received. the money. raised over a new york times reporter who'd revealed an anti-republican this information campaign in alabama it turns out that the journalist the secret meeting of the group behind this scheme several months before he broke the story. british forces are seen entering a city in northern syria. kurdish territory as agrees to coordinate its actions in syria with moscow. police officer takes aim at a journalist trying to film the yellow best protest in the french city of rio and reflecting back over the weeks of demonstrations in france we have lots of. new

series on our team. because. we are approaching. the live direct from our studios in moscow this is our team international thomas glad to have you with us. right now the u.s. state of alabama has opened an investigation into election meddling during the two thousand seven hundred seventy senate race and comes after the new york times journalist who first revealed an anti-republican disinformation campaign sat in on a meeting between those behind the operation is now being accused of failing to disclose his own role in the scandal another person being highlighted in this probe is the co-founder of linked in reid hoffman who allegedly donated millions of dollars to the. object aimed at making thousands of fake russian bots on social

media reportedly to discredit a republican candidate aren't easily a potential picks up the story for us so it's official now that our earlier this week came out the apology from the sponsor of project berman that's how they call it americans not the russians have at least in one case been behind setting up an army of pseudo russian bots for dirty election tricks or the scheme to come to light it took more than a year while now buzz feed has revealed more details that could make this story much more serious scott shane the author of the new york times piece that shed light on what the democrats were at an alabama last year it turns out spoke at an off the record event of that very same group behind project birmingham none of that was mentioned in his article though mr shane explained he thought that wasn't

necessary i don't think there's any kind of disclosure that's relevant so i'm happy to be corrected if you've been to meet with intelligence or defense official of an off the record meeting it's always a tradeoff as to what the ground rules of whether you get something useful for your readers and in this case i did get something useful well what's even more important is the question why the event the new york times journalist took part in happened back in september however the article only came out ten days ago there will be people wondering why it took mr shane three months to write about this plus buzz feed is now citing a report with assessments and conclusions of how well project birmingham worked and if you compare the language of that report with the language in the n.y.t. article you'll find many differences the journalist. calls the operation

a secret experiment however in the cited report it is referred to as an operation to influence the outcome of the alabama sen race as to how much influence the project had on the actual election tallies the journalists wrote that probably it was too small to have a significant effect however the report says that it enormously affected the turnout our producers have reached out to both the new york times and scott shane himself however they haven't gotten back to us yet former u.s. congressman michael flanagan gave us his views on why the new york times decided to break the story he's got to break it eventually it's going to get out there's no way it can't be hidden like this for any length of time it's going to be dragged into the into the white and while these on paper can still publish it and still enjoy some level of credibility and over the holidays when nobody's really watching

they can probably get away with not being fully forthcoming wiki leaks stuff showed us several years ago that the media in this country doesn't just have its usual of center bias they've actually come out and decided that they have to support the democratic policies and have to support the democratic views and so when the new york times or any of these others actually slants flavors or withholds its reporting to benefit the democratic party no one should be surprised amazed or upset by this it is what it is. diplomats and high ranking military officials from turkey have agreed to to coordinate with russia on the syria crisis after holding talks in moscow it comes after the situation in syria escalated following donald trump's surprise decision to pull u.s. troops out of the country artist marie if an ocean has more on the meeting. despite the meeting taking place in snow in moscow that is now as you can see totally into new year holiday season very serious topics on the agenda series fate and russia

turkey carving needed work on the ground now up to us and nouns joe it is expected to take up to one hundred days but certainly tastes change in this situation already now specially in the area east of the euphrates river and this is where the american military have been present once they're out this territory that is now officially under the control of the kurdish forces may become especially vulnerable and that's especially after cherokees say it's he's getting ready for a military assault against kurds in syria's north korean's that and kara's sees as terrorists so the russian and turkish delegations that included intelligence chiefs defense ministers and top diplomats met in moscow to discuss how to avoid any military confrontation on the ground in that area what should be done to boost

joint work to return the refugees back to syria or displaced people back to their homes in syria's north speaking to media following the meeting russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov has specifically mentioned the work being done regarding syrian constitutional committee that plays a very important role in a political solution to syria's crisis from let's take a listen. during the talks we specifically mentioned that russia and turkey with the participation of iranian colleagues did everything promise to create a syrian constitutional committee this is being done by all states as mediators between the syrian government and opposition and we hope that those including our western partners he called the estonia group to finish his work as soon possible as . would not interfere in his continued all in all there was a feeling the base both russia and turkey are rather optimistic on how things

develop on the ground and they have expressed their hatred and believe that the new year will bring more positive changes to syria and maybe a long awaited peace will finally return to this war torn country. meanwhile turkish armored vehicles have reportedly been seen entering the northern city of. turkey has been a boosting its military presence on both sides of its border with syria since that donald trump announced the troop withdrawal is around forty kilometers from the city of where the syrian army says it is now in control they were deployed there after an appeal from civilians and kurdish fighters who fear a turkish offensive. comments now on the crucial role the kurds play in all of this . they call themselves freedom fighters turkey calls them terrorists the us use them as their proxy army well after this used to there will be

a strong deliberate and orderly withdrawal of u.s. forces from syria very deliberate very orderly turkey has already begun massing its forces on the front line and the kurds know all too world the consequences of that they've been there with afrin back in january the turks launched operation all of branch against the minorities northern most territories there were reports the syrian army could have intervened but in the end the kurds put on a brave face and decided to go it alone and efren fell and quickly for the turkish army the operation was hardly more challenging than a drill. the turks almost move deeper to another major kurdish stronghold of man bitch their

u.s. generals literally had to put their bodies between the two to prevent bloodshed now the u.s. is abandoning syria and the kurds while erdogan has been making it clear that a kurdish held man bitch just won't stand with him. these terrorists have to go to the east of the euphrates if they do not leave we will send them that was postponed eventually but not indefinitely unless the kurds leave man bitch wouldn't we already against syria's division our entire aim is to make terrorist organizations leave the area if the terrorists leave then there is no work left for us anyway the american withdrawal has left the kurds with a limited number of options really so they've turned to damascus asking to shield them we invited the syrian government which we belong to to send its armed forces to take over these positions and protect month beach in the face of turkish threats . yeah in response to the request of the population of man beach the syrian

government and its armed forces announce it is sending in troops to man bitch and so there they are the government forces have entered the kurdish kingdom for the first time in yes. after weeks of civil unrest in france the anti-government yellow vest movement says it has no plans to give up they are simply taking a break for the holidays. what everyone needs to understand is that we've decided that we won't stop the movement it's not oh there will be a small break over the holidays and in january it will start all over again so we are showing that we are here we are showing that we are not taught it on saturday yellow vest activities were activists took to the streets of paris for a seventh weekend in a row there were some tense encounters with police and several arrests made on thursday city officials said that the new year's eve celebrations in the city center would go ahead despite the protests the movement started in november against

a fuel price hike. as well as the protesters journalists have been targeted by police one had a flash mob device aimed at him in the north western city of ruin as officers do in the to disperse protesters in the day was pushed away by riot police and that and held a non-lethal weapon was pointed at him protesters have also been venting their anger at some media outlets for their coverage of the yellow vests in one suburb on the outskirts of the capital protesters burned cars in front of a newspaper headquarters yellow. best could be heard praising the work of other

journalists. as protesters gathered outside a french media building they seemingly praised our team for running a spotlight on the protests when yellow vests protester joined our colleagues at r.t. france to tell us more of it. to flip our the movement is not over there's no risk of that we will motivate more people to join us to continue our struggle and restore order in this all ago which must fall because it is no longer possible to tolerate this government. we will try to make the police's job more complex we won't make their work any easier because they don't make it easy for others they remove our masks protective glasses and clubs we are really being attacked during these demonstrations we are confronted by armed and well equipped people while we have nothing unfortunately the media belongs to the oligarchs almost all the media

except us it turns out that the media are inevitably dependent we would like to receive real airtime mainly so that we can organize and give answers through the media proportionate to the media attack that the state puts out towards ours today the yellow vest movement does not have a unified structure we have a horizontal structure and each acts as it sees fit everyone can do what he or she wants no one gives orders this is the true power. that philosopher a sly voice has been reflecting on the french and rest in a new r t mini series called how to watch the news you can watch part one on our youtube channel. if you had to ask ordinary people what do they want they would have said we want a stronger horse we eat less or whatever no you have to all four of them something dead they don't even know they teach them

a set of them this is my dish protest get your best out of info because they seek not that we are approaching a deadlock. thank you card a good thing but they think we need an in life. leadership and not afraid to say to my father who are not easy i'm not. bitter cannot take socialism this is side the i would like to leave your side where the state bureaucracy or some kind of whatever the public good are going to be somehow organize this basic theme in a way which leaves. impenetrable to me somehow want to come electricity comes that he tells the kid and so on i don't have to know how old this works i can leave my own needs i think that these are the future and we shouldn't be afraid to put

in as our motto again if you can bureaucracy and a level of a good age for. the u.s. government is being accused of failing to meet its obligations under the freedom of information act that story much more still to come you're watching art international. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest in the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. seemed wrong but i will just don't call. me. yet to see how this day comes to educate and engagement equals betrayal.

when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. welcome to the crystal ball edition of crosstalk what can we expect in the new year we have a great lineup of guests telling us what they think. back this is our t. international live from moscow now the trump administration has proposed to some changes to the freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access records from the department of the interior activists have voiced their

outrage over the move. this is a war on transparency this is a calculated attempt to shield the interior department from scrutiny to shield it from watchdogs and to shield it from accountability. all right the u.s. government says that the changes are needed to handle an unprecedented surge in freedom of information requests and to improve customer service if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers unreasonably burdensome applications and impose limits on the number of any one person can make investigative journalist dave lindorff says the new plans go against the freedom of it in the spirit of the freedom of information act what it's going to do is force people to have to go to court to get action on freedom of information request which is totally antithetical to open government and to what the foyer. of the freedom of information act was designed to do it had been set up so that you could

write and get information and not have to go to court so you get anything other than classified information these are not classified things that people are looking for are there they're open government things that should be freely available and quickly available if they say it's to be more efficient and to respond better to quote customers meaning citizens that it's a complete joke they're doing the opposite it reflects. basically the fact that they're trying to run a secret government. broadcaster in sweden has come under fierce criticism over its coverage of the murder of two scandinavian women by eisel terrorists in maroko viewers say the channel downplayed the horrific incident one norwegian and one danish woman were killed while hiking in the atlas mountains a video of their deaths was posted online in its reporting s n e t failed to mention that one of the girls was beheaded or that islamic state was involved the

broadcaster did though warn against people against sharing that video for legal reasons. i have now seen this very strange report and you lower the has been created to protect say rape victims from having video of the crime spread is now being applied to the beheading of the denish and the region girls in morocco i myself would never watch such a view do let alone share eat not where i'm upset about the proliferation of crime instead of beheadings to sum up a species coverage of the muslim terrorist attack in morocco and die if worry is one you'll be sent to prison if you spread the beheading film to die as worries have returned home to sweden three they died of knife wounds sort of for the murder america has nothing to do with islam r.t. asked the swedish broadcaster as v.t. to comment on this situation and are waiting to hear back from them meanwhile

criminal lawyer mohammed and political and social commentator morons are give us their views on the story. yeah i think this is tricky because it brings into question. ideas around editorial impartiality bias do national broadcasters like s.p.t. and others have a responsibility to report carefully on such issues and so we've got three main issues the first is under article ten of the european convention on human rights the second issue we have is about editorial freedoms for broadcasters to report responsibly and lastly why on earth would we show such brutal horrific killings because it's exactly what terrorists and exactly what the far right who want to demonize muslims foreigners americans migrants that's exactly what they want to do we cannot play into their hands. come from a difference review point in the sharing of something that is quite that horrific is certainly not something you'd want to see thrust upon you without any sort of

warning but also the mainstream media doesn't cover these things in more graphic detail means that the content stays online and organizations like i.i.s. can cloak a narrative around these with these images and this these images have gone viral internationally and the commentary around it is now being effectively hold by the far right and some of the more extremist elements rather than the mainstream media being able to pull pull out conversation so that it could be properly discussed if these type of images were to be shown they would radicalize the far right white supremacist which is burgeoning across europe it would also radicalize islamist inspired now but let's remember these are not muslims this has nothing to do with islam the same twisted ideology is used by the likes of the terrorist is used by

the likes of the right wing anti muslim islamophobia lobby to peddle the idea that somehow muslims are the edwards side. other than they need to be held back at the border we cannot let them in they can't integrate. french politicians are demanding explanations from president micron that they want to know why a disgraced former advisor still has diplomatic immunity and apparently represents france abroad alexander reportedly used a diplomatic passport during business trips after his dismissal the former presidential security advisor was fired in the summer after a video emerged showing him viciously beating a protester while a preliminary investigation is being launched in paris french politicians say people with this status can't travel without the knowledge of the foreign ministry . when you want to visit a country with a diplomatic passport you need to send a verbal note your ministry of foreign affairs informs the embassy when you're arriving to facilitate the visa process if the ministry is not able to provide us

with a verbal no then the must have been an intervention from outside maybe from a higher governments will body which allowed mr bernard law to make visits to the country is obvious standard diplomatic procedures if present corn thought it couldn't get any worse off the weeks of violent protests single thing france think again now he's disgraced former bodyguard alexander pope another is back for a second bite at the cherry it's emerged he may have been using diplomatic post boards obtained during his time working from that call one of which is said to have been issued frosted cold we don't only weeks after being filmed beating up a protester. i was i. was. the french foreign

ministry says it's just for their return and says they should only be used for. fishel fripp says any use of these passports since then would have been despite the commitments made by the person in question it's alleged he used in doing a trip to africa including a visit to chad where he said to have met the country's president that meeting came just weeks before korn made an official trip to chad and was forced to red faced to give an explanation this person was a no win official or an official intermediary on the foreign minister or the diplomatic advisor to the president and his africa advisor representing the head of state in africa president macron wants to entirely void the use of intermediaries especially in africa though the former aide maintains he never represented himself as anything but a private investor corns office has formally rubik pinella with regard

to the current person or to that is ask you to ensure they are conducted with strict respect for the confidentiality and ethical responsibilities of your time in this office. despite neely's a trying to distance itself even further from bin l.-a opposition politicians i'm now questioning whether men call still has ties to his former confidant this is having them as this could potentially short circuit french diplomacy and examine the knowledge could be a danger for the republicans this man this clearly different from the image of someone who was sanctioned after what happened in maine and who up to this action has received two diplomatic bathrooms when you have a diplomatic passport means that you go you speak for the country so of course on this one like why you see meeting you know people official people you know in africa if this person is no one you know according to

a two to the government if it's not a diplomat if it's not a friend if he's not an advisor then what he is then who is i mean otherwise you know why he had those passport back and who given this passport back so obviously there's a connection like somehow somewhere with one person or different people maybe the president's else i don't know but if what has been revealed you know for the past few hours about his few trips in africa if this is true then it's very concerning. it's been a bumpy ride for u.s. stocks in recent weeks with some record breaking volatility and the search is on to find out who is to blame. he began with. confusing signals from the white house about the state of the

economy. a blue christmas for stocks on wall street with another day of big losses.

today's events that make one thing clear. the country into. the stock markets down another five hundred points. this stepping down.

more news in thirty minutes this is our international. law. when lawmakers manufactured two sentenced him to public wealth. when the roman closest project themselves. the famous larry go around the lives of me the one percent told. to ignore middle of the room signal. the road to the real news is the way.