when so many worlds apart. just to look for common ground. just a small experiment a democratic party group explain away alleged interference in alabama data election investigations been launched of the group that fakes more than a thousand russian social media bots to allegedly discredit and republican candidates. period in france yellow vests protesters have been out on the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend did running vassals with. the seasonal alerts and girl scouts in the united states who say the children don't owe a hug to any guests these holidays and parents should encourage them to set boundaries and give consent and asked our guest if that was the step to form

builder in our often not be around people that we would like to think are healthy people care and have determined that these people are safe for your child to be around and that the child this tight respect can manners and the freedom of information act that's helped expose high level corruption and wrongdoing in the u.s. comes under pressure or parity is one the right to reject requests they think of burden for. hello and good morning you're watching the weekly here on r.t. international bringing you all the latest along with a roundup of the stories that shaped the week a warm welcome to you now we start in the u.s. where a scandal surrounding alleged meddling in an alabama state election campaign continues to unfold what's being called a small experiments by a pro democrat cyber group that fakes russian votes is now suspected to be

a planned effort to influence the vote and as the state's attorney general launches a probe into the case r.t. easier to try and co investigates to. americans not the russians have at least set up one army of pseudo russian bots to sway opinion and boost election turnout it's the big story this december and as more and more details come out as the new year gets closer those involved are having to do more explaining. scott shane started the domino effect by writing about the whole false like scheme in the new york times a week later another outlet reveals his scoop was from way back in september when he was invited to speak at an off the record event for the group behind the bots project but the journalist didn't see a thing about that in his article i don't think there's any kind of disclosure that's relevant so i'm happy to be corrected it's always

a tradeoff as to what the ground rules of whether you get something useful for your readers journalists also eventually got hold of a report assessing how well the scheme worked and it the experts don't call it an experiment like scott shane did the journalists also wrote that the whole thing was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race compare that to these words enormous effect on the turnout at the phrasing from the report. the venture cost one hundred thousand bucks pennies compared to the money usually splashed out on campaigns but that doesn't take responsibility of the man who stumped up the bill reid hoffman billionaire co-founder of linked in and big democrat donor he ended up having to admit he had no idea where his cash was flowing i find that tax exempt have been recently reported highly disturbing for that reason i'm embarrassed by my

fee there to track the organization i did support more diligently because it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject and so there you have it we have an apology. to. the head of the firm behind the technical side of the op jonathan morgan is another person still under pressure he came up with a blog post where among other things he wrote this this seemed to us to be the work of internet trolls not russian activity just to remind you this came from the man who during the actual alabama senate race yelled on twitter the russians were busted russian trolls truck by hamilton sixty eight and taking an interest in the alabama senate race what a surprise this tiny detail aside jonathan morgan keeps defending their false flag experiment after all they've said it it's in the name of democracy now it's up to

the probe to judge if these people cross the line in their noble endeavor and in any case america's definitely learned the masterminds of meddling could very well be home grown. from a u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts that the case would have any real consequences. i.e. it's water under the bridge there's no chance that the election can be invalidated less of course they can demonstrate that the sitting senator and self participated in some sort of illegal activity or subterfuge which i doubt can be done or or is even done it was even done on his part the first tenant of democratic politics is they will accuse you of what they are doing themselves in an effort to to distract in an effort to confuse those who might be honestly reporting it if they're saying it they're doing it and i'd like to have mr moeller look into this and and come after this in the same way. you know best protesters have been out on the streets

of france for a seventh weekend and are right more than twelve thousand people joined the anti-government demonstrations. oh. well there are lots of dangers from these l.b. de foodies or more commonly known as flash for weapons now they use to north things such as tear gas grenades sound grenades and even these rubber bullets and those can all do significant damage if they hit people in those protests people with

broken bones fractured teeth bruising internal injuries we even saw a number of crew being injured over the last few weeks by some of the items that are being shocked out of those. flash balls but the injuries can be even more serious than that and for some people they can be life changing oh wow mike you were going to. come on. why would the french government want to pull states of still all these flash rules they can as i say launch things such as this the rubber bullets well that's largely due to the protests that we've seen in france over the last few weeks the country has been in gulf by these void process for some people describing them as being the worst roy it's in half a century and they've actually been some specifically into the injuries caused as a result of rubber bullets with many civil liberties groups just saying that they

shouldn't be used now a group of u.s. academics published a study in december of last year saying that fifteen percent of people who were injured by rubber bullets specifically actually ended up with permanent injuries with the majority of people losing their sight they said three percent of those injured specifically by rubber bullets actually went on to lose their lives so the question is why is the french government still deciding to go with using the flash tools which have been proven in some cases to be deadly and still wanting to spend more than two million euros on its version of protecting the state. dozens of protesters were arrested in paris but city officials say the new year's celebrations well go ahead despite the raft the yellow vests movement started in november against a fuel price hike and continued even after government concessions the demonstrators

claim they're ready to take on your party's. organize all souls in this way we use called the messengers we're now trying to make the police job more complex they were easier because they did not make it easy. they remove almost protective losses rocks really being the target during these demonstrations the protection that we have they want us to withstand the flash will make it and so it would be a good number how much one hundred fifty to two hundred yes to two hundred once well that is where we truly make it can withstand super to move with people will not to do what the said we must open ourselves to. staying with french affairs now judges have called off a decades long probe into the deadly attack on the form of the london president's plane which ultimately led to genocide in one nine hundred ninety four the

investigation has been a stumbling block between the two countries it was looking into several well rounded officials close to the current president in connection with the death of the country's former leader decision comes after reports that france also rejected a bid by human rights groups to reopen a separate probe into whether the french military shed any of the blame for the deaths of hundreds of people that had promised to protect. today we're being asked to leave with the people who killed our family we're told they're sorry they will do it again some people believe that i'm not one of them.

the fighting was triggered by the downing of a plane carrying the french backed president in one thousand nine hundred ninety four hutu extremists blamed the rebels and the rebels denied involvement for the past twenty years paris has pursued those risk. sponsible for the assassination but not anymore the inquiry has reportedly been dropped over insufficient evidence. we have to interpret this decision by friend judges as a form of resignation faced with a political context which prosecutors did not know how to fight over the years france suggested the tutsi rebels headed by the current president paul kagame they were behind the attack they even charged seven people close to the leader for pul could be the physical elimination of rwanda's then president was seen as the only means to achieve his political ends a total victory and this at the price of the massacre of the from the so-called interior the rwandan government flatly denied the allegations and cut diplomatic

ties with france fast forward and roh want to has some nice words for the french i think the president. has precious put it picks have to. be dating with different people. i think. has an open mind to. how times have changed the world bank considers rwanda to be more business friendly than much of the developed world and france seems to have an interest macron even back to rwanda's pick for the head of francophonie group of french speaking countries. if there were to be an african candidate to head the francophonie that would make a lot of sense i think that the rwandan foreign minister has all the expertise for that role but share france and rwanda have had their differences and twenty five years since the genocide justice has never been fully served but for the present it

looks like that doesn't have to stand in the way of a little money making. but if he does not know africa or its history he was a teenager during the tragic events in rwanda in the one to ninety four he. because these storms to befriend me is rwanda. rise of the. seasonal alerts from girl scouts in the united states now who are warning parents not to encourage their children to hug guests over the holidays the organizations say is this could pressure girls into showing other types of physical affection instead the child herself should decide whether to give a hug or not a psychologist we spoke to say is learning about consent early on is key. certainly we know that some adults prey on children and teaching the daughter by consent early on can help her understand her rights know when lines are being crossed and when to go to for help. the girl scouts movement in the us was founded

in one thousand nine hundred twelve the girl calls itself a leadership development organization promoting confidence courage and character to discuss its latest advice we spoke with conservative media personality gina loudon and women's rights advocate reese everson. if you don't teach a child early on that they are in control of their bodies and that they are in control of their boundaries then there are subject to later on not be able to set healthy boundaries i think that this is all about communication and that's the key if parents are having the age appropriate conversations with their children that are well documented and data driven then they shouldn't have to have any sorts of concerns for thirty percent of the sexual abuse that happens to a child happens by a family member so here's the fact of the matter children are often not the around people that we would like to think are healthy people unfortunately we don't always know as adults what the appetite a person may have for a child in

a sexual situation these conversations need to be taking long before any gifts are exchanged and any expectation is made i'm not saying that anyone should be lackadaisical about the cues that children are taking but it is a balance and it is something that is really important and we're not going to solve it by telling our arts little girl on christmas day that she doesn't have to say thank you to grandma for her gift i just don't think that that's that's when we present that as a solution we're missing out on what is really happening here in my opinion or putting children at greater danger fortunately most times when a person is being molested the parents have no idea if the grandfather uncle is molesting them and so it the onus is on the parents to be aware cognizant of what the child is communicating to you as a parent have determined that these people are safe for your child to be around that the child this taught respect and manners and respect of elders and whatever whatever the appropriate response is for that child in that moment because some

children have a natural bent toward inward and we need to teach our children to be. parents don't always know when a person is a safe person or not and we can't teach girls to put grace before being able to protect and said healthy boundaries no one saying that we should respect for elders . for protecting our children but again if you decide only to protect your child on a holiday when they're already exposed to this relative that there are uncomfortable around the mistake is already made. the trumpet ministration is proposing changes to the freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records out of the public domain and activists have voiced their outrage at 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. the u.s.

government says the changes are needed to handle on them precedented surging freedom of information requests and to improve customer service if it approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers unreasonably burden burdensome applications and impose limits on the number any one person can make these are some disclosures brought to light with help of the act in two thousand and sixteen the freedom of information act requests revealed and reports about american supplier who were substituting what pope for parmesan and its products hillary clinton's government related e-mails that she had kept on her private accounts were made available requests to also uncovered a chronology of black site waterboarding supervised by future cia director gina hospital well earlier we spoke with investigative journalist dave lindorff who says the new plans go against 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 and 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. which in sunday times newspaper has named ashame staff at the russian funded sputnik news agency in the u. ok he cited

a leading member of the scottish parliament to accuse the organization of being a kremlin stooge the paper published the names of eight sputnik employees along with their photos the journalists named in the article were left stunned by the exposure and initially it was it was a bit of a shock on the other hand it's kind of hardly surprising given the nz russian sentiment there is you know travel in all your key newspapers just a bit it's yes not nice to see your picture up there with your name except under the headline of being part of a train when stooge but as i say you know it's very much part of what's going on just saying you key the sunday times has been so thorough in its reporting of the threat of so-called russian descent from ation that its latest story about the russian funded radio stations putin it which has a bureau in edinburgh carries the photographs of the journalists that work there labels them kremlin stooges and quotes

a politician who suggests that their assets should be frozen i would good for school harassment i think putting the pictures of photographs of people who work on a newspaper like that i think is tantamount to almost it might put those people's lives in danger i'm a member of the national journalists and are we right into my unit in the new year to ask what do you need is planning to do about these journalists working for russian media organizations here in the u.k. have had to develop a thick skin over the past few years as tensions between london and moscow have heightened articles calling for outlets like r.t. and sputnik to be banned have become a regular occurrence but recently the big papers have gone a step further and they started singling out the journalists working for russian media outlets this is the london bureau chief of russia's channel one more series of last month he did some filming outside the gates of

a british military. first story about the british army's cyber warfare unit aimed at fighting so-called russian propaganda he didn't break any laws gave his press credentials to all the security guards he met and left several weeks later the u.k.'s daily mail newspaper printed his personal details and accused him of being a spy the story was reprinted by a plethora of papers it ratcheted up so much that the u.k.'s defense secretary issued a statement for citizens to stay vigilant. we sent an inquiry to the defense ministry there's a form on their website but we didn't get any response filming near the base is not illegal it's a public area public lands don't need permission to film their mission to get. talk to the stars we didn't record our interaction with the security personnel we didn't try to penetrate the b.b.c. correspondent did the exact same thing as us it was broadcast and i want things of punishing him there's nothing illegal and you don't even have to work for the

russian media to find yourself in hot water just expressing views that the mainstream is enough to be labeled a kremlin stooge putin's poor or useful idiot in the information war nowadays you have extreme language and if you find someone with an opinion which you object to and you don't agree with you then abused him or her by causing by causing them a stooge or to use the famous explosion about lenin there were useful idiots the sputnik story isn't the first time the sunday times has used the naming and shaming tactic back in october the paper took aim at the tongue in cheek i see why in my you tube channel which is funded like r.t. by russian taxpayers and fronted by yours truly the paper didn't shy away from printing my photograph and labeled the project the blue. of russian propaganda the

times didn't request a comment from r.t. or myself it seems that naming and shaming doesn't carry a right of reply. so called russian bashing has hit a new low leaked documents revealed that a u.k. funded charity has been trying to foster anti russian sentiments the paper suggests the integrity initiative group has been using pundits and journalists across the world to achieve their goal of investigators. if she were an organization it would be integrity initiative low and behold an army of propagandists disguised as anti propagandists whose job is to malign the slander be it states ideas people even british politicians our investigation has found wiring evidence the shadowy programs

official twitter account has been used to attack or been the labor party and their fish oils one three quoted newspaper article calling corbin a useful idiot that goes on to state he's open visceral and vest unease in how the kremlin course as surely as if he had been secretly peddling weapons to tattle for money you can imagine the shock mr coburn must have felt when he learned through these leaks that integrity knishes eve had no operational to defame him well funded by the british government no less but slandering german corben opposition politicians isn't the only job with integrity initiative which is working its accounts of 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 policy may. 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 of 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 a harsh attack on alleged russian propaganda in france the author the french professor happens to be part of integrity initiative french cluster and 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 very influential italian newspaper surprise more bashing russia it became increasingly evident in twenty sixteen that

russian strategic narratives sometimes including dissent from asian and conspiracy theories were systematically spread in italy by the vast network of pro and five s. web sites 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. it appears that the promotional strategy to spread disinformation and to influence the italian political opinions has been limited and came much more from national populist boxes rather than from russia what so a foreign country strange isn't it how they choose to keep that part secret we can go on and on about other clusters but you get the point they're pretty initiative even targets are us here at r t according to the leaked documents they

have people presumably who they paid to report r.t. to all of course 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 after tea we've all noticed our 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 masks off the bulb that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly. no make it in germany's ruling coalition have proposed that muslims in the country

pay a mosque tax then me very much to make the local muslim communities less dependent on foreign donations and undesirable influences they could lead to radicalization similar taxes already exist for practicing catholic and protestant communities. goal must be the islam emancipates itself in germany from the influence of foreign states and gains the strong good the mystical reinsertion one of the biggest sponsors is the turkish islamic union for religious affairs financed by the turkish government is said to provide money for health of all mosques in germany to political analyst and consultant line of office told us that if it's introduced the taxes i'm likely to tackle the issue of radical islam it will not in any way stop the influence of radical elements because they can always send their finances to german mosques or to german groups which are interested in the radical islam

through foundations there are other ways so the financing through a mosque tax will not exclude these ways of funding it will just create a framework for institutionalizing and more deeply rooted in islam in germany were perfectly fit the global agenda for migrants and the global compact form are refugees which have been adopted only recently if you have something to say on any of our stories do get in touch by following us on social media we're back at the top of the hour with the latest see them.