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The US Democratic Party has recently filed a lawsuit against the Russian government, Donald Trump's presidential campaign and WikiLeaks, charging that they carried out a wide-ranging conspiracy to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

Suing WikiLeaks - a news organisation - for publishing leaked material, when it is hardly the only news outlet to do so, could set a troubling precedent for press freedom.

The US media have remained strangely silent on the implications. Busily obsessing over Russian meddling in the election, the FBI's Robert Mueller investigation and Trump's rhetorical war with the media, reporters are taking a pass on the DNC lawsuit story and the legal assault on the fourth estate coming from the other side of the aisle.

"The DNC's suing WikiLeaks because they're the central player," says Eric Boehlert, a senior writer for
Shareblue Media. "If it weren't for WikiLeaks essentially conspiring with Russian operatives, this wouldn't have been a story ... they marketed these emails. They were reaching out to the reporters."

The core issue in this story is not what was in those hacked emails - the DNC's sabotaging of Bernie Sanders' campaign, its unseemly, cap-in-hand approach to financial donors - but rather how those emails found their way into the media food chain in the first place.

Cybersecurity specialists say the hackers who infiltrated the DNC's servers were Russian. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have stuck to their policy of neither confirming nor denying who their sources are, saying only that the "source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party".

WikiLeaks acquired the files and started publishing the emails four months before the 2016 election. No major US media outlet ignored the story. It was, for better or worse, considered newsworthy.

"These were stolen conversations, and I don't think that journalists took proper care to vet them," says Eric Alterman, a media columnist for The Nation and professor of journalism at City University of New York. "It's not that they weren't true, but the motive in releasing them in order to demonise the Democrats when there was no such comparable effort on the part of Republicans - that was not handled well."

"Journalists just rushed into print without considering the source, without considering what was behind them, without explaining it to their readers. And this had the effect of perverting the political discourse," Alterman says.

The DNC, which has an ongoing relationship with news networks and papers like the New York Times, has not taken legal issue with any of those organisations over their coverage of the story.

The lawsuit targets the alleged source of the emails, the Russian government, and the middleman WikiLeaks, but spares the news outlets that took what WikiLeaks provided and fed it to American voters.

According to Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, "a broad interpretation of the first amendment would cover WikiLeaks". She disagrees with those who "would say that this kind of lawsuit against them is perfectly acceptable and has no first amendment ramifications ... I would hope that news organisations would focus not on WikiLeaks, but rather on the principles that are at stake."

"If this is a successful campaign against WikiLeaks it would have ramifications for other news organisations. News organisations should be concerned about that aspect of the case," says Kirtley.

Leader Kim Jong-un has promised to shut down North Korea's nuclear test site next month.

He reiterated the pledge during his summit with South Korea's President Moon Jae-in on Friday.

But  there's no word on the future of his ballistic missiles programme, nor whether he'll bow to demands from the US President to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether.

North Korea's state media said before the historic summit Pyongyang wants to focus on economic growth.

A marked departure from hostile rhetoric.

How will this play out inside North Korea?

It has been more than 8 months since the start of the military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State - which has forced almost three quarters of a million Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh.

The United Nations has called the crisis a 'textbook example of ethnic cleansing' but the Myanmar government maintain this is a targeted operation to weed the state of Rohingya militants - a narrative they have gone to great lengths to uphold.

As Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK explains, "We've seen the government of Burma very strictly controlling the access and news coming out of Rakhine State and trying to dominate how it is reported and trying to intimidate domestic and international media organisations, who are trying to investigate and find out what really has gone on."

Rohingya refugees who have escaped the violence have stories of rape, torture, and massacres at the hands of the Myanmar security forces - stories that most media outlets in Myanmar shy away from - but one broadcaster has made it its mission to tell those stories, Rohingya Vision TV.

Rohingya Vision TV, or RVision, is run by exiled Rohingya, broadcasting from headquarters in Malaysia. The channel relies on a significant network of undercover citizen journalists in Rakhine who work at great risk to offer a rare glimpse behind the authorities' veil of secrecy.

Its founder, Muhammad Noor, told the Listening Post he started the network to tell the Rohingya side of this story and to shed light on a community that has been under-reported and persecuted for decades: "we started to get news, actual facts and figures from the ground and started to broadcast. International media are not allowed in Rakhine, so they cannot do their job. So now we have to take over the job. We are the news breaker of Rakhine because we convert citizens into citizen journalists, existing people into journalists, training them and getting the information out whatever possible equipment they have".

And it's not just the government's version of events RVision is up against. When it comes to stories of the Rohingya, most media outlets in Myanmar simply agree with the authorities' official line. Francis Wade, author of 'Myanmar's Enemy Within' explained that "the vast majority of journalists, Burmese journalists, inside the country, appear to share the government and the military's antagonism towards the Rohingya; there's a real lack of will in reporting critically on the military and a real lack of robust, vigorous, media that cast scrutiny on the military's actions against civilians - regardless of whether there is or there isn't space for independent journalism."

When Myanmar started its transition from military to civilian rule in 2011, there was real hope that a space would open up for independent journalism but any hope has since been shattered.

"I think we've seen since Aung San Suu Kyi came to power a gradual slide in press freedom and increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and that accelerated since the military offensive in August last year. The hopes that there would be an increase in media freedom under Aung San Suu Kyi, that the repressive laws of the junta era would finally be repealed, those hopes are gone, they're dashed", Mark Famaner said. Which makes outlets like Rohingya Vision TV all the more important when trying to understand all sides of the story.

Thousands of journalists around the world are on the frontlines of important stories, often risking a lot to bring us the facts, while trying hard not to become part of the story themselves.

But some Palestinian journalists are accusing Israel of “deliberately” targeting them, as they cover the recent protests at the Gaza border.  

In just five short weeks, two Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli snipers and at least 12 others injured.

Israel denies it's targeting reporters.

But it's facing international criticism for using heavy-handed tactics.

People in Gaza have been under Israeli blockade for years - and many are unemployed.

And the weeks-long protests along the Israeli security fence appear to be escalating since they began nearly a month ago.

So, are Palestinian journalists being targeted?

It was just one small gesture, one small step forward, but the significance of the move by North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un is certainly historic, and will be remembered for years to come.

Kim became the first North Korean leader to vist South Korea since the end of the war between the two countries in 1953.

He was warmly welcomed and embraced by South Korea's President Moon Jae-In.

Both leaders were relaxed and smiling during small talk.

But big and complicated issues need to be negotiated.

After decades of military standoff between the two sides, their leaders made a declaration of peace and promised a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

So, is peace coming to the Korean peninsula?

If the current trend of pollution continues - scientists predict by the year 2050, there could be more plastic in our oceans than fish. That is an extraordinary prediction.

Now, more than 40 large companies in the UK have signed up to an agreement.

The aim: to eliminate single plastic use or packaging that cannot be reused. The goal: to do it in the next seven years.

The move is a first and the decision is expected to be followed by companies in other countries.

Now, a million plastic bottles are purchased every minute in the United States alone.

And approximately 500 million straws are used and discarded in that country every day. For coffee lovers in Britain, perhaps this figure will give you a jolt: 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are used each year.

So, what can companies and governments do to encourage plastic recycling?

Eight-year-old Asifa Bano was grazing her horses in Indian Kashmir when she was reportedly kidnapped, drugged, and fatally gang-raped by four policemen and a former government official.

Horrific accounts of the January case - released on 11 April - have sparked protests across India, with thousands calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to take action.

Investigators say the attack was premeditated - a conspiracy meant to intimidate Asifa's nomadic Bakarwal Muslim community into leaving the area. The accused perpetrators, however, have found support among BJP officials and Hindu nationalist groups, who say some of the Muslim investigators are biased against their party and community.

Although Prime Minister Modi has vowed to ensure justice for Asifa and other rape victims, the case has become politicised along religious and cultural lines, increasing animosity between some Muslims and Hindus. But many Indians - in parliament, the streets, and online - have rallied around the #JusticeForAsifa hashtag to demand harsher penalties for convicted rapists and push the government to uphold the principles of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao ("Save the girl-child, Educate the girl-child") campaign it launched to combat gender-based violence.

“This is a national issue and not a political one. ...This is about our women", said Indian National Congress President Rahul Gandhi at a demonstration near the famous India Gate. "This situation in the country is such today that one after another incident of murder, rape and violence is taking place. We are standing here against that and we want the government to act."

So, why is the tragic murder of Asifa Bano haunting the social conscience of India months after it happened? And what practical measures and penalties can the authorities implement to punish rapists and ease communal tensions?

More than 40,000 rapes are reported in India every year. With every rape case, calls for tougher laws raise, but that didn't seem to have worked.

Every so often one will get widespread media attention and prompt angry protests. But this latest one led to the biggest demonstrations in years, with levels of anger and revulsion not seen for a long time.

The girl was just eight - she was kidnapped while grazing the family's cattle, sedated heavily and kept hidden in a Hindu temple. She was raped multiple times, and eventually murdered.

The suspects include police officers and a government official. And the ruling BJP party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of trying to protect the men involved.

Is the Prime Minister stoking the flames of social and religious tensions?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called in front of the US lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week after it was discovered that millions of users' data was improperly obtained by a UK-based political consultancy group, Cambridge Analytica. They allegedly used that information to help target ads to support Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom.

While Zuckerberg apologised and pledged to ensure such a data breach can never happen again, this scenario is a reflection of the ever-changing world of online advertising in which technologies help companies make money from processing users' personal data.

There is a lack of transparency, trust and even insight into how this world operates.

Facebook puts out a lot of information on how to buy ads on its platform. The social network shows you how to create ads that don't look like ads, in what is known as native advertising.

Companies can then choose their audience based on demographics, location, interests and behaviour.

They can feed ads to other apps and mobile websites through the Facebook audience network. All of this is completely unregulated.

According to GroupM data, by the end of 2017, Google and Facebook had an 84 percent share of global digital media - excluding China. Traditional media and ad agencies just can't compete.

Google and Facebook share none of the responsibility of traditional media and insist on being called technology companies - despite making more money from ads than every newspaper, magazine, and radio network in the world combined.

A 'duopoly' has formed in the world's advertising industry, but even industry insiders admit they don't exactly know how it all works.

Frederike Kaltheuner, a data programme lead at Privacy International talks to Counting the Cost about Facebook, privacy, the secret world of online advertising, and regulation.

She says the conversation is about how "companies use personal data, and as it stands people cannot understand the way in which companies can exploit their data for advertisement."

"Facebook loves to talk about the data you share on Facebook, but prefers to talk less about the data you share with them. The data ecosystem in many countries around the world is heavily underregulated and the current scandal shows how urgently regulation is needed.

"Companies like Facebook love to talk about content, they love to talk about the data you share because this puts the onus on the consumer. Privacy setting means that it is your responsibility to control what data people can access But in reality, companies track you around the web, companies track you across devices, they use this data to profile you and then target advertisement," says Kaltheuner.

"So there's the misconception that Facebook shares data, but it allows advertisements instead to target you in very precise criteria, and that's exactly what has happened here," explains Kaltheuner. On the deepest level, "it is the invasiveness about finding very specific audiences, and in a political context, that becomes very problematic."

"The advertisement practices have changed on Facebook over time. And what has happened is the targeting has become ever more precise and ever more invasive. It's one thing to declare that you're interested in something and receive an ad. It's something entirely different if you're being tracked around everything you do, if the company then uses this data to make fine grain profiles of you and then target advertisement. It's not just about advertisement...[Facebook] can still make money with advertisement without targeting them at that fine grain level," says Kaltheuner.

The French president's big test
French President Emmanuel Macron has been defending his economic policies.

He's facing a big test, as the first anniversary of his election nears: the reform of the railways.

Unions are casting the dispute as an attack on unions in general and a defence of state ownership against privatisation.

Macron's challenge is to convince people that his mission to modernise is not in the interests of the rich.

Will he be derailed in his attempt to shake up the world's fifth largest economy?

This month the United Kingdom will host a gathering of some 53 heads of government representing about a third of the world's population, all of them members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

But what exactly is the Commonwealth and does being a member really matter?

The Commonwealth was formed in 1949, in part, as a way to give former British colonies the ability to establish their own government.

Over the years it’s grown to include nations with no ties to the United Kingdom. However to join, a nation must have a historical constitutional association with another Commonwealth country. Joining nations must also agree to the broad principles of the Commonwealth - development, democracy, human rights and peace.

Some so-called Brexiters, those in favour of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, believe the Commonwealth could take the place of the EU. That’s an idea journalist Ishaan Tharoor disagrees with. Tharoor, a foreign affairs correspondent for The Washington Post, believes it’s far-fetched to assume that the Commonwealth will take the place of other global partnerships.

So does the Commonwealth have a purpose? We'll discuss that on this episode of The Stream.