we got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms race is on offense. very dramatic and development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical time. time to sit down and talk ah, week's top stories from ality, russia rebels, a list of proposals to nato for maintaining joint security. but the deputy foreign minister saying the ball is now when the alliance is caught when it comes to the escalation over you, craig phenergan says no u. s. military personnel will be held liable for august. botch drone strike, an afghanistan, which killed 10 civilians, including 7 children. we hear from a grieving relative, a 1000 golf though nobody approached us. no one contacted us and we were given no information. how can they compensate us for our family members?

all the wealth in the world means nothing to was now we've lost 10 of our relatives obligate to flagging posts as false or misleading facebook admits in court, but it's much vaunted fact jacks are actually based on opinion. and r t vows to keep fighting in response to a string of attacks against his brand new german language channel. in the last few days has been taken off the youtube and accused of lacking the necessary license to broadcast in germany. ah, oh good, happy with this. so this weekend i'm calling brian, this is the weekly taking you through some of the biggest stores we've covered here over the past 7 days on the weekends developments to 1st for you though friday. so russia release a list of proposals for the escalating tensions with nato. amid facebook flare up in ukraine, among the demands were a scaled back of military activity near russia's borders. the western military

alliance says it will consider the document. adding though that any outcome will require input from keith. i'll senior correspondent august the reports on what moscow is putting forward. for years now, we've heard the same thing. oh, things have gone too far. a we don't want war. we want to be friends for both nato and russia, but things keep getting worse. escalating the russia has taken its step publishing proposals for the u. s. and nato, its wishlist for return to normality. something to start talking about. and it begins with the call to de, escalate, to end the constant threats and true build ups which only lead to more of the same . the parties shall not use the territories of other states with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other party judge for yourself. where in previous years they threatened each other with, with sanctions or legal action. now, openly booth russia, nato,

a talking in fearful tones about war and of the cuban missile crisis. i'd like to believe that this is rock bottom, but there's no guarantees and guarantees are what russia wants. guarantees, for example, that us missiles aren't stationed within a few minutes flight time. to moscow. the parties shall not deploy land based intermediate in short range missiles, in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other parties. moscow sees nato slow and unexplainable encroachment towards russia's borders. as an existential threat, nato argues that it's peaceful but right then the u. s. military doctorate. russia is referred to as an adversary. the closer the nato and u. s. troops and tags and missiles move to russia, the more unpredictable the game gets, which is why putin has said he's red line. nato states committed themselves to

refrain from any further enlargement of nato, including the accession of ukraine, as well as other states. not that nato things much of russia's concerns. not long ago, secretary general stalking berg announced that roger has no veto, no se nato operations and no right to any sort of security buffer or fear of influence. nato has proven over the last years that her, our open door policy is not on the something we are support in words, puddles in deeds potter by inviting to new countries. montenegrin off m madonna to become members. so we have enlarged alliance for the last few years. for to new members, despite protests from, from russia, and also we are supporting ukraine in ukraine's efforts to con, closer to natal membership,

which sets us back all the way to square one. it the nicholas milton. this is not an attempt to revise the post cold war order. it's a response to western expansion which has been conducted in a hostile manner. the, the gist of that proposal that, that the u. s. nato and russia have a requirement for security as essential as food or water that they must all equally respect. nato has received the proposals and says that a little discuss them amongst themselves and with input from ukraine. that there isn't much cause for optimism. russ's requests of largely been rejected, summoned in private, some and public consult mockingly for the cameras. but perhaps this time, sense willed prevail. moscow's proposals come as the west's been accusing russia of preparing to invade ukraine, which the kremlin strongly denies. nato's chief, also stressed ukraine's request to join the alliance will be decided by key f,

nato and its allies alone. or the same time he highlighted what he called a pattern of russian aggression. the russian foreign ministry spokeswoman says remarks like that only create more tension. if a she no longer this is a disinformation campaign that aims to crate. firstly, the image of russia is an aggressor, a secondly, additional pattern and the region, including the black sea, the russia, green border, and se ukraine look. so this will not bring stability and security either international relations or the regional janda. it will undoubtedly complicate everything. meanwhile, journalists, primarily, of course, western journalists really use the word aggressor for into our country over to you . what right of the have to do this. i tried understand this every time. when was the last time russia attacked anyone else? people need to back up this claim with arguments and how many times have need a countries the texts are in states in the last 20 years. and how many special operations were carried out by the nato countries that we would, can you show me something in close to that from the russian side? no, there is nothing. you need to figure out where there are facts and where there's propaganda

. andre pharma spoke at length earlier this week with former austrian foreign minister, karen, commercial cio, line wise, which she believes could help overcome the current political stalemate between moscow in the left. ah, yes, we are in a stalemate. no doubt about that. but in such a stalemate, it takes people with some sort of creativity. that's what diplomacy is about an international relations and not only about self impaired digna's, of national security interests and so on. at the moment we have bass, i saying russia saying, look, we've got grave security concerns about nato. we have eastern european countries, we've got great security concerns about russia and a potential invasion. so what, where's the meeting point where the meeting points can only be achieved by saba, pragmatic, diplomatic trust building. there is simply a complete disregard for historic and contemporary a worries on, on,

on the russian side. so that i think that should be taken into account and, and to overcome that stalemate, it requires genuine diplomatic creativity. also on the side of later officials you and, and the u. s. at mid special, we see that at all, anywhere. unfortunately, we are in times of our decline of diplomacy, diplomatic practice. if we are in a world of unilateral statements post afford it this arm amount of words. i mean, this terminology is kick cannot be continued as, as it has been the case over the last few weeks. the media should act in a more responsible way of quoting this, this german paper, the bill to which, which is a fact plan and so on. so there is a many people are required to act in a more responsible way because the stakes are simply too high. such a language was not present in the cold war days in the seventy's eighty's. maybe

because we still have people in office who knew what war meant. some of them well after the 2nd world generation. so they, they wouldn't play around with words like nuclear at tech or a fully fleshed war because they knew what was most about. we have to seize this more moments now to do really something like confidence building back. and i thought that the us side, what would put this priorities in a different way. and that seems to june meeting some more saba and problematic approach. what, what will be on the agenda? no, us military personnel involved in august's botched drug strike, an afghan assemble face any kind of punishment. 10 civilians were killed in that

attack. most of them were children. the pentagon made the announcement on monday. do not anticipate there being issues of personal accountability to be had with respect to the august 29th here strike flock. the key up as the news came, as a shock is humiliating for us to hear that no one will be prosecuted. they should have kept their word. we held that the people who ordered and carried out this attack would face justice. the americans, only they were about to kill. they found no connection between us and islamic states. so why didn't they do those checks before launching obama to us? it looks like no other country is forcing them seek justice. there is no one to challenge them because their superpower, that's why the americans have failed to keep their promises. but the americans promised justice and compensation, and then they would take us to the us. we found out on the news that they would take some measures, but nobody approached us. no one contacted us and we were given no information. how can they compensate us for our family members? all the wealth in the world means nothing to was now we've lost 10 of our relatives . my brother was working for foreigners. he was innocent. all of our children were

innocence. what did they do? on one roger, they could talk on this girl was among the children killed in the strike. she was just 2 years old. 3 of the children had been in a car when it was hit by a missile. in total, 7 youngsters were killed all from just one family. the pentagon initially defended the cobble strike claiming it. targeted members of so called islamic state more than 2 weeks later though a quote tragic mistake was acknowledged. we discussed developments with form a u. s. military drone operator brandon bryant, you know, it's been 10 years since i blew the whistle on the u. s. drone program will be 10 years in 5 days, actually. um, and to see that nothing has changed, even when it's blatantly out in front of everyone's face. how we operate and no one's being held accountable. like we've been talking about this for 10 years now. when i 1st started talking about it, people called me

a liar. people tried to defame me and now that we see it for what it actually is, innocence had been killed, not just innocent and innocent aid worker who was there trying to help. i really think that the managed state has lost knowledge on how to conduct warfare. and it's now a business. they're not going to punish the people that make them money. they're just going to punish the people that are so the supposed enemies in the, the ones that they test this, munitions on who should be punished or the officers. they said that there is a breakdown in communication, but that is mostly a lie. m. m must have been that there was there and there must been someone miscommunicating something but they have everything should be in a chat program like it's not just a radio call instantaneous. you spin up your mess when you shoot. it takes like 5 minutes to get ready to shoot a messiah. this was not an emergency situation. none was under spire. no one was under duress,

no one was under stress. and so they had all the time in the world to make the decision on whether to shoot or not. i cobble incident followed a long string of similar disasters. according to the bureau of investigative journalism, up to 900 afghan civilians have been killed by us drone since 2004, including dozens of children. while the new york times found that hundreds of civilian deaths were unaccounted for by the pentagon. brandon bryant shared with us his experience of operating battled ruins. there is no way that anyone who has ever done this job and sit there watching these people live their daily lives. i cannot look at them and say, these are not people there. people because you go home and you go out into your own community and you see the same, keep the same types of people doing the same thing. they're going to coffee shops there, go into bookstores, they're hanging out with their friends and family. there is no disconnect for a drone operator. there's so much connection. like if, if a drone operator were to go over there and to meet the people that they interact with. visually, they would probably have

a emotional breakdown and cry because they would see that these people are suffering and no different than themselves. and that we're perpetuating that suffering because of our actions. we're doing it without tast ella heads on this edition of the weekly, the oma kron cove. it's strange now in nearly 90 countries causing alarm, and yet more lockdown. we discussed the threat it's posing with the w. h. chose regional director for europe on our stories after this ah ah ah, is your media a reflection of reality? in the world transformed what will make you feel safer?

isolation or community? are you going the right way or are you being led somewhere? direct. what is true, was his way in the world corrupted. you need to descend, ah, join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. join me every thursday on the alex silent show when i will be speaking to guess with the world politics school business. i'm sure business, i'll see you then. oh, again, facebook uses may have to reassess some of the information they've been getting

from the site after its parent company, meta admitted in court that the so called fact checks are based merely on opinion. revelation came during a legal battle initiated by journalist after his posts were flagged as misleading his ass. good. taylor turns out the famous fact checkers who are busy labeling things false party, false misleading. i've actually been a bit loose with well, the facts. facebook yet again, found itself in court. this time up against a john list. he didn't like the bay slapped partly full sticker on one of his post . so he sued for defamation because facebook, so when he spent millions of dollars on legal fees over the years, it got creative this time and claimed that front check because don't decide what's false or not based on fact, what to ridiculous idea, but on their opinion. hence the title, fact checkup and because opinion in america is sacred, you can't sue it. it's a very, very nifty loophole. but just to really escape any liability whatsoever. facebook

double down on how it gives it. fact check has a very long leash so matter identifies potential misinformation, for fact checkers to review and rate. it leaves the ultimate determination whether information is false so misleading to the fact checkers. and though meta has designed its platforms so that fact checker ratings appear next to content that the fact checkers have reviewed and rated. it does not contribute to the substance of those ratings. now you won't find any of these details and in giant fact checking section on facebook dot com instead, you'll learn about how they interview thought fit and consult data. and look for facts, you know, to really drive home. the point about how it's all based on opinion. i think some of it's 3000000000 users worldwide, one, sorry, pleased. after all, many of them had probably used these fact excellent arguing with their friends. and now it's turned out they would just quoting some random person's opinion about

embarrassing railing, so that campaigning for faith might not be let off the hook. court filing, facebook admits its fact checkers. don't check facts. is facebook admitted here that it's fact checks are not really fat checks at all, but merely opinion assertions also by facebook claim. and it's labels constitute opinions than doesn't that make it a publisher. facebook, your opinion piece is not exempt from being fact checks even when they are clearly labeled as o peds or editorials. also, facebook are fact check labels cannot be false or defamatory because they consist sheet protected opinion, even though we present them. as fact, my question though is, what does facebook need these opinionated fact checkers for anyway, after all, over the years, it proved it's committed to free speech. it is giving people a voice, especially don't come. it's dedicated to openness, transparency, and of course, democracy. i mean, it says all the time your democracy can't tolerate the speech of people. i'm not sure what kind of democracy it is. i do believe in giving people more access to

information and more access to connect with one another and not reserving those as tools for some small number of lead people. i don't feel comfortable at all saying they don't get to have a voice because i don't agree what they said. our ability to know what is misinformation is itself in question and i think reasonably so fact checkers. facebook's favorite friends protecting it from defamation, setting it free for accountability, someone to hide behind and times of trouble, but most importantly, always ready to get their opinion. facebook has found themselves back against the wall and if they try to cling to the idea that they are fact checking in court, they're going to lose. and not only is it going to cost them big time, but it's going to open the door to a flood of similar law search in the near future. and it could be more than they can handle. i think they're hoping that by admitting that fact, jack just means opinion jack, when facebook puts a label on there, hoping to get out of this lawsuit without harm. and then just sink the story into

the daily fountain of news events and hope people forget about it. in due time and in the, in the future, you'll see changes in their labels. they'll stop using the word fact and they'll come up with some other way to express it where they still exercise their dictatorship right to control speech on their platform. but it won't be a false presentation like the word factor is false. health experts in the u. s. a warning that the new coven omicron variant could be the dominant strain there in a matter of weeks and potentially overwhelm the health care system. it's also spreading in europe. the netherlands is imposing the strictest lockdown measures across christmas and well into mid january 1 in britain, there's a nation wide surge of infections there to london alone them as we declared a major incident. meaning the capitals, emergency services, and hospitals can't insure the usual level of response. the well health organization says the new variant is now in 89 countries. despite its spread early studies from south africa and hong kong suggests omicron is less likely to call

severe illness than the delta variant. very few deaths have been linked to the new strain, but countries worldwide are still ramping up their vaccine and boost campaigns. attilio per tank a got more details from the w h chose regional director for europe. how much more do we know about our micron at this point? we know much more and we have to tours and about all mcclellan. it's to, it's the latest variant. it's spreading much more faster, but i always tell we're not in the business of fighting one variant when the business of fighting all variance and stu, delta is dominant. what we need to do is to implement, well they call fife on their mic stabilizers number one, increase vaccination coverage. number 2, boost boost, boost number city. double the number of people varying marks. indorse number

for ventilate, particularly in classrooms. keep the schools open and fife, implement new treatment protocols. how valid are the concerns that vaccines might prove and effective against all micron, where we know as of to date, that vaccines are still effective for the 1st or the 2nd dose may be little bit less, but it recovers with a cert dosed well on the european union, specifically, we've seen a range of different approaches. why aren't we seeing a more uniformity from the block in particular, do uniformed, it has been growing over time. but i think the point that it's still really aleck off uniformity, with a cold political here it is. and it's confuses the people. that's right, doubly choice, advocating to establish a bung european health senate council at the high level to half uniformed in policy . but ultimately still health is a national competency. it's

a decision by the country. speaking of sputnik v, a r t, we've heard from a number of experts that the issue has been politicized. is that true anyhow? house including vaccines. go beyond politics. we should never take into account the country of origin. i shared the optimism of the president of the russian federation that this deb, rachel emerged she use listing for sputnik ruby there soon. brand new german language channel t d began broadcasting this week, but it didn't take long for smear campaign to kick off alongside it. the channels being accused of not having the necessary documentation to broadcast in germany. management responded saying its license was obtained in accordance with all european rules and regulations. it's been a rocky star ferocity deep some context here. the new channel was taken off youtube, the very day launched on thursday. technically there's no connection between that and the german t. v broadcast dispute. later, an official for

a job and media watchdog had some ominous words for the new channel. the license must be issued in germany and the application must also be filed her 1st of all, this is a real irritant, and we will take care of it. he called the r t d essentially a peskin and little nuisance. that is going to be taken care of. so that is some interesting language there, right off the bat. but the, the crux of the issue is that are in his view, we are have no business broadcasting in germany. he, he screaming ah, incorrectly, that 80 news channel is actually based in berlin, when in fact, it is based in moscow, quite literally down the hall from, from the studio. and the news programs are coming out here being filmed here, edited put on the air. and so forth, and they are,

they're doing that via license or through another country, the serbia, or another european license, and are in full right to broadcast across all of europe, including in germany. our license was obtained under what is known as the european convention on transfer on tier tra, trans frontier television, which i under of that convention gives us the right to broadcast to 33 countries across europe. as long as you go broadcast for moscow and those countries include germany, but they also include other countries with majority of significant german language populations, such as austria, switzerland, luxembourg, and so forth. this is where this separation is really important. the legal action is being launched against our tv productions, which makes some, you know, make some of the shows. our tv productions does not need a license, because our tv production is not

a channel. it channel is our tv that is coming out of here. and thus moscow, our headquarters, our parent company applied for i applied for the for the license in serbia. the amount of pressure that our new german channel has faced even before it went on the air. difficulties with banks, difficulties, not just with licensing, but you know, the pressure on our guests and so forth has been really unprecedented. the pressure again, as you've mentioned, the beginning on our digital platforms, we're ready to keep, to keep fighting. with the latest member of the asi family getting slack from all sides already, we spoke to a number of high profile journalists to able they think you can't separate what's happening with our tea. it's chinese television with other broadcasters, from the political situation, poor relations between germany and russia, right now, the full relations between united states and russia right now, the correlations between states and china. all of this is linked in my view. it's

purely politic. there is a sense, so i can only speak here in american switch now where our tea has been sanctioned in the past, by being labeled as something a part of the foreign agent regulation act lynching. 38. you have the same application to chinese television. you have a situation where the nations do not have good relations with united states or germany, yet penalize journalists who are not in iraq tend to people in power, are called propaganda us. it is, we should always have an adversarial relationship to power. that's what journalism is. about is about shining a lens as much as possible on the inner workings of power. so the public knows what's going on, but i, i actually blast one. and when i read it, i thought it was funny. i mean, i guess not funny in terms of the consequences, but i just thought it was as showed how utterly naive or tone deaf he was about the

role of journalism. that's it for this edition of the weekly some sunday philosophy up next as well to part discuss is what drives people into deadly hate. and the lesson still to be learned from 20th century history. ah. managers financials um i know they say my little girl. i agree with the central pac support dot com if i call them right now, if they stop the madness, hoyle and gas manufacturing, electricity, telecom for all of them. now, how are you t type of infrastructure connected to the internet? well, clearly realizing this disruptive potential so that those countries can't ignore it as a national security issue. but if we take with countries,

will actually all of them subscribe to certain doctrines and maintains only but tell us forces. they are a cyber army on behalf of a country. that's their job. with me, one welcome to worlds apart. millennia poles and philosophers have puzzled over the nature of law, and why do people succumb to it? but the opposite question of why do people hate and kill, maybe even harder to answer from the biblical fratricidal murder,

to the john sides of the 20th century. how well do we understand this urge to face the other? well to discuss it now joined by alex hinton distinguish professor of anthropology at rutgers university and the unesco chair on genocide prevention professor can it's great to talk to you. thank you very much for finding the time. yeah, thanks so much for inviting me on. you know, i used to be a, what a correspondent and in every conflict they cover the charges of genocide for the 1st to spring up, partially because it's how fear operates, especially if you're back. but also because it's a highly colton political charge. it can impact the outcome of a comp like a somebody who's dedicated. he's korea to study genocide. can you always tell the difference in the real imminent danger of targeted mass killings.