it's come to light the u.s. intelligence community quietly dropped its rule that whistleblowers must possess 1st hand knowledge apparently paving the way for the trump ukraine revelations that triggered an impeachment inquiry. a day of mourning in france as world leaders gather for the funeral of former president jacques chirac who died last week 86. university of edinburgh comes under fire for hosting a so-called anti racism conference the band white attendants from asking questions in a q. and a. great to have your company 1 am here in the russian capital this is r.t.

. demanding to meet with the anonymous official who blew the whistle on phone calls with his ukrainian counterpart the scandal surrounding the conversations led to the launch of an impeachment inquiry last week over possible collusion with a foreign power the us president claims the whistleblowers account of what was said was quote totally inaccurate the wall reports emerged pointing out that the u.s. intelligence community quietly changed the official whistleblower complaint form at around the same time the ukraine called scandal broke the old version required a whistleblower to have 1st and intelligence knew for no made another tick box option available meaning relayed information could be considered too. and the timing of the change is worth noting because the latest version of the document says it was revised in the same month in which the scandal triggering complaint was filed the apparent coincidence has led to questions being racist. it's not clear to

me when the people who are behind all this realized all my goodness this is not going to play well this will not go through the inspector general process because it's all hearsay uncertainty and information it's funny to me at least here on the u.s. side that the news outlets just immediately identified this person as a whistleblower but if you are a whistleblower blowing the whistle on waste fraud abuse and illegality in the intelligence services you're not a whistleblower you're a leaker and so i think that's really where the transformation has been. right because the if takes a look of a sudden change of standard sound it's possible ramifications. most of us we revere whistleblowers the men and woman who put their careers their very lives on the line at a principle it will look the other way they speak up when they see corruption abuse

and then justice and you know why we revere them so as we trust them they were witnesses people on the inside they saw with their own eyes a whistleblower is any individual who provides the right information to the right people that's now changed you no longer need to be a witness to be a whistleblower no longer need to have documents or evidence all you need is to have heard someone talk about wrongdoing that's all the matter if it was false or made up just far less than hey presto you are a whistleblower like the individual who spawned the trump ukraine scandal of the background of this of course is the whistleblower the filing report and state in the 1st sentence i don't know that sure stand you know this 1st told to me but i learned this from say and then multiple shots so i didn't have any and evidence and

that means in our legal system here shit it never stands up in court he was told the trump said something questionable by anonymous officials told them wrong it seems at least some of it was already proved false the president pressured mrs umansky with a specific request that the ukrainian leader locate and turn over service used by the democratic national committee and examined by the u.s. cyber security firm crowd strike. i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine they say crowd strike the server they say ukraine has. that whatever you can do it's very important that you do it if that's possible the president also praised ukraine's prosecutor general. and suggested that mr the lansky might want to keep him in his position. i heard you had

a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair a lot of people are talking about that the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved they these in gentleman we have front row seats as we watch the noble even all noble title of whistleblower sally my deed by partisan politics in the accuracy bias over the intelligence community inspector general's preliminary review identified some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the complete in favor of a rival political candidate such evidence does not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern appears credible what today do. you know american chargen we say did it change the goalposts they changed the rules how could these people possibly see that we get away with this whistleblowers now

essentially a 5050 anonymous source you get on c.n.n. for example fun to listen to but as practice shows as taken with a dose of salt source tells n.b.c. news law enforcement and democratic sources telling c.n.n. that in a fired sources anonymous sources according to anonymous washington post source you're basing all these allegations of one or maybe 2 sources which c.n.n. is this is not receiving reports it's washington post new york times wall street journal c.n.n. a.b.c. elihu resources all because they're hiding behind this in anonymity commonality we're seeing you know how do you tell me that you're not going to attack sources these whistleblower a poor it was but now for the democrats finally a chance to bring down trump. but now that it's showing cracks liberals are sprinting the plus the mover this whistleblower they claim can should and will be trusted you know why because he's one of them if we

think of the whistleblower as a reporter the whistleblower talked to a lot of people who had firsthand knowledge or post strange it to this reporters a free free to be as politically biased as they want twist news to their political agenda and then call it truth all of us who have been involved in national security and have reported on waste fraud abuse and illegality have been whistleblowers but because this whistleblower in particular fits the mainstream media's narrative of donald trump committing crimes he was automatically called the whistleblower he was automatically assumed to have the national interests at heart and i'm not not really sure that that's the case the think it all but crucified snowden and manning for exposing global surveillance on all of us and war

crimes that we'd never have known about but here you have a biased complaint riddled with an accuracy s. submitted by an individual who saw nothing but passed on what he was told the clear political spin to it. these applauded cheered and praised it isn't gentleman what is the newborn name of worth or blow or dies i think this is effectively making the whistle procedure in america into effectively snitches chasseur where we have a situation where someone can just report some gossip and it will be taken at face value as bona fide a whistle blowing i think this is highly dangerous in how whistleblowers are going to be perceived so rather than people coming forward and saying i have an eyewitness account i personally experience this wrongdoing this crime it needs to be investigated up to and including congressional hearings on ochs suddenly going

to have rumor and gossip grubby gossip fed into the political process and it's going to poison that this process. dozens of world leaders of arrived in paris for the funeral of jacques chirac the former french president who died last week served as the country's head of state for 12 years our correspondent sheila devinsky has more from paris. well a national day of mourning has been declared in france here to remember the former president jacques chirac who died last week at the age of 86 the funeral service took place behind me at the church of seoul well willed leaders including president putin of russia came to pay their final respects to a man whose political career spanned some 40 years going from being elected as an m.p. in the national assembly all the way to being mare of paris to being prime minister 2nd time twice to of course being france's president a presidency he held for 2 terms darting back in 1995 he was considered to be

a political comedian so he has stuck to his guns and perhaps is best known internationally for the fight back in 2003 he refused to let france participate in the iraq invasion that was led by the us in the u.k. famously of course going to the un security council all queuing why that invasion shouldn't take place let's have a look back now at some of the highlights of his political career. the military operations have just started in iraq friends regresses action taken without the approval of the united nations. houses burning down and we blind to it nature mutilated and overexploited can no longer regenerate and we refuse to admit it or don't want to rebuild it barack obama you know. let them go these dark hours forever solo history and they're an insult to our past and now

traditions. the funeral took place with full military honors on some of those who pay their tributes last week when we heard the news that jacques chirac it died came here today including president putin of russia he described him as being a man who was wise and far sighted a man who. as a great friend to russia we know that the 2 had a fantastic personal relationship in fact shot chirac when he was at the nato summit in latvia back in 2006 on the sidelines of that summit invited president putin to come and spend his 74th birthday with him and even he awarded president putin one of france's highest honors for a foreign as this is a growing classically owner so a sense of 2 men who really respected each other in fact president putin once said that chirac was probably one of the best world leaders that he knew of one of the ones that he most respected we also heard tributes from other world leaders over

the last few days including anger merkel who said that he was a great partner when it came to germany and also herself and we heard from president marc cohn who said he was a great frenchman a man who embodied what it really was to be french we were also speaking to some of the crowds of people can pay him to see this funeral to pay their final respects and they told us that jacques chirac was a great leader and that it was important to come and say one final goodbye. the of playful he was a true frenchman there you go what i loved about human after doing it all the good it was for me for friends. and then me your place he was one of the best presidents that's what i think he did many things for france including many things that people don't know about in the social sphere and things like that. as i suspect i wrote that was his character that was his character might all the same not everyone liked

him though many in my family were fond of him it's nice to know that. he was we heard during the service allowing their head of his time a man who was fiercely proud to be french thousands of people that paid homage and respect as jacques chirac now makes his final journey to his resting place in more plain us here in paris. the university of edinburgh has found itself in the firing line after rolling out his red carpet for a so-called anti racism conference the band white people from asking questions during a q. and a. we will therefore not be given the microphone to by people during the q. nace not because we don't think people have anything to offer to the discussion but because we want to amplify the voices of people of color if you know white person with a question piece share it with a member of the committee or our speakers after the panel discussion the event was

organized by a group called the resisting whiteness collective the organizers say that their aim is to raise awareness about the importance of anti racist actions in the u.k. to host the event treated to separate rooms called safe spaces for those who could feel overwhelmed or uncomfortable one of them by the white people from entering and to bring university expressed concern over certain aspects prior to the event including the safe rooms with the university's officials claiming organizers had started to review that particular point however no changes if any were made of being published on the official event page all of this has provoked a strong reaction online. this sort of stupidity by edinburgh university actually fuels racism if the media's who came up with this idea lived in the real world they'd know inclusive ety not apartheid is what's needed and their university hosts racist event banning polish people from talking the aim of the event is to end racism presumably by actively being racist they have come full circle in an

effort to become known racists they've become racist talk about overcompensating brigs that alliance london assembly member david curtain believes that this event hasn't been anyone any favors it's blatant racism there's no such thing as reverse racism racism is excluding people because of the color of their skin and this does that whereas before we've had the kind of racism that excludes people in discriminates against people because they're black this blatantly discriminates against people because they're white and this doesn't do any good for anybody whether they're white or black or brown and this kind of thing just simply should not be happening for giving a platform for for any group you know whatever anyone wants to say but that's the whole problem with this event is that they're not allowing a platform for people who are white on the basis of their color of their skin if

someone decided to put on an event called resisting blackness can you imagine the outrage which we would have had from the same kind of people who are putting on this events are there everyone would be up in arms from people on the extremes of the political spectrum and all of the liberal if you like elites in the media would be be writing about it condemning it and we wouldn't hear the end of it for days if not weeks so that just goes to show the kind of hypocrisy. ok that brings you to take a break we're back with more if you missed it. thanks

guys are fine it will survive they say money the bellatrix. plans to use it this is a central plank support diatom is going to call them right now so you stop to.

welcome back the ok hand gesture has been recognized as being a hate alongside the swastika america's anti-defamation league based its decision on the signs adoption by white supremacists. even as extremists continue to use symbols that maybe years or decades old they regularly create new symbols means and slogans to express their hateful sentiments we believe law enforcement and the public needs to be fully informed to bar the meaning of these images which can serve as a 1st a warning sign to the presence of haters in the community or school the ok symbols white power meaning was initially part of an online prank expose a but apparently want supremacist like what they saw and they started to use it in

earnest among them the christ church terrorist during a court appearance d.l. says the cases like that warrant its inclusion on the list of hate symbols are doing though that context is always important. to share a former white house staffer was accused of making the white power side her defenders there pointed out she's mexican american and a descendant of holocaust survivors who put the issue up for debate. i think it's pretty ridiculous to label a thing like a bull or the ok symbol as a symbol of white supremacy i feel like race is do do certain things i mean at a certain point they do everything or people do mean races have to eat food they have to drink water they have to breathe air so at what point do we label eating food as racist drinking water as received in breathing air is received it's just really can of started his particular point sounds a little some of these things that have been in his ear things were a very long time with or

a soused hateful subversive groups the problem is that the symbol has become an actual code to say hey we are part of this group you are not and you know the main point of it is like. well it's a far it's far right movement supporting you know again far right ideologies that are very well known in this country to be you know florists and but my point is you know is vast to get for instance and it was an indian sacred religious symbol 50500 years b.c. and you know. people in germany it's ok to put it on a red flag and now it was a symbol it was an inverted this massive go and that became the symbol of nazism nieces and ok but the ok sign is nat day all right ok so you can find it right now on your phone via. device i phone you can find it ok so right now when you search for the new moji there is the equivalent to ok ok it is being used ok for

a very loans and it wasn't a couple years ago where it was some kind of troll thing happening on the internet that it became so on those because the mainstream media picked it up and i think the whole purpose of trolling campaign was to trick the mainstream media into doing it and of course now we hear that the a.d.l. is looking for here is not to label every single thing that we do say or or. or you know we communicate what they are to specifically doing is trying to inform you know people that there are certain symbols that seem innocuous but that are currently being used to. incite violence and crime and you know fundamentalist political ideas that put this democracy in jeopardy but we're talking about a symbol that started it as something that was not necessarily what it is today the problem is that somewhere along the line that symbol that cited as it trolling can

ban as a bait became an actual you know sino with a longing for though it. it's not it's really not what somebody told me how do you know it hasn't this is not some kind of a symbol like i see the blood gain uses day i'm sure to have been plenty of actual killings they happen every single day and have been going on for a very loans ounces and 1970 s. when they came out with his own reason that's not been seen as a symbol you can have it right now in your phone as an emoji for the ok symbol in smartphones and all of it have come around long after the street gangs have originated so obviously we didn't think about this thing that existed in a certain context in new form of a symbol in general which is labeled as a symbol but now what was saying because you need to let me hold because of the trolling campaign now we want to say is a symbol is ridiculous it is not

a symbol it is a n.s.a. thing if people want to use it for whatever they want to use it for ok but to compare it to nazi flag is absurd ok millions do. you like. versus the ok so i think i was not a hate symbol until it was. an indian use a day early his whole can ensure that only stopping. in somalia u.s. military. bass is being attacked by the local islamic extremist group al-shabaab it claims loyalty to al qaeda and is listed as a terror group in the u.s. and the u.k. and european military convoys also being attacked although so far no one's claimed responsibility somalia's been wracked by civil war for decades now with 2 significant parts of the country claiming self and tommy the u.s. armed forces have been fighting al shabaab since 2007.

africa meanwhile says it killed 10 al shabaab militants following the recent attack on the american base but journalist and african affairs specialist johnson believes their strikes will only make the crisis worse one thing is clear is that. it's clearly not a force that's going the way they are local jihadists the belong to somalia itself it shows that we would have to start looking beyond bombs beyond guns beyond bullets and something and how if at all there's an opportunity for negotiating with this group because out we've shown over time that the military capabilities that they have the ability to go on the ground. it's going to continue. the united

states and the african union on likely to be to dislodge him in the short to medium term. ok well nearly 1 30 in the morning here in the russian capital never too late to get yourself informed on what's happening in the world though my colleague dan hawkins for updates on our top stories in half an hour. join me every thursday on the alex i'm i'm sure and i'll be speaking to give us the world of politics sports business i'm sure. i'll see you then. something seemed wrong when old rules just don't call. me. yet to shape our disdain comes to the ticket and in game trade equals betrayal.

when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. you know world a big part of new things a 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 truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. calls for trump's impeachment to the saga known as prigs it political elites appear to be terrified of democracy and the people's will also should we lament the

passing of a new liberal order. led .

in early february of 2014 as the made crisis was getting more violent there was a phone call that was intercepted it was a call between the secretary of state. and the u.s. ambassador. geoffrey pyatt. private chats between. you know what. i think. probably. really. remarkable phone call.

of the u.s. government talking about a coup or how they were playing to restructure the government of ukraine. exactly i'm not saying the whole u.s. government feels that way the there is there is division but the neo conservative element very much to change the strategic dynamic in eastern europe. people and they've been at this for a long time they came in around the issue of propaganda they studied how to create hot buttons for the american people they had this experience when they were getting the american people to get excited about central america back in the 1980. and they've been applying those same strategy ever since they were dedicated to achieving their goals they still want to get rid of certain governments they want a regime change in syria for instance regime change. very skilled at this and they

have now inside the news media inside the government means the. they can do a lot to control the narrative of any story so i think in america these days we have somehow told ourselves that there are a lot of ways of dealing with these problems other than hard power lattimer putin cares about hard power the neoconservatives can now demonize a leader of a country that sells with the american people so you don't just sort of argue a policy you attack the leader so the neoconservatives became very skilled at picking out leaders finding their ugly traits and then highlighting them yet a ko bitch you might say was a rather clunky political leader but you make him into a devil is he's totally corrupt and he's evil and he wants to kill people in the made in these wonderful white headed demonstrator.