shower approach to business industries are on the war bar, attempting to debunk legitimate science by producing new evidence in science, fighting science allowed saudi nuances manufactured their attention only seeking to the rail science rolling to using science with shell. ah, some of the top stories from us over the last 7 days, russia unveiled a list of proposals to nato for maintaining joint security with moscow's deputy foreign minister saying the ball is now in the alliance's court when it comes to d escalation over ukraine. the pentagon said none of its personnel would be held liable for the botched drones drunken afghanistan last summer, which killed tens of billions including 7 children. we heard from a grieving relative i look with nobody approached us. no one contacted us and we

were given no information. how can they compensate for family members? all the wealth in the world means nothing to was now we've lost 10 of our relatives . after years of flagging posts as false or misleading facebook admits in court, that it's much vaunted fact. checks are actually based on opinion ah, by broadcasting like direct from our studios and monica, this is art international and john thomas, glad to have you with us as we recap. the week's top stories with our weekly program. and on friday, saw russia release a list of proposals to deescalate tensions with nato, amid fears of a flare up in ukraine, among the demands are a scale back of military activity near russia's borders. the western military block says it will consider the document, although insisting that any outcome will require input from give our correspondent

. but i've got to have comments now on 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 to russia has taken its step publishing proposals for the us and nato, its wishlist for return to normality. something to start talking about and it begins with a 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. way in previous years, they threatened each other with, with sanctions or legal action. now, openly booth russia, nato, a talking and fearful tones about war, another cuban missile crisis. i'd like to believe that this is rock bottom,

but as no guarantees and guarantees are what russia wants. guarantees, for example, that u. s. missiles aren't stationed within a few minutes flight time to moscow. the parties shall not deploy land based, intermediate and short range missiles in air is 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 that nato and u. s. troops and tags and missiles moved to russia, the more unpredictable the game gets, which is why putin has set his 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 over the last years that her are open door policy is not on the something we are support 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, wrong or from russia. and also we are supporting ukraine in france efforts to a 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, 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. buses, requests of largely been rejected, summoned in private, some and public consult mockingly for the cameras. but perhaps this time, send swelled, prevail. moscow's proposals come as the west again accuses of preparing to invade ukraine. a claim that is strongly denied. nato's chief, also stress cubes requested to join. the alliance would be decided between ukraine and nato. and it's alliances along while at the same time he highlighted that he

called. busy a pattern of russian aggression, the kremlin foreign ministry spokeswoman says remarks like that only create more tension at the chena lotion, and 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, green 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 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 tag to anyone is people need to back up this claim with arguments and how many times have need a countries at texas her in states, in the last 20 years. and how many special operations were carried out by the nato countries. when can you show me something even close to that from the russian side? now the more there is nothing. you need to figure out where they're fagel and where

there is a propaganda. earlier in the week, my colleague andrew farmer spoke with the former austrian foreign minister karen nissan. she outlined ways that she believes could help overcome the current political deadlock between moscow in 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 international relations and not only about self impaired digman, of national security interests and so on. at the moment we have bayside 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 point can only be achieved by saba, pragmatic, diplomatic trust building those sir, 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 state made, it requires genuine diplomatic creativity. also on the side of nato officials, you and enter your admin 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. first of all, this looked at this armament of words. i mean, this terminology she is kick, it 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 had as effect planets 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 a present in the cold war days in the seventy's eighty's. maybe because we still had 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 fledged war because they knew what was the most involved. we have to seize this more moment 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 saba and pragmatic approach. what, what, what will be on the agenda? no, u. s. military personnel involved in august botched drone strike in afghan stan will

face any kind of punishment. 10 civilians were killed in the attack. most of them were children. we got reaction from a grieving relative to the snouts mate 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 obama to us? it looks like no other country is forcing them seek justice. there is no one to change them because they're superpower. that's why the americans have failed to keep their promises when 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 us. 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 of russia, they could tra, this girl was among the children killed in the strike. she was just 2 years old. 3 of the children had been in the car when it was hit by a missile, and in total 7 youngsters were killed all from just one family. now, the pentagon initially defended the cabal strike, claiming it targeted members of hispanic state. within 2 weeks later though, it acknowledged that it was a tragic mistake. and we discussed the developments with the former u. s. military drawn 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 and,

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 in the ones that they test this, munitions on who should be punished are the officers. they said that there's a breakdown in communication, but that is mostly a lie. i am must have been that there was there, 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 have a couple incident adds to a long list of similar disasters. according to the bureau of investigative journalism, up to 900 afghan civilians have been killed by us, john strike since 2004, including dozens of children. while the new york times found that hundreds of civilian deaths were actually unaccounted for by the pentagon. brandon, brian again shared his experience of operating battle trans. there is no way that anyone who has ever done this job and sit there watching these people live their 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. facebook users may have to reassess the information that they have been getting from the site after its parent company, meta admitted in court, that so called fact checks are based merely on opinion. the revelation came during a legal battle initiated by a journalist after his posts were flagged as misleading with commentary hears, saucy taylor 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 partly full sticker on one of his post

. so he food for defamation. and because facebook, so when he spent millions of dollars on legal fees over the years, it 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 double down on how it gives it fact checkers. a very long lease, though 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 uses worldwide. one, very pleased, after all, many of them had probably used these fact jackson 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, but not to 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 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 checked, even when they are clearly labeled as op eds or editorials. also,

facebook or fax it labels can not be false or defamatory because they consist, she'd 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 so committed to free speech. it loves giving people a voice, especially donald trump. it's dedicated to openness, transparency, and of course, democracy. i mean, it says all the time, if 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 anxious 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 with 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. still had on the weekly, the alma kron coded stray is now in nearly 90 countries causing alarm. and more locked downs. after the break, we discussed the current threat. it's posing when the world health organizations, regional director for europe. ah, with

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 on offense. very dramatic development. only personally and getting to disease. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical time time to sit down and talk ah womack. this is our international and the weekly health experts in the us are warning that the new coded omicron variant may be the dominant strain there in just a matter of weeks and could potentially overwhelm the health care system. the world

health organization says the new variant is now in 89 countries. now despite its rapid spread, alma con actually appears less likely to cause severe illness than the previous delta variant. according to studies from south africa and hong kong, but still several european countries are re imposing tough restrictions. the netherlands is in a lockdown going through christmas and into mid january. the germany, excuse me, and germany has banned most foreign travelers from the u. k. as london's mayor has declared a major incident due to the new strain, are too silly. patricia po spoke with the w h, i was 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 omicron. it's to, it's the latest valiant. 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 what they call fife bon demick stabilizers. number one. increase vaccination coverage number to 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 on the crime 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, the uniform has been growing over time, but i take 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 to was advocating to establish a bond 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 of 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 shed the optimism of the present alteration foundation that this dub ritual emergency use listing for scrutiny can really be there soon. devastated locals are trying to pick up the pieces following the unprecedented deadly tornadoes that retired across

baths. was of us, notably in the state of kentucky. but residents have discovered some lawmakers are putting political point, scoring above helping them to rebuild their lives or to the care and comments a, a worst most devastating, most deadly tornado of that. and kentucky's history. there's our hometown and it's just devastating. everybody's off, their walls were shaking house collapsing gas. if you can see where the whole house is buckled, the oil back side of this house is off total devastation for all town. most of our historic buildings are now gone. news

news is likely to win the largest turn into operates in our history and higher towns were destroyed as some 30 powerful tornadoes, ravaged across 6 us states. the worst affected can saki, and needs help support and relief aid. and so it turns to the government and fellow americans, but politics is politics and it seems not even a monumental disaster, like this one can bridge america's political divide. and some believe it's a perfect opportunity to show that you reap what you sow. when hurricane harvey's hit in 2017, the 17 senators who voted against a bill to provide billions of dollars in relief. we're all republicans among them.

kentucky's senator runs pull once again thousands of suffering, but there's no time like the present for political punches. we should do all we can to help our kentucky neighbors. god be with them for hurting, but do not for one second focus that round pole has voted against helping most americans most times fair in need. we know, rand paul is a heartless hypocrite. the people in kentucky deserve the relief, regardless of their furniture. leadership, much of the damage done to use this against him and his party in the future. it is a missed opportunity for some it's not even off limits to suggest that if you vote read, then you had it coming vote for climate change deniers and see what happens. tornadoes in december are rad. that when the climate change was a factor is not clear at this point. still as the country real than shock and concerns are the climate change peak. it could also play into the democrats hands as they bid to push a $1.00 trillion dollar climate package through the senate. all i know is that the

intensity of the weather across the board has some impact as a consequence of the warm animal planet and the climate change. and so it seems something as devastating as this can only wet the appetite for those looking to score political points. or in the week a climate change expert warned that time was running out over natural disasters, particularly for the worst off in society. people who always to fix it by these types of commerce and climate disasters, and extreme events tend to be those who are already the least advantage. so people who really have a life at a worst of either being, they put all this to few services that they have even fewer resources to cook with those negative situations. events. oh,

devastating with it. they come once a year, all, much more frequently than that or even much less frequently, politically. we're at a moment where over the last few months, the most recent climate change and a report from me and i p. c. c has been released. and what that report really shows is that we have very little time and it's incredibly urgent. the who makes quite drastic action russians her so use her spacecraft is now returning to earth from the international space station. it is carrying 3 people, a russian cause not into japanese space, tourists, and they have quite a trip ahead of them with touch down on earth expected in around 3 hours time, the trio began their journey from a russian operated by can or cosmo roman cousin, stung on december 8th and now have spent 12 days in space.

space is cool. i that does it for me. i'll be back with another look at your weekly in about 32 minutes. stay with us. ah ah . ah oil and gas manufacturing, electricity telecom dies vacation,

all of them now have i a t type of infrastructure connected to the internet. so clearly realizing that disruptive potential so that those countries can't ignore it because it threatens national security issue. but if we take the nato n e u countries, virtually all of them subscribed to certain doctrines and maintains side but toss closes. they are a cyber army on behalf of a country that's their job. ah, as low dose this feel a doesn't act like a typical poison. it acts as an into chron disruptor. meaning that it disturbs our hormones. the molecules that regulate, among other things, are reproductive system. with the tiniest observable doses, it can have devastating effects. in other words, between the dos and the effect of a product, research is starting to find some very unexpected relationships. and this is

shaking up the world of toxicologist. we were rejecting their dog law at the toxicology community, have not accepted it. they said, we reject this. the resistance of the toxicologist was well intentioned. it was also prompt denture for the manufacturers of plastics. it's not always that people intentionally want to derail science. some people unwittingly, through no fault of their own can at times be ponds. in other people's efforts to produce strategic ignorance, there are many ways that ignorance is produced. some of them are malevolent. some of them are inadvertent, some of them are well intentioned, but end up having these, these outcomes. and i think it's actually extremely important for us to study the broad question of how ignorance is produced because not every.