questions are raised over a new york times reporter who revealed an anti-republican this information campaign in alabama it turns out that the journalist spoke at a secret meeting of the group behind a scheme several months before he broke the story. turkish forces are seen entering a city in northern syria close to kurdish held territory as opera agrees to coordinate its actions in syria with moscow and. this is. a police officer takes aim at a journalist trying to film the yellow that's protest in the french city when we reflect back over the weeks of demonstrations in france with the philosopher. in the new

series on our t.v. . get out of here because they speak we are approaching that they. are broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our team international and sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us you know the u.s. his state of alabama has opened an investigation into election meddling and during the two thousand and seventeen senate race it comes after the new york times journalist who first revealed an anti-republican dissin from ation campaign sat in on a meeting between those behind the operation he's 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 smear project aimed at making thousands of fake russian bots on social media reportedly to discredit a republican candidate. picks up

a story. so it's official now that our earlier this week came out the apology from the sponsor of project birmingham 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 but 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 out. of the alabama senator 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 effected 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 they have to support that effort that accuse 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 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 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 serious fate and russia turkey

card you need to work on the ground now off to us and nouns troops we drove it is expected to take up to one hundred days but certainly change in this situation already now so this territory that is now officially under the control of the kurdish forces may become especially vulnerable and that's especially after cherokee 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's 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 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 for let's take a listen. during the talks we specifically mentioned that russia and turkey with the batiste patient of iranian colleagues did everything promised 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 us down a group to finish his work as soon as possible would not interfere in his continued work oh no there was a feeling that both sides both russia and turkey are right. they're 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 boosting its military presence on both sides of its border with syria since donald trump announced of the troop withdraw all drop is around forty kilometers from the city of money beach where the syrian army says it is now in control they were deployed there and appealed from civilian and kurdish fighters who fear a turkish offensive explains 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 their friend 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 them. 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 so we didn't we already again serious division 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 man beach in the face of turkish threats. and in response to the request of the population of man bridge 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 years. yellow vest rallies have been held across france for a seventh weekend in a row there were clashes and arrests in the cities of at nanterre and early on as riot police moved in to break up the crowds. i. was. just like you. i was. i. was. i well after weeks of civil unrest in france and the anti-government yellow vest movement says it has no plans to give up and 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 always there will be a small break over the whole days and in january it will start all over again it is so we are showing that we are here we are showing that we are not it. and in paris there were some tense encounters with police on saturday and several arrests were made city officials have said that the upcoming new year's celebrations in the city center will go ahead despite the unrest the movement started in november against a fuel price hike. as well as the protesters journalists have been targeted by police as well one had

a flash ball device aimed at him in the northwestern city of ran as officers moved in to disperse protesters journalist assignment a move a was pushed away by riot police and that the hand held a non-lethal weapon was pointed at him the protesters have also been venting their anger had some media outlets for their cover. of the yellow vests in one suburb on the outskirts of the capital protesters burned cars in front of a newspaper headquarters while some yellow vests could be heard praising the work of other journalists have. heard. of. demonstrators gathered outside the french building of a seemingly praised. for its coverage of the movement one yellow vests a protester joined our colleagues at our two friends 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 of which must fall because it's no longer possible to tolerate this government but 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 mosques protected classes and clubs we are really being attacked during these demonstrations we are confronted by armed and well equipped people that 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. the first love reject has been reflecting on the french unrest in a new r.t. mini series called how to watch the news you can watch part one on our you tube channel. if you had to ask ordinary people what do they want they would have said we've all been a stronger horse we eat less or whatever no you can't do 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 it because they seek to know that we are approaching a deadlock thank you. thank you cory booker saying what they think we need an enlightened leadership and not afraid to say he might forward that eat i'm not being bureaucratic socialism this excite the i would like to leave

a society where state bureaucracy or some kind of whatever the public good are going to be somehow organize this basic theme in a way which leaves none impenetrable to me somehow water comes electricity comes that he tells the cat and so on i don't get don't know how old this works i can lead in my own needs i think that the key to the future and we shouldn't be afraid to put in as our motto again if you can bureaucracy and a level of again apes in the u.s. government is being accused of failing to meet its obligations under the freedom of information act and story and much more still to come this hour to international.

what politicians do something anything. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or somehow want to be. at the to the right to be close it's like them before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the why the how. they sit.

down. all come back this is our team international now the trump administration has proposed 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. well the u.s. government says the changes are needed to handle an unprecedented surge in freedom of information requests and in no water 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 any one person

can make investigative journalist to dave lindorff says the new plans go against 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 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 it's a complete joke they're doing the opposite it reflects. basically the fact that

they're trying to run a secret government but this isn't over its coverage of the murder of two scandinavian women by i still terrorists in my rocco viewers say the channel downplayed the horrific incident one in a region and one danish woman were killed while hiking in the atlas mountains of video of their deaths was posted online in its reporting as v.t. failed to mention that one of the girls was beheaded or that islamic state was involved broadcaster did though warn people against sharing the video for legal reasons. i have now seen this very strange report and you look at the has been created to protect the rape victims from having media 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 video let alone share it now we're more upset about the proliferation of crime instead of beheadings. to sum up coverage of the muslim terrorist attack in morocco

and dieth warriors 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 in morocco has nothing to do with islam are to be asked of the swedish broadcaster. to comment on the situation and are waiting to hear back from them meanwhile criminal lawyer mohammad g and political and social commentator more unsorry give us their views on the story. yeah i think this is tricky because it brings into question. ideas around editorial impartiality bias to 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. i 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.a.s. can close a narrative around these 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 the conversation back so that it could be properly discussed

if these type of images were to be shown they would radicalise the fall right white supremacist which is across europe it would also radicalize islamist inspired let's remember these are not muslims 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 islamophobia lobby to peddle the idea that somehow muslims are the edwards side the other that they need to be held back at the borders we cannot let them in they can't integrate and. it has 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. to begin with financial fears on wall street confusing signals from the white house

about the state of the economy. there was a blue christmas for stocks on wall street with another day of big losses.

today's events have made one thing clear president from. the country into chaos the stock markets down another five hundred. general mattis stepping down. that does it for me i'll be back at the top the hour with more news you are

watching our international glad that with. when i was told some seemed wrong all but all were all just don't call. me the world is yet to shape our disdain comes to educate and in games from an equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground the. when lawmakers manufacture consent to step into the public well. when the

ruling class isn't protect themselves. the financial merry go round lifts only the one percent told. to ignore middle of the room signal. going to the real news group to. join me every thursday on the all excitement show and i'll be speaking to get us to the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

he has enough to buy if. you're in the media. if you move in with the. north and give him money both of them in my will and i will start to feel.

that what my name is i'm a travel photographer i went to kenya today a national park to meet the math guy in amazing people who have managed to place their identity and find ways to interact with the outside world to. be surprisingly . good. english and have internet access so finding them and arranging to meet was a breeze. yes oh. this.

was. the. i decided to become a real must find woman myself and experience firsthand all the trials and tribulations of tribal life. from which you put them did it was was the tribes most respected woman agreed to help me you know she presented me with a red dress a brightly colored shawl and piles of.