yes. there is a tense wait in zimbabwe for the result of the first election since longtime leader robert mugabe was ousted opposition supporters have gathered outside the electoral commission headquarters and quickly became agitated. so far only partial results have been released but the ruling zanu p.f. party is on course for a parliamentary majority amid claims of vote rigging and voter intimidation the e.u. observers have criticised the delay in declaring the final results and will give a further assessment later the presidential election result isn't yet declared either but unrest is feared mugabe successor dog walker stays in power opposition m.d.c. alliance has already declared its candidate as the winner millions were drawn to polling stations on monday turnout thought to be around seventy five percent to first time candidates are in a close race for the presidency after robert mugabe was deposed and

a military coup last autumn his former right hand man anderson and gaga took over and is being challenge for the top job my meals and to musa feel like total commission has until saturday to declare the final results african affairs expert io johnson told us the results will define zimbabwe's relations with the west and its own future economic development. this will be huge challenges and huge repercussions for whoever wins if. you see wins and such as. then more than likely the west will be happy. with wins and it's deemed that there was some irregularities the question is if the the west doesn't feel that they've had a fair shake in terms of these elections then they could keep the sanctions going they could keep some of the the factions that have actually helped or prevented zimbabwe from developing an evolving and points in the growth to to happen and of course. let's in that limbo so. that these elections are

pivotal this is a crossroads and the decisions that are made from there from now on this special events of the presidency beats me. that to me or mr god would determine whether the west would support their claim. maria which in the made headlines last month after being arrested in the u.s. on charges of acting as a russian agent in addition to allegedly working on behalf of the kremlin to interfere in u.s. politics it's also been claimed she was trying to lure american money to russia or to america has spoken to bush in this lawyer about the case the full interview will be appearing soon on its you tube channel. well i think if you read the indictment of the case she's alleged to be an agent over russia who failed to register with the attorney general and so essentially that means is they haven't charged with espionage and if you read the ganster know the allegations or have

anything spy like about it the sense of the government is conceding that even under their own theory if she had followed the piece of paper with the attorney general's office at the beginning of her trip to america everything she did was legal and so my point is this is more a registration type crime than a crime and yet the media and the government some extent are treating it like an espionage crime. well i mean i think that allegation was particularly damaging to maria because it makes it more like a spy novel and frankly easier for the public to digest and so editors and producers like those kind of allegations because it seems like this is more like the red sparrow that was an allegation that was set forth in a proffer by the government meaning they did not produce evidence to back up that allegation at the time we're still waiting to see that and we're not sure it exists or it exists in any meaningful form in the interim it's very hard to see your

client kind of dragged through the mud like this which is why i've been trying to push back on that. south african comedian and presenter of the daily show trevor noah a shot to the top of america's t.v. personalities chart it's based on popularity on social media platforms and television and it seems he has global appeal as well but for some his jokes have too often crossed the line. old woman of every race can be beautiful and i know some of you are sitting in the yard but i've never seen a beautiful aborigine yeah but you know what you say you say yes that's to say yes because you haven't seen all of the right plus it's not always about looks maybe aborigine women do special things like jump on top of your blackboard wall. for you know what works for don't want the world cup for work well.

i mean look i get it i get it they have to say it's the french team but look at those guys they were good you don't get that ten by hanging out in the south of france my friends. clutch. and see. how bad the stands. but it wasn't it was the police this is the miners and they wanted money and it was a sad situation no one really knows what happens but everyone has an opinion i like this that last joke has provoked a new wave of outrage on social media though it's been years since it was first cracked it's about the two thousand and twelve marica massacre when police in south africa killed dozens of people during a miners' strike someone twitter slammed him for using such provocative humor to build his career you know neal asked comedian john i thought donal and legal and

media analyst lionel if there should be self-censorship in comedy. comedy today is being infiltrated with these sorority and screw ups these demented twisted angry sexually backwater we aired freud nightmare these these these pair of fire. ailes who think it's funny to shock i did say something and whatever they say we're supposed to accept the reality is once we start letting these kind of p.c. monsters come into place and having like you know people decide what is you know what is tolerable and what is good we do cross a mess that we do cross a dangerous line and if somebody does a comedian does want to of their own volition apologize for a bit i think that that is ok like he did apologize for this the bit about saying you know aboriginal people are attractive. it's to me everything is valid in terms of whether you call it humor or peek into commentary if you don't like it turn it

off but a rule might be don't joke about something called dumb ass occur just saying i mean i don't know if there's any rules but i stay away from master curry humor who decides who gets away with what who gets to say you could say it you could say it right that you are but you can't that's what bothers me we have to go back to the maracana in the way trevor joked about it let's again listen to a short clip why didn't i use rabbit mornings i didn't use i guess because those things don't work anymore. these are the whole week and they couldn't control people so that's when i mean those guys had weapons plus i guess is a waste of time which strikers have ended because of tear gas live you don't use that as comedians as creative people we're coming up with a lot of content we're throwing a lot of things out there sure if we say something that's you know that's really inflammatory and you know there can be

a backlash and that's something that we have to we have to deal with right or wrong and let's also remember this is trevor no one ok about it so get crazy but if he did made there's jokes about palestinian riots for our prize ings with israeli soldiers. no no no so there's no applicability to humor across the board it's all what's in and what's not black lives matter sacrosanct the massacre that that's what it all what's a word not oh yes edgy is there a point there that maybe bravery is being lost in company a little bit the easy targets are being deployed when it comes to the liberal vs conservative liberal. comics tend to you know go done the side of conservatives with the trouble ministration it's in sort of sort of easy for you know mainstream liberal comedians to you know go after the ministration. the republican party that's the crown of the wheel has a house where they feel. comfortable i go

a lot of these shows would probably be considerably would be happy if there was a hillary clinton presidency but they would have less fodder to go after you know if you're in the right group and the right person the sky is the limit if you're not a republican trump supporter perceived to be right wing whatever you get no tolerance and no exercise of the free liberty of free speech that simple. investigation is underway into the death of three russian journalists in the central african republic one day they were killed in an ambush by unidentified militia fighters from the super bowl people in moscow have been laying flowers at a memorial to honor their memory in the ocean and joined me earlier with the latest on the story. what more do we know at this point well definitely a tragic incident and certainly a great loss for all journalistic community first of all what we know so far officially is that the dead bodies were discovered by u.n.

peacekeeping personnel some twenty five kilometers north of the central city of steamboat and was on the road and about in the car was also discovered at the scene with multiple gunshots yes it looks like the crew was attacked by a large group of gunmen we do not know right now who they were and we also know that the driver of that car a local man according to some reports he was recommended to the team by u.n. . central african republic so by this incident we know that he's currently called in with investigators we also hear that the crew didn't have press accreditation. officially they did have a right to work in central african republic as a journalist and we also hear from the russian embassy that they were not notified about their arrival here. from the russian officials that their buddies expected to return to their homeland russia this site today has there been any indication as to

why they were killed they don't discuss who is behind the killing of three russian journalists but more interested in what their assignment on the ground was shortly after the news about the death we started receiving unconfirmed reports were heard that from journalists friends and colleagues that they were filming a documentary about mercenaries in central african republic possibly with links to russia some would go further calling a group name known as there although these were all come from the poor and the media. news personalities. started using this information as if it was the matter of fact and it created kind of like hysteria but not about the killing the terrible incident that happened in central african republic but about the russia's involvement in the conflict there and illegal personnel there and russia's foreign minister as

a reaction to these claims i read in here all of this nonsense about an investigation into russian mercenaries in the central african republic there is nothing sensational about the presence of russia's military instructors in the country no one covers this based on the location of the bodies the russian journalists were not heading to an area where the instructors work this march russia officially and five military and one hundred seventy civilian instructors two central african republic apart from being one of the poorest countries on earth definitely on the african continent it is very unstable place is divided between different groups so it's like a very dangerous place and this was the reason behind the invitation of russian experts to the republic and i think this russian ministry is trying to say that this is not the news that's quite fair because the news is. the killing of the three russian journalists and we have to wait and see what the investigation finds

out. with the u.s. midterm elections on the horizon the specter of alleged russian meddling has once again reappeared facebook has removed accounts which it believes were being used to possibly influence the outcome of the vote and the media has been quick to blame russia some miracle looks at the evidence or rather its absence. thirty two accounts were deleted to face the arms race presented by quote well funded adversaries with the apparent goal of amplifying already existing conspiratorial narratives the mainstream media displaying not an ounce of creativity went on to blame the usual suspect brush and actors continue to try to disrupt meddle infiltrate the us political debate if not the elections them selves well russia is interfering there continuing to interfere russia has been mentioned as the likely source of this interference in attempts russians and other nation states absolutely are attempting to manipulate us but on what basis the report didn't find russia or

russian entities or russian linked entities responsible facebook reiterated several times that they were unable to identify the culprit and even admitted that they quote may never be able to identify the source we're still in the very early stages of our investigation and don't have all the facts including who may be behind this democratic house minority leader nancy pelosi even demanded that facebook brief congress on these critical developments which she took as confirmation of the intelligence community's russian interference claims the latest announcement confirms the longstanding findings of the u.s. intelligence community and national security experts that's russia is actively utilizing social media in a card you need to afraid to sow discord among the american people and undermine our democracy but who are those three to accounts influential enough to undermine american democracy in fact most of the spotted materials have zero to ten followers

and in the scope of about fourteen months ran one hundred fifty ads for approximately eleven thousand dollars if someone is against the us immigration policy which is some of these anti ice accounts apparently were maybe they would like to conceal their identity maybe they're afraid of us authorities it's a strange thing are we allowed to be private thinking prodigies private of us without people assuming that somehow there are some small. and hand meddling in things it's very strange but the real question is what does it mean that someone is trying to sow divisions among americans are we not allowed to disagree with each other on fundamental issues like immigration and other things and i looked at some of the pages and some of them were sort of pro-feminist women shouldn't have to cook for their for their man i mean how is this supposed to is the russian effort to sort of visions americans have always disagreed that's the nature of society of a free society you disagree about the so these people i think the mentality is not like north korea or something is very bizarre that's a wrap up of the day's headlines for now and that's all for me as well but worry

not my colleague you know neal will be here at the top of the hour with your global news update as always thanks for tuning in. to make this manufacture consent to look well. when the right place is to protect themselves. with the flame of. the sun is the one. making all the room sick. to.

join me every day on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. greetings and salutation. one of the main tenets of the united states constitution is the separation of church and state the founding fathers of this country were pretty clear in their belief that religion and government just do not mix much like brussel sprouts and peanut butter they were so clear they put it in the very first amendment to the constitution not two not three but one the first one congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free

exercise thereof i don't know seems pretty clear the government cannot declare one religion above all others nor can the government tell you who or what you can or cannot pray to clearly the boundaries of the united states wanted to keep church and state separate because one combined the word of the government becomes the word of god and that government becomes a theocracy and no longer a constitutional republic. a child could understand why that's a bad thing the child could but apparently not attorney general jeff sessions who this week after watching way too many reruns of bill o'reilly's fox news war on christmas segments decided to create the department of justice is very own religious liberty task force yes the hill reports that sessions said the cultural climate in this country and in the west more generally has become less hospitable to people of faith in recent years and as a result many americans about their breeding to practice their faith has been under

attack sessions went on to point out that quote we've seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives we've seen u.s. senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma we've all seen the ordeal face so bravely by jack phillips the cake guy religious americans are no longer an afterthought interestingly sessions never mention her and heard anything about protecting the rights of say i don't know us muslims from being spied on or targeted by law enforcement agencies how curious. today let us navigate the divide between the church and the state as we start watching the hawks. want to. get the. real deal with. a lot of. what they like you know that i got.

there. because i. welcome are going to watch the hawks i am tyrrel them to and i'm top of the law list so that church versus state president just sessions is separating nuns and anything that i was saying just just to be clear right off the bat no none sperm made to buy contraceptives for themselves that's ludicrous but i can see how just such an i wouldn't quite notice that no it was about the case that he was referring to was about a nursing home a group of nuns in a convent that had that run a nursing home and they didn't want to as hobby lobby offer insurance to their employees that included birth control because they say religious liberty whatever i say it's silly so it's silly it's not if this is the thing you can't tell people

that religion is about making the right choices and then make those choices for them interesting to me that's a part of this religious liberty that's not there you're forcing choices that you want someone to make from a moral stance that well first and make it's interesting because what sessions did this week in creating you know this kind of religious liberty task force at the religious liberty summit will make sure it's. very creative by the way they're going to have it really put an interesting thing because what the task force will be co-chaired by associate attorney general just put their cio and the assistant. attorney general for the justice department's office of legal policy both williams you see them there you know what's interesting about this taboo is that it really does and they're kind of making the argument that we're we're separating church from state by enforcing the fact that the state cannot infringe on the rights of face of people practicing their religion that's like their argument but many other people are saying yeah but by the state kind of focusing so heavily on this you're

actually are believing the two lines well you know it's a government department right belief in a major and see the controls and. decides whether or not they're just not worthy of being exactly i mean it is kind of this weird no gray area and that's just because you would be different if you said look this is going to be a whole set up of what's really going to happen i know it sounds crazy but we're going to have you know people from different faiths making sure where whatever you know we're going to have a muslim a rabbi you know this you've you had a bunch and it was a board of people but to see these two people who are clearly neither of them probably most of them i met throw that out as a guess i might be wrong i could be wrong but there's nothing about what it actually does so the force what they what the plan is this to help the department fully implement the religious liberty guidelines it issued last year under session

so he's creating entire task force to simply not follow laws but the guidance that he gave so much i walk around and wrap everyone's not calls when i don't do what they're supposed to so it's all about interpretating the religious liberty and protection. some of these include so the freedom of religion as a fundamental right of paramount importance expressly protected by federal law the free exercise of religion includes the right to act or abstain from action in accordance with one's beliefs religious beliefs is the idea of not going to war or . giving birth control a gas or not giving cakes to say gay people americans do not give up their freedom of religion by participating in the marketplace partaking of the public square or interacting with the government now all of that is perfectly fine except what he's doing is going into the public square as government officials and telling people how and when they should be able to express or not express all religious liberty and what's interesting in the bait between the church and state is you choose your

religion right there you're done you're not you're not boy you can be anywhere in that you can be born into it but it was an individual make a choice i'm going to worship this or i'm going to worship right or i'm not going to worship anything at all that's the idea but you know let's say in the gay you know in the gay. debate and all that you know those people are born gay i'm sorry you're born gay don't make a choice at some point i never made a choice to be heterosexual i was just i realized as heterosexual that's where i want to you know i never made a choice i had that option never came up to me so but church you do make a choice so that's very interesting because the problem is when church and practicing your religious beliefs does suddenly supersede on someone else's individual rights that's a whole and a problem comes in exactly you know where. the facts where we're going to have moving things up one of the things we have talked

about earlier was this idea of unnamed sources now i mean sources and mysterious reports from the unspecified u.s. intelligence agency is nothing new that is what the washington post revealed on monday under the headline u.s. spy. agencies north korea is working on new missiles stating that the information is according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence even going as far to claim as to claim that quote senior north korean officials have discussed their intention to deceive washington about the number of nuclear warheads and missiles they have as well as types and numbers of facilities and to rebuff international inspectors according to intelligence gathered by u.s. agencies and yet in the entirety of the over twelve hundred word article the only u.s. intelligence agency named is the national geospatial intelligence agency which is the combat support agency of the department of defense which is focused and focused on the collecting analyzing and distributing of satellite imagery for the military

for natural and manmade disasters and for security planning of events like the olympics no other agency is named no u.s. government officials are name nor is the source of this report that is the core of the narrative that newark korea is a party pledging to default on a new denuclearization agreement that hasn't even been made yet couple that with the fact that the images used by the washington post from a company called planet labs incorporated a private corporation that provides satellite imagery to commercial and civilian clients and you have a very strange narrative that actually contradicts itself while it contends that the mysterious secret classified report apparently based on imaging data easily legally obtained on the internet for a small fee is the source it also reminds us but these sources and experts don't even agree on the analysis at least none that we're willing to be so are we just going to keep gobbling up these dangerous narratives that threaten the most tried and true basics of diplomacy and peacekeeping. of course we are. we are going to.

be sort of in the works now as anonymous those. somebody in the government was this guy who told me very first gospel and it was as long as the pushy. my agenda must be a gospel lot of times as the nuns were forced to by a north korean culture so if it's a baby that's lost in the line you gotta watch out these days and i know you know it but you know it's amazing this article we were talking about last night just how much it's completely based on interviews with me on hearsay and this is the thing that everybody then started repeating and the tweets that are coming one or two missiles are making one or two missiles even though i never said that the fact that the report or the article claims that it just doesn't even like claiming that their missiles are the currently being constructed as false according to the very images and assessments in the article so they claim the the article claims that the reports backed those buildings are still being used for possible all for the us

because they see people and trucks near the buildings. people in trucks. move clear buildings like i would imagine there would be i can't imagine that we're suddenly just decide to like oh well let's take all the trucks home and leave a nucular bill in why i want to be one way that they want energy to just empty the public we're going to dismantle all this stuff that apparently magically is supposed to dismantle its cell and the. satellite launching station is in the process of being dismantled according to both unnamed again intelligence sources by the washington post piece claims that this is only symbolic and that it can all be rebuilt in a matter of months roads this really don't trust the fact that it is being dismantled the facility has not been confirmed as a site for uranium enrichment by european intelligence services or other agencies and yet the broad consensus among u.s. intelligence agencies that. is one of at least two secret enrichment plants i

remember the broad consensus is broad consensus is we're all over and the argument is are you overboard back in the old let's go into iraq and saddam had w m d's i remember that very clearly remember it was seventeen intelligence and. yes which by the way if you believe that each one of those intelligence agencies really assess to the issue then the geospatial made them feel also you would take it about the person you're going like well if they said i go. could you want the liquid satellite imagery is i going to how i want to ask you that iraq one of the things that keeps getting brought up about this is this sort of cornucopia of contradiction. is the idea that well north korea's never going to give up their nuclear weapons are not going to totally disarm which they were not totally disarmed but they're not going to do any of this because that would mean that regime change is on the table considering that like regime change has been a failure and every single attempt by the u.s. government you know what do you. i mean it's really you know there's over regime

change in north koreans want to be because we don't i don't believe even if we went in and let's say we bombed the hell out of north korea from power we're not in any capacity to rebuild that country around any capacity to reeducate you know the people living there we don't have the patience for you saw with iraq we don't have the patience to rebuild iraq in any meaningful way you know and that's why regime change doesn't work and that's why you have to read between the lines when you see stories like this of the good all right as we go to break our borders don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics to cover the facebook and twitter see our poll shows that r t v dot com coming up author and speaker of the kids joins us to discuss the controversy surrounding n.b.a. superstar le bron james and the opening of a new school in his hometown can't believe that's controversial stay tuned for watching the hawks.