There were violent scenes during protests and fronts against a planned law restricting the filming, and publishing of Police Officers faces in paris. Police fired tear gas at some of the demonstrators who lit fires and also built makeshift barricades. Anger against this proposal has been fueled by a Video Showing Police beating and racially abusing of the music producer. Iran is vowing retaliation for the killing of its top nuclear scientist. Tehran blames israel for most, in fact, that is assassination. The European Union has described the killing as a criminal acts, and the e. U. And the United Nations are both calling for restraint. Corona virus infections in the United States have almost doubled in november compared to last month. More than 205000. New infections were confirmed on friday, which likely consists of both thursday and friday reports in some cases. But that all takes the total to more than 13000000. 00. And experts fear that the record ration of hospital admissions will said after thanksgiving weekend. There are reports that poke around fighters in nigeria have killed at least 43 famines. The attack took place in the northeast city. As my degree is, people worked in the rice fields, at least 6. Others were injured and 8 people still missing. Last month, 22 farmers were killed near by violence in the region since 2009 has displaced at least 2000000 people. And people in an indian administered kashmir are voting for the 1st time since the government revoked the regions autonomy last year. But opposition candidates say police have prevented them from campaigning freely and they are using security concerns as an excuse to harass them. All those are the headlines, so how raman will have more news for you here on aljazeera after the listening post, stay with us dissecting the headlines in the midst of a pandemic. Lets start with some of the on the ground realities affecting the news coverage. Whats the lay of the land there . Stripping away the spin about president ial corruption. It is real with. Its not if you keep challenging assumptions and the official line. We all decided we need to tell our story. We dont want to lie. And if the listening post is the right promise to come in, iraq call our question, call almost a western democracy restaurant for it has over 100 pictures of the house of representatives, right in this film of the Prime MinisterMalcolm Turnbull. Hello, im Richard Geres burden. Youre at the listening post. Here are the media stories that were focusing on this week. In australia, 2, former Prime Ministers joined forces to take on the power of Rupert Murdochs media empire. The debate in france over secularism and free speech president macro doesnt like some of the coverage of pradesh. The biggest state in india is a dangerous place from which to report and give us this day. Our daily Coronavirus Briefing announcing a vaccine and forgive governments their trespass. No country is more familiar with Rupert Murdoch and life under one dominant media player in the land of his birth, a stroke, politicians there have come and gone, but murdochs influence over how the country has been governed, has been a constant for nearly 6 decades. The year 2020 has brought this issue to a head about 65 percent of australians print outlets belong to Murdochs News Corp astray and the coverage the company has brought to the pandemic. Those huge bushfires as well as the Climate Change issue, has outraged its critics. More than half a 1000000 australians have now signed a petition, demanding that their government investigate the murdoch media empire and the influence it has on their lives. Theyve been led by 2 former Prime Ministers who have turned on the current pm. Scott morrison has it so no one expects him to approve the formal inquiry that his predecessors want. Still this petition may just be the beginning of a reckoning. And the way that News Corp Australia has responded, suggests that the Company Knows it has a problem on its hands. Our starting point this week is the land down on Rupert Murdoch and the journalists who work for you have never faced this kind of scrutiny before. Not in a stream to former Prime Ministers from rival political parties. Just joining forces calling murdochs brand of journalism propaganda. A cancer on a strangers democracy. A petition signed by more than half a 1000000 citizens demanding their government, investigate the effect that corporate concentration in the media has had on the way the country is governed. Rupert murdoch has been in the News Business in australia for more than half a century. Hes proven resilient, but the year 2020 has produced some momentous news stories that are taking their toll on news corp astray and its reputation. 2 things have led to the scrutiny that were staying at the moment of the middle. Comedian empire, industry of one is donald trump and the other is the coded. Pandemic strains have been much more aware of the impact that fox news and made us advocacy for trump. Has had in the United States how its led to american democracy, looking in absolute disarray. And the other major effect has been the way in which the made up presence and major outlets in australia have reported the pandemic in victoria, particularly there was this huge 2nd way and the labor premier then injuries imposed a strong law. And its been very successful. The Murdoch Press occasion a very hard time. Every day they were front page headlines against him. And this actually put many members of the public off. But its been this long term growing dissatisfaction, especially with its coverage of Climate Change. And that was huge in australia. Last summer where we had a terrible statement and there were articles in the australian which is like, shit, news pipeline, australia, strongly suggesting. It was the intended plight and Climate Change, which was pretty outrageous. And a bit of press, if pothole in the environment, which is and i will still not really have a comprehensive energy policy. What has changed now from the way that murdoch and chris wielded this influence in the past is that before there was a kind of a finance and that has gone, its become much more virulent and there is 2 former politicians who are able to articulate the kind of fed up in this that many other people instead of the society, you have already and not just any politicians, former Prime Ministers, both kevin rudd and Malcolm Turnbull spent about 3 years in that job and have since blamed Rupert Murdoch and news corp astray for their subsequent falls from power. The company certainly has the clout, roughly 2 out of 3 newspapers sold in the country, including the australian, the only National Paper are murdoch owned, as is the 24 hour news channel, sky news astray. The petition for a full scale Royal Commission investigation into the murdoch factor in australian public next was kevin rudds idea. Right, however, has some history. He needs to get past as the company put it to us. Its also important to remember mr. Rudds disproportionate and unseemly efforts to ingratiate himself with News Corp Australia when he was labor party leader, both in opposition and government. Just because youre a hypocrite, doesnt make you wrong. He had no choice. The label of power, especially by the story really meant that he could either try and get an unfavorable treatment, will get a 5 or he tried to get a favorable one and to be pushed back to the right age. Theyve been seeing that he was still was ultimately down in power, if not by made up at least with maddox systems. And you say that the current 2 Major Party Leaders and not talking much about the station. All that plus ability of the Royal Commission, theyre avoiding that conversation because its too provocative in a strange politics to take on the middle comedian and thats absolutely the best system and it has been for quite a long time. No one really expects the Royal Commission inquiry to happen, but thats the governments call and the current pm Scott Morrison wont risk alienating murdoch. But morrison does not control the upper house of parliament, the senate, which will conduct its own inquiry into media diversity. In australia, news corp astray will be a key Media Company in focus, but not the only one. And the inquiry will lack the mandate to subpoena witnesses. The way a Royal Commission can news corps initial coverage of the petition story was to ignore it, let it blow over. As the signatures piled up, it changed, targeting kevin rudd, with some questionable reporting stories that some of the petition names were fake, produced by bots and bang dash attempts to tie right to the disgraced american finance. Jeffrey epstein, the pedophile, who rudd says hes never met the Company Also Named one of its newspaper editors, paul kelly, available for a televised encounter with former pm Malcolm Turnbull. It turned into a confrontation. How offensive, how biased, how destructive . Does it have to be paul, before you will say, one of our greatest pride isnt journalists, its an awful amount of, and i mean, how long would you have her . I know youve written, i asked ahead. Im sorry. Tell me how to decide. How do i should do in terms of mark her remark . Who clearly is one of the needing political journalists in australia and has been since im not in sydney, is essentially what youre doing is youre transferring your own political fired yours. And you wishing to Blind Company for them, and hes become a sort of intelligence for the Murdoch Press, which is a shame because he had a very distinguished human to career, but it was quite breathtaking television and it was largely on it. And thats are trying to be a propagandist for one saw it. But if one is a critic or skeptic about somebody has issues, thats not our current. And the thing i found surprising was that kelly argued it was presenting at the base and that other media workers, it is a propaganda organ change. And therefore, there was no problem with also presenting a view and turnbull said the company you work for and its friends in politics like trump and others have turned in this issue of physics into an issue of values or identity. That was a powerful exchange. Theyre obviously feeling much more able to talk about these things and they were obviously when theyre in power, news corp and murdoch have done an enormous damage to western democracy and in particular to the United States in this trial. And theyre now determined sames to point the manners very publicly, which is new and must be very confronting for the made up media because part of its power has been speaking against it. Controlling 65 percent of the print media market in australia actually represents a step back for Rupert Murdoch and his company that figure used to be high between selling some papers off and the digital diversification of journalism. Every news corp, australia is not as influential as it wasnt. The Upcoming Senate inquiry will examine that and could well shed some light on the dark side of media. Politics in australia. What will really be fascinating in history is this would be an occasion in which people can appear before parliament and give evidence about the made up media empires influence on them. So politicians, former coefficients will talk about what is happening behind the saints, and thats very important is too much fear of speaking out against the servant is ation. Thats how powerful its been. Ive been many decades. So i think would be a very important moment for a strain its being given excepted that you could not win in australia and less murdoch was onside. The roar that pulling patrick Murdoch Press has largely gone. And this is partly a story about the decline of one string. Maybe are not only, not all there is still at the end. This didnt happen. So its still got power, but its not. That was the palette and you know the possibility and, and sometimes mysterious properties. And the mystery or trade shows that they are really worried about this to understand. Maybe some of the winter its been 6 weeks now since a schoolteacher was beheaded in france after he showed his students, cartoons mocking the prophet muhammad, during a class on free speech, the political response, including from president and then, you know, not cross continues to make headlines i just touched off a major debate in the country tarik. Nasa has been following that story for us. Tarek marco says that International Journalists have got france all wrong way. As you mentioned, richard, this debate is taking place and the aftermath of the killing of samuel potty. He was a School Teacher who used to make a point that were at the center of another attack back in 2015 on the magazine charlie hebdo, after Party President maicon called for the need of and then lightened islam and condemned muslim separatism in france. And the government is in tune here with voices on the far right who are calling for a more assertive defense of life that say which is a form of french secularism. Intended to separate church and state, but which many say disproportionately impacts french muslims, more concert of foreign reporters who criticized his policy towards french muslims. Just dont understand like that. He singled out political and Financial Times to newspapers in particular that he should print retractions, didnt stop there. Did he then doesnt interview with the New York Times and in particular with their media columnist dan smith. And in that interview, he said that english language media biased and said some of them were, quote, legitimizing this violence. He says he doesnt care about color or religion. In his words, a person is 1st and foremost, a citizen. Now, many french journalists and voices on the left would beg to differ. They say front, this current troubles are at least in part to do with inequality faced by french muslims. Those voices have been dubbed traitor by others on the far right and for more on the limits of french freedom of expression. Take a listen to this from the interior minister. Speaking on europe, one at the french channel. Rajiv was that it did all senior legal you get your earlier today express, you know, and that should take some more. She was a tall, rigid quantity assiduity. Did mention that. Ok, thanks to our you wont find a media landscape bigger or more complex in india. There are 22 official languages there spoken across 28 states and hundreds of news channels along with thousands of newspapers and websites. Assessing the state of the media, there is no easy task. You have to zoom right in. So were focusing on indias largest state, hooter pradesh, or u. P. With a population equal to that of brazils 200000000. 00 plus u. P. A. Has been the tory yes for its dirty politics. And the brazen intimidation of journalists over the past 2 years. Conditions for the media have grown much worse under a chief minister who wears the garb of a hindu monk and is from indias far right aligned ruling party, the b, j. P. The listening posts and actually ravi now on journalism under dangerous trying to missions in uttar pradesh. It was mid september. And in india, in the state of it there pretty in a village called hotness. A woman was gang raped, she was found in a black, the victim was a doll in part of a community of people deemed to occupy the newest, drunk in the hindu caste system. That provides india and defined social politics in it, that predation when they want to put is covering the story of the city, knew going in that that was the context. The hotness incident is a very straightforward one of the gang rape of marginalised woman by allegedly upperclassman up press gang rape, which was given no dignity in death. He was appointed ready to when she was alive. That somehow this case because of the element of cost domination, politics by the state, government has taken this bizarre turn. The police would try to deny that this gang rape even now theyre awful. This and there was no reap the police all saw whats really stalled. The dead body kidnapped the dead body from the hospital and 2 kids 3 from a hospital in delhi to heart. You can see one just the police, lots of the family in the house and burns the body, the bullets without even letting any Family Member know. They have point the body off. Now what will the dying, how did the dying . How did it was that the Police Wanted to prevent the morning which was of the cremation, they want to prevent the family protesting with the dead body. They were trying to prevent the bad guy would have won at any point in the morning or whatever. Not only did they not avoid bad press, heavy handed efforts by authorities. In that case, just created more headlines. I joined a list. We must ask questions of the sort of articles of such we dont know about the British Government body catered their religion. What for the opposition parties and for the members who are not those who do not get cut, it will take a decision. So clearly the authorities were very scared and hell bent that the media would look and from outside does not report this yesterday. Ever since this government has come into power, it has seen every attempt at critical on Investigative Journalism as an enormous attack. The government has a very clear agenda, many of the many of the, many of the mana, to suppress the media, suppress the media, suppress the media. The way the media has been gagged here in u. P. Is tantamount to an undeclared emergency. And yet that i think horses are the difference is hugely significant in indian politics. Its the most populous of Indian States with more than 200000000 people. Thats more than most nations in the world and successive state governments have intimidated and sought to control the media. And journalists have seen that pressure get significantly worse, and they see the shift came in 2017 when teen years after the rightwing kind of, digital mighty b. G. P. , one National Elections and little money became Prime Minister. The b. G. P. Swept to victory in state elections and took power in the be among the new challenges for reporters. B g ps, appointment of a chief minister who goes by the title of you, i think, you know, which is listed as a guide of the world to solve this politician who makes no bones about the fact that any reporting out of the official that it will be treated as hostile will be treated as per the lack, particularly reports that highlight costa cost because an important part of the p. D. P. Is political narrative, is that they speak on behalf of him. And how do you speak on behalf of him . If the system of presses people of socalled, lower castes, the so much government of session, managing them out of control in the now preventing any incident from coming threatening phone call, the sense of the sense of fear and paranoia among european journalists. Despite this, ive been reporting for the past 35 years and substories attract a lot of negative attention. In march, a colleague, i went to a village called good repute. In the absence of any other nutrition children there were being fed a type of wild grass. As soon as we posted the story online, all hell broke loose as if i had committed a heinous crime. The Regional Administration said the story was fault. Ratman though, but at the district, magistrate in violation of law, pulled the villages out of their homes and tried to pressure them into changing their story. The magistrate even ordered some of them to collect the wild grass. And the next morning, he and his son before the graft, eating the grass. He issued a statement saying that these were actually a kind of lentil crop and that we had since it was the story i was served in order to attract by peace. Instead of dealing with the issue of starvation, the authorities were solely focused on killing the story again, on a path out i, your path here at home is such what about the environment as such on the ground that no matter what you do, you are going to face some kind of consequence for being one of boarding. The most basic board. There have been cases of john as a were caught by the rain police because they were reporting about the bad conditions of the railway tracks. That john, this is big enough, was taken to the Police Station to do ours. And in fact, the journalists also says that the body is youre an intern, as we got in touch with the u. P. A. Governments department of information, which in the wake of all the bad press following the hottest gang rape, has had new officials appointed to it. Our interview request was declined, as was our follow up request for written responses to questions. In april this year, the committee to protect journalists published a report on the media climate in uttar pradesh. It documented cases of brutal beatings of journalists and even the killing one, just months after youll be added to not to power in 2017. That report came out as the u. P. A. Government keep things up a notch by taking on National Journalists in june, subpoena shiela, editor in chief of a news website called the school dot, put it on extreme hunger in a village in a district in interpretation called vitamin c. Which happens to be Prime Minister made in the movies constituency. You be police began an investigation into her for defamation and the spread of misinformation. Just a few months before that siddharth varadarajan, editor in chief of a news outlet called the wire, was issued a police. Someones put a report he did. We have a story just from the back of it was taking all about how the chief minister with the british had actually attended a religious event on the 1st day of the lockdown in defiance of the promise. So case was filed against us for that report. And for another treat in rich, a court had been misattributed to the chief and so on in the middle of the bundaberg, you had a posse of police for the summons for you to appear or to answer questions. And then we were able to get at this very bit of protection from the law, but i got, but other journalists are not so fortunate. Its been nearly 2 months since the gang rape and murder here in new. The british became national news. Amidst all of the negative coverage, the demands government has gone on the offensive hiding in mumbai based p. R. Firm to send out press releases saying the victim had never been raped in the 1st place. Dozens of Police Investigations have been opened into journalists, activists, and opposition politicians. And the government has said, there is an International Conspiracy to defame the british and stood up communal tensions. You know, what worries me about u. B. Today, you will always be bad, but law and order and crime and cost one and did not suddenly appear with the big but what is the about you beat in the sense of you . I think it means politically in the modern that we will see more and more into the story and that really what it and finally must watch t. V. That many people just cant bring themselves to watch the daily coronavirus. Like many governments, the u. K. Is, provides regular updates on the numbers, the social distancing rules and takes questions. Theres a theatrical aspect to this and what you may not know about politicians reading off teleprompters the way idea is that sometimes it isnt just a script up there. There can also be suggestions about the way a line should be delivered, which words should be emphasized, the placement of the paws. Thats what a couple of british comedians, larry and paul from the city of leeds, have focused on in this next video, the staged manner of the delivery. Not that we dismissive, tone, whatever do that was the next time here at the us. The motion is creasing announcing a vaccine, selfsatisfied grin, claiming all the credit, bizarre pursed metaphor, we are injecting hope into the arms of millions. Pols, proud of that. Confident look, stating the vaccine will be 90 percent effective. In the one percent of people we successfully get to taking question from members of the public who social class i have never encountered in real life. Clearly about must tested follow up question about government could option and nepotism around p. P. D. Contacts blindsided by intelligent question from pled, stalling for time. Understanding that there are question marks over Companies Getting millions in public money announcing a full and thorough independent public inquiry, which will be led by my wife al jazeera, well, every week. The theatres Prime Minister says the military has taken control of the grays regional capital. But forces that vowed to keep fighting alongside the rahman you want to come to their last one headquarters here and also coming up violence in paris as protests continue against a new security bill that is seen to restrict the right to report on Police Brutality also. And get iran over the assassination of a top nuclear