Information warfare against the United States thirteen russians are charged with meddling in the twenty sixteen u. S. Election marking a Major Development in the f. B. I. Investigation. Thank you very much i love these tragedies donald trump avoids more questions about americas gun laws while visiting victims of the Florida School shooting spree also a state of emergency is declared any theo here after the Prime Ministers sudden resignation. And countries blockading cattle stage a conference in germany but as we find out not all is as it seems. Welcome to the aljazeera news hour now thirteen russians and three Russian Companies have been charged with tampering in the twenty sixteen u. S. President ial election the office of special counsel Robert Miller described it as a criminal and espionage conspiracy to support donald trump and disparage the candidate t. Defeated Hillary Clinton crucially the indictment does not suggest any collusion between the russians and Trumps Campaign mike hanna has more from washington d. C. An anti trump protest march in new york shortly after his election this one of the pro and anti trump rallies a special council alleges were organized by the group of russians sometimes at the same time on the same day part of a Massive Campaign the indictments say were aimed at promoting donald trump at the expense of his opponents both republican and democrat. Special counsel Robert Miller has indicted a total of thirteen russian nationals and three companies for alleged interference with the twenty sixteen elections according to the unsealed indictment the accused conspired from two thousand and fourteen until today to interfere with the us political and electoral processes including the president ial election of two thousand and sixteen the special counsel alleges that the group posed as americans and controlled social media accounts but focused on divisive social and political issues. The Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein states said there are no conclusions in the indictment that the campaign affected the election result no allegation in this indictment that any american had any knowledge and the nature of the scheme was that the defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary american political activists even going so far as to base their activities on a Virtual Private Network here in the United States of anybody traced it back to the first jump and they appear to be americans this interpreted in a unique way by President Trump who tweeted in reaction russia started the end to us campaign in two thousand and fourteen long before i announce that i would run for president the results of the election were not impacted the Trump Campaign did nothing wrong no collusion. No acknowledgement that the indictments implicitly reject his off stated opinion that claims of russian interference were as he put it fake News Donald Trump is going to be very worried about todays events in large part because it puts to lie the allegations that hes made for the past year that there was no russian involvement many republicans including President Trump in seoul have been highly critical of the work being carried out by Robert Miller and his team these indictments put to an end any attempts to undermine or even a halt to the investigation by the special counsel the other certainty that proof of russian involvement in the us election is just the beginning and not the end of investigation mike hanna aljazeera washington. Is executive director of the revolving door project at the center for economic and policy research he joins me now from washington d. C. Good to have you with something the indictments reveal that russias direct efforts on behalf of donald trump began much earlier parts were even more expensive than anyone had previously understood are you surprised at that revelation. Im surprised at the expenditure level especially at the end of the campaign were talking more than a Million Dollars a month thats pretty significant money and thats a pretty significant number of russians working very hard on social media on behalf of donald trump from same petersburg in the indictment so the indictment itself is a complex part of a much larger investigation for instance i mean it has nothing to do with the hacking of the clinton the National Democratic committee emails that has nothing about the funneling of National RifleAssociation Money into any of the campaigns i mean how important is it that were sort of. Are seeing former trump advisors like paul motherhood and Michael Flynn being charged thats all very important in terms of the developments in this case. Yeah the investigation is picking up speed and even so i dont think its that far from the beginning i think were closer to the beginning and then the end of this investigation i think that the internet support on behalf of donald trump that is revealed in this indictment is a significant fact but it is never been that area. Help from russia that was most likely to be part of a conspiracy between russia and the Trump Campaign the two parts that were most likely to be a conspiracy one was the hacking of the Democratic National committee Hillary Clintons Campaign Chairman john podesta and a series of other figures in the Democratic Party those hocks whether or not they were encouraged or assisted by the campaign that is remains a very big unanswered question as of now and its also unanswered whether or not the National Rifle association the n. R. A. The progun group in america that received it spent a lot more money than they ever had before in two thousand and sixteen they have very close ties to the russian government and it remains a very interesting question unfortunately in light of the tragic events in florida this week particularly timely question about whether or not the russian government helped the n. R. A. Assist donald trump in the election some of the state was a coming out from social media groups such as twitter and facebook talking about that they will continue to work with the special prosecutor and considering they were you see the platforms old where the platforms for the way the pay was read and viewed talked about in twenty six and how important is the they continue trying to help with the. The investigation itself. They cannot fix what they did wrong in two thousand and sixteen i mean the abdication of responsibility by facebook especially but google and twitter and even pinterest and tumbler to some extent those that advocation responsibly can never be fully redress but they need to get ahead of this for the future because there are all sorts of indications both in america in two thousand and eighteen and across the world that there is russian meddling but i dont think anyone really believes that russia is the only country that would consider meddling in other countrys elections and obviously im also aware that the United States times done things in other countries elections that it should not have done i would like to think that people will realize the cost of this sort of behavior this interference in elections and that we can get to a place where the internet platforms help us and the threat of international meddling in elections. Is very clear that these indictments of the americas. Find extremely vulnerable i mean how will the ability be addressed in the future when it comes to the internet security. So there is an effort in the American Senate to the honest ads act to try to make sure that at least when communication goes on one of these internet platforms that you can trace who bought that advertisement but i think that these fake people that the todays indictment talked about the russian troll factory in St Petersburg russia thats a pretty tough thing to go against so i mean i think we need Campaign Finance a variety of Campaign Finance reform so its going to be pretty systemic but we also at some level are going to need Civil Society in america to recognize that this is a problem and to push back against it on a more nonpartisan basis. What was so frustrating about the efforts by the russian trolls is that they found so many allies in america who were willing to go their messages and they found seemingly a president ial campaign that was willing to ally with them we need people to reject this sort of. Bot you know these twitter and internet. Fake algorithms that mimic people and also the clearly fake people who drive stories online we just need to clean up our communication and some of thats going to be by law and some of thats going to be by society doing a better job it will. Be the coming months perhaps even the years for the movement to be great to get your insights into this thing hugh the way from the mill investigation. To survivors of the high School Shooting spree that half of florida nineteen year old cruz has been charged with murdering seventeen people in the municipality of parkland north of miami and is the. Well this was essential a surprise visit by President Trump it wasnt announced to the public in the usual way but hes visited two locations firstly Broward County hospital that place that took in so many are victims of wednesdays shooting he then went to the Broward CountySheriffs Office where he met with Law Enforcement officials and talked about what a great job First Responders and Law Enforcement to have done but what he didnt do is come here to this place where many people are coming to pay their respects and i think its a Fair Assessment to say he wouldnt be that welcome a lot of people here are very angry that the president hasnt talked about guns or gun control they are fed up with the inaction on gun control and the fact that the politicians in this country cant even have a conversation the other news from here is that the f. B. I. Were tipped off about Nicholas Cruz on january the fifth and they failed to act on very specific information that may have actually prevented this shooting from happen so a great deal of anger here at the government at the federal officials who should have protected them but ultimately what people here want to do is pay their respects to those that lost their lives now the head of the f. B. I. Is facing calls to resign after he after the agency admitted that it failed to follow up on a tip about the gunman before wednesdays attack the f. B. I. Says a person close to Nicholas Cruz called them early in january to report concerns that he may kill people but nothing was done in response Florida Governor rick scott says its an unacceptable failure well dont park says the c. E. O. Of the metropolitan protective services a company that focuses on safety joins me now from washington d. C. Good to have you with us on aljazeera semin how does information get passed from the f. B. I. To local Law Enforcement or even regional f. B. I. Offices when they get a credible tip off. Well the person know call the f. B. I. And then they will categorize the tip see how important a tip is and then if its some legitimacy to it and they have enough information then they will investigate all complaints but its just. In what order were they investigated i mean how quickly is the process conducted because surely the f. B. I. Gets thousands if not millions of calls every day on a whole range of subjects sure sure well see in this particular situation the information that was given was very vague so from what i understand the person called and said this individual wanted to kill people thats a very very a didnt say he wanted to kill. A particular person or a particular group of individuals gathered at a particular location so that become a very vague level of information now they have to start to sort through it and then track down all the leads and try to figure out how substantial is this information are you surprised to see in the f. B. I. Is if we can call this salient for the moment does it warrant the head of the f. B. I. To resign. Well i really dont i think you know in a bad situation like this we always want to blame someone. For a situation like this but in this kind of event i dont necessarily know that you could squarely place blame on the f. B. I. For failure to act because the information was so vague in nature. That they started a slight level of investigation but it just didnt say that this guy wanted to kill these people on this day or even identify a location so they had to run on the leads that they had given the information at the time were seeing a range of these sorts of attacks whether it was sunday hook or columbine or parkland over the years and decades that are affecting American Society from the east to the west coast surely there has to be some sort of system in place in terms of an Early Warning system where checks and balances all there to everybody to the potential of what might happen or could happen even if the threat is vague does that have to be looked into now sure i think we do i think right now the United States is. Under attack you know from domestic terrorism and from from foreign terrorism so. I think we have to really understand a different way to deal with the constant threats that were under from homegrown individuals who just want to exact revenge and a lot of people are suffering from mental psychosis theres not been dealt with in a professional manner and theyre acting out in the way today choose to act out is by killing lots of people at one time for the moment so has to leave it but thanks very much for joining us from washington d. C. Office thank you. No but he had here on the aljazeera news hour including turning to the military to stem Gang Violence brazils president puts the army in charge of security in Rio De Janeiro. Also it is nothing but a number unless it is the world number one Roger Federer returns to the top of the tennis rankings at the age of thirty six joe will have those details in school. Stay in Central America now where a magnitude seven point two earthquake has struck Mexicos Pacific coast shaking southern and Central Regions now the u. S. Geological survey says the epicenter was just south of the city of pinot tamer in the state of one hacker there are no reports of any deaths at this stage now these are the latest pictures were getting out of the region three hundred fifty kilometers from the epicenter in mexico city there are reports there are buildings swaying for more than a minute both mexico city and the state of one hacker are still reeling from separate earthquakes last september that killed hundreds of people. South africa where its new president has promised a new dawn as he delivered his first state of the nation address several rum opposer was sworn in on thursday after the resignation of his embattled predisaster jacob zuma in a moment well hear reaction to his speech from rob matheson who went to the township where robert poser grew up but first for me to miller reports from cape town. With no threat of protests and less security this state of the nation address was a departure from recent years with demonstrations had become routine. This was an opportunity for president settled on the porter to outline the governments goals for the coming year and set the tone of the new Administration Much of his speech focused on Economic Growth and job creation almost a third of south africas population is unemployed most of them under the age of thirty five. Poverty levels rose in twenty fifteen unemployment has gone up and inequality has persisted for several years our economy has not grown at the pace needed to create enough jobs so that we can lift our people out of poverty im a poster plans to grow the economy by five percent in the next few years by boosting the agriculture and Manufacturing Industries and offering more support for Small Business from a poor sorry iterated his commitment to land expropriation without compensation a policy that remains divisive has also promised to clamp down on corruption stressing the importance of Ethical Leadership but not everyone is convinced and the we have realized that the president does not have a plan the president speaks about commissions speaks about saving us speaks about inquiries yes got no