foran it leaders are under surveillance and the latest leaks from the n.s.a. whistleblower reveal how delegates of the g twenty summit in london four years ago a former russian president among them were targeted by u.s. and british intelligence. the bombshell disclosure is feared to add some tension to the g eight summit convening in britain against the backdrop of anti austerity protests. but it's a serious that's set to take center stage for world leaders have the g eight in northern ireland looking to narrow their differences amid fears the conflict is set to escalate even further.

in broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t. i'm shawn thomas glad to have you with us now british and american intelligence spied on world leaders and officials new evidence from n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden puts the recent surveillance scandal on a new scale delegates of the g twenty summit in london in two thousand and nine among them russia's venom president dmitri medvedev apparently had their computers monitored and phone calls intercepted the lead to documents emerged as britain hosts another major international gathering the g eight summit the summit in northern ireland. i was there. this really is the worst possible timing for a story like this to come out where just kicking off the thirty ninth g eight summit here in la today now we know what we know from the documents that edward snowden has revealed is that the british security agency was spying on foreign dignitaries at the last g twenty summit that the u.k.

also hosted back in two thousand and nine so not setting a great precedent as host of a summit we had even reports that they set up fake internet cafes in order to intercept the e-mails of the whole delegations of foreign dignitaries and even tapping into the phone calls of the then president of russia dmitry medvedev so not a great atmosphere for the start of the g eight summit i think that some of the world leaders at the summit here today might be a little bit more careful about what they say over the phone all right in the e-mails in the light of this information now we know that david cameron in response to the news has already said that the u.k. just doesn't comment on security issues or masses of intelligence the g c h q story has a somewhat overshadowed what had become the main headline of this summit which is the escalating crisis in syria now we know that russia and the u.s.

approach the crisis extremely differently and we know that there have been tensions raised over the last week over the u.s.a.'s pledge to provide military aid to the syrian opposition now the british prime minister david cameron speaking yesterday after talks with a lot of if we can in downing street well he also called for bashar al assad to step down he said that britain will continue to provide support to the syrian opposition we know that russian president vladimir putin well he his view is somewhat different he questions what will happen one of these weapons are provided to the syrian opposition nepali it looks like the g. eight leaders just can't get to terms with each other on this but how is the general public's reaction to this been of the gathering. well there has been an unprecedented amount of security at the summit had just driving through from belfast to go on last night just going through all the checkpoints as police

standing everywhere and they're guarding obviously the security of all these foreign dignitaries the world leaders that are here but they're also trying to guard against any potential protest as a massive fifty million pound ring of steel erected around the resort itself where the summit is taking place and over the protests while there were forty been a number of them we've had a misty international marching through belfast in. calling for the closure of guantanamo bay talking about the hunger strike that's been taking place that the breach of international law or the inmates being held without charge for years on end and it's not just sort of human rights cause as we've there's been a lot of globalists there have been trade unions taking to the streets talking about economic issues the g. eight summit was that it did come about initially as an as a new economic summit on people talking about world hunger and poverty and

questioning why world leaders on to addressing these issues why. for them greeley that this represents this summit represents the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very small minority. worker reporting for us there are no washington earlier justified its spying techniques with security considerations saying monitoring internet data and phone tapping was essential in tackling terrorism but such explanations hardly fit the recent revelations richard norton taylor who writes on defense and security for the guardian the u.k. newspaper that published the lead to documents so the london and washington aimed to get a competitive edge over their allies. there are two kinds of information there the british and america that we need setting a call in the latest leaks which the first is under the guise of anti terrorism if you like and getting information about individual communications that's one thing

a separate power thing or the same machine the same computers the same agencies you know the n.s.a. in america and the g.c.'s go in britain doing or intercepting and targeting a different kind of information which we know about which we revealed today by diplomatic and economic intelligence which rarely have very little to do with terrorism but it's quite clear from these leaked documents that a lot of the information is to try and get information on one's competitors in international before international meetings for example turkey a nato ally and as such by the russian would be south africa is also trying to come with a key commonwealth country for example for reasons of. finding out what their negotiating positions are on economic or diplomatic international talks and that of course has nothing to do terrorism well the revelations of the g. twenty spying come as the scandal caused by students earlier disclosures on the extent of u.s. surveillance after its own and foreign citizens is gaining momentum dozens of

lawsuits are being filed against the government's practices while many lawmakers continue to defended the operation it has also emerged that the scope of the surveillance and the help it received from corporations may have been underestimated here in our washington correspondent going to church again with more . what edward snowden revealed could be just the tip of the iceberg we're learning that in addition to internet giants thousands of u.s. technology finance and manufacturing companies that include software and hardware producers banks internet security providers satellite telecommunications companies thousands are working closely with u.s. national security agencies according to the people familiar with the exchange the cooperation of some of the company says helped the u.s. government infiltrate computers worldwide so this certainly adds to edward snowden's account snowden said he believed that the n.s.a. has carried out more than one thousand hacking operations globally snowden said he

was releasing the information to demonstrate quote the posse of the u.s. government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure unlike its adversaries he also said quote we hack network backbones like huge internet routers basically that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands. of people computers without having to hack every single one of these sources who speak on the condition of anonymity say u.s. companies help intelligence agencies do exactly that and they say it's not subject to any oversight now it's all done of course on the national security but there's some very obvious discrepancies here robert muller director of the f.b.i. for example he said the massive surveillance program that the u.s. has now could have prevented nine eleven then what about the fort hood shooting in two thousand and nine the perpetrator of that one needle molly costs on had been exchanging e-mails with anwar locky for

a period of time or time alonso are now i have multiple warnings over several years radical content on his you tube web page. one may ask the question then why this massive collection of information when all of that was missed. and it's not just of the u.s. government that's under fire for the extent of the surveillance many wonder why so many companies supplied the n.s.a. with data and artie's lewsey caffein off looks at what might be in it for the firms themselves. this story certainly raises more questions than it answers as my colleague reported earlier we know now that thousands of companies have been sharing sensitive information with the u.s. government in exchange for various benefits now this raises concerns about the extent of the private sector collaboration with the u.s. government not to mention questions about what exactly those benefits were now the details may be murky at this point but let's go over exactly what information we have companies who did hand over data to the government got

a big thank you that's according to michael hayden who used to head the cia as well as the national security agency which runs of course the prism program and mr hayden told bloomberg this if i were the director and had a relationship with a company who was doing things that were not just directed by law but were also valuable to the defense of the republic i would go out of my way to thank them and give them a sense as to why this is necessary and useful all right well what kind of thank you exactly are we talking about here well again not a lot of details but anonymous sources did tell bloomberg that leaders of the companies who handed over data to the government were showered with attention and information by government agencies in fact in some instances that meant quick warnings about the threats that could affect their bottom line for example serious internet attacks and who's behind them of course this exchange of information is supposed to be voluntary and while at this point we don't exactly have evidence that this is not the case but well most of the companies seem to have participated

simply because the government asking for help one former c.e.o. paints a slightly different picture in two thousand and one when some telecom giants allegedly were asked to participate in an n.s.a. information sharing program one company qwest initially refused to play ball in according to court documents filed by its then c.e.o. joseph nacho as a result of that decision the company was denied lucrative n.s.a. contracts he believed to be worth fifty to one hundred million dollars retaliation he says for refusing to partake in the government spying program. so to sum it up companies that share data are into government goodwill information about threats possible classified information and of course there's concern that those who did not play along could could have been left out of lucrative government contracts course we don't have more information on this but that's per sightly the point the lack of transparency about this data swap is a major concern now it's done in the name of security but at what cost and to whom

this is reporting for our team in moscow syria's civil war is expected to become the hottest topic as it g eight leaders convene in northern ireland meanwhile the conflict is expanding assad troops have made significant advances in recent weeks while the leader of the opposition's free syrian army says it's in urgent need of weapons iran is reportedly gearing up to send thousands of troops to beef up syrian government forces but it's lebanon's hezbollah which has been openly in gaged on assad side the rebels are reportedly being backed by mercenaries from the gulf states and al qaeda linked jihadists such as the all nusra front as the opposition enjoys widespread diplomatic support in the west and the prospect of lethal aid we go live to jim brown the of the stop the war coalition thank you very much for being with us now as the supporters of the sides in the conflict both sides are

gathering at the g. eight do you think that either side will be able to sway the others in terms of their positions. no i don't think so i think. russia's position and somewhat less obviously china's position is quite clear and no i don't think that's going to change and i think that cameron's statement yesterday after meeting putin saying that. we had common basis we had common interests and so i try i think that's simply not true therefore there can be no fundamental agreement well we see many a people in the international community urging the diplomatic side that all sides in the syrian conflict need to come together and talk but yet these same people are also arming both sides is this counterproductive.

certainly i mean different parties have different interests and without giving up those interests you cannot resolve the situation in i mean there is the fundamental question of sovereignty which those who wish to arm the rebels violate they themselves have set up can call to you might say a coalition that was an even concocted in syria itself so the intervention in the into the internal affairs of syria is quite blatant and that's the fundamental principle nevertheless it is of course perfectly possible that the international corporation could solve help solve the problem. but i don't think that's what's happening i think that what's happening is that there is gross intervention and there is arming of the rebellion from. that has to be fundamentally addressed you mentioned gross intervention now does this arming of the rebels or arming of either side this balancing of powers does that lead to any type of

a solution. no although i must say it's not in principle it's not the same thing it's not the same thing to say that there are simply two sides because the fact is that there is a government of syria and there is international law in these matters and it's not the right of any other state to intervene in. a rebellion in another country and that's a fundamental principle and. stating that the who shall and shall not be the president of syria as a precondition. violates all the norms and i think it's completely unacceptable and it stops any solution you touched on this a bit but cameron said that he was sure that the support won't reach extremist why do you think he's so confident in this case. honestly i don't think he is confident he claims that he can control the process but.

the. coalition the opposition coalition in syria. extremely weak it's extremely fractured and it was actually set up outside of syria . so if they can't even find a suitable party to support in syria because the thing is unreliable how on earth can they guarantee who gets the weapons that they supply and clearly they're worried because if they supply things like craft weapons. they can get handed to parties who would pose a very serious danger and they know that and i think that's why it cameron has for example said that in principle he's willing to supply arms but he hasn't done so and i think that if he really thought it was. any kind of helpful thing then he

would have gone ahead and done it so i think he himself is number two i'm sure all right appreciate your thoughts on this subject to jim brann of the stop the war coalition thank you for being with us here on r t. the g. eight summit kicks off in northern ireland a look at the agenda is just ahead. with syria's center stage money matters are also expected to fall under the spotlight as of the west to beef up its a crusade against tax avoidance that and more coming your way in just a couple minutes right here on r.t. .

download the official publication yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television well it just doesn't work so now with your mobile device you can watch r t any time anyway. my well with syria firmly in the spotlight after the g. eight there are other topics as well and tax evasion in fact this is what british

prime minister david cameron is keen to push forward with more on this we're joined by ortiz pilbeam business presenter extraordinary so could you tell us what is this all about yeah there's a bit of an exposé going on the consortium of investigative journalists have come out with these hundreds of thousands of names of all these are tax avoiders from thirty different countries that do use these tax havens and this is the organization that was responsible for revealing politicians rogue nations or even religious leaders all agog as well so everyone's taking note of this and it's very timely as you say because of course david cameron he's at the g eight and he's really drumming up support for these tax international rules because he thinks with everyone on board tax could be something of the past in terms of offshore havens that's what he's aiming for sure well you know this falls during tough economic times and that is in this craigs actually we know that britain is in the midst of an economic crisis right now it's had stack of night great growth i should say

since the two thousand and eight financial crisis at the moment at the end of the day he needs the cash but people seem to think this is rather ironic considering that britain created the tax haven in the first place it has ten crown dependences that it takes care of and talk about jersey and sea isle of man isle of wight all of these countries the onload as a tax haven so some are accusing of being ever so slightly critical he did bring all these leaders to london just before the g eight got off and he tried to get their support he did how the fact that he has called their support but right now everyone's saying well there's nothing on paper we've got no proof you got no laws you got no new rules come into play so if you can't get his own house in order it doesn't look good on the global stage well it's always easy to say isn't it but it seems like the task itself is a little bit more. difficult talk to me a little bit about that it's a tough task indeed in the reason why it's so tough is because it's been so secretive all these offshore tax havens and until now with these exposé is it really helps out mr cameron all the global leaders to get ahold of these evaders

but it's all going to happen overnight we all know that boss i did get some expert analysis on this i spoke to bet as easy as a certainty of business new europe magazine and i said to him how realistic is it. because it means they and you'd have to coordinate and police the entire world the thing about the system is necessarily international and that means any country one tiny little country who chooses not to abide by this and continue no offer is. as i say convenient services for people trying to hide money. means that the whole thing becomes a mockery there's no way of controlling it so you can work towards it you can it will take time and probably it's a good idea but you've got several countries like cuba of cyprus obvious example but luxembourg still switzerland before who are offering these services as a business it becomes a big part of their economy and it's very difficult for a small country like luxembourg to tell them they can't do it because they have no

other way of making money so i think the show they talk about cult be avoided at the g eight would have to be tax avoidance indeed all right artie's kitty pilgrim thank you for being with us and bringing some important information on this topic ok now. america has voiced skepticism over north korea's proposal to launch high stakes talks to soothe the tension on the korean peninsula the obama administration is says that any to go she should come up with a concrete action from north korea to basically d.n.a. nuclear new nuclear rice but america is reluctant dr tim bill thinks that they are reluctant because it won't benefit from peace in the region. preconditions are there so that the negotiations won't get off the ground and where if you don't want to have negotiations then the simplest way to do that are no negotiations soldiers

way is to demand preconditions of the i was. set so that i think it's well. then the question of course is why are they doing that why didn't they. you know that that's the difficult one and i think basically the number of reasons but the main thing is is china they want tension on the korean peninsula as are the containment of china so they're very loath to cling. to the do you choose the situation. or the bug bear of in the west mahmoud ahmadinejad is about to hand over the iranian presidency had to r.t. dot com for all the peaks and troughs of his time at the helm from standing firm to get nuclear energy for the country to being alternately mired in the throes of an economic crisis. trigger happy in the us where

a gun maker is reporting record sales that during a year of a deadly shootings as americans react to the president's push for stricter weapons controls. germany has become a magnet. for many immigrants in recent years seeking work outside their financially struggling homelands a report by the paris based organization for economic co-operation and development shows the number of newcomers from greece and spain alone has more than doubled since the beginning of the crisis in two thousand and eight but as our tease peter all over explains some successful germans are now looking for a quick exit. packing up for a new life elsewhere yemen's and his family are joining a growing number of germans seeking a future away from home. germany is a nice place but right now the future looks pretty dark so we're getting out that's why his software business and plan tie a company off the sale and he setting up

a new business in canada away from what they see is shortsighted policies by german and european politicians. all they're doing is taking the debt higher and higher and by breaking their own rules it's something the family has been planning for a long time after one and a half years their paperwork is now in the final stages as well as his family yes is also moving almost two million euros worth of business to canada people of always move to new countries in search of opportunities but last year saw over one hundred thirty thousand jet off from germany the most in a generation an increasing number of making the move to to concerns over where the country's economic. among the most popular destinations were switzerland the united states australia and canada away from the e.u. the bureaucracy of brussels. does the feeling. we are going to see intrapreneur as

leave europe it's one hundred times easier to shut down a business here than create one it's too easy to block you. are on the side of the job creators. dr roth is a lawyer in bavaria heading to new zealand he sees the current system in europe is almost comical the team get bored look at the ten commandments there are probably around five hundred words here then look at the regulations on something small like production candy that you know it's over ten thousand words most of the nonsense this will leave you are a bit like a banana republic with so many lords no one can follow them. with dissatisfaction in the e.u. on. the rise germany runs the risk of seeing more and more of its job creators taking off to find new opportunities elsewhere be sure all of the. heavy. and up next we set foot in some of the world's cool coldest reaches to find out just how people their get by from day to day.

you know what's worse than a crop bureaucrat who sucks at being corrupt a scumbag bureaucrat in veronese russia just couldn't help himself and put some very hefty charges for services contracts for road repair and construction in just three years hughes able to take enough of a percentage off of these contracts though investigators raided his house he had the equivalent of over three million dollars in russian money all over his home news not mail dot ru claims he had entire laundry hampers and twenty five kilogram sugar sex filled to the brim with box first off when someone is this flagrant that means that he thought rather comfortable and not getting caught so there are plenty more of these guys out there but second this is an absolute slap in the face to

russia taxpayers who are hungry for new roads i think for instance it's a flagrant in your face obvious crush corruption russia might need to reconsider that moratorium on the death penalty but that's just i mean. this is a year old ricci you know this car is being specially modified it's about to undergo one of the toughest all for journeys in russia and everything needs to be perfect. this car is a new cruise ship one of the most extreme places on the planet utopia. and to break down i'm prepared out here. this whole jack is used to hoist the car up. without one they want you compete in the race because the conditions can be pretty extreme. you'll probably need it.

and once the new tires are on and the motors finally to. it's off to the races. ladies and gentlemen. is home to the mammoth driving club and when these boys and girls get together they get a rather special sendoff. maybe the size of india but it's below freezing here for at least seven months of the year and less than a million people are spread out over its three million square kilometers of space it's a vast wilderness but it's not driver's paradise but it might be my very first rally but we're not doing anything because of the larry and i going to one of the world's most inhospitable places along one of its most infamous roads the pole.