or turn it into a solid go. request the gold and silver investors. call today eight hundred two hundred seven go. breaking news out of london the man who has become the face of wiki leaks may have found an escape from extradition to sweden reports are coming out saying julian assad will be granted political asylum in ecuador but other reports true the details are still fuzzy about we'll tell you what we do know straight ahead. celebrity trying to deal. with the people. overseas knew his primetime brainchild is hitting the airwaves putting a pretty face on the ugly realities of war but not if several nobel peace prize winners have anything to say about it we'll speak to one of them coming up. plus up

there's one group of people you don't want to cross the debt collectors especially when it comes to credit card debt but those lawsuits might not exactly be legal coming up we'll ask our financial guru why ninety percent of credit card cases are flawed. it's tuesday august fourteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. we begin this hour with breaking news there are conflicting reports that ecuador will grant political asylum so wiki leaks founder julian assange has been held up in the ecuadorian embassy in london since june nineteenth he's been fighting extradition to sweden to face sex charges to talk more about this breaking story i'm joined now by r t correspondent christine for christine and i know that at this moment. things are kind of developing very quickly

a lot of conflicting reports yeah all over the internet right now in the last hour liz everyone who is reporting that this has happened that julian assange the founder of wiki leaks has been granted asylum has pointed to this report this is a report in the guardian that came out a few hours ago saying an official without a name that official doesn't has not been named simply in the capital of ecuador in quito has confirmed that president rafael correa has decided to grant julian assange asylum in that country however this is the only report in which that's confirmed we have made several calls both to the spokesperson for wiki leaks who hadn't heard anything who then called julian assange and you also hadn't heard anything inside that were dorian embassy in london so whoever this official is this unnamed source they have only apparently spoken to the guardian because that hasn't come out even president is on twitter page he said that that these rumors aren't

true not that he won't grant julian assange just silent just that he hasn't made that decision now here on r.t. america late last night we did put part of an interview with the president on air it was a live interview on ecuadorian state t.v. on a show called the us with a reporter named xavier la so most of the conversation actually was was spent talking about the olympics and sort of small talk but he did ask president korea one question will you grant julian a songe asylum in this country and he said he hasn't made the decision yet he said he's going to have some meetings on wednesday which is tomorrow and that before the end of the week that decision will be announced previously he has said that he would wait until after the olympic games were over so you know as of now the reports that have come out and nothing that we have been able to confirm here at r t ok so this has been happening ever since kind of mid june let's say he does get this is silent what would the significance. that the well would be hugely

significant for a whole lot of reasons number one as you know julian assad has been sort of on house arrest sort of running from the law really for the last year or so he we were first introduced to him back in april of two thousand and ten when he sort of gave a huge press conference i was there at the national press club he club. unveiled the collateral murder video which shows the two u.s. army pilots sort of training war like a game in iraq shooting a bunch of civilians including two journalists this was sort of the big video that made people pay attention but tons of state department classified cables released on wiki leaks that you know for months and months publications reported on you know use wiki leaks as a source. so really significant but the tie did start to turn shortly thereafter julian a songe was sort of made to be a villain when two women in sweden allegedly accused him of you know sexual assault

he says that he denies any of this happened he says that the women who apparently blamed him for this he had consensual sex with these at one of them threw him a party afterwards so again he hasn't been charged he is wanted for questioning in sweden and if he is extradited to sweden he fears he will then be extradited to the united states where he worries he'll be charged and tried under the espionage act he says he could even face the death penalty this is all of course according to julian assange and his lawyer not from the u.s. state department or the u.s. attorney general's office here in the u.s. it sounds like being extradited to the united states army has said it would be kind of the worst case scenario and he's doing everything that right now possible to prevent that from actually happening you know so right now the fate of julian assad rest in the hands of ecuador the ecuadorian president awaiting that decision and at first it seemed like it came as kind of a surprise that assad was turning to aqua door. for help but saunders does kind of

have this special relationship with ecuador one of the yeah and we don't know really the extent of it we do know that. when we keep leaks first came out that ecuador may have been the first country to see some of the. documents be declassified. and we also know that here on r t joining us on had a program called the world tomorrow when he interviewed the president of ecuador and you know the it was like a seventy five minute interview it was a long conversation it seemed like a very friendly conversation there was a whole lot of laughter it's unlikely to have a very good reporter and ecuador has also been outspoken saying their decision will be based on human rights and if it's the best thing to do humanitarian leave for julian assange crazy thank you so much for keeping a very close eye on this important story we will continue to follow it as the details come out that was r t correspondent christine. well the conflict in syria

has been raging on for more than fourteen months now and since then journalists from dozens of media outlets have often risked their lives to bring us pictures and firsthand accounts of the fighting that's led to what is now a full fledged civil war now one of the latest accounts we've seen made breaking news on c.n.n. just this morning it was from c.n.n. journalist ben wedeman reporting from aleppo. all right we're now going in the direction of dean where of course all the fighting is taking place i said. the same at the intersection that goes that's right as to where the but it came were going through an intersection where he says to drive fast so time to get on here. so what i gather from the report you're looking at there is it something in writing

c. and outside the car seems very concerned the first six minutes of this report are bad writing on the back of a van that he drinks tea with a local and then drives away but waves which is this hardly seems like a war report at all known as specially when you see war covered like this here are some of our own our two reporters on the ground in syria. well with the universe of is in it live in there's been some pretty heavy. to the. noble scope of the seniors from the control of the century. and the continuing for some people their homes became their graves too and this room look human bones of at least one person. damascus which the so long had been sort of a sheltered from the conflict throughout the rest of the country that's in recent

months found itself the target of an increased bombing campaign one of the most important rules these days in the syrian capital is not to go into 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 be down. low no. it's too dangerous so you can see the sharp contrast there but we do appreciate the effort in trying to bring us the latest information on what is happening in syria but how exactly are we supposed to understand the conflict there one eight minute news report if you spend the first six minutes reading the back of a news van how can anyone get a sense of the danger an alibi if you won't even get out of the car now this is in the wake of the washington post reporting that c.n.n. is turning to reality t.v. to boost its dismissal of ratings and this coverage seems more like a model for reality t.v. . now another reality television show stirring outrage critics say n.b.c.'s new

military theme shows stars and stripes and glorifies war it's a beauty last night and has a cast of people you can loosely define as stars they're paired with former members of the armed forces and got their military training and mission similar to a real life soldiers go through here's a look at the trailer. these are america's boots on the ground navy seal the delta force gruber and after the olympics the celebrity will try to build their. leadership with the people doing real yards to mark burnett. there's no going back no prayer. this is a star's monday after the unit. that's being sold as a way to honor our troops but many don't see it that way including a list of nine nobel peace prize winners that say the show is trying to portray war

as amusing and entertaining they go as far as to call it war propaganda and they wrote a letter to the chairman of n.b.c. calling for the show's cancellation here's a quote states as people who have seen too many faces of armed conflict and violence and who have worked for decades to try to stop the seemingly unending march toward the increased military as ation of societies and the decent citizen of people to the realities and consequences of war we had our voices and our support of those protesting stars earn stripes we need to call upon n.b.c. to stop airing this program that pays homage to no one and is a massive disservice to those who live and die in the armed conflict and suffer its consequences long before the guns of war fall silent while the help is a help us discuss this i was joined by longtime peace activist civil liberties advocate in one nine hundred ninety seven nobel peace prize winner jody williams she shared her thoughts on the upcoming series take

a look. i was watching the olympics and it kept playing over and over and over the trailer. and every time i saw it i got increasingly angry. and i decided that. i was sick of doing nothing to protest the miry between hollywood and the pentagon when you know weapons paid for by tax dollars are offered to hollywood movies for example in order to make it more realistic i just see it is propagandizing i see it is an attempt to desensitize people as we said in the letter and i decided i organize my friends nobel laureates and by the way we're now up to ten mohammed bulis just joined on today organize them didn't sign a letter to protest that we were going to call for the cancellation and we're going to ban you i guess mention watching the commercials for the shell you know playing

out throughout the olympics what is the significance of that playing it during the olympics that's why they watched international events well even if you go to their website they like in what they are doing to competition like sports and so it's had such a huge audience obviously they were trying to get as many people to think about the show to think about the so-called here with some of the military i think it's also . used as a recruiting tool as well as propaganda for war now n.b.c. touts the show as quote paying homage to the men and women that serve in the u.s. armed forces and our first responder is jody how do you feel about that description i think it's a lie. if you go and watch the show i forced myself to watch one hour of the two hours last night because i felt like if i was going to be talking against

it i should at least see it i really think that the producers and directors should hang their heads in shame i think that these celebrities if that's what they are. who decided to be in this show really look at what they're doing should hang their heads in shame general wesley clark who ran for president of the united states and knows what real war is is actually hosting this joe the the most exciting if you will if you like war and violence moments are the trailer if you go into the show itself it's profoundly boring it takes forever they keep doing it over and over four teams of you know there's the soldiers coupled with the many celebrities and they go through the same routine for clients in the show and there's no risk to their life whatsoever it's a joke and they certainly as staring outrage in our team actually spoke to some

protestors outside of the n.b.c. studio in new york city and wanted to take a listen now to what some of them had to say. we think it's it's an insult to the american people and especially to a veterans and i happen to be a navy veteran too trivial i. warn you it's it's a horrible phenomena but it's part of the american culture of war and militarism so it's understandable but can you imagine when kids see this show and they see it is people using live bullets they don't see the blood they don't see the bodies blown apart and you had touched upon this earlier jodi and kind of want to elaborate on what those protesters were saying there that this program i mean a seems to glorify war but doesn't portray the whole picture and war of course is deadly and horrific and not all glory it's true it. for

example the teams are supposed to attack a watchtower if they were attacking watchtower in enemy territory there would be an enemy sniper or machine gun in the watchtower firing at them there's nothing there is a prop so they blow the prop up and then they crawl under wire but no one shooting at them they're just crawling under barbed wire. and then goes on like that over and over again and there was one of the celebrities if you will who said that they were in the line of mission that's a total lie there's something wife about that mission it's a it's a fake mission and how they can pretend that that is honoring soldiers who actually do die soldiers who come home without limbs soldiers who come home so psychologically shattered that they commit suicide is a beyond me to understand i think n.b.c.

should be ashamed and can you talk a little bit more about the danger as you had mentioned earlier that this seems to be a trend and the blurring of the war in reality the reality of war with entertainment what are the dangers of turning war and entertainment well i think we've been doing it for an awful long time i mean hollywood supported world war two for example look at the films of nazi germany to you know raise up patriotism when they started attacking the countries western europe and the soviet and russia at that time it's not a new trend i think i think the problem for me now is the insidiousness of it in the united states. it's so in some ways so subtle and in other ways so blatant that you can't escape it every time i see like jets flying over

a sporting event and i ask myself what is the place of u.s. military flying over the super bowl or whatever that's taxpayer money first of all those jets are not i mean why are they what do they have to do with sports it's over and over and increasingly they find ways to make you know military and patriotism a bigger part of the u.s. because they have a borderless war with their war on terror they take it wherever they want and they need us citizens to be willing to support that so you have to glorify war. i know that you as a nobel peace prize winner have been fighting to reclaim the meaning of peace can you elaborate on that short piece is not cool but you know my lord peace is not a dumb flying over rainbow it's hard work every single day the absence of our conflict is merely you know the the bare minimum one needs to be able to build

the possibility of sustainable peace which is the basic needs of the majority of humanity being met like just a decent house. possibility of employment so the family can support themselves it's basic education or the kids it's the access to health care i just keep thinking and i believe this in my total soul that if the basic needs of most feed were met there would be a hell of a lot less live in the world because we would be fighting for resources and separate all right joe thank you so much for coming on the show really appreciate it that was jody williams longtime peace activist civil liberties advocate and nineteen ninety seven noble peace prize winner. also had an r. t. hold on to your wallet and it looks like credit card companies are robbing people blind using illegal means to collect on debts own coming up our financial guru will

tell you how.

what drives the world the fear mongering. used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of the being made who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

yes folks like credit card companies are returning to court to collect their debts but there is a problem there lawsuits depend on documents that are incomplete or inaccurate among other problems one judge who often presides over one hundred cases each day estimates that ninety percent of credit card lawsuits are flawed this is exactly like the robo signing that got servicers into trouble regarding mortgages and foreclosures now why would financial institutions think that they could get away with something like this for some answers now we turn to lauren lesser host of capital account nice to see lauren here so when we say that these cases are flawed what kind of laws are we talking ok well what we're talking is a lot of the same things that sound very reminiscent of what we've been hearing about foreclosure practices and the illegal foreclosure practices of banks of what we've saw all of the allegations that were supposed to be wrapped up with a nice bow and that twenty five billion dollar mortgage foreclosure settlement that

we heard about remember that well all of those same processes only a lot of them where banks don't have the proper paperwork if they're not in following proper rules proper legal. requirements in trying to get these debts from people that they claim that they're they're owed them by the banks are doing the exact same thing this is according to the new york times it's an article on this so it sounds in many ways like what a repeat of what we've already seen with the foreclosure crisis and fraud it just transferred now into a different industry with collection of credit card debt by big banks named in the article american express citi group in discover financial going to court to recoup their money but not having the proper paperwork well it seems like this is you know all disregard for the law what makes them think they can get away with this what would make them think that they couldn't ok that twenty nine billion dollars settlement may sound like a big number twenty five billion dollars is a lot of money for you where i live is more than we'll ever see in our lifetime but we're talking about the biggest banks all coming together that is

a small price to pay for wiping their slate clean cross in their t.'s and dotting their i's and getting away with these kind of practices but you know i asked neil barofsky about this earlier he's special and former special interests vector general of tarp we just came out with a new book bailout and he can probably answer better than i can with more authority at least from having been on the inside working with wall street in washington as to why these banks would still be thinking they can get away with this let's take a listen in part it's because of the toothless settlement that resulted out of the banks misconduct in the robo signing with the foreclosure fraud you had a settlement that had almost no accountability money that was being credited to the banks for a whole bunch of conduct that they would do otherwise no criminal prosecutions whatsoever in attending it other than the now it's one of some you know show task force the banks here that and that's to turns. and that task force that he

mentioned we haven't heard a lot from we certainly haven't heard about any big cases that they're going after criminal cases and so you know mr prosser gets a lot of things that i hear from many gas money experts and that we believe which is that there really has been no major punishments in the wake of the financial crisis that would make banks think that they don't want to do these things or that they can get can't get away with these crimes and you know what we see it lauren these cases what with the bankers and the banks they seem to be civil. not criminal what does he think about that well we did talk about that and that he does believe that the lack of criminal prosecutions is a problem and one thing that i thought was really interesting that he details in his book and that we talked about in our interview was the lack of desire for criminal prosecution see barofsky comes from from prosecuting in new york the southern district of new york a very well known region where he prosecuted the red coat fraud which is a firm that went bankrupt and he prosecuted this c.e.o. and the president he's been involved in these cases he goes to washington he's

overseeing tarp and they build a case around a guy who is committing fraud they have an airtight case or at least he says their agents did and the d.o.j. was afraid to push forward with it and and his read was that they weren't they were uncomfortable with with going after such a high profile case and maybe had had as much experience doing that i mean i guess someone i brought he was used to that when he was working for the prosecutor's office but that very fact if that is the case should be concerning a forward if our that's our d.o.j. prosecutors are so wimpy but one of the things that he did point out is he thinks that there is an experience gap these are sophisticated white collar crimes they do require a knowledge of sophisticated issues and he said that he believes there may be somewhat of an experience gap he talked about moving resources away from an area like this to an area like counterterrorism so there may be an experience gap i don't know that's that's certainly his speculation or assessment in. but it's

a problem and yes many people including bras can believe that unless there are criminal prosecutions this will continue in the interest saying you know we talk a lot about this kind of revolving door between wall street and washington and whatever i have to say about this traffic filled highway between wall street and washington that it's still clogged and this is one of the main issues. that we see again and again it's something that goes into at length in his book so when he was policing fraud with tarp and its dispersal one of the issues he kept running up against was treasury and feeling that they were captured essentially by the wall street revolving door that a lot of these guys had come from wall street were going back to wall street or just surrounded themselves by these wall street folks always in the form of their aides or just have been in the it in these regulatory bodies for so long that that's just the only voice that they heard and he labels as a major problem in just a kind of give you a sense of what this kind of you could call it it's an aggressive term this kind of

collusion builds we talked a little bit about a program to end up being gutted pretty significantly because of sig tarp raising the red flag about it and really hammering at home but initially it was planned as barofsky puts it designed by wall street for wall street with of course the help of the treasury here he is describing a little bit of that program we can place him and it turned out it was originally intended to be a trillion dollar program that had that was so riddled with the opportunities in advantages for the giant investment funds of wall street funds that were going to run the program that it was that it was primarily based or lending tremendous amounts of taxpayer money leverage to multiple different government bailout programs that could have left it to be less than one or two percent of actual investor money the rest of it all provided by the taxpayer with very limited upside but all of the downside. but that just shows what policymakers were thinking that

it was appropriate to give all of the upside to investors and all of the downside to taxpayers even after the financial crisis it was like a rerun and and a lot of the things that mr barofsky were talking about was talking about have this same trend he painted a really interesting story about talking to william dudley of the new york fed about what kind of oversight there was going to be what kind of protections against fraud in another tarp program and he was saying oh well we're going to rely on the ratings agencies we're going to rely on our economic models and we're going to rely on investor due diligence we're not planning on compliance so essentially all of the things that led to the financial crisis and neil barofsky said that he does believe that this same kind of thought process where these regulators aren't able to see and adjust with the reality is a problem that still persists today and libel or of course is something that we see that that was during the financial crisis but the new york fed that got a tip off that they didn't start an investigation of the time really lossing a lot going on lauren it great to have you here in the studio that.