fighting and evolving continue to rip syria and it seems president bashar al assad our opposition forces hit close to home meanwhile the international community is desperate to end the fighting artie's one of the only networks to have a reporter in syria and we'll bring you an exclusive report from the embattled country. and what would you do if you came home to find your place ransacked the locks changed the jordie of us would freak out and call the cops but what if it was the bank that did it even paid through your bills on time is there anything that you can do will tell you about wrongful foreclosures happening here in the u.s. . if u.s.

military officials cringe during the wiki leaks in full drop they sure aren't going to like what's coming next the hacktivist group anonymous has set up its own file sharing website so what can we expect from paranoia. it's thursday july nineteenth five pm in washington d.c. and abby martin and you're watching our t.v. . the violence continues to rage on in syria this time hitting closer to the assad regime than ever before a bomb has detonated inside the syrian national security building yesterday killing multiple top assad security chiefs including president a sorrow assad's brother in law who's often hailed as a serious second president and the u.n. security council resolution that would have slapped new sanctions on the syrian regime has been vetoed by russia and china unlike many mainstream outlets that report on syria's civil war from the comfort of other countries news rooms r.t.

has been on the ground in syria covering the conflict firsthand riff and osha has more from them ask us. the news about blasts has come at a very tough time for the syrian capital in the last four days damascus has been seen for what the opposition and free syrian army have dubbed the final battle for damascus a decisive battle for the syrian capital shootings have been heard in very different parts of the syrian capital also seen black smoke drifting over the city skyline and we've also been hearing helicopters not only flying over one of the oldest continuously inhabited capitals in the world but also firing we can see some smoke even now in actually many different neighborhoods of damascus many countries have closed their embassies here in syria and have withdrawn all personnel in this neighborhood alone turkish embassy over the saudi embassy this is the building of american embassy tallon embassies these embassies have also suspended their work

overseas companies have also have a creator their stuff foreigners no longer feel safe here in the syrian capital and they have fled but ordinary syrians don't have the same choice the word has come to their door and they have nowhere to run and they're trying to organize their everyday life waiting for this nightmare to end one of the most important rule these days in the syrian capital is not to go to the cities troubled areas where the clashes between the rebels and the army still continue and the names of these neighborhoods are very well known to everybody here might have be then. now know. it's too dangerous but damascus is a very big city with a population of around two million people maybe these days even more with old displaced families from homes and other at the center of the uprising from all across the country shelter now here in the capital and in some neighborhoods you can see pictures that you don't at all expect to see in the capital of a country and golfweek war or like this family alone picnics really very peaceful

pictures so one can flick has been raging for seventeen months already people say this tired exhausted but they also say that life must go on my phone from damascus in syria as i mentioned earlier the u.n. security council failed to pass a resolution that would threaten sanctions against syria's leadership for more and what does happen at the u.n. i'm joined now by our to correspondent reporting from new york studio marina can you break down what this exactly means do you think that china and russia not signing on to this security council resolution will slow down the democratic process or could you argue that they're just iron out the details in such a complicated situation here. well the reason russia and china both use their veto power on this western draft resolution is because they said that it put all the pressure and called for sanctions on just the syrian government russia that in

order for there to be a national transition council created in syria there needs to be i die a log between the syrian government and the syrian opposition that is what kofi annan six point peace plan calls for and you know russia's position is that if the international community is only putting the pressure and consequences on the syrian government and threatening the syrian government with sanctions if it doesn't meet its requirements of a cease fire and other other items laid out in the kofi annan six point peace plan then the armed opposition is not incentivized in any way to come to a negotiating table with the syrian government and at the end of the day russia and china said that we need to get both parties at a table to begin a dialogue to put their weapons down and begin a dialogue if the security council is just only punishing one side then that is not going to happen clearly it does not put a good light on the situation when the security council can't even agree and come to a consensus but i think they still are trying to hammer out a way figure out

a way to extend the u.n. supervision mission in syria which expires in less than twenty four hours and what will happen when that expires marina. well when that expires if the security council does not extend the mandate then that means the united nations is not going to have any any of its own observers in the ground to verify and observe mediate what is taking place in syria even though they suspended activities and mid june there is still a force of three hundred unarmed un observers in there that are supposed to at least be observing verifying and reporting back to the united nations if you pull the only international group from syria that's in there what does the international community have left in terms of being able to posit in some way moderate the circumstance it does seem to the opposition movement is growing and you know

in light of the assassinations that happened yesterday that it's kind of a turning point so if they are indeed growing in their force shouldn't it be up to the international community to really intervene intervene and hold this transition in a peaceful way. many have argued that many have criticized including the u.s. france and britain today criticize russia and china directly condemn their vetoes saying that more than ten thousand people in syria have died since the uprising began seventeen months ago and the international community needs to do something it's a humanitarian issue that is clear the red cross the international red cross of this is now a full blown civil war taking place in syria and russia has taken the position so has china and we should mention south africa and protestant because they have stained from the vote today in security council those four countries said that there is blame to be put on both sides taking part in the violence in syria russia by no means is defending the syrian government in any way at all but the position

that russia is taking is that military intervention doesn't necessarily bring peace and make the situation better and russia china and many other countries point to the circumstance of libya that took place last year there was you know there was first sanctions and then a no fly zone and then military intervention into libya and libya right now many would argue is not in a better place than it was before could die off he was removed and western countries you know invaded with with its military might so at this point russia says there needs to be a better option it can't just be with bombs flying from the sky it has to be getting both parties that are participating in the fighting in syria at a point where they could sit down and at least negotiate for a transitional government where when lavrov said the military intervention in syria would lead to an impasse. where you're saying your you know that it might become another libya you think he means by the. yeah i might be what he meant

the foreign minister lavrov said a lot of comments with respect to syria in the past few days but we you know we do know that russia has made a position that this is western countries are fighting a major geo political battle in the field of syria that doesn't have everything to do with the syrian people many believe that you know there's a bigger picture there's a larger picture here and that picture has to do with iran and this this battle that's taking place is encroaching and moving more around iran and it's about western countries wanting to have some argue more influence in that region in the middle east and if that the syrian government the bashar al assad's government is removed then western countries then have more major influence and then it's iran left standing that is the thoughts and oppose a position in many countries have taken that this is about geo political positions that western countries are you know loyal to this isn't just about humanitarian

reasons in syria that's an argument many have made so this is a very complicated matter and we have to understand that syria is in a very fragile area geographically in the middle east and so that's why we're not reaching we're not seeing consensus by the international community but they are trying to hammer out a way to get this supervision mission extended technically for just thirty days that is something the security council is discussing now and might be voting on by tomorrow but clearly a lot of countries are still butting heads over this issue it is a very complicated issue does seem like there's no violence escalating by the day. those are two correspondent arena portnoy. with tensions raising by the day in syria much lighter put on the regime's dealings with the recent release of syria gate some two point five million e-mails in the newest wiki leaks communication dump the e-mails are said not to only highlight communications relating to the

assad regime but also to expose the hypocrisy of western rhetoric and actions against the region but the infamous leaks from the whistleblower organization may be coming to a halt because wiki leaks is nearly out of cash the group says its funds will run out in a couple of months unless donations drastically increase their organization has had difficulties raising funds since visa master card and pay pal among others have caved to u.s. government pressure to pull its avenues to donate through which many have decried as an act of corporate censorship how to counteract this financial blockade wiki leaks is saying it can now accept cash donations for french nonprofit rerouting money through france's funding for the defense on net neutrality meanwhile for one month now working leaks founder julian assange remains held up in the ecuadorian embassy in london still awaiting a decision to grant him asylum before he made the move to seek asylum he stated on our team that the u.s.

was working on a secret indictment against him for extradition right now i think this u.s. grand jury which is being investigated me for eighteen months and it appears to have filed a secret indictment which will use to try to start states at the same time. i have a case of the supreme court here in great britain which used to be the house of lords. and if it is there if i'm not successful in be extradited to sweden imprisoned immediately without charge so i cannot be charged. if indeed a songe is actually headed to sweden chances are that it wouldn't be long before it ended up in u.s. custody facing the same charges of that of private bradley manning who after nearly eight hundred days of sitting in a military prison is finally having a pretrial hearing at fort meade but for now everything rests on ecuador's shoulders president rafael correa atta and his administration has said little about

if and when asylum would be granted ecuador's foreign ministry says lawyers are studying the political and legal ramifications of this high profile case before making any decisions mean that when it comes to the fate of julian a son patience is more than a virtue it's all we have as a global community a way to decision. paranoia and i not a lot might not sound like the name of a trusted source for government leaks otherwise known as potentially alarming research anonymous intelligence agency paranoia as the new web face of anonymous whether wiki leaks slowing down and the lack of impact from anonymous hacks and members of those hacked of us collected decided to launch a wiki leaks esque website to host massive data leaks and a user friendly fashion so what will this mean for wiki leaks the internet and the future of transparency bear brown founder project pm join us are there to talk more about the new site here's his take well it's one of these things that come out of

anonymous. there are very heartening this is exactly what's needed what they do essentially sort of provide one more option to go who have acquired information or whistleblowers or otherwise you know one simulate something. in which they know that that information will be. very liberally release to the public as opposed to some of. some of the decisions which exist made which have been controversial in the lead community slowly believe portions of it differed. some time in the cage and. what they've done so far and they're also going to start they not only have at least a large group of e-mails from a company called data but i've also gone through categorize them by by you know by topic and. found some of the more important interesting leases are made made them

into detention stuff something that really needs to be done in a million by men which leaders have to work yeah you just mentioned it does seem in the past that the leaks have been done where it's just a massive amount of information that it's just almost impossible to sort through or takes a very long time so what they're doing is more kind of categorizing making it more user friendly for people to really access the data. and wiki leaks on that same thing and some of these this is just you know this is you know not everyone is going to send their leaves to a few weeks and this is by them another option and also sort of acts as an addition to the leaking aspect they also do a couple of the more technical background things that need to be done. this and leaks like it's very emails making sure those are available because you know someone has to do that and they've stepped forward and done that which is very hard also hosting. the m r which. does something very similar about information

on the past releases regarding the delegates so what we're seeing mostly with anonymous so far at least people who are claiming to be anonymous is these really high profile hacks takedowns this is different though this is this is where people are submitting information to then right. that's the stuff only one of the options are supposedly yes and so are they are they don't know if they are going to be hosting any sort of hacking that they do themselves or is this most economy within you know that legal parameters where it says they're they're the receivers of information that people get them i don't know i don't have any indication one way or the other if you know. if what their plans of the future i think that's playing that by ear there are still people and when you call anonymous who do most of them sends on client information of public that belongs. by whatever means they

choose to do so and when that happens all this is and there's a number of options they have and this would be one of those options. and if they do so they would be you know generally assurance this would be released perhaps in a different way that i might. that my moniker of a good someone else or they dump it themselves entirely you know one of the one of the important things here is that there is is a lot of sort of monday and dynamics that go into making sure that information not only gets dumped and just you know adds to the great you know ocean of information already exists but also receives attention from the journalists who are willing to make use of them selfs. very it seems like it like a great idea to supporters of wiki leaks who say you know that's that's great let's get another web site out there the more the merrier more options for people to submit to but it does seem like there is some members of anonymous who are at odds with the wiki leaks or at least their twitters that there was kind of some words

spoken between the two people who are running the twitters were working as a senator sponsible free to be kind of doing this without really secure measures to do so why do you think that they're kind of at odds about this new site living these incidents happen a lot. in this case you know one person. was . infected. by name but i don't it's hard for most of people around the time that happened they were going to so the fact is that these are expanding its options by which the options that the measures will have huge are right now what they want. and you know just the e-mail accounts and use whatever they have so it's obvious we are all isn't often way. discussion on these issues but sometimes these conflicts arise and we fall on the base and it's

unfortunate but. i was very brown founder of project p.n. . how would you feel if you work forty hours a week for fifty weeks a year to pay your mortgage on time and on your much deserved vacation you come home to a house that was broken into what their possessions smashed family heirlooms stolen pets missing and the locks changed all of a similar scenario to what happened to over fifty homeowners in the u.s. when their homes were mistakenly identified as four closed take a look at this. this is a house that was allegedly ransacked by contractors that j.p. morgan chase hired all of this happened while the owner of the house was in the hospital on his deathbed jury was allegedly stolen antiques ruined and personal belongings were simply thrown aside a problem the owner did not fall behind on his or her mortgage bill and this is not an isolated incident third party service contractors are hired by fannie mae and freddie mac.

as well as big banks to make sure vacant homes are protected from vandalism instead because of lack of oversight sometimes these contractors break in occupied houses and conduct vandalism themselves terrifying homeowners who have done nothing wrong so why is this happening to break it down i'm joined by ben hellman senior financial writer for the huffington post hey ben thanks for joining me i guess i think i'm going to show i guess the biggest question is how is this happening i mean you think that when contractors go in there they do they understand that the home is clearly occupied when it's full of things in their lawns or mode. well you would think that you know i found my report putting found dozens of cases where homeowners allege that contractors working for some of the biggest banks had broken into their houses ignoring what would seem to be obvious signs of occupancy lawns mowed. utilities turned on cars in the driveway that kind of thing

very interesting in one case a woman come home came home to a clown drawn on her garage door with the words another job well done. you know when their job is to kind of prevent vandalism it does seem counterintuitive to kind of conduct these kind of vandal like acts on these people's houses. well i should say that for you know i found these lawsuits and most of the lawsuits allege that in addition to breaking into the homes some items were stolen possessions were destroyed that case that woman's i had she claims her possessions were had been strong about her front yard and smashed the sledgehammer in addition to the vandalism of the garage but on top of that i think what happens probably much more frequently is simply that the home a contractor comes into an occupied house and change the locks or. winterize it against you know potential future damage and those cases in most instances you know

homeowners are not going to file a lawsuit you know often they're actually battling the bank or stay in their house so you know i think what i found were sort of the worst of the worst cases but that isn't me but it suggests that there's actually a much bigger problem that's not being reported which is you know. someone might be at home again i found i found an example where a woman was actually at home when the contractor came in and so it just raises a lot of questions about oversight of the contractors sure as you mentioned you know there's probably a lot of cases that haven't been documented aren't filed in those lawsuits so what do you think that does when people are already you know battling to keep their homes but they are paring their mortgages and coming home and facing this sort of intimidation. well you know i report on housing for the huffington post and i think for a lot of homeowners who are going through foreclosure or late on their payments who are trying to get a loan modification trying to stay in their home it's already

a you know a very stressful and traumatic situation sometimes they battled the banks for years trying to get some resolution and you know if you add on top of that this fear that someone could come in your house why are there while you're not there you know even if it's just changing the locks you know it sort of takes away your sense of security. indeed and talk a little bit more about the oversight then. you know one would hope i guess that there is oversight from these institutions to these contractors i mean how is this happening what is the chain of command there all that. well it's a great question i don't know how much oversight there is you know one of the issues in this sort of more broadly speaks to the financial crisis and the lack of accountability in general in terms of how foreclosures have been managed but. you know these contractors are often local local employees of a big contracting company or to the companies i didn't find my story or safeguard

properties and living processing services and then those contractors interned aren't hired by the banks which are in turn hired by you know whoever owns the homeowner could be fannie mae or freddie mac. so you've got three or four layers that separate you know the landlord not the right word the the mortgage holder from the sub contractor who's out there performing these inspections so it's just not clear whether you know anyone's really paying attention. i will say that recently if the inspector general of the federal agency that oversees freddie and fannie has suggested that they're looking into this lack of oversight more broadly of contractors although they didn't specifically single out this type of incident so what can people do if it does does seem like there is little accountability the other than the statement that they released where is the accountability what can people do to fight this what are

people doing to fight this. well you know that's again if you're forty five days late on your mortgage these property inspections start in the fannie and freddie rules and they sort of what freddie and fannie and freddie say sort of governs the mortgage industry as a whole they say to start these party inspections and and you know let's just be clear there is a value to somebody driving by at least occasionally checking on a house that's in foreclosure in the fog. to make sure that it hasn't been abandoned because you know abandoned homes can become blight so the neighborhood you know swimming pools could be uncovered longer at mode and in fact there's been complaints that the contractors aren't properly shoring up abandoned homes to which is sort of the other side of this so i mean there is some value to the service i mean there the question is whether or not these contractors are doing all they can do to make sure nobody is actually living in the house before they go inside and seems like they're just not taking some basic steps as far as what homeowners can

do you know i guess i don't really know i mean you know again i found you know dozens of cases where people have hired lawyers and filed lawsuits what is the status of that lawsuit. well there's a lot of them you know i mentioned several cases in my story. for example is one in the winding its way through atlanta a federal court in which this woman nancy jacobean he was at home alone when somebody was sort of broke through her front door and she went into her bathroom and called nine one one nine one one and was terrified. that contractor replaced the lock on her door unbeknownst to the beanie she claims. the box she used was a universal lock in another contractor was able to access it and once in the same scenario at play that again where she was at home alone somebody broke into her house and she and she finally moved out so she's suing i mean the and there's a lot of these cases there's sort of slowly moving their way through the records i think what the consumer lawyers would say is generally that there are you know

pretty outgunned. by you know the financial resources of the contracting companies and of course of the banks that back them up then that story that you just described i mean someone could mistake some of these people as burglars and potentially someone could get hurt or even killed well i think that's the fear i mean that's the real fear and one of the attorneys i interview in my story it was said just that he said you know this is somebody could get shot because just as you say people are rightfully frightened when somebody comes into their house and they're not expecting it you know once again you know there are millions of property inspections conducted every month i think most of those inspections don't lead to one of these entries but even if it happens if it happens occasionally that too often especially if you're the one who's on the receiving end and alternately and then u.s. taxpayers are footing the bill i guess in

a roundabout way for this to happen can you break that down. well you know that that's one way to put it i mean fannie and freddie mae fansite fannie fannie mae and freddie mac. of the two biggest mortgage companies the united states they own or guarantee half of all home loans and they've received i think today at about one hundred seventy billion dollars and federal tax dollars so you know the fact that they're not properly overseeing the. banks which hire these contractors and again there's a lot of waiters of control here is certainly problematic and is the situation just going to get worse as the economy continues to get worse as it is i mean do you see an end to this or getting better at all. well you know that's a good question foreclosure filings are up a little bit. so that is more homes fall into default more property inspections are

ordered and there's more chances for a mistake like this to happen you know you know a judge that i interviewed him spoke to my in my story she you know she thought that contractors should have to get a court order before they enter an occupied house. i think that's probably unlikely but at the same time it doesn't seem unreasonable to to expect that these contractors do a little bit more due diligence before they you know break open a locker jimmy open a window and climb into somebody's home thank you so much for joining us that was ben homan senior financial writer for the huffington post and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our you tube channel you tube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa also follow me on twitter at abby martin. down to your social obligations to your old.