his departure today really cements this idea that cousin jo month, so kind of the president is in purging the government, the system, the elite of all those figures who owed allegiance to the full, the president, no sal 10 as a buyer, but it's really quite an extraordinary picture and it difficult to explain in a nick, but inside an enigma why this would would have happened. but this explains the dog nature of cause, act, politics, internal politics. bucky sounds. interior ministry says only 16 people have frozen to death. as they tried to watch the countries for snowfall this winter, many in the northern region had ignored warnings, advising them not to go outside. india has recoded more than 140000 u daily. cool, with 19 cases, and use 7 month high. the capital new delhi is among the worst hit region and just under curfew. the con variance is no dominant across other cities. court documents have revealed tennis stone of a joke of which tested positive for coven 19 last month. and his lawyer said, that's why he had a vaccine exemption to end to restrain the joke of which was denied entry after landing in melbourne this week to play in the australian open. it's not being detained in a melbourne hotel. a thing is poet minister ariel only has voted to crack down on gangs after an attempt on his life earlier in the week and the merger of 2 journalists covering gun violence and the se both men were shot dead by armed bandits while reporting on the deteriorating security situation in the country. i'm not sure it's, it's 8. say he with us here on our to 0, then this thing for this next. ah, ah ah, trigger warner, india is alarming escalation in it's a story the mainstream media have an aversion, new year, new shutdown, play james crack down on journalism in hong kong. continue flight informants doing the kremlin splitting and putting news organizations on russia. black the hello. i'm richard gilbert and you're at the listening post where we don't cover the news. we cover the way the news is covered. we begin with india and a social media space that is teeming with hatred, directed muslims, messages that are often accompanied with cause for violence. 2022 began with the emergence of a mobile app conducting a mock auction online listing the names and the photographs of dozens of prominent muslim women put up for sale, actresses, activists, journalists, all of whom have spoken out on his lama phobia. and the notion of hindu supremacy, what's known as him. that auction app appeared online just after 2 hindu fundamentalist conferences were held in northern india, where speakers urged their followers to attack minorities in speeches that were amount to cost per genocide against muslims. yet, as is the pattern in the world's 2nd most populous country, it took journalists working outside of mainstream outlets to expose those stories, forcing establishment news organizations and the indian authorities to do what no longer seems to come naturally. their jobs are a starting point. this week is new. in today's india, a religious gathering can turn into a call to arm an invitation for him to worshippers. to hate the other. there were 2 such meetings last month to race shop who runs a far right hindu nationalist news channel, attended the one in new delhi where he urged his audience to take the day monday. yeah, i get that same weekend, 200 kilometers to the north in how to walk. the message was no less explicit. the the them or indian was the how did wire conference was organized by a hindu priest, yet he nothing. how not. nothing on him is an engineer educated in russia, and he's now a, him the piece. and at abilene i was us. what he says is not as much a speech as an outside call for genocide. because i'm getting all the speeches appeared to go by do because, you know, obviously struck a board in him. this is id and he does is that i but i was in the law hindrance from the government account. and this and his huge of account was also not because it violated community. but if you can google search to find his video lashed across various of these channels. heck, or is it it was her garnished or monkey is the founder and the editor oft, is used, generally caused the notion use. they are blatantly islam of phobic and pylee when shoes, especially when it comes to their shop videos that circulate, you know, widely around what's that also to actually bad junky. hi, nearly a half a 1000000 followers on twitter. and you said something we need to be concerned about, but i think the all for me to understand the on fixed and we still a lot of the new roofs have indeed become radicalized because of what they see is a one sided narrative. what in the secular parties and in the global media, which they are now reacting to and don't agree with the language that they use. but i certainly believe understand where they're coming from. that is a very organized ecosystem of hid. they instigate violence of their spread, fake news and that ecosystem is organized by houses, perhaps millions of people who are allied in the government. they all over social media helping to amplify bigotry, of a kind that we have never seen before. that bigotry comes in many forms on new year's eve. a new app showed up on why bully, by presented itself as a human auction. it was fake, but the victims were read more than $100.00 muslim women. actors, journalists, public figures, including the pakistani, nobel laureate, malala you such that offered up as would be servants for their hindu masters. the goal was to shame those women to silence them. muhammad zubair is a journalist for a site called old news. his reporting was crucial in exposing those hindu gatherings in delhi and harry dwan to bear his also help the police in their investigations of bully bong, which has been taken off long. some of those allegedly involved have been arrested . it was on our guards are some things, and we'll let you know, these are white supremacy. these people will be actually, even if it was according to them or not as an be most in as they think. i'm particularly also in touch with the white list in helping them investigate the case . and we just still going on there. they've got a spare eating even, but i would say they are not be it all. as the fonts have been laid, 8 the dates in loose fields that losing demographically even within the context of india, which is the only country which has a can do majority better than 15. muslim majority countries, 100 percent, mckesson majority on people who will not predict your culture and headed age in the one country, whether you are a majority, then i think you're going to lose the battle in terms of protecting what you inherited from the cost. so this is the broader on banks in which all this gauge is happening. ah, what stands out most in the coverage of this story is the lack of it. and it's not for a lack of resources. india has more than 424 hour television news trucks, more than 100000 newspapers, and countless new sites. most of them have fallen in line with the ruling b, j. p. party, and prime minister. no rent remote. to many news outlets are dependent on the money modi's government spends on advertise it in such a competitive market. they are as reliant on the majority hindu population for clicks and ratings as the b j. p r on hindus for votes. so they gave the stories of those religious gatherings and the soon nami, of anti muslim messaging, online short shrift. national newspapers, burying reports of hate speech on the inside pages, while surrendering part of the front page to the b. j. p. 's, nationalistic messages bought and paid for by the indian taxpayer. the indian express is our best selling daily in india. now, the advertisement that came on the front page were shocking. a man who had a geffrey are around his neck and looking very evidently was slimmed hold, like a petulant ball in his hand. that's the image they showed of what it was like before the media became in power in 27 deep. now the next image showed the same man after 2017, with his hands folded, begging for mercy. this is extremely divisive again, and it also reflects on the state of the mainstream media in india because the mainstream media have either been written into silence or they have an allied them the government. and they have almost entirely become cheerleaders of the government . and the ruling party, the men television channels, the ones that support the government have almost completely ignored the meetings. and it's not just me saying that the party runs fake news factories a few years ago, whole minister, mitchell, who the 2nd most powerful man in this country addressed party workers and what he called social media. what is this is what he said. we are capable of delivering any message we want to the public. somebody where the sweet or soft, true or think. because we have 3200000 people in i was that who's the other institution whose failure to condemn amounts to a form of complicity is the indian government, the evidence of incitement? is there online for all to see rhetoric that verges on the genocide, yet those responsible almost never get arrested. having handled to hindu supremacy when campaigning for votes, the modi government has enabled extreme, normalize their views, and some b. j. p. figures like this member of parliament can sound just like learning, demanding the conversion of non hindrance thoughts. so no, don't the info for us to be brought back a little bit and brought it back to the mother of the mp later withdrew that statement. but the video remains on his youtube channel. it's still making the rounds on social media. it's not just the media that's supposed to be the watchdog . it's also the executive. it's also the judiciary. it's also in the file in the legislature. the authorities, are you sure that you act on job? now if you continue to do what we do often i question seek accountability because this saw as an all guires of what's happening and india, the only people who can stop this writing transformation that's going on in india. i didn't do themselves, but it is not easy to convert the convergence ah, the met in america. we have seen it in so many other countries. the media have a very important role play, but the mainstream media, as we know, substantially sold out or have been prompted by the government. so if you are to meet, what is the answer for that? i don't really know. i just know that people like us in the independent media must continue doing what began, but there is no one for us to watch. i another media story that's on our radar. this week comes out of hong kong where a couple of prominent news outlets have been forced to shut down. monoxide robbie is here with the details. thank you. richard stuff, news and citizen news were 2 of the last pro democracy media website's still active in hong kong. they're now gone and some say it's one of the final nails in the coffin of hong kong, once active and outspoken media space. meeting december stanz, news room was rated by 200 police officers. several staffers were arrested on suspicion of confiding to publish what the authorities call seditious material. on december 27th, the outlet throws down that had ripple effect. a week later, another outlet, citizen news shut down. chris young, the founder of citizen news, had this to say. the invitation is clear that overall media is facing a, an increasingly tough environment. and for those who are being seen as critical or troublemakers, they are more, they are more on the revolt. i think that's why we made that decision. it's worth going back a bit to understand the political context of this. in 1997 britain, which had colonized hong kong handed back control of the city to china. beijing public committed to allow a certain level of autonomy, but bit by bit has failed to live up to that promise. instead, the chinese communist party has been typing its grip on hong kong with seed us implications for democracy and free speech there. since 2020 when time and produced a controversial national security law, at least for news outlets have been forced to close. more than a dozen journalists have been arrested while the authorities have ordered a complete overhaul of the public broadcaster r t h k. but it's not just news outlets. the enforcement of the national security law has been used in a manner that squeezes all kinds of dissenting voices and could discussion, let alone debate on sensitive topics. take the pillar of shame, an iconic statue in memory of the victims of china's $198910.00 men square massacre . for the past 24 years, it stood on the grounds of the university of hong kong. last month, though, the university's management decided to remove it, citing legal advice and risk assessment. the disappearance of the statue came as no surprise to hong congress, but it had been seen as very symbolic, a marker of just how dramatically the space for expression has not old in hong kong . thank you. me. in may of last year, russian authorities embarked on a campaign that threatened to snuff out critical news coverage in the country completely. dozens of journalists and media outlets were classified as foreign agents or worse, undesirable. these are labels that are reminiscent of the country soviet past and practically speaking, they can have a ruinous effect on reporting, making it dangerous for journalists to worked in russia as well as deterring both their sources and their advertisers. some news outlets have been forced to cease their operations completely fronting this effort to criminalize critical news outlets is a handful of so called patriotic activists working for kremlin friendly organizations . they provide a facade of an act of civil society. russia is the country not short of under reported news stories, taboo topics such as the abuse of power are not hard to come by the listening post topic now for now on some of the news outlets targeted that have revealed graft and wrong doing on the part of the rational, the usual light and the land is desirable. it literally means different claim to the man and your family can and from him is that right? does that mean when you completely split into 21 green carries it's workout, honesty and in good faith. i mean, i find out for the others and tries to show a country for a client. the client is well known, the us state department in the ca meeting of the speed with which the sun for it was like someone high up simply said, you know, someone who was done with independent journalist in russia. he just woke up one spring morning in 2021 and decided let's just put an end to this dish and ship since then, it's been open season on gen. dozens of news organizations and reporters have been blacklisted. classified as foreign agents, undesirable or both. nobody knows for certain what spurred the authorities to act. it could have been the botched poisoning. we're laughing about anybody now imprisoned, his opposition movement, outlawed, for which the kremlin faced. few. consequently, perhaps the authorities were triggered by what they saw in neighboring belo routes where the government was hunting, journalist down. or was it the larger context, the series of investigative bombshells that have exposed russian officials revealing rampant corruption and vladimir putin in a circle and beyond. we try a door touch the most doubled the most on the report in topics we did a series of articles on the secret families of russian top rank officials. first was mister putin. there was a story on his secret wife and his previously unknown daughter. we established that they had really enormous wealth. the story. it was like a big bump in russia. so we don't know for sure what was the immediate story, which made them angry. but i guess all of them the in july last year, project and nonprofits registered in the us was labeled and undesirable organization for a man. but daniel, who was also labeled a foreign agent, learnt of his new status on holiday with his family and made a decision not to return to russia. one of the more curious aspects of the case brought against the role played by pro criminal, acted like italy, but i mean, but at the end is a former employee of russia, the interior ministry who once called vladimir putin, his political idol, he's active on instagram, where he chef photos of himself rubbing shoulders with rushes elite, but it is made the complaint that kick started proceedings against it. he cited verbatim an article from stay tuned for costa r t, which alleged project had received farm funding. we saw the investigation on our team. we saw the drummond battalion does not hide it links with us and decided to consult the prosecutor's office to check private funding and list the journey. as for an agent, these people who are trying to create the so called revolution in this country a completing an order from the american intel services. and they aren't hiding the fact. they say what they're doing. in 2020 cracks examined the close relationship between the director of russia, the foreign intelligence service, a nascar billionaire property developer, god, nathan rushes talk, fine monster seemed bumping 5th to the businessman after taking a swim in his personal talk. but it says that investigation cross the line, these people who worked on a story about the head before an intelligence are almost the same as terrorists. show me one country where people are deliberately running around filming heads of state, filming the intelligence chase. but then it is lucky that our authorities are special services. let him and journalists like him leaving peace, the russian authorities, and they need to have a full who make the complaint that we are breaking the law guy was mr. but ideally, now he does something for the russian authorities and he received some benefits from that. some money, sam and saloon leslie, i run an organization which represents the interests of the community of our citizens. what does it mean that for some kinds of snitches for the kremlin who calls me back a position media? why doesn't army dear call me back? it's a little star trunk where they are just front men put forward to create the illusion that there is a big group of activists fighting for freedom of information and information sovereignty already. great, i'm not sure the scheme has worked. and if you meet them, you realize that these people want one person powers and they use these strange methods of complaining about independent media to get power for themselves. and the issue with lydia, you're part of a, is a moscow based correspondence for medusa. he's headquarters are in latvia. the consequences of being a foreign agent seen designed to slowly kill off the business model that allowed medusa to become russia most popular independence, media outlets. medusa sold advertising to funders journalism, including to stay turned company through bolted after it was lifted as a foreign agent. the outlet last more than 95 percent of advertisers in a week. foreign agents are required to post this warning along fight whatever they publish. this also needs to be included on personal post on social media. the label foreign agent, not only to turn advertisements, but also the thought of and contributed. however, it doesn't appear to have put off medusa. as audience. donations from a 100000 readers have kept the outlet afloat for now. visually, intellectually to lessen, did the, i'd say our audience even got slightly bigger because everyone was suddenly interested in how this russian fought an agent twice this repression meeting have compassion for us. and we had a successful crowd funding campaign. if this whole story of enemies of the people, foreign agents, and undesirable organizations had been put in motion 5 years ago. when people still trusted the government, it would have had an effect. but now i think it's very limited. emotional shalise, bmw, bally's, russian youth consumers with the choice john live and produced by what the kremlin fees of loyal patriot or that produced by trade of the foreign agent law for i forgot to do 2012, an expanded federal time thing is being used against almost anyone to receive money from abroad and both a political opinion. ah, but many of the critically minded newfound i've targeted now emerged off the previous government's efforts to control tv on the press. they know how to adapt to survive. based on my experience, based on soviet experience, i believe that russian journalism can survive the future and survival of rational, independent investigative journalism is in potential calibrations we all under attack. and the only way to survive this attack is to be altogether there is a lot of media outlets or surviving on the subscription model. and as far as i can tell, medusa isn't about to close despite the depression, enough subscribers. so i can only conclude that russians are prepared to pay for the news to keep informed, to get insight into what world looks like. as long as they have this wish. i think we will definitely survive the vision. and finally, back to hong kong, the assault on freedom of the press there. the problem with news headlines about things like media closure is, are the arrests of journalists, is that headlines disappear just as quickly as they appear. and the bigger picture can get lost, but add them all together on a timeline for instance. and the story becomes far more clear for more than a decade now, china has been shipping away and more recently, hacking away at free speech in hong kong will leave you now with a timeline that we've put together on this story. and we'll see you next time here at the listening to me i choose choose choose hey . i'm in rural central to the quest for clean energy. a key ingredient for the production of electric car batteries, cobalt extracting it is dangerous, but profitable with global demand set to skyrocket. people empower investigates claims that industrial mines extracting the precious material needed for cleaner energy, or in fact, poisoning the environment. with dire health consequences for those living in their shadow, the cost of cobalt people in power on a j 0 ah . as it stands attains its former intelligence chief on suspicion of treason after days of fun protests. ah ha, i'm have em i hear dean. this is al jazeera life from doha. also coming up at least 16 people freeze to death in northern pakistan and thousands more. are stranded after heavy snowfall a weekend curfews imposed on you.