asylum to nowhere act where the work branch joined us on political refuge while blasting britain for using blackmail and threats in its desperation to seize the whistleblower. on protesters pussy riot get their final day in court as a verdict looms in the trial over the car a virtual mob breyer in russia's major defeat a role that grabbed global attention. plus the un security council withdraw as the international monitoring mission in syria rebels there pledged to step up their fight and threaten to join forces with al-qaeda. is not in the russian capital you're watching r t r marina josh he's joining us our

political asylum in ecuador of 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 outright denial of safe passage all the way to threats to raid the ecuadorian embassy and take him by force or his laura smith who was at the embassy on a day of drama reports. it was the day they'd 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. 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 mouth was full so it. shining like it will automatically encourage the government time 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. when it was 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 unpunished. the scary part the part that i find completely incredible and outrageous is the british press to actually. go in and try and extract joy 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 alarmed and is not allowed under saddam or stuck in the middle judy in essence who has a new home but no way of getting their parts and put him in a big trunk and label him in his diplomatic bag 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 can reach a solution to this impossible but if he leaves the embassy he's liable to 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 have been the crown sing of asylum by ecuador today enough songs have 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 ecuador apparently willing to back down it's developing into an ugly diplomatic spats which could affect relations but some time norris may see outside the ecuadorian embassy and up to. well britain's threat to raid the door an embassy a matter wave of criticism on the u.k. it selfe 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 well for more perspective now on a sound just case now joined by greg barnes spokesman for the australian lawyers alliance aspirants thanks very much for being here with us in the program well not

long ago israel camera used its diplomatic might to save an australian national convicted of drug trafficking and facing the death penalty in indonesia now the question is why isn't there the same support for julian assange. well i think it's very simple there's not much of what human interest. is doing to be to the united states. you know the stuff that it wants to know. richard and it's sort of on a school. committee and. rightly managed i'm sure you're sure and you. run. out of regularly astronomy i mean you know your region will be depending on how. you go. through trouble including. going to. the pharmacy or our. tradition we go about trying not to can be done.

if i want to thank you to pick up the plot and we can how you want to do with cameron i mean. well let's now talk about the situation in britain i mean dogs asylum yesterday from ecuador and before britain said that if ecuador did grant him asylum they will stormed the embassy now how legal would that be if that did happen. i can easily go on to have a look at the legislation of the british government is relying on the ruling not in addition to stop but i think the libyans and. fostering terrorism within their english is this is not a matter of national security i think i mean you try will try and if we can hide anything this a responsible enacted action action at least patch through the. whole thing or just happened to me which is it's the mother who are doing things the right why and

world criticize any of the governments around the world including the government in russia not to get merged if i don't wish i'm stare. but i just scratch collection and it would effectively be shying away when it comes to the united states britain not a strategy to do whatever it takes to deliver well hypothetically speaking if that havel what sort of precedent do you think it would set. well to present that. because in six of the countries that died one that could establish the storm into a machine which of course have immunity and imagine not having this let's forget about the diplomatic community which forget about the policy of the song much of a privilege because that's what the british would be doing well let's now look add to the situation more closely with julia sounds i mean he got his asylum right but isn't he had a debt and situation how can he leave the embassy how can he leave the country what's next a thing. but you know very difficult position they have been charged much to

financially or infamously depending on your perspective to tell you so. back in ninety six of course if. they were hungry enough in the u.s. embassy it would have been this was the news the six going now and they have another crisis where it will put it in an embassy and you don't mean. that there will. be shot humanitarian considerations coming to this team there's no doubt if the americans want to know who is know that they were. subjected to whom i knew who they were we can't get it. we had the foreign minister of sweden mike and disparaging comments about a. prosecutor in the case you know but. very good. time we've got to you know the idea that he can get it. now i think is something that charlie crist

will so our humanitarian grounds. to we will give you say. all right greg warren spokesman for the australian lawyers aline's thank you very much indeed for your thoughts here on our team thank you. ecuador says the key factor in its decision to offer a refuge to join a songe was that he might not get a fair trial if he headed up in the us and packing that whistleblower off to america say his supporters is the ultimate objective of the words in both britain and sweden i just marina for now reports on what could be in it 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 quavering julian assange too 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 fiercer 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 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 they've been 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 do 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 when i was speaking with me wolf what she wanted to clarify for me and her position is that she sees julio sanji many do as the publisher similar to the new york times chilliness songes 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 instead the u.s. government it is presumed is all to me hoping to go after julian 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 wolf thoughts on julian assange his predicament or the increasingly billig role of governments we'll be showing her full interview here on our team that's coming up next hour. well still to come on the program and nothing can 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 and paranoia among the country's rulers. the members of all girl punk band pussy riot finally discovered their fate today where the moscow judge set to deliver a verdict in their trial the trio face up to three years behind bars wholly innocent charges for they are conover szell performance and russia's main cathedral i just bear oliver is outside the court. so here at the moment of truth is approaching. well that's right we've entered the endgame of

a trial which is gripped headlines not only here in russia but around the world the three members of the feminine punk collective pussy riot three years in jail each for taking part in a demonstration inside russia's main cathedral a demonstration took the form of a so-called punk rock prayer and which they called on the virgin mary to rid russia of blood in me at no later on friday the judge will deliver a good it to three pm moscow time and we can also see a sentence handed down as well of the charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred though it's worth noting that the judge in this trial has been given bodyguards as a precaution for her own safety you know this goes back to it and incident in april of this year in which a previous judge who was involved in this case was threatened in her office by a man with an axe saying that he wanted the three women on trial released so these

bodyguards have been assigned to the current judge us a precautionary measure now this is a. case which has squished opinion so widely here in russia or in the final bit more about that my colleague. looked at some of the background on this case. it was a pretty eerie directed virgin mary. but it was heard all around the world pussy wise performance of the christ the savior cathedral outraged song invigorated others and left almost no one indifferent along with the page her who condemned to a 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 of the mosque burning it was blasphemy desecration of a church it was sacrilege i think they belong to some sect which conducts the tanach rituals they use. 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. just like. i don't. think they were face. to face. as part of the our group by now which translates from russian as war this wasn't the first time pussy riot has attracted attention but is that the work when you give a participated in one of the groups performances an orgy moskos biology museum just

four days before giving birth because there was some would say which is said to be the woman seen here performing a sex act with a frozen chicken in a supermarket both incidents were also meant to be forms of political protest but neither were followed up with arrests. the actions of pussy riot immoral. initially they were forgiven for their first attempt to disturbance i mean the museum the incident in the supermarket food now we just used to it but we don't. ever pull from playboy for a cover photo shoot and offer to perform along with bjork for all 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 was sco. all

this and other stories are always available on our website r t dot com here's what's also in line for you right now paralympic scandal disabled parents of athletes are outraged by discriminating rules that stop them sitting was their children wheelchair areas was terrifying statistics the suicide rates in the u.s. army reach a new peak with an average of more than fourteen people killing themselves every month. the 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 russian which sees the mission as key to finding a political way out of the war. 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 and 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 sort of the monday is coming to an end we believe that those members of the council who insisted to. continue the. commitment to ending course still it is. working towards a political settlement to syria 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 a 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 kofi annan approach was 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 when a mandate officially expires at the end of this month. all russia's inviting members of the syria action group to meet in new york on friday a meeting will call an international powers to appeal to all the conflicting sides in syria for an end to violence moscow also wants new ceasefire deadlines to be set both for the government and the opposition political allies dr marcus couple davalos however doubts the foreign states which traditionally bad this year rebels will persuade them to lay down arms and work if you know the history you say about

the west and islamic extremism though they don't get on with each other they certainly get into bed with each other when there's a common foe let's have a look at the western islamic extremism in afghanistan in the 1980's against the soviet army let's see how western is limited stream is a came together in bosnia in the ninety's in one thousand in the nineteen ninety's and the same also in cost of values so this will of this one come as a surprise to western politicians that point to where it will of course come as a surprise to domestic audiences in the west who are largely ensured a story that the assad government is this genocidal mass murdering machine and the arms and the opposition. all innocent bystanders won't come as a surprise so i heard. a bahrain's opposition leader in a bill or a job has reacted to a three year prison sentence by the finally vowing 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 royal family handling obvious case walked away with outrage among human rights groups they have repeatedly criticized the government's crackdown on protesters accusing the modern key of violating basic freedoms and even torture part of our former lecturer at the university of before and thinks there is no why the end of the tunnel for opposition. jail sentence of three years for mr in a bill is art indicates that the bahraini 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 to the u.s.

navy's fifth fleet is based in bahrain and because of their basing rights in the ports of bahrain and also the tarmac right at the shaikh isa air base the u.s. navy is due by our project is able to board project u.s. military might in the entire middle east and are to maintain you have had germany in the region now take a 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 crowd eighteen people were reportedly killed in that mayhem as security officers tried to disperse a thousand strong gathering yet another i strike erupted last friday after rob 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 pan of inquiry also suggested police spent an unacceptable amount of time trying to catch the killer findings of a report contradict another document presented by the police which concluded security officers showed no hesitation rather carried out a bombing in oslo in a gun attack on an island summer camp. all right time now to take a little tapping in business and traders here moscow has a down of their desks yet but what's happening elsewhere katie hello there maria yeah absolutely the most good markets will be i mean off in less than an hour's time so right now we'll concentrate on the asian session because they've kicked off the global markets with a positive reaction to the us rally over night we've got japanese exports is getting a boost from the yen as well the financials so also some of the biggest date is a japan wall in china there's a few losers on the session and that's because of weak things reports from both the

media corp of china the heavyweight china mobile as well but as you can see the is around five percent composed of territory as of the nikkei around seven tenth's of the perception that the us market is that it was the housing permits they've reached the highest levels is two thousand and eight is not that she had months before the bankruptcy of lehman brothers as well as that we had german child. coma's. will do whatever it counted he the year and that had nation dull supports the european central bank approach to resolving the debt crisis in investors' overstays eyes light the sound of we've got the dow jones around seven tens of percent of the nasdaq over upset that's how we'll see places such as the car as it is that see that the year is still managing to decline others just clarify for you this is how the ruble finished up the session yesterday again it will begin trading

in less than an hour's time so as you can see just there managed to gain against the u.s. dollar and it lost out to the european it car and say as for the russian markets and the l.c.s. on the my sites they managed to produce a moderate guys around a quarter of a percent it was low volumes here were in the middle of our holiday season but wasn't too much going on internationally even today could be another story because right now we're looking at oil prices and they are indeed foreleg and that's for the first time in four days that we interesting to see how the moscow investors react to that and there are trimming a third week gave a lot of thought because of speculation that it's wrong to a three month high yesterday was excessive. out moving of ukraine has made the first big step to wean itself of russian gas the country has drawn a consortium led by exxon mobil to develop its own gas shell for the black sea and

the ten billion dollar project is expected to provide ukraine with five billion cubic meters of gas to get that surround twelve percent of what the country bought from russia last no artie's. experience for us. 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 the ukrainian government and the exxon mobil consortium on development and 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 the system is there by john and through committee stan could and larch 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 is been having from russia currently key 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 happy but 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. alike see our chesty that join us the headlines here and also coming up next. emission free accreditation free transport charges free. range and free free. free.