asylum to nowhere ecuador grants doing a sound political refuge while blasting britain for using blackmail and threats and its desperation to seize the whistleblower. protesters pussy riot gathered their final day in court as a verdict looms in the trial over the controversial mom prayer in russia's major cathedral the crap global attention. plus the u.n. security council draws the international monitoring mission in syria rebels they are pledged to step up their fight and threaten to join forces with qaida.

and am in the russian capital you watching r.t. on marina josh welcome to the program julia sound has got political asylum in ecuador a but now no way of getting there britain's gone out of its way to make abundantly clear it would take drastic action to prevent the whistleblower from taking that asylum from an hour ride denial of safe passage all the way to threats to radiate with dorian ambrosi and take him by force charges laura smith who was at the embassy on a day of drama reports. it was the day they'd all been waiting for julian assaults holed up in london's ecuadorian embassy for two months and his supporters who turned out to cheer for him rain or shine since his legal battle against extradition to sweden first began more than eighteen months ago also there in large numbers the police who didn't wait long to make their first arrests and.

when the decision came it was the one they wanted. we decided to grant asylum to julian a song. called it a significant victory and his mother was fulsome. and shining like it will automatically encourage the government. but not everyone was pleased the u.k. foreign and commonwealth office called the decision disappointing and foreign secretary william hague said it changed nothing it does not change the fundamentals of the case we will not allow. safe passage out of the united kingdom nor is there any legal basis for us to do so hague also denied any suggestion that british police would storm the embassy so over in territory under international law to arrest but that's not what ecuador inferred from a letter it says was delivered through the british embassy in quito in response

ecuador played hardball with what is no national law could be used in this way in any intrusive way in any diplomatic facilities any place in the world it shouldn't be used to threaten or blackmail the sovereignty of any other country and they called a summit to try to deal with this threat so that this fact doesn't go on punish. the scary part the part that i find completely incredible and outrageous is the british press to actually. go into the u.k. embassy and try and extract you in the sun but i must say to see british troops surrounding the british police surrounding that embassy was it an act of intimidation that should not be allowed and is not allowed under asylum or stuck in the middle julian assange who has a new home but no way of getting the top off and put him in a big trunk and label him in as diplomatic i'm not quite sure whether that would work but otherwise we might see him holed up there for

a mixed couple of years who knows until i reach a solution to this imposter but if he leaves the embassy he's liable to a rest by the u.k. which insists it must still extradite him to sweden a position that wouldn't accept it or respond to the united kingdom it would mean constantly breaking relations on a regional level that could happen the browsing of a guy living by ecuador stupid enough songs has the spell the end of this tale already full of twists and turns in fact it appears to be the beginning of something else with neither the u.k. no equity or apparently willing to back down it's developing into an ugly diplomatic spats which could affect relations for some time norris may see outside the ecuadorian embassy and up to britain threat to raid ecuadorian embassy a matter wave of criticism and the u.k. itself is beefing up security at a number of its amnesties abroad targeted by protesters in australia a group of demonstrators have occupied a british consulate and activist and blogger david swanson says their anger is

justified. the idea that you can declare an embassy and know on an embassy and wait a week and then raid it is outrage and i would hope that the world would react with outrage that i think the people of the united kingdom and europe as well as the world understand the foret to international law and human rights that state here and it is a horrible horrible precedent for the entire world should an act of journalism exposing abuses of power results in off seizure by force and end to rendition this is this is something the whole world has a stake in ecuador says the key factor is this isn't to offer a refuge to julian a son feels that he may not get a fair trial if he added up in the us and packing the whistleblower off to america say his supporters is the ultimate objective authorities in both britain and sweden

artist marina partner reports on what kobe and for washington. thus far u.s. officials have not made any public statements but we can presume that a lot of discussion is taking place now behind closed doors while julia saunders mother is calling this a victory for her son many see this as a small defeat for the u.s. and that is because many believe the u.s. was hoping that julian assange would be extradited to sweden so that sweden would subsequently be able to extradite julian assange to the united states we have heard in recent years it's no secret former and current u.s. government officials a quavering julian a songe to are terrorists and that was in the aftermath of him releasing cables and memos that were classified that belonged to the u.s. government as a result the integrity of the u.s. government was compromised a lot of secrets were revealed and it painted the u.s.

foreign policy in a dark light it's no secret that the administration of u.s. president barack obama has been earning a reputation for waging a war on whistleblowers fearsome reputation than any of his predecessors many journalists scholars and activists in the u.s. have signed a letter of support for julie the songe one is including naomi wolf she's a journalist and author first of all this is a white house now to wait houses obama's and bush's which is systematically overclassifying everything especially wrong doing it specially anything related to what whistleblowers want to release specially you know torture that even gauged in methods of torture like mafia tactics it's come to this the government same to journalists everywhere in america. we're going to treat you and we're going to threaten you and we're we're threatening you with with serious legal penalties like prison time if you do your job but i was speaking with naomi wolf what she wanted

to clarify for me and her position is that she sees julia sanji many do as the publisher similar to the new york times chilliness orange is the publisher the one that made the information available he is not the leaker she noted why isn't the u.s. government going after the new york times for publishing what we can leaks published instead the u.s. government it is a presumed is owed to me hoping to go after julian and i songe either way she said that this is this would be a dark day for all journalists in the u.s. if he would be in the custody of america prosecuted held indefinitely or possibly even face capital punishment and if you'd like to hear more of now me will stocks on julian assange just predicament or the increasingly belligerent role of governments will be showing her full interview here on r.t. and that's about twenty minutes time. michael prisoner is an iraq war veteran and member of the now to stop war and racism coalition believes the case is

a glaring reminder of government double standards. the release of the collateral murder video and the release of the iraq war logs in the afghanistan war logs really did a lot to shift public opinion against the war as i mean really exposed a lot of the reality that people knew and felt was correct but didn't have that that verification people begin to ask questions you know they see a songe being pursued in such a way and then these people you know they go to ask questions well what about the people who committed the crimes that were exposed in the wiki leaks documents what about this illegal torture illegal rendition i want about this massive demand we chilling of innocent civilians all those people when if they've been disciplined one of they've been tried for a crime one of they've been pursued to be put on trial and so i think the more that this case is in the public eye the hypocrisy of the u.s. government the british government is on full display for people to see it's true colors watching our team live from moscow still to come on the program an el al blow for bahrain's opposition as a key activist gets

a three year sentence for organizing protests to find out why some experts think the verdict is a sign of panic of paranoia among the country's rulers. now the members of all girl punk band pussy riot finally discover their fate today with moscow judge set to deliver a verdict in their trial the trio face up to three years behind bars on hogan is in charges for their conover performance and russia's main cathedral artist peter oliver is outside the court. going to appear so what can we expect at the court today. well already we're seeing journalists and t.v. crews getting set so outside of the courtroom here in central moscow ahead of what's going to be the final day of a trial which is gripped headlines here in russia and around the world the three women from the punk rock collective pussy riot faced three years in jail each for their performance of what they called

a punk rock and russia's main cathedral in which they called on the mary to rid russia over blood to me it will. later on friday the judge will deliver a verdict and could pass sentence later on in the day now looking back at the background of this case which is split opinion so widely is my colleague. it was a prayer directed at virgin mary but it was heard all around the world to see why its performance of the christ the savior cathedral outraged some invigorated others and left almost no one indifferent along with the patriarch or russia who condemned the flash mob thousands of orthodox believers especially of the radical kind were just short of demanding the women be burned at stake the whole question. it was blasphemy desecration of a church it was sacrilege i think they belong to some sect which conducts a tannic ritual. but their supporters see them differently to the defendants their

lawyers and hundreds of supporters to dancing and singing was an artistic way to express the women's disagreement with the government particularly with president putin that's why they say the women ended up on trial and on trend. madonna the red hot chili peppers sting franz ferdinand just some of the celebrities who have voiced their support for punk collective on this point a very limited number of seats inside the courthouse even a member of british parliament managed to get in to observe and make her own judgment of something he just said something like that like i don't. think they should force the space they so. i don't think. that's part of the our group by now which translates in russian as war this wasn't the first time pussy riot has attracted attention but there's nothing like when you

have a participated in one of the group's performances an orgy in moscow's biology museum . just four days before giving birth because he was the most is said to be the woman seen here performing a six act with a frozen chicken in the supermarket both incidents were also meant to be forms of political protest but neither were followed up with the rest. of the actions of the right. initially they were given. to disturbance i mean the museum the incident in the supermarket food now we just want to have. a proposal from playboy for a cover photo shoot and offer to perform along with bjork from of the singer herself and a contract with a record company who believe pussy riot are now worth tens of millions of dollars these are just some of the offers the group has received in the week leading up to the verdict so if their goal was to be heard and to become famous then it's safe to

say that with the rise players have been answered in moscow it always go. well this and other stories are always available on our website r.t. dot com here is what else is online for you today paralympics scandal the same all parents of athletes are outraged by discriminating rules that stop them sitting with their children in the wheelchair areas. plus terrifying statistics as suicide rates in the u.s. army reach a new peak with an average of more than fourteen people killing themselves every month. international observer mission in conflict torn syria will be scrapped when its mandate expires in three days the decision by the un security council is a disappointment for russia which sees the mission as key to finding

a political way out of the war are jesus is he going to reports from new york. regretfully for russia we have to see the united nations security council did in fact decide to not prolong the mission the mandate of the observer mission in syria of the united nations now there were two conditions for this mandate to keep for them to keep functioning on the ground and these were an end to the violence as well as ending the use of heavy weaponry and of course we know that this unfortunately has not occurred as of yet the united nations will however maintain a presence on the ground in a different format this will be a civil mission that they will put in place the details of which are being discussed now russia's position in all of this is quite simple we're story of the monday is coming to a member we believe that those members of the council who insisted the continue the . commitment to ending course still it is. working towards

a political settlement in the studio however we're looking forward to the form of doing a u.n. presence in damascus. doing the job it is supposed to do in the light of the new. political process in syria it's important to keep in mind that russia of course has been calling for a peaceful political process in solving the syrian crisis and this of course comes as we're hearing armed groups on the ground threaten to combine forces with al qaida if the west does not help them out and this would of course be catastrophic development in the crisis we're hearing from our united nations sources that filling the shoes of kofi anon will be a lot of dark brahimi a seventy eight year old veteran diplomat among his previous titles is the foreign minister of algeria and curiously it's an interesting selection for several reasons first of all we do know that in the past this man has served as u.n. envoy to iraq and afghanistan where of course as we're well aware the conflicts and

the violence continue and also his daughter actually a former employee at c.n.n. . is married to a family to a royal member of the jordanian royal family and of course this is important in the in the sense that we know that this is a country that's been accused of supporting the armed groups on the ground so this is quite an interesting twist we're going to have to wait and see what kind of approach this man takes but we do know that he has already said that he would like a different official title from kofi annan because he doesn't want to be seen as somebody just filling his shoes he believes that approach was failure and he wants a different mandate and a different name so we're going to have to wait and see how this man works in the crisis from now on when he takes the position what mandate officially expires at the end of this month russia is inviting members of the syria action group to meet in new york on friday. that of other our commissar manner of power to you all the

conflict inside syria and some violence moscow also wants now a new cease fire deadlines to be said it was ok. thank you the history you see that the west and islamic extremism though they don't get on with each other they certainly get into bands of each other when there's a common foe let's have a look at the west and islamic extremism in afghanistan in the 1980's against the soviet army let's see how western islamic jihad stream is and came together in bosnia in the ninety's in one thousand in the one nine hundred ninety s. and the same also in kosovo so this one this one comes a surprise to western politicians that points where it will of course come as a surprise to domestic audiences in the west who are lost interest story that the assad government is this genocidal mass murdering machine and the arms and the

opposition all innocent bystanders so it won't come as a surprise. i just correspondent inside syria oksana boyko has more obviates firsthand analysis and experience on her twitter stream currently staying in the capital damascus and says the city is highly militarized but where the conflict in syria now lasting for eighteen months people are getting used to it and check out our tears gentle stream for more tweets on developments in syria from our arabic and spanish correspondents there. albo rains opposition leader in the billiard job has reacted to a three year prison sentence by the finally valuing i will never give up his punishment for inciting and taking part in illegal protests was unexpectedly harsh for job has already been in prison since july serving three months for sending critical tweets about the world family the handling obvious case sparked the wave about race. among human rights which have repeatedly criticized the government's

crackdown on protesters accusing the marquis of violating basic freedoms and even torture columns out a former lecturer at the university of the high range think there's no lie of the end of the tao for opposition. what does jail sentence of three years for mr in the bill resolve indicates that the bahrain a government is increasingly paranoid because three quarters of the bahraini population want the two hundred and twenty nine year monarchy to end that they want a democratic republic and are not going to give up on this go there there is no free speech in bahrain that the u.s. navy's fifth fleet is based in bahrain and because of the basing rights in the ports of bahrain and also the tarmac right at the shaikh isa air base the u.s. navy is a few dollars project is able to power projects u.s.

military might in the entire middle east and hard to maintain you have had germany in the region. now if you look at some other stories from around the world. a minor strike in south africa turned into a bloodbath after police opened fire on a machete wielding around eighteen people were reportedly killed in the mayhem as security officers tried to disperse a thousand strong gathering on authorized straw if you were up to the last friday the wrong drill operators demanded higher salaries and better working conditions. norway's police chief has resigned after a report concluded that the murder of seventy seven people by anders breivik last year could have been prevented the in a panic inquiry also suggested police spent an acceptable amount of time trying to catch the killer findings of the report contradict another document presented by the police which concluded security officers showed no hesitation rev a carry doubt a bombing in oslo and

a gun attack on an island summer camp. a ship has been wrecked off the chilean coast after huge waves crashed against its haul truck pretty ringing risky rescue operation twenty four crew members were airlifted from the best all by navy helicopters and taken to hospital powerful waves also retallack along the coast as they breached the sea wall spilling into the street and disrupting traffic. to face now and straight to the world of business and while it's still pretty early here in moscow over in asia gets are well into trading katie tell us more they are indeed maria and that's where we're going to get started with the agency stock markets because the mostly high of this friday morning out today and it's helped by the u.s. rally over the night with japan getting an extra list of only four willing yet now consumer insurance and edges that says that only rising and that's helping to offset stock losses relates to weak things with the likes of all of the new pool

praises of china that's down as well as the heavyweight china but able to use its not. good in the hood we've also got u.s. housing permits as well they reached a full year high and that helped to really temper concerns about the strength of the global recovery and gave steve to the wall street rallies you can see just as well as that we had german chancellor angela merkel's comments and does say that hyundai she will do whatever it takes to keep your eyes on that her nation also supports the european central bank approach to resolving the debt crisis which is assisting indebted countries that brings us nicely on to figure that just now the ruble as well we can see it finished as a session mixed in the major currencies at last the greenback the dread to figure out just that there isn't currency it will resume trading in less than two hours at a time that as you can see doing a slightly down back that brings us all into the exit markets and here in russia.

the artist on the rise it's a mum it's suppose mordor it gains just around a quarter percent age felt the trading session volumes were low typical for this time of year as it's the holidays. so let's see the oil prices with a zero for lent and that's for the first time in four days trimming a. weekly gate and that some speculations that its rise to a three month high yesterday was the seen as excessive by the mob. ukraine has made the first big step to wean itself off russian gas the country has drawn a consortium that by exxon mobil to develop its own gas shelf in the back seat of the ten billion dollar project is expected to provide ukraine with five cubic meters of gas a year that's around twelve percent of what the country bought from russia last year. the biggest gas deal involving foreign investors in the history of silver in ukraine this is how experts have been describing the latest

agreement between ukrainian government and the exxon mobil consortium on development an exploration of the natural gas field in the black sea coast of ukraine the offshore gas field combined with other potential deals which the ukrainian government is now discussing with the british investors within this is from isaiah by john and took many stone could in large the natural gas extraction in ukraine in the next twenty years by four times which would make this country all but independent from the gas imports it's been having from russia currently key if it is on a contract with moscow until twenty nineteen buying russian gas in a certain amount of a certain price and it's been looking actively for both the discount and lowering the amount of gas it has been buying but so far when the stand negotiations have not brought any success another way that ukraine is trying to implemented to diversify its natural gas resources is getting a loan from the china investment company and there's already been an agreement on

that three point six billion dollars on buy you technologies which would allow ukraine to buy less russian gas certainly this raises many concerns among european consumers whether there would be any more disruptions of the russian supplies into the european continent which go through ukraine but both sides in the negotiations have been holding over the past several years have been saying that regardless of how much gas ukraine buys from russia the transit of russian gas through ukraine to europe will not be hampered will not suffer in any way besides russia is already building several other pipelines to deliver its gas to europe so this should not be a concern according to both countries' governments and both countries gas monopolies companies. that marina say as far as the markets are concerned then say sol say get us the fifty five minutes sounds great thanks very much indeed katie and. there's more coming your way here on our t.v. after the headlines stay with us. all.

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my parents really truly honestly believe that what had happened was as a result of my father's exposure to agent orange i was born with multiple problems . i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot i use my hands a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit to me where my hands you know just as if anyone would. but they do tell a story they tell us story of. the oxen. line

in motion would be soo much brighter if you knew all about song from phones to pressure. for instance on t.v. dot com. and you can cut down on. people.