from sanctions to syria russia's security chief meets with his american counterpart for talks in geneva but one issue seemed to interest journalists more than others when john bolton addressed the media afterwards. whether you ever concerned that iran's president is a security risk of course not i mean that's so of course. the u.s. democratic party cries fall over another suspected hack but the answer turns out to have been much closer to home. and facebook fans hundreds of pages groups and a counseling to iran and russia for alleged political meddling. this

is art international coming to you live from the russian capital with your live news update this hour welcome to the program the u.s. national security adviser and his russian counterpart upheld 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 today they cover the whole range of

pretty much what had been touched a poem 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 ebb 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 bush doing business with iran and that the sanctions all coming into november and he's in 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 i think this whole notion that

sanctions also are a weapon and how we as a country americans i would count 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 i think people have been just blown away out of proportion. they also talked about a rainy in troops in syria mr bolton saying that he wanted to see both as he put it regular and irregular rainy in troops removed from syria pulled back from syria the russian side going into this it already said that they were in 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 it's

a silly question. and i just spoke to a morally a few minutes ago and. we have performed here in exactly the way i think the two leaders would have 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 coleman and speak to us it was very short not so sweet at the end there following that question for 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. another day another hacking scandal now the us democratic party has claimed it detected an attempt to hack its voter database with midterm elections just a few months away. this attempt is 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 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 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 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 reports at the sites now believe it was built by a third party as part of a simulated fishing test the test which mimics several attributes of an actual tax on the democratic party's votes to follow was not authorized by the d.n.c. vote builder nor any other. now the timing of all of this is worth noting it's

coming just as we're getting closer and closer to midterm 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 best to give reporter dave lindorff says the election tampering claims are being exaggerated. the middling issue is. first of all i think has been overblown in the first case you know when they found evidence of. you know russian based. organizations that were buying ads and things on facebook it was such a tiny amount during the two thousand and sixteen election that it was laughable so you know i think most people most sensible people realize that the election in two thousand and sixteen was not significantly impacted by meddling it was effected dramatically by a really bad candidate running

a really bad campaign in. facebook's upping the ante in its christo a bit against fake news it's now banned hundreds of pages it claims are linked to iran and russia for allegedly trying to sway political opinion is they're trying to with the details. thanks for joining us franco with your latest news in the world of social media facebook and twitter have gotten rid of suspicious accounts strewing 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 that those by. them through. facebook already enables users to check if they've been exposed to russian balls and trolls how many trolls does it take to incite i've evolution 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 identical stuff 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 inauthentic behavior on facebook and instagram what kind of sin is this in authentic behavior let's hear from zuck speak will 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 asking 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 networks have worked for years 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 as for all the things they can do i. say stay because of all the things thinking well it 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 ban 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. position of

mediating human relationships which is first of all a very unhealthy thing to do and it's something that they really are grossly. incompetent to do the 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 ways 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 that they're spent on the platform is down ten percent this month it also reveals that visitor interest is slipping facebook are yet to respond to our request for comment. britain's opposition leader says the public's losing trust

with the news media and says he's got big plans to rebrand the b.b.c. jeremy corbyn out of the broadcaster should be freed of government control as he lambasted other media bosses for skewing the news agenda. all and 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 press and broadcasting executives media owners and indeed senior politicians could be and is i believe tacitly influenced by government u.k. opposition leader jeremy organs 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. opposition 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 and 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 heard from political analyst chris bambery he says jeremy carbons ideas about the media resonate with the british public 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 do 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

was in the interest of both the highs of the b.b.c.'s finances come from a license that every viewer has to buy but the government sets the cost of that license and saying is right and the government control over that because that can be used to influence the b.b.c. direct way of or i think we're proposing is very interesting and really hiving the b.b.c. or from any direct government dependents still to come government is foreign minister has put forward a radical new proposal for ensuring europe's financial independence that story and more after the short break. what politicians do you should look to. put themselves on the on the big get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or something or

want to be rich. have to go right to be cross with what before three of them or can't be good get. interested always in the waters and look out. for sure. one else chose seemed wrong all right old old just don't call. me old yet to say proud disdain comes to educate and engage with equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground the.

you're watching our two international welcome back to the program donald trump's presidency could be entering its darkest hour as calls grow for his impeachment that's after his former lawyer implicated the us leader in breaking campaign finance law in two thousand and sixteen michael cohen said he paid hush money to alleged mistresses of trump on trump's orders but it seems cohen's information comes at a price as his own lawyer has launched a crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise half a million dollars so far over a quarter of the tarp money has already been raised with more than two thousand people donating in just one day the petition says the money will go towards paying cohen's legal fees political analyst charles or tell us is the u.s. authorities are being one sided. you know this is the double standard that is in evidence here rating michael cohen muller's rating michael cohen's office is to get

what are arguably as privilege information between cohen and his client donald trump. as it were trumped up charges that really are non crimes that go on as felt such pressure to admit stand a stark contrast to the approach taken by the right to lynch komi and others to go after the clinton foundation over actual public corruption actual fraud actually met actual mishandling of classified information there's a clear double standard here well i draw your attention further back into history in ny in one thousand nine hundred five and afterwards the clintons themselves were basically bankrupt they race over ten million dollars to pay their legal expenses nobody seems to be bringing that up. something few would have taken seriously only a couple of months ago an alternative to the swift banking payment system has now become a legitimate discussion topic in the e.u. here's the german foreign minister floating the idea of an independent system. where the us crosses red lines we as you are opinions must counter-balance as hard

as that is it is indispensable that we strengthen the european autonomy by creating channels that are independent of the united states a european monetary fund and an independence weak system so we have two which stands for the society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunications is a global payment network it's designed to secure transactions between banks and encompasses eleven thousand financial institutions in two hundred nations swift claims political neutrality but has apparently caved to american pressure in the past and since washington withdrew from the iranian nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions against iran swift has been left with a choice cut off iranian banks from its network by early november or face asset freezes travel bans and restrictions to do with business in america a german m.p. from the f.t. party things that although the foreign ministers call to make sense it's come at the wrong time the one who controls finance controls everything

so in this sounds to teach the goal of mr mas making europe and germany more independent by creating its own financial system it's still it's a strategic goal that has its right to exist but please we have to to take into account possible reactions from the united states i think they will be fond of this idea that we cannot afford to rescind the ties with the united states at the same time when europe itself has deteriorated his relations with russia so the boldness of mr mas it's not in the right time and not at the right places. although europe is one of america's closest allies the kind of treatment the e.u. has been receiving from the u.s. of late isn't exactly what you'd call friendly.

to the united states so well with a draw from the iran nuclear deal that diminishes compliments of the international order you need is never a good break the news that we ourselves helped to create. we selling things to them there's a new thank you we don't take you for. a free trade that's stupid trade so now we will also impose import tariffs we can also do stupid we also have to be this stupid. expect that you are peons will see this business as a load of us seen the choice between doing business with a run a good business with the united states scoring coolly to them. that they're global news update for this hour and that's all for me as well sean

thomas will be here at the top of the hour with the latest as always thanks for tuning in. lose. to me. a bit but if you. live in the.

us we will leave you this is who we will be talking to the. last time. i got out did it want to give you a little. bit a lot of it and about thought i was good but i'm about the same as art but i was up the money into the magazine. giving them a little. model was. just a little dog in their own right so who are going to give a. bunch of you made. over the people who go poems about both of them.

so. i finally got one and also the chickens that evidently now has a lot of donkeys a point about. wanting if he would be would it be that easy for the party to. and out any. time you said thank you. a. little i think i did but my little bit limited but not that i don't like the reality that shit out of me going to do it i'd like to play for my life to get a good body. like. some.

welcome to barcelona and to the cultural architectural garden jewel of the cataloging capital and the first two programs in the cities from cut the lunar we've asked about the politics and the economics of this one to be the public is going to day we ask a deeper question and that is what is catalunya is that autonomous region of spain is ancient going to be a nation is a lot and it's base cultural identity is

a community of and for us once we can answer that question then we'll be able to the men we have it's likely that catalonia is going to end up but fussed over to just being in the studio with your e-mails and your messages. and first we hear from evolving peasant he says sort of freshening interruption free street talking economists super bowl watch and listen terry says create a show as ever love the way you win the shore and goodbye for now we've not seen the last of you and your bonus is alex no you haven't because we're back on in a few seconds bob says just catching up on the backlog of alex salmond two 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 ru cheap channel but when macpherson says great interview with a new mcleish timely to freshen and straight talking and scotland's political

situation trump and the dangerous company he keeps are among the interesting topics special yet there he says fascinating to see the parallels between scotland in catalonia professor and tutor was particularly persuasive yes he was indeed the money to send 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 look at the politics and the economics of the constitutional battle being fought with spain today show goes deeper into catalan people and culture as alex attempts to answer the question of what is catalonia and who better to answer on the culture of catalonia the leading poet i knew better to know what the people are saying than one of the key horse in cattle in years top radio station so by to alex in barcelona where better to start this exploration of prattle on national identity them to interview the top poet catalog i spoke to forbes parcel the source. francis welcome. thank you very much you've

seen by many one of the widest as the leader of what's often called the generation of catalan poets what provoked such as. the catalan poets of your generation i think you know people born in the forty's and fifty's by the time we were able to decide what we wanted to do we had two ways in front of us as far as writing goes we could choose to write in got on them or we could choose to write in the spanish we had been brought up in the spanish under the franco for him for all of us within the have television with him at radio within that newspapers very few books from me fifty's on which then if you decide to write i think what you look at is what you know and what you

know is what you have surrounding you your family your landscape your language and that language was catalan so it's like this up through a tree that goes to the branches and then. might become green or not have flowers or not but at the bends so the suppression of catalogs under franco actually led to the the opposite effect of the old dictator was there who was looking for i think partly. because you saw what was happening and why i mean when you look around even of the char i was a child. you realize you are using a language and maybe your family knows or sayings in those songs or you go to a village and that's the language of the spoken and suddenly.