we. are just a small experiment to a democratic party group explain away alleged interference in an alabama state election and investigations been launched over the group that fakes more than a thousand russian social media prompts to allegedly discredit a republican candidate. yuri in france yellow bus protesters have been out on the streets for us seventh consecutive weekend in running battles with police. the freedom of information act has helped expose high level corruption and wrongdoing in the u.s. comes under pressure although it is want the right to reject requests they think

are burdensome. a very warm welcome to you you're watching the weekly here on r.t. international all the latest and a round of the stories that shape the week now we start this hour 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 faked russian balls is now suspected to be a clandestine to and influence the vote and as the state to state attorney general launches a probe into the case artie's a looper trying to investigate. 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 of 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 the tactics that 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 as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject and so there you have it we have an apology. 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 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. welty has requested clarification from the new york times and will keep you an informed former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts that the case would have any real

consequences. now 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 i'm soft 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 come after this in the same way. and the best protest isn't being out in the streets of france for a seventh weekend in a row more than twelve thousand people joined the anti-government demonstrations.

well there are lots of dangers from these l b d forty's or more commonly known as flash ball weapons that they use to launch things 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 our two crew being injured over the last few weeks by some of the items that are being shot out of those flash balls but the injuries can be even more

serious and that and for some people they competed life changing oh wow the more you were demanding. the more. you. know why would the french government want to pull states are 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 violent protests 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 said that new year's not celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest the arrest movement started in november against a fuel price hike and continued even after government concessions the demonstrators claim they are ready to take on the all fighting. to keep the organize all souls in this way we use called the messengers we're now trying to make the police job more complex their work easier because they do not make it easy for us they remove all mosques protected classes rocks were ruined being attacked during these

demonstrations the protection that we have they want us to stand the clash will make it and so it would be a good number how much one hundred fifty to two hundred yes to two hundred one school that is truly naked can withstand super armed with people you will not to do it for the search you must open ourselves up to. as the year draws to an end so called russia bashing has hit a new low recently leaked documents revealed that a u.k. funded charity has been trying to foster anti russian sentiment the papers suggest the integrity initiative has been using pundits and journalists across the world to achieve their goal artie's my gast you have investigates. if she were an organization it would be integrity initiative lo and behold an army of propaganda disguised as anti propagandists whose job is to.

the slander it 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 fish oils one three quoted newspaper article calling corbin a useful idiot that goes on to state he's open visceral anti-press tinnies and how the kremlin of course as surely as if he had been secretly peddling westminster tattle for money you can imagine the shock mr corben 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 their only job the integrity initiative which is working to counter disinter mission 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 the early two million pounds this financial year that 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 a really hate russia the integrity initiative was set up to bring to the attention of politicians policymakers opinion leaders and other interested parties of the threat posed by russia to democratic institutions in the united kingdom across europe and north america now here's what's been bugging me personally if these

white nights 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 and with help from an editor. a very influential italian newspaper surprise more bashing russia it became increasingly evident in twenty sixteen that russian strategic narrative sometimes including dissent from ation 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 mini 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 sort of

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 gritty 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 bol that fights russian

propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly but we asked the u.k. foreign office to comment on the integrity initiative allegations they told us that the group's apparent organization had been hacked and that the leaks documents were amplified in favor of a russian descent from ancient campaign chair in politics piers robinson has been investigating the paper's told is why he thinks the u.k. government has taken such an interest in the russian media. it seems to be just as much about promoting insuring 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 difficulties 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. a trump administration is proposing changes to the freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access a sensitive wreck or it's out of the public domain activists have voiced their outrage at them if. 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 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 and he one person can make . why last year more than eight hundred thousand requests were filed five agencies received the bulk of them including the departments of defense and justice while homeland security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own officials expects those numbers to increase next year well these are some disclosures brought to light with the help of the act in two thousand and sixteen a request to reveal that in an american supply it was substituting wood pulp for palma sun and its products and we were clinton's government related e-mails that she had kept on her private accounts were made available information requests also uncovered cia director gina house pulls links to waterboarding of ten terror

suspects investigative journalist dave lindorff sais the plans go against the spirit of the act. but 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 she 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 that it's a complete joke they're doing the opposite reflects. basically the fact that

they're trying to run a secret government. plenty more coming up this hour including in a bid to curb the spread of radical islam german lawmakers are mulling imposing a mosque tax we'll give you the details after the break. 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 they think. you know world's big partisan movie 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 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. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. welcome back britain's defense minister a voice to deep concerns about a possible spying threat from chinese tech giant huawei on thursday this comes amid a confrontation between the company on the u.k.'s closest ally the united states as washington has reportedly been pressuring allies to bar the firm probably boyko

digs deeper into the story they seemed like the best of friends one side with cash to flash the other keen to court chinese investment you have a golden era of u.k. . china relations and what are the relations between britain and choice of very good issues in the past i think we've come to an understanding over. premier li said yesterday this should be an indispensable partnership. we have cemented britain's position as china's best partner in the west with the u.k. playing bragg's it really with brussels trade ties with china seem as important as ever but there's a bone of contention coming between london and beijing or rather a phone of contention we've got to look at what partners such as australia in the us are doing in order to ensure that they have the maximum security of the five g.

network and we've got to recognise the fact there's been recently exposed the chinese state does sometimes act in the maligned way while our way is one of china's most important tech companies that the world's second largest mobile phone producer and it makes the laptops and tablets gadgets that rival apple and samsung but crucially weiwei also sells some of the communications hardware that allows mobile phone and wireless networks to operate and when the u.s. currently embroiled in a tip for tat trade war with beijing the chinese tech giant has come into the spotlight washington says it's concerned that using weiwei hardware will give beijing the ability to spy on foreign countries and exert too much control over western infrastructure by the way his raise serious concerns among u.s. officials for a potential role in cyber espionage given their reported links to china's state

security services and while way threaten the security of our networks due to their close ties to the chinese government and now the u.s. is pursuing well ways chief financial officer who was arrested in vancouver washington. his request to now faces extradition to the u.s. over possible violations of sanctions against iran but the case appears more than a little politicized the u.s. president suggested he might use china's tech princess as a bargaining chip with beijing if anything it's good for the country if i think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made which is a very important thing which is good for national security i would certainly intervene if i thought it was necessary australia or new zealand have followed the u.s. is lead and banned huawei from providing tech for its five g. rollout citing security risks the u.k. has yet to follow although there are murmurs in that direction what we're

witnessing is more kayne of security hope something that can. russia for real other word you know sees itself in a vulnerable position where it doesn't have secure access to this particular market over the margin having talks in the back room between the american state department and the british foreign office trying to pressure raise or put leverage on the british government to come out and support the years sanctions to the tires of the hard and chairman but i don't think for one second that britain following america's foreign policy to dictate to the policy that britain needs to treat through the world after approach that there's little hard evidence of why our way ever having engaged in any spying or handing over of data the company denies any ties to the chinese government beyond paying its taxes for the u.k. following washington's lead and banning way risk souring up until now fruitful

friendship as well as slowing down the rollout of vital new technology for london it will be a tough choice between wa way and the us way. the syrian army reported on friday that it had entered the northern city of man beach at the request of civilians on kurdish fighters in the area it comes as the kurds try to strengthen the city's defense amid a predicted turkish offensive. we invited the syrian government which we belong to to send its armed forces to take over these positions and protect month beach and the feast of turkish threats. 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 big turkey later claim that the syrian army was using psychological warfare and that the situation among beach was unclear and cora considers kurdish fighters to be terrorists or the turmoil in mandates follows donald trump surprise decision

to pull u.s. troops out of the country the locals there fear a possible turkish offensive now as america had been giving support to syrian kurdish fighters there. but i can show all the people in man which welcome the syrian arab everyone feel safe and secure because it comes this moment was awaited by all people in this city an old patriotic people in this city youngsters and citizens who care for the good of this city northern the syrian army. we are against the presence of foreign members in this city. and we do not accept any yorkie pyar for any reason all the communities in mon bridge turkmen kurds. and arabs are loving brothers and we welcome the arrival of the syrian army and cause a nation with the kurdish units we welcome any connection with the syrian arab army we are the syrian arab republic and we would never accept an occupier either

turkish turkish. also on friday turkish army vehicles were reportedly seen entering the northern syrian city of jr birth says trump announcement turkey has been piercing its military presence on both sides of its border with syria to the list is around forty kilometers from the city. the following day top diplomats and high ranking military officials from turkey agreed to coordinate with russia on the syria crisis after holding talks in moscow issues such as the fight against terrorism humanitarian problems on the return of refugees were all covered during the meeting russia's foreign minister focused on the work done regarding a new constitution for syria. it was. during the talks we specifically mentioned that russia and turkey for to supply chain of iranian colleagues did everything promised to create a syrian constitutional committee this is being done by our states as mediators

between the syrian government and opposition and we hope that those including our western partners he called the asked on a group to finish his work as soon as possible would not interfere in his continued work as security and political analyst we spoke to believes that the kurdish crisis can only be resolved with open dialogue. the syrian army is you know can be flexible and inflexible at the same time it can be flexible if there is a situation that can create stability there is an agreement it is important to see if agreement can be reached to control the situation if the syrian army is capable i think it is capable but with the backing of the russian army and the iranians to actually control the situation for all and create the you know a certain dialogue. that turkey the kurdish problem there is a kurdish problem in the north part of syria and in the north part of it are going to factor in the security in turkey and this matter will have to be resolved it can

only be resolved politically that is the position of the foreign minister of russia however you know the turks would have to pay a proper price for their miscalculations by delving into syria and creating this chaos and contributing to this chaos. lawmakers in germany's ruling coalition have proposed that muslims in the country pay a mosque tax the mood there is to make local muslim communities less dependent on foreign donations and curb undesirable influences that could lead to radicalization similar taxes already exist for practicing catholic and protestant communities. be that islam emancipates itself in germany from the influence of foreign states and gains a strong mystical reinsertion one of the biggest sponsors is the turkish islamic union for religious affairs financed by the turkish government it said to provide money for half of all mosques in germany geopolitical analyst and consultant reign of office told is that if introduced the tax is unlikely to tackle the issue of

radical islam. it will not in any way stop the influence of radical elements because they can always sent their finances to german mosques or to german groups which are interest in the radical islam through foundations and are other ways so the financing through a mosque tax will not exclude these ways of funding it will just create traditional framework for institutionalizing and more deeply rooting islam in germany this step would perfectly fit the global agenda for migrants and the global compact format record cheesed which have been adopted only reasonably i hear it on the real love to hear your thoughts on all of our stories i do get in touch by following us on social media and join us again at the top of the out for the latest.