so join us of the day. or a movie of the show was. a former u.s. intelligence analyst faces years in jail for exposing america's drone assassination program we speak to a whistleblower who's in close contact with him. he did it because he was exposing a war crime he's not allowed to see them and so he really doesn't have any chance of acquittal. britain's prime minister backs a coded passport system for people to prove their virus status but even his own lawmakers call the move divisive. after coca-cola caved to left wing boycotts threats on demands to denounce the new at u.s. state voter law but drinks giant finds itself under boycott attack this time from

the other side of the political divide. warm welcome to you and a very good morning good 10 am here in the russian capital and you're watching r.t. international with me to care. now a former u.s. intelligence analyst faces up to 10 years in prison for blowing the whistle on washington's targeted drone assassination program daniel hale pleaded guilty to transmitting and retaining national defense information last week his case comes amid growing public concern over the civilian death toll from u.s. drone attacks.

i have to tell you when he called me a few hours ago he was surprisingly upbeat and optimistic and he he remarked about how much press this issue has been getting since he decided to plead guilty so in the end i think that he thinks that this is been worth it that americans know more about the drone program now than 8 they did 6 months ago or a year ago and even though he's likely going to go to prison it was worth it the u.s. is flying these drones or at least it was until recently that were used ostensibly

to kill terrorists or would be terrorists but in reality to kill anybody who might resemble a terrorist and that included women children the elderly and anybody else who happened to be on the ground i believe that we're we're a nation of laws and we have to abide by those laws whether we like them or not if we don't like them we should change them go through the process and change them if congress has not declared war on a country we don't have a right to attack it we just can't decide that we don't like the politics of whoever happens to be in charge in a place like yemen or pakistan or afghanistan and then launch drone strikes against them it's a violation of international law free speech crepes a cracking down on those like hail stops that that is from coming forward. using the espionage act in this way to prosecute journalists sources and spies chills newsgathering and discourages sources from coming forward with information in the

public interest particularly when it relates to national security where government secrecy is at its height these documents detail the secret unaccountable process for targeting and killing people around the world including u.s. citizens through drone strikes there are vital public importance and that to be related to their disclosure is protected by the 1st amendment on his 1st day in office joe biden temporarily limited drone strikes outside the battle zones of afghanistan syria and iraq however he reportedly wants to boost the armed drone exports to countries including those with poor human rights records john kerry r q a former cia analyst and whistleblower told us the terms of the f.b.i. large act to leave hale with little hope. this is really the worst part of the of the espionage act this is the reason why ed snowden can't come home this is the reason why i couldn't go to trial this is the reason why jeffrey sterling the other

cia whistleblower was convicted because there is no affirmative defense we are prohibited by law from going into court and saying i did it but i did it for this reason and in in the case of daniel hale this was a war crime he did it because he was exposing a war crime he's not allowed to say that and so he really doesn't have any chance of acquittal the best thing to do for daniel as it was for me as it was for so many others here charged under the espionage act is to take a deal and to hope for the lightest possible sentence the decision that was made early on even before joe biden was inaugurated to pursue the appeal against julian assange it was that decision that made it clear that joe biden was going to pursue national security leaks just like barack obama did and just like donald trump did after him and you can watch the full version of our interview with john kerry on watching the hawks throughout the day hey on our. disagreements between the

u.s. state of georgia and major corporations are a disputed new voting in a with escalates into a tit for tat a series of threats and even but we cause. more pain has the story. coca-cola has long marketed itself around the world as uniquely american something that unites the entire united states but not any more this legislation is always. this legislation is wrong. and we were. given google's shoes to cave to the. out of control can still go we respectively rick was issued an old coca-cola company brother looks to be removed from our office huge immediately just because you run a soft drink company doesn't mean you get to control our democracy georgia has put forward a new voting laws requiring photo id to vote to get to lety bills and matching

signatures no longer accepted the proposed voting legislation also would outlaw the giving out of drinking water to people waiting in line to vote and other regulations which democrats say are intended to stifle the voter turnout among african-americans and low income people coca-cola is not the only corporation boycotting ga over new proposed voter reforms you've also got delta airlines viacom c.b.s. citi group j.p. morgan chase cisco and other corporations that are placing economic pressure on the state former president donald trump says that republicans are now going to boycott the boycotters in support of georgia's election laws for years the radical left democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when anything from that company has done or stated in any way that offends them now they are going big time with woke cancel culture and our sacred elections it is finally time for republicans and conservatives to fight back don't go back to their products and till they relent so

now we've got republicans targeting the corporations that are targeting georgia but it gets more interesting before these corporations started boycotting georgia you had liberal activists threatening to boycott them if they didn't liberal activists said that they would boycott. coke and other corporations if they refuse to stick it to ga speak with a woman it's this post some of the corporations that they needed to speak out against racism with a view might sequence about this opposition is they've not lived up to their room woods but you'll silence you're actually being complicit so we're going to say to them if you want some money then you will to have a back i think we all have to use our voices of seeing these corporations falling over themselves every year around the time of the king holiday celebrating the king and yes i think that the way to celebrate the king is to stand up for what he represented voting rights it's not just corporations that are being affected by

this rapid polarization of america now you've got major league baseball being boycotted by republicans because it has pulled out of atlanta and that comes after obama biden and many democratic party voices and liberals called on the league to pull out of the biggest city in georgia whether you're a bank a soda supplier or america's favorite sport you can't get out of it don't boycott georgia and you get boycotted by the democrats do it and you get boycotted by republicans america is rapidly polarizing and some of the biggest economic players are now stuck in the middle and artsy new york. political analyst and radio host dave perkins faced companies that only have themselves to blame for bowing to punk to some pressure. nothing more divisive down the company that sells me my favorite soft drink telling me i'm a racist and that's essentially what's happening with all these corporations taking these woke positions in advance of even being accused of anything and that is to me

the divisiveness not republican responses to it not what trump has to say as a result of it but the actual corporate positions themselves in advance of any argument against the corporation being taken by them to head off the potential trouble of leftwing activism they don't know what trouble is till they drive all their customers away this is not new the level of it is new the concern over the number of companies and the pressure they're feeling is new but the tactic is not new it's something the left wing has done for many years they have no idea how much damage it's going to do to their sales and their company's future i think it's going to be a lot and i think so whether trump calls for it or not. a scandal has erupted in front software to much to ministers allegedly attended secret elites cafes and restaurants in violation of covert restrictions and on the cover report found luxury restaurants privately opening their doors to v.i.p.'s guests wanted to view

even claim to himself either legally dined in restaurants quote with a certain number of ministers as guests apparently did not wear mollusks that knocked back bottles of champagne but members of the french government have denying to any knowledge of the gatherings if ministers have broken the rules they must be punished like anyone else you've dismissed is so well informed that he may maims there are not 2 types of citizens those who have the right to party and those who don't. restaurants also posts are being closed in front since october in order to slow the spread of coronavirus we gauged reaction to the claims on the streets of paris. it was but of course we all need to relax but such a different attitude to people is simply shocking most french people like streamlet attentive we are asked to be on our guard and so it is surprising that people are treated differently it seems that everything is allowed for them and they have the

right to do what others do not have the right to do i think these ministers need to ruin to the restaurants because people have not been to restaurants for a long time they invited us it would be nice. on the one hand they tell us stay at home do not go to restaurants close the restaurants and so on and they spend money they do not worry about the crown of ours and we the people have no right to go there it's not fair this is an injustice and for going to a restaurant these people men and women are not waiting for the same consequences that would await for us if we were caught doing this it was not from us you're not going to put this if it's true then i think that they're the embodiment of the state the embodiment of decisions taken at the state level therefore they should be a role model and if they do not adhere to the rules that they demand from this it isn't then their power loses it so i think it's very bad if it turns out to be true since their ministers need to watch their behavior. there's a growing backlash against u.k.

plans for a covert passport system after prime minister barak johnson came out in support of the new. there are. complicated ethical and practical issues as i think i said last time raised by the idea of status a difficult you've got to be very careful in how you handle this and don't start a system that's that discriminatory what is certainly true is that the idea of. vaccination status being useful for international travel is something that all countries are looking at i do think that's going to be part of our of the way people deal with it we need to think about that a national health service or paper certificate would help ease lock down restrictions and open up the country to international travel but there's widespread opposition to the measures covert status certification would be divisive and

discriminatory with high levels of vaccination protecting the vulnerable and making transmission less likely we should aim to return to normal life not to put permanent restrictions in place it would be divisive effectively creating an underclass of people who are not vaccinated many of whom will be vaccinated for medical reasons it's a major infringement on civil liberties. the e.u. parliament approved a similar system last week with the so-called digital green certificate expected to simplify travel within the european union and that's despite a poll finding that 7 in 10 french people see the past as a threat to privacy and there's also skepticism as to whether it will even work my colleague colleen bray discussed the issue with. the reality is that's not where you can say he states what are they being discriminatory in one way or not the lot of. the codeine see a vaccine can be credited but also the realities the vast majority of people don't

even need to be because it's only a risk suit. basically on the one percent of the population and is better saved and stories of this big i think that people perhaps because of psychological reasons is for get into cedar dog years which is the difference between. sick and become infected even people listening to. may have the possibility to do to carry to be contentious. the spread of the dividers i think we should all be very alone and asking more questions about what's actually happening so why we're allowing code of it to work to take what's going on globally and so the government what they do in a moment is really a grudge on our civil liberties it's unnecessary it's unjust and international law is unlawful and. the proper way is all of this you

it's such a case about cheating passports and so on it's all. so who were happy it's a complete overreaction there is an extra layer unnecessary layer of bureaucracy something else to police given that half the country has a dose of vaccine we tend not to. forget for instance that every time bed it looked down misters and. in the working of the in eternity and other countries and then if we have been fair in did reemerging or fiction sort of these fighters could. if ever a decent measures are going to be taken into into place which you know to their disregard of measures for intensive wearing masks that. i mean that we would not get the infection and you know we've been getting vaccinated for things like malaria and yellow fever needed certificates to travel for years now in normal circumstances most people would say they don't want the government to track and trace them and

have more data on them these are normal times do not think that most people in britain would happily surrender some of that in order to get some normality back into their lives where you get a lot of means taking medical records in particular who will control work and it's a slippery slope and most of all we're seeing the grass in a way that we do not see. or just recently. northern ireland has seen several mayan 7 rest over post greg sit dispute. protesters hold petrol bombs and bricks that police vehicles lighting fires and setting up roadblocks on the outskirts of the capital belfast the disturbances began on friday over post greg trade rules imposing border checks on goods moving

between northern ireland and the rest of the u.k. . the. orthodox jews and jews have lit fires and blocks roads in clashes with riot officers over the autopsy of a religious student also please are forbidden in most cases by jewish. iceland has evacuated to hikers from the area around the volcano near the capital the volcano started erupting last month found tourists have floated to the region ever since. but world news including all the latest hostilities in ukraine after this short break.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy confrontation let it be an arms race off and spearing dramatic development only personally i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very. time to sit down and talk. small seemed wrong but. just don't hold. any belief yet to shape out these days to come to council. and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground.

you know a lot of people speculate whether or not god exists or not. one thing that i can guarantee does not exist financial regulators. thank. you welcome back hostilities are flared in eastern ukraine with reports of daily exchanges of fire and shelling on front lines rebels in the dawn near squidge and claimed a ukrainian drone strike killed a 4 year old boy care of denies the claims and is demanding evidence that the strike did take place so far it has not been possible to corroborate the claims but a team from artie's whatley video agency attended the boy's spiritual and spoke to his grandmother about the incident. never did understand this grief if you have to go through it it's really hard to just parents are beside themselves with relief

especially his mother i don't care the little house was damaged which why did this child have to suffer it does he should someone have some sleep or did he say a bad thing to someone he was just a child who used to hold you and then she went on in god's eyes is what do you as tension saw in eastern ukraine officials on the military stuff in kiev have blamed russia our senior correspondent mark ghastly ever reports. this is far or what there was of it is crashing and burning under a sustained carriage from both sides the only see has the numbers more than a 1000 violations most of them artillery exchanges were detected on april 3rd ukraine's propaganda machine is also churning it is now officially calling thousands of its own citizens russian militias who are to blame the party line says for everything corrina ukraine and its partners are taking note of russia's

systemic escalation of the security situation and the nats going lugansk regions and in the republic of crimea all of this is happening against the background of the russian federation and willingness to reaffirm its commitment to the ceasefire or the current escalation by the russian federation the systemic and the largest in recent years a common goal is victory in the war against the aggressors and to ensure a stable peace to restore the territorial integrity of ukraine we will need to consolidate efforts of all the ukrainian people all ukrainian people apart from the ones they now call russian militias in a bid to discredit them their beliefs and their grievances probably not the best idea if you want stable peace but there are 2 major takeaways from their recent statements 1st after years of stalling delaying and torpedoing negotiations here of seems to be entertaining the idea of

a military solution to the civil war victory by brute force the other takeaway is that ukraine has virtually because war and russia officially naming it the russian ukrainian conflict russia isn't even a party in this civil war if its military was involved it would be over very very quickly that much is obvious if scouting imputed to the russian army is moving within lot. territory in the directions it deems necessary in the shape and form it sees fit to ensure the security of our country this shouldn't concern anyone in the slightest russia poses no threat to any country in the world and that of course includes ukraine russia always pays very close attention to its own security clearance to ukrainian president probably not helped by dismal ratings his seemingly bet on calm for a day ship is military has issued a statement warning moscow that the u.s. promised it won't leave ukraine alone and it won't let russia's aggressive plans

materialize the state department has confirmed this ukraine zoon aggressive plans it seems get a pass the americans should not be concerned by what russia is doing but rather look at kiev's unacceptable behavior which not only fails to implement them and set of measures but even denies degree most in a manner that has become an ever more provocative if i were us colleagues were to focus and it would really facilitates to belittle a lot all hope is yet lost there is still a chance that cooler heads will speak out that they'll stop this escalation will cause countless lives and achieve nothing but that's going to take an international effort rather than egging ukraine on with promises of support and righteousness as has been washington's policy so far from un weapons inspector and u.s. marines intelligence officer scott ritter explained how he had got american and nato support for its stance. the discipline comes in and 3 things one is the

ongoing material support the united states continues to provide big holes arms munitions and other military equipment to the ukrainian military much of this is lethal in nature meaning used in combat then there's the the the training that's taking place that the cross training between nato forces including americans and ukraine and ukraine believes that this training shows that they're somehow you know brothers in arms and then there's the political rhetoric the phone call for instance from the secretary of defense it was ukrainian counterpart yes ukraine is being led to believe that there will be support and there will be but the support will be military the support will be diplomatic political you know they they support the right that the ukrainian objectives and they also view the ukrainian russian. supporting and also a western strategy of containing and destabilizing russia so everything bad that

you have in ukraine today. props up. american and nato policy of containing a destabilizing russia. supporters of former us president donald trump have accused youtube of political bias they point to allegations that the video sharing site deleted millions of dislikes from videos on the white house's official channel well website was set up this year to track removals of the dislikes claims that in the 300 videos posted by the white house the most of the nearly 3700000 dislikes were deleted by you tube platforms that its policy is to remove for your actions considered to be spam. with poses and systems in place to ensure the gauge went on you tube is authentic and remove any fraudulent metrics its claims that you chip

deleted around $8000.00 dislikes per white house video but did not do the same for other popular channels data suggest dislikes are regularly were moved around once an hour but other popular you tube channels do not get anything like the same scrutiny. on journalist and commentator chadwick moore says the issue raises why the concerns of online neutrality. even with the 2 and a half $2700000.00 dislikes removed the white house is the biden white house's video still of a ratio about $6.00 to $16.00 dislike to everyone like $17.00 to $1.00 but what it remains unclear is firstly they're not moving any light ok they're only moving the dislikes so it's very difficult to tell whether or not they're being honest here but we also don't know how do they determine what is a legitimate dislike and what is not a legitimate dislike and how do they determine if a video is being brigaded or mobbed by dislikes and our actual users are he's boxed

you both say they won't tell us so that raises questions and it does many americans maybe the majority of americans do believe these companies are biased in favor of the democrats they're biased in favor of joe biden so it certainly raises eyebrows and looks suspicious if the allegedly the most popular president in american history joe biden who got 80000000 votes write the most votes of any president in american history is having such a problem with dislikes on you tube it doesn't really match up most such a popular guy would be having such a problem keeping that ratio down but big tech has a big problem because nobody trusts that they aren't politically biased and in fact studies have shown that google which of course owns you tube is very publicly biased in their search google in their search results that they have been accused of unlike the election interference in the last election by all trading search results in favor of the democrats in favor of joe biden people to be putting their faith in new platforms new ways of communicating

a lot of people are moving to smaller messaging platforms like telegram is one of them. and sort of maybe the cultures are shifting away from these vast open plain platforms such as you tube and twitter. many thanks for keeping us company here on r.t. international we're back in 30 minutes with the latest headlines. the world is driven by drama shaped by one person. thinks. they are to ask.

for this as the kaiser report you know a lot of people speculate whether or not god exists or not i'll tell you one thing that i can guarantee does not exist financial regulators stacie right i mean it's beginning to look a lot like 2008 to us we were around and reporting back to the beginning of the global financial crisis which we believe is still kind of ongoing but at that time of course it was and around the same time of the year march of 2008.