you have to build perspectives and give them the chance to be one part of this society but on the other hand you have to here do worries about the germans and find together with those people who have worries solutions which can help for a better future together. now the u.s. national security advisor has his knives out for the new year with a call to review what he describes as insidious russian meddling h.r. mcmaster here says that pulling back the curtain might be a vital first step to prevent further interference the russian blaming trend hit full throttle almost a year ago with the release of a us intelligence report that kept the momentum going throughout twenty seven. arguably the biggest story of twenty seventeen was russia it was on the lips of world leaders and politicians but this wasn't always the case this was obama's

analysis of the country back in twenty fourteen russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors. not out of strength but out of weakness regional power weakness well that was the past in the last year we've seen russia propelled to be the greatest threat on the planet in the words of the former f.b.i. chief what kind of threat do you believe russia presents to our democratic process given what you know about russia's behavior. well certainly that in my view the greatest threat of any nation on earth well here's how it all began on january sixth of last year u.s. intelligence agencies issued a report saying that russia had tried to influence our elections with this russian president vladimir putin ordered an influence campaign in twenty sixteen aimed at the us presidential election russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the

us democratic process denigrate secretary clinton and home her electability and potential presidency we further assess putin and the russian government developed a clear preference for president elect trump now the authors of the report at the time said they had high confidence in their judgments a few pages later they explain exactly what they meant by high confidence with a little disclaimer high confidence generally indicates that judgments of based on high quality information from multiple sources high confidence does not imply that the assessment is fact or a certainty such judgments might be wrong well after the report the word got around that blaming russia was now a thing and that opened the floodgates in twenty seventeen hardly a lection went by in europe without russia being accused of meddling. the balance disruptor covert food in two thousand and sixteen covert disruptor.

part of our responsibility to the russians about what's going on in the united states germany france the other one in montenegro. from hacking into the danish defense ministry to trying to meddle in the maltese elections russia has had a truly diverse collection of accusations thrown at it russia is accused of influencing the bragg's it vote through social media it's probably yes sure i believe it i believe all of this it's russia they're crazy right russia was accused of intervening in the french election yeah you know why i believe that to the german election sure i catalonia separatism yeah yeah i believe that to all take

oliver about sending bots after a star trek star trying to take him down with sexual allegations star check no star wars i would believe if i had my doubts about a box so i would say no. they were actually accused of that was. russia hacked into the u.s. irish and british power grids fake russia was influencing the braggs it vote through social media fake russia hacked into cataloging a separatism and was promoting cataloging a separatism in spain real how about buying ads on social media in order to influence u.s. public opinion yeah yeah why not make up the budget actually all of those allegations were leveled against russia do you believe that do you think that they're actually doing these kind of things from what the seventeen u.s. . intelligence agencies syndicate and the strong possibility that they did i feel it's just i saw the news that to sell newspapers people just run and one story then

put it on everything else that listeners showed new yorkers is dwarfed from an actual file of things that russia has been accused of it turns out that if you point the finger at the kremlin you can find a convenient scapegoat for almost any trouble that you're dealing with they will mop. r.t. new york. germany has started the year by introducing a new law to tackle hate speech but it's already been criticized for blocking the twitter feed of a satirical magazine and it's american now explains applying this kind of legislation can be a legal minefield. well governments are now trying to regulate content on the internet by pushing the online world to crack down on his speech extremism and of course the mysterious bots and trolls who somehow manage to elect presidents but so far there are attempts haven't exactly been successful for example in germany a new online hate speech laws only came into force on monday and twitter has already banned a parody account after users reported it as hate speech but under the law platforms

have to delete violent or slanderous content by a certain deadline or face a fine up to sixteen million dollars well the first case a far right politician of the alternative for germany party had her twitter account briefly suspended after users fired her tweets as hate speech against muslims now that's after she lashed out against german police for putting out a new year's tweet in arabic and prosecutors are now examining whether or not her tweets do in fact incite hatred then on top of that twitter banned the account of a magazine that was actually mocking her but in doing so repeated her line now the magazine's editor said he was shocked by the decision and the association of german journalist said that it qualifies as censorship adding that they had warned of this danger when the law was drafted last year a private company based in the united states decides the boundaries of freedom of the press and opinion in germany now this is even going on in the u.k. where twitter and facebook are facing sanctions after m.p.'s that said that they

failed to thoroughly investigate how russia supposedly swayed the brig's that vote but the has to be them there's some mechanism of saying if you fail to do that and if you ignore a request to arms if you fail to police the science effectively and deal with highly problematic content then one has to be some sort of sanction against you. so the only trace of russia the companies were able to find were three ads worth less than a dollar however the idea that maybe russia didn't influence the election is apparently off the table so who exactly polices the internet is it government or is it the social media companies or is it the government through social media companies that's all very unclear at the moment so america on the i will write a talk show host dave perkins believes that such you always do go against the principles of free speech the law is too serious and grim and rigid and humorless as are by the way the group of people they're trying to prevent from rioting by them. on social media and in the end it becomes

a matter of law being inappropriate i think there's a definite intrinsic tension between freedom of speech and hate speech which is a very recent development that i saw coming a long time ago and protested from the beginning the idea that what you say is against the wall is directly contradictory to the idea of freedom of speech you're watching out international still to come this hour the french president is planning a crackdown on fake news by targeting foreign media we've got the details just after the break.

altie we have a great team but we need to strengthen before the freefall world cold and brubeck have been a legend to keep it so it's at the back. in one thousand nine hundred two that must qualify for the european championships at the very last moment no one believed in us but we won and i'm hoping to bring some of that waving spirit to the r.c.t. . recently i've had a lot of practice so i can guarantee you that peter schmeichel will be on the best fall since my last will call him and that throws are as we've. thousand zero zero zero zero zero i called russia. nice dry. left left left more or less ok stop that's really good. welcome back now the french president is vowing to come back fake news for the door

to regulate media influence by foreign states and the new crown and i watched the movie featured in this empowers. it was finished the tween fake news machines and the professional media we run the risk of losing the truth the barriers have been destroyed presidential campaigns and almost all modern democracies have displayed their weakness and our collective failure to come up with a response when he wasn't specific about which countries and things could be influencing french media but russian media including r.t. and the sputnik news agency have already been imap crones firing line both were denied accreditation during his presidential campaign last year and were later labeled by him as propaganda outlets because it is russia today and sputnik have been influential outlets which have several times spoken mistruths about me and my campaign that's why they have not been invited in my headquarters all media including russian had access to my campaign russia today and sputnik have not

behaved as media outlets and journalists but as organs of influence and false propaganda well the r.t. family did have a christmas present for the french speaking world with the launch of our newest channel r.t. france and it immediately ruffled a few high profile feathers to several french public figures published an open letter calling for r.t. france's license to be revoked and they said r.t. has repeatedly faced numerous allegations from the us and several european countries political commentator believes mccrone should be careful about taking legal measures against any media. i think what he is now trying to do is to change the french civil code in order to prevent what he sees as a core him from his press conference today i threaten to democratic life of the nation he clearly sees r.t. and sputnik as part of that but i think that he also wants to change the merit of

the conversation to make this more about the use the better what he calls false news fake news i think you need to tread very carefully i think that it's a very thin line between exercising new laws that protect. people's rights and what have their their views challenged by untruths and actually clamping down on freedom of expression so he could find himself acting unconstitutionally if you're not careful. in other news it's been confirmed that the russian servicemen were killed in the tack on an airbase in syria on sunday the russian operated i mean facility on syria's mediterranean coast came under mortar shelling at night but the defense ministry says the air base is still operational it adds that the surrounding territory has now been secured and that the security syrian security forces are looking for those involved in the attack. donald trump who is there threatening legal action against former advisor steve bannon he reportedly made explosive comments about trump family members in a new tell all book about the president will trump earlier publicly lashed out it

is former right hand man he said that bannon had lost his mind and had only worked rezone interest and was never part of trump's in the circle the white house press secretary then added even more fuel to the fire. was curious what you should watch for a team sport so. i think furious discussed it would probably certainly fit when you make such outrageous claims and completely fast claims against the president his administration and his family well the spot is over what dan and reportedly reveal to the author of a book called fire and fury inside the trump white house he's quoted as saying that a meeting between members of trump's camp and the russian lawyer during his election campaign mysteries innocent arctic and he also allegedly hit out at the president's daughter ivanka trump to steve brown and left the white house in august a year after joining trump's election team as his chief strategist and was

a pivotal figure too for the president through his campaign right up to taking office legal the media analysts the line all things that trump's reaction is par for the course. here's a simple rule if you don't go after trump he doesn't bother you go after him in any way insult him criticize him take him to task and he's on you with a death grip you've never seen does anybody think that anybody in the drug administration cares one i ota about this i mean it's what it does is it throws the mainstream media the washington press corps and the mainstream media news troops and throws them into disarray which trump thrives on and after he's done with bannan he's going to say something about france or italy or or some of his neighbor has someone this is his pattern does anybody not pay

attention trump for arrives on this he loves this meanwhile with. an office approaching the u.s. president has been talking up his economic record in typical trump style beacon amik miracle created more than two million jobs unemployment is under seventeen year low the stock market is at an all time high fantastic for the economy our economy has already surged to three percent growth unemployment is at a seventeen year alone delivering to the american economy and our economy is doing well but one man who doesn't share president trumps optimism there is this former u.s. congressman ron paul he told us that the growth in the u.s. is principally benefited already at the top. if you're in the stock market no wealthy person here doing quite well but what we're forgetting here when we listen

to this rhetoric of all this optimism is that there's a large segment of our population as have been a difficult time where there is prosperity and more jobs it depends on death yes an individual can feel very good if they have a line of credit to the bank but eventually that line of credit runs out we in this country benefit because we have the reserve currency of the world we can run up a lot of debt and we can spend a lot of money and even with that we've had a great deal of difficulty is last eight years trying to get out of the recession now i see everything we do is a big bubble and all those q.e. we have dealt with in these last eight years have just created a huge bubble and everything is in excess whether it's our military budget our overseas gauge friends whether it's the welfare state and that bubble will come to an end we're going to have a sudden cataclysmic and in which it is sort of what happened to the soviet system it's not going to be identical and our states aren't probably going to break up but

i do sincerely believe that we will no longer be able to afford our empire around the world rumpole speaking now you're watching on t.v. to national that's how things are looking so far this morning here in the us he will be back with wolf you in about how often are. i had a great education a good job and a family that loved me. i never had to worry about how i would eat somewhere i would sleep. but i'm facing christmas alone out on the streets of london. well you love to be able to pull up a clip of the boy you like going to school you know the slogan go still give up food for the homeless. if you

don't really feel like a human being in that. and then. the guy just came over to me saw me and gave me a change of this book. this

is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. i'm bart chilton coming up one of the bright spots of the new us tax reform bill is the retention of a seventy five hundred dollars tax credit for electric powered vehicles will ask the car coach cool name right the car coach lauren fix if that will make a difference for automakers individuals and maybe even the planet plus our bond markets about to make major moves west brian gold martin of the trinity asset management group now let's get to the today's stories topping the business and financial adeline's. january third marks bit coins ninth birthday its total market cap is worth over two hundred billion dollars and a single coin is worth just about fifteen thousand dollars we'll give you the exact number at the at the break however other crypto currencies are also making waves digital currencies like ripple is now the second crypto currency by market value

with a cap of over one hundred ten billion dollars by the way topping out a bit coin and ripple is light and a theory of light coin and a theory m but ripples price has tripled its rallied more than forty five thousand percent in it and since that two thousand dollars per corn the company high rep paul is a trip attributed the increase to a series of trials it has been conducting with companies like american express which is interested in ripples usefulness as a cross border payment solution. worldwide sales of passenger cars and trucks set a new record in twenty seventeen topping ninety million industries topping ninety million industry observer site wards dot com which says passenger vehicle sales have grown and annual rate of four point one percent since two thousand and nine while population only grew by one point two percent per year asian markets are

fueling the sales growth with nearly one in four new cars being sold in china the north american market however remains the most profitable even as twenty seven thousand sales drop slightly from the record set in two thousand and sixteen while china and the u.s. have the used tax policies to incentivize car production and we're going to dig deeper on that in just a moment words auto says real growth in electric cars will not occur for at least five years and while sales and use of cars are expanding so are. fatalities one point two million people die in vehicle crashes every year with ninety percent of the deaths occurring in lower income countries where the ickle who are less likely to have safety features like airbags and seat belts that are common in more prosperous nations.

the new us tax reform bill retains a seventy five hundred dollar tax credit for electric powered vehicles will it make a difference for automakers energy individuals and the world let's ask the car coach lauren fix lauren thanks for being with us happy new year electric car makers must feel a sigh of relief right. well happy new year to you as well well lector carmakers really are feeling the sigh of relief they don't even want to build electric cars the reason they don't is because they took a loss and every single vehicle they produce and the only reason they are producing them is because the federal government is putting the pressure on them to produce them otherwise there is a fine so if you don't incentivize that seventy five hundred dollar tax credit people won't buy them so it's kind of interesting if there's no tax credit and people don't buy them then you know what why and why is this going through the fact is they have to sell them especially in california and there's

a certain percentage that doubles every year and for the year of twenty eight teen manufacturers have to sell at least eight percent of their vehicles in california that are electric otherwise there's a find in state and now it's also going to be crossing every single straight state of the u.s. so we're going to be seeing an interesting development that because what's happening is you're forcing consumers to buy them when you're incentivizing them will consumers still buy and what if they don't right now just i mean the seventy five hundred dollars tax credit it's something but as you say automakers are still not making a profit on on these vehicles but you know they need to make cars as you're talking about because of environmental standards that it's not just california of course but what they call the cafe standards and i know you know what that is corporate average fuel economy how can you explain it to our viewers what it is and i think if you correct me if i'm wrong that the trumpet administration may be reviewing

those standards sometime later this year right. you are correct actually corporate average fuel economy is currently thirty four point five miles to the gallon so what they do is they take each manufacturer and they get an average fuel economy that they are offering if it comes out to be thirty four point five or higher you're fine there's no fine but if you're below that number let's say you're coming in at thirty miles per gallon that's all your vehicles your trucks your cars whatever that might be and you're coming in below that number you're fined by the e.p.a. and that money is supposed to go into helping the environment and it's supposed to incentivize you to try to produce cars that get better fuel economy that may be very reasonable to reach thirty four point five but they want to raise it to fifty four point five and that's where auto manufacturers say we can't we can't make these numbers if we do that we're taking a loss on every electric car that we're producing and then there's also carbon credits and it gets really convoluted but sticking with just that cafe the current

administration is actually looking at those numbers seeing if that's possible and as the e.p.a. is concerned scott peretz thinking about taking away the kirpan credits so this could change everything the whole dynamic will change and of course manufacturers are watching very carefully because they don't just plan for twenty nine thousand and twenty twenty they're planning five ten years ahead for their production schedule and that could throw a wrench in everything right so it goes so interesting to talk to you think you would be here let me ask you these these levels going up to fifty miles per gallon is that on the slate and it will happen if the regs are changed or do you think that scott pruitt at the v.a. will do something to reverse that or lower that rate sometime this year. well right now manufacturers are hoping to make that by offering lots of electric vehicles that's why you're seeing every manufacturer say we're going to offer more and more electric cars not because consumers want them because the total sales were

less than one point seven percent for twenty sixteen and we may be very close to two percent for twenty seven thousand sales that's not a lot of vehicles we sold seventeen point seven million vehicles in two thousand and sixteen and we're just getting the numbers in for today so more around seventeen point one million for twenty seventeen that's not a lot of vehicles so manufacturers are producing these vehicles as quick as they can whether you buy them or not to say hey we're offering these vehicles in order to make that fifty four point five now it is highly likely that scott pruitt at the e.p.a. is going to get rid of that regulation of carbon credits and change that fifty four point five miles to the gallon manufacturers will be happy because they won't be selling so many cars at a loss because hey they're in business to make money they're not in business to take a loss in every car right i mean they'll be they'll be people on the other side for sure on the climate change issue lauren are you there are companies us

we talk about u.s. manufacturers but what about the foreign automakers are they don't have these cafe standards but so i assume that they're just you know producing for the market what's going on with them in electric vehicles toyotas except through volvo's of the world. well there are all allan any time you sell vehicles in the united states you have to meet that corporate average fuel economy or you're fine with the ad but not a good idea and sales yes outside the u.s. sells a whole nother animal they have their own regulations and they're much stricter of course we have the diesel gates and arielle so that's impacted a lot of things but electric vehicles are selling because they're incentivized certain countries are really putting heavy incentives on including china were other countries have said you know what we're going to reduce the incentive or remove the incentive which happened in the netherlands and sales dropped off by ninety percent and then in hong kong they removed the incentive to buy a lector vehicles and they sold three vehicles three to b m w's or one tesla that

was it so that says if it's not incentivized consumers are buying and states here like georgia did the same thing they removed the incentive it cost them too much money and sales dropped by ninety five percent so that's telling us that people are only buying them if you're basically giving them money to buy it right given given president trump is calling for all this manufacturing to you know move to the u.s. and some time sort of trying to budge companies off the dime on this given that and the new tax reform law do you see any additional auto maker jobs coming to the u.s. whether or not it's from foreign companies producing here or maybe a ramp up to u.s. production by u.s. automakers. yeah out of makers are actually starting to build more factories here we're hearing from different manufacturers of course builds in west point georgia they've expanded their facility they're putting together a battery facility you've got hyundai building vehicles in alabama audi has decided

to build for some reason and mexico will see how that's going to change with nafta which may go away if nafta goes to the north american free trade agreement that could really impact product going to and from mexico which could increase the cost to manufacture so they're really doing everything they can to build more vehicles here g.m. is on board with that chrysler is on board you're seeing every manufacturer think you know what there's got to be a place somewhere in the united states that would like to have our facility and you've seen even toyota they moved to texas and built a huge facility so they know exactly what they're doing lauren we're about out of town but i got this really weird and bizarre question i want to ask you. and with that preface here it is so driving cars that are becoming more popular but we also read about hackers i know there was a tesla that was hacked from a number of miles away i read so is it possible in the future we're going to have to worry about self driving cars be hacked and essentially cars being weaponized

perhaps and you know support of some terrorist activity told you it was weird it's not a weird question you're actually spot on the reason we don't have autonomous cars on the road today because of some of these factors we have insurance regulations government regulations the hackers and the attorneys who are just waiting for someone to hack so the current administration has stopped what they call v. to v. which is vehicle to vehicle communications and the reason that is that's going to actually slow down this autonomous cars and i'm currently today in buffalo we just had a seventy five car pile up because of a white out there is no.