the. week's biggest stories from our to international justice small experiment the democratic party group explain their way alleged interference alabama state election has been launched over the group that fake russian social media box would lead to discredit a republican candidate the big stories plus the. protesters again out on the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend in running battles with police and. the information act the freedom of information that has helped expose the high level corruption of wrongdoing in the u.s. comes under pressure authorities on the right no to reject request they think are burdensome.

just one of the morning this thirty first of december live from moscow is covered overdue for the next thirty minutes with a news review of the week from international first and we start in the u.s. where a 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 fakes russian boats is now suspected to be a planned effort to influence the vote and is the state's attorney general launches a probe into the case. 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 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 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 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 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 to. 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 have but we'll let you know straight away meantime former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts to me that the case would have any real consequences. i.e. 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 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 and come after this in the same way. yellow vests in france have made the seventh consecutive weekend of protests more than twelve thousand people joined in on to 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 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 and for some people they competed life changing. oh how the mighty were demanding. 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 gulf by these violent protests for some people describing them as being the worst roy it's in half a century and they've actually been some specifically into the injuries caused as a result of rubber bullets with many civil liberties groups just saying that they shouldn't be used now a group of u.s. academics published a study in december of last year saying that fifteen percent of people who were injured by rubber bullets specifically actually ended up with permanent injuries with the majority of people losing their sight they said three percent of those injured specifically by rubber bullets actually went on to lose their lives so the question is why is the french government still deciding to go with using the flash

bulls which have been proven in some cases to deadly and still wanting to spend more than two million euros on its version of protecting the state. from where dozens of protesters were arrested but nonetheless city officials say that new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest movement started in november against a fuel price hike continued even after the government make concessions the demonstrators claim they're ready to take hold the authorities. allowances for. some bas way we use coded messengers we're now trying to make the police job more complex we will make their work easier because they do not make it easier for us they remove all masks protective glasses bluffs really been attacked during these demonstrations all the protection that would have they want us to withstand the flash ball naked 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 moments we must organize selves selves differently. 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 back in one thousand nine hundred four the 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 bed 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 where it's all there sorry they will do it again some people believe that i'm not one of them . but 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 they were behind the attack they even charged seven people close to the leader for pul could 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. so-called interior the rwandan government flatly denied the allegations and cut diplomatic ties with france fast forward and wrote want to have some nice words for the french i think the president. has. put it in a. 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 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 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 kagame is rwanda and there sarkozy is micron's advisor that. the top administration is 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 have already voiced their outrage. 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 request and to improve customer service if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers quote unreasonably burdensome up occasions and impose limits on the number any one person crucially can 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 all and security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own of his was expecting more an increase in those numbers next year two these are some of the disclosures brought to light with the help of the act for instance in twenty sixteen a request revealed that an american supplier was substituting wood pulp for parmesan

cheese in its products further hillary clinton's government related e-mails that kept on a private account huge news that they were made available and information requests also uncovered cia director gina has links to waterboarding of terrorist suspects i spoke to investigative journalist dave lindorff he told me the plans go against the spirit of the act. 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 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 that it's

a complete job they're doing the opposite it reflects. basically the fact that they're trying to run a secret government will have to the money most good time good morning for me kevin i mean add in the news of the week a new supersonic missile got western media taking notice calling it development provocative made a lot of headlines made a lot of eyebrows we'll tell you more when the weekly were tens. the book.

what politicians do something. they put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or somehow want to be. that you do like to be close to see what the forecast for you can't be good. i'm interested always in the logs of our. first six.

last day december here moschonas the year draws to an end so called russia bashing city new low recently leaked documents revealed that they u.k. funded charities been trying to foster russian sentiment the paper suggests the integrity initiative group has been using pundits and journalists across the world in fact to achieve their goal the correspondent were gassed you have investigated. 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 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 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 the 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 to really hate russia the integrity initiative was set up to bring to the attention of politicians polly. the makers 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 he 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 stump 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. it appears that the promotional strategy to spread disinformation and to influence the italian political opinions has been limited and came much more from national populist boxes rather than from russia 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 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 initiative 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. well we asked to care for not a comment on the integrity inish developed they further told us the groups parent organization had been hacked and leaked documents around to fight in favor of a russian this information campaign politics professor piers robinson who's been investigating the paper told us why he thinks the u.k. 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 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 the problems much closer to home. on wednesday last russia successfully tested

a new hypersonics to missile called ever guard president putin called it a big event for the armed forces and for the country as a whole that missile flew six thousand one hundred kilometers right across the country striking a test target income chat care in russia's far east. the. i . i close my deal thing that missile can fly it twenty seven times the speed of sound the boffins say it weighs more than forty tons if you can think of a guard is unique because of its range in ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celsius the test laws provokes a strong reaction worldwide to media play of fears around the development of such missiles the u.s.

government claims there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons right now as far as they're concerned as for president putin he says that russia simply needs to guarantee its own security. yes the u.s. is now leaving the i.n.f. treaty what's going to happen it's hard to imagine what if the rockets are like a seat in europe what should we do of course we will have to insure our security with some concrete steps let them not say later that we are trying to get some advantage we're not trying to get some advantage with this but merely to seek your pilots to ensure our security we also best kind of jealous rick sterling how these new weapons could not affect the balance of power in the world 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 more negotiations and less military development. here or mosco tonight's kevin i mean that's how some of the big stories of the last seven days were reported by us here at the international if you see the point of just overseas great have a lovely weekend i'll be back right about twelve thirteen fourteen hours to take you through the new year into the next year you know nothing to see that.

so seems wrong. why don't we just don't call. me. yet to shape out just to become educated and in good spirit equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart when she's to look for common ground. i was in los angeles it was march of one nine hundred ninety one. i go over and i look out the window and there they are. so 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 prove. she had me but just to savor all the scam

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. not guilty alternately i was convicted for conspiracy and dire 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 cells 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 here the key. and that's the big problem in 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 and 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 on 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 but he had manufactured puts me on the chart at this lab just twenty four years that's how a judge sentences you based on a chart the way the sentencing laws apply to conspiracy. being subject to being punished for all the the conduct.