anytime anywhere. coming up on our t.v. and as 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. the true color 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's most fatal for piglets an in-depth look at this virus later in today show.

hello there it's friday july twelfth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm aaron eight and you're watching our two now 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. by u.s. authorities it was the world's first glimpse of the self declared a leaker who's been holed up in the transit zone of the moscow airport since june twenty third 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 to twitter and r.t. was on the scene here's what tanya lock the senior russia researcher for human rights watch had to say about snowden status in the airport. the years that snowden could be subjected to ill treatment in the yes are not intimate he says he feels he's living conditions in

a fine airport he feels safe there but he knows that he cannot see it forever. but if he can stay in the airport will he be granted political asylum by russia one member of the russian parliament who was invited to the meeting smokable spoke about snowden's qualifications for asylum i think he really. said as far as the requirements for a political refugee. because. i'm not an expert on the issue but human rights activists and lawyers who were there. at the end were agreeing that he was prosecuted for political reasons rather than on legal grounds so what's next for edward snowden i was joined earlier by ray mcgovern a former cia analyst and i first asked him how the u.s. was responding to russia potentially taking in their number one enemy. well there are adopting a typically imperious stance you must return him despite the fact that no list and

putin has said we never extradite anyone saying he's released all these kinds of secrets we're sure are 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 you 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 the dirty trick and that was a trick well there's a way i can struggle is that how you see how interesting that's an interesting well i mean somebody told me who as an incentive to a bear is the united states more than routine and so you have the the u.s.

completely embarrassing themselves by leaning all over it's our allies the ones in europe this so yes for them it was an american though now here's another question what difficulties does snowden now face in getting to the countries that have offered him asylum in latin america like libya 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 given the international right for asylum not they're not and 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 and are willing to accept them so again it's a complete embarrass me here's here's his appeal if the russians can 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 international obligations and that they

really wanted to hear 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 or he could you know there are there are lots of ways you could travel by by layer than by sea and you know all those things are out in the future out there the immediate problem is he's 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 other so you know 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 been

titled so 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 they've been alcoholics or they've tried suicide attempts what do you think's going to happen to snowden well this is why the 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 says a lot for him i don't know what's going to happen but this is a unique case and russia now has a responsibility partly for. that was former cia analyst ray mcgovern. now as we look to what edward snowden's future may hold it's important to look at the replications and snowden's actions and who fears his leaks the most political commentator sam sachs has compiled a list of the top five liars exposed by edward snowden's disclosures here's sam

with more edward snowden's latest leak reveals how microsoft has been working with the n.s.a. as 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 video calls being collected through prism and this appears to contradict a very specific message that microsoft ice president in general council 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 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 stocks that virus that was crippling iran in nuclear facilities he called the virus a game changer he stressed how the u.s. needs to protect itself against it and said it was still unknown who created stuxnet it 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 themselves 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 the secret fisa 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 matt. surveillance operation he's put lawyers on notice too in a world of wiki leaks and embolden whistleblowers the liars out there may soon be dealing with something like this. in washington same socks are to. breaking news from guantanamo bay where a hunger strike has lasted for five months among detainees at the facility of the one hundred two detainees currently tracked as hunger strikers by the department of

the defense an official spokesperson told reporter ryan j. reilly that ninety nine of the strikers ate a meal within the last twenty four hours so why did they eat well get no officials allowed prisoners the option of living communally with one another rather than splitting them up in individual cell blocks does this mean the hunger strike is over not necessarily because officials a must see what they call sustained eating meeting fifteen hundred calories each day for a week we will keep you posted on all the latest developments from get them. turning now to news here in the u.s. secretary of homeland security janet napolitano has announced today that she will be stepping down from her position in washington to run one of the nation's largest public university systems and a politician who has served in president obama's cabinet since day one of his administration and 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 she plans to leave her post in early september to become the first female president of the university of california system. this career move begs the question why would one 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 no politician has said quote while some may consider her to be an unconventional choice secretary an apology is without a doubt the right person at the right time to leave this incredible university. she certainly has the experience of dealing with peer ocracy and large public agencies 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 plush 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 in foreign embassies but career diplomats in washington are increasingly alarmed at how the practice has grown in recent years now earlier this week obama's chief money raiser matthew barzan became the latest major donor to be nominated as the ambassador of great britain the ambassador ship comes with a posh residence at the court of st james which is said to have garden second only in size to that of buckingham palace now as campaign campaign finance chairman bars and helped raise seven hundred million dollars to fund president obama's two thousand and twelve reelection campaign and more than two point three million of that was raised by bars and personally paul craig roberts joined me earlier to discuss the practice of giving in boston or ships to big money donors mr roberts is the former assistant secretary of the u.s. treasury and an associate editor of the wall street journal i asked him if being

a diplomat to a u.s. ally like in england is an easy job. you know ambassadors don't really control the more it's really controlled study to. see. so you don't really need a next. big guy who 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. oh 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 that you pass so they write the laws in their own interest that's the most expensive way. the cheapest way is to given them is to give them an ambassadorship right now do you believe it doesn't work i have had to save couple dollars thirty

a bill we have that this practice has increased in recent years since like i said the results time i had i don't know that it's increased since then you know they still will give basta ships to foreign service offices if they're small countries right right now because anyone is it is the most expensive embassy and it can really only be given to a wealthy person right because of all the entertainment cost in and you can 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 ham bastard ships to people with money huh that's interesting that's a very good at saying they've got bills yeah right how i mean i guess that's part not not leaving on the part of the taxpayer and deal of institutional knowledge when people come from outside the system to take these roles and diplomacy. well

it's mainly just entertainment it's like i say i don't think ambassadors any longer have a state department role. and so it's really a way of rewarding foreign service officers who toe the line mall interest and it's a way through war large donuts 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 the posh and misses are they will feel about u.s. ambassadors in their country who don't necessarily have the background that the position requires i don't think they really care that they do they just like to be a part of the social. means that there was in the proof of them they are approved puppets and lackeys. and you think and

like you said it's not as big a position that it's better to give them a job at an embassy than to write a bill that's more cost effective long run but what are negative repercussions could these gifting of ambassadorships have for the u.s. could they ever do something you know someone without enough experience could they really ruin the the alliance between two countries where they couldn't so people have done the parties for that's about it. you know i think the ambassadors are in a very tight leash. they haven't any real independence now kasia you'll get a very government the reagan administration had a very good ambassador in switzerland whittlesey and she but she was a favorite of reagan so she had enough connection and clout and she kept the relationships with switzerland very high level despite the justice department's attempts to browbeat swiss list the swiss government the swiss

bankers and force them to break their bank secrecy and called money and all that's ok is that you get a person who can be very effective in the role but that's not the purpose of the ambassador ship well paul thank you very much it's an interesting topic and anything glamorous like that always catches people's attention so thank you very much for being with us here with us today yes my puter. new numbers from the american society of news editors show that the progress of women and minorities in media has halted the s. and a released its annual study of newsroom diversity and despite claims by news organizations that they value and promote diversity the numbers in this year's study show ninety percent of newsroom supervisors were 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 newsroom employment has dropped as well this means that if

you're minorities are getting the opportunities to work in news and news organizations are losing their ability to empower represent and report on minority populations in their community for them or 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 were once accustomed to healthy healthy profit margins struggle to stay afloat. still ahead on r t the pork industry may soon take a hit and multiple states piglets have been afflicted by a fatal virus more on that and how it hurts bacon right after the break.

the theme story doesn't make it news no song no puff pieces some tough bunch of people. who would rather place shoes for people in positions with instead of speak their bit and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.g.p. question more.

welcome back in two thousand and eleven bills to prohibit undercover videos of farmers were introduced in several state legislatures including florida iowa minnesota new york and kansas these ag gag laws a term coined by mark bittman all prohibited the making of undercover video showing animal cruelty and farming practices well now those laws are being enforced a freelance photographer taking photos of a kansas feedlot for national geographic faces a charge of criminal to. the photographer george steinmetz was taking aerial photos of a feed lot in your garden city kansas first series about food scheduled to be published in twenty fourteen when a feedlot employee noticed the paragould noticed the paraglider and alerted authorities the associated press reports steinmetz and his paraglider instructor failed to obtain permission to launch a paraglider from private property and didn't notify the feedlot of their plans the

two were arrested in captain phinney county jail before being released on two hundred seventy dollars bond the incident raises questions about trespassing and if landowners own the air above which their land is on the issue will face additional consideration as as animal welfare and media groups are investigating in unmanned aerial vehicles and drones. and pork lovers the where prices at your local deli could go sky high the next few months all thanks to a deadly virus that is killing entire populations of piglets the diseases known as the poor seen 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 and it is most fatal to young piglets now it should be noted that the disease is not known to be harmful to humans and there is no

evidence it affects pork products but it could hit hard in the pocket of consumers it also makes you think about whether the global food supply chain leaves consumers open to new chain new dangers for more on the virus we are joined today by dr greg or excuse me by dr michael greger director of public health and animal agriculture at the main society how are you doing today dr gregor i'm doing good thank you thank you for joining us now first question where did this virus come from. well originally it was first described in europe in the seventy's but then spread primarily to asia for example china lost a million pigs and now just recently here in north america actually a similar thing happened with swine flu is a eurasians strain of swine flu that mixed with the north american strain to trigger the last influenza pandemic now what does this mean for the pork industry as a whole well you know even though i mean basically the disease in many ways is really

self-inflicted by the pork industry there are studies that you're consistently have found that these industrial factory farming operations how much higher rates of action compared to smaller farms that you know actually lead pigs go out doors these factory farming operations really a breeding ground for disease because of this year numbers of animals overcrowding the stress crippling their immune system the lack of fresh air lack of sunlight you put all these factors together what you really have is a perfect storm environment for the emergence of the spread of new diseases some of which can have human health consequences now dr goddard verus picture is rolling behind you have darling little piglets and i know a lot of people out there are going to be concerned about the welfare of this pick with is there anything that can be done other than the big industrial farms really kind cleaning up their their facilities. yeah there are certainly there are some measures that can mediate some of the risk for example you know providing just

a strong bedding for a pregnant mother pigs for example just to decrease the kind of immunosuppressive stress of lying on bare concrete slabs there are a lot has been found to decrease for example swine flu transmission rates so there are things you can do to improve the conditions decrease the stress because the stress that reduces discretion of stomach acid which can kill off some of these people love increases and test them over till he get this kind of fear induced evacuation of the bowels increase stress hormones can impair immunity so things that are good for the animals reducing stress like getting the mother picks out of these cramps just station craze where they can't even turn around for their whole lives things are good friends can also be good for people too because it helps improve disease resistance now earlier today i spoke with a representative of the national pork board and this is what he had to say about how farmers can protect their livestock from this virus well ago briareus is

transmitted what we call people oral so what it amounts to is when when a page gets this wire and gets into the intestine it shed into 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 beasties from one farm to another and that's the biggest thing do you think this is sufficient or does factory farming inherently create risk like this when we over crowd thousands of animals these tramps fill the football field size sheds the to live snout to snout atop their own waste and it's just really kind of a breeding ground for disease these so-called factory farms are kind of viral incubators kind of. a recipe for disaster now what is the worst case scenario for the pork industry consumers and the global market. well you know the same factory farming practices that led to the emergence the spread of this virus the same risky practices that can lead to the emergence of diseases that can

actually hurt people explain flu kill ten thousand americans right and the same kind of long distance live animal transport that spreads these bugs around the world not just within these facilities and so. this one is free is going to take this very seriously because it directly affects there while i'm on what i'm more concerned about is diseases that don't affect the co-worker's she's bottom line like your city of bacteria that sickens one hundred thousand americans every year but it doesn't cause the pigs to get sick so they don't have any nationwide control program because they can kind of shift the responsibility of this disease shift kind of a cost onto the consumer and on to society same thing with swine flu makes big sick but you know it doesn't kill tens of thousands of them so this disease they're going to clean up because it affects their bottom line but they really should think about fundamental changes in the way they treat animals and so as to prevent a future diseases that could impact public health and that's a very interesting and important thing you just gave us good think that will happen

that it could escalate to that level where humans will be at risk. well look i mean the american public oath association has been saying for years calling for a moratorium on factory farms the pew commission on industrial for mental productions called for an end to these extreme confinement practices and the public health community has been kind of shouting from the rooftops for years now this is not the first six one flu wasn't a person's strip suicide need multi-drug resistant bacteria because if you so many antibiotics the examples just keep them alive and so it's crowded stressful on hygenic conditions and so i mean we're beating this public drum right hopefully the industry will burn right thank you dr gregory great insight and we appreciate you coming on the show that was dr michael greger director of the public health an animal agriculture at the humane society thank you were changing gears a little now police in the cleveland suburb of may feel heights are setting up fake drug checkpoints an effort to rid the city of illicit substances now police in ohio

posted large yellow signs along interstate two seventy one that warned drivers there was a drug checkpoint coming up but it was a trick because there was not and then they would they were going to think that they were coming into a drug checkpoint but these police officers found a real work but found a way to work around the pesky laws that prohibit them from doing this they just waited to see if drivers would do anything suspicious and then pull them over if they did in fact do that now a mayfield heights assistant prosecutor said the fake checkpoints are legal and a legitimate effort in the war on drugs a spokesman for the cleveland office of american civil liberties union said his office will be looking into the fake checkpoints to determine whether anyone's rights may have been violated now just a reminder for those of you who may just a reminder for those of you about to enjoy your fridays out in ohio you should take note and i don't stuff those checkpoints there check so that does it for us today more on the stories that we covered you can go to youtube dot com backslash r t

america and check out our web site r t v dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at erin ade see you back here at eight. this journey is not about seeing the world. it's a mission that i could to myself the project will succeed if i stay in the same place all the time. i've been travelling around the world for twenty days so far in all that time i haven't spent any money at all the main idea of the project because of the artist paints people's portraits and the thompson kids. we have to get used to each other i think is a little disappointed about the buses because we're still spending a lot of money i mean i spend it shouldn't worry about that right now.