informed about this particular topic to report anything of substance to your viewers well that's surprising and here i thought it was all over the news for weeks ok next response. the office of the

or a c. representative in freedom of media has just received an official less room this is we cannot provide a comment for the time being not sure where the u.s.c. have been but they say they just got the letter obviously had no idea about what was going on vacation maybe next. asked this is an issue in washington that it's not appropriate for us to comment on the details that explains it the national union of journalists only comment about things in the u.k. and china and iraq island syria canada russia iran israel turkey and so on. their response has been left one thing the president this sets is huge it's enormous but hey doesn't concern them yet russia has been so effectively vilified by the press by the us government by the

u.k. government that organisations who should be speaking out for free speech who should be condemning these attacks against r.t. are either too afraid to do so or they see they are actually lined with the attacks and so i find that incredibly disappointing i think people whether they like r.t. or they don't like r t should defend artie's right to exist to broadcast in the united states to say what it wants to say to interview or wants to interview i think the right to free speech the right to free inquiry is now greatly under attack in the united states in the land of the free you better watch what you say or i'll put you on a list. well now one of america's most popular news website sees getting

caught up in the campaign against r.t. the drudge reports which links to hundreds of news sites is under fire from the washington post for showing stories from this channel the site's accuse the publishing links to quote russian propaganda and even though it's only a tiny number of articles come purred to what drudge links to from the washington post itself here's how this site boss mark drudge reacted i've linked to washington post over ten thousand times in twenty five years of doing drudge report i can only give them thirty seven percent of their referral traffic he's a brute who business not even a thank you instead you are a russian operative this was all faintly amusing and ridiculous for a time but it's now heading into a dark place it's a dark and dangerous path and we don't know how far it will no go it is branding of journalists as agents and that is very dangerous of course for the

safety of journalists in many hotspots and difficult parts of the world while meddling fever still grips america it seems to have also spread overseas hungary is no accusing washington of interfering in its upcoming elections the hunger in foreign ministry has summoned america's envoy over u.s. plans to fund local media. the ministry of foreign affairs and trade some of the us shows you defer asking for an explanation and told him we consider this a political intervention by the u.s. department of state ahead of the elections the u.s. state department said on monday it would devote seven hundred thousand dollars to fund rule media outlets in hungary it's a use the goal is to increase access to objective information in the country it will offer technical and financial support to local media as well as

a platform for him very internal this let's talk more in this story about dunning mccallum's executive director at the ron paul institute is back on the program always good to have your company danielle so there we have a dozen carrying government calling the move political intervention your thoughts on that well it is absolutely blatant political intervention the united states is going to go to the one here in countryside it's going to prop up certain newspapers that it considers to be. pro democracy which is pro washington and this is in advance of national elections coming up next year but also more importantly because this doesn't get into place and earlier in the year it really has more to do with the local elections that will take place in twenty nineteen and that is absolute political interference in the internal affairs of i'm very was by the way has had numerous completely free and fair elections including the current ruling party has

been elected three times in totally free and fair elections that sounds like democracy to me from the report it does look like washington did not consult the hungaroring government about the plans at all why wouldn't they. that's the real question and then i think there are a couple of important things david costa launch of who's the deputy chief of mission who was summoned he was also summoned back in october when he gave a speech attacking the hungry and media which is free and fair it's privately owned for the most part it has a diverse perspective and he attacked it in october and was called and now he was called in for launching this program of course he's not acting on his own but i do have a hard time believing that president trump is even aware of this intervention in hungary and internal affairs the state department is made up of never trump burgers they hate the fact that he's trying to cut their budget i just have to believe that he's not aware of it and president shop and victor orbán have a prime minister of hungary have a very good relationship so i think this is

a rogue operation by the state department and i think it would be a very wise thing for a secretary of state to listen to put an x. on it just to put it in other language then do you see this is an attempt to boost the opposition in hungary is this one of the things that are trying to bring attention to do you think this is absolutely the case the state department has been opposed to viktor orban and his feet as party from the very beginning they have intervened repeatedly since one thousand nine hundred nine thousand nine hundred ninety on the side of the opponents of the center right in hungary these are the same people that are entrenched in the state department they feel that they are pursuing their own policy and it is absolutely a politically biased political motivated attempt to change the media in the countryside and break up the popularity of the door bonds who does government when you look at this in just coming so shortly after danielle accusations in america of

russian meddling in the u.s. how does that sit. well it is it's i think it's hypocrisy on one part because without any evidence the u.s. accuses russia of intervening in its internal affairs in an election and then the u.s. blatantly overtly intervenes in interferes in hungary an election you don't go and you don't prop up certain newspapers in the countryside and just in advance of an election and call it not meddling and that is if the russians were were we're subsidizing american media that was in favor of the russian favorite candidate the entire america would have a panic attack it had a panic attack with no evidence so now it's absolutely apocrypha see on the part of washington can we just expound on something you said it's quite an interesting thought to me the timing of it as you mentioned there are elections coming up i think there's parliamentary elections as well as local elections within the next eighteen months. the timing down in what's your thoughts on that well i think the

timing is too soon for this program to be operational for the general elections coming in twenty eight but if you start getting media in the countryside that starts propagandizing the population a certain way starts covering things a certain way and they do it because they're being paid by the u.s. that will have an effect on the local elections that will follow the general elections in twenty nineteen and i think that is the real target of a fetus in viktor orban or a very very popular in the countryside that is where their strength is and i think this is in the tent to weaken that from the ground and we'll be keeping a close eye on developments on this thanks very much for your take this hour down in the gallons executive director at the paul institute. on the lebanese president is accusing saudi arabia of a hostile act it concerns the lebanese prime minister who threw to the saudi capital under properly resigned in riyadh on saturday. nothing just defies that

hariri did not return after twelve days we consider it to be custody and detention violating the vienna convention and the convention of human rights and a hard look how look i'm free in thirty arabia if i wanted to leave tomorrow i would leave tomorrow all lebanese people need to know that i did resign i know it's not an ordinary way of resigning by any prime minister i know that but i did it because i wanted to send them into shock positive shock so lebanese people would realize that our country is in danger here so much so many aspects to this story beirut based journalist martin j. pricks it down for us now. it's reading more and more every day like a really bad hollywood movie scripts where nobody really knows the ending we received a statement in beirut which i could got sort of attention that the president here michel own is losing some patience with the situation with the standoff but he suggested that he can only accept the resignation of his dad if harry comes back to

beirut and presents himself in person like that of course and i'm back to sunday where the nation here was gripped by live television interview which mr hariri gave whereby he said to the presenter that he expected to be back in beirut in a number of days in the last year while mr hariri has been prime minister in lebanon there was a great deal of pressure and expectation on him from the saudis in particular the new crown prince mohammed bin salman to redress and renegotiate the power balance in the region both in lebanon and outside lebanon critical to this deal with the haass the crux of this entire to buckler is yemen now become if he comes back to lebanon and most people suspect he will next few days he would have a lot more leverage on his side to negotiate a deal hezbollah. immediately after the break we've got the story of one aid worker who fund that rescuing a small child from living in a sewer was seen lissa's commendable done criminal by the you.

dropping bombs brings peace to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battles that. you saw try to tell you that the beach gossip the public but. i'm telling you on the cool enough to buy their products. that we along with all on. walking. every single minute there's a new drug for some fabulous days like shaky like center that they make up then they get a grant from some corrupt congressmen in america billions of dollars and the side effect is almost make may do suicide may do suicide to me and this is what you know

but the american flag is inducing suicide because you look at that you say oh it's a form a caucus and. you're back with are to international a report from a u.k. based thing claims the european union is effectively criminalising those helping refugees to cross international borders its laws in europe feel to distinguish between people trafficking which by definition is exploitative and smuggling which may not be well one of the volunteers mentioned in the document is a fifty year old former british soldier rob laurie now he hit the headlines back in january twenty sixth seen when french authorities run to him for trying to help

a four year old and her father illegally cross into the u.k. he fund them living in a sewer pipe at the notorious pele jungle camp and this is his story. years ago i went over to help in in france in the notorious jungle and i was building shelters there. and i befriended a young afghan girl and their father and she used to help me for many weeks and you know amongst building shelters until one day i found out she had a family who lived literally two miles from myself and i decided to you know with with you know a little bit of thoughts of what we had i decided to try and get still her family it was quite obvious that you know i didn't do it for money it was quite obvious i didn't do it for you know any political gain or anything like that it was quite will be she had a purely did it out of

a humanitarian. desire to help this little girl the french government the three judges in the car so all of this for what it was they viewed it as a stupid act by next soldier. well the act of benevolence could have landed him five years in prison before his punishment was reduced to a one thousand euro fine and called the crime of compassion by the media your trial began on the french authorities. i could only presume that agenda would be that if they were to stop aid workers are humanitarians going to hell then that would force refugees and then back off awesome away unless you've actually lived among refugees and heard some of the stories you can't really understand why they would want to come over you know two european shows the refugees about these. you know

these are escaping you know be you know real was let's look at what's happening with governments around the world at the moment let's take donald trump's america showing donald trump is trying to internalize america with it is sell cope with the fact that donald trump is completely out of his depth with any kind of knowledge of refugees around the world so if the governments think by restricting humanitarian aid workers other volunteers are charities to help on the ground that kind of kid him selves in the kind of trying to sweep you know the issues under the under the capital so to speak the situation is going to grow when we realize that you know something has to be done. for the racial divide in the united states is being seized upon by a group of activists who have been trolling school campuses with posters to caring it's ok to be white

a move that's offending both pupils and teachers and identified bunch of people have been plastering signs and stickers like these in neighborhoods and campuses across america claiming it's ok to be white wow one of the vice of comparing the nation is in shambles i was lake really shocked that someone like had the guts to do this because it's like we try to promote diversity so much but see in the melting pot that is america everyone is always proud of their. heritage you have the african heritage studies you have the hispanic black jewish heritage months cultural appropriation movements and so on but these people who want to publicly state that there is nothing to be ashamed of being white are hiding their faces so much for diversity harvard law school will not let that happen here we live work teach in learn to gather in a community that are stronger better and deeper because of our diversity we are

taking this seriously and are investigating this incident this may be part of a concerted national campaign to form a racial and political tension in our school and community but who would even come up with this crazy idea the ford chair and chat room the so-called troll kingdom now these guys have been responsible for spreading trends and movements whose purpose was one thing only trolling and about two weeks ago they again initiated just that they asked their followers to spread this poster with a very carefully crafted guidelines such as a no way coming in contact with the left keeping a polite not aggressive font and no vandalism among the few other pointers amazing that was in it for check and created another obvious trolling complain with the purpose of exposing many people's sensitivities making them act a little crazy towards a flyer put it out there publicly to say hey we're going to told use people and see

how they react the media knows it but these do react anyway because they think that this act is so reprehensible well before five letters on a regular sheet of paper is just going to destroy the whole world well separately a writer in the new york times is questioning whether it's right for his children to be friends with white people here's a political commentator on for me brian logan again he blames the media for exaggerating the racial conflict in the country. well i think the racial problem is overblown and often is really that many racial problems in the united states many of the problems they people think that we face are just people in the media like the guy who broke the article in a new york times and many others most people pretty much get along there is some separation of people but they just be alone cultural lines that could be within races as well so it was not so much about this big racial division there is some racial tension but i think the media who wants to have that be the normal thing

they push some people unfortunately fall into it. america is pulling the plug on funding a program to clear wartime munitions in cambodia the country is still littered with mines and other explosives after the u.s. dropped more than two million bombs there during the war with neighboring vietnam officials in pen and pen say the move comes as a surprise insists washington has a moral duty to help clear the remnants which still have severe consequences for the population. they just decide to come to see my. soul. i have no word to say about this very disappointed to susan's.

moral obligation where did drop a lot of bombs in cambodia kilmeny comporting people's destroyed minutes come bored in. school many facilities. that were not during the first phase of the us dropped bombs people were evacuated from this village the second time they drop small bombs the blue and white plastic covered bombs which burn all the bamboos that was the second place during the third space when all of the people fled they drop bigger bombs such as b. fifty two. we thought she was just born with that condition as we know now it was from those chemical weapons in the past we only drank water from the smallpox.

one hundred was not. in the arm didn't develop out or before i didn't really get mad until the us embassy announced that it was because of the take us then i called my. people in the southern african country of zimbabwe where the military seize power under tain long time president robert mugabe early on wednesday there were reports of heavy guy. fire and explosions being heard in the capital tanks being stationed at key points across. for the military took over the state broadcaster the move has prompted speculation of a possible coup but the military say it is targeting corrupt individuals or run this and bob wayne president the army also said that who has been in power for almost forty years is safe. coming right up the repercussions of

r.t. america being forced to register as a foreign agent stand by for cross talk on i'll see you again in thirty minutes time for.

i would see him you don't have any protection for whistleblowers at all if you do have to put that forward what was on. the public sector as well as in the private sector that information would have to be can be made public and that actually puts pressure on the parliament to become more on this. and. that business is in favor of the public.

hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle according to the department of justice the channel you're watching now is an agent of a foreign even hostile power all the while to deal with she refuses to explain why this is the case or even cite what laws we may have broken but something else is in play critics warn r.t. is a test case for a wider campaign of media suppression. cross talking foreign agents i'm joined by my guess we straight ahead in washington he's an investigative journalist and co-host of faultlines on radio sputnik in salt lake city we have rocky anderson he is a civil rights lawyer former mayor of salt lake city and the two thousand and twelve nominee of the justice party for president and in london we crossed him marcus papadopoulos he's the editor of politics first.