news this hour venezuela's president hugo chavez has passed away at the age of fifty eight coming up we'll take a look at his life and legacy and what lies ahead for the latin american country. and saving private manning that is what wiki leaks founder julian assange on just trying to do before the army privates court martial more secrets revealed or keeping tight lipped we'll tell you asunder strategy next. and u.s. troops fighting wars overseas never leave a man behind so why were so many of their families being abandoned by the nation's biggest banks many of them facing wrongful foreclosures. it's tuesday march fifth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. we begin with breaking news out of venezuela where president hugo chavez has died chavez was venezuela's president for over fourteen years the fifty eight year old

socialist leader was battling cancer since two thousand and eleven he was a charismatic and controversial figure who clashed with the united states are to correspondent megan lopez takes a look back now on his legacy. a human a soldier and a revolutionary three words this controversial figure used to answer the question who is hugo chavez beyond the myths and rumors one thing remains steadfast his adamant opposition to what he called yankee imperialism we want a balanced world a multiple or world to put an end to this era of imperialism when many world leaders were willing to take u.s. assertions at face value chavez had no problem questioning us talking points us entered iraq on us lied about bolivia they lie for a lot of causes and about chavez himself he said that the us lives so many times people actually started to believe it the most pernicious that i have my dictatorship if they keep calling me that then of course it's going to be the fall

of a dictator chavez painted himself as the counterpoint to american dominance we're not asking that the us troops or the us forces whether military or civil be withdrawn we're just asking them to respect our sovereignty we want peace but the hopes that relations will improve between the two countries under president obama faded obama the promised change sort of disappeared nothing changed really the way the us treats us is the same in the country there is more and more aggression in the hands of the yankee empire two years ago in china as this battle with cancer entered the public eye more speculation emerged about the venezuelan leader this time from within the country government that the vice president was saying they have actually some evidence is clear. they will continue to get more that chavez's cancer was induced to that it was an attack is what he called it he called it an attack and he did he did specifically refer to the united states government the standoff between

the u.s. in venezuela continues here hours before chavez's death was made public a u.s. embassy official was expelled from venezuela for allegedly planning to destabilize the country it's the hands of the yankee empire. they're trying to dominate the world and it's one of the greatest tragedies so what will venezuela look like without hugo chavez at the helm i'm not going to be there anymore but there's going to be more there's going to be a new generation as the world grapples with news of hugo chavez's death advocates of a latin america free of u.s. intervention are going to have to find a new figure to lead the way reporting all side of the venezuelan embassy in washington d.c. i'm. it was only four months ago they hugo chavez won his presidential reelection chavez won fifty four percent of the votes and ultimately defeated his opponent and rekick up residency to correspondent traveled to caracas to cover that election and she joins us now live from moscow lucy thanks for joining us so i know that you

were there in venezuela covering the election at that time how was he viewed. you know frankly at who knew that this would be the last presidential election the last historic event that we would be covering for for president of the late president hugo chavez you know at that time it was sort of paternity point for venezuela chavez his popularity was of course still quite massive of course he did win the election but at the same time we did see very strong support for his opponent and we could complete list who is this young forty year old businessman and really represented a drastically alternative model and a vision for the direction that venezuela should take whereas chavez embrace the so-called bola berrien socialist revolution model where for example he would do things like take you know the national oil industries nationalize them use that funding to sort of channel that money into projects for the countries absolutely

most poorest people which is really what's won him such popular support and make it appealing as meanwhile i wanted to sort of improve ties with the west take a more western economic approach to venezuela and so it's really an ideological division but one thing that i have to say as being on the ground there walking through the streets especially at these child his rallies the amount of emotion and passion in people's eyes and people's experience in their support for child this was really quite fascinating to see you have to keep in mind that you know the country that child has inherited in the as a coup attempt and eventually action was the one before chavez that really was quite different from what been as well looks like today it was a country that was run by economic elites for economic and leaves and so at least for the lowest members of society the most poor members of society who go childless really genuinely did represent a radical alternative chance for survival a chance to have a political say he woke up the political sentiments within

a massive population that was previously on cared for and didn't quite care for elections or. politics themselves and that legacy will no doubt remain as you had mentioned lucy he was reelected in large part due to the country's poor that supported him do you think that this is going to have to be an agenda that a future administration is going to have to keep in order to win to win reelection i mean absolutely the thing is that the divisions within the country right now are the folks who supported we think a prelate is largely consist of the upper middle class but one thing that i do have to say is you know we went to for example the barrio photographer which is latin america's second largest slum this is an area that used to be i mean completely nothing before a child has java built cable cars to allow people to access the city get work he built free health care projects all kinds of sort of socialism pyar inspired social services that one of the supporters there but even in those neighborhoods we were

beginning to see cracks of frustration during the child as administration time and that was because there are certain unaddressed issues like corruption and the crime rate i mean venezuela has a higher crime rate than back out in the rock which is quite stunning so while whoever does the office to replace child as will have to of course keep that agenda keep focusing on the poor they will also have to tackle some pretty serious issues for the country and ably economic corruption and also the crime rate of course now under venezuela's constitutional an election needs to happen within thirty days who are the likely candidates. well of course enrique can prelate would be one of the candidates he was the man who faced chavez and who had had to face the defeat i think at this point he's trying to stay calm away from all of this because whatever one's really looking at right now is whether the opposition is going to make drastic move for power if they do so we could see violence in the streets and realign rest emerged i think and sort of try to play it safe for now of course the

most likely candidate is the vice president and as well and nicolas maduro who had carried out the press conference he was a former trade unionist and with caracas with a public support system there child is the sort of annoying to him as the likely preference preferred successor to his rule in power and most likely we will see the people rallying behind him he's largely seem to have the same sorts of social policies as chavez so we don't necessarily expect that much of a change at least at this far as it concerns the domestic agenda but again we really have to wait and see how this these next thirty days play out because if there is god forbid some sort of a coup attempt or some sort of power grab by the opposition we really could see unrest in the streets of caracas and across the country now chavez certainly has been a controversial leader oftentimes clashing with the united states would you say that this is an opportunity to possibly reset diplomatic relations between the two

countries. you know i can't speculate as to how the u.s. views this situation i'm sure that there are elements within the governments of both sides that perhaps hope for some bettering of relations but to be honest with you if the country does go with the child as successor. we will probably see very much of the similar poor in policy stance as child as of course we have to remember that he was a foreign minister for six years from two thousand and six very faithfully and here to the child as style of world order i don't really necessarily see him softening his stance to the u.s. perhaps not quite as colorful or as offensive as chavez could be when when he was that is most colorful but i don't necessarily expect venezuela to take a radical change in its foreign policy attitude a reset in relations if nicolas maduro does win however if enrica complete the premisses is the candidate that ends up somehow winning the election everything in

the country will change from much better relations to the west to moving away from the whole nationalization of oil industries to possibly eliminating the social service programs that so many of and as well and we're going have to see how it all plays out lucy appreciated that was our to correspondent lucy cavanagh thank you. now to another twist in the bradley manning case wiki leaks founder julian assange says the whistle blowing web site has more u.s. government secrets but is going to hold off publishing them until the private first class is released he told us trioli and news outlet fairfax media quote we still can't publish it it would be a questionable action to do so now while bradley manning has a potential life sentence hanging over his head late last week manning pleaded guilty to ten of the twenty two lesser charges against him he pleaded not guilty to the most serious charge aiding the enemy and accepting responsibility for the dump of classified documents manning said he leaked it all to spark public debate over

u.s. foreign policy for more on the new classified documents we could leak says it has and what this could mean for the manning case i was joined earlier by jasmine radek she is the director for national security and human rights at the government accountability project and i asked her if this could be more fuel for the government to continue holding on to manning. i don't think the government could possibly have any more fuel than an already added to its own self-made fire i think a songe is trying to protect a source and i think he doesn't want to further inflame the government the u.s. government by releasing these documents and manning had referred to these documents in his in his thirty five page statement that he made on the twenty eighth the additional documents that assad is now with withholding exactly what how did it how did manning reference these documents he spoke about the incident these documents

of february two thousand and ten incident in which the iraqi federal police arrested detained and tortured opponents of iraqi prime minister nouri al maliki and. ending had been tasked with catching these bad guys and upon investigation found out that they really had no connection to terrorism and that these were really just scholarly leaflets that had been made and although manning is often criticized for not having gone up his chain of command he did go up his chain of command with this and he was told to drop it and to continue investigating other places that might be printing things in opposition to the government now manning he and his thirty five page testimony last week he had already accepted responsibility for leaking these documents so what's the

incentive there for a science to continue to hold on to them when he's already kind of fessed up to leaking them i think because the actual documents are probably far more incendiary then their brief description that manning gave in the thirty five page statement i mean it's different to talk. talk about a helicopter video versus actually seeing it and at this point i mean i take a sponge at his word all along he's been speaking out on behalf of bradley manning and trying to protect him and because it did up being referenced as part of the police i think he felt the need to say something right and of course we haven't seen these documents but it's kind of raising these questions as what could they possibly contain if he's holding on to them could be an indication that the documents contain some kind of damning information something even more explosive than what we've seen so far come out of the existing documents you know i think that had more damning information that might be an argument in favor of releasing

them now at my it could help or hurt manning and then it might help them because people would be more sympathetic with why he blew the whistle but it could also really hurt him by against further exacerbating the government's vitriol that it's already demonstrated by continuing this prosecution even after the plea after the plea they could have dropped it and they've chosen to go forward with aiding the enemy and espionage act charges and it's also kind of calling these other questions i mean julian a son she has kind of said himself kind of prides himself on being a whistleblower as doing a job that other media outlets won't do by disclosing these things and now he's holding back so kind of a makes you wonder what effect manning has had to od on whistleblowers and people more hesitant to put to put information out there for what what they're retaliation could be for what the consequences could be well i think normally when the

mainstream media sits on information it's because they feel they've been convinced that it's going to harm the government in some kind of way here it's different. he doesn't want to do anything that would compromise a potential source and in fact up until the time bradley enter. his plea of silence always maintained you know that if if manning is a person he never confirmed that so for him i think the motivation is quite different for holding on to the documents and also some pretty outlandish arguments have been made about how we can be leaks. aided the enemy just the very fact that we could leaks documents were found in a some of the lot and compound that that somehow proved to be manning it is the enemy which is such a broad argument well it is trial set to start in a couple of months maybe that is a lie if there's a decision the judge and it's a pleasure as always to have you on the show no radek director for national

security and human rights the government accountability project well any time a bank wrongly forecloses on a home there's reason enough to stir outrage now adding to that foreclosure is on military members homes while they're off on deployment and turns out the country's biggest banks wrongly foreclosed on more than seven hundred homes of military members during the housing crisis according to the new york times bank of america citigroup j.p. morgan chase and wells fargo recently uncovered the foreclosures to regulators for more i was joined earlier by our three producer bob english. i think it's important to back up a little bit and to examine the structure of the u.s. mortgage market and how we got here how there is so such pervasive fraud that could have occurred and it started when we had a series of low interest rate years by the federal reserve they're basically giving away money there was several legislative changes that allowed it easier to securitize these mortgages slice and dice them and these became very hot products

and when that happens when there is a demand for yield in money's being given away for free you have the collateral which is the house being transferred from person to person to person or company to company and there's easily lost the chain of title and what they created the big banks and some other people was a system called mergers and it's an electronic system where they could just transfer the title without having to go to the county recorder office so we're i'm going with this is that the pervasive fraud that we see is a result of a systemic problem and the people in the middle military right now are feeling the effects of it right but when it comes to people of the military bay have special legal protections when they're active duty so are the banks a and more hot water now that that they've been caught doing this head to members of the military certainly there's supposed to be a court order to get a foreclosure on an active duty military person there are several instances where

this didn't occur and there was a study convened by the federal reserve the officer office of the comptroller currency in two thousand and eleven and what they found was they didn't find too many problems but they halted the study early and they decided to a blanket settlement and then they went back and then decide discovered these pervasive problems and some of those had to do with the the military and so the settlement with the military people is they're supposed to get one hundred twenty five thousand or up two hundred twenty five thousand dollars if they've been wrongfully foreclosed on but the average person is not in the military it looks like they're only available to get fit. hundred to two thousand dollars how does that even make sense that's nowhere near the cost that's even the cost of a car lot hold on and how is that it's a very it's a pittance but like i said the study that would should have been convened before there was an actual settlement was halted and only after the numbers were agreed on did they go back and find these these more pervasive problem so they should have

done more homework in the first place and they didn't do it and now we're stuck with a little bit of money amount of money to be spread over a large number of people. we should mention these banks j.p. morgan for example they've taken part in programs to help military families like awarding homes hiring veterans but does the fact that they foreclose on so many of these active duty homes show that maybe all that was just for p.r. purposes or what do you think so i don't thing j.p. morgan does anything for p.r. purposes their heart is really on that but it sounded sarcastic ok a little bit i think though yes it's a p.r. nightmare because american is a very patriotic country and nobody likes to see people in the military coming back home with their homes in the place you know being surrendered to somebody else being foreclosed upon so you know it's a p.r. problem certainly not a great homecoming i can say that much great to have you on that was bob english he is a producer here at r.t. . still ahead on our teeth of the keystone x.l. pipeline create thousands of jobs like many supporters have argued one largely

publicized study says no way in fact the study concludes it will actually kill more jobs we'll have more on this after the break. a lot of potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. that we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very you can see it's going to become much more. there's still a lot of snow out here and a good place for snowball fight. jason it is kind of pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of it might still be nice luxury driving losses of emergency vehicles are exceptions.

to the same story doesn't make it news. no. question. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that

everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture .

here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the americans call. i don't know. i'm sorry i missed you guys here's what you said. you know what. i want to feature isn't the only liberal that's. usually thought of. you know the superheated the structures from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm out the market and we're going to break the set.

up. now to the controversial keystone x.l. pipeline opponents of the pipeline that would allow tar sands to travel from alberta canada all the way to the gulf coast say it would be an environmental disaster advocates say the project would create thousands of much needed jobs but a new study says that argument is false artie's on the stasia churkin i has the story. on the operations of the keystone pipeline an ambitious pipeline is firing off a war of opinions a seven billion dollar project to transport eight hundred thousand barrels of tar sands oil a day from canada down to the gulf coast phase one of the keystone project from will burn to canada to halfway through the u.s. has been constructed with almost every mile built met with protest trans canada said that they expect that eleven spills over a fifty year period in its first year it had over thirty five spills the keystone x.l. a major extension of the pipeline is causing

a stir while the obama administration to beats its pros and cons before giving it a final go ahead or halting construction while those pushing the project ahead see it will create more jobs a largely publicized cornell study found that the project would kill more jobs than it would provide the argument that you know twenty thousand jobs are going to be created just isn't true when the state department used trans canada as own numbers for you know looking at job creation they found that about two thousand five hundred to four thousand six hundred jobs might be created by the pipeline and these are you know temporary construction jobs the number of permanent jobs that would be created by building the pipeline around fifty in the united states professor skinner who worked on the study says there was another promise of several thousand extra manufacturing jobs in the u.s. but in reality the majority of the pipe itself is being built in india she says the negative economic and employment complications have also been met with a blind eye such as the six hundred thousand people employed in the agricultural

sector in the way of the pipeline whose jobs are likely to be affected if you look at the six states that the pipeline goes through eighty percent of the economies in those states are based on agriculture. ranching and tourism and all of you know tourism like fishing right like kayaking canoeing things that rely on there being clean water but keystone proponents see will decrease skyrocketing oil prices and make the us less to pen. and on foreign oil i think america really. will source of energy it's tempting to get wrapped up in the turbulence of the markets oil and gas prices but i think we also have to remember the turbulence of what's going on right now with the climate everywhere we look there is this mounting evidence of climate change at the end of the day there are no jobs on the planet canada has vast reserves of tar sands oil environmentalist six traction devastate ecosystems and uses up too much water there are plenty of oil and gas pipelines in the u.s.

but very few that carry this particular type of oil tar sands oil is argued to be particularly toxic to the environment the mower grade than regular oil dirtier and more complicated to produce and transport making keystone an enormous hazard for the environment according to the project's opponents if we go the oil we've really got no chance all remaining are stable maintaining a stable ecosystem and biosphere with a climate that we've become accustomed to the last ten thousand years of human civilization. tens of thousands of protesters who also support this opinion rallied in the largest climate change protest the west has ever seen last month it devastates what is being done to my country and now we're trying to export our filth into another country and damage more people and more environmental activists say to prevent global warming oil needs to be kept in the ground and not used to produce energy we only have one sustainable life plan it you know what i mean and

we should all just be aware and do something to make a difference while concerns over the potential environmental impact keystone x.l. could have have reached an all time high a recent two thousand page state department report says the pipeline could but should not be a real threat to the environment barack obama is supposed to announce his final decision on the project in the months to come but analysts are concerned that corporate influence over washington is likely to steer this decision away from what simply better for the environment and the people who depend on it and so his shirking our party new york. well if you want to make forbes is a list of top billionaires making your fortune as a drug lord is probably not the way to do it the magazine has announced it's kicking joaquin el chapo guzman the man you see there off the list because assets are hard to calculate before forbes gave him the boot he joined the ranks of bill gates warren buffett and sheldon adelson as among the world's richest people guzman

was the leader of the syn aloa drug cartel and has been in hiding since he escaped from a mexican prison back in two thousand and one well there have been reports of guzman being killed but they have never been confirmed it's also unclear if how we spend his cash and if he is still in fact a billionaire and we are going to leave it off there but for more on the stories we covered you can always check out our you tube channel because we post everything online there and full that addresses you tube dot com slash r t america also check out our website recently got a facelift it's our team. usa our where producers are busy working on stories we don't always have time to get to on the air and you can also follow me on twitter at was while i always love to hear feedback questions comments or concerns so tweet at me for now have a great night.