breaking news at least two people have been killed in a hostage incident at a supermarket in southwest france the gun man that reportedly pledged allegiance to islamic states. french authorities say they are treating the incident as a terror attack. and other news this hour president trump picks john bolton as his latest national security adviser a white house veterans known for his core pitch stance on iran and north korea and was in favor of military action against both countries. and the sawdust surrounding data harvesting from facebook takes another twist as it's revealed the british defense ministry paid cambridge analytical parent company for psychological profile

a different target audience and. a warm welcome you're watching r.t. international with me mickey aaron now we start this hour with breaking news french national police say two people have been killed and more than a dozen wounded in a hostage incident at a supermarket in southwest france the incident is being treated as a terrorism let's get an update from our correspondent in france now charlotte do penske and charlotte what exactly do we know at this point. well a clearer picture of what's. in this ongoing operation this hostage operation in the south of france in the town called twelve has been emerging in the last hour or so as you mentioned two people have been killed in this hostage taking situation and we understand from police sources that around

a dozen people have been injured this iteration ongoing now for the last few hours there is a huge. police operation under way in the town of taib hundreds of police officers have been deployed to the scene there also helicopters and firefighters they're all there waiting to see if they can try and take this situation under control it's being treated as a terror incident in the interior minister himself in france has now taken control of the overall arc of this investigation this ongoing operation we have heard reports from local sources that the hostage taker a gunman who has been good shooting in the supermarket has apparently pledged allegiance to i still she. has said that this is an attack is vengeance for syria also some reports coming out that the gunman who's taking these individuals hostage has also demanded to release all of the man who is on

trial and accused of being one of those behind the paris attacks in two thousand and fifteen this is. you know so apparently he is looking for him to be released although those are unconfirmed reports we have also been hearing from the french prime minister edward felipe this is the brief statement that he's given to the price. to please all the information we have of the moment leads us to believe this is a terror attack. that was the french prime minister edward felipe is speaking confirming that this is being treated as a terror attack well as i mentioned this is been ongoing now for the last few hours but how did it start well we understand that there were two separate incidents initially they are now being treated as the same attack one incident took place in a caucus on which is about a fifteen minute drive from the trend of trade with this hostage situation is

currently underway in the supermarket there a group of. c.r.'s police officers were unarmed and would jogging out in the morning they were there on a mission from our say they were allegedly shot at including one officer who was injured in that shootout then about fifteen minutes later in the tapes sound of gunshots were heard no we have been hearing from local media reports of one of the employees from that supermarket as you employee he said that he heard the gunshots and then brought out as many people from the supermarket as he could people taking shelter in a nearby carriage it's understood that there were around fifty people initially in that supermarket but the number of them were able to escape from the gunman before that hostage situation taken over by him but we do believe at the moment we understand reports two people have been killed and up to a dozen people have been injured in this attack this first terror attack since the

state of emergency was ended to france in november. thank you for keeping across this ongoing situation in france for a thousand hearty shallow deep bensky well let's bring in i guess now we're now joined by pisa williams of policing and terror expert at liverpool john moores university mr williams thank you for joining us on r.t. international now the inevitable question is going to be asked of france in light of this breaking news story is has enough been done to prevent terror attacks on french soil. well difficult want to. they obviously felt there was no. change in the situation probably the intelligence situation which led to the decision in november that they removed the state of emergency so that would sort of indicate that they felt that the intelligence of the picture overall was changing and that may well have been

because of what the how that happened in the downgrading of isis in syria iraq but in the wider context what we need to understand and that's all of those irrespective of this france or anyone else actually is that was still in this religious wave of terrorism as we called it which starts it which starts in about nineteen thousand nine hundred seventy nine so i'm not at the moment it's shows no sign of abating so on the other side of the coin perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that was seen attack of this nature has been carried out in the name of the islamic states. president macwrite as it is that lifted that that state of emergency in france in november and that much of it was coded fight and said no but that as far as we can ask you know how effective have those measures been

a has security been tight enough in france do you think. well i'm very interested in rico which you just heard from charlotte's in relation to the first incident that happened smalling in relation to these this arrest personnel that were announced on a pace to be a joking joking run amok they came under fire that indicates to me that that was in itself gets its act it also indicates this as an operator as a terrorist group operating in the guy on the ground probably probably in a cell sykesville channel they've actually been able to carry out their own intelligence if you like and reckon noise in the situation on a densify the talbot's i'm a little bit not sure still in relation to the second incident which is obviously the focus at the moment as to why that is but a couple of things have struck my mind one is that you know yesterday was the twelve the year of the twelve monthly itzhak since the attacks the highly symbolic

at saks. british parliament's in western and westminster bridge and also your reports are referred to an ongoing trial in the french coats of the moments linked to the paris access to n.c. fifteen now any terrorist group would ever have been in the well doesn't matter if it's isis or any other group they are in this for ones for one of their primary objectives and that's to his exploits maximum media and that's exactly the the the stage we're in in relation to the last of the the moments now to come back to your question and i ask in relation has enough been done in terms of prevention what i would say is that's in relation to if you take as a benchmark the attacks in the u.k. last year there's been no further that sax since the one class is green in the u.k. symbol is similarly in mainland in mainland europe with indicates that the

intelligence services do of pets have been getting on chuck of the problem to. some extent which probably has led to the decision but you did say to earlier in relation to the french authorities that each other's group will be ultimately downgraded by the uk location of intelligence. what do you think the repercussions of this attack going to be to i mean more security could be put in place but then there's also the question over you know what more can be done without seriously eroding civil liberties. well issue of civil liberties and state power has been an ongoing one. since time immemorial in relation since state security in the u.k. cells in nineteen zero nine and has been ongoing has been ongoing since then just to focus on the u.k. at the mo which is obviously the job sticks not like understand more about business

in the the recent act of parliament when secretly which security act in relation to the events in syria there's clear evidence there is that is actually widened the margins if you like of what the scope of what would be classed as a as the scope of terrorism and that is actually what is happening old son that is just in relation to that legislation that of course impinges on what something you just referred to of course not social media and of course the rights of people to trivia see in relation to how they interact with people online via emails or whatever or the medium that they use the likelihood is that the security services will have the potential technically and also the power to also and also to where into decked him that's so that is an ongoing issue and i think going forward to answer your question directly were likely to see rather than the rather than the

erosion of state rather the opposite and that's the erosion of civil liberties and the balance will be filed will be weighed heavily in respect in respect of the security services so that may well be the price we all have to pay in relation to our individual privacy and liberty peter williams policing and terror experts are going to put john laws in a vastly thank you for sharing your thoughts that are not international. well this would be the first act of terrorism in france since president mccrum lifted the country's almost two years state of emergency last year it was put in place by his predecessor after a string of terror attacks the deadliest was in november two thousand and fifteen and which i still inspired terrorists killed one hundred thirty people in paris. correct thank you

thank. you sister magazine direction lone wolves to rent a truck and drive into a crowd. wow. thank you. thank. you thank you.

oh my. we. thank you and at the news now britain's defense ministry has been caught up in the scandal surrounding cambridge other let's look a the company accused of collecting personal data from millions of facebook members and then exploiting it for political goals is being revealed that the ministry paid cambridge a. because parent company s.t.l. group for what's been described as human and social influence work on top of that the firm was reportedly granted access to secret government documents is also said

to have carried out research to see how people would interact with certain government messaging artie's polly boy takes up the story. cambridge on a ticket is seemingly everywhere apart from helping the campaign to victory by using information harvested from millions of facebook profiles it turns out the company's services have been used by the british government to cambridge on the parent company is called the s.c.l. group the whistleblower who on earth the facebook data breach calls the two entities as c.l. and cambridge on the one in the same s.c.l. used to be on the payroll of the british defense ministry thanks to a freedom of information request from twenty six d. we know that in two thousand and eleven the energy paid to s.c.l. for the provision of external training and in twenty fifteen it paid for psycho social research to top it all off s.c.l.

got the green light to hold british government secrets on its premise britain's information commissioner's already investigating cambridge analytic over the facebook data breach but in light of the defense contracts with its parent company as c l the chair of britain's home affairs select committee is now demanding a wider government investigation into the company's activities there are now growing concerns about whether there should be a wider investigation into the to reduce there are concerns about the implications for democracy about information being used in an illegitimate way and no one has the chance to counteract it and the traces real problems outside of the u.k.'s c l's and cambridge analytic his client list reads like a who's who of contentious elections and political hot spots cambridge on the lift ticket was hired by kenya's ruling party ahead of its elections last year the company is accused of stoking ethnic tensions and manipulating voters online

prejudices to help kenya's leaders stay in power the company's also accused of orchestrating political. ration zone their clients political rivals and circulating the evidence online among s.c.l. is clients was ukraine it was hired by the kiev government to help recapture the self-proclaimed republic of donetsk. it was contracted to deliver a data driven strategy for the ukrainian government in pursuit of their goal to win back control of donetsk findings replied to designed localized communications campaigns to erode and weaken the jeannette's people's republic this particular campaign didn't bear much fruit for the ukrainian government the website reveals yet another tied to the british government the ukraine report it says was delivered to kiev and shared with the u.k.'s ministry of defense i don't really believe the ministry of defense should be involved in

a company one arm of which at least he's engaged in a series of campaigns around the world of propaganda and manipulation apparently and political interference secondly i don't really see why the ministry of defense is in any case spending huge amounts of money. on a propaganda work and finally the question of secrecy i mean apparently this company was given access to top secret information and this seems to me to be an extremely. worrying revelation it's likely that the next chapter in the cambridge analytical scandal won't be its links to facebook but to governments around the world including the u.k. . the british defense ministry has reacted to the story saying it has no current relationship with the c.e.o. group and that the company has no access to classified information. well more white

house research shows us president come picks yet another national security adviser as among us story still ahead after the break. seemed wrong wrong just don't call. me. yet to stamp out this thing comes to educate and it gains from it equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest race in truth to stand the news business you just need as the right questions and demand the right answer. questions. welcome back to day two of the e.u. summit and the british prime minister is there she is how they bit fellow members agree with her claim that russia is behind the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter. the fact that last night the european union council agreed with the u.k. government's assessment that the attempted murder that took place on the streets of

seoul but it's highly likely that russia was responsible for that attempted murder i think it is clear that russia is challenging the values we share with europeans and it is right that we are standing together together in defense of those values the european union has recalled its ambassador from moscow for consultation some states are considering joining britain in expelling russian diplomats the german chancellor's there's that she's still waiting for evidence from iran we. will continue to look now that the british have handed over the duty to the chemical weapons organization we are waiting for the unified results disparity between britain and russia continues to sour with tit for tat measures being taken by both sides twenty three british diplomats and their families have left the u.k. embassy in moscow and are now heading back there expulsion was in response to britain's similar move a week earlier the cultural organization the british council has also been ordered to stop its work in russia focus group powell and his daughter were discovered on

a bench in a small city of souls bre on the fourth of march after being allegedly poisoned by a nerve agent school power as a former military officer who was jailed russia for handing secrets to british intelligence he moved to the u.k. in a spy swap in two thousand and ten british police expect their probe into the attack to take months but politicians have been rushing to blame most go from the outset. let's go live now to political strategist anthony where they discuss this further mr weber thank you for joining us on the program it's good to see you how much of an appetite is there do you think of the e.u. nations to take similar moves as britain and expel their russian diplomats well i think there's a bit of a mixed message there because they're not touch it sproing the ambassador. please to reserve mary i don't think. all the wider issue is why the

trees of mary is where he's doing this for other people time but the you are on this destruction when she should be negotiating even the best deal for. from the you so there's a great deal of concern about what watered seen as a pretrial of british interests with the. sions. now it seems like they're on the same page at the moment but even members really differ wildly when it comes to brussels taking punitive measures against russia do you think what we're seeing here is the in klingon of a split. well in a court of law you have to have full disclosure the russian ambassador recently asked for full disclosure a good no disclosure so i think the average fair minded british person would be saying well why isn't hard government giving full disclosure and we will have our miss marple how soon the u.k. and we all love our whodunits will be asking questions which we want answers to.

as we believe in fair play in a court of law we would have played for any attacks all right here we want to have the proof and the evidence and i don't think the e.u. leaders who've gone along with trees or mary have seen any evidence at all interestingly if i the belgian prime minister here expressed solidarity with the u.k. but pointed out his country wants dialogue with russia why do you think it wants to go down that route. well of course of the sun school country want starlog. one has to ask it what britain's own best interest because i believe in water his britain's best interests and britain's best interests of believing the you are to set ups you need trading or a different sort of course russia as well with the major powers in the world should

be a power we should be negotiating a deal with and by these actions it's made it more difficult for the day to have a trigger greenman with russia which i think is not in the interests. as much as saying the e.u.'s recalled its ambassador from moscow it says it's a consultation and what do you think is on the cards here do you think it suggests that some bigger moves it being lined up. well who knows what's going on. fortunately some european union leaders particularly leaders of countries outside the who ask a lot of questions. when those questions are answered. perhaps decision should be made but i don't think one should be rushing in i think mary spirit is people wants an open mind on this issue we don't want to demonize russia we don't want to demonize it's only country because most british people want peaceful relations for

good or variations with other countries in the world that we have to look at the recent attack in france we have a common interest with russia in fighting islam terrorism and russia is doing a very good job in syria and we need to be more i always have russia we seem to be more keen on being allies with saudi arabia who have been for a moment seeing is the miss rebels in serbia so we need to look at what is actually in britain's best interests rather than what is in the interests of other countries in the world political strategist antony webb by speaking to us live from london thank you for your time thank you. and i have said the u.s. donald trump has announced that he is appointing john bolton a former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. as his new security adviser bolton is known for his hawkish stand of fun both north korea and iran the appointment was made on twitter in typical trump style the

president also made use of the social media platform earlier this month when he fired his secretary of state rex tillerson more pain takes a look now at the latest arrival three washington's revolving doors. he is the third national security advisor to the donald trump administration in the last fourteen months and john bolton is a long time advocate of the use of force against iran and against north korea now those are two countries that are rather vital for the trumpet ministration in the coming months in may donald trump will have to weigh in on the iran deal whether or not it will continue and furthermore the usa is on the verge of carrying out the historic meeting the first meeting between a head of state of the usa and the leader of the democratic people's republic of korea so at this point a lot of questions remain so the fact that john bolton has been selected is rather interesting i think they want to make peace i think it's so it could be

a long and unproductive meeting word could be a short and unproductive meeting we hope that these new measures directed at the arena of dictatorship will compel the government to really evaluate its pursuit of terror at the expense of its people well i think he's on the verge of making a mistake i think his advisors are pushing him in the wrong direction you know i destroyed the certification question is utterly irrelevant john bolton served as the u.s. ambassador to the united nations under the administration of george w. bush and his appointment was quite controversial at that time for statements he had made harshly criticizing the united nations can trail donald trump was quite critical of military intervention isn't by the united states saying that he wanted to stop toppling regimes however john bolton is a long time advocate for military interventions around the world so big developments on the horizon regarding iran and north korea. state

has claimed responsibility for i hope that you ation and shooting in the southwest of france which has left two people dead france's interior ministry say another three people have been wounded one theory and flee. the incident took place in a supermarket in the town of treb is being reported although not yet confirmed that the attacker was calling for the release of the la one of the paris the terrorists . where across developments out that terror attack in southern france and i'll be back in half an hour to take up to speed on that town the rest of today's headline news this is r.t. international thanks watching. the most expensive fish in the world each one selling for the tens of thousands of euros it continues to grow its entire life if it was thirty years old you might have a fish out there and yet they don't get that big today because we're way too good.

it's only women themselves a much larger mission was once there and that was much more widely distributed we have politicians that are in office for a few years they have to get reelected everything is very very short term our system is not suited and is not geared for the long term survival and that's why we have the catastrophes. fifteen years ago this month the united states in its so-called coalition of the willing to illegally invaded in occupied iraq and iraq continues to grapple with that fateful decision many call the invasion of iraq a blunder should we call it would it really is a crime. oh

welcome to sofia and co i'm sophia shevardnadze a legend a good in has won the russian vote is about to embark on a second consecutive term as russia's president what lies ahead for russia and the world now i ask his official spokesperson dmitri preschool thanks a lot for being on our program it's been a while actually so i guess put it has to win more often for us to talk to you but we've got a lot to talk about let's start with the elections elections out over president putin got much more than anyone expected he got more than in two thousand and twelve it's a historical record and i walked out of our country here but you know everyone thought he was going to win even the people who didn't like him were like of course is going to win i mean there is.