taker has withdrawn proposed pension reforms that sponsor a wave of violent protests dozens of shops in the capital were looted in a fifth day of demonstrations preliminary results and paraguayans presidential elections with the ruling colorado party candidates mario of dublin eaters in the lead with forty eight percent his main rival from the leg has forty two percent of voters at least sixty three people have been killed in bombing attacks of voter registration centers in afghanistan several centers have been targeted since they opened last week ahead of upcoming elections south korea says that it stops propaganda broadcasts across its border with the north ahead of this week's into korean summit it's an effort to reduce tension on the peninsula and create a peaceful atmosphere for the talks. syria's government has continued to pummel a suburb of the capital damascus to force out eisel fighters they've agreed to leave the southern on place but are yet to surrender the area they occupy which includes the palestinian refugee camp is one of the last near the capital that

hasn't fall and pro-government forces police are searching for a gunman who shot and killed four people in the u.s. state of tennessee police say that travis ranking opened fire in a national restaurant on sunday ranking was arrested last year for being in a restricted area near the white house his gun ownership privileges were revoked by the f.b.i. and those are the headlines the news continues here on al jazeera after this week's listening post thanks to. on counting the cost of trade war a real war and rising debt find out why the i.m.f. and the world bank a warning of risks to the global economy what saudi arabia's ideal of price and the castro era ends in cuba but an economic blockade remains counting the cost on al-jazeera. rescue workers that.

we're. going to blow them out or. whatever else ok i'll tell you why i want to strike before and that's. hello i'm richard just burn you're at the listening post here are some of the stories we're covering this week mission accomplished again allegedly syria the media on red lines humanitarian intervention and the need for military action the enduring sexism on italy's airwaves have a tally and is missed their weinstein moment facebook and its fact checking initiative in the philippines provoke a backlash from supporters of president do tear today and one state on t.v. channel in moscow provides russians with the news they can use how to survive world war three some of them and you sluggo pretty girls of by the human spirit that it was love to you ask them they say the truth is the first casualty of war in the coverage of syria you can add evidence context and balance to that list when

footage of an alleged chemical weapons attack was beamed out of duma it set off an outcry and lit the fuse for counterstrikes the narrative for many in the western mainstream media echoed their own governments a red line had been crossed it was a transgression that could not go unpunished but those demanding evidence that the assad government was behind the chemical attacks the skeptics question in the rush to launch were given short shrift for media outlets in the u.s. u.k. and france particularly the twenty four hour news channels there was less concern about call. proof than the telegenic effect of war w m d's and iraq do come to mind a big part of this geo political showdown is being fought out over the airwaves and when it comes to state propaganda you've really got to hand it to the russians if only their media could bring the same scrutiny to the kremlin that they do with the white house our starting point this week or the skies over syria.

or to syria sometimes news coverage has a quality to it that it's almost time. to talk. with tomahawk missiles this is a russian violation forms that is. chemical weapons in the county planning. an economy like evidence shows. like none of those sound bites were from this past week they were broadcast the last time the us military targeted series in april of two thousand and seventeen but they could have the script this time around was beyond reminiscent tactlessness watched the dead of night right down to the relative lack of journalistic scrutiny of the images that provoked the airstrikes whether they did indeed amount to proof that the initial attack involved chemical weapons let alone whether assad

government forces were responsible for. their king question of whiting for evidence that's one of the most fundamental things that seems to be missing from much meta discussion but we have. footage taken by. the villian adults and children dead and dying but that does seem to be a total abandonment. of any kind of critical scrutiny an idea that it would be immoral to question the images so i think that's quite a theory failure on the part of a lot of the my wife to me. the main point made in the russian media was that there was no chemical attack that there was no need for it doing she will prohibit the solution and that russia was being blamed for something it had no role in when the western media talked about the chemical attack as

a fait accompli the russian media not just the state ones but more liberal balanced outlets were trying to understand what the reasons for such an attack would be our western colleagues don't even want to hear this kind of questioning. this war has claimed half a million lives and displaced millions more but the united states and its allies have chosen to intervene publicly only when the fighting is alleged to have gone chemical. chemical weapons are politically beyond the page more than one hundred sixty countries have signed the chemical weapons convention of one thousand nine hundred two which outlawed their production and their use the way allegations of chemical warfare are reported the way it looks on screen triggers a response the footage is horrific the suffering is evident haunting images difficult to watch we can't even show you the goods to be however the images are not graphic in the way conventional bombing can be there's no blood or read news

editors who shy away from putting the dismembered bodies of bombing victims on t.v. saying audiences cannot stomach such pictures can show the us and once the images turn up in washington and other western capitals the politics and the accepted rules of war do the rest it is not about images it is about politicize ation of images in relation to political agendas the attention that chemical warfare gets and in relation to syria has actually less to do with syria than western and european history and you have been publics because suffering by bombings and by barrel bombs and excepted are arguably can be more damaging and kills more people images of course are always necessary to provide a kind of moral impetus to bombing there has to be a kind of like line that crossed morally to justify why they're acting now this one

had a lot of video and of course that's going to incite kind of reaction and because the only way the united states britain and france know how to react is the bomb things that's what they need is the way i am governments come to office with political agendas some news organizations have them to we are at fox news headquarters in new york and washington bringing you the very latest develop back in two thousand and three rupert murdoch's media empire outlets including the fox news channel in the us. more than one hundred seventy newspapers around the world strongly backed the invasion of iraq either the iraqis use poison gas and biological weapons or they don't if they do then all bets are off the united states can go ahead and shoot anything it wants whenever it wants these days they are similarly hawkish on syria although some of the tactics have changed one of murdoch's papers has targeted critics of the airstrikes the times based in london published a list of british academics calling them apologists for the assad government the

paper was sending a message that would have registered with journalists as well as university professors. the day that britain france and america alone methyl strike syria without democratic with. the front page at the time and a tour. devoted to by fifty three mary myself my colleagues as. apologists the main thrust of the argument that to question your own government to be somehow an apologist for kremlin puppet i think that frankly is a really dangerous kind of power to go down but times is a right wing rag that's that's been that smears everyone who questions the word narrative they want to create a chilling effect they want to make sure that if you're opposed to this bombing you're going to smear it as an aside just. uprootedness work crime denier classic tactics same stuff they used in the run up to libya same stuff they used in iraq

the goal is to create acceptable premolars of debate and to punish anyone of years off that even slightly journalists are easy to intimidate because they think they need that work and if they get branded as a conspiracy theorist or insiders they don't find what they see on them or if conspiracy theories and a succession of voices sympathetic to the assad government are what you are looking for the russian media space is the place to go. blushingly so your mission will not be a look. at that attribute in a christian yet and that i would ignore couple to force teach luggage he can usually steal. but if state controlled channels like this one really wanted to get to the truth they would question why the kremlin's forces in syria are denying weapons inspectors access to the site in do they don't and they're far more interested in civilian casualties caused by western air strikes than when the planes bombing syria are from russia i mean you can see so you think you are all

good that's of a much. more he show could have cost for what russian t.v. host and commentator stressed is that in a confusing conflict clouded by the fog of war they are providing viewers with a perspective they will not see elsewhere. just like she got the go all night there's a whole wave of fake information rumors in all directions and the syrian conflict is just one of the it's not even about censorship it's about the inability to verify what's happening when i talk to my sources i just don't know whether what they're telling me is true and the worst part is that it's impossible to verify i report both positions but i don't know which one of them is true this is the most food chain of modern journalism and. unfortunately a lot of the discussions on media around syria have little to do with syria and they have much more to do it seems with geopolitical struggles that syria we don't

see you know once the discussions around what's happening in syria what we see is a lot of political positioning and. a lot of shouting about this is fake violence this is not faith and really does not help the situation in syria or the suffering most you. were discussing other maybe. stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers meenakshi ravi mena accord in moscow has banned one of the biggest messaging platforms in russia telegraph what's that about this began with the russian media regulator across continents or demanding that telegram hand over its encryption keys to the russian intelligence service the f.s.b. now those codes would have enabled the security services to monitor the private messages of up to fifteen million russians and telegram refused to give them up its c.e.o. pavel doura of a russian who lives outside the country posted on his telegram account

a letter addressed to the head of the f.s.b. saying that if all they wanted was a pair of keys they could have the ones in the picture but the case then went to court and this past week the judge ruled in favor of the f.s.b. and now telegram is inaccessible in russia you mention the fifteen million russians possibly affected by this but has in the kremlin itself come to rely on telegram as well yes for instance dmitry peskov president putin's press secretary routinely used telegram to shed your briefings with journalists but according to him a law is a law and if it is violated we will search for an alternative there is one more angle on the telegram story it is also the messaging app of choice in iran and the authorities in to hand have issues with it also regarding crippen so we'll be watching developments there as well social media platforms are also in the news in the philippines where supporters of the president rodriguez the territory are urging cilla peano's to get off facebook for good was that the issue is fake news

and what to do about it last week facebook partnered with two filipino news organizations rappler and better files to combat the spread of false information now these fact checkers will be flagging bogus stories and debunking them ditto to supporters have issues with one of those news sites in particular rappler one of detainees high profile backers polity fencer knock posted a message instructing her followers to migrate to the russian social network the contactor so that they. could get the uncensored truth and that also said the new fact checking partnership would likely result in the shutting down of her facebook account but it hasn't deterred to himself been complaining about sickness in the philippines yes but he accuses facebook's fact checking partners of dealing in fake news themselves we've reported before and rappler is critical reporting of detainees so-called war on drugs and investigations into the president's personal wealth deterred a has accused rappler of being run by americans and try to have them shut down earlier this year so it's no surprise actually to see this reaction

from the productivity crowd ok thanks miguel. it's been slightly more than six months now since a newspaper story in the new york times about a hollywood producer harvey weinstein set off a tsunami of sexual abuse allegations that took down dozens of well known men and gave birth to a hash tag that would go global me to the italian version of that hash tag tech a translates to that time when but that's where the similarities and in the us prominent figures in the news media matt lauer and charlie rose among them were pushed from their televised pedestals in italy there have been very few names names and much of the scrutiny has been directed at the accusers rather than the accused however by bringing out some of the worst tendencies in the country's male dominated media the story and the way it's been covered have enabled activists and certain journalists to draw attention to the deeper institutional issue here systemic sexism the listening posts flow phillips now on the italian media the role

women play on television and some of the people who say that they too would like to see change. this is as gentle one of italy's best known actresses in october last year the us magazine the new yorker published argento's allegations of sexual assault at the hands of harvey weinstein. the reaction gentle received in the italian news media was very different. than it all pour it out of you to go on yeah called these. people. where they can read feel any. good you know. i interviewed a few days after his story was published in the new yorker she couldn't stand the

public abuse anymore the editor in chief of the newspaper leave it over. extremely brutal really attacking. voice day for forty percent so it's just. you're not a thinker for sort of his comments were sexy you have to know them and it is well known that his journalistic career and his reputation are based on how direct and how blunt and how crude. he cuts the chase what you. see are gentles case is really a typical example of the recurring stereotypes and misrepresentation in media coverage of sexual violence cases against women there's a tendency to split the victims of sexual harassment into two categories innocent ones and the women asked for one thing now that's pretty much our concern. and take out your call you are going to go naked that only i like that you know

because i am a computer but it was something i was really struck by is that in much of the coverage of the r.c. argenta affair the article or the report would be illustrated with a picture from a film she had starred in in which she played a lap dancer who kissed a dog it was as if to say how dubious her morals are. only been into. the cause of all the fear all i think the treatment of us here are gentle proved to be quite illuminating in terms of why women won't talk or why they may be reluctant to point the finger at powerful figures. the treatment of argento contrasted sharply with what was happening in the us media where allegations of harassment were being met with solidarity let me be very clear there is no excuse. it is systematic and pervasive and

accountability was a stunning headline to wake up to bad law. the longtime host of the today show has been fired six months on from the weinstein revelations more than a dozen major media personalities accused of harassment in the united states have either resigned or been sacked and italy there have been no exposes of harassment in the news media industry yet according to sol and deluca a television presenter and producer such stories are not hard to find space so very often before becoming a journalist they used to say to me you want to become a journalist come out with me if you want the job you need to do something for me and sometimes it was more subtle i would like to see you tonight in a dress i got harassed when i worked up by our public broadcaster then when i was at sky italia one night i was working late alone with my editor in chief and we disagreed on a couple of things he looked at me and said if you want to play who's got the

bigger you're making a big mistake i was quite frightened to be honest i didn't know how to react i was speechless sense of our own. program market harassment is everywhere literally just because there have been no denunciations to date doesn't mean it isn't happening in the media as well the problem is it's difficult to expose such cases especially when they happen in the industry that is supposed to be doing the expose and then they. italian media italian television especially have become notorious for how they treat and represent women objectification stereotyping and worse a comment last year on channel five italy's second most watched channel the talent show amaechi staged an elaborate prank on a pop singer. just mom by larry on austin beach. in.

one. happened on the saturday was an extreme case but very much part of a trend that began on the same t.v. network in the one nine hundred eighty s. with the liberalization of the media at least future prime minister silvio berlusconi founded the media set. semi-naked showgirls usually alongside much older men soon became the formula to follow so much so they got to label him and distract the billionaire they needed they finished his term refers specifically to the women featured in a satirical news show from one thousand nine hundred eighty eight called studies show. they would deliver the news to the two male hosts who would then read it out as competition between t.v. channels intensified the presence of beautiful young hot naked women became a standard gimmick in t.v. entertainment media said especially as

a rich gallery of examples. child out when there are lots of shows that still use women this way and live really ok they're still there. but it's in the name of satire you can make the same criticisms about cheerleaders at sports events in the us in a way it's like a beauty pageant the americans love to give us more lectures but they even have cheerleading competitions to me this seems much more sexist while the men are shown as articulate the women just have to throw their legs up in the air i think that's disgraceful if your live in. the symbol of a way of making t.v. the concept of a woman who's on stage and maybe dances but doesn't speak they don't represent actual women it's an idea that was manufactured to serve the entertainment industry by taking a stereotype to the extreme it was a way to satisfy a particular idea of what the average italian viewer wants a viewer that paradoxically is always assumed to be male there's never an. rich

female viewers there are no male the limit war meaning. the fact that it has overwhelmingly been men deciding what a talent audiences want to see on screen and in the papers only partly explains the enduring sexism in the country's media after all male executives dominate media boardrooms in most countries another factor a more telling one is the power imbalance between men and women in italian society according to a recent index by the world economic forum italy has the widest gender gap in western europe but some see signs that things are changing slowly for the better including in the media. in italy there's a divide on one side we older conservative people who don't acknowledge or even see the problem on the other side there's a younger generation who are more open more worldly and more critical

a major difference between the era when the berlin the became popular and today is that we're no longer limited to just italian t.v. it's much easier to see what's going on in other parts of the world model better more study to see one another there's no question that sexism in italian television is alive and well but there has been a change in the way such blatantly sexist practices are received by the public put instance in march two thousand and seventeen there was this right program partly ominous sabato which asked why italian men have a preference for eastern european women are a problem at all and very often i felt that i just had a graph that actually there was a big reaction against it on social media to the extent that the producers decided to cancel the show the changes here have not been as dramatic as we might have seen with the me to campaign in the u.s. but awareness is growing and society is changing slowly we all have to make sure that these baby steps continue and get ever bigger one of the well for example if

you. since her bruising encounters with. she said the country's climate of tension and culture of victim was too much for her and her. and she spends much of her time outside. and finally just prior to the airstrikes against syria a good deal of hysteria was circulating online in russia and that provided one state on t.v. channel in moscow with an alarmingly obvious story opportunity it decided to prepare its viewers for world war three it was a four minute long segment on the rossiya twenty four s evening news program where the kremlin own channel suggested some essential items for life in a bunker iodine to protect the body from radiation rice and its seven year long shelf life and rule number one if you were sweets more water noted we'll see you

next time you're at the listening post is the police that solicited that i'm gonna and i still do can you not can your state be sure to bring your book to be sure that if you read all we put out the spoken and other source in which i got to live it's a list of don't feel that you must be stick to it but that's a bunny it is just laze because union that because they've been these up us not us cousin corrected but the idea is that yeah and then you move their living it up because you're going to be as though it was slow but at the plate which some would at least overlook to a number. of notifies you soon or a complete power and ends or. means just like the state of bushel of them started then you can use your brother will be getting us good but i sub nobody knew how to use coop lucia's see a crime it's a city and device merely it up it all d.c. media needs i was younger i was sort of bored nifty get a sheet and you will have boredom and i did say really but anything if you could actually as much as i thought some of got on to me and know it's a father a friend found i was and why should you sell your food but i did the subway wouldn't get it when you got on and wasn't going to give me. that if the easy i

knew was that i'd say what if what if i come off of the new slug company goes up by the and i meet back at the slug i yes come should go if you're gonna feel that i'm alive who are sort of better but he wants us by age but he is newsies need as not like you some with luigi should die she said because we need and he could mean to do as i did when he is that possibly got of us women is the media this you or them and you will not go don't use most but only as an idea i think i would say but again just prayers. but need to of. paint the scene for us where on line what is american sign in yemen the peace is always possible but it never happens not because the situation is complicated but

because no one cares or if you join us on set there are people that that are choosing between buying medication and eating this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone who's an activist in his post of a story join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera when the news breaks. on the mailman city and the story builds to the forest so it would just be all when people need to be heard girls are being bought and given away in refugee camps al-jazeera has teams on the ground to bring you the award winning documentaries and. i got to commend you on hearing is good journalism on and on mine.