Antiracism on rest sweeping american. Cities are doing is absolute insanity many of the same politicians who want to. Have. Their cities are saying sure is for criminal illegal aliens. The World Health Organization stresses over the situation in europe just weeks after country started reopening their borders. Hawkins with you tonight welcome to the program and we start with breaking news here on r t a Senior Member of britains labor party has reportedly appealed for the countrys independent broadcast regulator ofcom asking for our t. V. To have its license revoked the lead letter appears to be from joe stevens the m. P. For cardiff central. For more on this you just read through the contents of this alleged letter from. While this letter appears to be the fallout from the highly anticipated and much delayed report which was released earlier this week in the u. K. Now the report assessed the possibility of the extent of russian interference in u. K. Politics as a whole and how the very sensational conclusion that it was in fact the new normal and that the kremlin was mostyn minding its key decisions in the u. K. From brights it to the Scottish Referendum even to the election of the conservatives in 2019 however no evidence was actually given to substantiate those claims now r. T. Did get a shout out in that report alongside trolls on balts channel was accused of distorting information in a bid to fracture western societies so you see many on the back of all of that elite and i will say an unverified matter has come to light allegedly from Gerry Stevens who is the shadow culture secretary or as you said very high up in the labor party now the letter was sent off which is the independent u. K. Need to regulate to essentially it follows news outlets and maintains ensures that impartiality is maintained at all times now in that letter stevens is requesting arties right to broadcast in the u. K. Be reconsidered. Im writing to you in the light of the troubling revelations in the russia report about the role of r. T. And spike nick in spreading kremlin backed this information in. Winter to last its high Court Challenge to offer comes fine lord just to do and said in his ruling that biased reporting of the no recherche attack in salzburg at the hands of the russians did caused actual and potential harm that damning judgment has now been reinforced by the long delayed intelligence and Security Committee report that exposes the role r. T. Plays in the much wider issue of russian influence i am writing to request it off calm urgently refuse arties license in light of this report into request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss my concerns about the broadcaster and i think the foster action many will have it will be what about the freedom of press what about peoples right to access various sources of information but even leaving that question a saw it the 2nd undoubtedly will be how is it that a politician and i liked it official considers that either morally or indeed legally sound to try and put pressure on an independent body on the basis of was off comments an internationally recognized as being not only hide a professional but also incredibly competent or of this time it has allowed to broadcast freely in the u. K. So why is that suddenly being questioned by cho stevens i think thats the real issue here and not soft and something that ought to be addressed and its official response. It is wholly inappropriate for the leader of the labor party to make such request of the government and indeed ministers like jay stevens to directly place political pressure on of come it isnt for the government to interfere in the role of an independent regulator nor is it appropriate for the labor party to seek to play on g. Pressure on an independent regulator we are concerned about the politicians not about of come. Norty was actually in the spotlight earlier this week as well was that thats absolutely right unfortunately this is not the 1st time that r. T. Has been accused of meddling just this week on wednesday in fact another accusation was flung channel again from the labor party during a session in parliament the late the need to secure a storm or faced off with Prime MinisterBoris Johnson not only did he express his desire for license to potentially be revoked he also said that with cool been gone the labor party was changing and you would have noticed we werent giving any interviews with r. T. Any more on this matter seems to show that this policy has now been taken to the extreme well lets see how that exchange between those 2 played out. Distortions in the coverage provided by russian state and International Broadcasters such as russia today the high court has ruled that russia today broadcasts actually the potential harm just the Prime Minister agree with me that its time to look at good but the licensing for russia today operates in the u. K. This is because this is because i think this would come more credibly from the leader of the opposition had the cool guy. The former leader of the opposition when he took money hearing on russia today i mean this is biggie protest this is the protest did neither against the leaders of the form of your position stands nor against his willingness to take money from russia today he flops from day to day this is because weve heard similar discussions before that in part about what the trigger for this particular back and forth was that long awaited russian report was that came out earlier this week absolutely as i mentioned the socalled russian report its been in the in the works for 18 months and there was a lot of hype around it many were expecting after all that time of course some sort of bombshell revelation unfortunately for many it failed. In that regard it was a highly reductive document and 8 he section that was allegedly supposed to contain the Key Information that proved russias meddling was in fact not included so really it was a knot of unsubstantiated allegations and actually raised far more questions than answers india we covered that release of that report here at r. T. Just a couple of days ago lets get a quick quick recap of what exactly was published. To get a very brief summary of the long awaited russia report we can go straight to page 13 of the document the written evidence provided to us appear to suggest that h m g had not seen or saw evidence of successful interference in u. K. Democratic process is seems to be enough so if youre short on time or dont want to read heavily redacted intelligence and political spiel stop watching now otherwise lets go on open source studies have pointed to the preponderance of pro breaks it all and he used tories on r. T. In sputnik and the use of bots and trolls as evidence of russian attempts to influence the process weve sought to establish whether there is secret intelligence which supported or built on these studies in response to my 5 initially provided just 6 lines of text the reports authors were seemingly surprised by the limited response of the Intelligence Services but not because those agencies may have more important priorities such as protecting lives by tackling International Domestic terrorism or serious crime apparently more resources are needed to keep track of social media and arties editorial policies and coverage polarized millions with several broadcasters coming under fire but its still russia that poses the risk and the Security Services that are doing their job this is about the protection of the u. K. s democratic process and mechanism from hostile state interference which should fall to our intelligence and security agencies after all moscow has been waging influence campaigns targeting u. K. Politics through Digital Media of wealthy individuals organizations and almost any other means the report warns the threat of russian influence is a hot potato with intelligence and other agencies shirking the responsibility of taking the lead in tackling it and reassuring the public amid widespread allegations that again the impact of such influence remains elusive. Impact of any such attempts would be difficult if not impossible to assess and weve not sought to do so state agencies havent looked closely enough at open Source Information according to the report they lacked a retrospective assessment and intelligence agencies in particular need a more Important Role in future the committee was struck by the relatively small proportion of work that is carried out by the agencies in relation to russia in any case should they consider other threats to be a higher priority they can always fall back on trusted russian experts to lead the way Christopher Steele author of the infamous anonymous Golden Shower dossier and contributors that the institute for state craft and Integrity Initiative a project founded to tackle the russian threat receiving state funding to advise the states that russia is a threat and moscows response was swift and predictable as was the final conclusion of the long awaited russia report showing yet again that any reproach went with the u. K. However small is still be on the horizon. But were joined live afterwards and the host of going on the ground from london afshin good to see you what do you make of this letter from joe stevens to off calm down youre covering that report and the Prime Minister as johnson maybe saying that the report about russia collusion and russian interference in elections or fraud of but as a former journalist perhaps he should have taken what starmer the new labor leader said with a little bit more seriousness because not only is. It the dispatch box telling Boris Johnson look again at the license it was reported here in the papers as basically the labor partys position is to want to ban television we now have this leaked letter its not in the Public Domain it appears in most of the british media it goes itll break in a few hours time. Im this is devastating we knew if anyone thought thats a guess dahmer former head of the department of Public Prosecutions was a lawyer and therefore in the studio door well i think weve talked before about how starmer has a record which is put in a shadow over his leadership of the labor party is infamous for being involved and he was at the end of the d. P. P. When julian a songe was being persecuted tortured according to the un report or where was. When when the us were being accused of torture when britain was being accused torture he was friends with them i 5 and now we have in this leaked letter arguably proof that suggests dharma which is to curb the free press and most notably attack an independent socalled media regulator that we have in this country i mean of course is a regulator in this country that is supposed to adjudicate on what can be broadcast and what cannot be broadcast and supposed to be independent it has to be because of conventions that britain has signed internationally we now have the words sakina stormers Shadow Department of Culture Media and sport secretary in a private letter sent to this independent regulator saying almost telling the urgently i need to see you to see her to do what to politically interfere with an independent regulator devastated. You quite rightly say off come suppose to be an independent regulator independent from political pressure on the one hand people will say is it the place of in pace to be asking for broadcaster to be by and other people will say anybody can register their concerns their complaints with off come here i suppose it so what shankar you look at it from wasnt. Yes of course when a normal everyday person writes to off court more calm is obliged to mandate to investigate that complaint i think it decides on the number of people complaining i have to say that r. T. E. Like any other broadcaster has been the subject of investigations by off corman off calm adjudicated the broadly marty is in line with other broadcasters when it comes to impartiality however have been issues between r. T. But this is this is a leader of the opposition at the dispatch box where he has parliamentary privilege talking to the Prime Minister about wanting to ban r. T. And now we have the private letter hes in Public Office why is someone in Public Office not an everyday person and every day viewer of our t. V. Or whatever other Television Channel complaining about bias he is a legislator so this is a this is a very different case than we have here and as for Boris Johnson my understanding is that he will because he joked with starmer that Jeremy Corbyn kiersten was pretty descents are being paid by r t understand r. T. As grounds to see to the british Prime Minister if indeed he repeats that outside of parliament lets touch upon what russia report that came out just a couple of days ago looking at those many allegations in that report hacking meddling in flowing etc a lot of it to do with you know best 70 social media etc how does that relate to our t. V. One you know of editorial policy or coverage of septra these 2 things there seem to be quite separate. Yeah it is its a cast down with a labor leader got Something Different out of the report because as you outline all you need to do i think he said page 13 says we found no evidence of meddling there is no evidence generally the expert witnesses some of them are being discredited it was the big echo chamber of journalists to do with the Integrity Initiative in the institute for state craft who are listed in the report is expert witnesses basically. Laying out ideas about russian involvement which would then regurgitated back like a big echo chamber by the Intelligence Services to the British Intelligence and Security Committee and then back out by the same journalist who initially printed the information and just kept it all off the intelligence and Security Services committee very clear that m i 5 is the problem they get is m i 5 cant prove there wasnt russian meddling in elections because it didnt look far enough its going to santa claus father christmas argument you dont know father christmas doesnt exist because you havent looked for him enough apologies for younger viewers. For many of these allegations against against russia russia may look at such weve heard officials use quite ambiguous terms sometimes like almost certain highly likely is this report signed this letter as a follow up from that report more of the same what some people might say accusations without a solid body of evidence. I think the committee itself said they didnt have any evidence so thats been established now this is moved on a peg because the Prime Minister said the matter was closed albeit that they were looking into some perhaps u. S. Style espionage act and of foreign agents registration act but there wasnt any further investigation that was planned the fact that sic here starmer seems obsessed by wanting to destroy a free press in britain puts the British Labor party in in the spotlight because that would have implications for a free press in this country for article 19 of the United Nations charter human rights charter it would have implications for the human rights act and presumably just as when he was banned for a defend Media Freedom summit here we would get would get help from Amnesty International the index on censorship and wonder of these n. G. O. S n. G. O. S some to its allies of starmer there. Obviously because yes dahmer has crossed a line here he is attempting perhaps to interfere with an independent. Independent media regulator politically. To see what response is when we do get that will obviously bring it to our viewers have gone on the ground thanks for joining us. For you. Still to come this hour a street up today in the United States city of portland where federal troops have been deployed to quell race riots and more after the break. Our culture is awash in lives dominated by streams of never ending electronic hallucinations that lurk fiction until they are indistinguishable we have become the most deluded society on politics as a species of endless and needless to little politicians more than just celebrity are 2 ruling parties are in reality one party to corporate and those who attempt to puncture the. Breathless universe of fake news just signed to push through the cruelty and exploitation to me a little more are pushed so far to the margins of society including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche. We must. Take a live news anywhere you go plus an elegant think youre a good online Video Library with a built in Search Engine it will fit right in your pocket its free you interact and kids are seeing texas dollars on jobs 2. 1000 the president s text war videos uploaded every hour so what are you waiting for a lot of stuff to forget. How to read turn on the t. V. On the about the world whats happening around me i see shows on the screens in last every day because the big news narratives a steady state. To maybe cool someone building up business with the bomb after th