infrastructure connected to the internet, so clearly realizing this disruptive potential so that those countries cons, ignore it because it threatens national security issue. but if we take the nato and e u countries, virtually all of them subscribe to certain doctrines and maintains selling but tell us closes, they are a cyber army on behalf of a country. that's their job. with some of the top stories from us over the last 7 days, russia unveils a list of proposals to nato, for maintaining joint security with moscow's deputy foreign minister, saying the ball is now in the alliance. his court when it comes to the de escalation over ukraine. the pentagon said none of its personnel would be held liable for the botched drones strike in afghanistan last summer, which killed at 10. the civilians including 7 children. we heard from

a grieving relative 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 us. now we'd lost 10 of our relatives . and after years of flagging posts as false or misleading facebook admits in court, that it's much vaunted back checks are actually based on opinion. ah, m, broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow. this is our to international. i'm john thomas. going to have you with us as we recap, week's top stories with our weekly program. right now, 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 said it will consider the document, although,

insisting that any outcome will require input from give our correspondent with our guns. you 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 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, and 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 that nato and u. s. troops and tags and missiles move 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 buffer all 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 members. so we have enlarged the line, so that was for years for to new members, despite protests from, 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. it the nip, it is not, 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. be 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. 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 again accuses it of preparing to invade ukraine. a claim that is strongly denied. nato's chief, also stressed cubes. request to join the alliance would be decided between ukraine, nato, and its allies alone. while at the same time, he highlighted what he called

a pattern of russian aggression. the kremlin foreign ministry spokeswoman says remarks like that only create more attention at the chena lotion, and this is a does information campaign that aims to crate. firstly, the image of russia is an aggressor, a secondly, additional passion in 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 guy. yeah, it will undoubtedly complicate everything. meanwhile, journalists, primarily of course western during oil, really use 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 else, 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 are faculty and

where there is a propaganda art. 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. 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 para bigness of national security interest and so on. at the moment we have bayside saying russia, the angler, we've got grave security concerns about nights we have eastern european countries and we've got great security concerns about russia and a potential invasion. so what was the meeting point where the meeting points can only be achieved by saba, pragmatic, diplomatic trust building that is simply a complete disregard for historical contemporary worries on the,

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, and the u. s. special. we see that a tool anywhere. unfortunately, we are in times of the decline of diplomacy, diplomatic practice, if we are in a world of unilateral statements 1st before this looked at this arm amount of words, i mean this terminology is cannot be continued as it has been the case over the last few weeks the media should act in a more responsible way of quoting this, this gentleman paper, the bills which, which had effect plan and so on. so there is many people are required to act in a more responsible way because the fakes 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 the office who knew what was meant. some of them well of the 2nd world war 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 the june meeting some more saba and pragmatic approach. what, what will be on the agenda? no, us military personnel involved in august botched drone strike. and i can't stand 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 this announcement 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 claimed 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 his law mc state is a why didn't they do those checks before launching a barometers? it looked 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 innocent. what did they do from all russia? they could try. 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. and in total, 7 youngsters were killed all from just one family. the pentagon initially defended the cobble strike claiming it, targeted members of islamic state. more than 2 weeks later though it acknowledged that it was a tragic mistake. we discussed the developments with former u. s. military drone operator brendan 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 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 or 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 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. the cobble incident hands to long list of similar disasters. according to the bureau of investigative journalism, up to 900 atkins, 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 unaccounted for by the pentagon, brendon bryant again shared his experience of operating battle drones. 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. 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, saskatoon turns out, the famous frank tucker's, who are busy labeling things false potty 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. and because facebook where he spent millions of

dollars on legal fees over the years and got creative this time and claimed that front chequers, don't decide what's false or not based on fact, what a 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 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 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 fac 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 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 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 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 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 with. 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 from accountability, someone to hide behind and times of trouble, but most importantly, always ready to get their opinion. health care health experts in the

us are warning that the new coven, 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. despite its rapid spread, omicron 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. for example, the netherlands is in lockdown, going through christmas and into mid january and germany has banned. most foreign travelers from the u. k, as london's mer has declared a major incident due to the new strain. artillio katrinka spoke with the w a chose regional director for europe. how much more do we know about our micron at this point? we know much more and we have the tools and about omicron 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 the mic stabilizers number one, increase vaccination coverage. number 2, boost boost, boost number city double the number of people voting 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 all micron, where we know as of to date, that the vaccines are still effective for the 1st or the 2nd dose may be limitless, but it, it covers with a cert dose 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 sway dublin was advocating to establish a bung european health city 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 shared the optimism of the present alteration for the nation. that this dub ritual emergency use listing for sputnik will be there soon. a russian cosmonaut into japanese space

tourists are landing in the contact step after spending nearly 2 weeks aboard the international space station. and for more on this we can cross live it to our correspondent egos, dawn of who is in the russian mission, control center, and your space is cool. you know that. so tell us what's happening, what you will indeed show. and this is russia's houston. so to speak, and indeed the crew of 3 have successfully landed in the steps of cassock, stand for the crew for the, for the russian cosmonaut and the hero of russia. it is a, this trope wraps up his 3rd successful mission into orbit. but there were 2 pioneers, the 2 1st comers, and that was a japanese billionaire and his assistant who did spend just short of 2 weeks in orbit. they did start, they did blast off into space towards the international space station on the 8th of

december. and just now they have returned to earth, they did not just, ah, you didn't know it was tourism, of course, but they did not just wall a stay idle in there. in fact, the billionaire while back on earth, he spoke, he choses some about a 100 of activities which he signed up to try. and he took part in certain scientific experiments. now back on earth right now, about 200 people are taking part in the retrieval operation. basically helping them welcoming them back on soil back on their home planet if i may say so. and they have prepared a bunch of surprises for them. for example, the japanese tourists will be mad with their national dish japanese noodles. so this is something like a bit of a welcoming bonus for them. but so far right now, according to the information that we're having, well, everybody's are alive and healthy and well, i'm certainly everybody here in the mission control are all, well, quite jealous. of course, it's a celebratory moment. now i have to find

a billionaire to go be an assistant to so i can get that gig next. all right, thank siegler. right now, switching gears completely devastated. locals are trying to pick up the pieces following the unprecedented deadly tornadoes that retired across vast swans of the us, notably in the state of kentucky. but residents discovered some lawmakers are putting political point, scoring above helping them to rebuild their lives. as archie nick aaron explains a worst most devastating, most deadly tornado of that history. there's our hometown and it's just never thing. everybody's well there. laws were shaking house collapse in a guess if you see where the whole house is buckled. the well back side of this

house is all total devastation for all town. most for historic buildings are now golf with the largest tornado operates in our history and higher towns were destroyed as some 30 powerful tornadoes, ravaged across 6 that us states the worst affected can. saki needs help support and relief aid. and so it turns to the government and fellow americans, but politics, it's 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 17th senators, who voted against a bill to provide billions of dollars in relief, will all republicans among them. kentucky's sen runs pull. once again thousands are suffering, but there's no time like the present for political punches. we should do all we can to help our kentucky neighbors. good be wisdom. they're hurting, but do not for one second. forget that rand pole has voted against help and most americans, most times bear in need. we know, rand paul is a heartless hypocrite. the people in kentucky deserve relief, regardless of their before initial leadership. much of the dance don't use this against him and his party and 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,

denial and see what happens. tornadoes in december read, but weather climate change was a factor is not clear at this point. still is the country reels in shock and concerns the climate change peak. it could also play into the democrats hands as a bid to push a $1.00 trillion dollar climate package through the senate. all that i know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impacts. as a consequence of the warming of the planet and the climate change. and so it seems something as devastating as this can only what's the appetite for those looking to score political points. in the week of 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 and kind of disasters. an extreme events tend to be those who are already the least advantage. so people who really have

lives that are worse either being the pool or too few services, that they have even fewer resources to cook with those negative situations. events, a session where they come once a year or much more frequently than that even much less frequently, politically. we're at a moment where over the last few months, the most recent climate change report from the 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 that we make quite drastic action. or that doesn't for me, this are, i will be back with other look here we clean about 32 and a half minutes. stay with us is our international ah

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welcome to oils apart, 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 the john sides of the 20th century. how well do we understand this urge to face the other? well to discuss it now and join by alex hinton distinguished professor hunter apology 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 reminding 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 to hear back. but also because it's a highly colton political charge, it can impact the outcome of a comp like as somebody who's dedicated he's.