we speak of story smarts international just a small experiment a democratic party explain away alleged interference in an alabama state election. the group of thousand russian social media blogs were allegedly discredited republican and. elsewhere more of the same fear in france again protestors have been out on the streets for seven consecutive weekend in running battles with the police. freedom of information help expose high level corruption wrongdoing in the state comes under pressure authorities want the right to reject requests they think.

why they just heard monday morning with the first of december live from moscow just after midnight no kevin i'm with you for the next thirty minutes for a news review of the week where we'll come along as well so first then we start in the united states has mentioned the headlines were a scandal surrounding alleged meddling in an alabama state election campaign continued to unfold in the wake what's been called a small experiment by a pro democrat subgroup that faked russian balts is now suspected to be a planned effort to influence the vote and if the state's attorney general launches a probe into the case he. investigated. 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 and norma safin act 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 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 as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject and so there you have it we have an apology from. 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 homegrown. request a clarification from the new york times if we hear but we'll let you know straight

away former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts to me that the case without any real consequences. 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 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 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. yellow vests in france have made the seventh consecutive weekend to protest well the twelve thousand people joined in and to government demonstrations across the country.

it was. the only. way to get you was. well there are lots of dangers from these l b d forty's 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 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 was proud of them are you going to. come or are. you 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 gulf ivy's voice in the process for some people describing them as being the worst royals in half a century and they've actually been some studies 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 deadly and still wanting to spend more than two million euros on its vision of protecting the state. is charlotte to bed sick of the dozens of protesters were arrested in paris pursued efficient say nonetheless new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest best movement started in november against a fuel price hike and continued even after the government make concessions the demonstrators claim they're ready still to take on the authorities well listen to us but 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 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 cell selves differently. judges in france 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 the investigation's 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 shared any of the blame for the

deaths of hundreds of people that they promise 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 french 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 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 tutsis from the so-called interior the rwandan government flatly denied the allegations and cut diplomatic ties with france fast forward and roh want to has some nice words for the french think. creationists 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 senates i think that the rwandan foreign minister has all the expertise for that role sure france and rwanda have had their differences in twenty five years since the genocide and justice has never been a problem. for the present it looks like that doesn't have to stand in the way of a little money making it look at it but a freak microbe 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 michael'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 have voiced their outrage at the move this is a war on transparency this is a calculated attempt to shield the interior department from scrutiny to shield it from watchdogs and to shield it from accountability the u.s. government says the changes are needed to handle them precedent and freedom of information request to improve customer service if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers unreasonably burdensome up locations and to impose limits on the number any one person can make crucially 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 of its own officials expect those numbers to increase next year to these are some of the disclosures brought to light with the help of the act started with this for

instance in twenty six states are. qwest revealed that an american supply was substituting wood pulp for parmesan cheese in his products further remember this henry clinton's government related e-mails each story that she kept on a private account they had made available and information requests also uncovered cia director gina hospital's links to waterboarding of terror suspects i spoke to investigative journalist dave lindorff he 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 made not fifty more time this is the news review of the week coming up big story new supersonic missiles go west a media taking notice calling its development provocative raise a lot of eyebrows the story will tell you about it when we can returns when we come back.

i've been saying the numbers mean some things matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happy each day. eighty five percent of global wealth you longs to be rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent from last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars ai industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember is one one just shows you can't afford to miss the one and only.

have twenty eighteen and as the head souls to an end so called russia said to me you love the recently leaked documents revealed that the u.k. funded charities been trying to foster the russian sentiment the paper suggests the integrity initiative group has been using pundits and journalists across the world to achieve their goal our senior correspondent investigates. if shady where a new organization it would be integrity initiative lo and behold an army of propagandists disguised. as anti propagandists whose job is to malign the slander it states ideas people even british politicians our investigation has found wiring evidence the shadowy programs official twitter account has been used to check call been the labor party and their fish oils one three quoted newspaper article calling corbin

a useful idiot that goes on to state he's open visceral and best 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 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 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 by. 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 is how their class the system works see you have an article in the french le monde a harsh attack on alleged russian propaganda in france the author the french professor happens to be part of integrity initiative french cluster and at least according to the leaked lists and gets paid to trash talk russia they even boosted their grand plans when visited by who found the institute of statecraft which birth integrity initiative in italy and the atlantic council published a big study with help from an editor of less very influential italian newspaper surprise more bashing russia it became increasingly evident in twenty sixteen that russian strategic narratives sometimes including dissent from asian and conspiracy theories were systematically spread in italy by the vast network of pro and five s

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 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 that routine initiative even targets 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 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 mosques off the baal that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly. we are so you go for an office to comment on the integrity nish develop geishas they told us that the group's parent organization had been hacked and that the leaked documents were fired in favor of a russian dissin from asian campaign politics professor piers robinson who's been

investigating the paper's told us why he thinks the government's taken such an interest in the russian media. i i. 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 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. where they just go russia successfully tested a new hypersonic to miss are called god president putin called it a big event for the armed forces in the country as a whole the missile flew six thousand one hundred kilometers across the country eventually striking a test target in can chat care over russia's far east the. i . i well the missile can fly around twenty seven times the speed asserted it weighs more than forty two. and so the experts guard is unique because of its range and ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celcius tesla's provoked strong reaction worldwide the media playing on fears around the development of missiles like this as for the u.k. the u.s.

government rather they claim that there are no countermeasures to these hypersonic sonic weapons and president putin says simply russia just needs to guarantee its own security shows. the u.s. is now leaving the i.n.f. treaty going to happen it's hard to imagine what if the rockets are located in europe what should we do of course we will have to insure our security with some concrete steps that you will let them not say later that we are trying to get an advantage we're not trying to get an advantage with this but merely to seek your balance to ensure our security that we are suggesting other journalists or externally how these new weapons could affect the balance of power than. 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. i'm kevin in that says some of the big stories of the last seven days were reported by us international here in moscow if you celebrate the festivities south a great time join the rest of the weekend as have a thanks for watching hi john.

join me every week on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports this list i'm showbusiness i'll see that. come to call russia no one's ever no one has ever heard of a country never even heard about most schools.

by the way bankrupt person or bother to think of them at all the new earth is about them safe to say the most institutions completely divorced from human so. the justice department said today the inmate population of federal and state prisons in this country is at an all time high. the public sees a need for more prisons. it was

a number one concern to people in history. too many inmates not enough space to. another crime another. in a country that already fed up with the stuff. in america and with all this going to. prison population or just want. a shocking new number was released today that deserves our undivided attention one out of every one hundred americans is now behind bars walked the prison board trade .

the most important thing. is to talk from your heart if you have more than one child give a like an overall message but then do an individual one to each child throw them a kiss or talk to them about what you do daily the rest should be just you if you've written a porn we've had people pray we've had people saying one guy showed his little boy how to shoot a basket the creative. these are gifts to your children. the families of punished right along with. they have found people don't think so but the collateral consequences of somebodies incarceration effects not just that whole family but it affects us whole community and affects you as an individual or the you know it or not and whether you know that person or not that's incarcerated and. kept a informed.