week's top stories from just a small experiment a democratic party group explain away alleged interference in an alabama state election investigations been launched over the group the more than a thousand russian social media bots to allegedly discredit a republican candidate. fury in france yellow bus protesters have been out on the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend in running battles with police. and the freedom of information act to help expose high level corruption and wrongdoing in the u.s. comes under pressure because orators want the right to reject requests they think.

it's for an afternoon this sunday that means we're bringing you the biggest stories as reported right here on international over the past seven days we start in the u.s. where a scandal surrounding alleged meddling in an alabama state election continues to unfold what's been called a small experiment by a pro-democrat cyber group that fake russian bots is now suspected to be a planned effort to influence the vote and as the state's attorney general launched a probe into the case for trying to investigate two. 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 start of 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 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 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 trying to buy hamilton sixty eight and taking an interest in the alabama senate race what's 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 crossed the line in their noble endeavor and in any case america's definitely learned the masterminds of meddling could very well be homegrown eighty percent of that requested clarification from the new york times if we have anything back we'll let you know what they say meanwhile former u.s. congressman michael flanagan's expressed doubts that the case would have any real consequences. now you see 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 that can be done or or is even done it was even done on his part the first tenet of democratic politics is they will accuse you of what they are doing them selves 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. yellow vests in france have made it a seventh consecutive weekend of protests more than twelve thousand people joined an anti-government demonstrations across the country on saturday. was. too much.

well there are lots of dangers from these l.b. de foodies or more commonly known as flash for weapons that they use soon or 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 pools but the injuries can be even more serious and not for some people. they competed life changing oh yeah mike you were going to. do it. why would the

french government want to pull states off still all these flash walls they can as they 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 goal five is void in the process for some people describing them as being the worst roy it's inhofe 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 sight they said three percent of those injured specifically by rubber bullets she 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 can be deadly and still wanting to spend more than two million euros on its mission of protecting the state. reporting that dozens of protesters were arrested in paris city officials say the new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest. movement started in november against a fuel price hike continued even after the government had made concessions the demonstrators claim they're ready to take on the authorities. also some this way we use coded messages we're now trying to make the police job more complex make their work easier because they do not make it easy if they remove all mosques protective glasses bluffs ruid been the target during these demonstrations all the the protection. we have they want us to withstand the flash ball naked and so we ordered more i do not remember how much four hundred fifty fourteen hundred yes fourteen hundred flash balls that is will literally make it to

withstand super armed to look with people but we're not tedious and therefore to certain moments we must all be nice selves selves differently. staying with france where judges have called off a decades long probe into the deadly attack on the former president's plane which ultimately led to genocide in one thousand nine hundred four investigations been a stumbling block between the two countries it was looking into several rwandan officials close to the current president in connection with the death of the country's former leader the 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 they promised to protect.

today we're being asked to leave with the people who killed our panel where it's all there sorry they will do it again some people believe that i'm not one of. 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 responsible 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 many were behind the attack they even charged seven people close to the leader pull

could be the physical elimination of rwanda's then president was seen as the only means to achieve his political ends a total victory this process of the massacre of 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. put it. different. i think. 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 sure 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 we should look at it but if he does not know africa or its history he was a teenager during the tragic events in rwanda in nineteen ninety four he aligned with sarkozy's stones to befriend them is rwanda a little sarkozy is micron's advisor that. the trumpet ministration is proposing changes to the us freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records that are out of the public domain activists and voice 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 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 that any one person can make. last year more than eight hundred thousand requests were filed five agencies received the bulk of them including the departments of defense and justice all homeland security received almost four hundred thousand requests officials expect those numbers to increase next year there are some disclosures though that have been brought to light with the help of the act in twenty sixteen a request revealed that an american supply was substituting wood pulp for parmesan cheese in its products and to reclaim tins government related e-mails that it kept on have private account were made available information requests also uncovered say i don't cia director gina hospital's links to waterboarding terror suspects

investigative journalist dave lindorff says 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 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. britain's sunday times newspaper has named and

shamed staff of the russian funded sputnik news agency in the u.k. it cited a leading member of the scottish parliament who accused the organization of being a kremlin stooge the paper published the names of eight sputnik employees along with the 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 answer 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 carry the sunday times has been so thorough in its reporting of the threat of so-called russian descent information 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 the hotel graphs 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 news 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 for russia's channel one more series of last month he did some filming outside the gates of

a british military base 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 and. 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 land you don't need permission to film there you need permission to get inside talk to the stuff we didn't record our interaction with the security personnel we didn't try to penetrate the base the b.b.c. correspondent did the exact same thing as us it was broadcast and no one thinks 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 labelled 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 lennon 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 am i 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 labelled the project the blue peter 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. still to come this hour a new supersonic missile has got western media taking notice calling its development provoking that story and plenty more after the break.

what politicians do something. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. want to. get it right to be close it's like the full screen the more people get. interested always in the waters in the. first six. welcome back to the week in one state russia successfully tested a new hypersonic strategic missile named after god president called it a big event for the armed forces and the country as

a whole the missile flew six thousand one hundred kilometers across the country striking a test target income trap their emotions far east. the. the missile can fly at twenty seven times the speed of sound and weighs more than forty tons even guards unique because of its range and ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celcius. the test launch provoked a strong reaction was wide with the media playing on fears around the development of such missiles the u.s. government claims that there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons president putin says the brushwood just needs to guarantee its own security shows. the u.s. is now leaving the i.n.f. treaty was going to happen it's hard to imagine what is the rockets are located in

europe what should we do of course we will have to insure our security with concrete steps that you let them not say later that we are trying to get an advantage we're not trying to get some advantage with this but merely to seek your balance to ensure our security and we asked investigative journalist rick stirling how these new weapons might affect the balance of power. it's in the interests of the russian people the american people in the whole world to not see an increase in a new arms race the danger here is that the u.s. military establishment is going to react to this by saying well we need to poorer ever more money into developing our own hypersonic missile systems and we have a new new escalated arms race of course right now the united states is spending seven hundred billion dollars a year on its military which is more than the next nine countries combined so we know who is leading the way in the in the military arms race but i think russia i

would assume they're hoping that this can be a reality check and bring and promote more negotiations and less military development. disgraced german journalist classroom o.t.s. broke his silence on thursday denying through his lawyer fresh accusations of appropriating readers donation money and some of the money collected was allegedly destined for fictitious characters in his fake articles and initial scandal broke when real o.t.'s he was awarded c.n.n. journalist of the year in twenty fourteen was discovered to have been fabricating stories for he is the us ambassador to germany weighed in accusing desh people magazine of being slanted against america. these fake news stories logie for extended u.s. policies and certain segments of the american people it's clear that we with institutional bias against the american boy is that the magazine has exploded since the election of president trump. people reacted to the ambassador's accusations

with an apology to all americans who may have been insulted by its articles outing though the just because it takes issue with some of washington's policies it doesn't mean it has any and to us bias and if president trumps words are anything to go by he feels he's been plagued by fake news all year long. the media you are fake the level of dishonesty is out of control for me it was for. i realized. how fake the press can be very fake does that one from famous catchphrase fake news has dominated the headlines ever since the first uttered it why does it drive his detractors so crazy well some would argue that it's true false information and deceptive reporting seems to be everywhere let's review some of the fake news of twenty eighteen. well one of the most outrageous examples was the cover of time magazine it depicted a sobbing toddler representing donald trump's policy of separating immigrant

children from their parents however it turns out that the girl in the photograph was not separated from her mother. my daughter was not separated from her mother but yeah she's the face of this immigration problem she has helped create awareness . but let's go through some other examples now folks had a good laugh when it was revealed that the washington post had actually cited the satirical publication known as click call when reporting on the fact that british people were trying to make the song american idiot by green day go through the charts when donald trump was visiting the country and in other instances we've seen journalists just straight up making things up. for example a reporter for the web scene known as the mike claim that maria who's just pled guilty to charges of being an unregistered lobbyist for russia was. in a meeting at the oval office i thought this was

a photo show but it's not this is my review. of the in the russian spy on me in the oval office with trump turned out that she was wrong the person in the photograph was actually a national security council staffer but in the journalist defense they both do have red hair and we all know that all of us gingers look the same. how about a paper on canine rape culture in dog parks or a feminist rewrite of hitler's my struggle it turns out that this year fake news was used to make a political point people were submitting fake research in order to expose what they believed was a bias in academia some of the fake research got through. for .

us. and one trend we saw throughout the year was fact checkers retracting their fact checks what could be more embarrassing those who claim they are stopping the spreading misinformation actually spreading misinformation themselves and admitting to it based on what we've seen throughout the year it seems pretty clear that fake news will be well alive in twenty nineteen. r.t. new york ok that's the weekly for this hour with more off the kenyan tribes people taking that first trip abroad and swapping the african sun for the oscars now. 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. it's

seemed wrong. but old rules just don't. mean you get to shape out just to become educated and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. join me every thursday on the all excited i'm sure and i'll be speaking to get a feel of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you that .

will certainly. see the full. sound bytes and. so yes i've got my name is open mic i'm a travel photographer and i went to kenya to amboseli national park to meet the must i it's been amazing people who have managed to preserve their authenticity and find ways to interact with the outside world to. be surprisingly many most i speak good english and have internet access so finding them and arranging to meet was a breeze. yet it was.

not. that. i decided to become a real must find woman myself and experience firsthand all the trials and tribulations of tribal life. i. did it with the tribes most respected woman agreed to help me and she presented me with a red dress a brightly colored shawl and piles of jewelry that she had made with her own hands . she's fifty two years old and her name's not my tour and she has four adult children but i call her mama for short.