former first minister alex salmond denies any wrongdoing after he was charged with attempted rape and sexual assault. is suing political crisis in venezuela prompts a wave of international reaction with some backing the country's opposition leader is interim president others voiced concern over foreign meddling and the potential for civil war. i. have erupted across from this whether with opposition supporters and police clashing. first microsoft. fake news

in the latest browser in the form of an app that ranks sites for trustworthiness there are fears of bias. very good evening and welcome places r.t. . former first minister alex salmond has been charged with attempted rape and sexual assault he's now being released on bail following his appearance of course in edinburgh. look alex salmond attended court in edinburgh with his lawyer where there was by all accounts a rather short hearing it was also closed herrig so there was no public that no journalists there either but afterwards the court published the charges that alex salmond is facing there are fourteen of them altogether there are two charges of attempted rape two charges of indecent assault nine charges of sexual assault and

one charge of breaching the peace now when he emerged from court alex salmond was quiet he didn't talk to any of the press there but when he was going in he gave a short statement to the cameras take a listen to what alex salmond had to say yesterday with my list of. attributes police station in central scotland. i was a leash was on condition i came to the court to be to face the charges against me. for any criminality whatsoever but i refute absolutely these are allegations of criminality and i will decide myself to the utmost in court. the court system of scotland so that he is strenuously denying the allegations and

he also mentioned that the case is now live and according to scottish law there are rather strict reporting restrictions when a legal case is ongoing so people can say things that might influence the proceedings and the headline this story rather is getting a lot of headlines nevertheless because alex salmond is a huge political figure here in the u.k. he's the former first minister of scotland he was the figurehead of the scottish independence campaign he also hosts a show on r.t. . and alex salmond recently won a civil court case against his own former scottish government after it mishandled allegations of sexual misconduct against alex salmond from back when he was still first minister if the allegations came to light last year but they related back to two thousand and thirteen and just like he said there throughout that legal process

ever since these allegations came up alex salmond has always very many denied all of the allegations and any accusations of criminality against him. with the political crisis in venezuela fast reaching boiling point a split is emerging in the international community putin for example has declared a destructive external influence breaks all the norms of international law the us president though fully backs their position is not ruling out possible military action. without considering anything but all options are on the job. which is all options all options and. i've decided to break diplomatic and political ties with the imperialist government of the united states. diplomatically giving all diplomatic and consular personnel of the united states in venezuela

seventy two hours to leave the country all eyes are on the venezuelan crisis here in davos britain's prime minister petro sanchez is holding talks on the issue with his watching american counterparts on the sidelines of the world economic forum the spanish government said it does not consider madieu road to be a legitimate president before we call with the venezuelan opposition has been on the books in other european leader to support the opposition french president emmanuel markov after the election of nicolas maduro in may twenty team europe supports the restoration of democracy. i salute the courage of the hundreds of thousands talking news aliens who are marching for their freedom the irony is that just days ago his own government didn't own statements made by the interior minister of italy who expressed hope that the french people could free themselves from michael turning to reaction from latin america shortly after batista way was opposition leader one going declared himself the interim president on wednesday

a handful of washington's usual allies came on board brazil argentina and chile to maim a few however mexico cuba and bolivia refused to follow suit other countries expressed criticism to external interference their support of the opposition china among them a crucial partner to the oil rich business way less in gold mining and energy production well china always maintains the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries opposing external intervention in venezuelan domestic of has russian foreign minister sergei lavrov expressed still marmot us talk of a possible military option is that. we can see another intrusions into a sovereign country's politics as you know they have been several attempts to oust nicolas maduro the fact that the u.s. and a number of other countries particularly in the region immediately recognized the self-proclaimed president means they had

a hand in the creation of competing leaderships this can lead to chaos and a serious destabilization in the internal political situation. the venezuelan military have said they will support to make a less of a dual role and defend the country's sovereignty and constitution. the military educated disciplined ensuring to the highest values are the core inspired by the values of independence peace and common good proclaimed loyalty an absolute subordination to nicolas maduro the constitutional president of the bolivarian republic. venezuela my commander in chief you can count on all support in your daily effort to achieve stability and strengthen our beloved homeland. there's plenty of different interests at play when it comes to this crisis and international reaction me play a major role in the way this crisis unfolds reporting from davos in switzerland and is this it should get out for our duty. let's bring in william mallinson he's

a professor green alamo marconi university and a former british diplomat very good evening to you william. why is this not just an easy one for everybody to agree on it's either a brutal dictator who's oppressing his own people or it's a democratically elected leader who's trying to make the best of a very difficult economic situation in his country despite outside interference and yet we've got lots of western countries against with there were zero and we've got russia china mexico few others supporting him why the divide. it's all about geopolitics and the fight against the u.s. nato fight against russia and china it's a way for the us to divert attention from their own major constitutional problem at the moment with not much of the government even working for a record period it's a way of keeping trying to keep a russian and chinese business out there don't forget that as president calvin

coolidge said america is business and it shows at the same things come back with different colors ever since the united states grabbed chunks of what is chunks of south america and as of central america ever since then south america has been america's backyard it's back garden these hawks back to the more narrow doctrine of course you sound a bit specialist the scandals have been enormous the bay of pigs for one u.s. invasion of panama are there with. nerd or in chile the involvement of united fruit company i.t.t. henry kissinger proven the terrible scandal to do with nicaragua when the us was secretly financing the contras extreme right wing torturers with them to keep or to go out with the illegal money. by selling drugs the hypocrisy is enormous well you have any more questions i have more to say but i don't want to go

on like you and bubble i have read plenty more where you have something that surprised me maybe not you as a former diplomat and a u.s. diplomats refusing to leave the country despite being ordered to leave by the president said they're effectively squatting at this point does that suggest what they think they're going to have a new leader there soon so there's no point leaving just to return the how would you explain that remark away. it's histrionics and posturing it's entirely entirely illegal for what the united states has done by recognizing. someone who wasn't even a candidate by the way in the presidential election in may last year. and what i suspect and think that the model of the no of the government the legitimate government and there is only one at the moment will do is protect those people because it understands that the us is probably hoping to provoke a little incident and i'm sure that the going as i will not allow that to happen

eat it will protect those diplomats even though it considers them illegal and with the russian and chinese support i think they may have to to to to go back to united states because it's so completely unprecedented and illegal to recognized somebody but i remember in the year two thousand for example when when bush won the election against gore now out of the loop the loser actually became the winner about two months later. despite his you know half a million votes less. can you imagine what would have happened even russia had recognized the true winner who is actually. of course not the russians are not so irresponsible so i really think that much of the background to this we used to do with business deals undoubtedly business deals to keep the chinese business i want because of mining interests or oil and russians as well and divert attention from

what's going on the united states. is it seems very clear to me there's enormous hypocrisy of course also because i understand that a rather pompous bombero. the us secretary of state has criticized countries a totalitarian countries because they continue to recognize the legitimate government that's major hypocrisy when you look at some of america's friends saudi arabia dilute as one example and support some of the most dreadful don't tell you turn regimes i can imagine the final point i think i can make is that to many people at the moment even the u.s. is becoming increasingly totalitarian as well as even the french are and they're fighting against it so i think we need to take a cool look at this and realize that it's a sense about business interests and awful geopolitical interests and the things of all it's been like that and it's the same syndrome the backyard america u.s. backyard syndrome coming back with new colors and it certainly want to watch

there's a lot of propaganda going on like i've seen messages claiming that parts of the army have said they're against religion with the legitimate president they'll all be one or two individuals but i don't think they'll stick their necks out too far because it's quite clear that whatever terrible problems there are in that country . slowly and surely hopefully things will get less bad i don't think things ever get better they get less bad in the world and i think that's the main thing but certainly the u.s. move is rather histo. well i have to say. you shooting from you which is not going to do you didn't go to the root com problems that we've got at the moment look after themselves. appreciate your thoughts and reasoned argument william ellis is my guest professor at the elmore marconi university former british diplomat pre-shared it will you. good night. ok let's talk fake news and

propaganda those terms are becoming more prevalent in modern day discussions about journalism one program on french t.v. is teaching children how to spot a photos a faked and which news outlets are telling the truth a recent episode was about asus president vladimir putin and about this channel dubin ski explains all. well this is billed as being in educational game show for children around the ages of eleven to fifteen the idea is they go on the show and they participate in things like quizzes about topics of the day and they're also asked to hunt for clues and then to try and piece those clues together to find the result of a question and it's broadcast on france for that's a channel here in the country and it's called escape news now its most recent program centered on russia particularly the russian president vladimir putin and ourselves here at r.t. offering what appeared to be

a fairly one sided opinion of the two topics now close to the start of the program a young boy who says he's of ukrainian heritage is asked to describe who he thinks vladimir putin is and what he's like this is what he set. of losing of presuming. to do that with their low suv aldrin both of them on the phone to the. well throughout the program putin is regularly described as being all thora tarion somebody who likes to oppress the opposition parties in russia somebody who likes to control the press in his country somebody who likes to control his own image well what evidence is given of that well there are a lot of pictures of me of putin in different guises from writing with a naked torso horseback to fishing to appearing in military

vehicles the evidence of course to show that vladimir putin is somebody who likes to control his image and there is only one image that's being broadcast then the program goes on to target us here at r.t. suggesting that the channel is nothing more than propaganda the evidence of that. well r.t. it says is funded by the russian state no secret there but pretty rich from a program that's being broadcast on a channel in france that's also being funded by the french state well it's pretty difficult to be a journalist here in france so let's talk about that since president matt corn has been elected r.t. journalists have been regularly denied access to events and even during the presidential elections before he was elected r.t. journalists should have been accredited for offense we're told when they arrived that they simply couldn't go in now arts he has gone to the program escape

news we've asked them for comment on their program and whether they feel that it was one sided that it was biased in its views and r.t. has also gone to press freedom groups and human rights groups to ask them what they think of this program and to question whether a program like this is actually putting across a one sided view of the french state and essentially is brainwashing france's next generation. the circus began to recover goods here is the general secretary of the european federation of journalists ricardo good evening to you i believe you had some chance to absorb some of this news show what did you make of it. well first of all we should the green on the fact that it's not a journalistic piece we are facing an educational program for children

so it's not as easy for me to judge it as a journalistic be. used to do it as generous of the area of the european federation of journalists in this case. it's a bit more complicated but if you ask me to judge this program the. educational program as a journalist i would say that i found it rather unbalanced. not biased i think. any citizen not not only journalists not only t.v. presenters who have the right to criticise those in power politicians businessman's people. but if you enter into a comparison between states and sees. and think is to

give to provide the two sides of the story and my impression is that this t.v. program is focusing only on one side of the story well that's one of them from a lot of pick up on i haven't seen the program myself although i have a to understanding of some of the things mentioned in the idea of. informing children which countries are good and which are not quite dangerous to me surely that's a matter of opinion it's not something you can establish is a fact and worrying that telling children this which could really influence them for a long life. it's not only about children. i don't agree with that narrative about an information war between russia and western europe you know. i think it's armful for journalists i think journalists are not of

the information the so-called information war we should not be. of the information war so the way the the present do with the program present journalists is not something i would agree on and i would strongly disagree on the contrary. i believe that in the least should work on the public in the public interest we are not supposed to work of course in the interest of any politician. and insisting on this climate of information war is. a way to assimilate aldrin the least to. which we are not ricardo something i would say observateur personally over the last few years is a an increase in journalist making accusations against in particular global leaders the likes of donald trump but the mere putin labeling them as bad people in some

way shape or form without producing the evidence to back it up is that something that you've noticed just so. well as a journalist we are supposed to be the watchdogs saw to criticize is part of the job . it's part of our mission it's part it's our duty now i believe that in the recent years more and more journalists are basing their reporting on opinions i think it's really important for journalists sometimes we should deliver opinions of course but it's really important to base our reporting on facts. and maybe that's a worrying trend in european and not only european journalism is the fact that you know it's very easy to base stories on opinions because you don't have to check

facts by doing that so. i would call any professional journalists to. you know to be really cautious. when reporting on international policy. sensitive issues. the first mission of a journalist of course is to base the story on facts. just off the back of that for example r.t. itself is often accused of being a propaganda channel. there's never any facts provided to back up why it's perceived to be like that the word propaganda is thrown around a lot now almost as a as a weapon do you think we have a lot of propaganda in. global news these days and is it more than it used to be and we just notice it more. we face propaganda in every single country you know it's not new for journalists. for years for

decades we've been facing propaganda. as i said before. our duty is to work in the public interest not in the interest of those in power. and that's it saw i don't think it's a new phenomenon. i don't think journalists are involved in propagandistic activities more of them years before saw it's still a problem it's a real problem for the profession indeed but that's not something new and i don't think it's growing what is growing is that trend that context of information war and we should refrain from use. narrative and. things like fake news and so on disinformation is

a real phenomenon but let's not give tools for weapons to politicians to restrict the capacity of journalists to report about the truth as it is to perspective appreciate your thoughts ricardo ricardo good here is my guest general secretary of the european federation of journalists thank you. well staying with this theme microsoft says that its latest browser will have a feature to assess that reliability of media outlets but the system in question it's called news god has been criticised by some journalists takes a closer look at who might stand to benefit proceed with caution just a regular scion of a blind corner and overhead crane area wild animals crossing and news you should be careful with while reading. proceed with caution this website general it fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and to count ability there you

have it we've already told you about news guard an online tool masterminded by folks like the former head of the cia that flags good news websites as green and those it sees as dodgy ones as read it's been up to you if you want to install the plug in or not unless you are a user of the microsoft edge web browser from now on the features built into the app at least you can switch it off after launch in the u.s. news current will expand to serve the billions of people globally who get news online so perhaps a little contract with microsoft could be one of the first steps of that expansion readers of any of that red colored carousel caution please by the way this is what we've heard from one of you case most read outlets rated one out of five for credibility. we have only very recently become aware of the new scarred star tap

and are in discussions with them to have this egregiously rainiest classification resolved as soon as possible with these guys mole store all the criteria is fine grain like you're good to go oh buzz feed's they're in the green zone too because perhaps it never spews out anything unconfirmed or unreliable even the teen green bench in the u.k. has realized something sprog bubbly wrong here but once i remind you who's behind news guard things will start to make sense i mean do you really expect the brainchild of a board of advisors that's comprised of all kinds of former american security and foreign affairs officials to flag we q leaks anything but read. us criticism of a major gas pipeline project between russia and europe known as north stream two has been rejected by the boss of an austrian company helping to build it comes as new negotiations through russia ukraine and the e.u.

on the old gas route through ukraine have so far failed to produce an agreement. on trump has repeatedly said construction of the new pipeline will play into russia's hands the u.s. ambassador to germany sent out a warning that sanctions may be applied to countries backing north stream to. as you are aware the united states strongly opposes nord stream to the pipeline poses serious geopolitical consequences to our european allies and partners we continue to stress that firms operating in the russian energy export pipeline sector are engaging in activities that carry significant sanctions risk. but the german minister for energy claims economic threats won't dingwell a project that is mutually beneficial for those involved in the me so i'm trying to be here for engineer you see i work as a federal minister i'm standing here not pale and not shaking i'm not afraid if someone sends a letter i can deal with it russia has been not reliable partner for fifty years

the pipeline also has the support of the german public with a seventy percent say it's right to push ahead your political analyst or run a road force believes that washington has its own geo political reasons to prevent russia from cooperating with germany. europe of course is a very interesting market for the provision of gas because it's a rather stable economic return so you can expect. payments to be effected without any delays europe is a good client for any gas provider and the united states of course have an interest in decreasing the operational links between central europe between germany and russia because if an alliance between those two countries would evolve it would certainly constitute. a heart of

integration regional also a future political integration on the eurasian land mass and this is of course very scary for the united states because they want to hinder any other power from reaching up to their level of power. you're watching r.t. international appreciate your company this evening join me for updates on our top stories in half an hour. welcome to the alex salmond show from copenhagen and the delicious parliament they make the big decisions of the politics of the kingdom of denmark but surveys tell us that this is the most contented society on earth and this program we try and get

to grips with the secret of the daily show of happiness it's a fascinating time in danish politics play alice levis copenhagen's former maid of culture and leisure and former mayor of church and yes she says culture and leisure is a vital part of the city's long term planning i she is convinced it's a big reason why the city ranks as one of the happiest places in the world here obviously welcome to the alex island show thank you so much you spent six years as a smear of cultural leisure here in copenhagen how important is the cultural aspect to the vibrancy of a great city like this well i think the cultural life in copenhagen is one of the reasons why we have been ranked as one of the best cities in the world of course you need they care centers you need a great infrastructure and all that but it's the cultural life is the lesser life it's all the fun things that are important to a city the size of copenhagen at least on.