you can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk and the man who expose washington's all seeing spy network justifies he's actions saying it's rather a lose freedom then watch his government destroy privacy. the u.s. isn't the only one pledging no mercy for those who speak out it's call friends are taking internet crackdowns too much greater levels we report on that. violence in mali threatens to destabilize the whole of north africa according to the u.n. even as international business vultures seek to get all the gold they can on the country's minds. and

a storm over syria since military advances speeds up the debate in washington are arming the rebels while u.s. gathers troops jets and missiles nearby. is four pm in moscow are you watching r t with me marina joshie welcome to the program. now the man who blew the whistle on imperiled u.s. surveillance webb has identified himself saying he expects to be made to suffer a for his actions twenty nine year old former cia technical assistant outward snowden is now holed up in a hong kong hotel afraid to leave his room for fear of retribution but he says he has no regrets about exposing washington spy network against hundreds of millions

of its own citizens was too important i could be you know rendered by the cia i could have people come after me or any of their third party partners you know they would they work closely with a number of other nations or you know they could pay off the triads for you know any any if their agents or assets we've we've got a cia station just up the road in the consulate here in hong kong but i'm sure that they're going to be very busy for the next week. and that's that's a fear i'll live under for the rest of my life however long that happens to be you can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they're such powerful adversaries the no one can meaningfully oppose them. if they want to get you they'll get you in time now the united states criminal chase has begun with top officials calling for snowden to be prosecuted to the harshest extent of the law well let's now get more thoughts on

his predicaments with glamour trina harvey who's the editor in chief of the world intelligence review website thank you very much sir for joining us here on our team to talk about this so snowden says that he was driven by altruism and the desire to expose washington's overreaching are you convinced. i am it's quite extraordinary you know he's been working within the intelligence community for ten euros initially we had cia and then of course he moved to booz allen which is one of those for both the cia and the national security agency and about four years ago he actually was considering becoming a whistleblower what he thought also president obama would be different from president bush and would be more open about the surveillance techniques that they used by the intelligence services who saves he was so disappointed because obama

was just like president bush and others and it was then that he decided to fight about four weeks ago leave his home in hawaii go to hong kong where he is now but he took with him the last group of records that he had had and this is a little bit like we had with manning the intelligence analysts within the army who provided all that information to wiki. both of them didn't take money for their base are insistent that what's interesting in this case is that as you said as he said mr harvey that he wanted to expose that information before and as he claims he had access to the entire roster of the n.s.a. no weighing about the undercover agents and where the word cetera so as you said he left his home in hawaii and left for hong kong why do you think he chose to stay there. well. it's difficult for me to get inside the

mind of a whistleblower because i've always been loyal to any operation i might or might not have worked with so but i do understand from the guardian newspaper one of the journalists who has been with him says that he's a very modest self-effacing very clever man and he obviously looked at the possibilities of where he might go hong kong as we know is almost an independent unplowed within the people's republic of china has its own legal system and obviously he would be thinking about extradition because make no bones about it so how far anything like washington will go to get their hands on him. they will use all of the powers available to them both legal and dare i

say it illegal we've heard of rendition well he's he's too high profile at the moment i think to be spirited away so i do think that they will go for the legitimate operation but there's no surprise about this and you might recall that katherine gunn who was a analyst with c.h.p. receiver in the british side of the national security agency revealed at the time if they are wrong that wall that the national security agency was asking the british to spy in particular on using the internet on certain targets they wanted and intelligence agencies hate anything being reviewed. all right mr. harvey editor in chief of the world intelligence review website thank you so much for sharing your views with us here on r.t. . well and as always we are interested to know your opinion and today we are

conducting a vote on our website r.t. to call and we're asking our viewers what the future might hold for edward snowden let's take a look at the answers that we've got so far some of you have participated think that. well that is almost a third of those who participated think that he might share the same fate as bradley manning and that is time in prison a little less than that thing at this point that it is hard to predict as the case is too complicated well about twenty four percent of the viewer is thing that snowden might actually seek asylum in a friendly country and stay there and a small minority it's eighteen percent thing that snowden might be eliminated to prevent any further leaks will deal let us know what you think on this by going to our website r.t. dot com and leaving your vote there. well when it comes to getting heavy with whistleblowers and free speech advocates the u.s.

need look no further than its own gulf allies several countries there have cracked down with arrests and incarceration to keep people quiet on and off line as r.t.c. corpus going off now reports. let's now take a look at some of the u.s. friends who are known to have somewhat suspicious methods of upholding the democratic freedoms of their citizens good door the united arab emirates qatar the united arab emirates reign and saudi arabia now in saudi arabia local media reported that the authorities asked more providers to find ways to monitor encrypted messaging and apps like viber skype and whatsapp and said that if these applications could not be monitored then they would have to be blocked well last month senior saudi religious clerics declare that those who use twitter are quote risking damnation and the lose both this world and their afterlife now let's move to are seen by many as

a regional media hub which will be supports the radical freedom fighters in syria. there last week the. story now is looking at punishing websites and social media with a new internet called under the new draft the authorities will be allowed to remove news videos or post even factual ones if they think they violate the sanctity of privacy this brings us to the united arab emirates a country ruled by seven who are ready to rulers were political parties are banned by a war their citizens can be jailed for tweeting like the recent case of a man who received ten months behind bars for describing the legal process around a group of civil society activists in bad faith now in kuwait this year alone at least six journalists and dozens of activists have been arrested on charges that include insulting the emir on twitter other widespread charges for online criticism from users are threatening national security and offending religion all on the web but the jail sentences are anything but virtual and sometimes stretched to two years behind bars despite kuwait being party to the international court and on

civil and political rights last week six bloggers were given one year in prison each after you were found guilty of misusing the right of free expression and insulting the key in the king even though apparently their angry tweets were merely criticism of the authorities in bahrain. and that was corpus can offer reporting well there is also a question over why the u.s. hasn't been all that forthcoming over human rights violations and the gulf states despite championing its only global democracy credentials or that side of the story from artie's marina. addressing these gross human rights violations is problematic for the obama administration you see america has military bases throughout the gulf region which not coincidentally helped form a strategic envelope around iran additionally the us is in the midst of a major buildup of american military forces in the persian gulf more warships

additional attack aircraft and most recently a laser weapon system have been deployed to the region in two thousand and ten president obama struck a ten year sixty billion dollar weapons deal with saudi arabia and despite bahrain's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters the u.s. has reportedly continued to provide tens and tens of millions of dollars worth of weapons ammunition vehicle parts and communication equipment to the country now critics accuse the u.s. of conveniently turning a blind eye to human rights violations in the gulf region for its own interests and geo political purposes bush and studies quote when it comes to. mind our own believe who has been running. thirty years there is. jails people toward just people murders people. no repercussions only. so the bahraini government armaments will keep selling them all sorts of.

you know who is to enforce their brushing. who is it's silent over here in the united states most americans do not know we are supporting this all referred to as long as the gulf states continue standing under america's protective umbrella experts believe those nations will remain emboldened to violate human rights and democratic principles with impunity reporting from new york. r.t. . ten nights of tear gassing in turkey as a country's prime minister hits out at the government protesters labeling them boarders who lack respect for islam and that's coming up. well talking about language as well but i will only react to situations i have read

the reports but i'm like the pushing the no i will leave that to the state department to comment on your latter point the muslims say. the security of a car is on the donkey no god there they go no more weasel words. when you say to direct question be prepared for a change when you know you should be ready for a. critical stage hands little down the freedom to watch. the news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. shank operations to rule the day.

welcome back this is a roadside bomb has struck lebanon's main beirut to damascus highway damaging some vehicles it came shortly after syrian troops with the help of has been fighters regain control of the town of qusayr near the lebanese border the syrian soldiers advance to seem to be pushing rebel supporters to spur washington into action as policy or now reports. on the administration could decide this week whether or not to approve lethal aid for syrian rebels the us secretary of state john kerry has postponed a mid east tour to participate in these talks now according to officials they will also weigh in the merits of the list and likely move all the same to me a u.s. air power to enforce a no fly zone which of course would be a very controversial decision at the same time lady a falls in the u.s. marines have been deployed along jordan's border with syria and this is according

to israeli and iranian media this deployment is unrelated so we're being told with the joint military exercise that started on sunday now the united states has deployed if sixteen jets and missiles which can be used against planes and other missiles to jordan and according to washington it might keep going in the country off to these drills the action of course has raised concerns in the international community russia says the deployment is and i'm a constructive state. the conflict many are questioning whether or not the u.s. is preparing to carry out an incursion in syria and if so this of course will only for the worse in the situation there many complain and incite far more controversy we continue to hear reports of direct foreign involvement in fact we're just hearing reports now of three belgian citizens who were killed in syria fighting for the rebel front now experts say that as many as two hundred belgians could be fighting in syria right now they would have come in through the turkish border and

belgian police have a really a waste of civil citizens who have returned to the country after fighting and being radicalized inside to syria this is not the first time that we hearing of foreigners fighting in syria we have heard of americans fighting there in the past all of this is happening in light of the moves made by the syrian president bashar assad's forces in fact we're hearing reports that assad's troops are poised for an attack on the key city of holmes which could cut off so he is armed opposition from the south of the country we're also hearing that as many as five thousand hezbollah fighters are reportedly now inside syria helping the regime press on with its campaign after capturing the town of qusayr nearly eleven years border last week. also out bring in dr franklin lamb who is an international lawyer and political analyst and he joins us now live from beirut mr ron thank you so much for being with us here on our team to discuss this so in your opinion of what are the chances that weapons supplies will start this week.

i was. six hundred percent chance with the americans will fly only find a quote reliable don't need to supply so be these weapons to i think the obama administration is willing to do. in a modest way only to placate some of the dio colleagues and some of those congress like plain and lindsey graham whether you could you know the american people are behind. this only twenty four percent in a recent poll said that they would think that that would be a wise power for the american over half want to stay out of it so i think there is some chance but still there's a remaining problem for the administration finding a reliable a group to give these arms to that would really do any good given all the that all that's that why shit americans are saying that they will be sending arms to

moderate rebel groups but how can they be sure down the extremists did not lay their hands on the weapons well they can't be sure at all can they and they know they can't be sure and whatever obama does he's going to get burned on this because the congress or certain factions are going to say look to game to the wrong ones and then we're going to have these arms i'll use. you know some sort of massacre and then it's going to by bach so i think it's pretty clear that the american people actually support obama in this sense they don't want to get involved here who want to get involved with the new space quiz and cons you're pretty weak on this now they don't want to mess around with the russians i think so you know it's i think it could go either way but i don't think he'll do it with conviction if he does it'll be a new up placate yeah let's take a look at the near future there what is a likely next step for syria do you think

a no fly zone will be imposed or perhaps even more direct action there. no i do not think so again there's no support for the american public but you know the president has no power if it's in the national security interest but after getting burned in libya and thinking what a go fly zone means that means wiping out the whole air force. of syria that's not like lebannon or not like libya they got sophisticated. russian supplied and other supplies. about would not be easy these days a no fly zone is frankly a declaration of all out war we saw in libya twenty two thousand sorties to enforce a no fly zone it was shooting kids or motorcycles with those. weapons or to enforce the no fly zone so i don't think i really don't think the americans are going to

get involved with that because it's too dangerous and it would just you know ignite the whole region possibly well i just sat have one more question here for you while the syrian regime reportedly getting weapons from iran while its ally has been is supplying troops so could this be a turning turning into a proxy us iran confrontation. well i'm sure they're thinking about that you know john kerry put off his trip to israel they're having you know a conflict in washington the next couple days. clearly it's a proxy war again the americans so not good options but they may devise a way to confront iran because without that syria is going to stay in the regime's hands the house essentially despite what they're saying but here in dhaka talking to people it's pretty clear they're on the wanted to aleppo and they're not leaving until the regime is secured and they have the support of the radio and if not the

direction and they've got a tacit support from russia so it's up to the americans to to do something very dramatic which is also very dangerous or to start talking talk with iran and russia and see if they can't work out a you know something that will protect both their interests because the continuation of this war you know and having it explode into a regional is not a good option while we are waiting for the peace conference to take place that was initiated by both russians and americans so let's wait and see what comes out of that one for now though dr franklin lamb thanks so much for your views here on. well plan b. comes to greece quite literally. the founder of a new party offering an alternative to greece tells our team what's at stake for the hysteria wracked state as the troika inspectors arrive to portions of more cuts . armed separatists groups and in northern

mali pose a serious threat to security across the region and african u.n. peacekeepers don't have the equipment they'll need when they deploy next month those damning conclusions are from a u.n. report released on monday but security is not the only concern for malise people but if an action reports on a fear that global gold diggers are ready to plunder the country's precious resources. little mina and attains herself while her entire family is at work her mom dad brothers and sisters are all miners and one of molly's many so-called traditional gold mines. will make a hole the size of a body with this and then we dig deeper and deeper. the industrial mines series investments from big foreign companies work with machinery although often referred to as government mines their role in fact private was only twenty percent

of the revenue being paid into the country's coffers those who work in traditional mines don't have to pay the authorities but at the same time they don't get any help either they how is narrow and deep they dig until they strike gold or some of the mines here go down the depth of sixty metres they go and over fifteen or a twenty story building the tunnels are so cramped there is barely any room for movement here with no support structure it looks like nick loves it and it was carried here or so mysterious about. who you thought was a bus easy. i tell this mine it tells me who it is and here work it on the ground for hours it wasn't really what i'm asking that if you're minutes bridge it becomes difficult with a lot of oxygen. this is the hardest part of a very long process rocks are extracted before been pounded sifted and washed but

if the team gets lucky their hours of back breaking work will produce some grains of go in my raised by the say you will then be divided between all those who went down the pit sometimes as many as a thousand miners. are not happy as i work more hours than i get for having spent around five hours here we are dirty exhausted and terribly dehydrated people here usually work from ten to eleven hours per day every evening they're paid but not in cash they're given rocks taken from the mine this may contain gold if it doesn't fit just left empty handed this game of luck is for many molly ends of their only way of getting paid but it seems their dreams of wealth in one of the poorest countries on earth could be dashed as the government moves to ban traditional mines . it's on a huge scale we lose a lot of money the black market is growing there's no proper tax system and we don't get a penny from it. but officials complain the traditional gold exploration is not

about helping the poor to become more affluent but about exploding them to make the wealthy much richer than they were before molly's gold experts have more than tripled in the last decade yes mullins indeed seem not to be man the beneficiaries . but not all believe the authorities intentions will diminish poverty and that there will be only care about big corporations so i don't want to come in and take over our country's mineral wealth certainly they don't care about ordinary people just about this is that this november a joint mollen suisse venture will start operating the country's first gold refinery with a monthly capacity or profit countries and no production it will require a huge increase in exploration at least seven chinese geological agencies have already arrived in the country with many more likely to follow it. will these

others change anything for the better for people the future of these people remains uncertain like their income and it's not clear whether they'll still have even they made their place under the african sun original shotty from mali. all they have endured ten nights on tear gas and water jets but the tens of thousands have poured again into his samples taksim square remain resolute continuing is their call for the prime minister or to resign but premier are the ones maintaining his tough stance warning demonstrators that his patients was wearing thin are these are in english the reports from the heart of the unrest. this is still going on people are saying they're not backing down they're going to continue to protest and it's not all fun and games protesters have come under fire from police and on karate this is the second day in a row that such such an event has happened in fact on cause one of those is the one

of the turkish cities which has been under a lot of pressure when it comes to police reacting to the protests in fact that has been gassed or somehow the water cannons have been use of protesters almost every single day off the protests which have been going for more than a week at this point almost two weeks in istanbul worrying trend here is that the prime minister don't want continues to talk about his supporters who are also getting ready to go to destry according to or don't want to use their patience is running thin and those who are siding with the prime minister are ready to take to the streets and express their points of view if that of course happens then all of alister experts are predicting. extreme civil unrest in the country and all of them of course are hoping that that will not be the case as it stands at this point people in istanbul show absolutely no determination to go anywhere they have been camping out here and taxiing and in gezi park for more than

a week at this point their main demand is also to see the prime minister leave his post but the prime minister obviously has made it clear that he is not going anywhere. days after admitting it had miscalculated the devastating effects of a stereo in greece the international monetary fund delegation is returning to pass and they'll be joined by e.u. and european central bank chiefs will still demand the greek government fire four thousand more state employees in return for bailout cash with the former leader of the series a party that now leads the opposition says the time is ripe for plan b. you know. one come in the boat has a plan a and a boat to sink. to find the plan b. so. there's this is crucial. to find it would be because of the. destruction for. us.

was twenty five but it's been over before five year. four five times three unemployment three weeks before. this is planning and coming your way peter labelle and his guests are ready to raise the temperature crosstalk is up next here in r.t. . six san diego residents were thrown off of an airplane not for what they said but how they said it because they said it in another language russian in fact a paranoid and cowardly steward on the plane told them that they had to clear out.