volleys of tear gas have been fired into crowds of egyptian protesters as people rallied for a third day with reports of at least three killed protests against the military rulers broke out after wednesday's football violence left seventy four dead. says it cannot support a new draft resolution on syria at the u.n. although the text had been softened to overcome some of russia's objections it still fell short of addressing moscow's main concerns. and all polling stations across russia to get their own digital observer as web cameras installed on orders of the prime minister the move was introduced by vladimir putin as a step toward stopping electoral fraud in next month's presidential vote. next the

a lot of show takes a closer look at the companies and corporations making up america's banking system and their part in the global financial downtowns downturn stay with us here on r.t. . welcome the loner show will get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going live to washington d.c. now tonight we're going to speak to josh fox director of the anti fracking documentary gasland yesterday while attempting to film a hearing on the hill fox was arrested by capitol police so he's going to tell us

his story that will take a look at what an earlier withdrawal plan in afghanistan really means or giving up and packing our bags and should we have done this much sooner robert farley is going to join us plus federal reserve chairman ben bernanke he gave a gloomy warning today in testimony on capitol hill he says the unsustainable deficits have major costs and stokes fears of the u.s. could be the next greece so is he right or discuss it with william black or have all that and more free tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. so yesterday secretary of defense leon panetta announced some big news that contrary to what the schedule has been thus far for u.s. troops to hand over control to afghan forces the end of twenty fourteen well all that might be happening more than a year earlier. the end of u.s. combat operations in afghanistan could come sooner than expected defense secretary leon panetta saying the u.s.

hopes to make the transition from a combat role to a training and advisory role by the middle of next year and defense department is now targeting next year for an end to u.s. combat operations in afghanistan u.s. troops are going to stop their active combat part of the mission in afghanistan that is happening next year right now and ninety five thousand troops are in afghanistan twenty two thousand are scheduled to come home this fall and all u.s. combat troops are expected to be out of afghanistan by the end of two thousand and fourteen u.s. troops will stop fighting in afghanistan start training and advising defense secretary leon panetta saying some american forces will stay on to assist in the training of the afghan army but ground operations would cease and this was much earlier than originally planned. are now this is a big announcement and want to get into what exactly it means and says about the war in afghanistan in our first interview tonight or later second interview tonight but first let's take a few minutes to examine the reactions you know my constant gripe with the

mainstream media in the sense that they devote a really pathetic amount of time to covering our wars abroad so an announcement of the combat mission will be ending more than a year earlier than originally planned that's a big deal and i'm really happy that they're covering it today but there is something that mitt romney said last night after the announcement that is of particular interest take a look. amounts that so the taliban hears that the pakistanis are being asked and leaders here in the world you go to the people that you're fighting with and tell them the day you're pulling out your troops it makes absolutely no sense there's not even jerry is putting in jeopardy the mission of the united states of america and our commitment to freedom you is wrong. now there are some of you out there that may agree and say you shouldn't tell the people you're fighting against when you're going to pull out troops because well you just should do that become on people with almost one hundred thousand troops in the country it's not like you're going to take anybody by surprise but there is a larger point to all of this say as much as mitt romney might be complaining about

the fact that there is going to be a very large a very big public change in afghanistan we have to realize that things like this will soon become rarities if the mainstream media already provides barely any coverage of our wars abroad except for when big announcements like this are made or when an important anniversary is passed you can bet that they are only going to go even less about what our military and our cia are doing on our behalf abroad in the future you think of the shadow wars that have been expanding other both the bush and especially the obama administration drone strikes in pakistan yemen and somalia think about the new strategic review that was unveiled that wants to put more focus on special operations give a lot more money to those robots that we flying in the sky and we've already seen all this in action and all we get are a little bit of tidbits oh hey there were two hostages rescued from somalia the other week but did you know that the weekend before that there was also a drone strike or how about the news today at the philippine military said that they killed southeast asia's most wanted terrorist yesterday in a u.s.

backed airstrike did you know that we have had six hundred special forces deployed there since two thousand and two so the more spread out everything becomes the more we focus on small targeted missions the more secretive they will become and the less all of us will know the less will know that is unless we put more pressure on the government for. transparency the way the a.c.l.u. is currently suing the government to get details about the targeted killing program of this administration specifically about three drone strikes conducted in yemen last year that killed american citizens including anwar all along the way we've seen reporters like jeremy scahill go to somalia report on see a proxy prisons there to tell all of us the real story now of course the problem here is that the mainstream media they won't do any of that reporting they initially attacked scahill for that piece he was criticized for revealing national security secrets because you know that nobody loves to keep a secret more than the mainstream media so they can keep their ties and all of

their stores as high up in the government at the pentagon and never get in anyone's way to just realize what's coming and remember that thus far in the build up to what will soon become the norm the mainstream media has consistently chosen to miss . well we've spoken a lot about hydraulic fracturing or fracking here on the show the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock and one which the natural gas industry is increasingly using across the u.s. have. negative consequences on communities and yesterday and a house side subcommittee hearing an e.p.a. investigation into groundwater contamination in pavilion wyoming was being discussed and that's where josh fox director of the film gas land found himself arrested by capitol police for attempting to film the hearing fox was charged with unlawful entry and is going to have to appear in d.c. superior court on feb fifteenth but what exactly happened and what does it all say

for the freedom of speech and the transparency which has been promised by members of congress joining me from our studio in new york is josh fox director of the academy award nominated documentary gasland josh it's nice to have you back on the show tonight and i guess if you could just start by telling us what exactly happened yesterday how it is that you found yourself arrested. well we were doing what was kind of a routine thing for us which is to go and tape a public hearing we've taped hundreds of public hearings across the country and we've certainly done this in congress before the procedure the protocol is to allow the committee to know that you would like to sue to tape and then usually what has happened in the past under democratic congress is they say ok well you can come right in since the republicans took over congress however we have had obstruction after obstruction and very difficult time being at granted official access to hearings on fracking and this started to happen with a case that's very sensitive and personal to us and it's at the core of our film

the case of pavillion wyoming in pavillion wyoming which is featured in the first film gas land the e.p.a. has done a meticulous three and a half year investigation into the groundwater contamination there i mean really an incredible amount of detective work and science has came to bear in pavilion what they showed was there was fifty times the level of benzene in the ground water including other contaminants that were harmful that were associated with gas drilling and the e.p.a. report specifically says the likely cause is fracking you know this is that this is a huge moment because it's the first time e.p.a. has done that with this new fracking campaign of the last ten years the first time so what's happening here is the republicans are called here have called here to basically peat put the e.p.a. on trial they called in the investigator the resale administrator and they stuffed the panel with oil and gas lobbyists to attack e.p.a. report that showed fracking was the likely cause of contamination groundwater and since we've been following these and are activists cowboys and pavillion who've

been petitioning for years to get their case reviewed and the results came back with what they knew to be true which is that their water was contaminated after fracking occurred which we want to take this and we were getting a lot of flak so i decided after. i mean can you give us more detail where was it just knew that wasn't allowed to go and found this hearing where there are other crews there that were not allowed or did they keep the whole thing closed off. well usually the way we thought of hearings is that i go with my editor countermanded co-creator met sanchez and will cover it a very comprehensive way we were told that we were not allowed to film because we didn't have press credentials which is something that is particular to the hill there are a bunch of reporters that only work down on the hill we don't live there so we have never applied for those credentials but we never have made it to the first amendment is your credential the first amendment says congress shall make no law and that infringes upon the freedom of the press there are other things the first

amendment says but that's definitely in there so we don't need permission to film a public hearing it's protocol because there are certain the just tickle things but in this case there was no one else there who had showed up to film the series we tried to hire accredited people who were not busy that day and that when we when we were when they were told when we when they were asked who they were working for and they said us they were told they could not be admitted so this was very specific about us so that is not what it did sound well did you know that there was a chance when you went and that you might get they might have to risk arrest. dr salute i mean this was a moment when we had felt. shut out for long enough and. i had appealed specifically to the chairman staff representative republican representative and harris and they had not gotten back to us even though they said they would so we showed up knowing full well that there might be a confrontation oh this is a risk as a reporter to to walk into a situation where there might be a conversation with congress because you don't know what the repercussions are but

at as it was we had nothing to lose we weren't getting a lot in the congress anyway we had already been shut out so matt sanchez who had his camera out in the hallway was told he couldn't come in the room he was blocked i had my camera in the case and a tripod so i just walked in even though they had said let me search your bag. and i said no and then i walked into the room and i set up my tripod immediately when i set up my tripod i saw staffers come up to me say you cannot become a record of course cording this the whole time then. after about ten or fifteen minutes which i explained we'd appeal to the chair get the get the chair to weigh in on this then police start to arrive and the members start to run for the beginning of the hearing the members of congress all of a sudden i look over my shoulder and i realize this whole conversation is being filmed by members of congress and the only person there cameras are on their record of the only person being threatened us with the rest is me and the i value any that we're going back for. jobs and i know they are all the others i know they are also i think i'm going to delay here on gas land too so there's going to follow up here

we're going to documentaries is all that's going to be in it. well here's the here's the main thing i guess lead to one of the main focuses is a new form of contamination which is the contamination of money in washington fracking money in washington every dollar that these fracking companies contribute to campaigns specifically in this case with the republicans is a contaminant in our democracy and that's what we're investigating and when you have a house panel that's clearly attacking science the investigators looking at the science and then you have investigators like myself reporting on this and they're locked up and thrown in jail by order of the chairman of the committee that's not government anymore that's just agree that's behaving in a way that's totally unacceptable it's a violation of civil rights it's a violation of the first amendment it's a violation of the constitution. and i would add that it's as shortsighted as fracking itself fracking is the short term a lot of money in

a big windfall profit for corporations the new left the devil take the future you've left this contamination in the ground forever this decision might have been initially satisfying to lock me up and throw me in jail but clearly there's been a backlash and i think that this shows the kind of snap judgment and instant gratification that motivates this particular. form of governing that is the hallmark of this republican congress well you know josh i think as i said the. promise of transparency was taken out with me in those president obama actually addressed fracking when he was giving a state of the union address the other week and i'm curious as to what you thought of his message because on one hand he said that we're going to have regulations that if any of these companies want to do fracking then they're going to have to disclose the kind of chemicals that the bay use but at the same time he also you

know a lot of the government said that fracking is a great thing and this is how he came up with these technologies so you know is he walking a thin line there. no it was more than that it was definitely an endorsement of natural gas drilling and it was a kind of very painful moment i think for many of us have been trying to make. it known the truth about fracking he also at length quoted statistics which are not true about fracking one hundred years of natural gas in the ground. at the same time so this is quite difficult you know at the same time his e.p.a. has been incredibly aggressive and specifically obama's e.p.a. obama raised the budget by the of the e.p.a. by i think was thirty four percent in its first year the biggest jump in e.p.a. funding increase in twenty years and the first time ever their budget was over ten billion dollars so they've been doing an incredible job the obama administration's also been shown to be sensitive to the will of the people into the protest to

keystone x.l. so when you taking a look at this in a bigger sense it's a mixed bag certainly we agree that the companies that have to be disclosing the chemicals and corporations should not be allowed to bury literally bury their secrets in the ground at the expense of america's public health on the other hand i think the president is wrong about endorsing that for gas because it is the form of energy which stands in the way of renewable energy and sustainable economics and sustainable sustainable real energy that we need to make the transition to the on the debate over this certainly isn't going away a lot josh thanks so much for joining us tonight telling us your story and we'll catch back up with you when you have that hearing here in d.c. at the district court thanks. thanks a lot. i there's still much more to come tonight and bring all of the details on killing a songes extradition hearing panel take a more in-depth look at the drawdown in afghanistan with robert farley.

or is that so much a sign in which of course he's right on it until the end of the u.s. presidential campaign become a horse race pitting incumbent caracal bamma against republican mitt romney if this is really the case with. the close a team has been to the hub bar of screen. where the country's mineral wealth starts its way across the ocean. now our team goes to the area. looking to a different character to represent itself for local businesses are striving to build the aviation capital of russia. that's where the four by fours are made and can be tested to the limit. welcome to the. russia close up on our. well after living under

house arrest for four hundred and twenty days with of its co-founder julian assad is finally having his day in england's supreme court if you remember saw it was originally accused of sexual misconduct by two females won't suite it and he's denied those allegations from day one he learned about the charges after he left the country at a lower swedish court approve an extradition request made by a swede of prosecutor was already out of the country he turned himself into british author already and he's been living on bail in a friend's mansion in england ever since the week of expounder is appealed at the extradition request repeatedly and it's finally won permission to have his argument heard by the british supreme court so fast forward to this week or saw it and his defense team of had two days of testimony yesterday was the first day of arguments and the focus is around the european arrest warrant system now songes attorneys are concentrating on the judicial off the already of the prosecutor and the lower court who initially approve the request warrant now keep in mind the european judicial

system is different than how the american and british courts operate so it's not just lawyers argue that anybody who's tied to law enforcement in this case the swedish prosecutor is too familiar with the situation to make an unbiased decision about what his next move should be legal adviser jennifer robinson explains it pretty well. it seems like a rather simple point into a string you know british it seems very straight food of course a prosecutor cannot be judicial authority by the potus and a member of the executive and cannot be independent or impartial particularly when in this case the prosecutor is in fact a party to the proceedings. now robinson echoes the same argument the defense attorney diana rose made she also went on to explain how the arrest warrant system is built on trust and streamlining of those types of proceedings could mean that a songe won't get the trial that he deserves day two of this hearing was filled with more arguments regarding judicial off already and the european arrest warrant system while the defense team used several examples to argue their point of the unfair conditions facing us on according to reports the prosecution on the side of

sweden seemed to have trouble making their case according to the guardian and tweets of those watching the proceedings clear montgomery was having trouble making an argument stumbling over answers to the lords of the supreme court and at one point even labeled the hearing as legal fun and games and we can take supporters share their disgust on twitter saying things like this is the moment in the cartoon where the grand piano falls from the ceiling and squashes the troll referring to claire montgomery some tweeters simply refer to the prosecutor as monte saying this day with monte is so embarrassing and everything points to monte doing her damnedest to lose today in a big way now those thoughts are according to supporters of but the question now remains where the swerve the swedes wrong to approve this european arrest warrant will take anywhere between a month to three to find out what the lord's decide but meanwhile jennifer robinson explains what's at stake in this hearing. if he doesn't win it means that anyone can be extradited from the u.k. be arrested prince attention at the behest of any prosecutor anywhere in europe we

don't having to show any evidence without being charged and without proper judicial oversight. so if assad is extradited to sweden he may also have to temporarily temporarily surrender to the u.s. to face charges stemming from his organization wiki leaks sharing thousands of diplomatic cables and more with the world so for now it's a waiting game until we find out the fate of julian assault. all right so let's get back to secretary of defense leon panetta as announcement yesterday by mid two thousand and thirteen u.s. and nato troops will be ending their combat role in afghanistan this is more than a year before the scheduled with for all the end of two thousand and fourteen and according to reports they doubts what took the afghan army and government by surprise just because the combat role is over does not mean the troops will be there or that they won't be in harm's way and as of yet no exact figures have been given for how many troops will be heading out by the middle of next year but how should we look at it are we finally admitting that the best we can really do as a pack our bags and leave joining me to discuss this is robert farley sr professor

at the university of kentucky and blogger lawyers guns and money robert thanks so much for joining us tonight i guess first i just want to get your reaction were you surprised at this announcement by panetta i feel like up until this point twenty fourteen is seem like a pretty solid deadline. but you know i was surprised. i was surprised that there's so much talk about well so much talk especially in the military has been about the possibility of expanding the timeline beyond two thousand and fourteen so it was interesting right away to see sort of earlier today from spencer ackerman that they might accelerate the timeline and then without it coming out and confirming to us actually that nato was going to be leaving its combat mission in two thousand and thirteen i thought you got a very surprising all right so what do we make of this movie now how do we really read into it if they finally decided or suddenly decided to accelerate it does that mean that they're giving up they decide is better to leave. you know it's really hard to say you know on the one hand the administration may have seen that there

was a significant enough process of progress and that also there's been some progress in terms of negotiations with the taliban and that they can move it up and you know this is also a wonderful political announcement for them to have because nobody really likes the afghan war anymore but on the other hand they may simply have decided that there is nothing left to be done that there's there's just not much point to try to a try the way the taliban in eastern afghanistan for another year and that we might as well die and things over to the afghans sooner or later. do you believe the reports that say the afghan officials were taken by surprise you think if they would come up with this kind of decision without telling them. i doubt that they would completely go up and you know they completely try to surprise that the afghans on this but i think that the afghan government is also just a bit dysfunctional and by a bit i think i mean a lot dysfunctional and so it's certainly possible that they talked to some people in the afghan government and other people in the afghan government were completely

out of the loop and us were completely surprised by the you know it's a bit so i would be surprised if the. depiction of surprise was entirely genuine from the officials that they talk to are and then i guess maybe you could say that it's part of the game that they're playing right. so much of that we've heard about negotiations with the taliban and the taliban setting up an office and to tara in the u.s. negotiate with them there but without afghanistan being involved and then we had karzai now saying that he's going to personally go to saudi arabia to meet with the taliban to negotiate there how do you really see what's going on there. i mean i think that we are through this sending a message that not only the taliban but also to our client state in afghanistan there's a tremendous amount of frustration with the progress of status making and all sorts of governance. and you know we've seen this recently in terms of global attacks against against french soldiers against american soldiers and against other westerners in afghanistan and this is

a way of indicating to the government that there are multiple tracks that we can approach with regards to how we're going to leave and what we're going to leave behind it ok so as you mentioned that there have been whispers here that perhaps part of the deal if there are going to be negotiations with the taliban is that five prisoners or detainees are going to be taken out of guantanamo bay and josh rogin over at the cable foreign policy was reporting that parallel yesterday senior obama administration officials are meeting with senior senators to discuss this but from what. he it took from a release from speaking to john mccain a few others outside was that this is only going to happen if these detainees are still then going to be held in qatar so the idea is not that they're just going to be released and go free but what do you think the chances are of that right i mean why would the taliban want these guys transferred to qatar if they didn't think that there's a chance that they might let them go. only if they were told there's a greater chance that they'll eventually be let go that if they're in the united states the second thing is i think that going to automobile has become as we all

know a very important element. not just how about what we're going to sort of wider american propaganda and so being able to argue that we have rescued people from this facility and move them to qatar even if they remain under lock and key to talk i think you could paint those a significant as a significant victory you know i know that republicans in congress are going to paint it as a major defeat for the administration even if the people remain in qatar glaucon key rights are there some political value to having them into talk which is something that would get well not to mention of course we already have them playing up yesterday when james clapper was testifying earlier this week they were asking him if these five people as assessed before were some of the worst some of the most dangerous there should not be released and he basically reiterated that statement but i also want to bring up something that came out yesterday which was this in a leaked reports from the u.s. military that was given to nato that basically said that the taliban that the

pakistanis are very intimately involved with the taliban and that the taliban is assuming that they're going to take over control again as soon as the u.s. leaves those things really i mean is it really shocking when you hear that the taliban in pakistan are working other closely if you like those are things that we can hear thrown around all the time now right i think that you know everybody. it reveals anything it's that we have very clear evidence that. the i.s.i. is supporting the taliban. you know well it was really great out to a nato. doing a nato meeting is sort of an interesting message that the united states is trying to send to the rest of nato right now and it may be that either it's time to get up and go or the nato needs to reaffirm its commitment for at least one more year all right so quickly too clearly just because

a combat role is going to be ending does not mean that u.s. troops will be leaving they'll still be advising assisting what do you think if you had to make a guess that timeline is going to be like that how many troops are going to be left after twenty thirty. well sixty thousand are going to be there at the beginning of two thousand and thirteen my wager would be that would mean we may see that fall as far as by half by by middle of two thousand and thirteen in the maybe a little bit more after that and into the twenty's and teens by two thousand and fourteen i mean we went down very fast in iraq when we finally began to walk drawing troops ok and then any comments on the air strike that was a u.s. assisted airstrike today in the philippines they say took out their number one terrorist target i mean i mentioned this is the top of our show to the we've had special ops forces about hundreds of them since two thousand and two but do you think we're just going to start seeing more of these. so really i mean what from what it was fantastic news because these were terrorists who were involved with the bali bombing apparently but it also means that countries that are friendly with the

united states can have drones flying over that are not necessarily going to fire the missiles themselves but are going to help the host country fire the missiles against the rebels and the terrorists that they have a very interesting development from the point of view of military technology. our robber well i thank you so much for joining us tonight and i guess we'll have to wait and see until we finally do get some numbers but all in all you know i think it's good news at least that u.s. troops will be coming home sooner thanks to you thanks for having me. coming up tonight we have thursdays edition of show and tell and then ben bernanke he is warning that the u.s. might be following in greece's footsteps and comes from a deficit that is just trying to scare us when asked professor and author william black after the break. wealthy british style it's time to. go.