the week's top stories right here on r.g.p. international a probe is launched in alabama in a pro-democrat group that makes more than a thousand russian social media bots to discredit a republican and it. took. the yellow best protesters take to the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend in cities across france. the freedom of information act which has helped expose high level u.s. comes under pressure for what is want to the right to reject requests they think are burdensome.

are broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our chief international and sean thomas really glad to have you with us and the scandal continues to unfold over alleged meddling in the alabama state election the state attorney general has launched a probe into whether a pro-democrat group which created fake russian bots to discredit the republican candidate may have broken election laws as the story 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 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 fee there to track the organization i did support more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject and so there you have it we have an apology. the head of the firm behind the technical side of the op jonathan morgan is another person still under pressure he came up with a blog post where among other things he wrote this this seemed to us to be the work of internet trolls not russian activity just to remind you this came from the man who during the actual alabama senate race yelled on twitter the russians were busted russian trolls truck by 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. archie requested clarification from the new york times and we are waiting to hear back from them former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts that the case would have any real consequences though it's water under the bridge there's no chance that the election can be invalidated of course they can demonstrate the sitting senator of self participated in some sort of illegal activity or subterfuge which i doubt it can be done or or is even done it was even done on his part the first tenant of democratic

politics is they will accuse you of what they are doing to themselves 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 come after this in the same way. in france the yellow vest movement has held a seventh consecutive weekend of protests against the government more than twelve thousand people took to the streets 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 crew being injured over the last few weeks of 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 or you were 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 by these violent protests 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 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 but officials say that new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest best movement started against a fuel price hike and continued even after the government made concessions the demonstrations say or the demonstrators rather say that they have no plans to back down. this way we use coded messages we're now trying to make the police job more complex we will make that work because they do not make it easy if they remove all mosques protective glasses we're really being attacked during these demonstrations all the protection that we have they want us to withstand the flashbulb make it 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 it really make it to withstand super people but when not to and

therefore to certain moment we must organize cells 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 the one nine hundred ninety four genocide investigation has 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 to buy 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 had 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. 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 they were behind the attack they even charged seven people close to the leader. of 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. president. precious 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 speeches for that role but sure france and rwanda have had their differences in twenty five years since the genocide and justice has never been. there but for the present it looks like that doesn't have to stand in the way of a little moneymaking. 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 learned because these stones to befriend kagame is rwanda and now sarkozy is michael's advisor that . the trump administration is proposing changes that to the u.s. freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records have voiced their outrage at the. this is a wool room transparency this is a calculated attempt to shield the interior department from scrutiny to shield it

from watchdogs and to shield it from accountability now the u.s. government says the changes are needed to handle an unprecedented surge in freedom of information requests and to improve customer service if approved the new rules would allow the interior department to reject what it considers reasonably burdensome applications and impose limits on the number any one person can make. last year more than eight hundred thousand requests were filed five agencies received the bulk of them including the departments of defense and to justice while homeland security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own officials expect those numbers to increase next year these are some disclosures brought to light with the help of the act in two thousand and sixteen a request revealed that an american supplier was substituting wood pulp for parmesan cheese in its products hillary clinton's government related e-mails that she had kept on her private account were made available information requests also uncovered cia director gina has links to waterboarding of terror suspects

investigative journalist david lindorff told us 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 they. into the freedom of information act it was designed to do it had been set up so that you could write and get information and not have to go to court see get anything other than classified information these are not classified things that people are looking for are 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. russia tested a new hypersonic missile this week in that story much more still to come this is the weekly on hunter national. the new year out there time for some major predictions the following twelve months guaranteed to be one hundred percent accurate. seemed wrong. just don't. get to shape out. educate and indeed equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

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. are welcome back this is our two international live from moscow and the weekly now a u.k. funded charity has been trying to foster anti russian sentiment according to leaked documents the files suggest the integrity initiative group has been using pundits and journalists across the world to achieve that goal and here's what i've got you have comments. if she were a new organization it would be integrity initiative lo and behold an army

of propagandists disguised as. ganda stu's 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 anti-press tinnies and how the kremlin of course as surely as if he had been secretly peddling westminster tattle for money you can imagine the shock mr corben must have felt when he learned through these leaks that integrity nations have 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 to really hate russia the integrity initiative was set up to bring to the attention of politicians policymakers opinion leaders and other interested parties and 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 person. only 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 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 a 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. call binny 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 so 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 pretty 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 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 baal that fights russian propaganda as they claim and what's underneath is ugly. already we asked the u.k. foreign office to comment on the integrity initiative allegations they told us of the groups parent organization had been hacked and that the league documents were amplified in favor of eruption it does information campaign politics professor appears robinson who has been investigating the paper's told us why he thinks the u.k. government has 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 difficulties persuading enough of their

populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign policies that seem to suing 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 hard. on wednesday russia successfully tested a new hypersonic strategic missile called of unguarded president putin called it a major event for the armed forces and the country as a whole the missile flew more than six thousand kilometers across the country striking a test target in russia's far east. the. and

fly at twenty seven times the speed of sound and weighs more than forty tons on guard is a unique because of its range and ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celcius the test launch provoked a strong reaction worldwide with the media playing on fears around the development of such missiles u.s. government claimed there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons and president putin said that russia is merely guaranteeing its own security. chess 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 located in europe what should we do of course we will have to ensure 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 but merely to seek your balance to ensure our security we asked investigative journalist rick sterling 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 more negotiations and less military

development. or that does it for me and i will be back with more than we have topped our watch our two international have with us. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to get a feel of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see if. it's hard to imagine decades after the war a nazi doctor was still active. in the nineteen seventies coronato had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery was a german company develops a little mind a drug that was promoted as completely safe even during pregnancy it turned out to

have terrible side effects what has happened to my baby is anything paul you know she said is just good choice 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.

a lot of welcome to the party it's hard to find a more drab and yet more romantic period in the history of the soviet union then in the nineteen eighties why face people knew it was falling apart then the yet there was also a growing hope that something new and exciting would rise in its place that sounds of cognitive and emotional dissonance was perfectly captured by the on the ground music of that time produced by. non-conformist musicians in what was down to c.d.o. flooding what was it like to leave and make music in. hopeful despair well to discuss that i'm now joined by john a stingray an american musician and an avid chronicler of the leningrad rock scene john it's so good to talk to you thank you very much for your time thank you for inviting me now you have a very interesting a very unusual and i think is a somewhat dramatic story you came to the soviet union for just one the week you called but it was big one of our biggest rock stars bloodline and he just

showed you around is that how it all began that is how it all began a friend of mine her older sister was married to a russian emigre and when he heard i was going to visit russia and he knew i was a rocker in los angeles he said you need to call off he's the most famous underground rocker in russia like the bob dylan of russia i didn't believe there was any rock in russia but i thought ok i'll go and meet him because how cool he think it will be to meet me that i'm an american rocker and i met him and we sat we were at seven partment and i played them a couple of songs off an e.p. album i had released here in the states and morris thought it was very cool and it was a little bit punk and he liked it and i i felt very proud and then i said oh can i hear something of yours and we put in a cassette and i put my headphones on and i started to hear one of his songs that was called tonight and it was so hunting and and just brilliant and powerful that i started to slink in my chair because i realized i was in the

presence of somebody very important and that i was just the silly girl from los angeles very naive. and that he was the real rocker said that that moment changed my whole life and correct me if i'm wrong but i think you were twenty four years old at the time cali girl in drab soviet reach was a thing in oxymoron of sorts but and even bigger paradox was how this. daal soviet reality was able to produce something that was so free spirited and so genuine as the leningrad proxy how do you yourself explain that phenomena you know it was incredible and of course our first three and half days was in moscow where we didn't know anybody so we're on the usual tours with the group and we looked around and even though there were some interesting things that same basis because the two own things it looked very cold people didn't look happy they were wearing dark colors they were all rushing through the streets and i thought wow this is this this is not a grade.