nor middle of the room except. for the. big story smart international that we just go on just a small experiment a democratic party group explain away alleged interference in an alabama state election and investigations been launched over the group that faked more than a thousand russian social media reports to allegedly discredit the republican candidate. in the headlines to this week more fury in france yellow vest protesters again out on the streets for seven consecutive weekends in running battles with police. and the freedom of information act that helped expose high level corruption of wrongdoing in the u.s.

under pressure authorities want the right to reject requests they think are burdensome. kevin are with you for the next thirty minutes of our news review of the week here dot international. starting in the u.s. there a scandal surrounding alleged meddling in an alabama state election campaign continues to unfold what's been called a spore small experiment by a pro democrat side the group that fake russian boats is now suspected to be a planned effort to influence the vote and this is state's attorney general launches a probe into the case artesia the patrol investigates. 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 project but the journalist didn't see it 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 from. 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 free there to try 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. 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. because only this show requested clarification from the new york times about yet if we get it we'll let you know course next former u.s.

congressman michael flanagan expressed to me that this 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 and soft 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 or do them selves in an effort 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 has made it a seventh consecutive weekend of protests well the twelve thousand people joined in anti-government demonstrations across the country.

if. you like your. well there are lots of dangers from these l b d 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 nuts and for some people they. computer life changing oh wow mike you were going to. do it. why would the french government want to pull states are still all these flash walls that 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 goal five is void in the process for some people describing them as being the straw 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 can 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 presidio fishel say nonetheless new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest yellow best movement started in november against a fuel price hike continued even after the government make concessions demonstrators claim they're ready to take on the authorities still. well. we organize ourselves in this way we use coded messengers we're now trying to make the police job more complex we will make their work is it because they do not make it easier for us they remove our masks 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 naked and so they ordered more i do not remember how much four hundred fifty four two hundred yes fourteen hundred flash balls that is will literally make it to withstand super armed to look people but we're not tedious and therefore to certain moment we must organize cells selves differently. in other news 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 the genocide in one thousand nine hundred four investigations but 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 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 families were told they're sorry they will do it again and 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 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 for pul could garma you 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 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 in. 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 a 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 to 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 work or 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 trumpet astray she is proposing changes to the us freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records out of the public domain activists of 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. well the u.s. government says on the face of the changes are needed to handle an unprecedented surge in freedom of information request and generally to improve customer service now if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers unreasonably burdensome up locations and impose limits on the number any one person could make last year more than eight hundred thousand requests were filed five agencies received the bulk of them including the department of defense and justice while homeland security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own officials expect those numbers to increase next year these are some of

the disclosures brought to light with help of that act first off in twenty sixteen for instance request revealed that an american supplier was substituting wood pulp for parmesan cheese in its products further remember hillary clinton's government related e-mails that she kept at a private account made available information requests also uncovered cia director gina hospital's links to waterboarding of terror suspects investigative journalist dave lindorff told me the plans though go against the spirit of the act now. what it's going to do is force people to have to go to court to get action on freedom of information request which is totally antithetical to open government and to what the foyer into 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 to 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 it reflects. basically the fact that they're trying to run a secret government. coming up and missiles go west immediate taking notice calling it a development that seems to be provocative we'll tell you more if you missed it and we can returns 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 of big. law 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 smart we need to stop slamming the door. and 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 salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then.

the end of december as the year draws to an end so-called new low we can report the recently released documents reveal that a u.k. funded charity has been trying to foster the russian sentiment the paper suggests the integrity initiative group as it's called has been using pundits and journalists across the world to achieve their goal a senior correspondent investigates. 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 fresh us 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 course as surely as if he had been secretly peddling westminster 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 bracing to defame him well funded by the british government no less but slandering german corben opposition politicians isn't their only job with integrity initiative which is working to counsel 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 the early 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 a 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 for 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 a coup 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

websites 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 do 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 party it's rather than from russia whatsoever 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 of course on 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 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 masks off the bol that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly. i could tell you we are the u.k. foreign office to comment on the integrity mission of allegations they told us the group parent organization had been hacked and the leaked documents were amplified in favor of russian this information campaign politics professor roberts who's been

investigating the papers 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 ensuring 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 u.s. in recent years have had increasing difficulty persuading enough of their populations as to for the gypsum a 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 at problems much closer to home. or wednesday just gone russia successfully tested a new hypersonic strategic missile called on god president putin called it a big event for the armed forces in the country as a whole in this whole flu six thousand one hundred kilometers across the country virtually striking a target in kamchatka in russia's far east. i . i i i. well that think you fly it twenty seven times the speed of sound it weighs more than forty turns guards unique because of its range an ability to withstand temperatures about two thousand degrees celcius the test launch provoked strong reaction worldwide the media playing on fears rather developing to such missiles

the u.s. government claimed further that there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons as for president putin he says that russia just needs to guarantee its own security . shares the the u.s. is now leaving the i.n.f. treaty what's going to happen is hard to imagine what if the rockets are located in europe what should we do and of course we will have to insure our security with some concrete steps let them not say later that we are trying to get an advantage we're not trying to get an advantage but merely to seek your balance to ensure our security. 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 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'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 a more negotiations and less military development. will keep you posted us ever i'm kevin and that's how some of the big stories of the last seven days were reported by us international here in moscow he said right in the festivities of course of great time rest we can fix. it with gold make this manufacture consent to public wealth. when the

ruling classes protect themselves. with the final merry go round if certainly the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. i mean. it's hard to imagine decades after the war a nazi don't it was still active rich in the nineteen seventies crittle had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery at ashwood so. a german company grinned and told developed thalidomide 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 paul you

know she said is just cut short arms minix a little mind victims i have to this day received no compensation and never apologized for the suffering that i did not only want the money i want the revenge . who. have always been lucky i had a great education a good job and enough money to live on. i'm not smart about where i sleep. but now i'm facing christmas and live out in the streets. to come to the.

pub it is so a lot of my boss you know disappointed in the food still give up food for the hope of. her. life. but you don't really feel like a human being in it. and then. go i just came over smithsonian gave me this book and.

christmas is about wolves love and family but there are so many people in the u.k. that have none of these things i want to see what it was like to be almost on the signs to go through christmas as a homeless person. myself . yes but i have said. well i know it's on your list. anything but a lump of coal although i don't know. since two thousand and ten the number of rough sleepers in the u.k. has increased by over fifty percent that means literally thousands are out on the street every night.