today's news and the week's top stories on our t.v. the palestinians get the backing of the world at a historic a u.n. vote as israel announces plans to build new settlements in the west bank and east jerusalem. egypt is heading deeper into chaos after the country's top court halted all work in protest over being blocked from ruling on the new constitution this comes amid public outrage triggered by president morsi his self-imposed powers. we do weeks and will release a raft of the new and shocking revelations in the next year according to join us speaking to r t the whistleblower says the new material is set to rival even the publication of the u.s. diplomatic cables.

broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow recapping the week's top stories this is r.t. with the weekly glad to have you with us. the palestinians and moved a step closer to being a fully recognized as independent in the un voted to upgrade the administration's diplomatic status to a non member observer state in our middle east correspondent paula slayer reports now on how the move may signal a change in the way the world sees israeli actions. it might have been a foregone conclusion but that didn't dampen the jubilation on the streets of palestine. overwhelming support for upgraded palestinian state has to a nonmember observer state in the un one hundred fifty eight voting in favor nine against look at it forty one abstentions report of political and legal. victory to

hold israel accountable in a practical way on its violations of the national law and its violations of the rights of the palestinian people especially on the expansion of illegal surveillance palestinians can now apply to join the international criminal court and other global organizations giving them better bargaining chips in dealing with israel but it came at a price within hours tel aviv announced it was building three thousand more homes in the west bank a sure sign that the situation on the ground won't change overnight does it's not a step forward it's a step aside or even you know a step. back that's really a pity the international community gives hand to this violation the u.s. was also quick to cost the cloud over the palestinian party mood the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the united nations general assembly that just passed today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the palestinian people

will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed but washington's unflinching support for tel aviv has separated from some of its longtime allies in the un more and more countries are turning their back on decades of negotiations that have led nowhere what has changed has been the continual failure of the us controlled so-called peace process to lead to any kind of end to occupation and what i think was the catalyst here is that political pressure on other matters in on the palestinian authority from their own population from their own people who were saying you know what we've had twenty one years of failed diplomacy we're not looking for twenty two we want something different and that's something means a real shift in policy first and foremost the consensus on the international stage is that israel needs to stop. building settlements deemed illegal by the un

certainly be international community are you know is a horse this way to start a provocation which arrows of course i don't remotely so-called new state solution it was a little more than a year ago that palestinian president mahmoud abbas came to the un in a bid for statehood since then tel aviv and washington's approach to the middle east conflict has gained them an ever shrinking minority of supporters the irony is that the bid was passed on the watches of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his rightwing foreign minister avigdor lieberman it was last year that lieberman boasted in the united nations that the moral majority of western states was with israel it now turns out he was wrong and whether israel wants it or not it's increasingly clear that something needs to give policy r.t. tel aviv earlier israeli academic miri eisin told my colleague kevin owen the general assembly's decision puts the whole peace process under threat. the majority

of israelis including this government by the way have stated clearly that they'd like to see palestine independent and both of us understand that there is a difference between saying palestine independent and doing it on your own with the united nations without israel as a partner as if saying that the impediment is just the state that's here let's do this hand in hand without negotiations without us as a partner to do a one sided to impose it on israel and they feel the strong need to give a response as an israeli i can say that has to do with domestic politics personally i don't necessarily adhere to that stop i think you've heard a lot of criticism here in israel in linking it in such a way but that is also about politics but of course israel maybe not helping the other could be said on top of the and i was one of the settlements also announced it's not going to hold over a hundred million dollars of aid to the palestinians to pay back debts to israeli companies is really an option one of course you go to wills blah just refugee

populations on your doorstep well that refugee population is something that needs to be taken care of in any case but i'm looking at these as part of the last four years the decision that was made on thursday from my point of view as an israeli who was anti israel not just pro palestinian i want to see something which is a win win situation one that's both pro palestinian goes towards an independent state not just in rhetoric and not just regulations but in actuality and to do so those same palestinians kevin how to come back to the negotiation table for the last four years they have refused to do so they've refused time and again and we're all aware of that it was one of the main reasons that the forty states did abstain from the vote on thursday did so because of that rejection of israel it isn't just about being pro palestine it's also about accepting israel here and that's where we need to go divisions between the president and of the judiciary have dealt

a stunning. blow to hope some stability in egypt the country's top judges have come out on strike against morsi sweeping new powers and of the rushed approval of the new constitution the document will be put to the vote in under two weeks time as protesters numbering in the tens of thousands remain on the streets from karachi as more. good unrest returns to the streets after the revolution that toppled hosni mubarak after the election that brought in mohamed morsi egypt is in turmoil once again these round the clock protests have been going on for over a week now it resembles early two thousand and eleven when hosni mubarak was removed from power but that was nearly two years ago shouldn't the revolution have ended by now the mood on top risk where became defiant again after last week's to creba president morsi meaning his decisions would face new legal challenge we had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant a dictator and. we in in order to that we have made elections and that

evolution and with elections to choose someone to the present us and turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself however morsi claims his new powers are only temporary he nor any of the b.b.q. two in the world who closely near the will tell you it is that imposing it is full immersion see it told us the same state same thing city is a war on the president obama and we stayed under emergency rule for seventy years opponents say egypt's new constitution is too islamist and could set the country on the road to religious dictatorship but some sections of society are keen to show their support for morsi and their scorn for judges who would block the constitution and i'm here to support the president morsi films all push and buy tickets for his opposition for them to the constitutional court yeah most of us knows that since it is the morsi is that he got elected by the people when it was at the fight for the

head. his failure the rifts in society are undeniable and perhaps more even the north or a tarion ism his favor is that chaos will tear apart any gains made by the revolution this is something new in egypt that's why it's it's more sitting in a way where you'll find that people are facing each other in the seats in the ministrations and facing that type of violence from islamic groups egypt's president its government its courts its very constitution are now matters of heated debate one of the few things most egyptians do seem to agree on after the long night of mubarak and new day is proving it. tom watson. president morsi earlier valid to give up his new powers after the constitution is ratified but journalist while as kandahar says he is unlikely to keep his promise. the fact of the matter is that everything is going in the opposite direction of what the

revolution is called for the constituent assembly itself is a reflection of how unwilling to share power the muslim brotherhood are and along with one hundred morsi. he says that he will give back powers as soon as a parliament is a is elected but he's not allowing the gyptian to share in writing the constitution so this to me seems like a false promise about giving back power because the one thing he can do is allow dipshits to write their own constitution and share power and he's not doing that to judiciary have been a tool for the mubarak regime but if we come to think of it when people protested mubarak they were protesting police brutality and we see that morsi is giving promises to the police that they will act with impunity and does not want to bring anyone to justice for the crimes they've done julian assange is promising some new shocking revelations to rival the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables published by wiki leaks two years ago we had of the whistle blowing web site also

claims the us is becoming a totalitarian state with the help of social media you can see the full interview on our website at r.t. dot com. the problem is that all the time everyone nearly everything they do on the internet is permanently recorded every web search to know what you were thinking one year two days three months ago and you don't know but google knows it remembers the national security agency intercepts requests that the u.s. border it knows will be. a national security agency whistleblower who was the research head of the national security agency's signals intelligence division describes this as turning a key totalitarianism that all the infrastructure has been built for absolute totalitarianism it's just a matter of turning the key and actually the case has already been turned a little bit and it is now affecting people who are targeted for us drone strikes organizations like wiki leaks. national security reporters who are having their

sources investigated is already partly turned and the question is would we would go all the way. u.s. army private bradley manning the man charged with handing over classified u.s. documents to wiki leaks spoke out for the first time in over two years saying he considered suicide while in detention during his pretrial hearing the twenty four year old said his detention conditions triggered anxiety attacks and made him want to hang himself manning has been locked up for more than one hundred days the longest pretrial detention of a u.s. soldier since the vietnam war chase made our lawyer and author of a book on manning says the imprisoned private provokes a mixed reaction from the military. both opinion in the military and intelligence and law enforcement is quite divided about this i am not going to lie most people in the military have

a very strict by the book attitude towards many of the rules not all the rules but many and would like to see many convicted but i have talked with infantry one of whom who is caught on camera in that infamous collateral murder how a cop your video who sees bradley manning is a hero who sees the leaks of the iraq war logs including that i woke up to a video as an unqualified good because now americans can finally see how that war is actually going in ditto for the afghan war logs there are also people in the f.b.i. who think such a thing is we can weeks is very good for national security including the former director of the minneapolis office of the f.b.i. fully roundly who is a time magazine's person of the year in two thousand and two and i have a long interview in my book with the former top cia analyst ray mcgovern who also sees this public knowledge of this benefit to the public if they advance our force

to be in measurable good so there is disagreement that the military and intelligence communities about this. and still to come this hour gruesome footage of the cold blooded killing of unarmed men. the reality of the conflict in syria is exposed online as militants upload a video as they gunning down thank you for their lives. and as the election turnout tumbles in kuwait it seems the opposition boycott has paid off that and much much more after a short break right here on our team. in. the variety that takes your breath away to eating across the sky as it was a mohnish good you know the biggest salt lake in europe or more than two hundred

species of birds but also it is them are on the verge of extinction on these islands in the south of russia they find shelter before migrating to other parts of the world paladins as well as other species at the monish who do low feed on faith these words are waiting for their parents to bring them food to the best cash for them is in a small area of the lake where the water is relatively fresh his fish cannot survive in the salty a part of the money and the lakes getting sold every year the monish who do lowe's and all to fish oil reservoir which was filled in the nine hundred fifty s. in the areas hot climate the water evaporates quickly and the local stores natural sultanate steaks over a possum birds the drying out of the lake cool so striking one of the world's biggest populations of mustangs. their mills and four hundred of the animals here the area is a protected waldorf reserve it's a place of peace and calm in recent decades dozens of canals have been dug around

here to cultivate the locals taps broad grassy plains this may. useful for humans but it does badly hit many species as the animals here for instance saw i get antelopes just some forty years ago there were more then to me and so i go into dope saving in asia and they leave no where else in the world but now people brought the species to the brink of extinction this region has been reaching life for thousands of years but now we know relatively short space of time makes my brain diversity of creatures is second and all fronts by man and nature itself. well into the. story it's technology innovations all the lives developments from around russia we've gone to the future are covered.

you know 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 knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. and live from moscow you are with our team glad to have you back in kuwait a pro-government candidates have won the lion's share of seats in parliament after

saturday's election but the islamist led opposition which boycott of the vote claims the turn. now that was as low as twenty six percent dismissing the lawmaking body as illegitimate the opposition has vowed to continue their protests until the us backed monarchy dissolved parliament marti's was accountable for ports from the gulf states voting in kuwait highly controversial elections may be over but the battle over the country's political future has only just begun lots of new faces in the newly elected parliament which is deemed to be far more government friendly than the previous assembly but that is because the opposition didn't want any candidates you know boycott of the vote that protest was deemed to be a success with official estimates of placing voter turnout at roughly thirty nine percent in stark contrast to the sixty percent voter turnout that we've seen in the last three elections in this country the opposition claims the turnout was in fact much lower and it's obvious the new body is illegitimate and topic told the new

assembly on constitutional according to the popular committee for boycotting election votes the new body doesn't represent the majority of the great people and has lost a couple and political legitimacy the question is of course whether the opposition is now going to take its battle to the streets and whether the monarchy will respond with a heavy hand now what happens here in kuwait has implications far beyond the country's borders as an opec member any sort of on a rest is bound to have an effect on world oil prices the country also serves as a hub for the pentagon's ground forces with thousands of american combat troops stationed here as a military council wait true there are on the gulf monarchies as a whole have been struggling to stave off the effects of the arab spring with varying degrees of success is largely seen as the most tolerant of the countries but the worry is that the trend could be reversed over the past few months the country has seen increasingly violent escalating protests between the opposition and security forces with the latter using tear gas stun grenades and rubber bullets

to disperse crowds political parties are banned as are political gatherings. if more than twenty people and activists are claiming of a clampdown against dissent here in this country authorities did allow thousands of opposition demonstrators to gather in a largely peaceful rally on friday but of course the coming weeks are bound to test the limits of the government's total runs as well as the self control of the opposition what happens here in kuwait could very well write the next chapter of the arab spring you see caffein of r t kuwait. some analysts who say coates regime will have staying power as long as it enjoys the support that comes with being a key u.s. ally. the most important element in all of this is whether or not the opposition is able to stand up against this family the ruling class the ruling class in kuwait and most importantly standing against u.s. imperialism kuwait in and of itself is not terribly important but when seen in the

context of the g.c.c. and seen as one of the most reliable u.s. allies particularly juxtaposed against what is happening in bahrain then we understand that the united states in the western powers cannot allow the saw family to fall you have to see that kuwait is a launching point in a possible war against iran so all of these taken together really shows that the united states has both political geo political and then of course social reasons why they want to maintain the status quo. explosions in syria's western city of homs have killed at least fifteen people and left more than thirty injured the blasts happened near a mosque and a stadium witnesses say there were two separate car bomb attacks it is fear the number of dead could rise with many of the wounded in a critical condition this comes amid reports that syrian warplanes have hit rebel targets in the suburbs of damascus where fighting between militias and regime troops has been raging on for a month. some footage has emerged apparently showing syrian rebels killing ten armed prisoners as they pleaded for their lives on the gunman is heard referencing

the al qaeda linked to al nusra front which has been behind several suicide attacks in the country meanwhile internet and phone access across syria was cut off for two days and while the opposition widely blamed the assad government for the information blockade news analyst patrick henningsen says it primarily benefiting those backing the rebel militias you have a massive problem again with syria we've had this problem from the beginning which is the skewing of information coming out of the country the syrian observatory for human rights who is responsible for a lot of the usual bogus claims are allowed the west to sort of justify the backing of the free syrian army terrorist groups. leaders of our western countries particularly nato countries or encouraging the syrian terrorist rebels guerrillas whatever you want to call them to really accelerate the bloodbath in that country because in the eyes of washington of london the bigger the blood out the quicker

they can have reaching here in just a report just came out this week with a supplying satellite units to rebels rebel groups terrorist groups essentially in syria so they can communicate while the internet is down to their country there was an initially sold in the media in places like the water composed a move by the assad government possibly to shut down rebel communications but actually upon further investigation it looks like it's possible that actually the combination of the united states operatives and the syrian rebels could actually be behind the bringing down the internet and the reason is is because if the blood escalates in that country the last thing that the west wants is any reports coming out on the internet of actual rebel terrorist atrocities in that country and across these that we've seen quite a bit of recently. on our website we have more on what is happening in syria including how france could be about to start funding militant groups some of which

are associated with al qaeda. and as syrian rebels that receive aid from the west libya is also getting additional investment from the u.s. america is now assisting tripoli reestablish its military after last year civil war because archie's going to church account comments washington's offer of help and may not be an entirely selfless act. the pentagon's new outlook forget about full scale invasion is and large footprint docu patients instead think of special ops and proxy armies next destination libya the obama administration has received congressional approval to allocate money for a special unit reportedly made up of some five hundred people who will train the country's forces according to one libyan militia commander a team of americans is already in the country looking for recruits a major obstacle in their way a vastly divided society there isn't an army of libya now and the army is not going

to be because whenever you try and get militias which have a legion says to a variety of praise of things than the national interest so they have allegiance to a dr or to a sect or to a religion rather than having allegiance to the nation or to the country you cannot build an army but with training and aid fully via the u.s. we have more pragmatic goals then uniting the army you were just teaching them the best way to fight this war training it actually because the two really about it not so much about you know teaching people how to use rifles and how to use new equipment it's all about really more about indoctrination make at any age one of the children the u.s. uses and as you very successfully. to ensure that the elite in the countries concerned stay loyal to the u.s. . a lot in terms of foreign policy the state law to them in terms of opening their economies up. to u.s.

multinationals will be a movie very important. for the united states and yes it will start buying american arms and substantial qualities libya's lots and lots of money to spend according to the state department this year alone the u.s. spent six point three billion dollars financing foreign armies it argues investing in foreign militaries helps build. better alliances and further american interests abroad from the point of view of the u.s. government of course it's very useful to have other countries militaries integrated into the us they get the training then they get the equipment they get the arms it's the full package the idea of proxy armies is not new to the americas track record of training foreign armies has hardly been flawless you have the school of americas for instance which is trained all the the armies that became the torturers of latin america that started after world war two i would say the training troops is especially in the middle east in the case of iraq or in afghanistan something of

a catastrophe and it's premised on a fantasy that if the u.s. buys the uniforms gives them the guns provides in the training that somehow these will be reliable forces you can see in the case of afghanistan the governments are united the governments are partners but the afghan troops don't consider the americans to be their friends in fact they consider them to be cultural aliens who are occupying their country more than fifty coalition troops were killed this year alone by members of the afghan security forces or it is out that the obama administration wants to leave around ten thousand troops in afghanistan to continue to train afghan forces and carry out special operations after twenty fourteen when according to the obama administration american forces are supposed to have completely left the country the afghan government has less than two years to agree or reject the idea the u.s. government may be looking at training armies abroad as a smart investment sort of like outsourcing makes sense in business it's cheaper than having u.s. troops on the ground no need to explain dead troops coming home makes sense from

a lot of perspectives but that strategy has backfired more than once in the past eliminating populations that didn't want to see their military become a student of washington's wars in washington i'm gonna check out. more news ahead including the tale of the prime minister the press and a public baying for blood. damning at. it's simpler he says britons of free media needs to be reined in with regulation. and silicon valley is of turfing out of the talent after the break we explain why there is now no place for those who hope to america's digital innovation. wedge issues do just what their name implies they get between people and drive them

apart like a wedge and these issues seem to always take the forefront in the media things like abortion gun rights marijuana legalization and the weather well the weather isn't really a wedge issue but people sure talk about it way too much there's only so much room in the national discourse and these wage issues just eat up all of the time and attention but the thing is that there's a little something called the tenth amendment you know the one that says that any powers that are specifically delegated the federal government are reserved for the states and last time i checked the constitution doesn't have a special weed clause saying that marijuana has to be an all or nothing a national proposal and that goes for abortion and most of the wedge issues also there's a simple answer all these wedge issues just left the states make up their own minds but then again without wages shoes what would the mainstream media have to distract us with but that's just my opinion.