week's biggest stories from just a small experiment the democratic party group explain away alleged interference in an alabama state election and investigations been launched over the group the fake over the thousands of russian social media bots with legibly discredit the republican candidate. here in france two yellow vests protesters were out on the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend in running battles with police. the freedom of information act itself expose high level corruption of wrongdoing in the u.s. under pressure authorities want the right to reject requests they think.

live from moscow it's kevin i with you for the next thirty minutes with your news review of the week for us thanks for watching for us than the start the us for scandal surrounding alleged meddling in an alabama state election campaign continues to unfold what's been called a small experiment by a pro democrat side the group that faked russian balts is no suspected to be a planned effort to influence the vote and is the state's attorney general launches a probe into the case r.t. to train 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 this group 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 that's 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 free 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 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. i can tell you this channel request a clarification from new york times will keep you informed if we hear anything former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts to me 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 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 do words themselves in an effort to to distract in an effort to confuse those who might be honestly reporting out if they're saying it they're doing it and i'd like to have mr bowler look into this and and come after this in the same way. yellow vests in france is made a seventh consecutive weekend of protests will the tofu thousand people joined in anti-government demonstrations across the country.

well there are lots of dangers from these l b d foodies or more commonly known as flash for weapons that they use to launch 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 shot out of those flash pools but the injuries can be even more serious and not and for some people they compete in life change. oh yeah mike you were demanding. why would the

french government want to pull states off still all these flash walls 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 voile a process for some people describing them as being the worst roi 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 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 mission of protecting the state dozens of protesters were arrested in paris but city officials say the new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest. started back in november against a fuel price hike continued even after the government make concessions demonstrators claim they're ready to take on the authorities. organize all sorts in 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 easier for us they remove our mosques protective glasses bluffs we're really been attacked during these demonstrations all the protection that we have they want us to withstand the flash ball make it. and so they 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 moment we must organize ourselves differently. meantime judges in france have called off a decades long probe into the deadly attack on the former rwandan president's plane which ultimately led to genocide in one thousand nine hundred four the investigation's been a stumbling block between the two countries it was looking into several landed 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 shared any of the blame for the deaths of hundreds of people they promised to protect.

today we're being asked to leave with the people who killed our family were told they're sorry they will do it again and 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 who 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 this at the price of the massacre of the tutsis from the so-called interior the rwandan government flatly denied the allegations and cut diplomatic ties with france fast forward and rolonda 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 what we should look at 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 kagame is rwanda and there sarkozy is micron's advisor there. the trump ministrations proposing changes to the u.s. freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records out of the public domain activists to 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. so the u.s. government says these changes are needed to handle quote an unprecedented surge in freedom of information request and to improve customer service if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers quote reasonably burdensome and quote up cajuns and impose limits on the number any one person can make as well crucially 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 home security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own officials expect those numbers to increase next year and the recent disclosures brought to light with the help of the let's talk about those in twenty sixteen the request revealed that an american supplier have been substituting wood pulp for parmesan cheese in his products further hillary clinton's government related e-mails that she kept on a private account reveal that scandal that made available information requests also

uncovered cia director gina has links to waterboarding of terrorist suspects investigative journalist dave lindorff told me 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 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. and you supersonic missile got western media taking notice calling it development provocative it's a mixed or in fact when the weekly words and here are not international right after this break.

what politicians to do something. to put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want. to go right to be close it's like the korean people. interested always in the logs. again who have a good weekend so as the year draws to an end so called russia bashing city new low recently leaked documents revealed that a u.k. funded charity have been trying to foster anti russian sense of and the paper suggests the integrity initiative group has been using pundits and germans across

the world to achieve their goal our senior correspondent regards d. of investigate. if shady where an organization it would be integrity initiative lo and behold an army of propagandists the sky's the 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 program's official twitter account has been used to attack corbin the labor party and their fresh us 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 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 problems 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 to really hate russia the integrity initiative was set up to bring to the attention of

politicians policymakers 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 custom 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 a very influential italian newspaper surprise more bashing russia it became increasingly evident in twenty sixteen that russian strategic narrative 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. in a two it appears that the promotion of a 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 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 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 off gone the british media regulator ofcom actually publishes complaints statistics only if over ten complaints didn't make that list it seems like integrity knishes of not audience members convinced of calm to go off to sea we've all noticed how 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 mosques off the bol that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly but we are sukkot foreign office to comment on the integrity initiative allegations they told us the group parent organization had been hacked and that the leaked documents were amplified in favor of russian this information campaign politics professor appears robinson has been investigating the paper's told us why he thinks the u.k. government 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 difficulty persuading enough of their populations as to for the just in the sea 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. wednesday russia successfully tested a new hypersonic strategic missile called on guard president putin called it a big event for the armed forces and the country as a whole that missile flew six thousand one hundred kilometers across the country striking a test target income chapter in russia's far east. the. i

. i i. that miss halcombe flight twenty seven times the speed of sound it weighs more than forty tons of unguarded unique because of its range of ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celsius that has always provoked strong reaction worldwide with the media playing on fears around the development of such missiles the u.s. government claims there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons meantime president putin says that russia 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 ensure our security with

concrete steps let them not say later we are trying to get an advantage we're not trying to get some advantage but merely to seek your balance to ensure our security that we asked investigative journalist rick stirling how these new weapons could 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 pull or ever more money into developing our own hypersonic missile systems and that 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's 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. on kevin i mean i saw some of the big stories of the last seven days reported by us here in moscow celebrating the festivities great to have a lovely time and to thanks for watching the international. shows seem wrong. but i'll. just tell all. i mean you will get to see proud to stay active. and engaged with equals betrayal. when something find themselves worlds apart we just of the common ground. it's hard to imagine that decades after the war

a nazi doctor was still active rich in the nineteen seventies cretonne had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery at auschwitz a german company grown untold develops in the denied a drug that was promoted as completely safe even during pregnancy and it turned out to have terrible side effects what has happened to my baby is anything but all you know she said she's just cut short arms minix a little mind victims i have to this day received no compensation they never apologized for the suffering that. not only want the money i want the revenge. joined me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us on the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see if.

i was in los angeles it was march of one thousand nine hundred one. i got over and i look out the window and there they are. sour i was arrested and that day our father and i wanted her to bring bargain. i understand she area is not going to implicate somebody and i could promise. she had me but just to savor on a scale that's not my daughter so she wouldn't do this. and as a result they were under. i could not plead guilty to everything that they accuse me of is now i pled not guilty and ultimately i was convicted for conspiracy and i received twenty four year sentence there's a way in which you have to see the conspiracy law as a very important tool of law enforcement. if the crime is selling drugs

and some men in miami sells twenty kilos of cocaine to an undercover agent you want to ask who is the seller working where does the money go if the money goes back to a drug lord in colombia who's going to keep the proceeds he's in the conspiracy even though he actually wasn't there when this sale took place he's a conspirator and so part of the goal of the conspiracy law is to make sure that the most senior level all of those in the criminal organization are justly punished the problem is when you flip it around and the lowest level people in the criminal organization get punished just like they are the key. and that's the big problem and the way in which the conspiracy laws are being applied. i know end up in

federal prison in dublin california i realized that i would need to spend a lot of time in the law library. i needed to film from a arise my sound my case and everything that had gone wrong if you furthered the conspiracy one step you're guilty for everything in the conspiracy no matter when you entered the conspiracy it could have been the last day. because i had collected some money on i technically was guilty of conspiracy was held responsible for everything that everybody else had done and my sentence my twenty four years was a stablished based on the sum total of all the ecstasy that sandy had manufactured that's where my ears came from my ears did. things that came from three point seven million tablets of ecstasy that he had made.