today on our table the waiting game continues julian assange is tucked away inside the ecuadorian embassy in london awaiting an answer to his plea for political asylum just a few steps away london authorities are waiting to arrest him in extradite him to sweden it's a tense standoff where the week wiki leaks founder we'll bring you the latest. plus ticking toward increased interest rates american students might be coughing up more money on their student loans in the near future if congress doesn't act fast but could the answer to student debt problems be found outside the u.s. border well explore. there may be as many as thirty thousand drones flying in u.s. twenty twenty which is a huge number basically you know one every town searching for

a booming business to invest in just look up drone programs are flying high and so are the profits of the companies making them will take it to california the land of surveillance screens as well as the silver screen. it's thursday june twenty first four pm here in washington d.c. washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well he is the world's most famous whistleblower and he's seeking asylum now at an ecuadorian embassy it's another twist in the case of wiki leaks founder julian assange that has captured international attention and a last ditch effort to prevent extradition to sweden a songe now waits to hear ecuador will grant him asylum he hasn't been charged for anything yet but the ultimate fear for him is to end up in the u.s.

are the correspondent sara firth brings us the latest on this case from london. held under house arrest and oppressed by the government in an effort to silence a pro-democracy message to the public but we're not talking about famous political dissident song suchi she's now free and being warmly welcomed by the british government we're talking about a western explain and a freedom of speech the charges of of imported games julian assange that he still spent more than five hundred days under house arrest fighting extradition to sweden and possibly the u.s. now he's desperately hoping ecuador in the safe haven see the latest dramatic twist in the case of julian assange has once again caught the eye of the world's media behind the ecuadorian embassy those julian assange takes recchi that away from the height and his supporters say that this is a dark a tale of a man he's been abandoned by his own country persecuted by the u.s.

and failed by the u.k.'s legal system but he's not looking for consular assistance he's looking for political and diplomatic assistance and he's looking for the government to stand up for him the son just fights it's been a long one eighteen months of legal wrangling in the case resulted in the rejection of his supreme court appeal against extradition to sweden what this was about was one gets extradited to sweden he's in prison in sweden the next thing that happens is the u.s. assuming there's an indictment largest extradition warrant in sweden eventually the u.s. gets his hands on him they stick him in a prison in the united states fears of what might await him across the atlantic may well have prompted his latest i think you'll end up actually the united states facing very serious charge probably life in prison if not the death penalty and it will be a stacked court against those who are seeing with the bradley manning case united states now has kangaroo courts rather than will courts these on time founded

concerns as a long list of u.s. biggest. it's not only for songes incarceration even for his death this guy is a traitor treasonous and he has broken every law of the united states the guy ought to be and i'm not for the death penalty so i'm not for the death penalty want to do it illegally shoot the son of a and his why because of his work with wiki leaks this guy has made some powerful enemies you know the collateral murder video shows american helicopter gunships shooting reporters the iraq war logs the afghan war diaries all of this cable guy leaks has embarrassed american british governments freedom fighting in the twenty first century is a whole new ball game new rules you play is an unexpected even for songes legal team this was a complete surprise so we found out about it on twitter and say the man he revolutionised with and three wiki leaks released groundbreaking stories has in

another twist become the story himself and there are many now heaping that the next big really will be julian assange himself so if. london. well our very own web producer andrew blake has been following the case closely and joins me now with the latest nice to see you and your oh so and so he seems to be walking on eggshells over there to see what happens if he steps outside right now if you leave he is more or less there is no there is no asylum yet ecuador has not said that they're going to approve his request or they're going to deny it authorities in england are pissed they they want him they've always wanted him that's why he's been under lock and key for the last five hundred and something days even though there are no charges against him they want him they want to send to sweden they want him well that's and to america because we

want him if the second that he leaves there's already authorities outside. right outside of the ecuadorian embassy in london there are police waiting for a sausage if he goes into a car they will stop that car right now pretty much the only thing that you can do is sit there and wait for the president of ecuador to make a decision in the meantime he is pretty much just the that is the only saying sure he has inside that building on pending the approval or rejection of the plan or a well it sounds like he's a very wanted man on many fronts any word on if ecuador will grant him this asylum it's a it's a question of lawyers in the u.k. . who are trying to prosecute him who aren't very keen on the whole thing they. they think that he will be locked up and that it's not going to be granted. and we're done day three right now in this whole thing and we know that president correa of ecuador has a couple things in common with the saudis they both have

a lot of the same thoughts on the free press the both have a lot of similar thoughts on the united states to the he's present korea has has come out in the last day and he said a couple of things about assad if i may like he said yesterday during a televised interview on that they're going to take their own time because this is a very serious matter he said that he got to songes plea he said that he was impressed by it he said he was going to consider it and one things that he said is that when assad gets there assad just plant if astonish is going to refuge assad wants to continue with the leaks there because he wants to continue his mission of free expression without limits to reveal the truth and a place of peace dedicated to truth and justice and we know that president korea was on joining us on this program here on our t.v. a few weeks back and what the president korea was saying was that journalism outside of of ecuador is trying to screw right now and he's all about people like

assad going out there and releasing information that exposes corrupt governments ecuador is all. about that a sonnet is all about it would make perfect sense for korea to take a sonic in however it's more than just two guys you know becoming friends and being buddy buddy and saying oh yeah this can work out great you know obviously has to do with international relations involving knowledge just not just ecuador and the u.k. but then you also have sweden and obviously the united states so there is it's more than just you know this bad guy in his weekly leaks and ecuador you know thinking oh do we don't we it's more than than just a simple yes or no because we like what he does it has more now to do with the international relations involving all of these nations and it's going to have big impacts for everyone and because you know this is all kind of intertwined we have a lot of countries that are involved in this now could occur ecuador be afraid of breaking ties and breaking relationships with the u.k. and the e.u.

i mean they could but the way i mean this is just my opinion but korea he is not a fan of the united states and he is kind of like his own guy you know there was a thing back a few years ago we could weeks cable came out that kind of exposed the u.s. ambassador to ecuador as being kind of a jerk crazy got pissed korea fired the ambassador center out of there the ecuadorian investor the u.s. was removed from that position. sent the u.s. military out of a ecuadorian base he's gone on time and time again to to oppose a lot of american policies especially those are being pushed on the united states he's not the kind of guy that's just going to sit back and take it like korea even though he's just some you know president of a small and american country he means business and he's not going to let the united states or the e.u. or anyone really you know have their way with him right now he's he's made a point the last couple of years in office of saying that he's going to do what

a democratic you know good nation should you know he loves we can expose we can lead. exposing corruption he said that practically verbatim but you know if you have nothing to hide that's great in ecuador has nothing to hide if it means severing ties with the u.k. and he's already severed ties with the us and you know america you know we're supposed to be everybody's buddy right here we're always there to save the day that's that's what you're told you're all apparently a mate maybe he might not care about being our buddy i guess we'll have to wait and find out but you know it seems like as andrea's biggest fear is ending up in the u.s. why could that be a possible worst case scenario for him well once he gets here he's as good as i mean more or less we have we have bradley manning behind bars right now for i mean just as long practically since for two years now for allegedly aiding with x. and if he's convicted of those charges he could face life in prison and in these.

hearings you had recently about the whole manning case they were able to talk to manning in with a songe they have court records allegedly i'm sorry computer records that show that manning uploaded videos and documents to wiki leaks they have communication that allegedly ties with the leaks to manny if they can put manning behind bars for the so-called aiding the enemy. if they can put him behind bars for life for uploading these files to isaan just computer just network for if they can charge a songe with releasing these you know they can they can get rid of the guy that's one the reasons he wants ecuador to is ecuador has no death penalty the both sides have have discussed already looking at it met the man and what's been going on with him in is kind of afraid that that is the precedent for what he is facing should he you know absolutely anybody here you have to keep in mind that a son hasn't been charged with anything by anyone yet right now this whole thing

comes down to a son she. he's right now in england awaiting possible extradition to sweden where he hasn't been charged with anything if he gets to sweden he could be extra to the u.s. where he hasn't been charged with anything you know songes hiding in an embassy for three days but no one has charged him with anything he's just sitting there waiting because a lot of people don't like what he's doing but luckily a lot of people do those people there waiting outside the embassy right now they've been sharing form they've been railing on the internet all over the world and you know we heard that there might be a decision today whether or not they're going to grant him asylum but nothing is confirmed yet as far as like a timeframe so we kind of have to wait and see what happens all right well i guess the waiting game continues and we'll just have to wait and see to find out andrew thanks for keeping us updated great to have you on as always that was our our t. web producer andrew blake thanks liz so we've talked about his latest plea for

political asylum in ecuador he says that if he's extradited to sweden then there is a good possibility that end up in the u.s. and his statement to the ecuadorian embassy he went on to say that australia will not fulfill its obligation to protect its citizens from a country that applies the death penalty for six feet under ground you should be put in jail or worse hanged in a public forum i wonder if you would have added this gem to the conversation back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain. and those are certainly aren't the only examples of notable americans begging for a songes blood here's a short list of some of the others who have an off with his head mentality former adviser to canadian prime minister stephen harper thomas flanagan washington times columnist jeffery kuhn or former white house adviser gordon liddy that's just to name a few. well millions of college grads saddled with student loan debt and. that burden

light just get worse starting in july that's a congress doesn't get its act together and stop interest rates on government subsidized loans from doubling this as students that do graduate can't find jobs fifty four percent of them are unemployed or under employed and check out these sobering statistics out of the bureau of labor one hundred fifteen thousand janitors today have bachelor's degree is eighty three thousand bartenders three hundred twenty three thousand restaurant servers and eighty thousand truck drivers all of them working these jobs with a college degree and they are among the millions that how fallen into the student debt aware of the pursuit of the american dream gone wrong and with so many students crippled with that how could that impact our already troubled economy to talk about this sam knight producer of the alona show is here to weigh in and

welcome sam thank you for having me i know that you kind of have an interesting story you went to canada for college that's right well i don't know if it's really that interesting but you know i have i went to an international school here in d.c. and i had friends who all their friends who had sort of gone who went to mcgill university in montreal and they told me i should visit and check it out and i did and i decided. to get in the institution where i was and why did you want to go outside of the u.s. it was was it not worth it for you or your parents to invest in they have to price tags of some of the schools here in the last well i did applied to schools in the u.s. some of them quite expensive i didn't get into the others also expensive i did get into and others you know moderately priced and i got into but i thought really overall. sort of represented the best value for money. it was

a great experience living in a city. such is montreal you know obviously it wasn't perfect but i thought overall it was you know and would you say the quality of education there where it's not as expensive as it is just as good as the quality of education you would get here in the u.s. i'm hardly an expert and you know i didn't go to a university in the u.s. so i don't really have anything to compare it to but. you know a lot of my american friends who went there in doing you know just perfectly fine for themselves some of them are down in haiti doing development work they've got on the law school i have a friend who's sort of been jet setting around asia. on business and you know friends as well american friends went to me go here in washington and you know working in journalism and working on the hill and doing other things so that was sounds like this is a decision that you're happy that you're that you made and it's

a decision which has now allowed you to be debt free unlike a lot of college students well yeah i mean you know i don't want to pretend like i took the burden myself i mean my parents where you know very they were kind enough to pay for my education but. you know i was speaking about it to my mom today and she was just remarking about how. you know that was one aspect of it that she really like you know they could sort of pay it off as i went and you know i did deal with less guilt of burdening my parents with you know. unreasonable amount of debt absolutely and it's a burden that millions of americans are facing today and want to talk to you a little bit about your college experience that's here in the u.s. no common college college has kind of become synonymous with binge drinking and partying out there studying and there there's also a lot of partying going on is this the case so over there in canada will certainly i mean. you know one of the perks of going to university and come back is the

drinking age there is eighteen. i believe when i was there playboy named mcgill university one of its top ten party schools there's also freshman orientation called frosh where you know the school sort of sanctions these events where you know a lot of drinking going goes on because it's a legal. but that said i think it's in some ways better to sort of situation the united states where you have a. all these fraternities with so much power and a lot of the shady stuff going on inside these for eternity is not to mention you know it's illegal in these kids could have to worry about half the court finds and things like that for doing things that college kids everywhere do which is you know consume alcohol it's not a big deal but you know just to bring it back to montreal they're you know you're going out to bars you're doing it in more social settings obviously you know drinking to excess happen of course it does and you know. things happen but i think

overall the culture there is more adult i would say than the one there may be less for a bit in elements where a hear me you're not allowed to do is that kids are more tempted to do it whereas over there it's allowed so maybe don't go crazy i mean that could be the case but i mean again they do have their share of fun up in montreal so i. wanted to get your take on the massive the maple spring as it's called over in canada thousands and thousands of students taking to the streets protesting tuition hikes and what they're protesting is not nearly as high as some of the fees the cost of tuition here in the u.s. what's your take on that well it's certainly not a surprise when i was when i was in mcgill there were certainly student protests on much more modest tuition hikes and i think what it comes down to

is a matter of the students wanting to make sure that education is accessible for everyone and granted with the lower fees already it's still much more accessible in canada than it is in the united states but i think there is. sort of philosophical ideological divide when it when talking about canadians and americans like for example in two thousand and four can the c.b.c. have a greatest canadian competition and the winner back from fishing was tommy douglas and he basically founded the. a single payer health care system in the scotch one which is the first in north america which then turned lead to this universal health care system that canada has now so the despite you know the recent swing to the right with stephen harper there is a much more of a sort of social welfare tradition and i think you see in these protests and your fellow students there in canada this was a system that they were used to how did they view the system education higher education system here in the u.s.

i think you know they. generally would recognize that we have some very highly respected institutions in the united states but they also. the amount of debt that students have to go in into in the united states you know if they're not on scholarship or their parents aren't paying for it it really sort of. sort of they cannot really believe i mean. what it in articulately. i understand that perfectly fine sam thanks for giving us your personal take with your experience and can that was sam that he is the producer of the alona show. well drones are set to take over u.s. skies sue now there's going concern the public will lose their privacy to these spy planes the winners here seem to be the drone makers and much of the reason for that is the aggressive and powerful lobbying happening right now by the defense and aerospace industry are taser mungle endo shows us who's cashing in and what's in

what it's costing for the american taxpayer. the drones of today have revolutionized modern warfare and are known for their seek and destroy missions over afghanistan pakistan and yemen but the drones of tomorrow will be humming over american homes there may be as many as thirty thousand drones flying in u.s. skies spy two thousand and twenty which is a huge number basically you know one in every town now that congress and the president have cleared the way for spy planes to fly and u.s. skies defense and aerospace firms are pushing their way in d.c. in hopes of cashing in on the expected drone business boom right now the global markets worth about according to some estimates a little less than six billion u.s. dollars but it's supposed to double almost double to over eleven billion you know the next decade in two thousand and one the defense department had ninety drones

just eleven years later it has an arsenal of more than nine thousand five hundred remotely piloted aircraft with the wars winding down overseas most of those unmanned aircraft will be used to messick lee for surveillance and disaster assistance raising safety and privacy concerns why do you need drones against your citizens that's a military weaponry your police department is not your military and we've lost that distinction there they're the weapons manufacturers and weapons manufacturers know that we need war in order to be profitable so they buy congress defense and aerospace firms which build drones have spent millions of dollars on lobbying over the past year those efforts have helped them secure government contracts but lobbyists are also having a very heavy influence on the legislation and regulation over these unmanned vehicles but that's sort of the way it works here and they're the ones who know it

best and know what they want written into the legislation so and that's a real line. it can be a real problem because they obviously have a vested interest with billions of dollars in contracts northrop grumman is one of the dominant players in the unmanned aircraft business spending more than four million dollars in lobbying raytheon splurges nearly seven point four million on lobbying last year according to first tweet research while general atomics spent two point three million dollars the sandiego based company has signed two hundred fifty million dollars in contracts with homeland security since two thousand and five the argument all the time by local law enforcement is these drones are very cheap and they're very effective. yet despite the huge potential for danger in the privacy realm for american citizens you know it hasn't really been proven that law enforcement can use these efficiently and safely anyways quite the opposite the

office of inspector general of the department of homeland security characterized the quarter billion dollar drone program along the southern border as highly ineffective recommending a halt to further drone purchases a one hundred seventy six million dollars navy drone recently crashed and burned in maryland right now in the navy only has five of those craft that they are using when you bring home five hundred more you're going to have more of a risk of more of the risk of crashes despite the criticisms influential leaders in congress are helping the defense and aerospace industry write the rules and cash in on the coming true revolution in los angeles ramon the lindo r t. the capital account is up next with lauren lestari lauren i like that happening today and the financial or else oh so much where do i begin so yesterday the fed

announced operation twist and now i guess you could call today in the post-op analysis of the fed's. actions we hear a lot about the problem arising from the fact that the fed is the only game in town right now because fiscal policy makers lawmakers in congress will not act cannot act depending on who you talk to and the kind of problems that that poses but bigger picture where is the discussion of global central bankers coming together coordinating to the global economy possibly with liquidity we'll talk about that right a lot to talk about there as always thanks lauren for that update that's going to do it now for the news we'll see you right back here though a half hour. wealthy british style.

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