today on our t.v. we're following breaking news out of london of wiki leaks founder julian assange has taken refuge and i quote or is embassy and is now asking for political asylum in the south american country we'll have the latest developments next. there's no benefit for us to be picking sony it's secretly providing assistance in encouraging civil strife in an effort to effect regime change in syria and while the mass media strays from the facts ron paul isn't afraid to come from the syrian conflict head on so who's really provoking the civil unrest will fact check the cable for cable news reports. and while the mainstream media squares off with the pressure by sea

venezuela is taking to the air unveiling its first drone straight ahead we'll have more on the game of drones racing to rule the sky. it's tuesday june nineteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. but we begin this hour with breaking news out of london ecuador's foreign minister says wiki leaks founder julian assange is now seeking political asylum at its embassy in london at a press conference today in quito foreign minister ricardo patino so the government is now evaluating the request and looking into the rules of international law as well as ecuador as policy to safeguard human rights and the songes plea he argues that it is a quote regrettable factual statement of abandonment received by the authorities of my country australia which state that they will. defender even my minimum

guarantees to any government and delegated to the constitution of a foreign country that applies the death penalty for the crime of espionage and treason and the guarantee is it offers to its nationals ignoring the obligation to protect its citizens who are persecuted politically and it goes on there now all of this comes just one week after the supreme court of the u.k. rejected a bed by guess on his attorney to reopen the extradition case joining me now for the latest on this case is our very own artsy web producer andrew blake andrew blake thanks for being here in the studio to get through to keep us updated on this story i know the developments are just rapidly coming out and changing happening with a lot of seems to be full of unexpected it moves it does this come as a as a surprise i mean it comes a surprise to me today we knew that the appeal was was shot down we knew that astonish or at least a bunch of people were saying a songe is going to do something you know you appeal the appeal to appealed and you

know if you just bring everyone up to date what this all comes down to was ever since two thousand and ten joined us on has been under house arrest in london he has been accused of sex crimes in sweden and has been awaiting extradition there and the big thing here is sweden wants to take us anjan they want to question him and perhaps charge him with these crimes however once assad goes to sweden there's very little stopping the united states from getting an extradition out of sweden getting a songe bring him here and then trying him for his role in wiki leaks aiding the enemy all of the whistleblower crap that a lot of people love about julian assad but united states not so much did catch a lot of people off guard today that ecuador was a place you know to go into the ecuadorian embassy in london to to seek political refuge but in the world tomorrow joining us on the show only weeks ago assad was speaking with president korea of ecuador and they actually have a lot in common. they're both. have

a lot of opinions about press about free press about the and to to corporate sponsored journalism and they have a lot of similar takes on on it and have both opposed to us media purposes so it's not that big of a surprise that a songe wants to go to ecuador what i think is going to be the real surprise because we really don't know if they're going to take him in and he said this is still this is new information we really don't know where he's going to go from here and that's i think i mean what motivation is there for ecuador it's a grant that asylum being the nice guy maybe ecuador just wants to help out they're going to seems like they get pretty cozy having at having developed some kind of a relationship you know in amish out just just a few weeks ago and one present day i was on and he was speaking to a songe he was just on the why why did you want to release the ecuadorian cables on wiki leaks because they did you know a lot of countries in the united states for instance are still freaking out over all the international cables that have been released and i don't mind i got think

of this down before a while in here a minute ago. prison chris said those who don't those who don't know anything i have nothing to fear so we have nothing to hide we're ok with getting this material out there because i don't run a corrupt government i don't do that i want people to know what's happening it's transparency that you don't see with a lot of other governments i'm not going to name names but those in korea was you know trying to make a point that you know i'm ok with what's going on and he's been a huge proponent for the free media in ecuador going back years now and he actually was kidnapped a few years ago and he says it was a response to his he was taking against the media in ecuador and he says you know in the interview if you watch it on the show president correa says that only a few years ago when he first came into the office there's something like there were seven television networks seven national television networks in ecuador five of them were owned by banks and. not necessarily saying that you need to have state

run media to get the point across to saying we can't have these people that control the money that control the policy also controlling the media it's a lot what we've seen all over the world you know news corp for instance you know rupert murdoch has you know the australian in australia obviously and then all the papers in the u.k. they have wall street journal here. and we get you know people who you know billionaires and millionaires that are back in the information and that are releasing it and assad is obviously trying to create this transparency that president korea is all about so it's not that big of a surprise that he would choose ecuador maybe surprising for someone like you or me who is you know maybe not up to snuff on our lead american politics but it makes sense in the grand scheme of things and you know he has kind of become this figure that he's loved by some hated by others some demonize him for releasing these cables and letting out these secret some people saying that they have and you're

u.s. security and. and the thing is at this point he hasn't formally been charged yet but some people say that this attack on julian assad is also an attack on whistleblowers. like you're saying assange still hasn't been charged with these sex crimes in sweden if he goes there you know which before today was looking likely the think the extradition was going to start any time after june twenty eighth i believe if you go to sweden and they do charge him yes they can exit into the u.s. and the big smoking gun here is during the recent bradley manning hearings over and for meade maryland what they were able to make a connection between bradley manning the police contributor and the son if they were able to tie the two together in court documents and they're trying to pin manning with this aiding the enemy charge that could put him behind jail for the rest of his life for taking important information that a lot of people said needed to be out there and allegedly handing it over to wiki leaks so. for handing him that information they want to put him away for life for

a songe to go ahead and publish that kind of kind of tutted in the face of america and all the other western nations you know if he gets extradited here they are going to tar and feather the guy practically least that's what what you would think given the way that obama is continuously going after whistleblowers and just the entire administration this whole obama leaks services with the leak story that we're seeing now the new information coming out about how the stuxnet virus was leaked out of the white house and there's so much going on right now just in last couple of weeks about whistleblowers and information coming out of washington and washington trying to stop it and they will do whatever they can to do that so if they can get us on here and they can and with the leaks they absolutely will i'm willing to bet that that that will be it you know luckily there's hacktivists that will always try to to propel what he's done over the last couple years. but if he gets to sweden i think the free press international is going to

a lot of trouble you know i just received an interesting little tidbit of information here apparently julian assad was offered citizenship back in two thousand and ten in the country of ecuador so it seems like this relationship hasn't exactly nearly blossomed yeah you know it's been a it's been a busy couple of years for mr assad i think just last month he hit the five hundred day mark of being under house arrest and now he's in australia national currently living in england facing extradition to sweden then perhaps the u.s. and right now he's thinking of going to ecuador it's a very busy guy even if he's stuck you know in his modest house but you know his mother a few months ago his mother told the press that she even says that if he goes to sweden he's going to be sent to the u.s. and they will torture him those are her words they will tortured out of him we already know what happened to bradley manning we already know what happens with these and it had. techniques that they used on alleged terrorists and terrorists guantanamo all of the. disgusting will they torture him i don't know i really hope

not but it's obvious that ecuador does make sense in the grand scheme of things president particularly has been incredibly responsive to mr songs over the last few years and at this point all we're really waiting on is seeing if the embassy is going to approve and so on and he had any idea how long that would take to get that approval no idea i mean we only found out this news it only came in off the wire less than two hours ago and. i'm no expert on are seeking political asylum contrary to popular belief have never actually had to do that so i can't tell you precisely how long it would take but i think the story is going to be developing and without a doubt over the next couple of hours i'm sure iraq a mission that certainly what we can say for him for sure is a lot of controversy absolutely there's got a lot more controversy coming had andrew blake thank you so much for keeping us updated course of this very important developing story and half as our producer and your blake thank you we turn now to a media ship storm over russian vessels that were believed to be headed for syria

at least that's what reports what have you think. this is tracking this russian military cargo ship as it makes its way to syria carrying weapons ammunition and troops does attack helicopters that are now off the coast of the united kingdom coming from russia headed to syria but they're held there right now it almost reminds me you know of sort of a cuban missile crisis kind of moment with major combat elements larry i'm told air assault division combined arms division the marines from the black sea fleet are on their way to syria right now. by russia's defense ministry has refuted reports that any of its landing craft are heading to syria this as media coverage claims a ship allegedly carrying helicopters to the conflict torn country was stopped off the coast of scotland republican presidential candidate ron paul who has consistently condemned military intervention overseas has such attacks and

accusations as a war propaganda here he is talking about on the house for house floor today there is no benefit for us to be picking sides secretly providing assistance in encouraging civil strife in an effort to effect regime change in syria falsely charging the russians with supplying military helicopters to assad is an unnecessary publication falsely blaming the assad government for a so-called massacre perpetrated by a violent warring faction rebel faction is nothing more then war propaganda. from our and that's our to his alexy chefs has the details. a russian ship bound for allegedly bound for syria named al yet was stopped at the coast of scotland by the request of the british government its insurance was canceled and despite that this has not been confirmed by the russian defense ministry nor by anyone else the western media have already came up with allegations and headlines that this ship

was carrying helicopters to syria to assad's regime in the conflict zone now definitely this is not the first time that the western media has come up with such allegations because we've heard about two russian ships of the black sea fleet which are ready to sail towards syria now c.n.n. and n.b.c. and many other stations came up with with their reports last week believing that these ships were already on their way to syria and those many conservatives in the west especially that russia would be aiding regime in the conflict now russia has been firmly denying all such accusations saying that it's not being taking any sides and that the fact that those two ships will be probably sailing to syria it's only to protect the russian base in the town of those the only one of the only russian bases remaining in that region which is has a very serious strategic importance for most of the western media again especially

in the u.s. made a huge story out of it that the russia is supplying assad's regime with weaponry but it's as i said not the first time we just heard another story that some media reported that military exercise involving iran syria china will be held somewhere in syria in the next couple of weeks these reports were also turned into a mass hysteria by the media saying that russia is playing a dangerous game in the syrian backyard but this also has already been denounced by the russian defense ministry which said that no such games are possible in a conflict zone which syria so much in the is at the moment so this is definitely an all out information war not something we're completely not used to. we just have to wait and see what's on their stories and what all this insatiable that was the media produced as i've said russia has been denying any involvement in supplying assad's regime with weaponry and for me stands on its position that it's not taking any sides and that it's not doing anything wrong from the international border view

. that was our correspondent alexy. well signs that it international race is brewing to dominate the skies with the drones and it's well it has unveiled its first manned aircraft president hugo chavez announced the country made the drone in partnership with iran russia and china here it is it is thirteen feet long ten feet wide this drone reportedly can soar at three thousand feet for ninety minutes at a time and it doesn't carry any weapons but it can go on night flights and take photographs and video so that's just the first to be unveiled by venezuela but they don't have anything on the u.s. as massive drone program the u.s. is the largest producer and most frequent user of the unmanned aircraft with a fleet of over seven thousand drones and the u.s. just unveiled yet another one take a look at it. there's a monster of a drone was revealed recently in california it's

a broad area maritime surveillance drone or bams as it's called it has a wingspan of more than one hundred thirty feet and can soar at eleven miles high for thirty hours and it's time but what really makes this drone different is that it allows the navy to monitor and track ships in the open sea something other drones have difficulty doing so clearly other countries have a lot of catching up to do but with other nations wanting to mimic the u.s. as drone program could we see an international race to rule the skies to talk about this is retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor welcome to the show douglas so would you say that there is a. the global rush to for countries to create drones absolutely without question the unmanned aircraft industry is boomed in the united states is going to boom internationally it's a critical countermeasure frankly speaking if you're dealing with us and that's why

you see so many nations that have from time to time not had the best relations with us invest heavily in them the good news for the united states is that the principal competitors the chinese and the russians have turned out to have enormous difficulty reverse engineering our work so everyone is a long distance behind the united states in terms of its capabilities as you pointed out so well this one is the first one that first drawn out of venice wella that they just unveiled so can we expect more from them in other countries in the near future is going to take a while for them to catch on i think it's caught on it's question is technology how much of it can they get their hands on and how rapidly can they develop and field these things in the answers turned out to be not very quickly so we're going to see more of it particularly with people like chavez sure we know that the drug cartels in mexico already flooded them so you know there's utility in this technology for criminality as well as nation states and we're going to see more of it but your

viewers need to keep in mind these capabilities are not difficult to defeat the one that you just described the broad area maritime surveillance system that's different at eleven miles and thirty hours in durance and so forth but the one that mr chavez says is very easily defeated and that's the standard in most places these days you can you can either interrupt or destroy the optics you can interfere with the signal and these things are very short duration they're very fragile so the bottom line is that for the moment our lead is profound is likely to remain profound for some time to come right and that you know we just saw the photo from that drone in venice wella but the state department spokesperson said quote the venezuelans make lots of extravert. claims and so did the iranians. plying their look on in venezuela or fifth great powers and quite frankly neither are in a position to present any real threat to the united states venezuela's threat to the united states is not drones it's his conduct to vittie to islamize terrorist

group city hosts in the country his backing of the illegal drugs and human trafficking into the united states he's very involved with that so in that sense mr chavez is a threat but again these are not acts especial threats. and that's why this particular drone is not a major leap forward militarily for them and we are seeing the use of drones on the pakistani afghan and border now we're seeing more countries racing to make their own would you say about drones are the the warfare of the future well or drones are not very different from machine guns before world war one machine guns if you had them you were victorious if you didn't you lost and you took terrible losses the japanese discovered that the british found that their their colonial warfare and so on they won world war one came along the british lost enormous numbers of people to german machine gun fire so i think that's what you're seeing and these drones are actually more lethal in terms of the reconnaissance and surveillance information

they provide than the munitions they can fire that said we're going to see armed drones and they're going to be used by the way against u.s. forces in the future we're going to have to adjust the way we do business and wanted to talk a little bit more about drones and why what makes them so special yes they are unmanned about what what makes them more do what makes them so different from any other aircraft. well you understand something that whenever you use something that's not manned that means that a person is not at risk and that's very attractive particularly inside the united states the body of the american population is not supportive of these overseas interventions the electorate has largely walked away from the interventions in iraq and afghanistan every single day that passes more people want us out so if you're trying to stay and keep these things going you want to attack without the risk of losing people and that's what makes the drone if you will so attractive and that is

that that's exactly yet proponents of john say that they are able to pinpoint their targets and because of that prevent massive loss of collateral damage. what do you make of that argument whether collateral damages is up for debate i mean obviously we've launched strikes and we've killed more than we set out to more people have died and more damage has been done that we had desired or sought but look at this whole issue right now is problematic inside the united states we say we're killing all of these dangerous people and yet more and more dangerous people seem to emerge in other words when you make a dent by sort of targeting people from a distance and killing them so i think we are we're actually cultivating lots of enemies as opposed to necessarily eliminating the ball and the second point is who are these people we don't really know you and i can't talk about it we're not privileged to that kind of information do these people represent an immediate threat to the united states and its interests i don't know but i have suspicions

that in many cases if these people were not killed it wouldn't make a great deal of difference to us our problems in the united states had to do with our failure to secure our borders our failures to deal with immigration both legal and illegal we don't really control it we have too many people united states we don't know who they are don't know where they came from we don't track them these are these are far more important than anything going on in afghanistan or pakistan and by the way. we've done enormous damage in pakistan not so much in terms of killing people but we've contributed to the instability in that country and we've cultivated real resistance and hostility to us so well with that in mind that the use of repeated use of these drones on the afghan and afghanistan and pakistan to what extent the extent have drones been affected vary and achieving our foreign policy goals depends on who you talk to and unfortunately it's hard to tell to be perfectly blunt i haven't to feel that we should scale this back because i don't think it's helped us enormously not on that not on the level that is claimed again

whatever you bark on a military operation you always ask the question you know to how much do i gain and how much do i lose you have to measure one by the other i don't think we've ever done that i think we've assumed that if we killed somebody that was on the list that were successful were we what difference does it make and these people are rapidly replaced but do you think a instead of using drones if the you if the us use more traditional forms of warfare let's say you know planes are bombers in those cases that would have resulted in mars' of civilian casualties it might have you know again the old ayton which is very old technology now it's actually very very accurate and has been used at a great several miles away to pinpoint. enemies and take them out so and there was no collateral damage in many cases so i don't think that's the sort of the case again the drone is attractive because there is no one it is going to be shot down

that's going to end up in enemy hands it's going to expose you if you will the problem is most of the technology we're using flies low and slow and in the future if we confront real enemies with armies air forces air defenses they're not going to work as well as we think. so we're going to have to improve our technology as well now looking ahead to the future of this trend of drones of countries racing to create drones and more countries get a hold of them what that what the world look like in terms of a military international affairs well what's the world look like since the russians acquired nuclear weapons and then the chinese according to their weapons what is that meant to be perfectly blunt it's create a certain amount of stability. their words it's made it very difficult for us to go to war with each other because the consequences of doing so are so negative for everyone now i'm not sure that i would compare nuclear weapons with drones but think of it in those terms that if you know that your adversary has a capability that once you monopolised that changes your calculus it changes the

risk it causes you to rethink the wisdom of what you're doing and so now we are or it was seeing this in venezuela who do you think is next i mean the the us it is way way way ahead of the game i know israel is as another big player when it comes to drones who else there. is kind of catching up are who we should look out for well not everybody who's invested in this technology in developed it is hostile to the united states in the west or to anyone i would argue that the germans have many very fine drones that have many much utility militarily they don't necessarily proliferate them but this technology will pollute proliferate it's undoubtedly going to end up in the hands of criminal organizations we already know that the drug cartels have some but they're not armed and they're limited utility but nevertheless they're there there's so much money available to invest in these things in foreign states that i would expect to see these proliferate across

the middle east southwest asia north east asia friends and potential adversaries will have these with the next ten to fifteen years of different as we pointed out some will be very dangerous and some will not but they will proliferate and that will change the way you do business militarily and i thought that i was kind of an interesting point that you brought up earlier that they could even be used as a way to promote peace or are prevent war which they promote peace but if you've got the capability to reach out penetrate your potential opponents here space for us is us and your forces on the ground are now no longer immune to attack because you can reach out and touch them what does that mean to the force on the ground changes the way that force. to posture how she quipped how it operates but also causes people in washington or in any great cab to say before we send forces there perhaps we should rethink the risks involved because the enemy is no longer incapable of striking back we forget the united states since two thousand and one

we haven't fought anybody with an army and air force your defenses that makes a huge difference right i guess to get the game changes when your adversary is also as well equipped douglas thank you so much for coming in the studio is a pleasure as as always that was retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor. well coming up next on our roads here is the capital account with our leicester let's check in with florence to see what is on today's agenda laura and what he working on over there well live what can i say your guest mentioned the germans so hey let's talk about them on our show the germans and the greeks they face off in soccer tomorrow for any euro cup bans but they face off a lot more frequently in the debt crisis but what's missing from the mainstream media's characterization is the new wants the detail it's brushed over with platitudes and stereotypes so we're really going to break it down in depth on capital count in just a few minutes that is coming up and much more on the capital account next lauren

thank you for the update but that's going to do it now for the news from one of the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash artsy america back here in a half hour. i urge. the.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. shank operations are on the day. six.