as a lot of direct for shit is moscow this is our to international i'm sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us. right the co-founder of the social media giant linked in has apologized for funding a pro-democrat party operation which created more than of thousands of fake russian language twitter accounts designed to look like they backed a republican rival last year and on the operation was tasked in the us with tracking fake russian accounts but turned out to be the one creating them as artie's but i guess their comments. well that was embarrassing to say the least and here i thought you could get away with blaming russia for anything nowadays apparently not but it does set a new low for democrats making think russian boughts to win elections is the irony i find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing for that reason i'm embarrassed by my failure to track the organization i did support more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that i would reject the recap reid hoffman co-founder of linked in contributed wittingly or unwittin

are broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our team international and sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us you know the u.s. his state of alabama has opened an investigation into election meddling and during the two thousand and seventeen senate race it comes after the new york times journalist who first revealed an anti-republican dissin from ation campaign sat in on a meeting between those behind the operation he's now being accused of failing to disclose his own role in the scandal another person being highlighted in this probe is the co-founder of linked in reid hoffman who allegedly donated millions of dollars to the smear project aimed at making thousands of fake russian bots on social media reportedly to discredit a republican candidate. picks up a story. so it's official now that our earlier this week came out the apology from the sponsor of project birmingham that's how they call it americans not the russians have at least in one case been behind setting up an army of pseudo russian bots for dirty election tricks or the scheme to come to light it

casting live and direct from our studios in moscow this is our international i'm sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us now two people have been confirmed dead and eleven injured in a shooting at a christmas market in the french city of strasbourg near the german border the prosecutor's office has declared the incident an act of terrorism the video has emerged online apparently posted by witnesses. some horrific screams there harrowing footage we can now cross to our europe correspondent peter all over peter so far two fatalities are officially confirmed but french media are saying the actual number is higher can you bring us up to date on what we know so far. that's right french media from the scene are reporting as many as four people may have been killed in this incident they're reporting nine wounded as well five of those in a critical condition the attack has been called they said it's going to be investigated as a terrorist incident by prosecutors at the scene the gunman who opened fire on those people remains at large i say good man because authorities have released some

international i'm sean thomas have you with us as we recap of the week's top stories. armored vehicles moved through the streets of paris on saturday the first . time in more than a decade has yet more violence gripped the french capital in the latest round of protests by the yellow vest movement there were more than seven hundred arrests as thousands of riot police used tear gas to try and contain the crowds despite their efforts demonstrators wreaked havoc in a fourth consecutive weekend of unrest. but. it was. what began as local protests over fuel price hikes snowballed into a nationwide uprising against emanuel micron's government and it's not only people in the high visibility yellow jackets who are showing their frustration paramedics and paris and high school students across the country have been holding rallies as well or to be trouble dubinsky is following events for us in france. as you can see there is sounding names so i ring say it i just on the cross silicone cold as you go towards the national assembly the thing that they're unhappy about is a change sh

are broadcasting not direct from the studios most companies are too international i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us. and the u.s. president has announced in the defeat of islamic state in syria donald trump took to twitter giving the u.s. and themself much of the credit for the victory over the terrorists. we have defeated isis in syria my only reason for being there during the trump presidency we now have official confirmation that u.s. troops will be leaving syria now president trump's tweet contradicts everything that we've been hearing from the state department and the pentagon over the last several months here's what the head of the coalition to defeat isis said just over a week ago we want to see a resolution to the syrian civil war through the u.n. security council resolution process and we also want to see the removal of foreign forces from syria particularly the iranian commander proxy forces from syria his various americans will remain on the grounds that they have to the physical to be to the caliphate until we have the pieces in place to ensure that the defeat isn't

broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is r t international i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us. right now police in the french city of leon he used to tear gas had to disperse students protesting against the government's education reforms on friday according to local media reports dozens of arrests were made. i. know students across france have been voicing their opposition to the government's plans to reform the exam system over the past few days that they have blockaded hundreds of schools forcing many to close and on thursday controversy erupted when a video emerged of police detaining more than one hundred forty student protesters in paris and forcing them all to kneel on the ground a number of lawmakers have condemned the officer's actions as unacceptable and humiliate. you could be. france has experienced its worst rioting in half a century in the past three weeks and although the government has abandoned the fuel tax hikes that triggered the rest of the yellow vests protesters are not satisfied the french capital is bracing for another round of protests

are broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our chief international and sean thomas really glad to have you with us and the scandal continues to unfold over alleged meddling in the alabama state election the state attorney general has launched a probe into whether a pro-democrat group which created fake russian bots to discredit the republican candidate may have broken election laws as the story americans not the russians have at least set up one army of pseudo russian bots to sway opinion and boost election turnout it's the big story this december and as more and more details come out as the new year gets closer those involved are having to do more explaining. scott shane started the domino effect by writing about the whole false like scheme in the new york times a week later another outlet reveals his scoop was from way back in september when he was invited to speak at an off the record event for the group behind the bots project but the journalist didn't see a thing about that in his article i don't think there's any kind of disclosure that's relevant so i'm happy

are broadcasting live direct from our studios moscow this is our chief international and sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us. now four people have been confirmed dead and several injured after a shooting at a christmas market in the french city of strasbourg police are investigating the incident as an act of terrorism president has just concluded an emergency meeting at the interior ministry. he has yet to give an official statement on the incident and video of the shooting apparently filmed by witnesses has been posted online. the attack has been called they said it's going to be investigated as a terrorist incident by prosecutors at the scene the gunman who opened fire on those people remains at large i say good man because authorities have released some details about the main suspect that they are currently hunting down in the city of stroudsburg they say he's a twenty nine year old man from the city of stroudsburg who was on a terror watch list there are some media reports it is house it actually being raided earlier on choose day and he wasn't at home police have been

round up sean thomas will take over an hour on thirty minutes time and. my son doing drugs my nephew was still in drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united states is drug abuse we started going after the users in the prison population sewer we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill. then the war on drugs. there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for. sins for minor minor offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in wave and say by day as you're walking out of a business it's just it doesn't get easier. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter to us is over one trillion dollars and. more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth you want to be ultra rich the point six percent market saw a thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin ros

international and sean thomas glad to have you with us. violence has erupted at independence protests in spain's catalonia region more than sixty people have been injured including at least thirty five police officers as anger flared at rallies over a federal government cabinet meeting which had been relocated to be held in the city as a conciliatory measure. was . we were. was. was it was. all right extra police were brought in and at least thirteen protesters have been arrested demonstrators threw rocks at officers started fires and built barricades while police responded with baton charges journalist. scott excuse me was in barcelona for us barbara brought us up to speed with friday's of aids. thousands of cuts announced took out of the streets today to protest against the meeting between the federal sanchez and their regional readers of cuts along normally the cabinet meeting is held in madrid that has petro centers that already and lizzie actually also want to do it here in barcelona and people took it as a provocation because only on

are broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is arching international i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us and as i mentioned we start with breaking news this hour u.s. defense secretary james mattis has announced his resignation following trumps a decision to withdraw u.s. troops from syria and picks up the story for us is known as mad dog mattis the u.s. secretary of defense one of the military men that trump referred to as one of quote my generals well it seems he'll be leaving the job at the end of february here's what we saw on social media trumps tweets about the departure of the u.s. secretary of defense. general jim maddest will be retiring with distinction at the end of february after having served my administration as secretary of defense for the past two years during jim's tenure tremendous progress has been made especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment general mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations a new secretary of defense will be named shortly i greatly think jim

been in that part of your client saying, this thing is not true or sean actually his attorney was saying today when we were giving -- thomas had told her the story that he'd been in jail with the real rapist. and when he was charged in the subsequent crime, he'd come to thomas and said hey, we come to court and sit next to me because we look so much alike. that the victim in my case won't be able to figure it out, you have already gone down. your life is over. but i can still get out. and when thomas told shauna she said she was writing it down as she wrote a note for herself, you know, obviously not true. right? because defense attorneys alike, it's bull. and that she interviewed lawyer and sure enough that's what happened. i feel like this is a lesson like we get really jaded. and its clients say they didn't do it and then the prosecutors are told, they've every intent to believe that and it is horrid. it is hard not to get jaded. >> is one of the great challenges that we really have to work the rules to protect against cognitive bias. and if you play by the rules and you try to keep an open mind, and investigations, whe