well love it or hate it wiki leaks has sure given us a lot to talk about over the past few years with its explosive revelations ahead will countdown of the top ten things we now know because of whistle blowing web site. and speaking of wiki leaks today is the second day anniversary of the largest intelligence leak in american history so what have we learned from this so-called that cable gate and also what's to come of its founder julian a song which details coming up. plus it is day two of the pretrial hearings for accused wiki leak or bradley manning today medical experts will take the stand to testify about the alleged wiki leaks treatment while in custody the latest on his

case coming up in a bit. while it is wednesday november twenty eighth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine frizz out and you're watching our t.v. . today is the anniversary of an event that has been hugely significant both on historic and political levels revealing more than mere information two years ago today wiki leaks released cable gate let's go to our tease adriano seto to explain . hey there adriano let's break down i mean we have certainly learned so much from this web site i mean we haven't as you just said before cable gate as it's commonly know did shut some lights on some information that some governments all over the world would have rather kept in the dark so we here at r.t. decided to put together a list of some information you might not have figured out how to not been for wiki

leaks so take a look today marks the second anniversary of the largest intelligence leak in u.s. history cable gate as it's commonly known sheds light on information that governments would have rather kept in the dark here's a list of some of the biggest revelations that have come from wiki leaks number ten corrupt corruption in egypt one of the first major revelations came as no surprise to many international observers systemic corruption was a mainstay in the mubarak regime. the government routinely took selective actions against journalists and bloggers who held negative opinions of mubarak cables also uncovered the strained relationship between the u.s. and egypt. number nine syria gate one of the latest weekly leaks releases featured documents relating to syria among the revelations were ties between italian industrial giant finmeccanica which supplied fifty million introspection proof communications used by the military police number eight palestine willing to play ball in an attempt to streamline the peace process wiki leaks cables revealed just

how much the palestinian authority was willing to concede surprisingly the palestinian authority was willing to give up land in exchange for an end to further settlement building the revelation angered some palestinian hardliners but ultimately showed israel's all or nothing attitude at the negotiating table. and what they want to stick to the sun has been in the ecuadorian embassy for nearly six months in london this despite being granted asylum in ecuador the british response to the asylum threats over from the embassy and forcibly take advantage while their rhetoric has cooled down and the confrontation demonstrates something about the british mindset despite international law not being at their side authorities in the u.k. don't really value embassy rights. number six violence in mexico the war on drugs has long been a difficult problem to tackle especially because cartels in mexico have a foothold among police army and the mexican government wiki leaks released a u.s.

cable concern that narco money and firepower would play an outsized role in the two thousand and nine when useable gubernatorial and state elections in mexico for the first time mexican people saw the u.s. as critical judgment of its leaders and their corruption in the cables ultimately influenced the elections. number five guantanamo president obama has yet to keep his promise to close guantanamo bay and wiki leaks revealed that most of the so-called dangerous criminals imprisoned are low level foot soldiers or altogether innocent afghans and pakistanis are in the wrong place at the wrong time. number four concerns over karzai the war in afghanistan continues to rage on and while the u.s. continues negotiations with afghan officials over troop presence post twenty fourteen it wasn't that long ago that the u.s. was expressing concern over the country's leader president ahmed karzai calling him quotes a paranoid and weak individual unfamiliar with the basics of nation building no

word yet on whether popular opinion has changed among u.s. officials. number three g m o's across the globe the battle over genetically modified foods has been at the file box in the u.s. but most voters didn't know that the u.s. embassy in paris suggested back in two thousand and seven that the start a trade war with european union countries that did not support the use of genetically modified crops cables also show that u.s. diplomats regretted that the pope who allegedly supported the use of g.m. crops had not made his opinion public. the number two spies like this never too late to become a spy and that's what several u.s. diplomats found out when under instruction by the state department to collect information on the officials this included everything from basic contact information like business cards and cell phone numbers to credit cards and even fingerprints. and a number one collateral murder by now you've probably seen this video of a u.s. appellate apache helicopter shooting at iraqis like they're in

a video game without concern that they're shooting at international journalists this video put wiki leaks on the map and showed the real face of war apathetic teens unaware that they're shooting at real people. well there you have a christine a couple of things you might have not known had not been for a wiki leaks so back to you all right pretty significant things are part of what will no doubt become important in history when we look fast thanks artie producer adrienne setter. let's talk now little more about the legacy of wiki leaks and in particular the case surrounding its founder julian assange hunch we are nearing six months that assange has been holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london if he sets foot outside he will be arrested and sent to sweden for questioning related to sexual assault allegations of songe and his supporters fear he would then be extradited to the united states and be charged with espionage and for this reason

ecuador has granted him political asylum those so as of now he has no way to actually get there well to talk more about some of these far reaching consequences of cable gate correspondent laura smith who joined me earlier today from london. two years ago on the twentieth of november two thousand and ten cable guy really got into the swing of things the first two hundred twenty cables were published by media partners of wiki leaks in spain and germany and france the u.k. and of course the u.s. and what we've seen since then huge consequences both internationally and the wiki leaks as a corporation and so people within that corporation so we're going to talk about this in a little bit more detail i know but there's been huge consequences in terms of the arab spring cable guy is really credited with being a catalyst for the arab spring also since cable gave wiki leaks as

a corporation and many people will say that this is not a coincidence has come under increasing pressure quite shortly following cable gate its experience denial of service is service attacks on it as it was also blockaded by a lot of payment method so pay pal credit card companies denied wiki leaks that this is and so couldn't therefore receive any donations and that's a legal battle that's still going on of course there have been consequences for broadly manning who may or may not be the original source of the documents he's in pretrial detention in the united states as we speak and of course julian i saw himself the head of wiki leaks has been designated officially by the u.s. as an enemy of the united states along with wiki leaks so really huge consequences all around and one of those that you mentioned i think is an important one which is that it in many ways this was a catalyst to the arab spring given some specific examples things that came out of

wiki leaks that really played a role in these protests that have really reshaped the politics of the middle east and north africa. as what is important today that day and ourselves always says that it wasn't wiki leaks that provided the catalyst for the arab spring it was the people in the arab world and in fact during a speech to the u.n. he gave recently he was very critical of president obama who he says takes credit for the arab spring himself but i suppose the most kids on poor ailie is tunisia where of course the uprisings began with this self-immolation of a man who was protesting against the fact that he literally couldn't afford to live ten days before that event wiki leaks released a cable that showed that the president's daughter and her husband ordered ice cream to be delivered to them from some tree pay so while that was going on the ordinary people into his it couldn't afford to live and that many examples of that all over

the arab world which really led to people thinking we're not going to put up with a setting where we have to get rid of these people you mention the speech that julian assange just gave to the united nations i'm pretty sure that was the last time really that we have heard from him i want to play a quick part of that speech and then we'll talk about it. the u.s. is ministration it in trying to arrange. a national regime of secrecy a national regime discussion regime where any government employee revealing sensitive information to a media organization can be sentenced to day life in prison. or spin and journalists from the media when i was eighteen. so it sounds really pointing out once again some of the flaws the differences between the u.s. policies and their actions laura you have personally interviewed julian assange what are your thoughts on his state of mind his well being after being stuck in

this embassy for more than five months now or press i'd just like to tell you that i was in the ecuadorian embassy the night dude in essence gave his speech to the u.n. and i can tell you that he made that speech in his sulks he's probably the only man who's ever given a speech to the u.n. in jest in just his stocking feet but i guess as you say you know there's no real reason for him to put his shoes on because he's not going anywhere he has been holed up in the ecuadorian embassy for almost six months now and additionally it's almost two years since the european arrest warrant was first issued for him and since he's been holed up in various locations whenever i osc him or a member of his team what he's doing well he's been in that they always say well he's working he was all the time and it's true that information has kept on coming out issued by wiki leaks and he is he is very proud of that but having said that his health is failing as any of all as would if we were inside for that length of time just the lack of its mandate i think and particularly now that the winter has

come on here in the u.k. people are saying that his vision is suffering slightly that his state of mind has become much more much more pessimistic if you like and i think that i've seen not over the course of the two years that we've been following this story but still he keeps on working and still you know he keeps up the pressure on the government and the ecuadorian embassy has been very instrumental in doing that too while he's been in he's completed a number of projects he has made a program of full. notably where he's interviewed a huge range of people one town in the prison and the first president of the new tunis the a that we just talked about he also interviewed before he went into. the ecuadorian embassy the ecuadorian president which is believed to have been the first contact that he made with him and he's also written a book which is being released this week a book called cypherpunks which is based on one of the interviews that he did for

that show so. you know his his health might not be all but one would hope he is still keeping the pressure on and keeping on doing his work laura just one more question for you and it's an overall sort of broad question about the evolution of wiki leaks as an organization i know was for a while a widely used source but now we rarely hear much about it what's your take here on the timeline of how everything's happened i think since cable gates has been very hard for wiki leaks as an organization as i say acknowledges still walking and just last month wiki leaks started releasing one hundred classified and secret documents about the treatment of prisoners in u.s. detention facilities say guantanamo background places like that and those are there's a very important documents but they have had a lot of problems today and i saw it as had his personal programs that we've already talked about there's been this blockade of funding by pay pal and must a call it's still going on through the courts in fact one day outside the high

court here in london i saw a supporter hands julian a soldier awarded cash for wiki leaks funding and him talking it into his breast pocket and ready for a while that there was absolutely no other way that wiki leaks could receive funding so that's been incredibly difficult for them and also he off to in the wake of cable gates the organization fell out with a lot of its media partners most notably the guardian and the new york times to that also made publication of anything in the widest sort of mainstream media very difficult for the organization but they all they all still caring all over the beleaguered i think a lot of people forget too how much information that we do know now from the last decade or so actually did come from wiki leaks itself joining us in our london bureau and thanks as always our to correspondent laura smith. well it's hard to talk about the lasting effects of wiki leaks without also talking about private first class bradley manning manning is accused of leaking many of those classified

cables to wiki leaks now even though he was arrested two and a half years ago manning is just now having his pretrial hearing despite a law in the military that says a court martial should come within one hundred twenty days of being detained now i first manning was held for about three months in kuwait then transferred in july two thousand and ten to the marine corps base at quantico in virginia where he remained for eight months reportedly spending all of that time in solitary confinement for twenty three hours a day forced to strip naked at night he was then moved to fort leavenworth or or maybe have that backwards regardless his pretrial hearing has been taking place under intense secrecy with activists and journalists fighting to get more access one of those journalists is our own web writer andrew blake who spent much of yesterday inside the courtroom at fort meade. i have that right he went from kuwait so you want to go at it for eleven ok i got that right i perfect well you were

there in the courtroom yesterday take us inside what happened yesterday was just the first day in the latest round of pretrial motion hearings of course like you said it's been. nine hundred thirty days i think at this point since he was first picked up and of course the trial should have started within one hundred twenty or so but here we are marshall should have which scheduled until february first are going to be ready and if it wraps up in march when it's supposed to will be at around one thousand by then so but this week that the hearings that we're having this week are really important because they are going to focus on what bradley experienced while he was at quantico in northern virginia so that's where it was kept for an eight or nine months and that's where for upwards of twenty three hours a day they took away his clothes they made him sit in a six foot by eight foot room and subjected to conditions that the that the u.n. said were pretty much on par with torture so we're expected to actually hear manning speak this week to talk about the things that we've only heard. through his attorney in the months since so it's going to be really important to actually humanize this case and actually hear from the man himself what it was like being

free because i'm not mistaken i mean we have not heard anything from him since he's been arrested no not not from the occasional you know yes ma'am in court aside from that we haven't really heard anything were you able to see andrew when you were in court were you able to understand how bradley manning was doing his mood you know there was concern for a long time that it was affecting his mental health i mean i can only begin to try to start to imagine what it must be like to be him especially after hearing testimony yesterday david coombs manning's defense attorney was grilling i believe his name is colonel dan choi who was a commanding officer at quantico brig where manning was stuck for nine months and we learned a lot about the mismanagement at quantico and a lot about how it seemed like a living hell for private manning and based off that what i heard in the media to my own reporting i really didn't expect to be face to face with

a person who looks like a healthy young twenty four year old military private but sure enough private manning was standing right next to me for a while and i didn't even recognize him because. i have no idea what it must be like to actually be inside of his person and have gone through years of this at this point but i didn't recognize him because he was actually smiling and actually seemed cheerful and actually seem to be in somewhat healthy place at this point and then sure enough only to an extent a little happy to be surrounded by people here and also to finally finally get this you know get moving there was actually a packed courthouse yesterday the amount of supporters from the public that were there had filled up the whole public section and had to go into the media overflow area so people can go to these of these hearings and for me they can go all week and they can hear hopefully from manning himself who is scheduled at this rate there. thinking maybe tomorrow or perhaps friday and of course after bradley manning was first arrested and those reports started coming out that he was

actually being held in solitary confinement i know i got the chance to sit down with one minute mendez the un special rapporteur on torture and at that time he was still sort of investigating what was going on but he did later release a report in which he said you know without mincing his words he said accuse the u.s. government of cruel inhumane and degrading treatment now we talked not just about manning but about some of the prisoners in guantanamo bay and really about the way that the u.s. government views torture i want to play a little bit of what he said. i don't think. crimes that can be swept under the rug and pretend that they didn't happen and if that's so. for people who think that that will enhance the reputation of the united states abroad does exactly the opposite of what will happen united states and all other countries to live up to their human rights of one of them is to investigate torture

and so i think this has to have been here as well. so to what extent do you think andrew that bradley manning's case is actually raising awareness about you know prisoners who are held in military custody and we're only really going to see the awareness level go up when the media starts reporting on it but luckily we're actually seeing a lot of media in the court this week perhaps it's because we're actually getting to a pivotal point in a case where we're finding out from from private manning himself what's happening but like i said during these testimonies were there grilling colonel choi he from from quantico and from reading e-mails from the top brass within the military who were involved with his stationing there you can see that this wasn't necessarily an isolated incident in fact months earlier there was a u.s. soldier who was detained at quantico who committed suicide and that was one of the reasons allegedly that they were trying to really keep an eye on manning even if he wasn't suicidal they wanted to impose every rule that they could and him to make sure that he didn't do anything that could possibly harm himself or one of his

reputation it seems like there's a lot of twists and turns in this case what do you think has been the most surprising so far. surprising but the real eye opener here is gross mismanagement at quantico and probably to a greater extent the entire pentagon when when colonel tried he was on the stand yesterday it seemed like every time that the defense counsel would present him with a fact something that came from one of his own e-mails or something that came from manning himself he really time and time again didn't know what was going on he said well we went through the chain of command well this person said this and this person said that no one point. he kept driving home the fact that well i may have the responsibility to look over private manning but i don't have the authority but then of course. managed to tell him well no you do have the authority and got him to admit it himself and wasn't there something about you know in this case about in fact instead of a psychologist oh yes absolutely instead of a forensic psychiatrist who assessed manning's mental health while he was stationed at quantico initially the officers there relied on

a dentist for health updates for a private matter which is something i've heard earlier but the groans in the courtroom in the media yesterday during the proud i mean just just one example of what seems to be a host of many i think we're going to find out a lot more this week though so all right our the web producer thanks so much. well the wind river reservation in central wyoming is home to nearly eight thousand native americans and about a dozen oil and gas fields and a battle is brewing there over what to do with waste water from some of the oil companies sites in the region is largely desert wilderness and because it's so dry ranchers found to have that toxic water be allowed to flow on the land they say they depend on it and that there would be no water for their livestock or other animals without it that dirty water is better than no water but others argue this water is toxic and would never be allowed to run on non-tribal land land and they're pressuring environmental environmental protection agency to close the

loopholes that allow it to continuously spew out our g. correspondent laurie hardness has been following this story closely and has more from our studios in new york hey there laurie breakdown these two arguments for me what is at stake here well what's at stake is your state basically you have cattle that could end up i knew your plate as a state that is wading through tactic. deep grey water and it's drinking and it's wading in and that all those toxins could end up in your state and it could be ending up in our own drinking water supply we just don't know because the head been monitored for decades so basically you have these ranchers that say they need this water and oil is not going to say you know we're going to be responsible here and clean up the water or reject it or do something responsible with that they're just going to say ok if it's fine with the e.p.a. and what the ranchers want why not it's easier and it's more financially easier for

us yes. in that way is a win win situation if the ranchers like it and of course the oil companies like it but there are people in favor of closing these loopholes to prevent this talks of water from running but let me ask you this laurie i mean how do they propose that the ranchers get that water for their livestock well that's the rub of it right i mean logically we can all see this is a bad idea you should not have toxins just being spewed out on to the land and that's the case with a lot of environmental concerns we all know it's a fad idea on paper but proposing solutions for how to clean it up and how we can still continue to feed our families with alternative solutions nobody is proposing those so that's the rub of it and it's the same case of the cattle ranchers no one has any ideas for how the cattle should get water besides the waste water so because they don't have an alternative in front of them and because they're not being forced to find another way to feed their families that's just been continuing

and has been you know even fitting in the big ball of red tape in the e.p.a. much like a lot of other concerns talk big picture for me though this isn't just a single example but is it yet another example of big oil using its power to sort of hurt the little people in this case a far less powerful tribal community. well i'd love to say yes because you know would be an opportunity to go iowa but in this case it's really the e.p.a. that fox and the big government that follow because the big oil is kind of like the kid with their hand in the candy bowl with no mom saying you got to stop doing that it's really the cattle ranchers that push back in the one nine hundred seventy s. the e.p.a. was going in there and trying to regulate it thank you map to reinject the water clean up the water you can't just have this runoff anymore in the keller rancher said we need this water and then the conversation just die because the e.p.a. didn't know what to do with that they don't have another solution and the cal

renters are saying ok the e.p.a. is like well we were trying to protect too and you know you don't want the production ok big oil is just happy to continue pumping the water as that is so it's not that would be great if it were but it's really the e.p.a. that's at fault here i mean i think it's a really good point and it's one of those. you know stories with loopholes itself and i got to say lori i mean certainly in the last you know nine to twelve months leading up to the election regulations was something that we heard a whole lot about the subject is certainly a popular one a significant one here in washington you know as lawmakers return to work to try to figure out where to cut one of the biggest complaints from from business owners is regulations and they say with all these regulations it just costs so much more to run their business i mean what do you see coming out of this case i mean do you see any prospect for change or do you think they're just going to continue on as they've been on you know for the last forty years well you know this is

a case like any case that deals with regulation or when you're looking to a corporation or a government for a solution it's not going to come from them it's going to come from it's going to come from people educating themselves and acting as the consumer because that's what governments and that's what corporations feel bad so we need to start demanding and she. knowing that our consumer needs are changing and once we do that that's when we're going to see change that's when you know you can write the regulation fight because the regulation is mired within a corrupt government. no win situation there it's really got to start with us and it's got to start with getting these kinds of stories out so that people get disgusted so that people rethink eating steaks that aren't local as much as i hate to say eat local because it sounds kind of you know neo hippie ish if you have to know what's in your food right well and the bottom line is it is important to get this story out there not a whole lot of people talking about as of yet correspondent laurie harford us

thanks so much and that is going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we cover go to you tube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa.

well. it's technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got a few jerks covered. wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harkin well.