toxic discovery of the syrian military allegedly finds a rebel lab meant to produce and store chemical substances these reports coming from syrian state television. a criminal probe fred ex-president egypt's former leader investigated for allegedly spying killing and wrecking the economy even eyes his backers continue to protest for his return. to the n.s.a. leaker edward snowden asked russia for asylum as he struggles to put an end to his legal limbo in a moscow airport sparking u.s. outrage for the kremlin. protests growing across the u.s. over the controversial acquittal of george zimmerman who shot dead an african-american teenager while the justice department budgets to review the verdict.

his forum in moscow i met treasure bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news syrian state television says the army has found a chemical laboratory where rebel forces were making poisonous materials military sources claiming the substances were meant to be packed into mortars and used to attack government forces in damascus our middle east correspondent paula sleeker has the details. the syrian army has found chemical materials in the town of jobar which is on the outskirts of the capital city of damascus initial reports say that the syrian army seized a factory that was occupied by a group of foreign backed militants and that chemical materials were found inside their factory now we do see canisters we do see white packages that they have uncovered and it does seem as if they were producing chemicals in the laboratory it

says poison chemical substances made in saudi arabia so we do see that the factories are also involved we're also receiving reports of the rebels were planning to stop artillery shells with the chemical weapons that they were producing here and use them to attack damascus this comes on the same day as heavy clashes supported near the capital on sunday on the seventh of july armed rebels were found in position of some two hundred eighty barrels of chemical substances at the time of the syrian ambassador to the united nations say that the quantity found was enough to destroy a whole city if not the entire country the use of chemical weapons has always been a red line for washington and its allies they have always constantly pointed fingers at the syrian government and accused of using chemical weapons saying that if the if there was any proof that they head this would be the red line that they would not tolerate but back in march there was an attack in the the second largest

city in damascus and it was later found that the did the seventh nerve gas had been used in that attack moscow conducted its own investigation and concluded that the syrian rebels were actually to blame for the use of the gas and russia gave samples and documents relating to this to the united nations last week russia's united nations ambassador said that with some claims appear to be aimed at undermining investigations into the chemical attack he said this when he explained the findings the results of the analysis clearly indicate that the ordinance used in common assault was not really manufactured and was filled with sodium. the study and technical specifications prove that it was not invested in manufactured either the project out in the old is not is standard one for chemical use therefore there is evidence you seem to believe that it was the armed opposition fighters who used the chemical weapons in. its main port and to make the point that the united states

claims that that regina is using chemical weapons that these planes are without any kind of proof and of course the whole argument over the use of chemical weapons were mains a hot potato but without that kind of proof the us and its western allies are going to have a hard time of moving anything that they came washington's previously through an action against a mask is if it uses chemical weapons against syrians but middle east expert historian terry goalie's says that even the reported discovery of a rebel chemical lab wouldn't change u.s. rhetoric. it's very clear that the sections of the rebel leadership have been desperate for west amended cream to bring. and i had to go a long way through it she retired remember before hole just after the sarin gas attack media emblazoned across their front pages in some european countries to put pressure on washington so if the latest clearly from the syrians is true it's very

serious indeed but washington doesn't need to react at all i mean double standards radio and international diplomacy there are very few norms if it is not in the united states and its european union allies to react they won't create actor told they will not treat the rebels in the same way as they agreed to a syrian state new anonymous u.s. officials claim that israel attacked syria's port city of latakia ten days ago the strike allegedly targeting a russian made anti ship missile battery that syria got two years ago let's take a look back at some of the other unconfirmed israeli strikes on syria within the last few months israel's prime minister neither confirming nor denying that a strike happened here recently but it hasn't confirmed or denied any of the previous ones that either let's take a look back in january thirty first that was just outside damascus there was a bombing from the air on a military compound there then

a similar operation happened on may third rockets struck at a warehouse at the damascus international airport that one was allegedly targeting a surface to air missiles that were being stored there and then two days later massive blast that witnesses described as being like an earthquake struck again near where the first attack happened back in january on all the occasions the attacks were justified as being to wipe out iranian missiles that were battling through syria for hezbollah forces in lebanon i'm here or in a senior correspondent for israel's hauritz newspaper believes that this month's alleged raid probably happened for the same purposes. israel's defensive agenda of not clashing with syria but when a terrorist organization such as. tries to get its hands on such a sophisticated missiles we have no current confirmation of direct hezbollah involvement we also know that these russian weapons were actually sold to syria

more than two years ago now if indeed israel is involved in these airstrikes what's tell of eve's motivation here israel does not go out and preempt syrian missiles and it does so only when syria seems to be on the verge of transporting transferring those missiles to hizbullah so rather than wait until these missiles reach beirut or side of israel probably decided to preempt and hit the suburbs. gyptian prosecutors investigating the country's ousted president mohamed morsi for allegedly spying killing protesters entering egypt's economy he was deposed by the military early last week and prosecutors are now cracking down heavily on the members of his muslim brotherhood party artie's bell true has more from cairo. egypt's prosecuted general this is from judicial sources has actually frozen the assets of fourteen leading is the most figures who are behind mohamed morsi this comes into office of course reports all the rest so many

of that lead is of course off to these recent reports of the charges laid against the former president himself meanwhile the most a brotherhood for their part maintains they will steadfast they want president former president ahmed mostly to come back and they will not move from the city in a mosque in central cairo and that the university is to cairo intill he is reinstated meanwhile with things in the can developments here in the interim government we have a lot of appointments and i don't want to make significant ones is the vice president for foreign affairs and mohamed have but a day he is a leading opposition figure and once headed off what was the largest coalition of opposition forces the national salvation front another leading opponent of what is it the foreign head of. this. former egyptian ambassador to the u.s. the bill for me he was a barack era ambassador and is very well regarded in washington in america to these two appointments mohamed el baradei and the bill for me could be seen to be

a knowledge towards the west as they both have very good relations with america meanwhile america for their part have announced that they will have an envoy coming to you. to egypt the first. to come from america to egypt since the ouster of mohamed morsi this is reportedly to be a leading member of the state department bill burns he is due to come in the coming coming months america is looking cautiously egypt at the moment they haven't announced the last two weeks as a coup neither have they confirmed that it neither confirm that it isn't it's obviously very important definition because that would affect u.s. assistance to egypt you know america paid to be extending a hand out to the new interim government so we have yet to see what's going to happen with the people who are determined to support to deposed leader. and whether or not a clash isn't a feature and also to see how this interim government continues in the next few months. these latest pictures here of morsi supporters refusing to leave the cairo

streets calling for the reinstatement of president morsi the crowd chanting slogans waving flags holding pictures of the ousted leader meanwhile the muslim brotherhoods called for a million people to march on the streets monday r.t. contributor offer a chance he says that all the factors though indicate that the recent events in egypt were military coup but u.s. president barack obama remained silent the u.a.e. and saudi definitely did not like the muslim brotherhood and so the saudi station al-arabiya quite called it in dubai in the u.a.e. backs the rebels and you've got al-jazeera backed in qatar which is backing the most the government is against a military coup so you have both sides using media using financing using weapons sales to back them in egypt all the time the united states we must remember that president obama was backing mubarak dictator up until the end seemingly not

quite knowing what he's going to do and perhaps the saudis are threatening him even john mccain the presidential candidate used the word coup for obama we get nothing and in the mainstream media all we get is mom and el baradei another nobel prize winner like obama who is saying nothing about the house arrest without charge of a democratically elected president let alone the ending of a parliament and the destruction of a free media which continues at the moment in egypt. still to come a shelter from the storm a fugitive n.s.a. leaker edward snowden turning to russia for refugees who remain stranded in moscow's sheremetyevo airport for more than three weeks now we take a look at his asylum attempts in a quest to evade u.s. prosecution plus. angry protests across the u.s. follow the controversial court decision to free george zimmerman who shot dead black teenager trayvon martin in florida these stories and more after a short break.

plus defines a country's success. faceless figures of economic growth. or a factual standard of living. i would rather as questions for people positions with instead of speak on their

behalf and that's why you can go larry king now right here on r.t. question more. thirteen minutes past the hour now more than three weeks after arriving the world finally caught sight of n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden this week when he surfaced from his hideout in a moscow airport transit zone he met human rights activists at sheremetyevo and asked them for their help in requesting temporary political asylum in russia or to go has more. russian immigration officials say they have not received an official request from edward snowden regarding his political asylum in russia but that request has been filed on friday evening so perhaps due to the fact that it's the weekend in russia right now the people would simply hasn't hasn't been properly process just yet russia's conditions were that snowden has to stop his anti

american. something which snowden promised he will no longer do three latin american countries said they were willing to take him on now he does not have any people want to travel with his american passport has been the knowledge he doesn't have any other people work he cannot even buy a ticket and he does need some something in order for him to move to another country so that is safe passage could be provided in that he's relying on russia has no himself has explained the situation that he was living in during the meeting with human rights activists a little every one month ago a. family home in paradise and i lived in great comfort. i also had the capability without any warrant of law just search see and read your communications anyone's communications at any time there is the power to change people's speeds it is also a serious violation of the war so finding himself in such circumstances it seems that what he was doing came into conflict with snowden's own personal beliefs and

he has explained that in an interview to the guardian newspaper the interview that started it all with the second part of which came out just very recently increasingly was exposed to true information that had not been propagandized in the media. that we were actually involved in misleading the public and i was actually a victim 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 each other and privacy without a being or without being measured analyzed or or or sort of judged by. these three shadowy figures are systems so really the ball is in russia's court at this point and it's all up to moscow to decide whether or not to grant edward snowden has been a sign of the and for how long they're willing to do that. leaked information from edward snowden is building a picture of how the u.s. global surveillance operations are structured let's take

a look about what we know so far first off there's the nucleon system this listens into your phone calls were ever there directed and it's thought that if it catches a suspicious keyword it'll be flagged and subjected to further scrutiny then there's the pin well system this program said to trawl for suspicious activity through videos on the web whether it's a live skype call with friends or family or you tube video that's been uploaded up next who you phone where you phone from and when you call them all stored by a system known as main way it's reportedly capable of building a facebook like profile of friends just from your calling habits and then lastly we know of marina that's a program in charge of recording your online life said to be a catch in store and record you are sending emails before they reach the recipient these are for systems that some of the systems that make up the u.s. surveillance network the ones at least that we know the workings of but there is one small company that's been making headlines for the opposite reason a utah based internet provider that's been nothing the government and shielding

user data from the surveillance the founder of x. mission pete ashton says the telecom giants may have sold out to the n.s.a. . we have had situations where people inside the attorney general's office of slandered my business and said that we're supporting criminals we absolutely do not support criminals we just ask for a proper warrant and that seems to be too much to ask most of the time fortunately the other issue is that we saw with the n.s.a. . exposure that google and microsoft and apple and others were supposedly cooperating that's they're probably charging for that privilege so they're making a financial decision to open their networks for inspection by the n.s.a. and it's not worth it to me to do that i don't want to live in a surveillance of society and i'd rather stick by what our constitution says that we're protected by i find it surprising that a company with the resources of google. isn't more circumspect about the information they're giving away and what they're selling snowden is meeting with

human rights activists add a moscow airport triggered an immediate reaction from washington u.s. criticizing russia for providing him with a propaganda platform although the accusation was met with certain skepticism at the state department briefing on the matter take a listen. we are disappointed that russian officials and agencies facilitated this meeting today by allowing these activists and representatives into the moscow airports transit zone to meet with mr snowden despite the government's declarations of russian's neutrality with respect to mr snowden sorry you're disappointed that they let someone into their own airport and well it well that they facilitated this event of course why because this gave a forum you don't think that you should have before there's a for you forfeited his right to freedom of speech as well met miss mr snowden as we've talked about let me just say this because i think it's important he's not a whistleblower he's not human rights activists he's wanted on

a series of serious criminal charges brought in these certain eastern district of virginia in the united states i'm sorry but i didn't realize people wanted on charges forfeited their right to speak just to free speech president putin and obama discussed the status of edward snowden on the phone in an apparent attempt to resolve the diplomatic wrangling over the whistleblower stephen cohen a professor of russian and slavic studies at n.y.u. says it's a tough test for the leaders. this is a classic case of the testing of leadership both in moscow and washington neither leader neither obama nor putin can be happy about mr snowden sitting in the moscow airport and didn't invite him to shoot but he can't toss him out for various political reasons obama needs to show he's tough on snowden. i can't believe that the united states actually wants to put snowden on trial because if it was a fair trial or a legal trial all snowden would have the right to subpoena american officials who

have knowledge of all this intelligence he's exposed that would not be so i think there's a vested interest bills with obama and putin to find a way to solve this problem so that neither is damaged politically so we'll now study what kind of leaders they are check out the latest revelations of the whistleblower assad on our web site r.t. dot com including claims by a guardian journalist that snowden has quote specific blueprints of how the n.s.a. operates. more news for you a click away including russia staging its largest military drills since the time of the soviet union about one hundred sixty thousand servicemen a thousand tanks one hundred thirty planes taking part in the exercises the full story on our website but it's. taking to the skies a canadian engineer creating the world's first human powered helicopter quote r.t. dot com to watch the video of a revolutionary machine revolutionary machine fueled only by the pilots pavel.

u.s. justice department says it will review the verdict that set former neighborhood watch captain george zimmerman free after a jury found him not guilty of murdering black teenager trayvon martin the controversial court decision has divided the united states take a listen. this verdict makes a very clear and gives a green light to anyone that wants to shoot and kill a youth of color you know and you can get off in iraq and go on and live your life and it's ok i do have a daughter and it's terrifying that i now have to go and have this conversation with her about being profiled and keeping her safe and helping her understand what she has to do to keep herself safe against other people and the police department. people in new york on high alert as thousands are apparently gathering in the streets as part of a nationwide protest over what demonstrators consider racial injustice rallies also being held in other u.s. cities including san francisco and boston overnight riots turned violent in oakland

california where protesters burn flags and smashed police car windows zimmerman face life behind bars for shooting seventeen year old trayvon martin in february last year that he claims was done in self-defense the case had led to has led to fierce debate across the country on issues of racism and gun control you know me as a kiwi an editor of the pat africa news wire says that the shooting was racially motivated and has caused a major outcry throughout the next. several months of course acted based upon the racial profiling political culture that exists broadly here in the united states he is not a law enforcement officer he had no right to be pursuing trayvon martin and the same time the people who came to his defense are the same people who defend white cops who defend white graces when they take this type of blatant valid actually that gets african-americans this is clearly a case of people of color of oppressed people here in the united states not being

able to achieve justice inside this country and what's very interesting about this case is that many people don't realize this is definitely going to have long term implications in regard to race relations in the united states it's not an isolated incident george zimmerman would have never even then arrested or indicted in this case if it had not been for the how we of millions of african-americans and their supporters throughout the country just one and a half years ago they were going to allow him to go scot free in this killing and they have done so anyway some kind of a half years later here now to some other international headlines this hour a bomb blast or police officers outside a shiite village in bahrain growing unrest in the kingdom rioting erupted after a leading female. activist accuse guards of physical and psychological torture while in prison earlier this month a police officer was killed three others injured in separate explosions violent clashes with security forces in the oil rich nation have left more than eighty dead

and hundreds behind bars since two thousand and eleven a. string of deadly blasts in the mainly shiite areas of iraq sunday has now claimed thirty eight lives most recent attack happening in gaza or killing eight is after a series of bombings and shootings across the country over the last week including assaults in the city of kirkuk that left more than fifty dead the death toll has now surpassed three hundred in the month of july. typhoon soulik has been downgraded to a storm but continues to cause devastation in china three people have been killed in guangdong province while the rain triggered a landslide claiming the lives of forty eight in sichuan province so what has prompted mass evacuation from coastal areas forcing more than three hundred thousand people to flee their homes earlier at the typhoon rock havoc on taiwan and left two people there dead. at least two people have been killed and scores injured in a militant attack on a bus carrying workers to a factory in egypt's northern sinai the sounds reportedly used rocket propelled

grenades to attack the vehicle the assault comes amid a sharp rise in islamist attacks in the regions that border israel. finally in the news walk sporadic clashes have broken out in belfast for the third consecutive night after the annual progress parade turned violent hundreds of additional officers were deployed from across the u.k. dozens injured and more than thirty arrests made trouble sparked one protestant marchers found their traditional road shortened to keep it from passing through a sectarian flashpoint or to sarah for reports from northern ireland. a tinderbox of tensions once again ignited police on the front line feeling the heat at belfast's most recent riots or the thousand police officers from across the u.k. drafted in to assist northern ireland's police force angus surrounding the july twelfth parades spilling into a second night rising the scene of the disturbance once again focused here in the

loyalists would fail wait barely more than a stone's throw away from the republican arguing districts police hadn't forced the controversial ruling from the parades commission that the much could not pass the arduin shops on its return rate sparking the latest on rest but was the first night's riots who waged by the sea taking part in the parade these rioters were younger and smaller in number seems like these the flare up over the decision to restrict the flying of the union flag as winter but then protests occurred almost daily and the cost of policing these raw is estimated to run into the tens of millions of pounds these riots taking place in a loyalist streets riot is waging this fight. steps in having. to see happen for younger people yeah i want all that stuff but i want to live and i don't want. to live. that's obviously. never it's not.

a new round of multiparty to seem to be housed in belfast led by. the metric ton of the questions many will want to see addressed the surrounding cultural expression the flags and parades that still marks some of the most inflammatory issues tween northern ireland's protestant and catholic communities scratch below the surface of all the lies in this peace plan and it's clear to me that the sectarian divisions remain in the big questions that now need to be out there given the events everything that is going to make me up public pool. headed by members of the international community all the more crucial. odd thing about. next to look at the african nation of ghana what's being hailed as an economic success story stay with us after this short break.

or remember those old wacky communist countries who constantly boost their numbers to make themselves feel better or who cares if stores aren't the end this piece of paper a one hundred thousand tons of potatoes that is good enough for me well now we're in a new age of technology but the same lying to make yourself feel good is still going strong it just moved over to the capitals world the u.s. state department's bureau of international information programs has spent six hundred thirty thousand dollars on facebook advertising campaigns to get fans a sense of the government is out there to buy likes oh what a fantastic use tax dollars but wait maybe i'm being too pessimistic perhaps it

worked and really helped spread the message of the us state department effectively wellness victor general's report says that since the advertising campaign started twenty eleven there has been a dramatic increase in users liking state department sites but the problem is that only two percent of them actually use the sites so you get what you pay for a big bag of likes but if you hard core fans probably the most shocking example is a vision of america group in farsi made for a rainy and which has gotten over four hundred twenty thousand members but only one percent of them is actually in iran where facebook advertising doesn't even exist that's effective getting lots of likes doesn't mean you are actually reaching people instead of paying for them why not you know get them naturally bar by providing interesting honest content on a regular basis oh wait that takes effort and honesty yeah you know what just keep wasting our tax dollars but that's just my opinion.