i think the people need to take responsibility in their own hansen, be prepared. if those kind of weapons were less available, we wouldn't have a lot of the shootings that we certainly wouldn't have. the number of doors in the stories, it shaped the way here in our t rush or, and they also list to proposals to nato for maintaining joint security. with the deputy for a minister saying the ball is now and the alliance is caught when it comes to de escalation over ukraine. also to come, the pentagon says no u. s. military personnel will be held responsible will be held liable for the butch drone strike. and afghanistan last summer, which kill 10 civilians including 7 children. we hear from a grieving relative vocal that alesongo,

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 us. now we've lost 10 of our relatives . and after years of flagging post this bowl, so misleading facebook admits in court that it's much wanted fact checks are actually based on opinion. and r t vows to keep fighting in response to a string of attacks against brand new german language channel. in the last few days, it's been taken off youtube and accused of lacking a necessary license to broadcast in german. ah, hello to welcome the latest developments look back in what's been happening over the last 7 days to you watching the weekly here are naughty international. now friday saw russia release a list of proposals for desk,

elating tensions with nice. how am it says as a flare up in ukraine, among the demands are a scale back of military activity ne rushes borders west military line says. it will consider the document, although does say that any outcome will require input from kiev. our senior correspondent, we're against the air reports now what moscow has put 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 us and nato, its wishlist for return to normality. something to start talking about. then 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 and nato, a talking in fearful tones about war, another 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 miss ours, aren't stationed within a few minutes. flight time to moscow. the parties shall not deploy land based, intermediate, and short range missiles. in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other parties. moscow sees native 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 that 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 commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of nato, including the accession of ukraine, as well as other states. not that nato thinks much of russia's concerns. not long ago, secretary general stockton, burge announced that roger has no vito, no se nato operations and no right to any sort of security. buffalo sphere of influence nato has proven on the last hears that her. our open door policy is not only something we are supported in words, bottles in deeds potter by inviting to new countries. montenegrin north m madonna to become a member. so we have enlarged the line so that all spheres for to new members,

despite protests from, from russia. and also we are supporting ukraine in france efforts to con, closer to natal membership, which sets us back all the way to square one at the nebulous motor. 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 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 disgust them amongst themselves and with input from ukraine that there isn't much cause for optimism. rushes requests of largely been rejected, summoned in private, summoned public, consult mockingly for the cameras. but perhaps this time send swelled,

prevail. laura garcia, there will moscow's proposals do come as the worst accuses rush of preparing to invade ukraine, which the kremlin strongly denies. a toast chief also stress that ukraine's request to join the alliance would be regarded, which would be decided between keir nato and also its allies. alone, while at the same time he highlighted to what he cited a pattern of russian aggression while the russian foreign ministry spokeswoman says, remarks like that only create more tension at their shingle wars. now this is as information 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, korean border, and se ukraine. 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 door noise freely used the word aggressor for into our country over to you. what right of the have to do this. i try to understand this

every time. when was the last time rush attacked? anyone who people need to back up this claim with arguments and how many times have need a countries, the texts her and states in the last 20 years. how many special operations were carried out by the nato countries. can you show me something in close to that from the russian side? now, there is nothing you need to figure out where there are facts and where there is propaganda. early this week i spoke with the former offering foreign minister karen iceland. she outlined ways which she believes could actually help overcome the current political deadlock between moscow and the west. 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 digman, of national security interests and so on. at the moment we have both sides 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 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 are worse on, on the, on the russian side. so that, 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 nato officials, you and, and the u. s. at mid special we seeing that at all, anywhere. unfortunately, we are in times of a decline of diplomacy, diplomatic practice. if we are in a world of unilateral statements postal called us look at this armament 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 bills which, which had as effect planets on. so there is 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 had people in office who knew about war meant that some of them well after the 2nd world generation. so they, they, they wouldn't play around with words like nuclear at tech or a fully fledged war because they knew what wall most about. we have to see more moments now to do really something like confidence building back. and i thought that the us side,

what would put its priorities in a different way, and that seems to june meeting some more sober and problematic approach. what will what will be on the agenda? i know us military personnel involved in august bush drone strike in afghanistan. or face any kind of punishment. 10 civilians were killed in the attack. most of them were children. we got re reaction of a grieving relative to this announcement that was made by the pentagon 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 operation. 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 claim that they can spot a need on the ground from their satellites. so how could they not see the innocent

family they were about to kill? they found no connection between us and islamic states is a why didn't they do those checks before launching a vomit us? it looks like no other country is forcing them to seek justice. there is no one to challenge them because they're 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 nor 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 us. now we've lost 10 of our relatives . my brother was working for foreigners. he was innocent. all of our children were innocent. what did they do on while roger the controller, while this girl was among the children killed in that strike, she was just 2 years old. 3, the children had been in a car when it was hit by massage, and in title 7 youngsters were killed all from just one family. and the pentagon initially defended the couple strike there came yet targeted members of his lamb mc

state. more than 2 weeks later though, it did acknowledge that a tragic mistake was made. we discussed the developments with a format u. s. military drone operator brandon bright. 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. um 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 united states 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 and 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 or 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. no one 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 a decision on whether to shoot or not. whether a couple incident did follow a long string of similar disasters to, according to the bureau of investigative journalism, up to 900 afghan civilians have been killed by us. strange since 2004, including dozens of children on the new york times, found that hundreds of civilian deaths were unaccounted 14 by the pentagon. brandon

brian again shared with us his experience of operating battle dreams. there is no way that anyone who has ever done this job and sit there watching these people live their day daily lives out. can not 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 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's 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 my facebook uses may have to reassess the information they've been getting from the site that after its parent company,

meta did admit in cool that so called fact checks are based merely on opinion. revelation came during illegal battle, initiated by journalist after his post were flagged as being misleading. with more in the story, his ask a title. turns out the famous fact checkers who are busy labeling things false, partly false, misleading, have 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 at partly full sticker on one of his post. so he sued for defamation. and because facebook where he spent millions of dollars on legal fees over the years and got creative this time and claimed that front checkers, don't decide what's false or not based on fact, what a ridiculous idea, but on their opinion, hence the title fact checker. 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

doubled down on how it gives it fact checkers. a very long leash, 0 matter identifies potential misinformation, for fact checkers to review and rate. it leaves the ultimate determination whether information is false or 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 in the giant fact checking section on facebook dot com. instead, you'll learn about how they interview thought, says 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 facts when arguing with their friends. and now it's turned out they were just quoting some random person's opinion and then

embarrassing railing, so that campaigning for face may 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 fact checks at all, but merely opinion assertions also by facebook clement it's labels constitute opinions than doesn't that make it a publisher. facebook, your opinion piece is not exempt from being fact checked, even when they are clearly labeled as op eds or editorials. also, facebook, our fax 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's proved, it's committed to free speech. it is giving people a voice, especially donald trump. 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 ally people. i don't feel comfortable at all saying they don't get to have a voice because i don't agree with. they said our ability to know what is misinformation is itself in question. and i think reasonably so fact checkers. facebook 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 gonna cost them big time, but it's gonna open the door to a flood of similar law sewage 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 fact jack is false, weekly, still to come to this out of the micron. koby strain is now in nearly 90 countries causing alarm and more locked and soft. the break, we discussed the thresh, it's posing with the w, i chose regional director for years. oh, i use join me every thursday on the alex simon show, and i'll be speaking to guess in the world, the politics, sport,

business and show business. i'll see you then me. oh, is your media a reflection of reality? in the world transformed? what will make you feel safer? isolation for community. are you going the right way or are you being led to so what is true? what is great? in the world corrupted, you need to descend ah, join us and the devil all remain in the shallows. ah

ah, welcome back now health experts in the us, our warning the new code omicron variant could be the dominant strain there in a matter of weeks. and could potentially overwhelm the health care system is also spreading in europe to the netherlands is imposing the toughest lockdown measures across christmas and into mid january. and britain is also seen as surge in this virus, but the london mer, even declaring a major incident, meaning the capital emergency services and hospitals cannot insure their usual level of response. while the world health organization does say the new variance is now in $89.00 countries. however, despite his rapid spread early studies from south africa and hong kong do suggest omicron is less likely to cause severe illness than the dell to variant and very few deaths have been linked to the new strain. so far. that said, though, countries worldwide are ramping up their vaccine,

and these to campaigns aren't easy, but frank o got more details from the w. i 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 spelling 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 the 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 ineffective against 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, uniformed, it has been growing over time, but i take the point that it's still really aleck, off uniformity. we're like old 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, 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 dub ritual emergency use listing for scrutiny can really be there soon. our brand new german language channel, artie d began broadcasting this week, but it didn't take too long for a smear campaign to kick off the channels being accused not having the necessary documentation to broadcast and germany party management responded. they saying it's license was obtained in accordance with all european laws and regulations, but it has been a rocky stop info r t d. even you channel was taken off. you chief, the very day launched on thursday. technically there's no connection between that and the t. v. broadcast into speech and germany, where one media watchdog, they were miti, watched of official, did have some ominous words for the fledgling channel. the license must be issued

in germany and the application must also be filed her. first of all, this is a real irritant. and we will take care of it. he called the r t d essentially a peskin in little nuisance. that is, ah, going to be taken care of. so that is some are 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 is claiming, ah, incorrectly that the r t d 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, are there doing that via a license or through another country, serbia, through 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 to transfer into your television, which are under that convention gives us the right to broadcast to 33 countries across europe. as long as you broadcast for moscow, and those countries include germany, but they also include other countries with majority or significant german language populations, such as austria, switzerland, luxembourg, and so forth. this is where the 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 a applied for,

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, keep fighting. well, with the latest member then of the anti family getting flat flaw sides, we're ready. we spoke to a number of high profile journalists to have what they think you can't separate what's happening with our teeth. it's chinese television with other broadcasters, from the political situation, poor relations between germany and russia right now for relations between noted, 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 i can only speak here in america rich now where our tea has been sanctioned in the past, by being labeled as something a part of the foreign agent regulation act. launching $38.00, 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 penalized journalists are not an irritant. 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 lans 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 to wait to hear nothing to nationalist sunday. thanks. the company is coming to half past 70 aphne animal sky,

but back again at the top here. ah ah, ah ah, what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy, even foundation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully, very critical time. time to sit down and talk with

me phone. welcome to was a part of the millennia poets 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 be john sides of the 20th century. how well do we understand this urge to face the other? well, to discuss that and now joined by alex hampton distinguished professor of anthropology at rutgers university and the unesco chair on genocide prevention. professor hampton is great to talk.