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tv   News  RT  November 23, 2018 11:00am-11:31am EST

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britain's foreign office is funding a secret operation of russian campaigns across europe that's according to documents exposed. names of those involved in the clandestine network of. rising fuel prices more demonstrations in france as protests cross the country.
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in the puerto. rico. maybe the world should be. says it is the world to blame for the murder of the prominent. festival in northwest pakistan killing twenty five and leaving many. chinese in a nearby city. here in moscow you're watching international start with those documents released by the anonymous group they do appear to show a. government operation across europe to control public. and also political process
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is under the pretext of countering russia's influence let's get more details now from our correspondent you go to an office in the studio with us you go just run through them what what are these documents exactly well the first thing to understand here is we got this information from a leak published by the a hacker group called anonymous they say they got their hands on classified documents of the u.k. foreign office now we haven't been able to independently verify those but their claim is that the u.k. has have bee has been funding an operation that has seen public you know public opinion makers using social media and planting stories in media outlets promoting anti russian narrative they are saying that this is basically countering the influence of russia on the global stage according to the papers published by anonymous a hack since this has been going on since twenty fifteen and apparently this has
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been run through proxy organizations like think tanks and what not they called this operation integrity the integrity initiative now important to understand that apparently this initiative was not confined just to the u.k. or even europe for that matter london had also even apparently has plans to do is establish similar operations all across the globe so. how does this operation then target this so called russian dissin from a should allow this whole operation it has a very strict structure it has very rigid structure so with these influences big public figures they are divided into so-called clusters this is the term used by the foreign office apparently if we believe these documents so these clusters are arranged based on the geography of the influences activities so for example there's a u.k. cluster and it includes such prominent figures like an outspoken russia critic as
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bill browder or the right hand man of alexina vali a prominent opposition figure in russia their work is coordinated in turn through a network of british embassies everybody has a contact person the operation contacts and then feeds the information to these cluster members now i mean important detail this. this operation it does have a budget but we can't really say that the people mentioned in the cluster group that the actually get any money so they could not even be aware that they are part of this clandestine operation run under the carpet by the british government so as far as the so as far as we know there is a coordinated coordinated effort by the british government property by the british government that involves some high stake players but they may not be aware of the other any specific examples them in these documents that sort of show how this will
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work well indeed the most illustrated case is that comes from spain actually so there was this guy pedro banas he was running to be director of the country's department of homeland security so he was almost appointed to the job but the cluster saw him as too pro russian for the remarks like these for example. what country has everything we like russia we've achieved nothing by provoking russia a comment by likely new national security director ben us so yeah that statement made him too pro russian so the integrity initiative launched a full on campaign against him with tweets like these not only makes spain look really bad it's a real danger for the contrary in europe as a whole government preparing to name colonel ban also known for his pro russian pro putin stance in the syrian and ukrainian conflicts as director of the department of
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national security a key government agency put in when realizing that without any effort he has just got one of his affiliates in government with full access to our security and defense policy is. so these are the tweets according to the documents by integrity initiative they see the kind of printed they put out the arrange the people's those things after the twitter the twitter phase the online phase followed the media phase and so there were there was a bunch of headlines accusing. us of being pro russian and basically spinning the whole narrative the whole the same narrative basically according to anonymous the even have a screenshot of what's our chat with a very blunt name. and that chad apparently showed like showed slights on how the whole outfit was coordinated so what they essentially tried to do the u.k. foreign office they tried to convince the spanish prime minister that the guy he
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had for this job or the director of the department of homeland security of spain that he's no good that he's too pro russian and the public opinion just doesn't want him holding that position and guess what this exceeded and eventually the spanish prime minister pointed another person into the job so if that is not the secret u.k. operation in spain saw a u.k. running the secret operation in spain if that's not meddling in other countries affairs then well what is. ok you go thanks very much for that which you can see down of there with all the details on that document was exposed by the hacking group anonymous but we did contact the foreign and commonwealth office asking for confirmation they funded the so-called integrity initiative we haven't had a reply if we do we'll let you know what they say. let's talk further now about this with security analyst and former u.k.
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army officer charles bridge charles good evening t. i don't know if you had much time to look at these documents they seem legitimate at first glance would you go along with that. yes i had a look through of course the very interesting if they are genuine and there's nothing so far to suggest that they're not of course a consistent with a long long history of british influence operations perhaps going back even one hundred years to the first world war and so on we think about various historical incidents where attempts have been made usually successfully to covertly influence public opinion in key countries such as united states and so on and if we think more recently the syrian conflict for example we can think of some examples that could arguably be linked to this strategy of influencing public opinion for example the child activist barn or the white house and so on and so it to that extent there's nothing really surprising here that britain is absolutely key among nations
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in organizing or pushing its own agenda through these covert influence operations what i found interesting straightaway was two points here one is you mentioned the spanish ministerial appointment that was altered by this operation that we're talking about today what struck me was the share speed in which this influence operation was able to swing into action in real time not just in organizing or rather influence in media coverage but actually through twitter and other social media very rapidly. mobilizing resources in order to change minister appointments even in other countries when you look at the timeline of that operation it was just just a few hours from when the operation was launched to when the operation succeeded and the second point i'd mention is that this is a very significant news item i think and largely perhaps because of that it's largely missing from most of the west media set in most of the u.k. media at the moment is that this is one of the very first occasions where we've seen these conflicts operations exposed by the sheer weight of the evidence if
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these documents genuine us or say there's nothing to suggest they're not it's unusual to see the level of detail that actually links these so-called think tanks so-called independent groups actually really clearly. presently with the british common british foreign income british foreign office through e-mail addresses leaks of name two divisions and so on and so the overlap between the so-called individual independent think tanks and then of course. largely being directed in this case certainly by british foreign policy is there a gray area. on whether they're actually doing anything wrong here because the pushing in opinion but everybody's entitled to an opinion. it would be up to using the spanish case would be up to the spanish officials to take everything on board before finally deciding who to appoint. yes you're absolutely right and it's certainly no problem with anybody expressing any opinion so long as it's lawful doesn't. facilitate all violence and so on but what we've got here his hidden
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influence and at the same time is you've got the u.k. and the u.s. governments absolutely campaigning very loudly against fake news false intelligence false information being put into public domain hidden funding of influence groups and so on because all of those allegations generally speaking are directed at either iran or russia or the alleged enemies of the u.k. here we've got the situation to actually behind the scenes it's the u.k. that seems to be foremost as often in the past i've mentioned in actually pushing these covert operations and stuff courses that no problem with anybody having opinions and expression it's opinions it's when of course we have a situation such as was alleged of russia but here we seem to have evidence of it happening by the british no doubt there will be other operations that haven't yet been exposed where actually these are not genuine opinions or if they are genuine news they're being pushed and given prominence because they are backed including by funding from organizations such as u.k.
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government and the funding of backing so often of course the whole point of a covert operation is not disclosed and so that gives the impression that these are genuine popular feelings when in fact they have been orchestrated by generous funding and important figures into in this case the u.k. government has the scope of this surprise you it still i mean it's not we're not just talking about u.k. or europe i mean it goes across many countries it seems. yes you're right the answer short answer is no it doesn't i mean i'm a. graduate a lot but also of international politics and it's clear from anybody that studies international history politics particular from the british perspective that there have often been influence operations of this type in fact ongoing as i mentioned earlier for upwards if not more so one hundred years and so there's. the long tradition of britain been very successful in this film that's why i mention the barna operation the white house its operations on these are very effective
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influence operations that at least partly are to sign to push a british foreign policy agenda a narrative and so therefore it is not surprising at all to see that this is happening but what is surprising as i mentioned is the sheer speed at which it's been able to be deployed in real time as for example the spanish case proved and i would urge anybody actually watching this track to take a look at auctions and sellers because that timeline in that case is very impressive but secondly the degree to which there is british government involvement in such a wide range of countries most of which of course should be said allies of the u.k. presumably whose governments would be unhappy that this is now been information publicly released it shows the degree to which. opinion and events in their own countries are actually being orchestrated secretly by one of our allies the u.k. charles that fascinating talking with the thanks for your insight that was charles she bridge security analyst and former u.k. army officer. another news this evening two deadly attacks have been carried out in
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pakistan at around the same time three gunmen tried to storm the chinese consulate in the southern city of karachi injuring that incident two police offices a lot three of the attackers were killed meanwhile twenty five people were killed when a suicide bombing at a crowded festival and market in the northwest of the country but there is. no no no you must have been. i was there i. found the following video captured the moment the gunfire started in the chinese consulate in karachi. the presence of the pollution the security forces would very much do it in no not around the chinese consulate there were more of them creeping. terrorist dudly
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chinese consulate. possibly used when god made. their edges very god loose there was a strong reaction by a box of each quarter forces more stopped at the wrist which is probably people for whom they had been killed and there were all sort of support for suggesting that probably some of the members of the security forces have also been killed in exchange of fire all members of the johnny gosch latest twenty one members they are all safe. well in another development at least twenty six people have been killed in around fifty wounded in a suicide blast at a mosque near an army base in afghanistan that's according to security officials there or those killed are believed to have been working for the national security forces the attack comes three days after another suicide bombing at a gathering of religious scholars which left dozens dead. now donald trump has suggested that the word should the world story should perhaps
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be held accountable for the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi he also insisted too that u.s. intelligence had not officially concluded the saudi crown prince had ordered the killing despite media reports to the contrary the us president was asked by reporters on thursday who should be held responsible. accountable. maybe the world should be held liable because the world of the world's world has a very very vicious approach when the statement indicates a change in trump's rhetoric regarding because georgia case when the news about the missing journalists first broke did a harsh response and even threaten to sanction saudi arabia and while the u.s. did sanction several saudi nationals so far has been washington's only punitive measure from claims he doesn't want to risk thousands of jobs because of the incident. they're vehemently denying that. we have hundreds of thousands of jobs
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just two people really want me to give up hundreds of thousands of jobs and frankly if we went by their standard we wouldn't be able to have anybody who's an ally because look at what happens all over the world the turkish foreign minister me mars reacted to trump's words there say not everything in this world should be about money he also reiterated calls were numb biased investigation jamal khashoggi was initially considered missing for saudi officials eventually admitted he had been killed in a claimed rogue operation riyadh has denied any awareness of the planned killing and has launched an investigation charging eleven officials middle east analyst ziad in the south told us that trump is simply trying to protect u.s. interests but trouble saying here is what is actually said behind closed doors every single time i don't think it's sitting well with a lot of people were. only truth of their illusions politicly we all need an enemy and since we're on inside of the road we are at odds and iran and israel that are
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asking the u.s. is going to go against iraq we can't give it to trump president tom smart. you know on one hand you may be actually trying to protect u.s. interests on the other hand if he sees this ultimate outcome in scotland you move people who are trying to absolve himself from blame where you can point to everything you said and since there's i don't want to do that but all of your major stuff and so don't blame it on me your c.r.t. international still ahead for you this hour tour some barcelona apparently cattle and police are giving that warning we'll have more details on that just after the break.
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you should. put themselves on the. big get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want to. get it right. this is what will. really help you get. interested in why. they should.
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welcome back now an illegal first for the us a judge has declared as unconstitutional law banning the practice of circumcision known as female genital mutilation the judge said that the power to outlaw f.p.m. was down to individual states not congress and he dismissed some of the charges against eight people including some doctors for conducting the procedure on under-age girls while the practice is mostly carried out in africa asia and also the middle east and can have serious health consequences including in extreme cases death an estimated two hundred million women around the world are thought to have undergone the procedure which the u.n. and world health organization considers a violation of human rights we put the issue up for debates and got opinion on both sides of the argument. it is absolutely misleading to suggest that female
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circumcision i'm talking about all three forms is intended to actually suppress female sexuality well i'm a doctor of human development and i can tell you that this flies in the face of everything that i've ever studied regarding women's rights so i want to make it clear that i am not pro mutilation i would never support the mutilation there are a set of practices that supporters like myself refer to as female circumcision and there are many different forms usually what happens with this terminology female genital mutilation or f.e.m. is that the most extreme form which is very actually quite rare is what gets gets conflated with all the other practices my counterpart here is is comparing apples and oranges she's talking about the difference between women who make a conscious decision as an adult to have to undergo some sort of cosmetic or other sort of procedure no one has
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a problem with that here and that's not what our conversation is about we're talking about seven year old children almost babies having these decisions to make them essentially a sexual and to risk their lives doing it i reject the term i reject the term mutilation as sexist and racist you do not refer to boys as mutilated so you don't refer to our bodies as mutilated so how far do we let those values impose themselves up on american values which are based on constitutional and individual freedoms and certainly genitally mutilating a child without their ability to even consider as an adult is not an american value most of the women from my knowledge from my twenty five years of research as well as from my experience do not. consider themselves as mutilated and don't experience themselves as mutilated. now france is heading for another weekend of protests as
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thousands are expected to join rallies against the recent hike in fuel prices demonstrations have been spilling out across the country to let's get the latest now from the port of cali where a child had been fees there for a shot good evening just talk us through them what's expected to happen this weekend because we've seen this protest movement grow pretty rapidly haven't we. that's right we're now in the seventh day of this yellow vests protest i'm here on the outskirts of cali and as you can see there are probably about fifty people who have turned up for the protest tonight it has been growing this evening though whilst we've been here and what you might be able to see is what they're doing is they conjugating and occasionally they walking across a pedestrian crossing as a way of stopping the traffic in this operation s. cargo operate in snail that's been going now for the last seven days here in cali
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they have been in the evening blocking the a sixteen which is one of the main routes here in france they've been taking it over and they have actually been skirmishes with the police as the protesters have taken control of this road well in terms of this weekend tomorrow saturday is expected to be a big protest day for this movement last saturday we saw some three hundred thousand people across france demonstrating they were people out in the streets in paris and they're expected to do that again to morrow if you can see they are there the crossing the pedestrian crossing there as a method of slowing the traffic and as you can see there's a police officer here there's also a police officer on the other side trying to control what's going on and if you take a look down in the distance you see that there are some police vans ready and that's because as i mentioned the protesters are hoping for a third night in a row to take control of this major route in france now this movement that's been
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going on for seven days and to say will go on to an eighty two more and that big protests expected in paris has also been spreading to other countries in europe the yellow vests and now it demonstrating in countries such as belgium which is just across the border but also in places like a bulgarian germany and even. reports are some of the protesters here saying they now have support for this movement in state it's a social movement a spontaneous movement where they're saying that there are no bosses there are new unions and there are no politics involved and what they're looking for is an improvement in the quality of life this all started over the price of taxes on fuels here in france but it is grown into a much bigger movement that is now looking at the social construct of france and some people are describing this movement is something that has not been seen in france since before the french revolution but to morris protest saturday in palace
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in perry we know that at least thirty thousand people are expected to come along that many more will probably join them at the main point where the protesters would like to hold the demonstration which is a plus to the concourse has been forbidden by the authorities but the protesters say that they still will be that ok thank you charlotte charlotte n.c. there for us live from the port of cali. tourists in the cathal on capitol meanwhile barcelona are no longer safe apparently because that's the message on leaflets being handed out by local police amid a spike in the city's crime rate over the last year in fact some three thousand leaflets have been given to tourists in seven languages including english french and also italian leaflets include tips on how to avoid becoming a victim of crime or currently there are some sixteen and a half thousand officers in the area but the force says it actually needs another two thousand police personnel and their supporters to the streets back in october
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protesting against the cattle and interior minister. i am. officials say that the crime rate has skyrocketed nineteen percent on last year to levels not seen since the eighty's however some local tourists there and residents do think the situation isn't that bad. when i came this was one factor that was new in one man hand that if i am not sick to your leg that is why i'm getting such a big bag insert a foot in all my comfort sideband chinese all the parts of the world and it feels
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so pretty scifi outside all the place in the world you never going to get rid of one hundred percent of crime i just tell people to. be careful and don't keep their valuables in their pockets as if you know i haven't come across anything that should meet me feet uncomfortable go and see my sandal i feel super secure obviously i take care of my personal belongings but it's a quite city safe you can walk at night i don't feel like something bad will happen to me watching us international thanks to the company to saving we're back again with the headlines and more stories in about thirty minutes time. a statistic from
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a couple weeks ago came out that show the wealth and income gap around the world in different countries and there's there's the u.s. there there's france and then there's the u.k. it's like why it's so incredible spread between this concentration and then you've got the royalists are people there in the tory party who support the queen whose whole point of breaks it was to support the queen ok so they just aired a list and a moron a policy because incredible poverty breaks it's all about supporting the queen and getting rid of their world contacts. those. dollars. i mean the dollop of dolly is what i would be. we got garrett over. we care the music with us.
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we are you we were dry gear. by you are going to get rid of those who will not go away we will not die quietly. real the hard work we do is the truth. while the two thousand any financial crash drives america into recession and unemployment will descend a small town in north dakota experiences a genuine black gold rush. thanks to a drug crack into case or oil is discovered in this tiny town in fact it turns out that williston is sitting atop one of the largest shale oil fields in the nation companies restaurants point this new energy reese.

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