live from moscow with the top stories of the week on the latest developments this is r.t. and r.t. crews spent thirty two hours in the u.s. jan after filming a peaceful protest near the so-called school of assassins in the state of georgia reporter killing ford says she and her cameraman were handcuffed and put in the same cell with criminals and despite condemnation from human rights watchdog the o.s.c. the case was ignored by the us media. it started off as a peaceful rally outside a u.s. training camp for latin american military and police officers what followed this nonviolent protest caught everyone by surprise dozens were arrested police targeted journalists along with the activists i'm a member of the brotherhood and i'm a member of the price i'm sorry ok i'm sorry among those arrested were r t correspondent kaylin and our two cameramen john conway both there on assignment covering the protests that brought together thousands of people. here the only

thing i asked officer to please remove the handcuffs these plastic handcuffs and at least put one on that was a little bit looser he took out a hunting knife to remove my handcuffs and that's actually part of the reason i have the cuts on my wrist for our worst killing had no clue what the charges against her were we asked on the bus what are we being charged with and one of the sheriff said don't worry no charge the ride is free we're taken to the county jail and we ended up spending thirty two hours there student tommy were mira's who was there as an activist tells a similar story i kept asking them what did i do to tell you my rise tell me why i'm getting a wrist i kept asking them and i never got a nonsense from them every year thousands of people gather at the gates of the training camp dubbed the school of assassins calling for its closure officially there to train latin american military and police it's called many of latin america's most notorious torturers mass murderers and dictators despite anger at

the establishment violence has never been part of the protests so why the mass arrests now we feel like the message was look you know we don't want you to be there we're going to make it dangerous you know to make you think twice to even show up despite the outcry from many at the rally that their rights of freedom of speech and assembly were trampled upon. it's not a story that's caught the eye of the us media and we can see the newspapers of this country editorialized in favor of free speech in the first amendment and give stirring in passionate defenses of these core american values but when another journalist from another media outlet is arrested without charge without provocation and put onto a paddy wagon those media outlets are largely silent and i think it's because they feel like these are stories that aren't supposed to be covered well i guess so much for covering stories ignored by the us mainstream media the incident at fort

benning left some guessing what would have been the extent of the media coverage in the west had a member of the foreign press been treated in a similar way in some other country say russia the remarkable thing about of the thing you know in moscow here a b.b.c. correspondent for c.n.n. correspondent had gone to a demonstration where there was a legal permit and was roughed up by the police in the case of our correspondent she was almost sexually assaulted those are her words that would made headlines all around the world it would have been a diplomatic row between countries but no in the case of the united states the international community is can damage what's happened and called on the u.s. to respond even the organization for security and cooperation in europe sent a letter to secretary of state hillary clinton calling the journalist the rest disturbing. while it is clear that police play crucial role in maintaining

or do during public demonstrations the indiscriminate media in bringing charges against them goes well beyond what's necessary to keep the peace but the u.s. state department which is usually quick to condemn freedom of speech violations in other countries has remained surprisingly tight lipped about its own gun is shaken r t washington d.c. . so how much freedom should journalists have while covering events like protests or he's more often in stores and then as the resident took to the streets of the big apple to find out what people in new york think about that and it comes your way in the next hour here on r.t. but here's a quick preview in the meantime. we were thoughtful about how we allow the press to capture what's happening so we can get a legitimate true view without encouraging people to do do things that they wouldn't otherwise but the fact is if you're going to go someplace to protest to get that really hot story you've got to be repaired for the fact that life is going

to sometimes intercede about. what if they intercede if the people are being a ruling oh hell yeah what about if the press are being unruly the pressure is being on really same things apply you break the rules that's what happens if you're not willing to accept the consequences for your actions don't take the actions. twenty six suspected terrorists for the ledge links to al qaeda were arrested in europe this week eleven of them are suspected of being part of a chechen islamist network planning to commit attacks in belgium the group is also thought to be raising money for terrorism in russia's volatile north caucasus region has been detained in connection with a separate probe targeting an extremist group recruiting jihadi fighters from iraq and afghanistan british security analyst peter powers says once it's a clear that russia and the west all fighting a common enemy potential for cooperation is vast. let's not fool ourselves al qaida is somehow great regiments of uniformed soldiers marching over the horizon it is in

fact much more of a franchise yes there's a strong power base in the foothills between afghanistan and pakistan and as clearly as a stronger ball now operating in yemen but we're now seeing this creeping out under this broad term of al-qaeda but it doesn't necessarily mean it's got the official stamp on it but we are now seeing a commonality that we haven't seen before whether it vindicates totally all that russia has been saying for many years that terrorists are terrorists you can be if you're killed by the ira or chechen terrorists or al qaeda you're just as dead we are now saying something to i've never seen before i'm president of corporation security analyst peter power there. russian president dmitry medvedev has urged the country's political system to be shaken up in his latest video blog he said there are signs that the country's stability is threatening to stagnate. if the opposition has no chance at all of winning

a fair fight it degrades and becomes marginal if the ruling party never loses a single election it is just coasting ultimately it to degrades just like any living organism which remains static for these reasons it's become necessary to raise the degree of political competition but our main task the task of any democracy is to improve the quality of popular representation make sure that the political majority is not just static or rather that it does not become the majority consisting of actors and dummies but. dr of political science and united russia party member dimitri says the opposition should draw a conclusion from the message as well. i think he was trying to say that actually it should do with relates to united russia and opposition parties in the. innovations such as primaries. the

development of the interparty. the dissipation the open public debates and so on and so forth i think this should be done by. then says well it will be very important because as we all know the decision is taken by the authorities depends on the quality of create this is so they need to have very good feedback. both united russia and up to three parties that should provide this kind of feedback in order for systems to be sustainable that was at the meeting of the united russia party this is from the russian capital still to come on the program. russia has more help for nato campaign in afghanistan many experts doubt that the war there can be want to. understand. what are you going to use. energy efficiency advice coming from vladimir putin

during a visit business visit to germany stay with us for details on that story coming up a little and. the people of switzerland have approved a proposed law to expel foreign criminals from the country the nationwide ban it was initiated by a right wing party and measures and raise questions over whether the swiss are discriminating against immigrants. is in zurich for us. so today in a referendum the swiss people have decided in favor of a new law making it mandatory for foreign criminals convicted of serious crimes such as murder and rape to be kicked out of the country now this has been a very controversial issue since the proposal was initially passed and today the decision has been made the swiss are in favor of this. change of mentality. what the population wants and become stricter towards criminals it doesn't have anything to do with nationalism. hundreds of thousands of columns and

a few hundred because they are criminals that doesn't have anything to do with. just to give you a bit of a background this was first passed by the right wing swiss peoples party or s.v.p. and they say that the aim of this initiative is to make criminality among foreigners lower and also to ensure security of both locals and non-locals earlier we spoke with a member of the s.p.p. and here is what he had to say on the initiative people. have the. place for them. now there have been a lot of stories of foreigners murdering or raping locals and this has given the s.e.p. a lot of traction in putting forward this a proposal and bringing it to a referendum stage in the first place and let's not forget switzerland has one of the highest rates per capita of immigration and there are twenty percent of foreigners living in switzerland so this is a very sensitive topic here especially since it comes just

a year after the swiss people voted in favor of a law banning the building of new minarets on mosques so there are criticism to this law critics are saying that this is just a ploy to divert attention from the real problems of criminality in switzerland and with regard to immigration that this is again just a way of diverting attention from the problem of integration of all foreigners into the society can you make a difference between. india. or he is a drug dealer drug dealer. so i don't make a difference between someone being wrong now fearing a backlash from the international community the swiss government has put forward a counterproposal to the version now in this version they say that those who qualify for expulsion would have to be foreign criminals convicted of at least one year in prison so it has a limit to that also they are saying that deportations must fall within international law and they also put apart their stressing the importance of

integration in order to avoid criminality among foreigners into a society that was. reporting from zurich. the finance ministers in the r.s. government have reached a deal on an eighty five billion euro rescue package for iran and the country's economy went into meltdown this week under the weight of its banking debt and there's been public outrage at the government's handling of the crisis about fifty thousand people marched through dublin on saturday testing against partial stamatina just introduced to cut the country's huge budget deficit that is trying to say with reworking people to take human here for the rich and the banks. there are fears portugal and spain may be next in line for a bailout german economist marcus kerber told r.t. that europe's biggest economies pay the debts of others forever. the german taxpayer is no longer willing to lease is very very becoming very reluctant to bail out countries like greece where the example of very bad governance and we are no longer willing as an either to bail out ireland to fuel an ailing banking sector i

think this is a general incentive this umbrella which the. heads of government have created in may under the menace of the president of the european central bank this is so large that everybody wants to be protected and the more it's raining cats and dogs the more they want to be protected and the portuguese. prime minister and the finance minister pushed island to put themselves under the umbrella to be under the umbrella themselves as quickly as possible this is an inflation of claims to be bailout which will ruin the eurozone sooner or later and germany is economically not able to. bail out. the german taxpayer who has a word to say in all that is no longer willing to do saying something like that. currency union between russia and the european union is a possibility russian prime minister vladimir putin and german chancellor angela

merkel have admitted the statement was made during putin's visit to germany on friday the russian premier said the euro is much more reliable than the dollar despite current difficulties in the region putin also said he no longer sees any obstacles to russia's accession to the world trade organization russia and germany agreed to clear the path to increase business links and to develop science and technology together and in a meeting with german businessmen the russian pm managed to lighten the serious mood over energy supplies. so the german community doesn't know nuclear power i don't want to make any comments. you shouldn't believe don't understand what you're going to use for heating gas he don't develop new nuclear power what are you going to use he would. like but i was afraid he'd have to get that through to. still have you this from basics of life to the deserted waste land. the air all

sea has become a wasteland of sand sol dust and pollution and when the france joined me in kazakstan to investigate how this transformation has affected the people here and how it put it down on the environment perhaps. that story still to come but first this week russia decided to give more help to nato struggling campaign in afghanistan it agreed to allow the alliance to transport armored vehicles through its territory the transit deal was confirmed by russia's foreign minister during talks with his afghan counterpart in moscow the lal nato to reduce its reliance on volatile pakistan so he devolved also pledged russia will continue to provide the tools to battle drug flow from afghanistan was once russia and the us destroyed one ton of heroin and a combined anti drug operation in the country despite successes like that many experts. i still believe the americans are yet to learn that this war cannot be wrong. my basic view is that the war is completely unwinnable russia may be making

friendly noises towards nato now because of that as we know there's a rapprochement between the alliance and russia but in my view it's basically formal in other words these are gestures but they're. meant well i don't think russia is playing a double game i'm not trying to say that i'm simply saying that the war cannot be won the soviet union learned that lesson in the one nine hundred eighty s. the british learnt it in the nineteenth century and the americans are in the process of learning it although it seems that they haven't learnt it yet so i don't believe that a military solution could in other words the shipment of arms could pacify afghanistan no one would be discussing the american effort with afghanistan's foreign minister that interview is coming your way in the next hour here on r.t. . you should read the tension to be sure of detainees be sure of civilian casualties. of the night raids in the house more and more afghan

forces will be charge off to combat less than this would be described of problems. the world's biggest media outlets including the guardian the new york times and le monde have published the first of a new batch of secret data obtained by wiki leaks this time it contains messages of u.s. diplomats across the world just hours before the whistle blower's website was attacked by hackers it comes straight after the u.s. government demanded wiki leaks return millions of classified documents the u.s. says the leak could endanger lives of some people and to cause permanent damage to foreign relations terrorism and foreign policy expert from the king's college from kings college i said john gibson says the files published by the website could be just one insight but not the country's policy. let's believe there could be a vast release of huge number of documents but those documents are only one part of what is a vast government machine and so the opinions of let's say an ambassador in one

station in one consulates will be taken with intelligence sources personal relationships between political leaders taken out of context these documents might give a misleading picture if we just take one documents and say it says this rude thing about this at this leader and their reliability that doesn't necessarily mean it's that country's policy it means that's one insight in this globalized world with communications twenty four hours a day having a presence of of different countries officials in other countries is supposed to improve relations not undermine them and i think if people are now less willing to be candid and less willing to speculate a little bit it might lead to worse policies so just putting out information is public domain doesn't always lead to better policy and better governments it sounds can sometimes lead to an unintended outcome. also in the news this week china is seeking to ease tensions on the korean peninsula by proposing an emergency meeting

of the six nations involved in north korea disarmament talks. was sent to seoul to speak with the south korean president but the south said it was not interested in formally resuming talks on nuclear disarmament tension remains high on the peninsula with the u.s. and south korea i mean begun to afford a joint military exercise in the unit saying reportedly deployed surface to surface missiles in response just days. but only to the south getting full pepe escobar a brazil based correspondent for asia times says the any way to resolve the conflict between korea has is to proceed with the tools. you can accuse the north korean regime of anything but they are rational actors they are not crazy they're not foolish they have a kind of bunker mentality when they feel they're under siege state can react sometimes some predictable ways but usually very aggressively like if you corner a cat's even the cat will go at you even if europe huge lion so

the only possible solution which the north koreans themselves are always saying look we need to sit down and talk and the chinese they don't want to rock the boat they don't want to unified korea they want to start to scold the will of north korea as a kind of i would say a surrogate. back to read but more or less their alley you know very very sensitive border don't want always unified korea with american bases in the what is today north korea which is very chinese the chinese way of dealing with it are saying so we always go back to the same point. in. this new installment of the endless cold war. to its own benefit then usually of course the western corporate media is but so are the chinese and florida north koreans just looks like. an attacking exercise specially because the george u.s.s.

george washington which is basically a floating war machine with six thousand soldiers and fighter jets it's a nuclear powered you name it they could destroy the whole country if they want to you know how it's going to the yellow sea as well this is the use the struggle. that was pepe escobar brazil based correspondent for asia times to not have a look at some more international stories in brief for you this hour in turkey. she wants to put out a blaze that engulfed one of europe's busiest train stations country central real time line is temple court five early on sunday officials say the fast parted on a roof to repair work you know with anyone who's been injured or killed. in brazil the police and soldiers have claimed victory off invading a drug gang stronghold in one of rio de janeiro's most dangerous slums ahead of police as they encountered less resistance than expected from the heavily armed gang members the fighting has left thirty five dead and caused hundreds to flee or barricade themselves indoors brazil is trying to bring rampant crime under control

before it hosts the twenty fourteen football world cup and the twenty sixth. to central asia now home of the aral sea it was once the world's fourth largest lake but now only the parched ground is left due to ambitious soviet era irrigation projects the sea waters receded steadily that caused a drastic change to the local climate and destroyed the majority of marine life and the waters uncovered something dangerous to people's health as artie's lindsey france reports. erroll see is a shadow of its former self those in the kazak city are rask once had the sea at their doorstep but are now confronted by the haunting sight of abandoned ships the water is twenty kilometers away and from the dried up remains sickness comes one local woman who chose not to be named remembers when friends and family started to fall ill. here new diseases

a match that we have never seen in high numbers especially related to breathe in my husband's good chronic bronchitis that's how i live you can see salt in the air but you feel it on the skin and you can feel it on the tongue. fields planted to make the soviet union completely self-sufficient in cotton consumed the rivers feeding into the air all sea decade by decade it nearly disappeared now what was once the world's fourth largest landlocked body of water is reduced to a pit of sand salt and pollution. the salt clings to the more east seabed like here at the harbor in are all tsk as soon as it's dry enough even the slightest wind carries it into the town and across the country into the lungs of men women and children who don't even know they're bringing it before the grand cotton scheme the erroll see was one of the most picturesque places in central asia

as it disappeared along with the soviet union the task of regeneration fell to the heads of newly independent central asian states in the early one nine hundred ninety s. it was then that people learned the extent of the seas to mines that until that point was known only to those close to the cultivation projects pesticides used to yield cotton leached into the rivers making the water a silent killer. the growing trees heavily polluted as well and in essence we're living in a disaster area in the past our infectious disease ward had one hundred fifty to one hundred sixty patients especially children with interesting or diseases per year it's about five per year and it was the exact same with viral hepatitis this is all things to clean water. three years ago a group called the international fund for saving the errol c stepped in to protect the people from the taint of water and. the fresh water project saul's many issues

when possible they lead tap water pipes to the villages and to distant villages they create local water pipe systems but the pesticides aren't just in the fresh water they're blowing across the dusty seabed as well. in addition multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is on the rise exacerbated by this toxic combination special rehabilitation wards are reserved in area hospitals so. our government pays fifty percent of what it calls ecological extras to our so. maries they throw in extra for living near book nor with the rockets launched and the aerial see we have serious problems with the draft young people come in unfit to service. small dams now trapped what little water flows into the upper air all see irrigating the desert little by little but walking through this place that's

been given a new lease on life one can see the legacy of mismanagement it begs the question is bringing the water back enough to overcome the years of neglect or is the pollution too great to turn the dust bowl back into a thriving basin lindsey france r t kazakstan. well that's news for you this hour i'll be back with the headlines that's after a short break stay with us live here in moscow.

a close a team has been to the tomsk region where rich academic life gives birth to innovative ideas. no argy goes to the area which together with boosting industrial development. offers to make a journey into russia's history. and to enjoy burgers and vivid cultural life. welcome to the paramour region in russia. on archie. download the official location to i phone or i pod touch from the i.q. exams to. one job teach life on the go.

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the latest news in a roundup of the week's top stories this is. the arrest of a news crew covering a peaceful protest in the u.s. is criticized by organizations as a crackdown on media freedom ignored by the mainstream american outlets. switzerland has approved in a referendum on a proposal to expel foreigners charged with serious crimes measure that spot discussion over whether it has a nationalistic motive. russia's democracy should not stagnate russian president calling on the opposition in his video to act so that those impala stay awake at the way of. how the media outlets across the world stop publishing a new batch of secret documents obtained by the internet whistleblower wiki leaks was after a hacker attack on the web site. lucky that we.