coming up on our t.v. n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden is in no hurry to leave moscow meeting with human rights activists today snowden declared that he is seeking political asylum in russia more on this developing story up ahead. and the true colors of diplomacy may actually be green obama's nominee for ambassador of the u.k. happens to be his top twenty twelve campaign bundler is this an example of pay to play and what does it say about diplomatic positions more on this coming up. and a pig virus may soon cause rising pork prices multiple states have now experienced a virus that man that's most fatal per piglets an in-depth look at this virus later on today show.

hello there it's friday july twelfth four pm here in washington d.c. i marinate and you're watching our t.v. this morning n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden emerged from his airport hideaway telling human rights groups that he wants temporary asylum in russia but still hopes to travel to latin america to avoid prosecution by u.s. authorities it was the world's first glimpse of the self declared leaker who's been holed up in a transit zone of the moscow airport since june twenty third now snowden met with a small group of human rights campaigners and lawyers at an undisclosed location in the airport now although the meeting was not public some of those present posted details about the meeting to twitter and r.t. was on the scene. joining me now in studio to set to discuss further is d.c. excuse me is cia analyst were mcgovern you're not a d.c. analyst you're his cia analyst are you doing today right good hour and now this is

a really developing story the first time we're getting major details of this basically since it happened details from him what has the reaction been from the u.s. government about today's announcement well there are adopting a typically imperious stance you must return him despite the fact that no list and putin has said we'd never extradite anyone saying he's released all these kinds of secrets were not secrets to the russians and he's saying that to the press spokesman for the president saying that to give him asylum will damage the relationship but not very much because he won't let this it damages too much so it's a situation where the u.s. government is in a terribly embarrassing position you know here the russians you know offering asylum probably right on to international law and you know i imagine that when the president calls putin this afternoon first question he's going to say why did your

guys tell my guys that snowden was on that plane with morales that was it dirty trick and that was a trick well where you could strike i mean is that how you see that whoa whoa no interesting that's an interesting well i mean somebody told me who has an incentive to a better seat more than we did and so you have the the u.s. completely embarrassing themselves by leaning over its allies the ones in europe has suggested that it wasn't murder in those now here's of another question what difficulties does snowden now face in getting to the countries that have offered him asylum in latin america like bolivia ecuador venezuela one of the problems there well he's made it very clear in his statement that he's asked for asylum in russia in till such time as these other countries decide to abide by the law and give him. in the international right for asylum not they're not in spain airport. france or italy who will fold it but in these three very courageous latin american

countries who didn't fold right in a willing to accept them so again it's a complete embarrassment here's here's a purely for the russians can you let me stay here for as long as it takes for these other countries that are under the heel united states to realize that they have a traditional of the geishas and that they really want it here to international law and convention right now it's our understanding that in order for snowden to get to these latin american countries alternately which seems like what it's what he ultimately wants to do a lot to travel over u.s. airspace and that could cause problems no well it depends how long he stays in russia you know there's a couple of months you know he could change his appearance he could you know there are there are lots of ways you could travel by by a layer than by c.n.n. you know all those things are out right in the future out there the immediate problem is he said that he's going to further bearish the united states putin talks about the united states as being our partner right yeah and as long as he doesn't

say anything from moscow and let's claim a green wall of the others say from from brazil from london then he should be ok so on what do you think snowden's claims for sound do you think they should be satisfied by russia well i think with an international law he's clearly going title to a political asylum ok now this kind of an elf there question but we know that historically the lives of whistleblowers have been pretty bleak to say the least after the dust settles really it's going to be a problem with an alcoholic serving tried suicide attempts what do you think's going to happen to snowden well this is wait a minute so courageous i mean look what happened happened bradley manning look we're julian assange just for the last year the fact that he's willing to take that risk in full expectation that he's not going to be really freed me and forever. that's has a lot for i don't know what's going to happen but this is unique and russia has a responsibility partly for now to add to your statements here we have maria for

new show and finish me for a notion of almost getting there she's on the ground in russia and she's coming to us live now can you hear me maria. ria yes i can hear you hi there how you doing big. yeah hi ok so first question for you the latest images that we've been seeing of snowden he looks quite frail does this speak to his conditions in the airport terminal. well we actually know sadly nothing about snowden's living conditions in russia will airports that journalists actually already call snowden international airport he was quoted himself as saying that conditions are good but he is not going to stay there forever clearly we have to understand that he might have basic needs like shower or bad to sleep on and secondly why five for example but it might be quite

hard to leave knowing you call and get out actually and you are trapped within four walls we also heard heard from people who met snowden a fraud and we saw pictures from the meeting and address noted and looks like he lost some kilo's but concept for sure whether this is because of hard living conditions in the transit area of russia's airport all because of the stress the guys the guy has been actually living in the last two weeks right now maria is not in any imminent danger in the russian airport now after this announcement this morning or this evening for you this afternoon. personally i actually don't think so because security is very high in russia's airports and especially pretty sure a security has been tightened up. face. announcement from matt snowden not actually i have to emphasize that from snowden himself but from people

who met him on friday. pretty sure russian authorities russian officials don't want snowden to be heard so i think they you take care of it guy right now thank you very now we have some of us from sound from earlier today from the meeting let's go to that now can i guess. everyone here is that snowden could be subjected to ill treatment and yes intimate he said he felt he was living conditions will finally be important you think there but he knows that he cannot sleep forever. now these are quotes that was from a woman he was actually in the meeting with with snowden so that's a pretty big sound that we have there when you say maria. i don't know i don't know if we've asked maria here but back in the studio we're going to wrap this up for now but i think both of these guests for being here with me today. both you and maria from moscow moving right along in the newscast so

other things happening today as we look at edward snowden's future and what it may hold it's important to look at the rep or questions of snowden's actions and who fears his leaks the most now political commentator here at r.t. sam sachs has compiled a list of the top five liars exposed skinny by edward snowden's disclosures here sam what more. edward snowden's latest leak reveals how microsoft has been working with the n.s.a.'s prism program handing over contents of skype users' phone calls specifically snowden's leaked documents show in july of last year nine months after microsoft bought skype the n.s.a. boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of sky calls being collected through prism and this appears to contradict a very specific message that microsoft ice president general counsel brad smith made earlier this year regarding the privacy protections for skype users he noted in a recent blog post quote skype received four thousand seven hundred thirteen requests

from law enforcement those requests impacted more than fifteen thousand accounts or other identifiers such as p.s.t.n. number skype produced get this new content in response to these requests but it did provide non-content data so what does this mean well it means that microsoft just made the list of top five liars exposed by edward snowden number four on the list the british government last month snowden leaked documents showing rampant spying on foreign diplomats by the british government it's asserted that quote foreign politicians and officials who took part in two g twenty summit meetings in london in two thousand and nine had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their british government hosts some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by british intelligence agencies to read their e-mail traffic. busted number three on the list the department of homeland security in two thousand and ten sean mcgurk the head of

cyber security center at the department of homeland security testified in from the senate on the stuxnet virus that was crippling iran and nuclear facilities he called the virus a game changer he stressed how the us needs to protect itself against it and said it was still unknown who created stuxnet at as the department's analysis of the code did not point to where it was developed and then edward snowden entered the picture and he promptly revealed that quote the n.s.a. and israel wrote stuxnet together so either the n.s.a. kept its involvement with stocks that a secret from the department of homeland security or the department of homeland security was lying and i want to number two on the list the head honcho of our intelligence agencies himself the director of national intelligence james clapper you may remember clapper told the senate that the n.s.a. was not collecting data on american citizens but snowden's very first leak expose how millions of horizon users american citizens had their data handed over to the

n.s.a. clapper later apologized for misleading senators but his live prompted the president the united states to react to snowden's leaks by saying this this program by the way is fully overseen not just by congress but by the pfizer court and with that president obama became liar number one since edward snowden later revealed that these secret files a court which is supposed to be providing oversight has given the n.s.a. broad authority to collect and store data on american citizens without any sort of warrant whatsoever in other words there really is no oversight as president obama claims so you can determine whether his life was malicious or not you see edward snowden hasn't just put our intelligence agencies on notice by exposing it's unconstitutional mass surveilled. operation he's put liars on notice too and in a world of wiki leaks and embolden whistleblowers the liars out there may soon be

dealing with something like this. guy in washington sam socks are today. very colorful stuff there turning now to news here in the united states secretary of homeland security janet napolitano has announced today that she will be stepping down from her position in washington to work to run one of the nation's largest public university systems knowledge on it has served in president obama's cabinet since day one of his administration she is the third secretary of homeland security in history after the department was formed in the wake of the september eleventh attacks and according to administration officials her departure has been in the works for several months now she plans to leave her post in early september to become the first female president of the university of california system now this career move begs the question why would run from the head of a department in charge of terrorist attacks and deportations make the move to a leadership position in higher education the search committee that shows

a politician i mean if scares me a politician no said quote while some may consider her to be an unconventional choice secretary napolitano is without a doubt the right person at the right time to leave this incredible university she certainly has the experience under her belt and bureaucracy and large policy agencies all of that's and her background both at the d h s and as governor of arizona but the question is whether her experience trying to catch alleged terrorists and lawbreakers is what really makes her the right candidate to bring education to california college students. elsewhere gifting plus embassy jobs to big ticket presidential donors is not a new phenomenon however it appears president obama has taken the practice to new heights barack obama has rewarded some of his most active campaign donors with plum jobs and foreign embassies but career diplomats in washington are increasingly alarmed at how the practice has grown in recent years earlier this week obama's chief money raiser matthew barzan became the latest major donor to be nominated as

an ambassador to great britain now the embers and she's made the ambassadorship comes with a posh residence at the court of st james. which is said to have gardens second only in size to that of buckingham palace now as campaign finance chairman bars and helped raise seven hundred million dollars to fund president obama's twenty twelve re-election campaign and more than two point three million of that was raised by bars and personally joining me to discuss the practice of giving ambassadorships to big money donors is paul craig roberts paul craig roberts is the former assistant secretary of the u.s. treasury and the associate editor at the wall street journal thank you paul for joining us here today lisa be with you great now a lot of people seem to think that being the diplomat dean of a diplomat to the u.s. ally like england is an easy job is this true i well it can be you know ambassadors don't really control policy anymore it's really controlled out of the state department or out of the cia so you don't really need an expert there.

big guy likes to throw parties if you will can you tell us how long this practice of giving embassy jobs to big political donors how long it's been going on or a very long time i think at least since roosevelt that means franklin delano roosevelt and probably before you say look there are two ways to reward big donors to the political party one is to let them write the legislation if you fail us so they write the laws in their own interest that's the most expensive way to do this with. seaton's where i used to give them is to give them an ambassadorship right now do you believe. as they say a couple dollars so deep that it's increased in recent years since like you said roosevelt's time. i don't know that it's increased since then you know they still

will give ambassadorships to foreign service offices if they're small countries right right now as england is it is the most expensive embassy and it can really only be given to a wealthy person right because of all the entertainment costs and and you can't if you gave it to a foreign service officer the taxpayers would have picked it up and for some reason they give the big country ambassadorships to people with money that's interesting that's a very interesting they thought bill so yeah right here i mean i guess that's part of not not leaving on the part of the tax there now do you lose institutional knowledge when people come from outside the system to take these roles anna and diplomacy well and it's mainly just entertainment as it is like i say i don't think ambassadors any longer have marts state department role right

and and so it's really a way rewarding foreign service officers who toe the line pretty small interest and it's a way to reward large dunham's as a cheaper way to reward them than to write bills for their. more cost effective again so how do western european countries where the posh embassies are they will feel about u.s. ambassadors in their country who don't necessarily have the background that position requires i don't think they really care that they do they just like to be a part of the social. means that washington approves of them that they are approved puppets and lackeys right. and you think like you said it's not as big a position that it's better to give him a job at an embassy than to write a bill is more cost effective long run but what a negative repercussions could these gifting of an baster ships have for the us

could they ever do something you know someone with m.f. experience could they really ruin the be alliance between two countries or where they could insult people down the parties but that's about it. you know i think the damn basters are on a very tight leash they haven't any real independence now case and you'll get a very good one that the reagan administration had a very good ambassador in switzerland for eight we'll see and she but she was a favorite of reagan so she had enough a connection and clout and she kept the relationships with switzerland very high level and despite the justice department's attempts to browbeat swiss this swiss government the swiss bankers and forced them to break their bank secrecy and call for money and all that's ok so you get a person who can be very effective in the role but that's not the purpose of the

ambassadorship well paul thank you very much it's an interesting topic and i think glamorous like that always catches the falls attention so thank you very much for being with us here with us today yes thank you. that was paul craig roberts speaking to us earlier now moving right along a new number from the american society of news editors shows that the progress of women and minorities in the media has halted the a.s. any released its annual study of newsroom diversity and despite claims by news organizations that they value and promote diversity the number in this year's study shows that ninety percent of newsroom supervisors are white at a time when non whites make up roughly thirty seven percent of the u.s. population the percentage of minorities in the newsroom has fallen to twelve percent and overall news from employment has dropped as well now this means that fewer minorities are getting the opportunity to work in news and news organizations

are losing their ability to empower represent and report on minority populations in their communities furthermore any attempts to remedy the problem have taken a backseat to economic concerns newspaper advertising revenues are less than half of what they were in two thousand and six and papers are once accustomed to healthy profit margins struggle to stay afloat. in two thousand and eleven bills to prohibit undercover videos of firearms were introduced in several state legislatures including florida iowa minnesota new york and kansas now these laws referred to as ag gag laws a term coined by mark bittman all prohibit the making of undercover videos showing animal cruelty in farm practices well now these laws are being enforced a freelance photographer taking photos of a kansas speed bought for national geographic faces a charge of criminal trespassing the virtual referred george steinmetz is was his name taking aerial photos of a feedlot near garden city kansas first series he was doing about food scheduled to

be published in the twenty fourteen edition of national geographic magazine now when the feedlot employee noticed the paraglider and alerted the authorities to his presence the associated press reported that simons and his paraglider they failed to obtain the permission necessary to launch their paraglider from private property and didn't notify the feedlots of their plans now the two were arrested and kept in finney county jail before being released on two hundred seventy dollars bond the incident raised questions about trespassing and if the landowners own the air above their land the issue a face additional consideration as animal welfare and media groups are investigating the unmanned aerial vehicle and drone use in investigating their properties now on the subject of farming pork lovers be aware purses at your local deli could go sky high in the next few months all thanks to a deadly virus that is killing entire populations of piglets the diseases known as the pork. epidemic diarrhea virus and until very recently it was thought only to

exist in europe and china now somehow two hundred hard facilities in fifteen states are reporting cases of the disease the virus causes severe diarrhea vomiting and dehydration in pigs it is most fatal to young piglets and it should be noted that the disease is not harmful to humans or at least that we know of and there are no and there is no evidence it is. export products but it could hit hard in the pockets of consumers and also makes you think about whether the global food supply chain leads consumers of earth open to new dangers now for more on the p.t.v. virus we're joined today by dr paul sunbird v.p. of science and technology with the national park board are you doing paul fine thank you after question where does this virus come from well what we know is that it is. the same virus that china has the virus in china it's analogous it's the same thing as far as sequence goes to china two thousand and twelve virus interesting and what does

a virus mean for farmers well for individual farmers it can be very devastating the virus attacks the intestines of pigs and little pigs it's especially severe in little pigs because a day hydrate very quickly causes diarrhea very watery diarrhea and vomiting and dehydration for individual farmers it can be. more bitty and mortality can be up to one hundred percent for small pigs as the pigs get older they're better able to withstand the virus so for individual farmers it can be very bad overall for the industry we still have a rather small number of sites that we know have the infection so overall it's yet to be seen exactly what the impact is going to be we have a video up behind of the cutest little pigs i've ever seen and it's really aside from being potentially very scary for farmers it's sad that these little guys are are suffering from this disease what should or could farmers do to prevent and

protect their livestock from falling falling to the cities. well the virus is transmitted to what we call fecal or world so what it amounts to is when when a pig gets this virus and gets into the intestine it's shed in the feces and so everything that a farmer can do to make sure that their bio security is high enough that it prevents any spread of feces from one farm to another and that's the biggest thing and as we move pigs around the country we move we move a lot of pigs around the country in different phases of production transport paid zedd trucking of pigs is probably the biggest issue we have right now now what would be a worst case scenario for the pork industry and consumers in the global market. well so this is a production disease and and our pork producers are resilient and they're very resourceful. yes it could cause. a dip in.

pig supply for individual farmers but overall right now we're still talking about probably less than one percent of significantly less than one percent of the overall pork supply but that's for right now we don't know what the future holds i guess said pig farmers pork producers are very resilient resourceful if we can't get around this virus and if we can contain it and get rid of it we will learn how to live with it we will learn how to manage it and and will go on with production. now and this is the kind of interesting thing is a couple of years ago i found remember swine flu is this a virus virus specifically different to swine flu or is it the same thing no it's completely different completely different issue. swine flu is the virus that causes influenza is an influenza virus this is a completely different virus that only goes into the intestine only taxi of the

intestinal lining and as far as we know right now it's not transmitted other than through the feces where influenza of course is an aerosol transmission that's a respiratory infection now i know people watching this story seen these cute little pigs they're going to be concerned and then ask question is there anything consumers can do to help fight and prevent this virus. you know as far as consumers . as you said the best thing they can do is keep buying pork. this virus is not of safety at all it is a production disease it's something that that pig farmers are going to deal with and as far as the consumer goes there's no need to be concerned about it of course we're all concerned about the animals we're all concerned about their welfare but. as i said we're going to work with the producers and we're going to work with managing this virus as far as consumer goes enjoy porkchop thank you thank you dr paulson for vice president of science and technology is with the national park

where we appreciate your time here today that does it for now for more on the stories that we covered you can go to utah youtube dot com forward slash r t america and you can also stay tuned for later in the show i'm going to have another conversation with someone from the humane society about the pork as well and please follow me on twitter at aaron aid stay tuned prime interest is next. technology innovation all the developments around. the future are covered. you know how 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 realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

this journey is not about seeing the world. it's a mission that i could to myself the project succeeds if i stay in the same place all the time. i've been travelling around the world for twenty days so far in all the time i haven't spent any money at all the main idea of the project because of the pain people's portraits in return for some kids. that yes we have to get used to each other i think is a little disappointed about the bus because we're still spending a lot of money i mean if i spend it you shouldn't worry about that right i don't think so goes a great artist but i don't think it's a coma if you don't like the painting and you just don't give anything.

that afternoon and welcome the prime interest i'm perry amaury and i'm bob english let's get see today's headlines are the road scampering off the sinking ship the ship being the fed elizabeth do just wrote her own pink slip yesterday in a surprising turn of events this is ahead of the expected departure of treatment that bernanke will likely not seek a third term this january all while the media is busy floating larry summers as bernanke is replacement so let's not forget he's the guy who were obtained by the harvard endowment fine ignoring warnings from high risk now i thought it was a loaded with toxic derivatives so let's just put him in charge of the fed's three trillion dollars balance sheet. and speaking of derivatives today was a critical deadline were an exemption to dodd frank was said.