as edward snowden secures an offer of asylum in venezuela after filing a formal request we learned why the whistleblower felt compelled to go on a crusade against global surveillance. egypt on the edge the muslim brotherhood plans mass rallies ignited by monday's bloodshed in cairo while the interim leader lays out a post-school road map. and we look at why waves of high spending chinese tourists are splashing their cash across europe but not in britain. good early morning to you it's am here in the russian capital i'm lucy catherine of

and of course you are watching our team well on to our top story america's most wanted man the former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden has found himself weighing not one but potentially three asylum offers that as well in nicaragua and bolivia have all spoken favorably of granting him safe haven despite threats from the united states but as artie's guy nature can explains getting to those countries won't be easy. edward snowden submitted his request ask to have been his well as president indicated been very strong terms that his country was ready to accept him this is what nicolas maduro said about snowden he's a young man who in the spirit of the rebellion has told the truth about the united states spying on the whole world so we see that snowden will be very much welcome. but the question is how is he going to get there we understand that he is still in the transit zone in a moscow airport there are no direct commercial flights between moscow and caracas and the usual route involves changing planes in havana it is not clear if the cuban authorities would let him transit besides using european airspace would not be

completely risk free for snowden just last week a number of european countries bad believe the president's plane from using their airspace because they were told snowden was aboard one alternative flight plan would involve. taking off from moscow refueling in vladivostok and then continuing east over the pacific to south america it's really not clear how it's going to happen but he's transit limbo in moscow may come to an end very soon moscow has indicated that they want snowden to choose his this nation and leave russia as soon as possible in the meantime the guardian newspaper has published the second part if it were snowden's video interview from which we learn more about what drove him to sacrifice his seemingly comfortable lifestyle and blow the whistle on u.s. government secret surveillance activities he describes it as a journey of conscience basically remember at one time snowden enlisted in the u.s. army because he wanted to fight in iraq he thought it was

a noble war then he has worked with a number of government agencies but as he grew familiar with the system from the inside he's views have. but that with the new president things would change but he says instead he witnessed the opposite the growth of the surveillance state take a listen i increasingly was exposed to true information that had not been propagandized in the media. that we were actually involved in misleading the public and misleading all publics not just the american public in order to create a certain mindset in the global consciousness and i was actually a victim of that i grew up with the understanding that the world i lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with them each other in privacy without of being thought of being measured or analyzed or or or sort of judged by these shadowy

figures or systems i think a lot of people of my generation anybody who grew up with the internet that was their understanding the obama administration tries whistleblowers spot snowden is wanted on espionage charges and whistleblowers in the u.s. these days risk the death penalty the u.s. has certainly got a long way from the days of danial ellsberg and his pentagon papers nowadays politicians and pundits on television say if snowden were a real whistleblower or a good whistleblower he would have stayed in the west and almost certainly gone to jail so a lot of talking heads on television constantly questioning snowden's motivation and because he fled and is now asking for asylum in all these different countries it's easier to portray him as a traitor undaunted by scandal and global uproar and to say recruiters are scouring colleges and universities for fresh faces but their jobs now harder than it was with some students wary of signing up to work and the surveillance industry to hear she's studying at that was gone to university and she got to see their recruitment

drive last week first hand and told us how it went. i think they were completely caught off guard they were confused you can hear that on the tape it sounded like they've never had to actually justify or even critical you think about the work that they're engaged in and they simply didn't know how to answer the questions and these are very basic questions about the nature of their work that speaks to the bubble i think that the intelligence community lives in that they are so get some of the they think that they actually don't have to answer any questions that they can go on recruiting just they have just as they have it they ended up by telling us that the n.s.a. is simply an apolitical organization that fulfills requests that are sent to it by other departments i mean they seem to be taking their in your and great defense they were just doing their job which is not a defense at all. meanwhile edward snowden's leaks appear to be eating into support for obama whose approval rating has plummeted almost ten percentage points in recent weeks now bad news for him worse for the government to other ways and polls saying only one in six americans now trust washington to do the right thing in

a port i has more on what some are calling the litany of lies separating the people and the state tell the truth or someone might just tell it for you does the and i say collecting any type of data. on millions or hundreds of millions of americans no sir it does not. not wittingly. there are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect but not wittingly in america it's a crime of violation of federal law to lie to congress during testimony i responded in what i thought was the most true for least on truthful manner by saying no the us director of national intelligence james clapper publicly acknowledged his error only after n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden spilled the beans on america's clandestine espionage

activities the director of national intelligence is now apologizing for what he calls his overall u.s. response to congress over n.s.a. surveillance programs one of those covert programs indiscriminately collects the phone records of hundreds of millions of americans secret surveillance once criticized by a familiar face no more illegal wiretapping of american citizens no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime but upon entering the white house u.s. president barack obama seems to have had a change of heart my assessment and my team's assessment. was that. they help us prevent terrorist attacks the government lies surrounding the n.s.a.'s programs has raised questions about the possibility of additional untruths being told in the name of national security i have been crystal clear about my position on iran possessing a nuclear weapon that that is a red line for us the fact is u.s.

intelligence officials and the united nations have concluded that iran is not currently building a nuclear weapon but that hasn't stopped washington sanctions if we're throwing accusations that are not true that cloud the domestic debate the political debate and also send negative signals to the other side we make it much more likely that diplomacy can succeed and we end up going into a war that was of avoidable and i think. in the case of syria's civil war the french and others had already. concluded that he's using this sarin gas in small quantities but again here's this is the red line and we allege they killed between one hundred one hundred fifty people washington recently began arming the rebels after independently concluding that damascus used in newcastle against the opposition findings u.n. investigators have not supported. reasonable you're just. here in.

britain who the u.s. government under like america's n.s.a. programs washington's drone warfare has been shrouded in secrecy conventional airpower missiles are far less precise than drones. and are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage yet a recent report conducted by a us military adviser found that drone strikes in afghanistan caused ten times more civilian casualties than strikes by manned aircraft working links wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks as for the whistle blowing website that aims to expose the truth the u.s. has listed wiki leaks as an enemy of the state until the obama administration comes forward with a way to roll out open this into the national security debate there's going to be

a problem of people trusting what the ministration is up to the american public has witnessed a top u.s. official lie about the nation's pervasive surveillance program and an n.s.a. contractor reveal the truth yet only one of those men is being punished and prosecuted for their actions and if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust congress and don't trust. federal judges to make sure that we're abiding by the constitution due process and rule of law then we're going to have some problems are. welcome to your problem is the president during a point i am artillery. meanwhile the race is on to be the next leader of the troubled torn country mali but the report the winner of this month's presidential poll will just have to take the security situation by the scruff of the neck will also have to confront chronic poverty that blights rural areas.

also the holy month of ramadan begins with further pain for guantanamo inmates who are being force fed despite their religious obligations to fast. egypt is bracing for more violence as the muslim brotherhood calls for nationwide rallies a day after a deadly confrontation between its supporters and the army in cairo where than fifty people died in what's claimed to be a crackdown against a peaceful sit in backing the ousted president mohamed morsi meanwhile egypt's interim leader announced plans to get the country back on track within about five months that include amending the constitution a referendum to ratify it by parliamentary elections the chief editor of one news wire told us how it's going to be a tough challenge. of course we have a lot of fears now that what happened throughout the night is going to sanction. crackdown on anyone. for different reasons and we've seen this happen in the past

even in the eighteen months interim rule of the military so many of us actually heated there is many of us are expecting a lot of human rights violations in the context of the army basically saying that it's trying to defend state institutions and it's a very dangerous. deadlock that you just would be living through i think the only solution is to find the political the current still me and. political means basically ending violence from both ends from the armies and and of course. something about it woods and. the u.s. which hailed egypt's revolution two years ago doesn't seem to be rushing to take sides this time around it's also reluctant to describe people there is a coup doing so would require washington to cut its military aid to egypt political analyst dr ahmad gunny and explain to us why he believes the u.s.

is waiting to sweat out the united states is now taking a fine the stand yet and they want to stand in the fence know they are friends with everyone they are friends with the army and they are friends of the people they say it what everyone wants to hear they go to the area and say yeah we support you're going to the better team and they go to the people and say we're not sure if it's a military coup or not it's course is a military coup if people came back and change reinstate democracy they would support the people they waiting to see what's going to happen on the ground. the chinese are the world's highest spending tourists they shelled out over one hundred billion dollars traveling abroad last year but one country that's not getting enough of its share though is the u.k. artie's probably boyko explains us to why. it's one of the top global terrorist

destinations but according to new research securing a visa to come to the u.k. it's proving to be more trouble than it's worth for hundreds of thousands of chinese citizens getting visa to the european union will cover a visit to up to twenty six countries a visit to britain requires another lengthy and costly visa application process for would be chinese terrorists my cousin just study here as well should parents want to come here to visit here and we chipped away detoxes think you turn the. rolls and everything is more expensive as in britain always people spend a lot of money. it's time this is a different culture there. are tours so if you just want to come along it's just so complicated for the you can change is different i think is that the way. the problem isn't just confined to extra paperwork for chinese citizens

britain's economy is suffering as a result in particular the luxury retail sector the average chinese citizen spends over one and a half thousand pounds in the u.k. but not enough are coming over to spend that money the situation's got to a point where representatives of the u.k. travel and tourism industry calling on the government to drastically reform chinese visa processing they argue that if the rules were relaxed british businesses would be pulling in an extra one point two billion pounds every year we. chinese visitors coming to europe coming to britain if you are asked them what their preferred destination would be london would be top the list part because we're marching ashamed and we're not getting anything like the potential that we could have in london the u.k. china visa alliance argues that easing the process could create up to twenty four thousand jobs that. it is in desperate need of small worrying of reports that major

chinese toro parade has simply cussing britain out of that custom is european travel itineraries although they might not get to sample the delights of the tower of london or even shopping on bond street because of all that money that chinese tourists on spending in london this time it looks like it's britain's loss. azzi london. meanwhile it's not just chinese tourists rushing into europe big businesses rushing in to buy assets in a crisis hit countries our business correspondent katie pilbeam now on who's cashing in. the chinese are enjoying a shopping spree and europe is benefiting chinese investments in the e.u. taters over twelve billion dollars last year a fifth from the year before considering china has plenty of cash to spend with a multi-billion dollar wealth fund that its disposal is no wonder the e.u. is still stuck in financial strife is keen to drum up even more chinese business

interests china is the biggest source of imports some one of the fastest growing export markets which manes the two economies trade well over one billion dollars a day chinese companies have been snapping up european businesses ranging from a check cigarette companies to dutch pharmaceuticals to a british wood producer and wineries across the region one of the biggest recent european deals was a seven hundred million dollars buy out of france's club med holiday business partly by chinese investment china's focus on international so what's behind china's spending spree well one of the reasons is to diversify the country's over three trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange assets away from the low yielding investments like u.s. treasuries with europe during troubling times china is busy snapping up the bargains. there's

a look at what's fueling the financial crisis with max kaiser here's a taste of what's coming up at seven thirty am g.m.t. . money printing to the west to bank of england bank of japan and then reserve bank of america is to those economies what oil is to opec and the opec nations because the oil is the socially controlled by the state they don't need people to vote they don't need people to work the people live in a stipend in those countries in america in japan and in the u.k. increasingly people are living on a stipend set by the state who doesn't need them because they can print all the money they want to make themselves as rich as they want just like having an oil well you pump the oil and you become a sheik and you come to london during the summer to escape the heat in the mideast if you have j.p. morgan banker or nature's b.c. banker you print trillions of dollars and you live like your sheik at the expense of a thriving economy. and

u.s. district judge has ruled that only president obama has the necessary authority to stop the force feeding at the guantanamo bay detention facility that's out there dismissing a request from a syrian prisoner who has asked for the painful practice to be stopped now the same was demanded by believing muslim figures in the united states who say that guards should at least respect the religious past of ramadan which is now under way most of the inmates have been refusing food for over five months now in protest against their indefinite detention and harsh conditions allegations have also emerged that guards have been using sleep deprivation against detainees to end the strike him hooper from the council on american islamic relations and believes they won't stop until there are real improvements at the facility. our position has always been that it's wrong to force feed detainees that's a position of the international legal experts it's a position of medical ethicists it's

a position i have every right thinking person who doesn't want to see detainees abused in this way and whether you do it during the daylight hours or it after sunset it doesn't really matter wrong is wrong the only reason these people are carrying out this hunger strike is because they feel desperate they feel that nothing will ever change for them you have to give them some hope somehow that the situation is going to change otherwise what do they have left on line and r t dot com right now you can check out toronto's to wrench old trauma a month's worth of rain in one day we got eyewitness accounts and dramatic photographs of the storm that has swamp the city leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. also online school shooting rampages are no longer an insurable risk in kansas where governor is being refused to schools

where teachers are allowed to carry guns and he tells online right now party dot com. the people of mali will vote in a landmark presidential election in just a few weeks and a state of emergency has been lifted select candidates can actually start campaigning now running the war torn country will be no easy task as well as shoring up state security the picture also needs to find a way to get the basics like food and water to its struggling ruler population as much as we have an ocean reports. the west african state of mali unexpectedly entered the spotlight over the winter after france sent its military forces to the country to help battle islam missed fighters backed by international terror groups threatening to take over a secular democratic state of fifteen million people now they've gotten islamic symbols are painted over but the country is facing an enemy of a different kind poor verty the recent crisis only made a bad situation worse over thirty five percent of mali and leave in extreme poverty

that's around six million men women and children which travelled to just outside the capital bamako where weakness these scenes a common side of the country's economically depressed rural areas. it's very difficult to get well here there is no running water we have to buy it it's expensive i have many children i don't have enough money to feed them properly or send them to school. people live in houses built by themselves from handmade mud breaks apart from running water these homes often like electricity. yellow a driver among the few employed residents of this village says the hardest thing is to leave hand to mouth while knowing your country and its people could and should be there each mollies full of diverse national resources we do mining formerly significant part of the country's g.d.p.

. there are many mineral deposits but we don't see this richness elite maybe they feel corruption is terrible and revenue distribution is lame on the bus . i mean not to believes mostly foreign companies extracting the country's natural resources is as big if not a bigger problem than corruption or. international firms exploit our sites but they're not interested in developments on the ground they're afraid that if that happens we'll not need them and we'll get all the benefits. major governmental programs are aimed at attracting more foreign investors with palm and even adopting legislation for their needs of ontario so he. has resources but they're not exploited well we need long term development and infrastructure support so that people would feel more comfortable. but many doubt that foreign money will go to improve people's living standards they have

a journalist from the north says resources may even bring harm he's among those who think that it's the country's uranium deposits a mountain thousands of tons that's really behind the recent french intervention in its former colony. i heard they found uranium and i think they came here to protect us from terrorists but also to protect themselves from risks of losing such a valuable resource apart from uranium the raw diamonds oil copper iran which are role just waiting to be extracted while millions of mali and swung if the country's hidden treasures will ever translate into a better life for them mali one of the world's poorest countries west african states where people survive on just a few cents per day is now at a crossroads whole for global interests businesses and threats how tackles those after months of conflict is far from certain now or disputes only clear is that it

will be many years before ordinary moments like these ones can benefit from simple necessities like regular meals or electricity in their homes. our team from mali. let's update you now and so more of this hour's world headlines we begin in turkey were clashes between anti-government protesters and police players again this after the government reopened together in part to the public and then closed it after protests there were announced dozens were injured more than thirty people detained by the police in running street battles plans to redevelop a park in the center of istanbul had set off two weeks worth of violence that had fanned out across the entire country. at least thirteen people are now known to have died in the horrific train explosion in quebec in canada with nearly forty people still missing the cargo carriages latin with crude oil to read. and exploded in a massive fireball as it sped through a small town near the u.s.

border wiping out dozens of shops and buildings investigators are combing through parts of the disaster zone but it is thought that it will be days before they can scour the whole area. truck drivers have converged on argentina's capital as part of a nationwide protest against new taxes on the workers' wages fifteen thousand turned out dressed in the green and white colors of their union halting mail and food deliveries across the country in the process now the powerful labor group wants workers to vote against senators who support taxes in the upcoming elections . separating financial facts from fantasy prime interest is up next on r.t. .

technology innovation all these developments around russia we've got the future of coverage. we'll talk about language a little bit our lovely react to situations i have read the reports for. the pollution and no i will leave that to the state department to comment on your latter point to see. the security of a car is on the dock you know gonna. do. what you need a direct question be prepared for a change when you. get ready for a. pretty speeches and a little bit of the freedom to watch. good

afternoon and welcome to prime interest i'm bob english here in washington d.c. here's a story we're telling today the world is turning or is it looks like we have the slightest inkling of a crack down on wall street but is it too little too late the press have quarter not told though it may be continues against john corazon and ex goldman i gary gensler is being painted as a tough new sheriff even though he abdicated oversight of the entire futures industry one m.f. global ago and its age of whistleblowers today actually yesterday snowden and then today bank of america thanks to two lawsuits we learned how the too big to fail giant systematically built home over promise and loan modifications who then they proceeded to take out of those homes and you might have heard of the volcker rule that says banks cannot gamble with customer money lloyd blankfein said his goldman sachs doing this but guess what he did it we just learned that the firm found

a loophole to keep doing it anyway over a billion dollars worth we'll learn how this is possible and how it might add we talked to part naylor a public citizen finally we have eliot spitzer who resigned in disgrace in two thousand and eight just as applied anshul panic was heating up well he's back and he's looking to oversee new york one hundred forty billion dollars city pension plan he won't be able to bring charges or things cool right so. find out what's in your prime interest.