spanish find out me visit by two of the dead don't go it's cold. and i say whistleblower edward snowden remains hidden in the moscow airport because her quest for asylum in ecuador is still up in the air while relations between the u.s. and ecuador appear to be souring more on that story just ahead. so the twelve in the bradley manning trial still facing prosecution under the asking are shocked bradley manning state remains unclear or he is out for me for another day of testimony and details are just ahead. be careful where you chuck you're going to do the perp walk in the u.s. there's been several activist arrested for chalking on sidewalks to express their concerns look at that issue later on in the show.

it's friday june twenty eighth or pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching our t.v. we begin the show with the latest update on edward snowden the man who leaked confidential national security agency documents to media outlets he is asked this moment still holed up in the transit area of the moscow airport meanwhile edward snowden's father is speaking out saying he's confident his son will return to the united states in an interview with n.b.c. lonnie snowden said that he has not spoken to his son since april however r.t.s. lucy kavanagh is in moscow and brings us the latest. well it looks like the saga of edward snowden continues for yet another day of course he still presumed to be somewhere in the transit zone of the sheremetyevo airport behind me although he hasn't physically been seen since his arrival as far as we know mr snowden has been accompanied by a woman named sarah harrison she's a wiki leaks researcher now the two had flown to moscow on sunday they were supposed to fly to have van the following day but never ended up boarding that

flight now edward snowden is facing several problems as a result at the moment number one his american passport has been result revoked so he can't technically buy a ticket to go anywhere that also means he can't get a russian visa to get out of the airport transit zone now could get perhaps special papers from ecuador that would allow him to theoretically travel but no indication at this point that this is something that will actually happen on top of all this while ecuador has seemed generally supportive of mr snowden's actions officials aren't exactly bending over backwards as of yet to protect him a spokesman for the government have said that snowden would physically have to apply for asylum on ecuadorian soil which could include an embassy or the country of course at this point since he can't get out of the airport there's simply no way for him to do that but it should also be noted however that ecuador has also ramped up its defiance over the united states by canceling preemptively a special trade deal with the u.s. just for what it called blackmail by the united states of the country in another

cheeky move they also offered a twenty three million dollar grant to the u.s. supposedly for human rights training and were in response to criticism over its own record now the so-called transit zone where snowden is free to roam is between the airport terminal gates and passport control now i was actually there just yesterday having returned from a trip abroad and this is basically not the kind of place that you really want to spend that much time and time and there's a t.j. i friday's restaurant several coffee chains including one where a cappuccino will cost you a grand total of twelve dollars there's also a small hotel where you can book a tiny little room which basically comes with a bathroom and a nightstand. it's been thoughts that snowden perhaps might be in that room but officials haven't confirmed that we have to keep in mind that there's a number of porters who are also staying there in hopes of catching sight of edwards and they have not been able to do that for days so really a lot of mystery about where he is in the meanwhile we did hear from snowden's father he gave a t.v. news interview even though he hasn't spoken to a son since april he said that snowden he's confident at least that snowden could

return if certain conditions are met that would include knox detaining snowden before trial letting him choose the location of the trial in a sensually not subjecting him from a gag order that would prevent him from making public remarks he also expressed concern that snowden may have been manipulated by others he named wiki leaks as one example he criticized also the group for essentially saying their focus isn't really on the u.s. constitution but on releasing quote as much information as possible so at this point it looks like it's just a father who wants a son back the hunt for edward snowden continues meghan back to you. well edward snowden is sparking a kerfuffle between the u.s. in any country willing to help him the obama administration has put pressure on any country stepping up to support snowden or offering to grant him asylum all the speculation initially was that snowden would seek asylum in ecuador a country that offered wiki leaks founder julian a son a safe haven the u.s. senator menendez though has threatened to alter the trade pact with ecuador if they

help snowden ecuador has since renounced renewing a trade pact and is currently at a currently had with the u.s. calling it an instrument of blackmail communications minute of mr fernando vera has said that ecuador quote does not accept threats from anybody and is not trade in principles or submit to mercantile interest as important as they may be in consequence ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably were announces said preferences however ecuador says it cannot grant snowden asylum unless he's on the country soil so what are the prospects of him actually getting to ecuador with me to discuss this i'm joined now by michael shifter president of american dialogue and author of the book constructing democratic governance and latin america michael so edward ecuador announced that it would drop a trade pact to thwart blackmail from the u.s. on snowden's asylum what are the implications of this could have on their own

economy. well first of all the trade preferences didn't look very likely to begin with and i think this was a preemptive move on the part of the go effect of ecuador. this does affect the economy ecuador has been growing pretty well as an oil economy it's got a lot of support from china and elsewhere so it's been doing well and president correa was just reelected resounding lee. but at the same time it does its biggest trading partner is the united states and if you're a flower producer in ecuador you want the u.s. market access to the u.s. market and for the products as well so this does affect jobs and in ecuador and the economy would certainly take a hit if this parade trade references to ok what kind of pressure we see in the u.s. applying to ecuador to encourage them to give up this pursuit of snowden is that working. in a bind i think it would doors is tempted to try to needle the united states defy

the united states be the center of attention try to expose the hypocrisy of what they see as the apocrypha the double standards of the united states has been very critical of ecuador for its own. policies of coming down hard on the press and their own country and so i don't want to take advantage of this but at the same time they're very mindful that that's going to have very serious consequences for its economy so i think what we're seeing is really some men vigilance the government is weighing factors on both sides of the equation and that looks like it's going to be delayed for some time ok do you think that the pressure that the u.s. is putting on ecuador is too much. no i don't i don't think so i don't think that the united states should i think the political reality is that you know that it would not get trade preferences a great for grant snowden asylum i'm not sure that's a wise move but that's just a political reality it's a wise move because i don't think it's in a long term interest of the united states to rafael correa is not going to be there

for ever and will have a deal be another president of ecuador and people will remember that the united states cut off trade preferences and affected the ecuadorian economy at a very critical time and that's not good for the united states in the long term but that politics is seldom seen in a long term perspective to shoot short term so i think there's going to be a mood in washington to punish ecuador to the extent it can if it goes ahead with granting snowden asylum ok well we saw that ecuador said that they would offer twenty three million a year for human rights training to america doesn't seem like a is time thing us here. yes i think i think this is consistent with his style i think he enjoys fights korea is a very confrontational leader and want to show that it could stand up to the united states and he's playing with the united states and this is just a good way to cry to get a little big united states to say that they would give. that money that they would

get to trade preferences or support united states to be human rights training and the like clearly he is trying to exploit this issue which is which is common to a lot of criticism of the surveillance program that snowden has exposed states but but globally and korea wants to watch this sort of to to to make a dig at united states and so i think that's the way that that he's doing that how far that will get him and whether that will really affect his own situation it's another question i'm not sure if united states really does the punish ecuador because of the trade to try on the trade question. they harm ecuador's economic situation michael we're running out of time here i want to get to this question quickly how are the ecuadorian how's the ecuadorian population responding to their country offering asylum here do you know what their responses well just based on the press reports that i've read i don't think that they are particularly excited

about this about you why should they get involved in this and i think certainly if you're a flower producer or you or your work should buy the product that exports the united states you could be very concerned about this i don't think there's overwhelming support on the other hand korea is a popular leader and that people want to fall that leaders so he is there's no question that he that he is most popular politician in ecuador michael always appreciate you weighing in we have to leave it there that was michael shifter president of in american dialogue thank you well many people have been viewing us stories coming out of the guardian newspaper regarding the n.s.a. surveillance scandal there's one group of people who can't look at these leaked documents the u.s. army admitted on thursday that there's an army wide bloc viewing the guardian news website artie's political commentator sam sachs has that story. because there is nothing.

big tanks big missiles big guns the u.s. army is strong the strongest in the world when it comes to firepower but today the u.s. army's strength is questioned after news that it's censoring internet content from its soldiers and we're not talking censorship of pornography or extremist websites which would still be pretty troubling but we're talking censorship a very important news stories stories that the rest of us who have access to a free and open internet can view anytime we want we're talking a full army wide blackout of the guardian's reporting on edward snowden's n.s.a. leaks yes while the rest of america has been able to view the multiple classified documents released on the guardian news's website from secret pfizer court orders to power point slides depicting mass domestic data collection to even internal n.s.a. regulations governing snooping our soldiers and bases across the world cannot access

this information and a letter to the monterey herald a spokesman for net com which is an agency within the army cyber command confirmed that quote yes the army is filtering some access to press coverage and online content about the n.s.a. leaks the department of defense routinely takes preventative network hygiene measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information on to d.o.d. unclassified networks network hygene the army means restricting access to any classified documents that may be found on the internet and that haven't been properly disclosed by the appropriate officials so that basically means all the articles based on snowden's leaks that have appeared on the guardian after all imagine the chaos if our army strong soldiers actually start reading about. edward snowden or reading about the n.s.a. maybe they'll get some ideas maybe they'll turn into little whistleblowers themselves scary stuff i know if you think it's odd that the fighting force that's

out there defending our american ideals is also engaging in very un-american rampant censorship while you're not the only one as the net com spokesman said in the letter quote the dio d.c. is also not going to block websites from the american public in general and to do so would violate our highest held principle of upholding and defending the constitution and respecting civil liberties and privacy well that's a relief but really the us army won't have to worry too much longer about what sort of stuff its soldiers are reading on the internet after all drones are becoming the preferred weapon of choice and as we all know drones are not curious they do not read and they do not think for themselves and isn't that exactly what we want defending our freedom. in washington same sucks. and also another instance

of the army cracking down on the release of confidential documents this very the very latest in the trial of private first class bradley manning at the end of the fourth week of trial he stands accused of violating the espionage act as well as giving aid and comfort to the enemy among other charges so you can see exclusive footage obtained by r.t. of manning leaving the courtroom at fort meade after a day of court pinning allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of classified government cables to wiki leaks liz wahl has been covering the trial from fort meade and brings us the latest. wrapping up the fourth week of bradley manning's trial we have heard some of the most compelling testimony we have heard yet throughout the month that this trial has been going on today colonel david miller took to the stand he was the commander of manning's unit in iraq and he spoke about the impact he believes these leaks had on the brigade and the prosecution asked what was his reaction when he found out that about these leaks and he said quote i was stunned the last thing i anticipated was an internal security breach from one

of the prosecution went on to ask ask him about the more rally how these leaks impacted the morale among the troops on the ground there in iraq and he said quote my read of my staff a funeral like atmosphere fell over the crowd went on to describe the anger and frustration among soldiers there. and the brigade i want to talk about what this brigade was tasked with doing they were trast tasked with this transition this drawdown of troops in iraq and the transfer of responsibility to iraqi security forces the colonel said that the transition was going smoothly until this scandal he says just came out of the blue and he spoke to about what he believes manning's leaks did to the trust among soldiers and he said trust is the foundation of what we do he said quote i got you you go. that's how we roll he says is that's how he describes this cultural culture of trust among soldiers and then he said the whole

thing started to unravel now this is the prosecution's witness what they're trying to do is prove the fallout of these leaks and what effect they really had what effect they had on the morale and trust of troops there as we know manning admitted to leaking these documents but the question now is how damaging they really were. very compelling testimony animated lively testimony a little bit different from some of the testimony we hear in this trial a lot of it very technical sometimes dry and glance of today he really colonel miller really brought some character during his testimony also notable today of the judge admitted as evidence to tweets believed to be from the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks the first tweet requesting military addresses the second tweet saying they have this video of that airstrike in afghanistan there's been a lot of time spent throughout this trial debating on whether or not these tweets

can be authenticated and today the judge ruled that that they can be admitted as evidence. it's a board to know that this evidence is circumstantial evidence to show that wiki leaks was out there out there trying to get a hold of this information this all relates back to that the most serious charge alleged by the prosecution this charge of aiding the enemy trying to show the prosecution trying to prove that bradley manning and julian assad were working together and getting this classified information on to the internet important to note also as the defense points out that there is no proof that bradley manning actually saw these tweets here in fort meade maryland live all artsy. do you remember coloring on the sidewalk as a child and american favorite pastime that could land you in jail if you color in front of a bank or a politician's house san diego activist jeff olson age forty is facing up to thirteen years in jail and thirteen thousand dollars in fines for scribbling anti

bank chalk messages in front of three san diego bank of america branches will he isn't the only activist arrested for writing in chalk on the sidewalk just yesterday harrisburg pennsylvania man was arrested for chalking the words corbett has health care we should too on the sidewalk and from the pennsylvania governor tom corbett in the kicker his charge was an action that served no legitimate purpose well many of us of violated that laws today around the country other cities have seen a crackdown on choppers from austin texas to minneapolis minnesota so as chalking a way to exercise free speech or is it vandalism with me to discuss this i'm joined now by artist alex schaefer from the l.a. studio hi there alex so what do you think is talking a part of free speech or is it vandalism. it is not vandalism this olson case i think is i think it's good in that it's going to get people upset again.

and if you're following the if you're following the trial there's just unprecedented moves by the judge a gag order and to the lawyer can't bring up free speech during the trial i mean this is ridiculous well alex even if it does amount to vandalism after thirteen years in jail for chalk on a sidewalk what are your thoughts on that. well i mean it just exemplifies this kind of two tiered justice system that we're living under you know if you're a if you're a big of a too big to fail bank you get one of these signs right here eric holder gets you get out of jail free card but if you're just an average joe and you're pointing out the problem then you're going to get the book thrown at you and i think americans are finally realizing how insane this is why i really like your prophet there that many like mike are up there that is ok ok so i want to take you back to olson's case i understand that in a recent twist of events the judge in his case issued

a gag order saying that he can't even talk about the legal proceedings against him and to the media it is ok if what he say is that. again insane this this story. i've actually called and talked to the the city attorney or at least one of their in their office whoever answers the phone and i think that they did not realize the blowback that this was going to have. and how quickly it was going to get out there i feel sorry for jeff olson but i'm glad that in. the people that this issue is being discussed it's on reddit you know. well as i understand it san diego is not the only city issuing punishment for chalking on a street would you call these chalk related erast is there a trend happening. well i hope so i mean if you look at the timeline of protests

you know two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve was pretty good and it feels like we've kind of fallen asleep again at least it's dropped off the media's radar or maybe everyone's just too for scrambled with student loan payments and mortgage payments to actually be upset you know which is a good strategy but. i hope that that this will cause more i mean when i first did it a year ago i just thought it was a perfect form of protest and jeff olson did exactly what i did and the city never pressed charges on me rightly so but i hope we see it more well if this trend of a rasper talking continues you know could we see a five year old neighbor girl being arrested for chalk on the sidewalk if this keeps up well again it points out the selective enforcement and the arbitrary nature of who's going to get arrested for chocking you know i just think they're going to have an impossible time trying to get a sympathetic jury to get

a conviction on this i hope it just boomerangs in the city attorney's face i hope the boomerangs and bank of america's face and and just becomes a another p.r. nightmare for them. well move your money if you're not out of bank of america by now then you know it i don't know alex i really appreciate you weighing in we have to leave it there that was artist alex schaffer thank you well the united states has announced its intentions to begin arming the syrian rebels but the question remains who are these rebels will artie's and brings us that story. a bloody conflict raging on for over two years violence to get the syrian president to step down versus more violence from a leader refusing to do so at least ninety thousand lives taken and counting from the get go washington supported the opposition the us is making

a terrible mistake in giving this undifferentiated very oversimplified black and white picture that the rebel opposition really good guys and assad is the bad guy it's a very very dangerous state. dangerous because the opposition is not even close to being a unified political force in reality made up of an array of groups you find fundamentalist groups factions of various sectarian armies many of them affiliated either with al-qaeda broadly or with the ideas the jihadi ideas that they espouse the free syrian army is a network of thousands of militias and maybe they come up to about eighty thousand people what's scary is how many of these people want you know an extremist government and i think it's more you know it's at least half horrific videos such as this one have shown that in the uprising the enemy can not only be killed but

eaten too far that. there's ten thousand fighters with the else or a from al nusra front which is al qaeda in iraq reconstituted in syria they might as well call themselves you know al qaeda in syria but you know they want to rebrand while the west and russia remain at odds on where u.s. support of the opposition could lead. washington has its mind set on providing vetted routes of rebels with small arms and ammunition they're deluding themselves they think that they can cherry pick which factions of the opposition to support they think that there's a quote clean free syrian army apparatus that somehow or other we can control the flow of weapons because we give them only to select people. that would indicate that american politicians are kidding themselves if they think the arms flow can ever be managed by a lining the united states with forces that have been conspicuous terms of their

own human rights abuses including the use of chemical weapons according to a u.n. investigator you asking for trouble and that's what we're going to get and this question of how to give arms to one group but keep them out of the hands of another can likely never be answered i don't know if i've even heard a clear and unambiguous answer. the obama administration or any foreign policy on about where those weapons are going and how we can actually secure the fact that they're going into the right hands but you know who are the right hand russia which has been sending arms to the assad government under a contract that began before the violence says that the united states arming the diversified opposition would kill not only more people but any hope for a peace settlement potentially turning the syrian crisis into never ending chaos like of galveston i don't think americans ever have a clear understanding of foreign policy there's a lot of catching up to do to even understand the social fabric place and the

political. the political history of what has come to be in syria even if assad is pushed out after years of bloodshed there are no assurances that his departure will bring peace moreover the u.s. goes ahead with any shape or form of involvement in syria which the opposition would embrace. the tie could turn much quicker than american officials may desire loyalties are temporary and guns and weapons like diamonds are forever so today they may be your friend and tomorrow they're pointing to the sting you're at you receive the sun that as many as seventy percent of americans want us to stay and we seriously let. them out after decades of warfare in the middle east some while all some are free from foreign oil and the fire of the left and right it might be the next time you want to rethink. the citric and. president obama is an overseas trip and he's not exactly getting

a warm welcome from some people. in the know that. more than one thousand people rallied ahead of his arrival in the country of south africa the anti obama demonstrators expressed their disappointment in obama's policy protesters went out obama's failure to close guantanamo the u.s. military detention center based in cuba and a support to the u.s. drone attacks overseas many shouted down with obama down with us foreign policy well this is the obama's third visit to the african continent since he became president in two thousand and eight. well that does it for nell for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website at r.t. dot com slash usa you know also follow me on twitter at m underscore j underscore how stay tune prime interest is next.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. download the official application to your cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's if you're away from your television early it just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch ati anytime anywhere.

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good afternoon and welcome to prime interest i'm harry and boring and washington d c here's the problem headline that are out today. john coridon is being sued by the u.s. which will get to end in minutes but edward snowden can't pennines to languish in airport limbo and the attempts to seek asylum in ecuador in preparation for blowback by the u.s. the president a backward or preemptively we now it's a trade pact up for discussion in congress with his representatives saying it was a new instrument of blackmail economic impacts could be served as the only half of ecuador export market depend on the u.s. but the pact already face in our pair of output.