well. the pages of several highly successful are linked to news projects with. the rules on what may be behind the move. coming up in the program a senior french military officer could be sent to face punishment for the pens of damning critique of the u.s. led coalition's campaign against islamic state in serving. the u.k. behind a significant number of civilian deaths in yemen a new heights of lords report has suggested weapon sales to saudi arabia could be

in violation of international law believe. would it have anything to eat she skin and bones that's the worst case of severe malnutrition. from moscow to the world this is our team international you with us this hour by names you know neal our top story a berlin based media company has hit out at facebook accusing the platform on precedented censorship that's after the social networking giant suspended a number of fake media is pages which produces online shows now one of which is in the videos from being few tens of millions of times the move coincided with a c.n.n. report claiming it was deliberately trying to hide its ties to the russian

government kevin on the scuffs the controversy with correspondent. the problem is that on math fix pages you can see that some of its funding comes from the russian government and that it's partially oh and by and are subsidiary but first of all it all goes down to understanding whether math makes management broke any facebook rules well there are no such rules on facebook that require mentioning some sort of links to our tea or russia however the social media told c.n.n. that right now it would start asking page administrators to disclose their russian affiliations but again up until now this wasn't a rule so this is absolutely unprecedented all our attempts to get in touch with facebook and get some sort of explanation have a lead to anything so far so all we can do for now is judged by what facebook

was telling c.n.n. people connecting with pages shouldn't be misled about who's behind them just as we've stepped up our enforcement of coordinated in authentic behavior and financially motivated spam over the past year will continue improving so people can get more information about the pages they follow the team behind the blog pages told us that they had received no warnings about the looming punishment they hadn't received any messages giving them the right to appeal however the appeal has already been sent and by the way when it comes to the likes of you tube or twitter the pages are there and there are no issues that they have says this company tried to do something to conceal its connections and all know they were never hiding anything of course it does say on their front page online for instance money comes from russia but pretty much no one knows that and whenever someone gets employed by my fake they're always informed about the parent company so that they're always

aware. or of who they're working for and this company is officially registered in germany so pretty much anyone can go on the company's registry and find out all the relevant information on the founders who's funding it the owners etc but in cnn's investigative report all of this is being portrayed as some sort of groundbreaking revelations but what people watching these videos may not realize is that the russian government is paying for this soap box wasted that then are three new facebook pages and all part of a growing brand of russian backed influence campaigns but kevin not everyone's that much impressed by the way c.n.n. was spinning this there's american comedian jimmy doer pages pushing the videos do not disclose they're backed by the russian government. ok all right i didn't know

you had to put who funded you but when you put you put up a video i didn't know that because we have lots of different funders at this show we have over three thousand people who voted us through patriotic we have probably no other couple thousand people through pay pal so we have a lot of people that fund our show do i have to name everyone every time i put up a video and it would have been steamed told us that whichever reason facebook might try to find for door and what they're doing they believe there's only one reason for their action we didn't violate any of facebook's boluses whatsoever none of our content promotes disinformation or fake news yet c.n.n. and pressured facebook into on president assad to ship in a desperate attempt to milk ratings by still going to his theory over russia you know has made a good headline and in the who when this first was at c.n.n. and not really the first ones to bring this up were german outlets t. mobile and also the so-called alliance to secure democracy part of the german

marshall fund which in turn gets this cash from u.s. and german governments did anyone say government funding anyway pages by the likes of al-jazeera or deutsche welle they are up and running even without these kind of tar government money german government money alerts and even trying to speaking to kevin nolan will kevin also talk to the chief of operations and marketing at mafeking media who sees their pages were shut down without warning. the hysteria that's built up in the states around all things having anything to do with russia and especially at facebook i have the ties with facebook because they're in a tough position needing to respond quickly to any kinds of these reports however c.n.n. really kind of led them to panic and make a bad decision which which was to shut down pages with millions of fans that

completely singles out russia as a government. when ignoring the fact that every state media operation from a to b b c two n.p.r. receives government funding and they need to come up with a policy that deals with everyone in a fair way whether it's singling out state funded media categorically and making r t as well as b.b.c. a.b.c. c.n.n. and everyone else state the entirety of their funding source it's on their facebook pages. you said you didn't know you'll be saying you were warned of this before they took the pages all. these rules you know what you said the way this was this was a complete reaction and a reactionary. move by facebook in response to see in leading them to believe that there was some kind of secret even done

a wrong by not having that information on the page with the rules for how he's a loser you know i'd absolutely not ok no no no no no no first of all facebook should not tell us to do that if they're not going to tell everyone to do it but they haven't even gone as far as having any kind of policy articulated about it at all and so we were. fully compliant with all facebook policies at all times and there is no requirement whatsoever to display any type of. funder information on facebook pages and it is common practice to not do so. artie's editor in chief margarita simonyan responded to the scandal by accusing c.n.n. of shamelessly acting in washington's interest c.n.n. which ignored us c.n.n. is once again acting as the right hand to even lead the crotch of the state department nato and everything connected with them and facebook is doing the same

c.n.n. doesn't even make a secret of the fact they did their so called investigation or to be more precise blackmail material on a direct tip from a foundation financed by nato and the state department c.n.n. election forced facebook to delete our accounts but facebook listen could have refused facebook is so scared of being once again accused of helping the russians in the election interference and suppressing democracy in the u.s. that it immediately deletes knock out the had forty million subscribers and two point five billion views no complaints against the video itself and the content on the whole were made by facebook but when c.n.n. called and said how can you let those russians talk to our people facebook just deleted the account obviously the situation is going to get worse no one now is even trying to believe in any freedom we even talk about it because it is an open geo political confrontation in which media space is loved by many and are made into real to use i don't know whether they were set up for this that's exactly what's

happening now. r.t. also contacted a number of news freedom organizations we will let you know when they get back to us that we also spoke to a senior researcher from london metropolitan university's global policy institute he believes facebook is clearly guilty of double standards so anything that the russians must be looked upon suspiciously but they can't say this explicitly and so they come up with these phony pretexts such as oh they haven't disclosed that. funded by russia what about dr villa what about the b.b.c. what about al-jazeera what about france one i mean all of these are getting funded by governments but it's the same thing applies when facebook every few weeks announces where they've closed seven hundred thousand accounts that they can say fake accounts because they are really russians or the rain ians know no one knows

these things though one knows who these accounts are but it keeps the story going that the russians or the iranians to. officially designated enemies are up to no good. well moscow is also had its say on the issue calling online pressure against russia from so-called on neighborly countries nothing new. really new and that is the young covered rule pressure on the russian media has its effect it's no secret that unfortunately many big companies that provide social media and other media services are used as instruments to apply pressure on russian media that's coming from governments of neighboring countries we faced it many times it all leads to a loss of confidence and seriously damages begin respected international companies in this particular case i won't get ahead of myself we need an explanation first

thing r.t. should protect his interests and find out the reason behind this we've managed to stand up for our rights many times before and i hope this time won't be any different we should be able to manage this again you know much less especially as i've also drawn sharp criticism from glenn greenwald a journalist best known for his revelations about and u.s. and u.k. surveillance programs you accuse as facebook c.n.n. on the marshall fund of selective censorship max blumenthal from real news media told us he believes the social media behemoths is increasingly working in concert with the u.s. government. well we know for a fact that this was done under government pressure but what's taken place is that a series of groups that appear to be private are taking the initial credit starting with c.n.n. the corporate media titan which conducted the investigation but it conducted this fed at best a geisha and at the urging of

a group that is actually funded by the u.s. government last year my colleague jeff sprague at the gray zone project reported that one of the directors of the alliance for securing democracy the neo conservative jamie fly was promising that there would be more facebook takedowns in the future after the last year's facebook purge and it appears that in the now is the next victim using c.n.n. to put the pressure on facebook so this has taken place under government pressure. well facebook is also facing pressure from the british parliament a hard hitting report from the house of lords accuses facebook of feeling to protect its users from data breaches as well as from alleged russian dissin from ation reporting from westminster here's unless the see a trickle. well facebook is under fire following a damning over one hundred page report following eighteen months of work by a u.k.

parliamentary committee now this is a report that looks at a handful of issues including alleged foreign and russian interference in the elections but it's really facebook that gets a mouthful in this particular case from u.k. lawmakers described as a digital gangster that's ahead of and beyond the law it's accused of misleading parliament treating it with content and quote intentionally and knowingly violating data privacy and competition laws and more facebook continues to choose profit over data security taking risks in order to prioritize their aim of making money from user data it seems clear to us that facebook acts only when serious breaches become public and making it even more personal here is what the committee chair had to say on mark zuckerberg specifically mark zuckerberg continually fails to show the levels of leadership and personal responsibility that should be expected from someone who sits at the top of one of the world's biggest companies well zuckerberg

despite refusing to appear in front of this committee as many as three times really infuriating them for refusing to show up. basically respond via facebook statement saying that they believe they have contributed enough to the work that the committee was carrying out. we share the committee's concerns about fox news and election integrity and our police have made a significant contribution to their investigation over the past eighteen months on string more than seven hundred questions and with four of our most senior executives giving evidence well accusations are very well but in terms of what specifically this committee now wants is a code of ethics to be introduced as well as a possible legal action in case of breach of that code they want a reform of elec torah laws in the u.k. and these platforms such as facebook being forced to take down dissent from asian

and harmful content as well as having to take to pay taxes in the u.k. and well now it has to be said that this committee before has previously been unhappy with not enough reaction and action from the u.k. government following their suggestions we'll have to wait and see if this time will be any different britain could be complicit in yemen's humanitarian disaster by virtue of selling weapons to the saudis that's according to its own parliament that's among our stories after this short as the phrase. you know world's big partisan movie lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and

shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. we're witnessing something quite remarkable in the night twenty nine we're watching a country bred testbed in the nineteenth century bubble really for the last two hundred years they're going to crash into the twenty first century. as if they're just being teleported into the twenty first set.

you're back with are two international a prominent french military officer who helped coordinate the fight against islamic state in syria could be set to face punishment after he published a startling critique of the u.s. led coalition's terror tactics are part of correspondent true to its. damning criticism from a senior french military official this is the guy in charge of french artillery aiding could forces the syrian a rocky border he's criticized the u.s. coalition tactics saying that it's actually putting civilians at risk the battle of hygiene was won at least on the ground but by refusing ground in gage meant we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of civilian casualties we have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a western style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of

a new ad the saree hundreds of people have died as thousands of homes have rained down in those attacks led by the u.s. coalition and it comes this criticism as president trump is about to declare an outright victory against eisel in syria but the colonel. doesn't think that's the case we have in no way won the war because we lack a realistic and lasting policy and an adequate strategy how many how jews will it take to understand that we're on the wrong track colonel made those criticisms in the national defense review which has since taken down his article and it seems that the colonel is about to face sanctions for not getting permission to publish that article before his military forces it had a chance to look at it but his testimony adds weight to what we've already heard from groups such as amnesty international and for action against armed violence who

talked about the high cost of civilian casualties in syria as a result of the u.s. led coalition's actions and the way that it operates in that country now that's despite the fact that the u.s. says it doesn't target norm coleman battens the question is now is president trump is about to declare this victory over i still it's a victory many are saying including this colonel at what cost at what cost for the people of syria or french political journalist and commentator on the lizabeth believes the article was deleted soley because military chiefs didn't like it. if you are in the army you are actually suppose not to write anything but you know where does that leave this magazine and other magazines and websites in which officers do discuss this defaulters general is written by muesli serving officers and they give a sort of considered opinion it was deleted because there was a feeling that this office. of revealing tactics of

was not mended to do so and also i think basically because some people got angry because he was saying this is not the right tactics for the french army and i think somebody was annoyed because it looked like it was not the exact line of. the chief of staff and as a result that given to decide to do an article that would have been practically unknown. or i'm moving on now a new report from the u.k.'s house of lords suggests the country is responsible for a quote significant number of civilian deaths in yemen as a result of its arms sales to saudi arabia the documents say is that britain should be prepared to suspend some of its weapons exports as they near be violating international humanitarian law the government asserts that in its licensing of arms sales to saudi arabia it is narrowly on the right side of international humanitarian law we assess that it is narrowly on the wrong side. just some

background on the entire story it's almost four years since war erupted in yemen and saudi arabia launched its devastating a campaign against the impoverished countries hutu rebels since then the u.k. has sold four point seven billion dollars worth of weapons to riyadh making it the country second biggest supplier of arms the british government continues to defend the seals and saudi arabia claims it takes all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties a political science professor we spoke to told us that the spike the concern expressed in the lords report arms sales to riyadh are just too lucrative for london to suspend it the u.k. only is not interested in how much is actually being. either by a british workman really given to saudi arabia from the british want to. be independent on whether their weaponry is worth our will or the bombing.

in yemen there are lines regularly on the data provided by the saudi arabian government the british government most realize. of the united states going. that. war in the middle is not going to stop and will both go. all weapons to the. well the figures here really are startling this next aspect the u.n. has warned in recent days that yemen's humanitarian crisis is becoming increasingly severe hundreds of thousands of people are now reportedly at risk of starving to death that's hundreds of thousands of people in the percent of the population are also in need of aid here is the story of one yemeni got a warning you may find it upsetting. and it will even retreat would it have anything to feed her.

a. palate that she just skin and bones that's the worst case of severe malnutrition. child malnutrition cases are increasing not only children under five but mothers suffer from malnutrition and their babies will to.

manage it and of all i can do is keep trying to care for her and that she will be starving again and again because the horrible conditions live and. twenty four seven news live from our h.q. here in moscow this is art international if you'd like to delve deeper into any of those stories our website and twitter pages have you covered as always susan. is the u.s. lead kook against a legitimate government in venezuela faltering also as russia turkey. and iran's search for peace in syria washington beats the drums of war against iran and much

much more specific issue of trust. from the us lead new source but why is no cookie the slums you force new the focus on the most obvious the least to enjoy what. you see in the prison for the most good moment in. your body more. you know to change. the law to. join me every thursday on the alex i'm i'm sure and i'll be speaking to get out of

the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. seemed wrong. rowles just don't call. me. yet to stamp out disdain he comes to as a kid and in games from an equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

welcome to so think oh i'm sophia shevardnadze they say a picture is worth one thousand words and that's probably twice the case for works of war for top first as their costs are says to find in tragedy captured by a camera lens will i ask is or ryan miller who documented the wars in iraq afghanistan and many other places. always in the sake of it but never in the fray always a witness never a participant wolf it's all give us don't take sides but the pictures and photos of tragedies really help prevent them or do they only make people aware and do images of conflict really reflect reality. so ryan miller award winning photographer who put himself in the line of danger to document wars in iraq afghanistan gaza welcome

to the show it's great to have you with us can't wait to talk to you so zoraida you say that you always are brass to portray is a reality of what you see are you remaining an impartial observer of the advanced you are shooting. yeah i think impartial is something every journalist strives for it doesn't mean that i'm not emotionally invested in what i photograph obviously i am a human being and i have opinions on what i see and i have opinions on what is right and what is wrong and injustice and i'll obviously try everything i can to you know bring injustice to light and you know i suppose my definition of injustice is my own personal opinion so you know i am impartial but i do have feelings and i do. follow those feelings and i hope to try to portray them in the

photographs that i capture i suppose i suppose what you're saying bring your personal opinion are the key words there's personality hinder you in telling a story as truthfully as you can see dad in a way no i mean i think that's one of the common misconceptions in journalism is that having feelings and having emotions and caring about a story is going to hinder your ability to capture that story or make you impartial i think you have to have feelings especially for this type of photography i mean when you're you know when you're with a family after they've lost a loved one or in a situation where people have lost everything i think it's impossible to not have feelings about it and i think. when you do see pictures from people that go into those situations without feelings you can see it in the image.