it's. from sanctions to syria russia's security chief meets his american counterpart for talks in geneva but one topic interested journalists more than others. whether you would ever concerns that iran's president is a security risk of course not i mean that's a silly question. also this hour the us democratic party crisis fall over another suspected hack and the answer turns out to have been much closer to home. and facebook fans hundreds of pages groups and accounts linked to the ran and russia for alleged political meddling. a very warm welcome to the program to you from all of us here at r t h q wherever

you may be tuning in from thanks for joining us this hour. the u.s. national security adviser and his russian counterpart have held more than five hours of talks in geneva but john bolton didn't give much away to reporters at a short news briefing afterwards. i think we made a lot of progress we identified certain areas where lines of communication could be restored there were some where the areas of disagreement remain we didn't see. much utility in resuming discussions there are going to be some things where we're going to consider inside the united states government consider more fully what our position is and then decide to proceed from there well this meeting of national security advisors was well the groundwork was laid for it when the president met in helsinki last month to say they cover the whole range of

pretty much what had been touched upon a in helsinki they talked about nuclear nonproliferation they talked about cyber attacks they talked about the situation in syria in afghanistan and in ukraine as well and this meeting of course comes when relations between moscow and washington are at a particularly low abp with sanctions from the united states against russia looming over the poisoning of said in the united kingdom earlier this year russia denies any role in the attempts on misguided piles of life when it came to the iranian sanctions in the iran nuclear deal john bolton unequivocal who saying that the will be sanctions put in place against iran on doing business with iran and that the sanctions are coming in november and that's the russian side didn't ask for any exemptions during the meeting today and that the u.s. side on expecting to gave many exemptions at all they also talked about

a rainy and troops in syria mr bolton saying that he wanted to see both as he put it regular and irregular rainy and troops removed from syria pulled back from syria the russian side going into this it already said that they were sabine support of this book that this wasn't something that was going to be happening. immediately as with any of these meetings when it comes to senior figures within the the trump white house and within the trump of the trumpet ministration there were questions about russian meddling and this quote this time well it was no different whether you ever concerned that iran's president is a security risk of course not i mean that's a silly question. and i just spoke to him literally a few minutes ago and. we have performed here in exactly the way i think the two leaders would've expected us to and you know i honestly have a little faith in the american people who elected him president thank you very much

we waited hours in hours for mr bolton to cold but speak to us it was very short and not so sweet at the end there following that question from my colleague from the b.b.c. it's worth noting that after that one of mr bolton stuff came along pulled her to one side and told her that well the question was ridiculous and that they wouldn't be working with their organization in the future that shocked quite a few of the geneva diplomatic press corps here at this meeting between the two national security advisers that it didn't result in any major breakthroughs we weren't really expecting not but where they agree they still agree where there's disagreement well there's certainly still discord between washington and moscow as it stands at the moment. we get live rection now from former u.s. congressman dr ron paul welcome to the program now john bolton there was pretty tight lipped after the meeting but what were you able to read into about how the

meeting went with what he did put forward. well i thought it was terrible all we did was threaten people and assume that we control the world and we control everything one thing that caught my attention was getting rid of getting iran to take out their troops now that's a reasonable request as long as the request is any foreign nation that has troops in syria that have been uninvited should all leave together that's what the problem is this picking and choosing that we decide and say yes he can have troops in there not the other ones but no i think that threats and intimidation and the sanctions it's just a penalty on the people they never hurt the government they just give incentives to the government so i think i think this whole notion that sanctions also are a weapon and how we as a country americans have come you know threatening even more severe sanctions and i think that's the wrong way to go i think sanctions are an early rehearsal for war

. continuing with what you mentioned about you ran he said that the two had discussed a variety of ways for iran's forces to leave syria what might that mean. well i have no idea but there are always negotiating deals and negotiations but i think my position strictly is that the only way i can see it logically from a libertarian position is that people who are invited into a country shouldn't be there so anybody that's there that has not been invited so if somebody asked me opinion or foreign government i would just say the people ought to leave and if it were my own government which it is right now my advice has been for a long time don't go in and leave and leave as soon as you can because it doesn't help anything and it just leads to more trouble and it prolonging the war i mean look how long we've been in afghanistan because of

a similar situation so i have no idea what he's talking about working a deal with with the russians on how to handle the iranians about this whole thing that we have said that we're our goal our stated position now as stated by bolton beside and just by the way bolton doesn't speak for all the american people he speaks for the neo neo conservatives but the policy now is the goal is to seek that iran cannot export one gallon of fuel now that's absurd it's it's it's just wrong and it's just not going to lead to more trouble in other countries you know will be sanctioned as well and therefore russia participates in helping iran you know then we've been bold and make these wild statements that quite frankly we show and i'm not sure we can carry out all the threats anyway now the specter of russian meddling came up again and apparently kept the two from signing a joint statement how long do you think that that's going to stay

a sticking point between the two countries. i think for a long time i don't think they're going to magically come to their senses and and we change our policy where we're very very much in. as intervention and then interventionist and then we have the issue of nato moving eastward and and not following through our promises of keeping nato away from the borders of russia and these things just add up so i don't expect any any magic which is very very difficult for some of us to totally understand because we don't think our president really at heart is in doors all these positions you know of all five antagonism with russia and yet the people he has hard do and i think that was sort of came up in that discussion that the president and bolton get along very well and i guess they do he hired him but there's been

a lot of us who had always been hopeful because trump has said things favorably and has worked with russia in the past and we'd like to just see more of us here in this country to emphasize that which means that yes it would be a bad idea for iran to leave syria but i think a good deal would be america could leave syria as well and then mind our own business city feel like the topic of russian meddling often overshadows more important topics that should be addressed in these type of meetings. oh yeah i think this whole thing about russia meddling i think every country gets involved to some degree about what's happening in other countries to what degree i don't know but i would consider how much we have done especially since world war two how many elections we've been involved in one hundred coups that we have participated in including ukraine i would say in comparison you know this current

russia gate. you know event going on right now and that is there is just minuscule as far as i'm concerned i think people have just blown away out of proportion and it's a distraction from some of the more. an issues but it certainly is there i think it's been i think it's been really stimulated by our political system here that surprised and shocked everybody that a guy like trump won and beat the insider and beat the chosen person that was clinton and they can't get over this they're hysterical about it and they even even now they take a position which they generally agreed with liberal democrats used to be more on the side of libertarians about and on intervention and but now they're obsessed with this they're obsessed with the fact that trump won they're going to do anything to try to get rid of him and i think you know way trump maybe in a box because he. you know might have a different position as i suggest at the same time it's really hard for him to

placate both sides and i think that's impossible and that's why i've always taken the position that you take the position of what a nation that believes in liberty should do and practice that and get along and talk with and trade with his many people as you can i think that is what leads to peace and prosperity which is the goal of my foundation peace and prosperity is done by talking to people and diplomacy and trading with people not threatening people one and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that we don't even need and if you compare what we spend and compared to what the rest of the world is spending we're wasting a lot of money and someday we're going to have to pay for it and then i'm going to have my way we're going to have to back off for financial reasons just as the soviet system had to back away because they just couldn't afford it. bolton reacted to one question of a reporter asking whether or not he thought that the president was a security risk by dem dismissing it and saying you know have

a little faith in the american people who elected him president why do you think the media continues to zero in on those types of questions and those alone more or less. well yeah and i was told i believe that said this trust in american people what he's talking about is trusting what he says but what the what the neo conservatives say isn't what the. american people voted for they voted for trump who was an independent populist and a non interventionist to a large degree and that's why he even got libertarian votes so that's where the disconnect is that's where it's really hard to figure out what's happening what's going on but the. statement by bolton that the american people know exactly what they want and he's speaking for the american people will tell you i know a lot of american people aren't very happy with the neoconservatives and i think they're on the defensive and it's

a mixture of new york conservatives infiltrate both parties and therefore sometimes you know what the democrats do and republicans do behind the scene and that is to maintain the empire that's the goal of the political system that we have and these other stuff is just distraction it's distraction who has the power who has the purse strings who makes the decisions and that is very very important in these fights are real but when it comes down to it you know they they don't have any major does a disagreement on deficit financing central banking and the welfare state and all these issues and matter of fact there's very little discussion real discussion on whether or not we should practice interventionism over seas a few of us code libertarians we don't believe in interventionism overseas what we want to do is we. we want to be engaged overseas we want to be engaged in friendly pursuit of commerce former u.s.

congressman dr ron paul thank you for your time and your comments. here. another day another hacking scandal now the us democratic party has claimed its detected an attempt to hack its voter database with elections just a few months away this is just further proof that there are constant threats as we head into the midterm elections and we must remain vigilant in order to prevent future attacks. live now to our washington correspondents america come from or it's the mirror all's not what it first seemed to the democratic party correct yes well at first it looked like just another meddling story in the endless stream of meddling reports that we've come across lately and the democratic party said that it had detected an attempt to hack its voter base and of course total panic ensued in the media check it out d.n.c. just confirmed n.b.c.

news it has alerted authorities to an attempted it of their voter file and the takeaway really is is this continues to be a major issue democratic party's voter database targeted with a sophisticated hacking attempt to target really was the voter database any attack on a political party or campaign is important for us all to take seriously but there is a twist here it wasn't meddling or hacking it was just a test according to a source the democratic party or the democratic party of michigan used to volunteer hackers to test its systems security while this was confirmed by the national committee the source also said that the state department did not notify the d.n.c. the national committee before hand let's take a look at what was said. we along with the partners who reported the sites now believe it was billed by a third party as part of a simulated phishing test the test which mimics several attributes of actual attacks on the democratic party's votes to follow was not authorized by the d.n.c.

vote builder nor any other of our vendors now the timing of all of this is worth noting it's coming just as we're getting closer and closer mid-term elections and the media is going crazy frantically searching for external factors but they've turned a blind eye to domestic factors which could be where their answers are artists american reporting live from the u.s. capitol thank you. britain's opposition leader says the public's losing trust with the news media and says he's got big plans to revamp the b.b.c. jeremy corbyn added the broadcaster should be freed of government control as he lambasted other media bosses for skewing the news agenda all around offline print too often serves the broadcast agenda even though it is worded so firmly to the tories politically and to corporate interests more generally the cozy relationship between senior pros and broadcasting executives media owners and indeed senior

politicians b.b.c. could be and is i believe tacitly influenced by government u.k. opposition leader jeremy visit there presenting his views on the state of the media today and how exactly it should move forward now in terms of what he had to say about the b.b.c. despite praising this is a very important british institution he did go want to see that he believes it's time for some changes including the reduction of political influence and the b.b.c. being freed from government control he said it needs to be democratized more independent and more representative and this was part of the bigger picture he was painting about the state of affairs when it comes to the media of the press in the u.k. he did talk quite a bit about this relationship that he sees as a little bit too close for comfort he did see that he believes much of the press isn't very free at all the british press is the least trusted in europe including

normally e.u. countries like north macedonia and serbia the worry about new forms of news and we've heard plenty of that we've ignored the fact that most of our citizens think our newspapers churn out what they believe to be fake news every day well apart from proposals about putting in place a revamp for the b.b.c. our position leader corben also work talked about the need to increase the. influence of public interest journalism as well as local newspapers that he sees as now being quite underfunded and not being able to properly function while they're an important part of communities around this country he also said there should be a creation of a british digital corporation and overall said he believes that the public should have more control of the press in the media as opposed to those in power in terms of his statements on the b.b.c. we did reach out to them for commentary and they told us they are not commenting on

this topic. we are political analyst chris bambery with us live now to discuss this further now chris do you feel corbin's assessment of the british media in general is a fair one. i think a lot of people would agree that really the coverage we've had particularly who were here in the united kingdom is united in its view over see the referendum in the european union the referendum in scottish independence there's no question. queuing up to champion media with operation fear running these stories trying to scare people into voting how you would like but all saw you know the b.b.c. in particular been seen as being biased in representing those views so i think particularly young people there is a growing view that the b.b.c. and the established media is on the side of the elite is on the side of the corporations who after all or most of the newspapers in the media in this country

corcoran said the b.b.c. needs less government control how much sway do they currently have. well i think the interesting part of the highs is the b.b.c.'s finances come from are a license that every viewer has to buy but the government sets the cost of that license and saying is is really and the government control over that because that can be used to influence the b.b.c. direct way if the b.b.c. think this is a government which is controlling its purse strings that obviously the pressure is is that comply with the government and ever i think we're proposing is very interesting and really hiving the b.b.c. or from any direct government dependence but not just that also suggest in the b.b.c. in the employee and the consumers the point of view as the us knows should have a direct say in how that's run and that the management structure should be much more open. so people can see what is really happening inside the b.b.c.

management and when corbin's revamp restore public trust in the great british media then. i think it's a par long way to doing that i think is interesting as well he's proposing that money is needed and therefore he's proposing a tax on facebook pointing out this is happening elsewhere in europe and in in france and elsewhere so he's trying to put forward suggestions how this will all be funded and the idea that there could be an acquittal in a british equivalent of something like facebook or twitter or a digital platform that is also an interesting idea because these are controlled much of the social media is controlled by a small number of american based transnationals and the idea of challenging that agenda i think is interesting as well so yes i think it will go a long way and this is fairly radical stuff and it's quite thought out and there's a say there's plan and there's plans put in place there as well for how it can all be financed political analyst chris bambery thank you so much for joining us on the

program. facebook upping the ante in its crusade against fake news it's now ben hundreds of pages it claims are linked to iran or russia for allegedly trying to sway political opinion here's. thanks for joining us i believe that franco with your latest news in the world of social media facebook and twitter have gotten rid of suspicious accounts spewing fakes and propaganda from iran the troll factories not only after the minds of the americans but users all over the world it's claimed to be run by iran's government media. not us of the by. some of them through. facebook already enables users to check if they've been exposed to russian bots and trolls how many trolls does it take to incite revolution scores of so-called russian bots took over twitter and facebook some

stories never seem to die well this facebook slash twitter online police raid is an actual news story this week yeah you can take plenty of the earlier reports replace the word russia with iran and get pretty much all right speaking of facebook this time it bad six hundred twenty five pages traced to iran and then unknown number of pages linked to russia it just wouldn't work if russia didn't get mentioned and the reason for this verdict is we removed multiple pages groups and accounts for coordinated in authentic behavior on facebook and instagram what kind of sin is this in authentic behavior let's hear from zax people they use similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing we ban this kind of behavior because we want people to be able to trust

the connections they make on facebook. the issue of trusting what pops out at you from the internet it's almost as old as i am. ask her where we should meet. it seems like you're chatting with somebody just like yourself not only even if they show a picture of themselves it may not really be who they say they are it could be somebody dangerous i'm not trying to say criminals who take advantage of online platforms shouldn't be banned or prosecuted but dear facebook the way the internet and social network are yours is that users can be who they want to be online who said they must stick to what someone thinks is authentic behavior what if i want to be an elf or santa or a real news hound and my now going to be blamed for an authentic behavior and get a red card sooner or later i. universe.

will come to the us is for all the things they can do i. say stay because of all the things they can well looks like online platforms will force us to adjust to a new reality where a step away from your genuine behavior may lead to a ben or some distinguished fact checkers will tell you who you should or shouldn't trust how's this for a policy update facebook's just announced it will assess how good or how bad their users are at flagging fake news we developed a process to protect against people indiscriminately flagging news is fake and attempting to game the system the reason we do this is to make sure that our fight against misinformation is as effective as possible i think it's political pressure i think it really comes down to that they are putting themselves. in the position

of mediating human relationships which is first of all a very unhealthy thing to do and it's something that they really are. are grossly. incompetent to do it users primarily will not know what is being done to them and they will be manipulated in all sorts of ways we don't know what kind of place so next when he choose to complain about a post online think twice what if the fact checkers disagree in fact whatever you do they're better think twice statistics meanwhile suggest the social media site might be losing some of its sparkle one ranking service has calculated the amount of time visitors spent on the platform is down ten percent this month and also reveals that visitors interest is slipping facebook are yet to respond to our request for comment that's your recap of the day's top stories for now but i'll be

back with more and about thirty minutes. i. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murder i would prefer and it means to live the death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying the is just no way to parent and that we're even many victims' families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have just to get pellet here is because that's what murder victim's families what that's going to give them peace it's

going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way. it's seemed wrong all quite all quotes just all. the old biddies yet to shape out just to become educated and in gains from it because of the trail . when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground.

welcome to barcelona and to the cultural architectural garden june of the cataloging capital and the first two programs in the cities from catalunya we've asked about the politics and the economics of this one to be the public is going today we ask a deeper question and that is what is catalunya is that autonomy region of spain is ancient going to be a nation is allowing me to base cultural identity is a community of interest once we can answer that question then we'll be able to the town and when it's likely that catalunya is going to end up but fussed over to test being in the studio if you treat him emails and your messages. and first we hear from evolving peasants he says sort of freshening interruption talking economists super bowl watch and listen terry says great show as ever love the way you end the

show on goodbye for now we've seen the last of you and your bonus is alex no you haven't because i'd be back on in a few seconds bob says just catching up on the backlog of alex amateur episodes and interviews with kenny mcleish regarding independence westminster and especially breaks it these are fascinating and that's reminder to everybody if you can't watch the show live it's all available on the r.t. dot com website on alex's facebook and are you cheap channel bobby mcpherson says great interview with a new mcleish timely to freshen and straight talking on scotland's political situation trump and the dangerous company he keeps at among the interesting topics they show it to be says fascinating to the parallels between scotland in catalonia professor and tutor was particularly persuasive yes he was indeed. sent from catalonia says big banks in catalonia i get the feeling our two countries are going to be close friends in the coming years i do hope they are first two programs on catalonia we looked at the.