operations are. backtracking on human rights groups condemn america's new defense act which allows suspects to be detained indefinitely. syrian rebels international journalists including the arabic news crew covering the conflict in the country. as a. reputation of politicians after. cash doesn't end up helping communities abroad.

around the world. this is. the day live from moscow the us defense for twenty thirteen has been greeted by harsh criticism from human rights groups after president obama signed the bill into law despite earlier veto threats the measure now is the indefinite detention of suspects and backtracks on the closure of guantanamo prison camp the lower extends the restrictions on transferring detainees out of guantanamo for another year despite obama's promise to close it when he first came to power activists say he's failed the first test of the second term allowing the military to indefinitely detain american citizens over terrorism allegations without charge or trial civil liberties groups pushing forward with a lawsuit against the measure which they insist is constitutional activist told r.t. that the new law feels like a major threat. i think against an accident he's my government.

supporting wiki leaks you know in a science and also bradley manning as you know we are you know many people and our government have declared them a terrorist group. that are. extremely scary and certainly could be used against people like me and my international team and veteran congressman dennis kucinich is also disappointed with the new national defense act claiming it's part of a tendency to the month democracy there are great human rights concerns here. that people could be held indefinitely violates a constitutional privilege that people have. we have a constitutional challenge here where not only the national. defense authorization act but the patriot act and other legislation have gradually

moved america away from a robust. freedom to a more limited freedom that is based on proscriptions by the government. this is more than problematic because what has always made america america is is the fact that we follow our constitution and we protect our constitution and we protect people against unreasonable search and seizure we protect people against being seized with a right to. know the charges against them or the right to an attorney or a right to a trial we have in the past condemned government being involved in spying now we have a much broader. spy network this is something that is profoundly anti-democratic i have repeatedly taken exception to it as a member of congress. n l a t arabic news crew and several international

journalists have come under rebel sniper fire in syria while covering the conflict that the news team were accompanying the military on a counter insurgency sweep and one of our colleagues was injured while running for cover his account. we arrived at the damascus suburb early in the morning to report on the syrian army operation we were moving from street to street and when we reached the dock my colleagues and i got caught in crossfire we tried to escape running one after another fearing that armed rebels would notice us a syrian army soldier accompanied us the entire time he constantly kept his eye on the situation and helped us to escape the gunfire the rebels were firing on us my colleagues and i were wearing bulletproof vest with the word press on them the firing was very intense and it was difficult to find shelter i ran and fell down i hurt my arms but the syrian army doctors gave me first date on the scene so i could continue to do my job there were many other correspondents there with me including

iranians and syrians one of the syrian cameramen was also slightly wounded like me . me monaco a bomb blast was ripped through a crowded petrol station in the syrian capital damascus and conflicting reports say the number of killed was up to eleven people with children among the dead dozens more civilians were wounded and u.s. will correspondent russ bacon says that such attacks a typical of the western backed rebel fighters trying to bring down president assad i've covered a few dangerous situations myself over the years and the reality is there is no way to be saved in war time with these the basic thing that we are doing there is we're providing a kind of a gritty. for the average person so they can kind of it sort of experience it from the far there's going to be a lot of in the way of covert operations sponsored by outside parties that have a stake in haste to name some sort of a new resolution of the situation there's no question we can this is pretty obvious

on the surface that western countries including my own have stepped up their involvement and want to get assad out as fast as possible and these are the sorts of things that we've seen historically going all the way back to the coup in guatemala in the one nine hundred fifty s. in iran and so forth these sorts of provocations are very very common i think we're going to see them increase until something or other is wrong they're pretty clearly i think the western countries. because they want assad now out entirely and i think he is not going to do that until the last possible moment. in the u.k. the prime minister david cameron's foreign aid target has been condemned as a cold job with no evidence that helps the poor around the world a recent study by a center right think tank says the billions of british taxpayers' money being spent being used to promote the conservative party's generosity and create a good image of the coalition government when i discuss the issue with laura smith

. well let me give you three quite stark examples the first is the example of british aid to ethiopia which totals three hundred million pounds evidence studies b.b.c. investigation shows that in fact it wasn't used to help poor people it was used by the ethiopian government to cement a corrupt hold on power the u.k. government refutes that saying that the money doesn't even go through the government but according to human rights watch they say it does and this investigation showed that in fact supporters of the opposition. to receive food or seeds or fertilizer which is what the aid was destined for a second example is in india a three hundred eighty eight million pound project aimed at improving indian schools the government here hailed as a huge success they said more children are going to school as a result of it but the indian government says that around seventy million pounds of it was either stolen or lost much of it was allocated to schools that didn't even

exists and that some of it went to by cause for dignitaries officials in india again the u.k. government refutes that and nigeria thirdly one hundred million pound project improve again the quality of education in nigeria an independent report showed that actually the results of it had been not to improve the quality of education at all they awarded the project to nigeria the second lowest rating again the government here refutes that same report sources that only visited a handful of schools so it's a pretty damning indictment of what's happening to all this money. vall sum of money how does it exactly help the image or british politicians. well of course the conservative party here in this country has an image of sort of stinginess and only wanting to help the rich and it does go a long way towards getting rid of an image like that it shows that that politicians are magnanimous sort of make them seem very generous and this information does

suggest that the government doesn't really care where the money goes or how it's ministers or how effective it is it only has that it seems to be giving this city the study is really quite critical isn't it does it suggest you can should stop helping communities abroad altogether i know it's not suggesting that it's just suggesting that the money is allocated and administered much more efficiently of course this is all happening against a backdrop of austerity at home and many people are saying you know forget forget giving money abroad let's keep it home where it's really needed at the moment so here we're seeing reduction in benefits even for a very poor people we're seeing a tax hikes we're seeing raids on particularly public sector pensions so a lot of people say keep this money at home don't give it give it a broad and the budget is continually increasing it's now going to be no point seven percent of gross national income and that equates to five hundred pounds

a year for every household in a lot of people say you know we could do something here at home with that five hundred pounds. in the middle east photo holders biggest rally since hamas came to power in gaza hundreds of thousands of fatah supporters more the groups anniversary but only rival hamas gave them the go ahead on the background in a few minutes. plus president putin has made it to the top of the list of the world's most powerful people but still only took second place will be explaining why later in the program.

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 realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. would be soon which brightened. from fans to pressure. starts on t.v. dot com. continues

here in r.t. hundreds of thousands of supporters have been celebrating the anniversary of the fatah party in gaza rival faction a mass which governs the territory gave its permission to hold the event for the first. i'm since it ousted fatah five years ago president abbas addressed the rally on the big screen from his west bank headquarters in ramallah the house leader khaled mashal urged reconciliation and national unity during his own running cars in last month and a list and last is an eighty he says it's time for the two parties to lay aside their differences when israel should stop seeking to rock the boat how much will have to look in to the hand they are in fact that will have to look into the hamas in the eye and both sides have to agree on only one thing we don't need more of the consolation talks we don't need more the consolation agreements because there were so many agreement signed between the two parties but not one of them has been honored or implemented what have nots cannot take over palestine and the concerns of netanyahu are baseless and groundless he's the only israeli leader who has been

giving support to hamas are not only to hamas but out to every extremist group on the palestinian side simply because these dumping the palestinian moderates is dumping the leadership of president abbas he's dumping the put the political negotiations with the with the palestinians and he's carrying on his own agenda of increasing the number of do with settlements in the west bank even though they are illegally they are illegal under international law he carries on his policies the stop every chance of reaching a two state solution between the palestinians and the israelis if the israeli withdrawal from gaza was based on an agreement with the palestinian authority we have we would have seen a totally different middle east today just over seven months ago the french placed their trust in socialist leader for all land giving him a mandate for change but his promises ranging from economic prosperity to allowing gay marriage approving harder to achieve than perhaps he thought and as artie's alexy have said he found out people already losing trust in the new leader. the

debate on whether gay marriage should be allowed has split french society for years with protests about the issue often ending in violence with france coming to power the gay community breathed a sigh of relief but it may have been too soon activists say the new law which is going through parliament in january is not exactly what they've been dreaming of. there had. been introduced by the government. marriage to same sex couples and option. medically assisted procreation but we're still very concerned because. people against same sex marriage same sex equality are getting very strong including in the parliament. in the mayors were obliged to officially register gay couples marital status and that's where many revolted

including francois labelle the mayor of central paris. many. allowing same sex marriages in france and moreover permitting them to adopt children will destroy the foundations of our family institution if we allow this now the next step will be allowing paedophilia and incest. so it seems in this scenario no side is completely happy which puts the french president and his electoral promise on the serious pressure from bringing the french troops back from afghanistan to creating more jobs in france and preventing the country from going into austerity during his campaign to become a normal president francois hollande had made many promises some of which now experts say may backfire against the french leader and if the gay marriage law wasn't divisive enough splurge to impose a seventy five percent tax on the. up

to twenty percent winning the election we proved to be the far easier challenge than what waits the french president. produces for twenty thirty fronts looking far from. he could face an uphill jordan. ski r.t. reports. in europe at spanish locksmiths who say they now hold the key to austerity so after they refused to cooperate any longer with the authorities to be repossessed and homeless and demanding a change of locks find out more about these websites. have another french movie

star seeking russian citizenship film icon brigitte bardot said she'll follow the example of gerald depart you remember it's not for tax reasons but to come to the rescue to say cannot. be named the most powerful person on earth the u.s. foreign policy magazine as the russian president of ahead of its annual list of the world's most influential people and whether he didn't make it into first place which was left blank. explains it was the international political think tank your racial group that came up with a list of the world's most powerful individuals with the russian president at the top of that list then they decided no they couldn't leave him so they put mr nobody at the top of why they would put in a second to mr. nobody you know according to this think tank into the foreign policy magazine that published the list authors explained that they left the top

position empty because the modern world has no. but they also said that their choice of names on that list on the individual's ability to singlehandedly. bring about change that significantly affect the lives and fortunes of large numbers of people the russian president followed by u.s. federal reserve chairman ben bernanke or the influence the organization has on the u.s. economy and by extension on the global economy german chancellor angela merkel for policies that are quote. that binds europe and us president barack obama he ranks the fifth on the list then you have the head of the european central bank chinese communist party leader and others the new tour asli eccentric russian businessman surrogate polanski has been released by cambodian authorities after agreeing not to leave the country he was arrested along with two other russians after allegedly threatening local sailors on a boat but his company denies the claims but on skid row's to dubious fame after

a video of a brawl on russian t.v. when. he drew an online talk show promise to digest the net where the price of his company's real estate didn't grow by a quarter. when i've heard of sworn in your pride but that's ridiculous now some of the stories making headlines right now from around the world prosecutors in egypt are investigating allegations that the country's muslim brotherhood illegally received as much as one point five billion dollars from the obama administration to know as a father complained against the organization mentioning that x. presidential candidate mitt romney made similar claims during his election campaign also accused the group of using armed militias to violence both during and after

the revolution in the country two years ago the muslim brotherhood which backs the egyptian president mohammed morsi has not commented on the accusations. venezuela's president hugo chavez has severe respiratory complications following a lung infection caught during his cancer treatment in cuba where the vice president nicolas maduro insisted that chavez is not in a coma during has been named preferred successor should anything happen to chavez under the constitution the socialist president is due to be sworn in for a third term next week. to capitol santiago they've been violent clashes between protesters and police up to twelve arrests were made demonstrators threw molotov cocktails and started fires following a march commemorating the two thousand and eight killing by police of a young indian indigenous inhabitants of central and southern chile have clashed with the government for years demanding better rights and an end to a vixens from what they claim is their land. he says its military is

arriving in turkey to deploy patriot missiles along the country's border with syria more than a thousand nato soldiers from the netherlands germany and america are expected to operate six such units by the end of january major problems to fulfill a request to install the system early last month which he claims will only be used for defensive purposes and move has drawn plenty of criticism with many believing the deployment is a step towards creating a no fly zone in the area and. the walls around israel are being extended with the country now building a security barrier on its border with syria israel says it wants to safeguard its citizens from the ongoing syrian conflict the latest construction comes right after a fence sprang up on the border with egypt the most visible wall however separates israel from the palestinians in gaza and supporters say it reduces the risk of suicide attacks in the jewish state while opponents claim it's an attempt to annex palestinian land activists believe that israel's barrier isn't meant to help it dominate the middle east. are doing and.

there's a. try all the time to build war walls around them themselves claiming that the people is hating them and they are targeting them as well has been harmed the whole real region and the area around around israel they are building the wall around the palestinian areas they claim that it's for security but at the end that look people are seen as in forty percent of their land they build world around gods and they turn goes into a jail the biggest prison in the world and we know how the rivers state the situation in gaza they are still occupying syria and they are building a wall on the occupied land so they want to keep this land and to keep themselves as a coupon it's not a solution that you keep building walls you need to do peace with the region you have to retain back their right to the people israel can't build its a future on the expense of the people of the region and that then building wars to

protect the to protect themselves wolf is not going to protect the israelis people's rights and they will keep claiming that their rights there is reading it and pushing it for the explosion we witness in the settlers attacking the palestinians every day and many villages there is north of the jordan valley is evacuated night by now by the israelis there is a real attack on the people in the south of hebron settlers it tracking the people in the middle area and so they are launching war on the palestinian people and they want the walls at the end to to bring peace to them stealing the people's land looking them in jail reversed it in their life is not going to bring peace in any way must realize that their years changing and they must they must understand this change that needs for them to conciliate with the people deal with the people i too i don't we don't consider yourself as part of your body want to isolate yourself and look yourself within the walls from the region you can do that

. nearly one hundred people into bed have set themselves on fire in the last nine months in protest over the chinese rule of their territory beijing has been increasingly criticized by human rights organizations for its handling of protests in the restive region and now in china is turning to economic losers to try and integrate the area by pouring in tens of billions of dollars you got to pick an obvious salman's whether or not china can expect a return on those investments. we love to look at i mean it's quality of china a slogan so widespread in tibet it's even displayed on taxis here everything is an ambiguous mix of modern technology and tradition communism and religion. six his son is a buddhist monk but ten years ago this elderly man joined the communist bangalore do i knew that the party is breathing new life into our nation did your time this is quite a normal scene for us every day even as gather in the city center to pray right

outside what is traditions are very strong here but at the same time chinese national red flags are hanging almost on every poor in every building as a constant reminder which country that is a part of. for decades china has been accused of occupying tibet and destroying its culture human rights organizations report numerous abuses there on a daily basis some are even willing to go to the most extreme measures in protest in almost all instances protests are put down through violence so chinese security personnel will come in and more use violence to to basically stop those protests we've documented cases where the chinese state lethal force against tibetans in one town fifteen people were shot legal authorities denial of geishas of human rights violations claiming the so often malaysians are organized from abroad accusing the

worst of a full scale media assault on china the united states has been using that for. six decades now and says the truman administration co-opted to fight communism and they will continue this because their modus operandi these days seems to be human rights violations. over the years china spent over sixty billion u.s. dollars to build schools roads and water supplies as well as developing industries from beer factories to cultural workshops. outside the capital in one of tibet's most ancient temples when we ask the monk what he thinks of the exile of their spiritual leader the dalai lama he surprisingly said he didn't hear. the government supplies clothes food and other necessities not the dalai lama i couldn't care less where he was assessing tibet is

not easy even on the ground it's hard to see what's true and what's being deliberately shown to foreigners but what's crucial for the next generation of tibetans is that the mix of ancient traditions and beijing's billions can pay off. this one off r.t. tibet. well that's how it looks at the moment here in r.t.l. but with a new team with more for you in just over half an hour from now in the meantime after a short break peter bell debates with his cross talk guess about whether it's time to disband the cia stay with us for that this is. ron paul has rejected the national rifle association safety plan and by safety plan the n.r.a. proposes basically turning every school in america into

a prison camp so on this one ron paul i'm with you in the wake of the tragic events at sandy hook elementary and every vice president wayne la pierre called on congress to immediately appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school year what is the solution to isolated incidents of extreme violence make every child live their entire school life at gun point before putting armed guards in schools maybe we should take a look at the fact that more than twenty five percent of american kids are on medication and that's just the kids altering their mental state legally mom is working two jobs so she isn't around dad is a wall and the t.v. who's the new parent shows kids nothing but images glorify violence revenge and torture when someone is getting harassed every day at school and maybe getting harassed at home they feel totally alone and they see no future and no escape from the hell that they're in they are going to take drastic measures to get out of it

you know in the fifty's sixty's and seventy's there were still plenty of guns and there were no armed officers in schools but there were no shootings society changed and school violence erupted societies what needs to change to call them things back down but that's just my opinion. oh and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle the central intelligence agency does .