today on our it's here we are following a developing story out of appledore and a major victory for julian assange president quite a has granted the wiki leaks co-founder a political asylum and this has the international community buzzing we'll bring the latest and look at the bigger implications for us. he has provided the public with true spot exposing corruption and illegality so why exactly do members of america's media banking and political world view julian assange as the enemy details from new york coming up. julian is still receiving strong support from several influential elites around the world ramon guillen do in los angeles the big names standing behind the whistleblower.

it's thursday august sixteenth six pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t. we begin today with the latest twist in the case of wiki leaks whistleblower julian a song which we've received word that ecuador has granted him asylum a son was arrested in london back in december of two thousand and ten and has been going through legal battles there ever since he's been held up at the ecuadorian embassy in london for nearly two months awaiting president quote he has decision today ok dorian president rafael correa granted asylum to a songe the two men have spoken to each other several times over the past few years including an end up interview on giuliana songes show he's been fighting extradition to sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex crimes songe has

offered several times to be interviewed over the phone or at the swedish of the sea but officials rejected that offer as on has expressed that his alternate fear is that if he is extradited to sweden that will lead to him being extradited to the united states where he believes he will be prosecuted for releasing hundreds of thousands of classified documents on wiki leaks also released the video you see here of a u.s. helicopter firing down on innocent civilians on the ground in iraq. now while this is a huge victory for assad to the ordeal isn't close to being over this is the u.k. threatens to arrest assad to the moment he steps but outside of the embassy the u.k. has reportedly threatened to raid the embassy to arrest a saw and this has sparked outrage among a sondre supporters you can see here protesters outside of the ecuadorian embassy in london leading to some morass r.t. spoke exclusively today to us on his mother christine here's what she had to say.

if you think in the last twenty four hours that the previous government beating of the u.s. was but it doesn't bring measures in breach international law it wasn't sure how it was good but i knew that the. that we were honest both working in the. secret specs which was. doing most things. and i was also very happy by the fact that we're doing government building looking and there's not a star not bond at the truth does that. for the very latest on this case r.t. correspondent laura smith is on the ground in london. the reaction from us and his supporters here was unequivocal when his asylum was finally granted by ecuador there were cheers there were chance there was a big contingent from the ecuadorian community actually saying hundreds of ecuador that's still behind me still chanting but not everyone was as pleased and

a statement from the foreign and commonwealth office they said that they were disappointed and the foreign secretary william hague later made a statement in which he said the ecuador knew the full legal context which affected their boycotting agreement to extradite i phones to sweden and that the decision to grant him asylum on behalf of ecuador was regrettable he also confirmed reiterated that they would not be granting julian assange safe passage and that there was no legal basis for them to do so let's just hear a little bit of what he said in his statement it does not change the fundamentals of the case we will not allow mr sands safe passage out of the united kingdom nor is there any legal basis for us to do so he also denied that there had ever been any implication that british police would storm the ecuadorian embassy behind me in order to arrest julian asked on that note what the ecuadorians understood in

a letter that was delivered to quito in fact in response to that lesley which they say was a threat to violate their embassy in london ecuador have issued a very strong statement of their own to the situation here really remains as it was before the asylum request was granted in the june assault is still in the building behind me he still doesn't know how he's going to get from here to the airport and from there to ecuador because the moment he sets us outside this building he is loveable to arrest by the british police and it does look like that would happen and what is developing here is in no uncertain terms an ugly diplomatic spats with neither the u.k. or ecuador looking like they're about to back down now as r.t. correspondent laura smack. well our coverage went to be complete if we didn't show you the full picture now you saw some of his supporters but assad has created quite a few enemies in various countries many of called for assad as persecution some even calling for his assassination are to correspond

a marine corps and i joins us now live from new york to discuss arenas so he has created many enemies especially and politics and banking why is that. well since two thousand and ten and the big cable gate leak that was spearheaded by julian assange and wiki leaks many u.s. officials and members of the media outlets and even the banking world have commented on julian assange many labeling him as a threat to u.s. national security now they say it's because mr julian assange helped expose lots of classified documents of the u.s. government but these documents at the end of the day compromise the integrity and the credibility of the u.s. government it exposed a lot of secrets that the public was not aware about aware of particularly when it came to u.s. foreign policy the way the u.s. was carrying out its conduct out war and overseas its involvement with other

countries and this is something that many u.s. officials and members of the media said was quite alarming and threatens the security of the u.s. some did not mince their words and i went so far as to call for his assassination and speaking of that want to take a listen now to some of the songes harshest critics. the reason i'm saying to you foreign terrorist organization is that they are engaged in terrorist activity. what they're doing is clearly aiding and abetting terrorist groups that using information against americans. information warfare is warfare and julian assange is engaged in warfare information terrorism which leads to people getting killed is terrorism and you loose on using gaves in terrorism i think the man as a terrorist. has done and there's so much you know everyone's going to it is an enormous damage to our country and i think he needs to be prosecuted to the full

fullest extent of the law and if that becomes a problem i need to change the law one leaking that materialist deplorable agree with the pentagon's assessment that the people at wilkie leitz could have blood on their hands it sure looks to me on the facts that mr assad and wiki leaks have violated america's espionage act with great. and negative consequences for us. so some strong words there being used by a scientist critics calling him the terrorists how can he be seen as a terrorist. well i mean it's all in the eye of the holder liz many people do not think that julian a songes a terrorist by any means they supporters clearly believe that he's serving the public good by providing accountability and transparency and informing the public what is taking place now we should mention that. members of the banking institution or companies themselves have taken aggressive actions against wiki leaks very

little words have been said but action has been grave and i wanted to specifically point out the financial blockade that was imposed on wiki leaks back in december two thousand and ten what i mean by financial blockade is that master card visa pay pal western union and bank of america all stopped processing any donations that supporters for wiki leaks wanted to make to the organization so those companies said that we will not pass through the funding wiki leaks representatives say that this has destroyed ninety five percent of their revenue and has hurt them their ability of going after those powerful players that are carrying out wrongdoing being powerful players bankers members of the media members of pall of governments and countries so this is been a significant blow carried out not by a government not by members of the media but by the financial institutions against

julian a songe and many are questioning why would they do such a thing and you just spoke there about this financial blockade taken by the financial sector and you know a songe responded by making this commercial let's take a look at it. people servers and over. two hundred thousand. donations lost due to banking blockade fifteen million dollars that it cost you to house arrest five hundred thousand dollars. watching the world change as a result of your work. priceless. now beyond the financial sector many high profile government leaders have spoken out against him saying he's put our national security at risk can you talk arianna about that accusation. many allies of the us many countries of the west do share that opinion but at the end of the day it's no it is

because julian assange. whatever you believe about him whether he's the villain or the hero he did has disclosed classified information about government information that governments were keeping from their citizens now at the end of the day critics say that he has compromised the national security of countries and even led to the arab spring the overthrow of governments but one may want to ask was it julian assange to blame for disclosing this information or the governments themselves for carrying out these actions and not disclosing them to their own citizens this is the international to be debate that is happening right now and those that are supporting julian assange those that include scholars and journalists many in the us believe that it is the job of the journalist to hold big corporations and elected officials accountable and that is something that mitt julian assange has

supporters believe that he was doing and if he ends up in the u.s. he may be prosecuted for doing exactly what many believe journalists are supposed to do to thank you so much for staying on top of this story that was our correspondent marina pour in iowa well despite being hated by so many there's a nother group of high profile and influential aleve that are on a sunday inside are the correspondent ramon glinda joins us now live from los angeles for more on this ramon hi so he is hated by some love by others why do with one hundred supporters see him kind of as a hero. that's right liz well one of the most prominent supporters that we've seen here over the last couple years of julian assad has been u.s. filmmaker michael moore and in fact over the last several days he's been trying to encourage some of those supporters that we see there outside of the ecuadorian embassy in london to go out there and show their support for julian assange michael moore is so much of a supporter of julian assange as they put up thousands of dollars to pay for his

bail and the reason that he says that he did this was that julius on just crime his only crime was to practice journalism and he feels that he's unfairly being proud persecuted because he did expose government leaks and for these reasons he believes we should be thanking julian assange in the work that we get leaks does for exposing these secrets he contends that have we can leaks was around in the run up to the iraq war we would have been able to know some of the secret negotiations in the secret planning that were going on and perhaps we would have not gone into that war so he's been definitely one of the most notable and familiar advocates for julian a songe and weaker leaks now he was part of a contingent who wrote a letter to dorian president rafael correa just a couple of months ago asking for the ecuadorian government to grant asylum other celebrities on that letter who signed that letter included oliver stone and

comedian bill maher and we've also seen in the past musician tom morello musician activists signed on to a petition in support of weekly so there's definitely some high profile names who are putting their name on the line for julian assange right so a lot of stars and music and movies putting their support behind him aside from hollywood some high profile journalists come out in support of a font can you talk about that. no that's absolutely right i mean we've seen john pilger we've seen chris hedges who was formerly of the new york times we've seen naomi wolf come out definitely we've seen the organization fairness and accuracy and in reporting previously come out and support weekly leaks so there have definitely been crusading journalists who have brought up the point that join us on she has not committed a crime. however they believe that he is being politically persecuted because he

did reveal very embarrassing secrets about the u.s. government and that other journalists should be following the we should be following the lead of weak leaks when it comes to really challenging world powers in really challenging what they are doing with our tax dollars and in addition to those names you just mentioned salons grand glenn greenwald is among the journalists voicing his support for us on cherry is talking about the west nile blower. to the little.

number. one. and that was the glenn greenwald of the guardian ramona how is a science proven to separate and kind of alienate himself from the mass media outlets. oh that's right he is revealing secrets that you know many years ago really there was no sort of organization such as we can leak so reporters were just completely reliant on government press releases and what government officials were telling them and this really goes to the point that mr glenn greenwald was making too where over the past several years we've seen reporters get more cozy with their sources more cozy with people who are in power

to gain that access and have really lost an adversarial government watchdog mentality that many around the world really think happens here in the united states no united states is known as an advocate for free speech but a place where you're free to you know bent any sort of opinion and really challenge the government however we've definitely seen over the past couple of decades a reluctance to do that reluctance to really advocate for the little guy in the media and you know a lot of it does really have to do with something that chris hedges talks about is these journalists trying to get ahead now that being said it also has prompted independent journalist to be to start to question more about what these governments are doing not just the united states government because we can leaks has exposed a lot of wrongdoings not just in the united states but also governments in latin america and in the middle east really appreciate you staying on top of that fat was

our key correspondent ramon kalinda. breakthroughs come after years of twists and turns and a high profile case artes man iraq takes us on a timeline of the events that led up to where we are today. our team has been following the story since day one so let's break it down two thousand and ten a songe visits our studio here in washington after wiki leaks exposes the now famous collateral murder video the video depicts a u.s. helicopter pilot shooting civilians in iraq among the victims a reuters photographer and his driver let's have a look at an interview from julian's visit. that's right we believe in releasing the source documents to the world together with analysis to put them in contact with people to understand them because the source material is what helps keep journalism honest it's independently verifiable independently checkable your assertions are checkable in the same way as a scientific paper is checkable it's

a full source material was released to the public. in august of two thousand and ten as wiki leaks continues to release classified documents regarding the war in afghanistan sweden issues a warrant for assad as arrest on rape charges in late november of the same year wiki leaks and builds and builds cable gate revealing thousands of u.s. diplomatic cables spanning the globe songe partners up with some of the biggest international names in print including the guardian lamond spiegel l.p.'s and the new york times in the u.s. however the relationship heads south and the press quickly turns on a songe in december of two thousand and ten songe answers his legal troubles turning himself into authorities in london after being released on bail a songe asserts his innocence and calls the allegations politically motivated in february of two thousand and eleven a british court rules to extradite him to sweden and they spend the next year in gage an appeals later in october announces that wiki leaks will be temporarily shut down due to a ninety five percent drop in finding several credit card companies like master

card and visa issued a financial blockade making it almost impossible to contribute to the site so let's fast forward to april two thousand and twelve while under house arrest throws his head into the talk show ring his buzzed about show airs right here on our team he makes it a point to interview very interesting subjects including ecuadorian president rafael correa here's a clip from that episode. why did you want us to release all the cables to get there they know that those who don't know anything and have nothing to fear we have nothing to hide your wiki leaks have made a stronger as the main accusations made by the american embassy. excessive nationalism in defense of the sovereignty of the ecuadorian government by june of this year a songe makes a plea for asylum to the government of ecuador and later walks right into the country's embassy in london julian has since then spent his days in refuge today we

know that ecuador has offered julian asylum but what's next for. it's to be seen in the course of only four years a songe went from a little known online whistleblower to public enemy number one or two who's been following the story from the start so for the latest on the songs and everything else you won't see on the mainstream tuning here. many rob lowe r. t. washington d.c. . well we are going to take a quick break but fate's hand we've already told you about a song as supporters and opponents coming up look at the bigger picture when it comes to wiki leaks journalistic freedoms and of course the now infamous collateral murder video.

card is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera .

russia today has an extremely confrontation. stance when it comes to us. those on have granted asylum ecuador excuse me have granted asylum to asylum but as we can see it looks like this is just the beginning of another chapter of the a sauna saga so where do we go from here are the correspondent christine for example has been following the story closely and joins us now live from the white house to weigh in so christine what is next for julian the songs. well if i think we're going to find out a lot more in the future next coming days ahead right now it's a very good question as laura smith mentioned earlier in the show you know julian is gone just might be safe and welcome to ecuador but the question is how does he get from london to ecuador a whole lot of people wondering that as you mentioned also he has been told time

and time again by british authorities that if he sets any foot off the premises that he will be promptly arrested a lot of people wondering today as well what julian is on will do once he gets to actual will he continue to run wiki leaks will you be able to get funding for it people wondering is well if we didn't will continue to try to extradite him and it's also the u.s. will get involved remember i'm sure was mentioned a few times during this hour but julian assange has not been formally charged he is merely wanted for questioning in sweden now we have heard that julian assange plans to make a statement outside of the embassy on sunday i think we will learn a lot more but he didn't release a very short statement today upon finding out the news and i just want to read you a small part of that he said well today is a historic victory our struggles have just begun the unprecedented u.s. investigation against wiki leaks must be stopped and he also said well today much of the focus will be on the decision of the ecuadorian government it is just as important that we remember bradley manning has been detained without trial for over

eight hundred days and julian is on there really trying to shift the spotlight to bradley manning remembering that he was arrested more than two years ago accused of you know being the person behind behind leaking all these documents to the whistle blowing web site and yet he still is sort of in pretrial hearing mode right now as we kind of wait and see how both cases play out many revelations have come out there wiki leaks what have the leaks brought to light. well it's really interesting i would say in a nutshell it's really taught the world a whole lot about geopolitics that we didn't know what we see on t.v. and some of the relationships than the images presented to us in public are not exactly as they seem in private now let me give you an example of porting two cables revealed by wiki leaks saudi arabia close u.s. ally actually has a major distrust for two muslim countries at least to pakistan and iran and has

even at times really persuaded and tried to convince the u.s. to get even more involved in stopping the nuclear program in iran that was something i think that a whole lot of people were unaware of that was going on when you look closer at the u.s. is self certainly one of the major controversies revealed by wiki leaks was the secretary of state's office secretary of state hillary clinton actually issued orders to have members of the u.n. security council top officials from china russia the u.k. to have them bite on so that was certainly something that a lot of people were unhappy that that information came out and then of course kind of focusing on the wars that this country has been involved in you know is still involved in in afghanistan and in iraq of course a lot of information that we were told several years ago by secretary of defense former secretary of defense donald rumsfeld proved not to be true and it turns out that that even the pentagon at the time knew that a lot of this information was untrue but liz i gotta say though the most damning

evidence and some of the most memorable things that have come out of wiki leaks have to do with that video that was released collateral murder let me just show you part of that. but about. the right. of the video of course showing two apache pilots two members of the u.s. military on board are trading war like a video game in some cases killing several civilians and it's all documented on camera including two journalists from reuters ritter was told it was a very different situation that had happened so that was really interesting and it's very different to see something like that in front of your face as opposed to sort of scrolling through all these documents certainly that was one of the most significant revelations that wiki leaks has given to the world certainly that video and some of these document documents they were both shocking and embarrassing if he

does and up in the united states what fate because possibly await him. well again we should mention no charges have been filed against julian it's owned by the united states a staunch himself and his attorneys worried though if he's extradited to sweden that he will then be extradited to the united states where he could face questioning face charges having to do with the espionage act a lot of people kind of making the same case for wiki leaks that they're trying to make for bradley manning and really haven't been able to do so. very articulately yet but they're trying to make the case that the release of these documents at the release of his video for example has put the u.s. safety and security in jeopardy that the take of a whole lot of people and that is one reason that a whole lot of country than a whole lot of officials in this country want to see julian is on to have his day in court all right christine thanks so much for keeping us updated that was r t

correspondent christine. well that's going to do it for this hour but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel we post all of our interviews online in full there that is you tube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our web site that is our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll see you right back here at eight pm a lot of american power. going on our show. might actually be revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink or starbucks or is it in radio.