a secret partnership butlins reportedly been working closely with u.s. intelligence despite its public show of indignation over america's surveillance of europe german chancellor angela merkel faces stiff questions over just how involved germany was in the n.s.a. prism spying program. the toxic legacy of war the us invasion of iraq is accused of causing an epidemic of birth defects thanks to the use of uranium tipped weaponry. found the problem could be much worse the numbers in only four. elections not tanks the son of egypt's ousted president tells us the only way to change the country insisting his father's rule was truly democratic.

thank you for joining us here on r.t. today a river sushi life in moscow with your headlines from all around the world germany has been working hand in glove with the united states spy agency who sweeping global surveillance was revealed to the world by edward snowden now according to dust spiegel newsmagazine both germany's foreign and domestic intelligence have been using me n.s.a. spy programs that hasn't stopped from demanding that washington explain its snooping activities in europe peter all of a told me this just a little bit earlier in the program. german chancellor angela merkel had to rigidly said that she only found out of the extent of the united states's spying programs through the media and it now comes out thanks to n.s.a.

internal documents that have been reported by dish big news magazine that well they were far more involved than she let on that indeed in fact they quote in the dish legal article the internal memos that say that there was a willingness to take risks and pursue new opportunities for cooperation with the u.s. that was shown by the german authorities they also were talking about the head of the b n d germany's foreign security service that he showed an eagerness under desire to cooperate turns out that germany actually operated one of the main parts of the the expansive spying program it's called x. keyscore program that basically anybody who they were looking into they could find out exactly what was being searched online by the particular person and it's estimated around five hundred million. connections were being monitored every month by this error spying program here in germany alone so it was quite an extensive

program this news comes out is quite an embarrassing time for german chancellor angela merkel there's an election coming up in september the involvement of germany in the n.s.a. spying program is being used extensively by the opposition and what this essentially means is that what mrs merkel was saying before she either. well she didn't know what her own security services were doing or that perhaps she has misled the german people in what she said by saying that well germany wasn't involved so it's come out of quite an embarrassing time for her with the election coming up it set certainly to be a major issue in the buildup to that vote that takes place on the twenty second of september but germany it seems far more involved in the n.s.a. spying program. and then perhaps they will let on before artie course one of peter all of a reporting now i'm going to merkel says that america needs time for examination before it offers its explanation for spying in and on europe and that's being seen

there was an attempt to calm the initial outrage triggered by the reports that e.u. citizens were being monitored let's hear about the recall or some quotes here let you know how far about this goes for example bugging is not what friends do that's according to merkel slamming u.s. actions as cold war tactics and one german m.e.p. even compared this to the infamous secret police in east germany and the justice minister said the reports are simply too alarming to be ignored and former m i five agent annie mash on as she says the inconsistency between germany's official and the surveillance stance and its own operations will only trigger more anger and an awful lot more questions. we have a situation in germany because of their historic experiences with the stop in world war two in the stasi in east germany they put in place a very strong castalia constitution to protect people from invasion with their pretty pink spied on and this is what the germans have for decades taken for

granted they have certain legal protections and we've seen this time and again when other european models of trying to impose on germany where you know things like her facial recognition date are a little face at face that have been banned in germany and yet the b.m.t. and the two intelligence agencies in germany have been doing this sort of spine so i think the hypocrisy it's quite astounding it's a great deal of anger and questions rightly to how much the german government you know about what was going on. and how illegal foreign topinka led to the recent resignation of luxembourg's prime minister we analyze all that on our website are you talking right now. and the n.s.a. surveillance using private fiber optic cables which actually serve around ninety nine percent of the world's internet and track if we have the details the analysis and and the reaction that's what r.t. dot com right now. right to see.

her street. and i would think. on our reporters. i. could have you with us are a nazi today now more than a decade after u.s. led forces invaded iraq there is a legacy of horrific birth defects scientists blame the weapons used by the u.s. military for example in full lucia the number of affected is fourteen times higher than in hiroshima of course after the atomic bomb was dropped there at the end of the second world war but also you can see captain off didn't manage to find many other cities that are suffering just as badly. one hundred sixty

kilometers south of baghdad the sacred shiite city is known for its holy shrines and is surrounded by one of the largest cemeteries in the world some of the heaviest fighting of the iraq war took place amid these graves its legacy still haunts the residents it was born with severe birth defects he's only eight months old but the doctors don't expect him to live past his first birthday. i felt dizzy or no heard the news i ran out of the doctor's office and into a taxi. but for his mother layla there's no escaping the reality. her son has a nervous system disorder and his muscles are slowly wasting away. it's a recurring nightmare for leila and her husband three of their children were also born with congenital deformity as none of them survived and while they don't have proof they believe the radioactive ammunition used by american forces during the

war is to blame the rule isn't over yet if the americans are gone but we're fearful suffering from the consequences. spiralling numbers of birth defects and high miscarriage rates have also been reported in fallujah and basra where american and british forces used heavy munitions at the start of the war but our visit to knowledge off revealed that the phenomenon may be far more widespread in the law than previously known dr sundin's and saif is one of the few scientists who's been documenting cancer and birth defects here and she says as in the midst of a growing health catastrophe. after the iraq war rates of cancer leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically nunchaku the areas affected by fighting so the biggest increases we believe it's because of weapons lead depleted uranium and hospitals here cancer is more common than the flu. depleted uranium or d u cuts through armor like a hot knife through butter more than four hundred tons of it is estimated to have

been used in the two iraq wars the vast majority by u.s. forces the pentagon did not respond to our request for comment but the military generally denies any link between exposure and cancer or birth defects it also says do you weapons are only used to penetrate enemy tanks but a new report funded by the norwegian government. was used against civilian targets in populated areas including not job in two thousand and three it notes a lack of transparency by coalition forces over the use of depleted uranium but describes one incident in najaf where a bradley armored fighting vehicle fired three hundred five d.-u. rounds in a single engagement. the heavy fighting may be over but in nearly every street we visited in this neighborhood multiple cases of cancer and children with deformities no one knows what's making people here sick the families want answers and they want help. of is old enough for school but has to be cared for as if he's

a toddler he can't walk he can't speak he can't even go to the bathroom on his own use of brother is healthy but the family has birdied two other children one severely deformed the other with a hole in her spine like many of the couples in the city they're simply too afraid to have another baby and they're left feeling totally abandoned no one cares about what's happening to the other families in this area even our own government doesn't do anything to help what can we do because our fate is a fate that many and suffer in silence. countless the rockies lost their lives in the decade since the u.s. led invasion all across the country their memories are honored in cemeteries like this one the dead may be the most visible reminder of the human cost of the war but if the living victims of that war's toxic like to see who are still paying the price this accounting of our team not just iraq. and doctors also fear that depleted uranium weapons of course the spread of disease is not previously even

seen in iraq and iraqi government starts show that cancer rates to have steadily been rising ever since the first gulf war of one nine hundred ninety one the lucy caffein off told my colleague that it's still too difficult to gauge the full extent of these problems. we've heard about the depleted uranium the birth defect story coming out of fallujah for example because there's been several t.v. pieces and print reports talking about and showing in fact we hear in r.t.f. showed the birth defects in the city of fallujah when we were completely stunned by is the fact that this is happening in many more cities that have been previously reported including knowledge of where we visited when we showed our filming her and i on the ground in the city literally every single residential street that we do we visited in several neighborhoods we found multiple cases of families who had children who were ill families who had lost children had to burry children families who had many relatives who were suffering from cancer and while these people can't

necessarily prove that it was depleted uranium or are the causes of these diseases this is something that they say has risen dramatically in the years since the invasion how widespread is it i mean how far across the country the problem is that nobody knows exactly and that's because there haven't been large scale studies done we haven't seen a big teams of international doctors for example going in and sort of looking at different cities comparing the number of birth defect cases between the different cities there really simply are no reliable statistics for birth defects in iraq and so nobody can really say exactly how big this problem is and the big problem with the iraqi government as well one of the surprising things that we found in speaking to the doctors on the ground is they say that they reportedly have been discarded or discouraged by the government from talking out openly about this to the press in fact the biologist that we had spoken to who was researching the issue in the city

not to give us the interview in the privacy of her home on the roof there instead of in her laboratory she said that there is an active sort of push by the government perhaps not to embarrass the coalition forces not to really talk about this issue which we were really quite surprised by we tried to visit the hospital in najaf that was dealing with. some of the victims some of the deformed birth defect children they didn't let us come in they didn't let us film in fact they didn't even let us do interviews with the government with the families or the doctors working there at all the iraqi officials certainly have not put in the resources that they could be we spoke to families not jeff who said they've gone to local officials you know they've asked for help they have over essentially told to sit by you know it's a really sad story and here it ought to be respected dr chris busby he's a research the effects of depleted uranium extensively he told us what he learned after visiting for lucia to see how civilians that have been affected. we went to we found the levels of the nation and cancer and we looked at the parents of the

children with congenital malformation and we did analysis of their head to see what was inside their head that might be do you know toxic might be the sort of thing that can cause congenital malformation and the only thing that we found was you rainey and we found your brain even the hair of the mothers of the children that congenital malformation is now that we know that you are a new ms you know toxic that it causes these to these levels of genetic damage and and because of that it also causes cancer so you can work slowly back from that towards your brain and now the only source of uranium was the use by the american forces the american led forces of uranium weapons not only depleted uranium weapons as we later found slightly enriched uranium weapons which we believe they were using in order to cover their tracks so i think we have more or less proved that these facts. are as a result of the use during the two wars of uranium and the particles that the uranium weapons produced. are still ahead for you here on our t.v.

talk about backtracking on syria look at how britain's leader has changed his rhetoric on the conflict now admitting that there's too much extremism among the opposition. also ahead for you here on our team from a golden sands resort to the depths of poverty we travel to janeway as residents say they've been forgotten and left to rot by the british government all in a time of austerity that are the rest of the world's top headlines are just around the corner. i've seen the perception of the cost many times it doesn't matter if there's snow a heat wave or hail storms people keep on going i don't expect anything and just what i told myself i keep on going as long as my heart told me to that's. i want to at the moment i can send so my cheese see i'm carrying these sayings on my shoulder

. do you want me to put a bandage here no that's fine a lot of people were so exhausted they could barely walk their feet hurt and some of them fainted google great evacuee three to wanted to keep going i don't know what tomorrow will bring. thanks for joining us here on r.t. and straight to egypt we go west ability remains elusive and while it remains

locked in political turmoil and violence six people killed in several militant attacks in the sinai peninsula that's right along the egypt orders with israel and gaza a dozens injured in clashes also in the town of suez that's just north of the capital cairo and there were street battles between islamists supporters and opponents of the ousted president morsi of both sides used molotov cocktails rocks and fired guns as well meanwhile despite political divisions egypt has started to amend its constitution which is needed before elections next year however the islamists have rejected the cabinet with its supporters vowing to continue mass protests ati's a sophie shevardnadze actually spoke to the son of the deposed president morsi to find out exactly what went wrong when his father was in power and now what chances egypt actually has for any long lasting peace. the harmony lost his rule was democratic in a democracy you have both the ruling regime and an opposition but the case of armed

forces taking on a certain political stones is something unprecedented this is sort of a sure sign of the military takeover with all due respect there is no doubt morsi has a lot of supporters but in a very short period of time an overwhelming majority turns against him it's not about the military it's the people in a democracy so much political differences and confrontations are normal settle it through elections rather than tanks is there any true democracy where an army commander discounts the will of the people and illegally deposes the president of the crew is actually a crime committed by the egyptian military. and you can see the full interview with the son of the deposed egyptian leader that as it had nine thirty g.m.t. of course right here on our team. and on the program britain's prime minister is

changing his tune on syria david cameron said he still fully supports the opposition but admitted that there is too much extremism now among the rebels that's quite a change from november two thousand and eleven about half a year after the syrian conflict erupted about then he called for more engagement with the rebels the following year he called for more international aid to put the syrian government under pressure now if you fast forward a year he was still vehemently anti assad but not so sure that arms shipments were the way forward now syria's top rebel commander has already accused the british prime minister of betrayal after he abandoned plans to arm his fighters now the government was strongly considering it even lobbying the e.u. to end an arms embargo and that brings us now to the president with the syrian government advancing on rebel militias the official opposition failing to unite and cameron describing the situation as a stalemate political analyst at the practical path he explained what could be

behind the u.k. leaders shifting position. at home he will have difficulty getting. the cars there's quite a lot of a new week after iraq coalition partners the liberal democrats are on remarks are all we had on their economic opinion is not. wrong you just been realised in the west that no matter. how much there are surance that from western governments that . only the good guys will get help in terms of arms supplies but that's not the case on the ground and saudi arabia is were you worried about the rise of slum fundamentalism in syria because jordan and some of the. close a minute the united states and britain indirectly. are

helping the syrian rebels that has not stopped or an earthquake in china now opens up the r.t. world update fifty three reported dead or the quake measuring five point nine it happened in the western part of the country at least three hundred thirty seven now injured but the local media says that number will probably go up as the search for survivors is underway in several villages remain cut off by the quake was considered shallow striking about twenty kilometers below the surface c.c.t.v. footage shows tremors shaking a street and residents described shattering windows and swinging lights and the gansu province though is one of the least populated in the whole country. at least one hundred people have been injured in bahrain during the regime's crackdown on protests over the past three days of violence took place in several villages across the country amid growing unrest in the kingdom just a few days ago the opposition leader vowed to continue protests in the face of the

government's iron fist policies he said the recent reports about an attack on a shia mosque had been fabricated to tarnish the protestors image of the oil rich state is struggling to quote rest are back in the wall since two thousand and eleven the protest movement has not been put off by the imprisonment of hundreds of its members and the deaths of more than eighty. e.u. foreign ministers meet later to decide whether to blacklist hezbollah as a terrorist group or britain accused it of being behind last year's attack on a bus carrying israelis in bulgaria. brussels has resisted pressure from washington and israel to put the shia muslim groups military wing on the terrorism list many are concerned about stoking tension in lebanon hezbollah is an official part of the government but today's meeting of e.u. states is being held partly because hezbollah has become involved in the syrian conflict with militants fighting on the side of president assad. now want so

much love holiday resort or just a short drive from london jay work is now one of europe's most deprived areas it's home to junkies dealers and generations of families with zero hope of any employment police visited the forgotten seaside resort. golden sands beach front property and just a stone's throw from the london wish you were here we have been really completely forgotten a lot of people are enough to enjoy you because that's the last place to go there's no work for everybody and i think this is going to continue for at least what could fix the problems of the day with money has been ranked at the bottom of the government's poverty index for england and wales for three years running a national embarrassment and. doing something about it we're trying to get into. the country where you think in the end i don't think it's the third party polls in the whole of you it. was once

a proud holiday location for london's burgeoning middle class says the town was thought up as a holiday resort for city dwellers back in the one nine hundred twenty s. these are all meant to be summer houses but because rents was so cheap people started living here all year round it's in a flood risk zone which resulted in the government never investing any money into the area some parts of the town lacked tarmac roads street lighting or even pavements some of the locals say the cheap rent and precarious location has attracted vulnerable families and social problems for free we got drunk e.c.u. which we really don't want. a junkie up shut up roller something because throat and then it all gets blown no portion forty percent of residents are either disabled or have a health condition that makes it impossible to work which might be just as well seeing as there are no jobs going in the town the last few shops that were hit have been boarded up unemployment is rife in the town in fact sixty two percent of the

people that live heads of pending welfare payments there isn't the word to say so if they've been used to just get enough of. sittin around so they're doing according to one local counsellor it's a. westminster's idleness that's brought on j. wicks to my knees whatever problems we've got down here i think it's politically all of them to blame for whatever party they are it's something this they let happen it's a dumping ground at the end of the day we've been emotionally upright they are now for three years not one penny of we've got to come in and help it with the government counting pennies in austerity britain many here say that financial the chances of the town's redevelopment of washing away with the time eight. sounds ethics are at aussies coming to live from moscow this news just in from iraq a suicide bomber has attacked an army convoy in the city of mosul the this point to

at least twenty five people are dead and there was another attack on on monday morning and that injured at least sixteen of course more details to come here on r.t. as soon as we get them for the meantime though after a very short break we'll look at what russian orthodox believers are willing to endure in order to get closer to christian relics this is a hot scene. i've talked with you and many times about the absurd things going on all around us like kids being thrown out of school because they had a gun that shoots bubbles or various people getting punished for their tweets and facebook posts it's all really abstract it's hard to truly get angry over until you

see the results or playing a stupid video game just carter sarcastically said to someone who called him crazy oh yeah i really messed up in the head i'm going to go shoot a bunch of kids at school l.o.l. j.k. and for this bit of sarcasm he spent quite some time awaiting trial and. texas prison not only that according to his father he was being attacked brutally on many occasions leading to bowl to pull concussions and black eyes and in the end he had to be thrown into solitary confinement for his own good you see this is the ugly reality of those who fall in the bad side of political correctness you know i don't talk about these stories just for fun the main thing that i'd like to say is that it wasn't for some anonymous coward in canada turning him into the authorities for doing absolutely nothing this young man would not have to live with the memory and possible injuries from numerous assaults to the anonymous canadian who turned him in i sarcastically wish you a horrible fate but you probably get me arrested for it so just say that it's people like you who allow tyranny to exist but that's just my opinion.

i just stood up and went. i didn't expect anything i just want i told myself that i would keep going as long as my heart told me to follow the people and that was always wanted at that moment which. is but though i felt something i want to tell my future children about us i still don't know what it was maybe i'll understand it later i just was sitting and crying yesterday i can't explain it or that i felt a lot here i was even a little scared by it all i remember one morning in the village of borgen it was three am and it seemed like people were coming up from the grass lots of them gathering with icons in their hands and moving forward a real sense of the russian spirit all moving together it was an amazing feeling

that was. here there is no noise it's silent here everyone goes in silence singing and praying and that's it it was. a it. was i've heard about the procession before but i never had any idea about how good it could be you feel free here i don't want to leave. the village a risky procession of the cross the oldest longest and by far the biggest in russia . it's a grand and compelling sight selznick's march from kill off to the village a river and back almost a week.