breaking news this hour here on r t taliban fighters launch a heavy assault on afghanistan's presidential palace just a week after the country's security forces took control over the area and the u.s. announced peace talks with the taliban. this. edward snowden goes underground and under the radar of the sunday moscow's international press corps on a one way trip to cuba. and washington is breathing fire at china and russia for the refusal of both countries to serve the whistleblowers head on a silver.

with the world's top headlines live from moscow this is r t with me rory sushi thank you for joining us today straight to our breaking news we go to. the presidential palace in kabul has come under attack from militants while reporters were waiting for a press conference with president hamid karzai a plumes of smoke can be seen across the city after the assault reportedly pitched heavily armed taliban fighters against presidential bodyguards and american troops do stay with us here on r.t. we hope to get a live report from a correspondent in kabul in the very near future here on the program for the meantime though the attack on the presidential palace comes not long after the nato handed control over to afghan local forces. joining me live in the studio to talk further about this talk of thanks so much for rushing in quickly on this tuesday morning the handover of power we had this massive attack in kabul this morning and

of course we have this handover of power i believe it. an initial test of the handover last week yeah i mean i suppose you could consider this an initial test of the forces there the nato led forces in kabul say that the afghans the local forces led the response to this very attack so it was very much a sort of a first test the police chief local police chief said that they dealt with all of the insurgents that attacked that presidential compound within two hours so it does seem that they did ok is it did quite well ok to have couples is that ok yeah it seems so but you have to bear in mind this is the very heart of the nato led forces and the very center of power where it's the capital of huge resources there at their disposal further out in the countryside it's still very much to question how they might do indeed and what about what about the american president here in the recent days say that that washington is working to renew a peace process with the taliban how do you create

a peace process with the taliban that you've been at war with for about a decade is an interesting matrix of things going on there obviously i stuff you're handed over to the afghan forces for the first time since two thousand and one nato troops are going to stay there as backup all of this going on whilst at peace a peace talks are being discussed the possibility of. this afghan led. forces dealt with this very attack this press conference that was going to be held when the attack came in was very much was exactly about those peace talks you can imagine the dismay and possibly the anger of those there talking about talking to the taliban and as the as you were doing that they attack the very presidential compound where that press conference proves to be so we've really been seeing reports of analysts around the world when they're discussing and analyzing the graveyard of empires that afghanistan is known as to around the world. many of them saying you know how do you create peace with the taliban is that the traditional

washington method of just giving them cash and saying fine. we're having us and then and then flying out of town you know there's a lot to be determined how they how they move forward here one of the things i wanted to ask you about tom is that is that we've heard the afghan president hamid karzai for years now lashing out and lambasted in washington for broken promises never giving him a straight answer the disaster in the mess in his country the ongoing violence and yet all we hear from the pentagon is oh i've got to start is doing great they love us there we're doing brilliantly everything is on par with what we're supposed to be achieving is it is that the case well i mean obviously that to go very much indeed but there are deep into it i imagine there are a lot of conversations behind the scenes that we are not privy to yes it's true one hundred cars eyes does does enjoy it sort of lashing out against civilian casualties you know against. there is things about u.s. policy in nato policy that he doesn't like for example these peace talks he says should be afghan led and not led by any other particular force as for the taliban

themselves that were once been watching now can they get away with talking peace whilst also continuing with violence but also but also and am i correct in saying here tom the much of the taliban and they're and i suppose are their collective groups around the country still made up of of almost a fractured tribal elements how do you bring so many different aspects of one culture to the peace table well i mean that's a question it's been going on since the start who exactly are the taliban and i think that's been an ever changing picture sure there are elements and there's been so many attempts to try and define exactly who they are they obviously do have some kind of united voice though they set up an office in qatar precisely to try and facilitate these peace talks but at the same time they haven't renounced violence so i think the aftermath of this attack will partly be to bring focus on that can you try and start a peace process when there are bombs and bullets going off and not just for the

bombs and bullets going off apparently have to stay from what i understand washington d.c. . decided that as they continue to pull out of afghanistan they will leave a huge amount of military hardware in afghanistan now some people say well that's actually very standard policy for what for a war zone you leave the stuff you're not using and you get out of town what does that mean though for the locals i mean does that mean that american military hardware will essentially be falling into the hands of god knows who well obviously that's not the intention obviously u.s. and nato forces want that to be either stored or used by afghan forces the key test will be one of those local afghan forces can keep a hold of the security situation as they did do well today you talk about the security situation you know when the original iraq invasion happened under george w. bush the whole issue the whole policy was we're going to win the hearts and minds of the iraqis they also spread that into afghanistan do you think america and the nato troops have won the hearts and minds of the average afghan or once again rory i think yeah i mean these are these are questions sort of that have been moldova

since the beginning i think when you're looking at the hearts and minds if you look at the various regions some of them seem to have become pacified and have slipped back again into violence some of them seem to have remained relatively calm actually this seems to be in a degree of success very much a mixed picture across the country in kabul obviously everyone watches and one attack like this happens in the center people asked two questions how did the forces do quite well in this case the fact of the fact that an attack happened in the first place since michael what i've been told what's interesting is that from what i understand from twitter before the attack even took place some of these taliban militants are tweeted to journalists in the region saying we are now going after the attack we're going to attack the presidential palace so see how we do i mean it was almost as if they were warning the journalists who would have been told the local security forces were going for an attack on the presidential palace in the afghan capital it's been approximately a decade is afghanistan better off now than it was ten years ago that very much

depends on who you would ask i think obviously as you said the u.s. and nato forces very keen to point. out there successes in certain regions they do have a point in some areas others though hamad karzai would point out far too many civilian casualties as far as he is concerned and the other is saying look the taliban can still carry out these attacks so so the security policy there is a failure or some see it still many questions to be answered our correspondent on board thank you very much for rushing in on this afghanistan breaking news thank you. well thank you for joining us here on our t.r. rory sushi let's get more on this knob a spray can you story from kabul journalist courtney bodie now joining us here on t v it's a role received here live in moscow i hope you can hear me you've been to the scene of the attack what's the situation there no. i'm just back from the scene they pushed the journalist back of about a hundred yards where we can still see the giant blast walls that surround the entire green zone and specially that area there are several interesting factors of

this attack well no civilians are reported killed which is a very good thing and the afghan special forces seem to get it under control it only lasted about an hour which in kabul terms is a very short time span. the attackers we've got we've got reports entered the area which is just by the presidential palace and also the cia headquarters with fake press fake badges fake vehicle cards they got in they were able to at least detonate the witnesses say they heard nine or ten explosions just as it started. the police chief saying that about four attackers have been killed. but the fact that they were able to enter right by the presidential palace really says something about security here another thing is that the presidential palace had just called journalists to come for a press conference where they would be discussing peace talks with the taliban so the timing of the attack. when the presidential palace would be speaking about

peace talks is quite interesting for afghanistan it certainly seems to send a bit of a message to the rest of the world are coming to a couple for these presidential peace talks with the taliban and yet the taliban stage this massive attack right there in the afghan capital do you think courtney any political consequences any repercussions to come from today's morning attack. according as rory said in moscow do you know you feel. seeing any political repercussions are from today's attack on the presidential palace. or at a journalist a corner boy we lost you there live in kabul the signals going down but thank you very much for joining us here that was a journalist a courtenay body in kabul reporting on the breaking news here on our way well for the meanwhile here on the program stephen zoon is a professor of international studies at the university of san francisco and he believes that no matter how strong the afghan army may be it still will never win its people in the country

a deeply opposed to its gulf congress is that even if they're very well trained even if they have the very best equipment. a strength of the afghan government relative to the taliban and other forms of resistance doesn't have credibility with the afghan people and while the vast majority do not subscribe to a child and extremist ideology many are very frustrated with corruption and. an arbitrariness of the government including ongoing acts of repression full of the foreign presence to prop up this government and this this kind of environment leads to the rise of the extreme so it's not the security question alone live from moscow it's the world's leading intelligence agencies have found themselves chasing their own tails of course the softer edward snowden again slipped through the global surveillance web that he exposed and the n.s.a. whistleblower was now reported to be in hiding after setting off a plane packed with journalists to cuba at the very same flight he was supposed to

be on. course reports from the airport where a snowden was last thought to be. the only thing that we know. is that edward snowden's exact location. the white house suggested that they still believe that edward snowden is. in the airport terminal building behind me the ecuadorian embassy in the country that he is seeking political asylum or at another location we simply do not know. now all reports point to the fact that he did in fact arrive here. on sunday at around five o'clock in the afternoon aeroflot flight. from hong kong was where he was in hiding for a fortnight after blowing the whistle on the n.s.a. surveillance operation but he has not been spotted since now russia's security service the f.s.b.

say they do not know where he is. blogging websites and social networks to question whether he even set foot in russia in the first place another thing that we do know is that ecuador is the country where he's seeking political asylum it was widely that that was going to be his target destination his final intended destination but with wiki leaks pulling the strings and organizing the whole thing. whether it has all been. as you say the world's press a flyer on an empty plane to cuba or a plane containing edward snowden. is ahead of the game he's keeping not just the world's press but also the american authorities guessing as to his exact whereabouts but you get the feeling with the world watching snowden's next move in this game of cat and mouse could be crucial. reporting from

. that edward snowden was due to take he told us of some of the confusion on board in the press realized there was had given them the slip. i just got off the plane we just landed in hawaii on a coming from moscow thirteen hour long winded and well what can i see back and shooting me to up to the very last point everyone was still expecting edward snowden to show up to board but even when we were sitting there the whole plane was packed even when we a walk to the doors and it was taxiing that we. still everyone was waiting for him at least to find him on the plane and when we were allowed to get up from our seats went to the seats. where they were supposed to be sitting and saw that they were empty some journalists were actually looking for them inside the airplane checking bathrooms checking places where mr snowden could have been hiding since the very

beginning it seemed almost one hundred percent that he was going to take this flight increased security in the airport crowds of journalists were additional factors boosting these expectations. although the dozens of journalists offered a scoop of the year were left disappointed others made the most of it and one of those is seat seventeen a that was booked for snowden that made the very most of its fifteen minutes of fame on twitter in the first tweet the seat without a passion just seemed rather upset writing i feel empty it was also a little bit annoyed that it couldn't make conversation with the seat next to it because well a b.b.c. reporter was sitting in it. a was also a little apprehensive of all the angry journalists and frankly irritated by no sign of the drink trolleys they were the seat of seventeen a that was supposed to belong to snowden tweeting on the flight to havana cuba although we did speak to our daniel ellsberg another prominent american whistleblower he exposed pentagon papers

back in one thousand nine hundred ninety one a detail in washington's controversial decision making process so during the vietnam war he believes very few people at the end of the day can measure up to snowden's sacrifice. i think he would be in much the same cell as bradley manning if not in the same cell or comical any could be under the national defense authorization act he could be in military detention but even if not he would be in a jail cell somewhere as incommunicado as bradley manning is for the last three years so i think it's very wise to make it as voters outside of this country and i think that we should be listening to what he has to say because what so far i've heard him say is very eloquently put in shows much better judgment than those of his colleagues who went along with it is clearly unconstitutional but they were all participating and i would say the charm carries calling him a traitor is just trusting and he's no more

a traitor than i am and i am not all that words used above me by a president and a vice president both of whom by the way to lost their office for criminality nixon and had no i think he is in the tradition of nathan hale the first american to be convicted of tried in fact for giving secrets to americans he said i regret that i have but one life to get for my country because his country was america and he was hanged by the british he was a spy for george washington i think that edward snowden has shown a willingness to give his life for this country and there's no american i believe more deserves to be honored at this moment. it's good to have you with us here on oxy today a very short break is next to offer about more of what washington things about snowden's globe try to see you in just a. we

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nine twenty am here in moscow this is our team with me will receive shea washington has showered threats and ironic remarks towards the countries which a whistleblower edward snowden has used as stepping stones on his quest to freedom is one china of the consequences of allowing the thirty year old to flee to russia while venomously hinting that both moscow and beijing a far from being bastions of free speech. guy nature can reports the white house says hong kong officials had received washington. and still made quote a deliberate choice to let him go so washington clearly takes it as a snub from china here's the president's press secretary we're just not buying that this was a technical decision by a hong kong immigration official this was

a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the u.s. china relationship we were never that in response to the u.s. request to arrest noted in the government of hong kong issued a statement saying that the documents the u.s. provided did not fully comply with the legal requirements on the hong kong law but also in that same statement the government of hong kong said they wanted more information from the u.s. government about the hacking of computer systems in hong kong by u.s. government agencies and that was one of edward snowden's revelations snowden gave china a great political counterargument to u.s. constant accusations against china now the u.s. can't accuse china of cyber attacks without being accused of hypocrisy so there is an interesting dynamic behind all this the u.s. one and china where the semi-autonomous government of hong kong to give them the man who had leaked u.s. secrets but one of those secrets is about activities of the u.s.

government against china so it's possible that china's dilemma was to either think edward snowden or to arrest hong kong says they've done everything in accordance with their own laws now as far as russia edward snowden has been in transit in russia and russian authorities say they have no legal authority to arrest him but u.s. politicians and pundits on television use what seems like a cold war rhetoric to present washington as the enemies that snowden is helping and the imagination of some german is running. as wild as they joke about how edward snowden is being briefed by the russian president in one form of social also in one of the news channels said russia and china are going to use this to embarrass the u.s. one should argue it's known as revelations that embarrass the u.s. not russia or china but that's exactly what's happening i. u.s. policymakers are doing everything possible to divert attention away from snowden's revelations and certainly one of the one way of doing this is to present it as a cold war style cat and mouse chase that way you have us media now almost cheering

for edward snowden's capture although just a little while ago some of the same journalists were grateful for a great for a greater public awareness of the fact that the u.s. government is spying on millions of people who have done nothing wrong and of course has no illusions as to what lengths the u.s. government will go to catch him edward snowden also said it's not government persecution that he fears most he said the greatest fear that i have about the outcome of these disclosures is that nothing will change from how it's developing it doesn't look like things will change for americans anytime soon but for the world be locations of his revelations could be significant for example the fact that the u.s. now can't accuse china of cyber attacks without being accused of hypocrisy. now ecuador has reportedly given snowden refugee papers what it considers his asylum request but its foreign minister has declined to reveal where the whistleblower is right now snowden's trick to ecuador is being organized by wiki leaks according to

his chief julian a songe more on this the details now swansea's party boy. julian the sirens are saying that they are in contact with edward snowden and the wiki leaks legal representative traveling with him they've said that they are both healthy and in good spirits and in a secret location that they can't disclose now they've spoken a lot about the very bullying and what they called the threatening behavior of the u.s. administration in relation to a number of nations through which edward snowden has been reported to be traveling the fact that they've been demanding for his extradition now wiki leaks have said that edward snowden is north to trace as the u.s. secretary of state was calling him an idiot but he is a hero as we know we have been assisting edward snowden both with his asylum request to ecuador as well as with legal representation so we're going to be following this story as it develops for you from london on the correspondent bully

boy now a lack of water could literally be a reason why it's been so hard to dampen fire relations between israel and palestine attempts in the homes of arab villages in the west bank run dry most of the time they complain israel doesn't satisfy even the minimum water it needs to pull a severe reports. the taps in hamad mohammed's home are there more as a sign of hope there's been no water through them for five long months. the municipality does not give us water as these should water comes through our pipes twice a year. an hour's drive north and or did start another day in the office the mayor of the a front settlement has lots on his mind but not a lack of water we have one big water tank with supplies water also to both our villages which are on the other side of the security fence where basically they get their water supply from the water tank of the front more than three hundred

thousand palestinians across the west bank are not connected to water network according to palestinian human rights groups israeli officials say the number is less than half that since the one nine hundred sixty seven occupation all water resources are exclusively in his radio hands but a joint group established back in one thousand nine hundred three to ensure supplies has left the palestinians short changed israel has repeatedly made as a condition for its approval of palestinian projects that the palestinian authority approve new wells and pipelines for israeli settlements the palestinian authority mainly because it's desperate for water for its population has approved virtually every one of the israeli settlement projects the palestinians were left behind. their opinion community wanted to invest their money that the palestinian authority will have such systems like we have in

a fraud or like we have in the whole of israel unfortunately what happened their money was taken all misused and basically found itself in private bank accounts by the leaders of the palestinian authority despite repeated requests these radio water authority declined to talk to r.t. its website says israel has not only fulfilled its obligations to provide water to palestinians but exceeded them it accuses palestinians of breaching the agreement by drilling unauthorized wells failing to treat a sewerage and of not developing any new water resources. the fact of the matter is that a shortage of water is not a problem for israelis whereas it's a daily struggle for tens of thousands of palestinians something that's a little difficult to swallow. especially for the hundred thousand people living here in the west bank third biggest palestinian city who rely on this man it's his job to direct what little water there is to a different neighborhood each day we receive baby two thousand cubic meter of beer

a day. it means that we we near seven thousand to give be able to reach seventy to eighty a little better given them and twice a year people are coming and his wife have the water pipes to the home opened the rest of the time they use a well bringing up what little water they can do and i'm clean to wash drink and survive policy r.t. in the west bank it's only half past nine on tuesday morning here in moscow a very good morning to you from all of us here at r.t. just up next to a continuation of the face of war the ongoing as much as say the repercussions of what the conflict was in chechnya.

anyone who lives in the us knows that the i.r.s. does not play around one honest or dishonest mistake could get you in a lot of trouble even a longtime friend of mine got his entire life savings destroyed due to some simple honest error you think that workers in an organization that could punish you for your financial failings would be very sharp with their own money but that's sadly not the case according to an audit report from the treasury inspector general for tax administration at the very least one thousand iris employees have abused the charge cards they were issued to cover their official travel expenses some of these people are very high on the ladder including an executive level official a criminal investigator and multiple ploys with security clearances much of the abuses related to a place writing checks for big purchases which later bounced due to accounts being empty yeah the people who could ruin your life for one little financial folly seem to have no problem over drawing while they are living it up on taxpayer funded travel to keep things in perspective the iris is

a huge organization so one thousand abusers is a minority but in the spirit of fairness i think these card abusers should be punished just as harshly as normal people who run afoul of the i.r.s. but that's just my opinion. i believe clay is the perfect material it's a lie. working with the demands persuasion going in that you make just a small change and you get a totally different result. was the forgetting to work you have to study the material. try to figure out what it looks like most of the.