russia responds to western accusations it's been carrying out dirty cyber activities calling it an orchestrated propaganda campaign will bring a rundown on the day's war of words. in other news as america holds its breath awaiting the outcome in the brett kavanaugh case the supreme court nominee accused of sexual misconduct we look at that unexpected effect the scandal on the looming midterm elections. in escalating trade war the us vice president claims that chinese tariffs are designed to influence america's upcoming midterms.

so joining us this evening this is international and we start this hour with breaking news moscow has responded to the string of accusations by the west on the alleged cyber attacks calling this a directed propaganda campaign against russia. here's how events unfolded on thursday the united states the netherlands and britain almost simultaneously accused g.r.u. military intelligence service of a string of cyber attacks on everyone from the international chemical weapons watchdog to russia's own news agency. these are four russians that were recently expelled from the netherlands for attempting to hijack the o.p.c. w. in april while it was dealing with the investigation into the poisoning of sergei and. they released images of these four suspects in the netherlands their diplomatic passports and at the very same briefing briefing in the hague the

british ambassador to the netherlands accused the g.r.u. of attempting to hijack porton down which is the u.k.'s military. here in the u.k. and the u.k. foreign office in the wake of the script power ok. and they accused g.r.u. agents of attempting to hijack the investigation into the downing of flight m.h. seventeen as well that's a lot of allegations for one day but it doesn't stop there take a listen to what the british defense secretary gavin williamson had to say about moscow. this is no reactions of the great this is the stage and we'll continue working with our allies to isolate them and make them understand they cannot continue couldn't do it themselves in such a way why is he calling russia or a pariah state well because the british government released a statement overnight accusing the g.r.u.

of being responsible for the hijacking of wider that the world anti-doping agency in the wake of the russian doping scandal they've accused g.r.u. agents of being behind the hack on the d n c that is those clinton e-mails that we did in the run up to the election of donald trump over in the u.s. and they also accused russian spies of hacking ukrainian and russian institutions and business says russia's foreign ministry spokesperson maria harvest spoke a little bit earlier on today and she asked she was asked about these british accusations the dutch and the american ones haven't come to light yet and she said that all the accusations against russia in recent months have been conflated take a listen to what she had to say because only about a border everything is being mixed indiscriminately as if in a bottle of mineral rich or perfume russian military intelligence cyber spies crime and hackers it's all just one big witches brew the imagination of our british

colleagues knows no limits who could come up with all this i'd like to take a look at these hans christian andersen and one more thing is that the dutch government has also called in the top diplomats in the netherlands that chaper staff air into the dutch foreign ministry in order to discuss the cyber attacks earlier we spoke to russia's and boy in the u.k. he notes that evidence from the british side is still lurking. we believe that this kind of statement reckless and explain why first of all this statements are not supported by any evidence this is first second we hear this kind of a legations for quite a now quite a time and in this the south and seventeen for former foreign secretary boris johnson was in moscow. a lover of russian foreign minister offered him to have a consultations on the cyber security and he said if you have any questions

in connection with the alleged russian activity we can put this specialist from two countries sit down on the table and to discuss professionally what are the concerns of the british side the british refused to do this and instead of that they launched reckless attacks on us without any evidence this is quite a big story you know this is the name of the russian intelligence organisation you know if you names there are expelled and obvious things but the beef i mean this is this substance is not. basically given so we're going to ask the british side to give more information on that and we're going to repeat our call if you have some information please share this information and we're ready to sit down and talk the united states is also indicted seven people it claims r

g r u agents four of them were expelled from the netherlands according to this morning's hearing. correspondent has more now on what washington said in a string of cyber accusations against russia. so we've got the department of justice of the united states charging seven russians now the crimes listed are hacking money laundering wire fraud and identity theft and it's being alleged in the indictment that not only did they commit these crimes but they did it on behalf of russia's g.r.u. let's take a listen real quick to the indictment these seven defendants are charged with a pervasive campaign of hacking stealing private and sensitive information and publicizing that information to retaliate against russia's detractors and sway public opinion in russia's favor now the allegations go on to say that essentially

they began to hacking individuals in response to them calling for russia's athletes to be banned from the olympics after the doping scandal it's alleged that they took information and publicized on the internet that u.s. tennis stars serina and venus williams had been using prohibited medicine and the same thing about olympic champion simone biles now it's also been alleged that they targeted a nuclear power nuclear energy company in pennsylvania now three of the people lifted listed in the indictment seven total but three out of those seven have actually been named in previous indictments from the u.s. department of justice as a result of the bob mueller investigation yes we haven't seen any evidence yet this is simply an indictment being handed down by the u.s. department of justice no evidence yet presented we spoke to former british intelligence officer and he believes that they're all double standards in the yankees ations against mosca. we have

a situation where i surely if such an attack it happened they should be given access to the investigation within two weeks they should be included in the o.p.c. w. investigation and they weren't they were specifically excluded as we saw the same things over the mh seventeen as hack so you know being absolutely excluded from an investigation where they could have provided professional and specialized information and expertise of course they don't want to find out what is going on so in terms of. the british particularly pointing fingers at russian intelligence and saying this is terrible how dare you try and get information secretly i just find that absolutely breathtakingly hypocritical because that's exactly what british spies do is exactly what all our spies do that's what they're paid to do. as well as the five weeks until america heads to the polls for the big term elections and it seems that the continued arguments around trump's supreme court nominee brett

kavanaugh are having an influence after the f.b.i. provided the results of a probe into the sexual misconduct accusations against the judge republicans seem satisfied split the democrats sounding the alarm. it looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited perhaps by the wife i don't know i disagree with senator grassley statements that there was no hint of misconduct meanwhile in october a poll shows republican supporters now see the november vote as very important a significant increase now almost equalling the view democrats have about the election but the smear akong takes a look at whether there's a correlation well it just might be the first time that the ruling party retains a congress after midterms and the midterms are just about a month away in november a new poll shows that eighty percent of americans from both parties see it as very

important now in july the poll showed a ten percent gap between republicans and democrats but it seems that republicans are more relaxed now because of the democratic party's continuous efforts to destroy supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh who was accused of sexual assault then democrats immediately took his wife's side and trumped hammered democrats for this at his rally in west virginia you see what's going on you see this horrible horrible radical group of democrats you see it happening right now they don't get hurt. who they have to run over in order to get power and some have even noted that all conservatives not just republicans are taking kavanagh's side saying that this liberal scandal has united the right against a democrat so was have to wait and see for now but in november if these predictions do come true. i'm pleased to say the political commentator and to me brian logan

joins me on the line not good to have you on on to the the seven ok so. i'm sure it's a lot clearer for people over in america for the rest of the world though can you explain why it's such a significant case why american politics as much. well as a pretty big case because of woody signifiers you're talking about donald trump putting in a second supreme court justice in the could be a second for so brit kavanagh himself is not really the issue here it could have been anybody could have been somebody on the left anybody that done on trial would put in people would be against simply because of donald trump and he has ability to change the direction of the country and also solidifies legacy people want him to be a one term president when he does things like this that would cement him in american history is that much more difficult to get him out of office which is the goal here . if we look at the results of recent poll eighty percent of americans have said

that these midterms are very important over sixty percent say they're the most important in their life why are people caring so much about things but it's coming up now with the midterms are important because of all of the negativity in my opinion that is coming from one side of the political aisle and that's to lift all these protests are these rallies people understand that they don't want the current you to go in that direction we want to have civil people normal people so we understand the importance of keeping some of these individuals out of office and we also understand that this is going to lay the groundwork for everything else that we have coming up. travel bans everything else is going to be dependent upon your local elections de left there put a lot of money a lot of resources and a lot of time into your kenny days but i don't quite understand how the money they put into it or candidates is also going to impact and empower the opposite sad

because we see how much effort they're put into it is it unfair to say this is the last chance to stop trump from troublemaking trump's vision of america. well this is how the few i think every thing that happens whether it was. the first supreme court just put in an air bridge kavanaugh now the midterms i feel like the left the extremes that is they feel like is always delays chaney's so this is it won't more thing in twenty twenty it'll be another thing every single time there's an opportunity for people to come out and express themselves or try to stop they'll take advantage of it so in their eyes is always a time is now just one specific incident that is the last time to have a change to stop. ok many thanks for joining us my guest is placed into antony brian logan thank you thank you. all so these not economic standoff

between beijing and washington is escalating with both sides slapping hosh import tariffs on each other u.s. vice president might pens not claims that the chinese measures are meant to influence america's upcoming midterms. the tariffs imposed by china to date specifically targeted industries and states that would play an important role in the twenty eight hundred s. but china's actions aren't focused solely on influencing our policies and politics . beijing is also taking steps to exploit its economic leverage and the allure of their large marketplace to advance its influence over american businesses. well after dawn from brought in a first wave of tariffs on chinese goods beijing answered with restrictions on u.s. imports it also filed an official complaint with the world trade organization washington then followed up with more than two hundred billion dollars worth of tariffs against china in the latest jibe china has announced that it's stopping all purchases of oil from washington one of the country's top carries of u.s.

crude admits the business has quote totally stopped beijing and been the second largest importer of u.s. oil. let's bring in jeffrey albert token now who is the editorial director of the american institute for economic research good to speak to jeffrey we've heard it from mike pence he says that chinese tariffs could affect the upcoming u.s. midterms and undermine president trump do you do you think he's got that right is that what the chinese are trying to do. i think pence is completely wrong on this actually than people who are paying the biggest price for those happened to be trump's base and you can know this because trump administration itself and you can't believe this actually it's a shocking as author authorised something like fifteen billion dollars in payments to farmers who have lost markets foreign markets for their goods and now you've got

applications going into washington the tens of thousands of people asking for money to be compensated for lost markets so this trade policy is not not going to help for the trumpet ministration politically and so i don't believe plans means though that china is targeting his electoral base knowing that it's going to be bad news for term. look there's no reason for china to target anybody were it not for the fact that us was targeted china we had peaceful trade relations two years ago and now u.s. tariffs have gone from three point five percent of on an average of five point two eight percent i mean so this is actually like. entirely on the trumpet ministration i regret that china has actually retaliated i wish they hadn't. but this is what's happened and this is the fault of washington. the u.s.

has imposed its own tariffs on chinese going to lose in this battle. well i think the u.s. is definitely to lose because if you look at what's happening then in china right now they're actually lowering terrorists on many goods for. imports from other countries besides us like actually lowering tariffs and it's actually a good thing for chinese consumers and it's good it's going to help the chinese economy china is going to overall win the war there is no the us does not have the leverage you know in the us to impose tariffs it's not against china it's against us producers and consumers i mean we're the ones paying the these these taxes and so it's a it's a it's a it's even from from the trumpet ministration plenty of you know this is a politically a very dangerous policy that's not going to benefit trump at all so it's a little bit mystifying why this keeps happening why this trade war keeps going on

and my own view of this is that it's purely philosophical and ideological is kind of a fanaticism even from the early campaign days trump had targeted china and let me say this to. the u.s. just talk a trade deal with canada and mexico that is probably not as good as nafta was but it's at least not a disaster right the markets rallied and people were happy about that because the manse the least we could continue to trade with our primary trading partners but here's what's interesting about the deal what it does is it creates an even more protectionist oriented north american free trade trade zone. probably the trumpet ministration did this as a way of intensifying its war against. china against china trade so in a way it's not very bullish for global trade at all we're going in the opposite direction and i think i think it's actually politically dangerous for the trumpet

ministration actually but it's also definitely economically dangerous for consumers and producers on all over the world. about the oil aspect of this financial conflict we got sanctions from the u.s. from china sanctions on iran how this is affecting the will oil market. well you can see what's happened in the price world this year and i think i think that entirely reflects the this trade war but you see what's happening with china i mean china has a big demand for fossil fuels going forward you know over the next ten years twenty years fifty years right and china. policy makers in china have already configured the markets are preparing for a fool trade war and the u.s. is and china is seeking to become. independent and in terms of its fuel needs from the u.s.

going forward this is a presumption widely shared all over china and they're definitely going to achieve it because the u.s. does not have a monopoly on oil exports so they're going to get away with it and it's actually in the end really going to hurt u.s. exports now the price increases been a help to the american oil industry in the short term but long term the loss of the chinese market is actually going to be potentially very devastating actually. it seems like a you know there's been a lot of news of the last few years about the fracking in the states and how the companies involved in it was struggling because of the price you just basically getting too expensive just to get the product out of the ground and now you've got china saying that the not going to import oil from the u.s. how's it going to hit the u.s. economy. well i fracking is already booming again right with the rise in prices fracking the fracking boom has already started all over again and that's that's

that's great but the u.s. is going to have to seek producers and dealers are going to have to seek other markets besides china and we will get them and we'll get there and as i said there's an unlimited global demand for fossil fuels contrary to people who say the future is made of wind and water that's nonsense and sun and solar power that's not true. the future is fossil fuels so i think the american oil industry is going to be going to be fine but it's deeply regrettable to have these completely unnecessary conflicts between the u.s. and china as i say nobody benefits from this it's a reflection of a kind of ideological fanaticism on the part of the current presidential administration and i don't think it's going to be good either politically economically or otherwise and and if and if the u.s. presidential administration believes that by these these petty trade war measures

they're going to somehow stop the rise of prosperity and stop china from big becoming a big the biggest global economic power. they're completely kidding themselves i mean this is like reversing the reverse of something like that it's nonsense china is is is is on the march we had pent up prosperity there for one hundred years the end of economic controls and china has unleashed prosperity and there's an infinite amount to go so there's no going back on that and the us needs to deal with it come to terms with it embrace trade with china so that americans can benefit both manufacturers and consumers jeff we appreciate you coming on and you analysis many thanks jeffrey l. that took in my guest editorial director of the american institute for economic research. move on to the news president putin is in india for

a two day visit it's expected putin in the indian prime minister narendra modi will discuss broadening nuclear ties russia's bidding to build another nuclear power plant there in addition to the one already under construction or over the two leaders are to sign a multi-billion dollar contract for the delivery of the russian s four hundred air defense system for the prospect of india purchasing that has ruffled feathers in washington just like it did in other countries and he has done of explains why. for russia selling its weapons is not exactly business as usual in the strict sense of the word has inadvertently expanded into the realm of geopolitics because the united states gets visibly upset when anyone shows interest in buying brushes arms even made it official that preventing russia from exporting its weapons is part of their game we will continue to vigorously implement sanctions and urge all countries to curtail relationships with russia's defense and intelligence sectors

both of which are linked to malign activities worldwide retribution for disobedience was swift with china it recently bought some of russia's most advanced fighter jets and anti-missile defense systems and washington through beijing in the same basket with moscow slapping it with sanctions stirring fury in china but well china is at least a geopolitical rival of washington and turkey isn't it's a valued nato member but still one ankara showed interest in buying russia's as four hundred systems well the united states made it clear it does not want them there you know it goes against our policy to have a nato ally such as turkey use an asse four hundred system part of the problem with that it is that it is not in iraq robel with other nato systems and so we are against the having some of our partners and allies around the world potentially purchase us for hundreds it would trigger a cancerous action i'm not going to get into that but we have made very clear what

could trigger sanctions for other countries and entities around the world the list of countries washington has tried to convince against buying russia's weapons goes on but with india everything hints that it won't be just words almost a godfather style of a threat the pentagon has warned that it has its sanction machinery in first gear if india decides to follow through with the purchase of russia's missile defense system we would still have. very significant concerns if india pursued major new platforms and systems i can't sit here and tell you that they would be exempt that we would use that waiver that would be the decision of the president if he is faced with a major new platform capability that india has acquired from russia the united states has essentially backtracked on the previous promise to defend india from the sad sanctions and that's why they expected arms deal is such a bold move for india done of reporting from new delhi r.t.

counting on america's attempts to stop india from buying the s four hundred air defense system russia's trade and industry minister express cautious optimism saying india isn't likely to cave. in india is no exception in terms of the pressure being exerted on them and at the end of the day it will all depend on how resilient our colleagues are in the face of this pressure because i wouldn't venture to predict with one hundred percent certainty how india will act but judging by the talks with them surely some obstacles a lawyer will to rise but still the colleagues national policy is independent when it comes to making decisions on purchasing foreign military equipment. staying with us are you watching all the international drama for the latest at the top of the.

stock market trading at all time highs the debt load everywhere as we head to two hundred fifty three or fifty five hundred percent debt to g.d.p. this is the plan on the verge of a major tsunami of good. long

welcome from worlds apart at the chaste repond of leisure that seems to be the international community's mojo when it comes to leave having enforced regime change in two thousand and eleven so western countries lobbied for a stillborn political agreement in two thousand and fifteen and now push for nationwide elections by the end of this year is libya ready for yet another exercise an expert democracy to discuss that i'm now joined by. former ambassador to the united arab emirates and the country's standing candidates. presidency mr mayor that's good to talk to you thank you very much and welcome to moscow thank you very much and thank you for now you put forth your account of this not only before the elections were formally announced but even before that a legal framework of the constitution has been agreed upon speaking when do you hope to see your name on the ballot. first of all i would like to say that the very

act of unknowns in candidacy was a deliberate political act that was meant to encourage the holding of elections quite frankly i think legitimacy is in libya have deteriorated and have fragmented and it is extremely important that we have a new digital mysie of a presidency that has the vote of the libyan people and that is why. he did announce the candidacy quite early in march as a matter of fact and you have to hope that the elections felt pressed yes indeed this year indeed and i think that that was agreed and agreed in public in front of heads of state and the whole world community the paris agreement was blessed by the united nations and i feel the dates in that agreement should be respected and attentive that december is the day of the election and i think you would agree with me that holding elections as early as possible would perhaps serve you well politically but you also know that there are many observers. in libya and abroad

with no skin in the game who say that the country is not simply ready for that kind of a democratic exercise not ready security wise not in terms of the legal foundations you still have don't have a full fledged constitution. are you putting your political ambitions before the abilities of your country first of all i don't think it is the right of any other nation to determine when we have our lections i think it is in the end as the french will log and hard as you know and we have to be very accurate about this it is for libyan stakeholders the main players in libya who met in paris and it's a libyan agreement that was announced in paris but it's by no means a french agreement it is a libyan agreement and all four parties agreed to the date of december tenth no they also agreed that there should be a constitutional framework constitutional framework does not mean.