n a dr. for cooperation and economic growth, 17 african countries signed up to a landmark air transport market initiative. ah, good morning from moscow, from wherever you may be watching. welcome to this hours most pressing news stories from around the globe girl, isabel seeking new partner. it's chinese presidents easing pain, is that to go on a tour to saudi arabia for a chinese arab summit with the bolstering of strategic partnerships on the discussion agenda. the visit comes amid relations between both countries and the u . s. souring over oil production and influence in the middle east. our cheese, rachel blevins, takes us through the details. a key strategic partnership. and the growing multi polar world stands to get even stronger as chinese president using ping visit saudi arabia for the 1st time in 6 years. while it may be a short trip, there was a lot at stake with reports noting that the plan has to sign off on nearly $30000000000.00 worth of agreements between the 2 countries. while china is saudi arabia's largest trading partner with bilateral trade nearing 90000000000 dollars last year, we can't forget about the geopolitical significance here, which is why this summit has attracted so much attention. the beijing is going into this visit, emphasizing its desire to continue to work with arab countries and citing their shared respect for sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, mutual non aggression. and most importantly, non interference in each other's internal affairs. china has always believed that there is no such thing as a power vacuum in the middle east and that the people of the middle east are the masters of the future and destiny of the region. china has always played a constructive role in the region and never seeks any geopolitical self interest. and while they don't mention a country like the united states by name, it's no coincidence. so this summer comes just 5 months after joe biden made a visit of his own to saudi arabia, where he specifically voice concerns about leaving a power vacuum in the middle east. that could be filled by a country like china. let me state clearly that united states is going to remain active in gauge partner in the middle east. we will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by china. russia ram will shoot to bill on this moment with active principle. american leadership and riata appears to be just fine with finding new allies and continued tensions with washington with south africa as president even suggesting the gulf king them is considering joining the bricks alliance, which would bring it even closer to bo china. and if key partner russia, speaking of oil, it's also likely to be on the agenda as riata is beijing top supplier of crude. as her reports earlier this year, that saudi arabia was considering accepting payments and due on, well, if that does happen, it would mark the 1st time the country turns away from the petro dollar in nearly 50 years. but rather than turning the saudis into a quote pariah, as he once promised, joe biden continues your promise consequences that never seem to come to pass. gonna be some consequences for what they've done with russia. what kind of consequences manenda says suspend all arm sales? is that something you'd consider? i'm not going to get into what i'd consider what i'm have in mind, but there will be, there will be consequences. so i do see it as a deliberately hostile act and, and what, why would we have troops defending a country that, that behaves this way towards us? it would expose them. but again that's, that's what they should be thinking about. the next time they decide to hurt the united states of america in our was for years. we have look the other way as saudi arabia has shopped up journalists, yet has engaged in massive political repression. for one reason, we wanted to know that when the chips were down, when there was a global crisis, i just think it's time to admit that the saudis are not looking out for us. it appears that in the same way, saudi arabia chose to increase its ties with russia and mid warning from the us to do the opposite. it's now falling a similar path and its relationship with china. c. this week summit is yet another sign that the multi polar world isn't just coming. it's already here. going underground show how's the us being retarded? the says the upcoming stomach could be a significant step towards the multi polar world. is, is the most important meeting of the century so far as perhaps it is in the context of a war in the heart of europe. and the fact that saudi arabia reportedly refuses to cancer. jo biden's phone calls and it comes to oil production. we idea that he is meeting with she, gen ping, amidst an environment where joe biden seeks to sanction chinese industry and continued to ramp up the numbers of soldiers surrounding china in a myriad of the basis. so the significance cannot be underestimated in, in that context of the widening of the shang. i cooperation, organization the widening of bricks. there's no doubt that the top read out from this summit will be the multiple in a world, the drifting away of power from western nations. in the decline of the u. s. empire, whether it will be seen in future years as a true marker of the transformational change that so many have been expecting will depend on whether the united states sabotage. is it by any means necessary? that's what they've done in the past, and it will be the secret services, the military industrial complex, the weapons companies and lobbyist. what will they say after this meeting? will they even start to realize, let's make money? let's help the climate. let's ignore this idea that the washington edge m on a project must be saved at all costs when it is now due to failure. ah, and now to the latest from russia, dumbass region where ukrainian rocket attacks have left at least 6 people dead in the city of don. yes, on tuesday. that's according to local authorities. ah, the footage you can see shows the latest strikes continuing overnight. local authority, say 6 grad rockets were launched at the city by ukrainian forces. the attacks follow 3 strikes that took place on tuesday. another strike had a local electricity substation leaving smoke billowing from the building as emergency services battled the place. a local market was also head, leaving it in flames. our correspondent, roman closer have arrived at the scene, minutes after it was struck, sending us this report don't ask was just shells again by ukrainian nationalists. we can see blooms of smoke rising, right in the center of the city would see multiple ambulances rushing to the sea. and we are also on our way there right now to find out exactly what's going on. we are right in the center of the city. looks like this, strike ukrainian artillery. i hit the market, sir, right here in the center of the city firefighters are already on the scene. there are also ambulances. i can see multiple cars that were destroyed by the police are here, the army are here as well. we still don't know whether anyone was injured, but the market is working at the moment as and as we can see, it was a direct hit into one of the stores. it looks like it was a rocket from a multiple launch, a rocket system, a grad, a flower shop was africa. one of the cars is also on a fire. now we are afraid that it might explode at any moment, so we better 1st step away. we still don't know whether there are there were any people inside the store, but if they're war, it's hard to say. if they survived or not, please us, they are remains of the shell that sir landed right here. ah, according to locals, or at least said he, it's, and so one of them has struck that shop. now this is the confirmation and that this is a shell from a multiple launch rocket system, a cold grad ukraine, nationalist continued there. a key arctic and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas. i here in done that now this market is very popular among the locals. it's right in the center of the city were yet to find out whether there were any victims. the cars on fire. we could hear multiple explosions as probably fuel fuel tank vans. we have to get out of here. we also hear that shutting continues. so a better leave this area or right now and get to safety room on coffer. if ortiz don't, as republic, us democrats have blocked a resolution calling for an audit of the nearly 20000000000 dollars of military aid sent to ukraine in a u. s. house. hearing this tuesday, a law maker behind the initiative has slammed the voting results as entirely political democrats on the foreign affairs committee refused to support an audit of ukraine because they're blinded by hate for me and made the resolution purely political pathetic. you're hearing marjorie taylor grain, she argues that this is a partisan political move. ready this is simply about her, but if you listen to the foreign affairs committee meeting and when they discussed this resolution, the possibility, the democrats seem to give the idea that they were open to some kind of transparency about all the money the united states has provided to a country that's been described by the new york times and other outlets as notoriously corrupt. they just seemed to think that the time was the right. that was the argument that democrats were using to argue that it was not time to open the books for transparency and accountability, but not in this resolution. not now the author of this resolution who said november 4th, if the republicans, when the majority and the election, quote, not another penny will go to ukraine, unquote. that would suggest that the sincerity behind this resolution isn't there. that what really is the agenda here is to cut off all a to ukraine, and that's why this member believes this is the wrong time to do that. so as you can see, a rather than discussing the problem of where weapons have been ending up an unanswered questions about all the minds dumped into give. instead they made it a personal attack on marjorie taylor. grain, the member of the us congress who put forward the resolution, but now people are looking on and realizing that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. the recent audit of the pentagon turned out all kinds of money that was on, accounted for, and that prompted a journalist to confront the department of defense representative and asked some questions about what this could indicate for ukraine. how do we know that you can keep track of pentagon and inventory is going to ukraine, that you're not sending them stuff. and then coming out we have a major short focus, shoot, you don't have a good enough inventory. this going to come up as an issue at simplistic right, but i don't want to give you a sense to chance to x and get ahead of that. town ability is important here, and we can always improve the ways that we do things here at the pentagon. and the way we are accountable to the american people. so ukraine is certainly teachable moment for that. representatives is set to change hands in january when a new congress is sworn in republicans will have control of the lower house of the u. s. congress. so marjorie taylor, grain and others that indicated that they may change this policy and we may be getting some answers and the flow of cash from the united states to kia may not be as generous as it currently is. idaho state representative barbara a heart thinks that every sent should be subjected to audit, since it's all taxpayers money, even if every single cent of this money has arrived to ukraine, we need to be auditing as to where the money actually has gone. when we read some of the initial stuff where this was going from, you know, way, i mean, we're probably think weapons and supplies and, and food. and there's other things like other foreign aid. what does that mean? other foreign, 8 to whom and for what? a lot of questions on here where this money has supposedly gone, we absolutely need to audit it. that's the american people's money. that's taxpayer money. and we're to time where we have incredibly high inflation. the prices for or gas granted they've come down, but they're so much higher than they were 2 years ago. we're struggling with food. we don't even have our own food supplies. we're still trying to make sure we have baby formula and we're sending unaccounted dollars over to ukraine. no, no white house has labeled the twitter files publication as a distraction. despite the documents revealing the tech shines decision to suppress the hunter bite and laptop story weeks before the 2020 election. we see this as a, as an interesting or a coincidence if i may that, that he would so have hazard lee, twitter, so haphazardly pushed this distraction. that is a, that is a full of old news if you think about it and, and at the same time twitter is facing very real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger. hate and anti semitism on their platform. and how they're letting it happen. the same man comes as a law must fire twitter attorney james baker, who is not only involved in censoring the hunter bite and laptop story, but the russia from collusion hoax as well. james baker, an f b i. employee turned twitter lawyer was investigated for falsely claiming russia played a role in trumps 2016 presidential victory prior to the tech companies big change in management. baker argued that the information should be removed as part of the company's policy not to disclose hacked materials. one platform executives inquired whether the laptop truly fell under this rule. baker chose to or on the side of caution. i support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked. it's reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and the caution is warranted. let's cross lived a former and while you professor an author of google archipelago, michael rectinwald's. welcome, michael. nice to see you. thank you. how much of an impact could the hunter biden story have had on election night if it hadn't faced such censorship on social media? well, according to polls that had a decisive effect that pulls for taking the show, the more you know, many people would have switched their vote had they known about this, the scandal. and so that it's cover up was pretty, pretty significant. it's electoral interference really. so we see the not only former f b i, agents like james baker, but current f b i. agents were actually involved in meeting with twitter or twitter employees. executives in the lead up to the election and telling them what to, to sensor and what not to do. do you mean anything counter to the narrative? and that was not flattering to biden, to say, the least as this information, and then blaming it on russia. you are most fire james baker, after the files were published. you must also has ties to the state department as well. can we expect to see more parties face consequences for their participation in this sort of censorship? now that he is the new c e o of twitter. i think we'll see a lot more exposure of the, of the issues. we're going to see more and more twitter files come out that will show collusion between the state and twitter. in particular, its democratic party, oregon, it's being run as a democratic party organ and the interference by federal agents with the operations of twitter, with the under the direction of the democratic party. because as we know, the f, b, i is really the enforcement arm of the democratic party, as we saw with the russian collusion narrative. so we will see more exposure, whether there be any consequences is another matter altogether. it's very doubtful whether anything will come of it. we've never seen any equal justice here under the law where the democrats are concerned, the f b. i has also recently testified to having weekly meetings with big tech companies like facebook and twitter claiming to be combating possible russian disinformation campaigns. what do you make of such closed door meetings? well, it proves that they were just trying to control the information flow on twitter and making sure that nothing disparaging or damaging to the to biden. and the democratic party came out, and that was cert or circulated on twitter when it really comes down to it. russia really is the democrats, if you will. they are the ones that are interfering and elections. they are the ones that are, that are dictating twitter and other social media policies and information flow. so interestingly, it is not the russians of course, that are doing this. this is actually the democratic party. so when they use the word, russia really it's a stand in for their own activities. we always hear these big tech companies are private entities, considering twitter is a non governmental entity. do you believe the government has a right to dictate the platforms, content, moderation policies in this way? absolutely not. and it's a matter of fact, since the government is dictating what can be said on twitter, what is disinformation and is censoring american citizens there? violating 1st amendment rights, and so they're actually violating the constitution. so we're looking at the, the, the collusion between the state and these so called non state actors, such that they are actually state apparatus is at this point they are not private companies, per se. they are operating as state apparatus is doing the bidding of the state in particular the democratic party. how would you explain the bite in administration, dismissive attitude towards the suppression of free speech, especially when it comes to the selective censorship of stories. while they conceive of, of our system as their democracy, as it were, when they say our democracy, they mean they own it. and therefore they should be able to control it. and they think that any, any stories, any news, any information any, anything damaging to their party as damaging to their democracy. likewise, they justified in their minds by vilifying the opposition as basically nazis or neo nazis, or fascist anti semites, or whatever they want to call them in order to justify their complete squelching of people's rights. this is just part for the course. we're dealing with a set of totalitarian within the, within the state that are running the state, running the government as a unit party organ and running social media as an apparatus or an appendage of their, of their state. the sooner author, former n y u professor, an author of google, archie paul ago, michael wrecked and wall. thank you, michael. thank you. turning to africa, we're 17 countries have agreed to a landmark trial agreement. aim that streamlining the continence civil aviation. the single african air transport market is a flagship project of the african union. the main aim is to interconnect the continents nations by relaxing existing regulations and allowing a be ation companies to work together to maximize opportunities. the market is also set to contribute to africa, economic growth by creating new jobs, as well as allowing free movement around the continent. local correspondent polo david reports. it is common knowledge that the cost for flights between african cities is of the most expensive regional travel in the world. many airlines, how to route to europe, to connect back to africa, which has negatively impacted economic growth in africa. well, that may be about to change the single africa at transports. markets initiative was this cost for approval. and verification by international and africans, civil official leaders in short, airlines unconscious will now collaborate as unprecedented levels in africa. we are here to allow states an opportunity to negotiate with each other, to allow or to hate economies asking for airlines as well as consumers to be able to, to, to, to, to, to have to social listed or business to business is one is to allow states