the scottish m.p.'s calling for the assets of journalist working for russia's sputnik to be c branding the media kremlin stooge it comes after sputnik published documents that suggest the u.k. is funding things. to foster home to russian sentiment for security we look at the think tanks alleged to methods. and the outcry over one of germany's most acclaimed journalists exposed for having faked stories for years deepens as it's alleged he stole readers donations collected on behalf of people featured in his articles.

it's four o'clock and you're watching international live from our mosque in studio with me. welcome to the program with the alleged threat of russian propaganda still being trumpeted across the west. has now issued a chilling threat speaking to u.k. newspaper the times alex cole hamilton demanded the seizure of assets of russians working for the sputnik calling it a kremlin stooge probably boycott is following the story it's an internet based radio station whose u.k. headquarters are up in edge him in scotland and this liberal democrat m.s.p. alex quill hamilton has told the sunday times that any russians who live in scotland and engage in what he calls information rule fair against britain or to destabilize britain should have their assets seized take a listen to what he had to say to the sunday times. organizations such as you can

are to pump propaganda backed by vladimir putin and have been complicit in the cover up of events from human rights breaches to the russian invasion of crimea and other countries have taken a tougher line on the assets of russian nationals than we have in the ukraine the u.k. government must look again at what can be done that is pretty harsh rhetoric but that would have been a hit if the sunday times hadn't printed it along with the photographs of all the people that work in sputnik up in edinburgh it reads a bit like a wall of shame editorially that doesn't seem any reason for those photographs to be there other than sort of the newspaper outing these people as sort of being involved in anti british activities almost reads a bit like an incitement to violence in terms of why the spotlight has fallen on the radio station up in edinburgh and sputnik well it appears that some of the

reporting that they've been doing has been rubbing politicians up the wrong way in particular the radio station just like r.t. has reported on the leaked integrity initiative documents and they happen to reveal that the u.k. foreign office happens to be funding and anti russian public influence campaign through a british think tank and that's been quite a major story both. sputnik and c but the times article has already written off these leaks these documents about integrity initiative because they say that they come from russian hackers we spoke to a producer at sprint u.k. also named in the times article who says that such accusations against public mean that they are doing a great job. and initially it was it was a bit of a shock on the other hand it's kind of hardly surprising given the answer russian sentiment there is you know travel in all your key newspapers just say we expose

this integrity initiative which ruffled a few feathers people were not too happy about it and then we saw this times article carpark and make the claim that somehow this explosion of the integrity initiative by an r.t.c. suggests that it was a russian hack of the anonymous integrity initiative documents so it's i mean it's just ridiculous not nice to see your picture up there with your name except and under the headline of being part of a shaman stooge but never hand we know that we've done nothing wrong and i would see that this very much and to keep that we're doing something right here we sent requests to a number of international media organizations to get their take on the story and also specifically whether the times article was an ethical model mccauley author and russia says he's not surprised about the story at all taken how a different spot next opinion is from the mainstream agenda in the west put nick is

a radio station which had to create the russian point of view directly from perceived it from a russian point of view. and that really jars was a lot of people in britain because they found out the unsettling and find it very very difficult to counter. the usual accusations that it is biased and and so on is if you like normal in the information war and all weapons are being used and russia is the main target in europe and therefore it's not surprising the support that has been picked out as r.t. has in the past been picked out as well for their reporting many in britain but many in the british media and the establishment don't like the point of view. the opinions which are briggs broached and many bashing sputnik in the times article the outlined science defense fellow with the atlantic council on call sputnik an

instrument of russian state power not an independent journalism outlet and the name is not a new one in the integrity initiative scandal already appearing in released documents showing his alleged links to the group spreading anti russian sentiment and is not a low elite paper suggest that the u.k. found a charity has been using generous across europe to stir up until russia feelings run it west again it's. if she were an organization it would be integrity initiative lo and behold an army of probably demand this the sky's the ante propagandists whose job is to. the slander that states ideas people even british politicians our investigation has found barring evidence the shadowy programs official twitter account has been used to attack or been the labor party and their fresh us want to quote a newspaper article calling corbin

a useful idiot that goes on to state he's open visceral and destinies and how the kremlin course as surely as if he had been secretly peddling weapons to tattle for money you can imagine the shock mr corben must have felt when he learned through these leaks that integrity initiative had no british in the defame him well funded by the british government no less but slandering german opposition politicians isn't the only job with integrity initiative which is working to counter this information overseas by bringing together groups of experts to analyze and discuss the problem posed by russian this information the government is funding this initiative with barely two million pounds this financial year but funding covers its activity. outside the u.k. and it has not found any activity within the u.k. the hacktivist group anonymous has leaked details on the operation integrity

initiative functions by setting up independent clusters candidates seem to be hand-picked big plus a few influential charismatic but the chief requirement seems to be you've got to really hate russia the integrity initiative was set up to bring to the attention of politicians policymakers opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by russia to democratic institutions in the united kingdom across europe and north america now here is what's been bugging me personally if these white knights and self professed fighters for the truth what they say they are why are they hiding why are they trying to stay in the shadows anonymity of the team remains paramount as our activity increases we will no doubt attract unwanted attention irregardless here is how their class the system works see you have an article in

the french le monde harsh attack on alleged russian propaganda in france the author the french professor happens to be part of integrity initiative french custom at least according to the leaked lists and gets paid to trash talk russia they even boosted their grand plans when visited by who found the institute of statecraft which birth integrity initiative in italy and the atlantic council published a big study with help from an editor of less stump a very influential italian newspaper surprise more bashing russia it became increasingly evident in twenty sixteen. that russian strategic narrative sometimes including descent from asian and conspiracy theories were systematically spread in italy by the vast network of pro and five s.

websites and social media accounts not so much of a surprise it's called winnie is also listed as a member of the italian cluster and also gets paid for his work unfortunately according to an internal integrity initiative memo their peers to be a shortage of russian propaganda in italy in italy it appears evident that the promotion of a strategy to spread disinformation and to influence the italian political opinions has been limited in came much more from national populist parties rather than from russia or what sort of a foreign country strange isn't it how they chose to keep that part secret we can go on and on about other clusters but you get the point they're gritty initiative even targets us here at r t according to the leaked documents they have people presumably who they paid to report r.t. to off gone the british media regulator ofcom actually publishes complaints

statistics only if over ten complaints didn't make that list it seems like integrity initiative not audience members convinced of calm to go off to sea we've all noticed how anti russian sentiment in the media has soared over the last years and saw as still we now know one of the reasons but above all these leaks and in my view tear the mosques off the bol that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly. we are seeing a foreign office to comment on the integrity initiative allegations it tells us that the claims are being spread by kremlin news channels as part of a russian disinform asian campaign we spoke to piers robinson chair in politics at

sheffield university and he says this is much less about countering russian propaganda and more about his sowing and imbedding narratives on the domestic and regional level. it seems to be just as much about promoting ensuring up official u.k. policy towards russia as it is about actually countering any russian threat the u.k. government and other western governments in the us in recent years have had increasing difficulty persuading enough of their populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign policies that they have been pursuing and at the same time western countries have been going through a period of political crisis an economic crisis and i think a lot of this drive is as much about trying to shore up shakey official narratives and trying to shore up political systems in a situation of political crisis as it is actually about countering russian propaganda or i think i would suspect that's

a little bit of an excuse here that really what's going on the problems much closer to home. this is not just to do the u.k. this is europe wide and there also are indications from the documents that they are intending to start to have some kind of impact within the united states it's a very wide ranging network it seems we've established a reason why it needs to be covertly of course is that if a media organization or of a journalist is to let on that he or she is involved in a program which quite clearly is pushing a particular agenda then the credibility of that journalist will be damaged and this is really what is very deceptive about the integrity initiative it's about co-opting journalists and academics into a into essentially a campaign which appears to be a propaganda campaign in order to manipulate opinions and the only way that can really work effectively is that readers and viewers don't know what they're reading

is something which has emerged from a particular political agenda when they know best the story went further with new leaked documents claiming the group could have dragged ukrainian soldiers into its alleged plan. the integrity of the first part of a u.k. based institute called stagecraft charity promoting peace and security league documents published by a group claiming to be from the hacking collective anonymous revealed that the charities a main investor as the u.k. home office the integrity initiative suggests this as its purpose do you know people who understand the threats in order to prevent that from ukrainian officers back in july twenty sixth seen for them to share combat expertise that regarding the russian military the documents to give a full time table for that visit detailing who the militants met with over the

course of seven days integrity initiative on a country wide tour including several days major of military installations offering extensive briefings to key british and nato military and towel and planning units they also said down with the u.k. defense committee so who was his military personnel given the red carpet treatment well that leaked documents provide a very little information about them they also have and the ukrainian military that's the only thing a stablished along with the hundreds of parachute jumps each have under their belt perhaps enough to score an invite so we have a charity and a group of ukrainian military man now to get this information out in the open well me deborah haynes best known for being the defense editor at the ukase times newspaper well and she is given exclusive access to the ukrainian gas apparently on

monday the eleventh of july well that's according to the league schedule just several weeks later an article appears in the times sounding quite biliteral and based on an anonymous defense sources that detail a russian triggered a third world war. on a tiny scale in ukraine there is no mention of her alleged meeting with ukrainian military officers and no mention of integrity initiatives alleged how been bringing it about just warnings of a ramped up russian threat president putin has turned information in term illiterate to using websites social media radio stations and mass text messaging to influence opinion spread fear and cause confusion as part of a new kind of fighting in which anything is a weapon we rode to miss haynes but are still waiting for any response the only common did make was on twitter answering a direct question from a drawing

a list asking if she had met the military group while they were and the u.k. . you describe yourself as an investigative journalist what exactly are you implying if you really are an investigative journalist you will not have a serious consequences for publishing accusations even though even on threaten. are you saying this is untrue. documents to know what they are all i can say chaunced needs people. it is called doing my job i meet people all the time not this mean i'm connected to. doing your job would probably entailed researching the leaked documents as world know especially when you yourself are repeatedly named in them did you not research who range to the meeting and why to the veracity of the documents published on the anonymous website have been called into question with contacted the times and

british defense ministry about that but so far they have chosen not to respond r t did get a reply though from the director of the state crop institute himself thank you very much for your inquiry what is r t is a state sponsored propaganda or. it is a should and not a legitimate news channel we have no comment to make your sincere lucy in donnelly so here we have the birth of a big auntie russia had line an exclusive story to bullet according to the league documents and seems like a simple recipe westminster finding wing military man and the journalist to stay together with the think tank allegedly using clusters of journalists all over europe to propagate its ideas the release documents suggest hanes may be part of a u.k. cluster which it's thought aims at shaping to mystic politics piers robinson again says the group's alleged actions amount to political interference some people might

believe that such activity is necessary some people might believe the official claims regarding russian propaganda and misinformation etc and feel that it's necessary i would expect a lot of to produce public who want to have information being delivered to them which is not tarnished by such propaganda or manipulation campaigns would be very upset so much money and so much resources are being put into what is a threat to bully distorting and corrupting the public sphere within u.k. and across european countries this is political interference. a disgraced former top german journalist has alleged to have stolen donations from off and syrian children all those details after this break.

you know world big part of. lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. i certainly don't expect very many people will choose to be biologically all of probing by logic will move your body isn't working for a while it also means your mind isn't working so well i believe that indeed we will have pretty much no biologically old people even if we will have a much greater number of prolifically old people.

by the my throat the outcries running one of germany's star journalists expose last week as having fake stories for years is deepening class a lotus who was fired from people magazine allegedly appropriated readers donations for people featured in his articles including often syrian children challenging penske has more not just being accused now of being a purveyor of fake and fictitious news he's actually now being accused of embezzling money as a result of his stories the story but it clear that this relates to is one from two thousand and sixteen he told a heart wrenching tale about two syrian all phones

a brother or sister they were living hundreds of miles apart in different cities into after escaping syria and they were dreaming of a life together a life together in germany and he urged his readers to donate money to troy and help these two siblings his brother and his sister make their dreams come true and to get them to germany where the money was funneled into his private account and while it's not known how much actually went in there this spiegel is now investigating the claims that he actually embezzled that money because it turns out according to a turkish photographer who was working with him on this story that one of the children didn't even exist and the second one the brother who did exist was actually living with his mother in turkey and was and often so now dispy go as far as a criminal complaint looking into that basil mint possibly of money. as

a reaction to that story now to speak also used its front page this week to say its sorry to its readers for the fake news that it's been publishing for many many years this house is shattered the worst thing that can happen to a print media out. it has happened to us for years we allowed fake reports to go to print for us it's particularly horrifying that managed to deceive us for so long without being uncovered well in the fallout of this scandal dispy girl is now facing other accusations notably one from the u.s. ambassador to germany who's accused the magazine of having anti american boy yes the. us policies and certain segments of the american people it's clear that we were targeted by institutional bias the anti american bias that the magazine has exploded since the election of president trump so worked at this beagle for a number of years and he was considered to be such an excellent journalist that the

magazine decided to make him stuff in two thousand and seventeen he's won many accolades both in germany and internationally for his work including just this december he was given through german reporters association prize and back in two thousand and fourteen he even was named by c.n.n. as being journalist of the year we just spiegel is admitting that at least fourteen of his articles were fictitious they were fake it's now looking deeper into his other articles and it could be that the scale of his deceit is far far deeper than we already know following those accusations from the us ambassador perceived anti americanism when charlotte described in her report the magazine has apologized to all american citizens who may have been insulted and slandered by reports spiegel however says that it does not have an overall anti us bias political commentator

and publisher told us washington is focusing only on the fake stories that don't fit into the heart of turning a blind eye to the rest. they change those stories that make america look out and jaded those journalists who are most critical do not care on those people and those journalist who did fake stories about syria and most of the stories about syria and this war there were faked and were lies america is of course just taking those who don't want to stir up their their present policy policy they do with the politics of america first america all america great and whatever and they don't they just don't care anymore whether it is very obvious or whether it is not obvious. that is politicians have defiantly sung a band traditional folk tune about

a blond girl to protest what they see as political correctness gone mad. the god of. the the. the politicians took action after a non danish teacher and the copenhagen a business school complained about on campus singing of the song which associates denmark with a young blonde girl the leading in a verse he promptly apologised and promised not to play it again although some media reports that the college has not actually banned its use big artists the case has split society a professor at the university says important issues have been raised by the debate saying it helps the danes realise how blind we are but danish officials strongly disagree. come on this song is about the essence of being then ish it's a pillow for culture we should never bowl just for it or to get extra time to find

out whether it was a joke unfortunately it was and stop it just stop if we're no longer allowed to sing all songs then the party stops. it to start the way out of proportion we have come so far in the discussion of identity and the violation culture that our society has fallen apart the song was written by kai hoffman in one nine hundred twenty four and is regularly performed across the country but it's not the first time that the cultural classic has been dropped after people took offense at school in the u.s. city of philadelphia scrapped the book the adventures of huckleberry finn due to its use of a racial slur and u.s. radio stations refused to play the christmas hit baby it's cold outside after critics said it was actually about sexual harassment our guests debated the issues raised by the danish sun. but the only one who really takes it seriously seriously if this head of the school it's a metaphor it's not that everybody here has to be

a blond girl to be accepted as a person or to be a citizen in the society denmark has a real problem with integrating whether it's assimilation project where this integration of tolerance projects all the attitude towards immigrants people coming from war zones people escaping conflict and torture and those who are genuinely not and who are generally asylum seekers refugees there's no link between denmark's ability to integrate people and this song this is a song that is hundred years old it's part of being a sculpture it's part of our cultural heritage and i think it's horrifying that we're now we have to erase our past people want to live in diverse multicultural blended societies nowadays that nobody's asked them to change the culture or leave their culture behind in modern enlightened societies where tolerant and inclusive people should be able to come to denmark and feel included in society but don't

forget you're not actually allowed to come to denmark and be integrated or welcome in society unless you already speak danish this is an attack on and danes cultural identity and i think this was a chance of these are the kind of these are the kind of ridiculous tropes these are kind of ridiculous tribes no no no that you have is your point. and he did you point your point is that these are charges. and it's a great it is called you you need to know what it's all about how you get your paul your horrified we're raising your culture the point is this culture change to change there are migration around migration flows around europe and ultimately you are going to have to give way to the new generations who are coming and saying we want integrated blended multicultural society they should not have yet to. hear how they are. history i mean people here larry will get today's news where yesterday's news hour don't want to sing songs of yesterday i mean we have

a past we have a history and to know who you are you need to know your history and what i'm we're very afraid about about this political discussion but it will correct discussion is that a to stickle freedom is under threat because now you can write a song without you know trying to raise your past news round ups and i'll be back around thirty minutes with more but in the meantime stay tuned for artie's interview. russia's minister of economic development mark seem thank you.