catholics have a new pope with argentina jorge mario bergoglio becoming the first south american ever to head the church that's now battling its greatest crisis in decades. beating out in secretly recorded audio from court bradley manning reveals why he sent thousands of u.s. classified documents to wiki leaks we take a look at how his case could affect whistleblowing. china's new leader officially assumes the reins of power with his priorities to boost defense spending make the country one of the world's military giants. nine am in moscow i'm at très a good to have you with us here on our t.v.

our top story of a catholic church has itself a new leader argentine cardinal jorge mario bergoglio becomes the first pope ever from the americas in the first from outside europe in more than a thousand years his election greeted by tens of thousands gathered in st peter's square in vatican city. white smoke finally seen from the rafters after cardinals voted for a fifth time during the second day of the conclave that will be remembered as one of the fastest in years the group had to choose a new leader for more than a billion catholics after the previous pope benedict the sixteenth stepped down from the post peter all over has more on the new pontiff and what his leadership might bring for the catholic church. seventy six year old told him out he. wasn't one of the main names that were at the top of the list because there simply wasn't any names at the top of the list going into this conclave for the first time in

a while quite a while it will be really knew who was the front runners but he came out is the man who took two thirds of the the vote by the cardinals and it's taken the name of francis the first now in his own country of argentina he has been referred to as a modernizer but then you have to really look at the church in argentina which is one of the most conservative in that part of the world of latin america and any. francis into the category of a catholic conservative on the subject of gay marriage and adoption by gay parents he has been incredibly outspoken in the past certainly these are testing times for the church of rome there are a series of sexual abuse scandals that are rumbling on just is celebrations are taking place right now in st peter's square we're looking particularly at one of the most senior catholics the head of the catholic church in scotland in fact who

resigned and didn't turn up for comp conclave not to want to draw attention to himself after accusations of. an appropriate sexual behavior were leveled against him there's also scandals in the united states that have come out regarding the payment of money to victims of abuse of sexual abuse by catholic priests in the california area and there's also on the very first day of the conclave was taking place anti mafia police in italy while they raided. properties belonging to some of those who were taking place in the conclave because corruption scandals have dogged the vatican in recent times thinking particularly about the just who the vatican bank is being dealing with asians that they were certainly far from godly some of the clients of the vatican's bank there so corruption sexual abuse also the issue of modernizing the church there have been campaigners start talking about the

church accepting gay marriage accepting perhaps a change only celibacy laws for priests and perhaps even welcoming women priests into the catholic church however as i said as a world dyed in the world conservative when it comes to matters of the catholic church i very much don't think we're going to be seeing too many of those issues regarding huge sweeping changes of how the church of rome deals with the everyday life of those who are. it's ministry rebuilding the reputation of the church after reasons scandals will certainly not be the only challenge pope francis has ahead of him the church now facing aggressive competition from islam as you can see here islam spreading across europe much faster than the christian church gets new members the number of muslims has grown by an estimated eighty six percent in recent years the number of christians by a mere five percent and winning back the continent will be one of the most daunting tasks for the new pope we have more on the crisis in the church on our website

including all the theories as to why pope benedict resigned and the valley leak scandal all that a click away on r t dot com. turning now to some of the day's other top stories china's new leader officially taking the reins of power is beijing completes the long process of a once in a decade transition rules keeping a close eye on who will lead the rising global player with a new leadership already announcing a boost to military spending to discuss this and more i'm joined by joined by a beijing based correspondent shannon fence and. thank you very much for joining us again here on archie said mr xi is expected to be a strong leader how do you think this whole affair china's stands in its territorial disputes with japan for example. well yes china has made an increasingly bellicose statements over the last year regarding its territorial disputes with japan and with other asian nations over the south china

sea and it seems that by some analysts measures that cheating thing is trying to develop closer ties and close ties to the military to china's military and make sure that relationship between china's leadership and china's military is very very strong so by doing that he's valid to increase military spending and he's also been taking a strong lead and making some very odd china the chinese leadership others making very aggressive statements regarding some of these territorial disputes that you mentioned so be very interesting to see and be interesting to see if these statements are just strong bellicose statements going forward or china will ever actually take real action regarding these territorial disputes and then with this overall boost to the military in china they're obviously seems to be some step towards some kind of regional military presence if not dominance there but the u.s. taking what it's called a pivot towards asia too with its military what do you think this could lead to. was very interesting as you said the obama administration announced

a pivot to asia last year and china of course is increasing its military spending greatly the majority of china's military spending increase i should say will be spent on domestic security i think that's very significant because a lot of the challenges that china faces right now are not international they're not in terms of foreign policy it's in terms of maintaining its ability to mystically with increasing number of protesters across the country so i think that's worth pointing out but yes i think you are seeing and some regions here in asia perhaps the competition for influence places like burma other places around the world and part of that is that i wouldn't say it's a competition yet military. but certainly i can honestly and to some extent in terms of ideology and ideas in terms of of how political system should be and liberalization there are a lot of competing ideas right now between the west and between asia and china specifically what does it appear that china's foreign policy goals will be we understand that mr she is first official visit will be to moscow.

that's right i you know we will have to wait and see they've appointed some very seasoned diplomats right now some experts signed relations with the united states as well as people who are very familiar with japan and so that should help in terms of some of these territorial disputes as well as in terms of managing this often very delicate relationship with the united states and i think china right now their focus is very much a domestic and they have a lot of challenges domestically to deal with going forward make keeping the economy going amidst all of these crises in other parts of the world that's one of their biggest challenges as well as improving the rule of law and some of these other reforms that have to be have to take place to some extent if they're going to quell some rising areas of descent in many parts of the country and in terms of the geopolitics there is this raw china is part of this group the brics countries brazil russia india china south africa how important does it to seem that that partnership will be for the new chinese leadership. well be very

interesting in china china's economy is growing at a very very impressive rate and. started to get the economies of these other brics nations and so china provides leadership in a certain way and china as well of their trade relationships with brazil with i'm african nations with russia and india it's very very important and so i think it'll be very interesting to see going forward china of course right now in some ways this fueling the world economy and if it's going to continue to do that have to make this transition from an economy based on many factures into an economy based on consumption and that's one of the biggest challenges for china's new leadership in the years ahead all right journalist shannon fans and thanks very much for your insight. well the u.s. and china aren't just sizing each other up militarily the two powers also moving closer to a digital war after president barack obama promised but using tough talk over alleged cyber attacks originating from china this is the u.s.

military is creating special units to launch offices in cyberspace in response to further attacks or g.'s alexei or shows he reports on the digital conflict buildup . a bigger threat than al qaeda this is how washington officials now describe the legit cyber attacks coming from china u.s. stop it delegates officials now rank the threat of computer large foreign of sorts higher than terrorism transnational organized crime and weapons of mass destruction for the first time since nine eleven washington has long accuse china of stealing military secrets and intellectual property from hacking president obama's facebook page to cyber attacks against u.s. flagship media like the new york times but a recent u.s. congress report warns of going beyond online vandalism chinese penetration of defense systems threaten the u.s. military's readiness and ability to operate it said that could include u.s. satellites weapons start getting systems navigation computers and many more but are the chinese really the aggressors here as washington wants everyone to believe and

is the united states really an innocent victim china's ministry of national defense claims sixty three percent of the one hundred forty four thousand monthly cyber attacks that it recorded last year came from the u.s. based be addresses while washington claims its military cyber programs are there only to defend the country's borders but the stuxnet virus signaled a new aggression experts have no doubt it was created by israel and the united states to derail iran's nuclear program besides it's hard to imagine given the tough economic competition that the united states would have no interest in infiltrating china's networks for one reason or another both american and chinese leaders continue to shake hands and speak of fruitful cooperation at official meetings such real world optimism is undermined if not totally negated when it comes to cyberspace and given reports of mutual cyber attacks intensifying in the last six seven months as well as beijing changing the man at the wheel it seems that only the competition between the superpowers will remain fractious if not

downright dangerous. russia says arming syrian rebels would be against international law after western powers drop growing hints about providing military a few minutes a look at how being for broad affects the bloody syrian conflict. hundreds take to the streets another night of anger in brooklyn over a deadly police shooting of a teenager stay with us for that and more here on r.g.p. . but first he is seen by many as one of the world's most renowned whistleblowers but an enemy of the state by the u.s. government now soldier bradley manning can be heard in his own words explaining why he sent hundreds of thousands of classified documents to wiki leaks three years ago in a new leak the audio recording from his court martial manning accuses the u.s. military of not valuing human life and says he wanted to provoke a debate about u.s. foreign policy or if he's got a man has more. nobody was allowed to make recordings of bradley manning's pretrial tribunals of the military court in february but someone did and the freedom of the

press foundation released mr manning's testimony in its entirety in this hour long testimony bradley manning in his own words explains how and why he leaked all those documents many of which revealed how the u.s. government covered up civilian casualties in human rights abuses during the wars in iraq and afghanistan he served as an intelligence analyst in the military and had access to all those documents the biggest leak in history let's take a listen to just one episode where bradley manning explains why he leaked the video of the apache helicopter gunning down boisterous journalists in baghdad and then targeting those who showed up to rescue the wounded including a van with children and that footage shocked the world. those. heroes. it was a. huge. for.

me to see such a child. it seems right now is grisly manning who is the and under the magnifying glass of the government very serious charges lined up against him here is a weapon he was there at the hearing when bradley manning delivered this testimony you heard him you saw him did you get a sense of what he would have done the same had he known how this would turn out you know i don't think bradley manning or anyone else would have known that by leaking this information would have been three years or pretrial punishment and detention that's something that i think even the u.s. government saw however i do think that he knew that these documents were very very substantial and in fact in two thousand and ten he said that these were some of the most significant documents of our time last month during his testimony he says he still believes that the iraq war logs and the afghan war logs. are perhaps the two most important documents of our generation let's let's talk about the chilling effect that the whole trial will have on the whistle blower's study happening on

exactly do you think anybody ever is going to do anything like this again having many example in mind i mean places life in prison people are going to be more hesitant not only does he face life in prison but he could face the death penalty and if the u.s. government said they were going to pursue that other people other people who are going to try to seek for more open transparency are going to be more hesitant because they know that this could mean three years of being put away in a chair without ever being taken to trial on the other hand i think i think p.f.c. manning did what he did because he knew that these atrocities need to be exposed and i think other people are going to do that maybe not during our generation but in years to come it's going to happen absolutely thank you thanks andrea thanks very much old bradley manning has been held in u.s. military custody for around three years now and the un special rapporteur on torture has formally accused u.s. government of cold the grading treatment towards bradley manning including but not limited to keeping him locked up for twenty three hours a day in solitary confinement for eleven months in a row bradley manning pleaded guilty to ten out of twenty two charges brought

against him just under those charges he faces twenty years in jail but the prosecution may still pursue the twelve remaining charges including the most serious one one of aiding the enemy and that one carries a punishment of life in prison and the big question for many remains whether it was the enemy that bradley manning aided or the public which has the right to know what their government is doing in their name in washington and vanished account where he would exact of his clerks directly things made exactions couldn't harm national security. bradley manning has just been nominated for his third nobel peace prize meanwhile he's been charged with aiding the enemy that doesn't look very good for the obama administration or the government in the way obviously was not motivate the enemy to harm the u.s. he made that very clear he chose cables and videos and no

national security concerns and he released them so that we could have this conversation it's a disgrace every day that he is in jail. it's a disgrace to our military it's strays to the promises the obama promised in two thousand and eight and i website argy dot com we've been asking what you think about manning's prosecution and testimony here is how the on live vote is stacking up so far just over half of the respondents believe manning has become a scapegoat in the u.s. war on whistleblowers a little more than a third say he's a martyr for the cause of free speech seven percent think he's actually guilty of high treason and the same amount believe he's a naive idealist what do you think lied on to r t dot com and cast your vote.

russia says any attempt by foreign governments to arm rebels in the syrian conflict would be illegal the warning came as britain indicated it might be ready to bypass and e.u. arms embargo on syria to help the opposition fighting the assad regime the bloody civil war is now approaching its second anniversary having claimed an estimated seventeen thousand lives as a number of deaths continues to grow by the day so does foreign involvement as artie's marie if an ocean explains. the syrian uprising the last of the arab spring sprang up in march two thousand and eleven by august of that year when in another arab spring country in libya colonel gadhafi had lost defacto power it was already clear who was next in the firing line this morning president obama called on assad to step aside as if from p many others would soon echo the same rhetoric is time for bashar to go to the message to president assad is it is time for transition it

is totally to go with the regime of bashar al assad must come to an end we ask the regime to step down. has to go through syrian forces fighting assad immediately felt encouraged the train was in motion and a two year journey later had the destabilization of syria has been a us nato project from day one they have lined up all of their allies in a very ugly effort to overturn the government of syria and to create instability at emory and. so perhaps america did indeed pull the others in to then pull itself out two years on washington is criticised for its failure to bring things to ahead in syria both at home and abroad we are providing vital humanitarian assistance for my it is tarion assistance doesn't stop bombs. the

rebels who have suffered losses as heavy as the military now say they feel betrayed by the us we did not get any real action on the ground from the united nation from the united states speculation is brewing that washington is starting to view the assad regime as the lesser of two evils preferable to radical jihadist groups the obama administration although there are levels and levels of what you what governments do basically it is it has been interested in seeing. there is a way out of this mess but in reality america is still in a white house decision last month may have ruled out arming the rebels an idea backed by the pentagon cia and state department but the country's doing little to stop others doing just that washington was silent when another made to member turkey asked for the arms embargo to be lifted nor did protest when the arab league gave the go ahead for weapons supplies and more recently when the u.k.

said it could veto the use arms ban the us of a no objections everyone knows that. if it were to tell saudi arabia or qatar or turkey or whoever of its friends there that they should stop it well everyone knows that but he would prevail instead the u.s. has decided to watch from a safe distance we played a crucial role in starting the americans can't fix this problem syrians have to fix this problem is genuinely surprising after two years seventy thousand deaths a million people displaced tough sanctions imposed on syria dozens of countries within nato and the arab league can damage assad and urging him to go and after so much money and weaponry invested to achieve this to hear america's ambassador to syria saying that only syrians can fix their problems perhaps there was a time when syrians could have resolved things on their own but pressure from the

outside has been relentless and now it could simply be too late for anybody to fix this race national party. it's a story worthy of a hollywood blockbuster featuring a ukrainian journalist held by held hostage by bandits in syria a fifty million dollar ransom and a daring escape take a listen you know at some point i realized that you could be killed by the army is that was held in a location from where the bandits were firing rockets or and be killed by the rebels. in an exclusive interview to r.t. on her coach said she had to cross fifteen kilometers of mountainous terrain on foot before finding shelter and find out more from the journalistic out on our website r.t. dot. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe the militant group the kurdistan workers' party has released six turkish soldiers plus a police officer and a local official after holding them captive for two years move comes as part of

renewed peace talks aimed at ending three decades of hostility between the p.k. k. and uncorrupt the movement demands turkey recognize kurdish identity in its new constitution and release hundreds of its imprison activists more than forty thousand people have been killed in fighting between the two sides so far. and then thai austerity rally broke out in brussels prior to a meeting of the european council a group of demonstrators stormed the offices of several banks and tried unsuccessfully to get into a european commission building twenty seven new heads of state have gathered in belgium's capital to find a balance between the need for austerity and also public investment in the union's member states. brooklyn facing yet another rally as more than one hundred people continue voicing anger over the killing of a sixteen year old black man by police officers who claim the teenager pointed a gun at them one of the boy's relatives was reportedly arrested and two protesters led away in handcuffs the deadly shootings spark concerns of systematic racism in the n.y.p.d.

artie's marine important as more. relations between tens of thousands of new yorkers and the city's police department may have hit an all time low this coming after a sixteen year old was shot and killed by two plainclothes officers saturday evening according to reports gray was standing outside of a home in flatbush brooklyn with a group of men when the two officers approached the boy ended up being shot eleven times and was late was brought to the hospital where he later died now according to police they say that the teenager mr gray pulled out a handgun and pointed it at authorities and that's what caused them to shoot and fire at the teenager subsequently killing him but according to mr gray's friends family and even some witnesses they say that no gun was ever pointed at the plainclothes police officers his family and friends say that the n.y.p.d. is just trying to paint a bad picture of

a teenager this of course has. a lot of residents in the community on monday evening approximately one hundred people holding a vigil for come on gray when a protest broke out outside of the sixty seventh precinct residents i spoke with around here say that they are all too familiar with teenagers dying as a result of police shootings and gun violence in his neighborhood concerned police . veteran police force. possibly. one. of them and then. two times absolutely crazy what happened the city says an investigation into the police involved shooting of

the teenager is ongoing. last year according to reports twenty one new yorkers died as a result of police shootings and if anything this latest episode latest event has just fuel the distrust that already exists between millions of new yorkers and the n.y.p.d. reporting from flatbush brooklyn new york marina port night r.t. michael skolnik editor of the current affairs web site global grind thinks there's a rise in police brutality against innocent teams and it must be stopped as of right now that's two officers have been put on a mission a mission to leave their names not be released i think at some point their names will be released and if there is or ever investigated and they were and factors going wrong i sincerely hope they put on trial for murdering i sixteen year old child but until that point it is an investigation not going investigation most of the folks are out there on monday and tuesday night were just exercising their

constitutional right to peacefully assemble and to protest and majority overwhelming majority of them were peaceful and were set and saturday morning the death of their friend i support them in doing that until they have answers to the answers that need they should approach as they should to the streets we have a horrible racist policy called stop and frisk i want to stop being overwhelming number of black and brown men in our city if for no apparent reason this might have been a stop and frisk action by the ways we're not sure yet but there isn't a tag a nation of the police to these young people but we hit rock bottom and now we see six year old kids getting shot absolute think it's racism audience a racist policy i don't agree that whatsoever at the need to stop is not the way we police our streets not to treat our people in this country and it should come to an end. after a break more on the dark side of gold production in colombia stay with us here on

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