you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month so food i should try it because you know how fabulous and lucky. i mean. i believe that i'm still really messed up. in the old story so actually. it's. worse for the little thing the white house or for the. radio guy and for a minute from. what you. are about to do did you ever seen anything like this until. they guys i'm having learned from the break in that last week afghan president hamid karzai announced the official shift of military power from nato to the

country's own security forces and u.s. envoy was formed to assist in peace talks between the u.s. afghanistan and the taliban think as one of the good guys but a last last night official buildings near the cia headquarters in kabul in cars i was presidential palace were attacked the attack led to a ninety minute firefight and left at least four people dead the taliban has since taken responsibility however this incident raises many red flags for the future of the region just days ago the u.s. and afghan governments were preparing for peace talks with the taliban you know the same militant group that the government's been trying to eliminate for the last ten years in short afghanistan's one giant mess in the longest u.s. occupation in history between the green on blue attacks daily roadside bombings and now having to admit that the only way for peace moving forward is to make concessions with the quote and i mean but nothing's black and white and it's not going to be an easy transition this latest attack. that and it makes me worried

frankly that afghanistan's uptick in violence might soon near iraq's post occupation adding to the trend of destabilizing the same countries the us claims to be liberating but that said let's break that. a little more of you are going to be like oh. oh . right now and as a whistleblower edward snowden remains in a transit area inside moscow's international airport although he hasn't technically crossed into russia's borders the media is having a field day and tag and eyes in the country for not making a move earlier today russian president vladimir putin said to reporters that quote the sooner snowden selects his final destination point the better both for the u.s. and for himself who can also reiterated that snowden is not a fugitive rather referring to him as a free man adding that the whistleblower can't be turned over to u.s.

authorities on the grounds that the u.s. and russia do not have an extradition agreement and as this drama continues to unfold corporate media pundits have been holding their court of public opinion on the matter paid to not only snowden but guardian journalist glenn greenwald as traitors. greenwald's a total phony he is anti-american he loves to radical regime and he did this because he hates america this had nothing to do with publicizing information that was alan dershowitz last night on c.n.n. a slightly softer tone from the tenant colonel ralph peters who recently suggested that snowden and manning should both receive the death penalty but to cut through some of this inflammatory rhetoric to give us the real insight on the story i'm joined now by michael ratner president of the center for constitutional rights and attorney for joining us on q. and wiki leaks michael thank you so much for coming on have it's good to be with you always so you've been closely following this case do you know anything more

about the status of edward snowden at this point why do you think he's still at the airport. you know i don't know abbie i mean what's been said is that he left hong kong he's now in the transit lounge in moscow and according to what we read in wiki leaks who said he's apparently and what the team you know the foreign minister of ecuador has said he's applied for asylum in ecuador and conceivably from sort of what you read between the lines possibly in other countries as well what's interesting about that is of course julian assange has asylum from ecuador and he has it on the grounds a grounds recognized by the united states that whistleblowers are entitled to asylum under the refugee convention it's a it's because it's the allegation that they're being persecuted because of political opinion so that i think he has a very good claim that claim would trump any extradition form and any interference in that claim is really considered outside the bounds of

a treaty that says that asylum and people apply for asylum or to be protected as i understand it the u.s. government made his travel documents invalid present a difficulty for him to travel moving forward i think it presents no difficulty at all apparently after door has given him a travel document which allowed him to as i understand at least leave if not leave hong kong perhaps get him to get into the transit lounge so he has a travel document of a sort i don't think i don't think that's what's going to be the issue here look at the united states at this point what's remarkable to me is it looks like this bumbling giant here they have this giant surveillance system that they're trying to justify that it's going to make it safer and they can keep track of of one of their of what was formerly one of their own it's quite a remarkable illustration of the limits of the united states it is indeed and i know that wiki leaks has obviously been instrumental in helping snowden plan this escape and map it out on the connection was initially made between the two. you

know i don't know i don't know anything about that i woke up as just to surprise everybody else in the morning when i saw that julian assange that wiki leaks had helped give advice to legal and diplomatic and apparently wiki leaks had paid for the plane fare and helped facilitate the asylum application i was as surprised as anyone else by that so that's as much as i know and when you look at the countries snowden has fled to in conjunction with the information is released about the u.s. spying on hong kong and russia i mean doesn't it just seem like it's all very well thought out plan very well executed and do you think that he has any more tricks up his sleeve moving forward you know i don't think we've seen obviously we haven't seen the end of it we have to see what happens and where he goes but what's most interesting so far is that both china and russia have refused to bow to u.s. pressure and ecuador apparently hasn't either and that's quite remarkable i mean the u.s. is the richest most powerful country in the world and they have put incredible

rhetoric plus pressure on these countries and it again it shows the limits but it's also shows that there's support i think for ed snowden because he's revealed this worldwide surveillance system on all of us and he has support for that and people are upset by that unfortunately in the united states as i'm sure you know and as you've talked about on with the media the major media are lining up behind the congressional approval the presidential approval kerry and etc and we're not really getting the fourth estate except from programs like yours and a few others as to what really is going on and that's where the support is coming from for this feeling this massive surveillance of all of us what they're upset about they claim is that oh this tipped off the people in china and hong kong etc let me just say the people in hong kong and china their governments they know what's being done by the united states they know their information is being surveilled the people that really upset and tipped off essentially are confirmed are people in the united states. and around the world and then you have wondered

night and the u.s. is the night extradition treaties from all of these countries before when criminals from their countries and not say instead of the criminal but i'm saying in the past actual criminals from ecuador kcet or have been in the us us tonight our traditions i don't blame these countries because they won't you know i mean what favors do we owe you basically but i want to move on to the law as a constitutional lawyer i mean of course there are going to fishel is charging that snowden broke the law but on the flip side michael can you break down exactly how the u.s. is violating the constitution and breaking the law in this case well you know hacking or going into a computer and i'm authorized the way it's essentially against the law in most countries of the world probably all countries so in the u.s. and its most narrow level goes into the computers in hong kong or uses the prison system to spy on computers and our content all over the world that's breaking hacking the us computer protection laws all over the world of course it's also violating the sovereignty of the countries where those computers are it's also

violating every single one of all the privacy rights that all of us have all over the world we have course in the united states have a special protection of the fourth amendment other countries in the world have their own protections it's basically make our lives completely transparent while it makes the government completely opaque it's utterly contrary to international agreements contra took a mess to contrary to our understanding of what the integrity and dignity of a human being are and let's talk about snowden's portrayed in the media you just said that he's going to be judged in the court of public opinion of course there really isn't that a state holding public officials accountable it seems to be getting more negative by the day i mean how is this declaration of guilt hurting his case. well you know it's interesting i do think it's getting more negative and you know they put the pictures on one of the t.v. shows of the o.j. simpson chase is it as if snowden is you know being chased like o.j. simpson and i do think you know if he came forward in admitted it in

a way to sort of take control of the story and say here's why i did it and it's a beautiful statement that he made explaining you know why he did it why felt massive surveillance was wrong and it's interesting that he would he could have said a lot more i think he said he could have revealed every cia station in various places in the world but he didn't because he wanted to go after this massive surveillance system something that would really alert people both in america and in the rest of the world that's what what's happening with our major form of democratic communication the internet is being completely controlled and government aided by the government of the united states the u.k. and perhaps some other countries in the world it's an incredible statement it's where i'd like to see the media start to focus rather than on some car chase i mean it's pretty outrageous and the protection really given to the government and this program by the journalist that you cited and others and the one sidedness of the quote debate on this is i find just disheartening just disheartening which is why i'm in i'm so happy you're here and i and others to really give us what that debate

is about it certainly is lacking strongly across the corporate media it's amazing the rhetoric that i'm hearing michael i'm just astounded day after day hearing what people are saying even about glenn greenwald i mean the increased scrutiny on a journalist for doing his job as a journalist multiple government officials are accusing him of breaking the law what basis are they using to call for his prosecution you know people have said there's now in this country a conspiracy to commit journalism and we've seen that we saw it with julian assange and wiki leaks we saw it with the with the fox news person james rosen when they got a search warrant against him by accusing him of being an aider and abettor of his source and now we're of course seeing it with glenn greenwald what their release. saying is that he is essentially aiding and abetting his source that he's revealing information that's for him but had to be for being revealed by our quote espionage laws and that's the way they're doing it but what they're really going up to then

really care about the be violated the law according to them which i don't think he did at all but they care that he is breaking the unwritten understanding between the media and the government in this country or they go to the government they go to the white house and they say should we publish this should we not publish this or they do self restraint of saying we're not going to publish this people like graham and glenn greenwald julian assange and others are breaking their act and i think the hope fourth estate and it's really not a fourth estate for most of them or fifth estate whatever they call it is really is really upset that air airing out on time and that well i'm so sorry we're out of time it's about time that self-censorship and thank you so much michael ratner center for constitutional rights appreciated time thank you abbi. still had on tonight show nestle has responded my story about their corporate takeover of the water they try to find out what they had to say and what of the response back to their record.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. download the official publication so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television just. not with your mobile device so you can watch on t.v. any time anyway.

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so you guys may remember that a few weeks ago i called out nestle the largest food company in the world which raked in almost twelve billion dollars and sheer profit last year i criticized the company specifically for its corporate takeover of water because you see nestle owns multiple brands of water in this one right here hold spring in fact bottled water might just be nestle's most lucrative product well shortly after that video aired this network received a vaguely threatening letter from nestle accusing me of making a series of quote offensive and hysterical allegations that have no basis in fact according to nestle one of those allegations was that i was the company of quote leaving the villagers dying of thirst and sucking the world dry leaving millions of

people without a drop to drink wow nestle ever heard of the term hyperbole clearly i'm not saying that nestle is a literalise stealing the entirety of the world's water supply but if you think that their p.r. machine is in full swing now just wait because this is about to get cray initially they said it would be glad to offer clarification if i had asked for a response and so to be fair i invited them on the show and offer them a platform to set the record straight but instead i got this. i'm stephanie from nestlé we saw the video you post on you cheap criticizing nestlé over water so his own response. wait was that serious. thank you stephanie for the prompt response in video form which i'll play now in full on energy my response since i can't talk to you like a real human being so please go on. you claimed we make

a huge profit on both water but the figures you quoted were wrong in reality we pay move to other ground which he uses. first of all i never said that nestle pays any less or any more than its competitors but you know what she's right i did quote an incorrect figure of profit i cited of fifty three million nine hundred eight thousand two hundred fifty five percent was calculated from the council of canadians canada's largest citizen advocacy organization would receive zero corporate or government funding according to their website nestle pays three dollars and seventy one cents for every million liters of water it pumped from the local watershed which are then packages in single use plastic bottles and sells back to the public for as much as two million dollars as stephanie points out the insane profit margin of fifty three million percent doesn't take into account some important costs. that you have to add to the manufacturing costs infrastructure water resource protection quality control salaries stool age distribution in

fact profit margin is the best and ten percent you know ten percent doesn't sound like that much but unfortunately i couldn't find a breakdown of how much nestle spends on any of those things however i did against an insight on how extensive nestle's water treatment process is it turns out that nestle was recently embroiled in a lawsuit after it was discovered that one of their brands ice mountain was really just well repackaged tap water yes folks tap water which by the way costs about two thousand times less when it's not in case in plastic but even if nestle is just repackaging tap water to be fair i'm sorry. still not counting for the cost of extracting oil to make the non-biodegradable plastic water bottles shipping them around the planet to be consumed in mere minutes only to be gotten thrown in the trash and shipped to landfills in india so what's next. we take water during droughts in canada and fact we've always reduced our water use during droughts and

will continue to do so we use less than one percent of the available spring water at hillsborough in ontario the water cycle not truly even pensions every drop of this water weight millions of gallons of water extract from lakes and reservoirs will be magically replaced by nature ok so what about during droughts well according to the huffington post government tried to put limits on nestle's water struction during shortages guess what being the big powerful corporation that is nestle was able to convince the ontario ministry of demand environment to remove the restrictions back to stephanie. chairman doesn't believe water is a human right that's wrong he does the whole company dolls we've known recognize the human right to water and we ensure all our people respect it really really

you know what i'm going to let your boss peter brain back chairman and former c.e.o. respond. water is of course the most important raw material that we have today in the world is a question of whether we should privatized the normal water supply that's the population and there are two different opinions on the matter the one opinion which i think is extreme it's that is represented by the n.g.o.s. that they have who bang on about declaring the water. public rest stephanie your boss just said that thinking of water is a public right isn't it stream view clearly not shared by him since he then is goes on to say that water should be applied a market value just like any other food carry on. is a mobile water crisis that threatens food security and we're determined to help

address this i couldn't agree with you more stephanie there is a global water crisis and i'll tell you what's making it worse the bottled water industry is mining water taking it away from its public municipal sources and selling it to make a profit so is there anything else you'd like to say. thank you for drawing attention to water it's an important issue an important resource but we would urge you and your view is to look for the facts about tell use of water on a website nestle dot com stephanie you're welcome and thank you for that video with that beautiful green screen landscape hey stephanie maybe i'll see you again in nestle's new ad campaign for pier life a high end bottled water that targets stylish british women oh and did i mention that this new brand will get its water from an endangered salmon fish hatchery in

oregon according to the state's department of fish and wildlife but don't worry nestle will still be paying the same standard price for this more high end water. folks here's what all this water talk boils down to initially the idea of privatizing a resource that every living thing on earth depends on was off that especially considering how water is practically free all ready now water's a multi-billion dollar industry that tricks people into essential a bind filtered tap water wrapped in plastic waste and i mentioned that the e.p.a. standards for tap water are much more stringent and the f.d.a. is oversight on bottled water so really what is the difference look at there is one thing to take away it's this filter your own water and not just to save a buck but to save the future of the earth.

it's been a busy month for the supreme court they've been deliberating on a love in different cases including a number of very controversial issues that need to be resolved before the summer recess on monday two decisions were issued that made it harder for workers to prove they had suffered employment discrimination one ruling narrows the definition of what constitutes a supervisor in racial and sexual harassment cases the other makes it more difficult for employees to prove that they have faced a legal retaliation for complaining about discrimination needless to say. very good news for countless individuals and organized workers that have worked tirelessly to fight on behalf of disadvantaged employees and in yet another decision released just yesterday the supreme court avoided a sweeping ruling on the constitutionality of affirmative action programs it was a highly visible case brought on by a white student who sued the university of texas saying that the school had denied

her admission based on race and then the court sent the case back to the lower court for further review and while it did affirm the use of race in admissions it has made it harder for institutions to use these policies to achieve diversity while it may not be a loss for affirmative action just yet it's certainly not a win so what new decisions came out of the supreme court today and what a hot button issues will be decided by the end of the week to give some insight on all of that and more is b.t.s. producer amir david on the ground at the supreme court. today the supreme court ruled in yet another historic decision in a five to four decision the court struck down a key provision of the nine hundred sixty five voting rights act now this provision mandated that nine states mostly located in the south be subject to federal oversight election law now the court says that these laws are based on outdated information and is mandating that congress come up with an updated formula to

determine which jurisdictions will need to be subject. that election law monitoring now civil rights groups are saying that this is a major setback but this of course is the protections afforded right now to african-americans and minorities who are beginning to up their participation in the voting process however the state subject to this law argued that the discrimination that once existed in these southern states does not exist anymore and therefore that this statute is completely irrelevant now we're still awaiting a decision on two more high profile cases regarding gay marriage we're expecting to hear back on those either tomorrow or on thursday of this week the first is called windsor versus united states and the corner is really taking a look at the constitutionality of something called the defense of marriage act or doma it was passed back in one thousand nine hundred six and restricts federal marriage benefits from being applied to same sex couples so if this act is found to

be unconstitutional abby thousands of same sex couples will be eligible for federal marriage benefits things like a state tax treatment social security even something as simple as applying for a green card on behalf of a spouse who's a foreign national the sacket gay marriage case so i'm sure you know abby has to do with proposition eight which was a referendum voted on in california back in two thousand and eight and which voters decided to ban gay marriage within the state so abbie there is still a lot at stake here in the coming days that could dramatically change the legal and political landscape for gay rights going forward. who are wondering what i'm doing when i'm on urgently on twitter being more and if you like what you see you can go in there you'll find all my tweets linking the segments from the show as well as really thoughts i have about this day but also please help us get a break in the set running being untrue what are the crucially on the hashtags we

can get around you know in the twenty's but only with your advisors help so how did . dot com and check me out at abby martin and guys that's our show for you tonight please come back again and join us to break the set tomorrow. i would rather as questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

yes that was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little league. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news the team. alexander's family cry tears of the wife at a great things other than justice has a theatrical regard in a court of law found alive there's a story made sort of movies playing out in real life. mission in three secret until you should see in store charges free. range and

street. series. priests. plugging videos for your media project a free media and on the r t dot com. it .

well on to army to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. like a scene out of the movie the terminal edward snowden is holed up in the transit zone of moscow's international airport because russian officials following a lot snowden leave their country freely america's chances of winning stoughton's extradition becoming the slimmer and slimmer also in a sweeping ruling this morning the supreme court all but declared that racism in america is big a blow of equal rights in america suffered and is the supreme court placing too much faith in our nation's do nothing congress and in the wake of the supreme court's voting rights ruling what can be done to preserve the.