week's top stories here on r.g.p. international a probe is launched in alabama into a pro-democratic group that faked more than a thousand russian social media bots to discredit a republican candidate. protesters take to the streets for a seventh consecutive weekend in cities across france. and the freedom of information act which has helped expose corruption in the u.s. under pressure authorities want the right to reject requests they think are.

broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our national i'm john thomas certainly glad to have you with us are now a 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 are comments 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 and the new york times a week later another outlet reveals this group was from way back in september when

he was invited to speak at an off the record event for the group behind the bots project but the journalist didn't see a thing about that in his article i don't think there's any kind of disclosure that's relevant so i'm happy to be corrected it's always a tradeoff as to what the ground rules of whether you get something useful for your readers journalists also eventually got hold of a report assessing how well the scheme worked and it the experts don't call it an experiment like scott shane did the journalists also wrote that the whole thing was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race compare that to these words enormous effect on the turnout that's the phrasing from the report. the venture cost one hundred thousand bucks pennies compared to the money usually splashed out on campaigns but that doesn't take responsibility of the man who stumped up the bill

reid hoffman billionaire co-founder of linked in and big democrat donor he ended up having to admit he had no idea where his cash was flowing i find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing for that reason i'm embarrassed by my free there to track the organization i did support more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject and so there you have it we have an apology. the head of the firm behind the technical side of the op jonathan morgan is another person still under pressure he came up with a blog post where among other things he wrote this this seemed to us to be the work of internet trolls not russian activity just to remind you this came from the man who during the actual alabama senate race yelled on twitter the russians were

busted russian trolls trying 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. argy requested clarification from the new york times and we're waiting to hear back from them former u.s. congressman michael flanagan expressed doubts that the 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 self participated in some sort of illegal activity or subterfuge which i doubt that can be done or or is even done it was even done on his part the first tenet of

democratic politics is they will accuse you of what they are do or do them selves 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. in france the yellow vest movement has held a seventh consecutive weekend of protest against the government more than twelve thousand people took to the streets across the country. you should. be.

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 following. some of the items that are being shot out of those flash balls but the injuries can be even more serious and not and for some people they competed life changing oh my god given to me. why would the french government want to pull states are still all these flash walls they can as i say

launch things such as this the rubber bullets well that's largely due to the protests that we've seen in france over the last few weeks the country has been in goal five is void in the process for some people describing them as being the worst roy is 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 us 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. of dozens of

protesters were arrested in paris but city officials say that new year's celebrations will go ahead despite the unrest. movement started in november against a fuel price hike and the continued even after the government made concessions the demonstrators say that they have no plans to back down. well. we organize ourselves and this way we use coded messages we're now trying to make the police job more complex we will make their work is it because they do not make it easy if they remove all mosques protected glosses bluffs we're really being attacked during these demonstrations all the protection that we have they want us to withstand the flashbulb 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 people but we're not tedious and therefore to certain moments

we must organize ourselves 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 thousand nine hundred 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 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 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 friend judges as a form of resignation faced with a political context which prosecutors did not know how to fight over the years france suggested the tutsi rebels headed by the current president paul kagame who were behind the attack they even charged seven people close to the leader 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. 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. put it. different. i think. how times have changed the world bank considers rwanda to be more business friendly than much of the developed world and france seems to have an interest macron even back to rwanda's pick for the head of francophonie group of french speaking countries. if there were to be an african

candidate to head the francophonie that would make a lot of sense i think that the rwandan foreign minister has all the expertise for that role sure france and rwanda have had their differences in twenty five years since the genocide justice has never been fully served but for the present it looks like that doesn't have to stand in the way of a little money making it 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 now sarkozy is michael's advisor that. are the trumpet ministration is proposing changes to the u.s. freedom of information act which could make it harder for the public to access sensitive records voice to their outrage at the move. 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. well 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 unreasonably burdensome applications and impose limits on the number any one person can make so last year more than eight hundred thousand requests were filed five agencies were received the bulk of them including the department of defense and justice all homeland security received almost four hundred thousand requests on its own officials expect those numbers to increase next year and these are some disclosures brought to light with the help of the act 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 private on her private account were made available and information

requests also uncovered cia director gina haskell's links to waterboarding of terror suspects investigative journalist dave 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 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 joke they're doing the opposite it reflects. basically the fact that

they're trying to run a secret government. the 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 but i ghazi of comments. 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 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 not brazen to defame him well funded by the british government no less but slandering german corben opposition politicians isn't their only job but 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 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 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 than 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 it's called winnie is also listed as

a member of the italian cluster and also gets paid for his work unfortunately according to an internal integrity initiative memo their peers to be a shortage of russian propaganda in italy. in a two it appears that the promotion of a strategy to spread disinformation and to influence the italian political opinions has been limited and came much more from national populist boxes rather than from russia what a foreign country strange isn't it how they choose to keep that part secret we can go on and on about other clusters but you get the point they gritty initiative even targets 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. we asked the u.k. foreign office to comment on the integrity initiative allegations they told us the group's apparent organization had been hacked and of that the leaked documents were amplified in favor of a russian defense information campaign politics professor piers robinson who has been investigating the papers told us why he thinks the u.k.

government has 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 food just in the sea of the foreign policies that they've 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 russia successfully tested a new hypersonic strategic missile called the vanguard president putin called it a major event for the armed forces in the country as a whole missile flew more than six thousand kilometers across the country striking a test target in shotgun in russia's far east the i. i . or the missile can fly a twenty seven times the speed of sound and weighs more than forty tons of on guard is unique because of its range and ability to withstand temperatures of up to two thousand degrees celsius so the test launch a provoked a strong reaction worldwide with the media playing on fears around the development

of such missiles the us government claimed that there are no countermeasures to hypersonic weapons and president putin said that russia is merely guaranteeing its own security. the u.s. is now leaving the iron if treaty was 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 concrete steps let's not say later that we are trying to get an advantage we're not trying to get some advantage with this but merely to seek your pilots to ensure our security all right we ask investigative journalist or externally 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. all right with of the new york approaching russia's foreign minister has given his insights on what has been a difficult twelve months for the country and its relations with the west sergey lavrov spoke to russian t.v. show. needless to say it's been a difficult year groceries on the constant pressure from those who see it as competitive or some kind of dominant position in world politics we see this in the way the u.s. behaves they talk openly about the need to restrain russia and china and they don't

like iran or north korea either. we would like to see a european colleagues showing independence through their practical actions fortunately they're not entirely ready for this the fall of the united states even when it clearly runs counter to their interests let me give you an example the vote on a russian resolution in support of maintaining the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty we had more concern from europe than anywhere else on the decision by the united states to unilaterally withdraw from this treaty but the entire european union voted against our proposal so in effect they voted for the i.m.f. treaty to be terminated and here it's a once again be overshadowed with the threat from american missiles which are banned under this treaty the next step of course will be council measures from russia but this is not our choice but the e.u. cannot felter appreciate the threats of the security of its own capitals as there is no explanation for their votes against our proposal other than a false sense of solidarity with the united states and this is just one example the last in a chain of events this year should a very significant one. no there is so it was this question needs to be

addressed to washington our president and his representatives have repeatedly said that we are ready for such talks at any time that washington wants them naturally this must happen on the basis of equality mutual respect and mutual consideration of interests we see the extent to which foreign policy towards russia in america has become hostage to domestic political struggles over there competing with each other to see who can attack russia more is considered a useful means of attracting votes there is nothing we can do about this but we are always ready for equal dialogue with any country which including the united states . or that doesn't back with more the with say thirty three and a half minutes stay with us.

join me every first week on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics. i'm showbusiness i'll see that. they'll be out there time first major prediction the following twelve months guaranteed to be one hundred percent accurate.

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