german intelligence is accused of using america's notorious surveillance program to its advantage that's just weeks condemned washington snooping activities. german chancellor angela merkel faces stiff questions over just how involved germany was in the prison spying program. an epidemic of birth defects and cancer in iraq is blamed on the u.s. led coalition's use of depleted uranium in military assaults we report from a. health cost is becoming increasingly visible. and britain's prime minister admits there's too much extremism among the syrian rebels his clearest indication yet that london is unwilling to go for full scale deliveries. what is behind the apparent top stories.

live from studio center in moscow this is with you twenty four ounce a day a german magazine claims that intelligence services have been making active use of the u.s. national security agency secret spying program now that has raised questions over chancellor merkel's earlier condemnation of washington's surveillance tactics of the reports from. 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 news magazine that well they were far

more involved than she let on that indeed in fact they quote in the dish beagle 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 that's called x. keyscore program that basically anybody who they were looking into they could find out exactly what was being searched online by that particular person and it's estimated around five hundred million. connections were being monitored every month by the spying program here in germany alone so it was quite an extensive program this news comes out is quite 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 mrs merkel was saying before she either didn't know what her own security services were doing or that perhaps she has misled the german people in germany it seems far more involved in the n.s.a. spying program than perhaps they were let on before. the original classified documents released by american whistleblower on the run edward snowden showed that the united states had been closely monitoring europeans especially germans one german m.e.p. well as far as comparing the practice to the stars he is germany's infamous secret police the justice minister said the reports were too alarming to be ignored and angler merkel's response was bugging is not what friends do she also condemned what she called cold war tactics well earlier my colleague andrew farmer he spoke would

be a trick dog and election candidate for the alternative for germany party who said the chancellor's statements don't stand up to scrutiny i don't have any reason to believe her everything she said so far has been a lie what we have discovered now is that the german all are also using american technology for spying on the german people so it makes absolutely no sense to say that they did know that there was some spying going on mentioning it we shouldn't call it's fine but monitoring on every single citizen i don't thing that eighty million people are monitored by anybody and the german government does not know it no i don't believe the chancellor because it has come out and said that its cooperation with us intelligence did help prevent a major terrorist attack in germany in two thousand and seven so do you not think that will certainly sway people in germany to think well perhaps we do need something like this. when the when the federal minister

for interior. a business minister fredrik was asked specifically this question he couldn't even mention we couldn't even name the terroristic attack who have been prevented and then he later on he said well it was a terror terroristic attack we're going to very early stage so i mean what is a terroristic a tech in a very early stage so they haven't shown any evidence for what they are what they're doing and this is why i can't and you know monitoring eighty million people around the clock seven days a week twenty four hours a day and declaring this war on terror i think that's ridiculous and this is what people starts to understand that monitoring everybody without any reason has nothing to do with the with giving city security to everyone this is what we don't believe the u.s. is expresses concern over edward snowden's bid for temporary asylum in russia

moscow is expected to grant that request and says the lack of an extradition treaty with washington makes handling handing him over impossible what is going to carmen explains. remember when journalists asked president putin about washington's request to extradite edward snowden he said quote russia is not going to extradite anyone no one ever extradite anyone to us russian officials were asked to expand on the extradition situation between russia and the u.s. and the officer for prosecutor general responded by saying that the u.s. does not cooperate with russia on the extradition of criminals take a listen socialist system with. the united states systematically refuses to hand people over to russia for prosecution including those accused of serious offenses so we have plenty of examples of such behavior around twenty cases in the last ten years because we've been denied the extradition of killers outlaws people implicated in corruption in washington so it's the lack of an exhibition treaty

which they themselves are not willing to conclusions now one of the names on that list of russia's extradition requests that the u.s. has not acted upon is a lot of a well known name in russia and he's wanted in russia for terrorism you know he has a lot of was the right hand of the internationally recognized chechen terrorists. a quick reminder of what's in one thousand nine hundred ninety five. when his gang attacked the city of dujiangyan offices and took up to one thousand and eight hundred residents of that city hostage in a hospital including one hundred fifty children at least one hundred forty people died as a result of that attack and also as he gained power in the region shuttle bus i have stated his objective to have all muslim regions in russia break away from the country it was a call to start a war on all fronts and almost long with them was ill yes a lot of among some of us i have other crimes there was the hostage crisis at the moscow theater nord-ost in two thousand and two one hundred thirty people died

there so the right hand of this monster a lot of arrives in the west somewhere around two thousand and three settles down in boston and receives political asylum despite russia's requests to treat him. as a criminal and send him back to russia at the beginning u.s. federal authorities appealed the decision of a boston court to grant a lot of asylum after all the us had by then recognized sire of this up in the us a lot of his boss as a terrorist but nothing came out of that appeal federal authorities later withdrew their opposition to granting in the us a lot of asylum after a number of political heavyweights in the us tuned in to support the chechen militant so according to russian officials there is no history of extraditions between the u.s. and russia instead there is a history of request ignored or requests to night and the e.u. decides to put the armed wing of hezbollah on its terrorism blacklist shortly we dove into the possible move on the move and investigate what it will mean for both

europe and the middle east. so that's still to come but first more than a decade on from the u.s. led invasion of iraq the country singer and normally high rates of birth defects health experts link this to the use of depleted uranium in military assaults in fallujah mutations of fourteen times more common than in hiroshima after the second world war ortiz lucy coming up explored the term health cost of the war in the city of najaf. 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 these that you were no hook the noose around

out to his office in the 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 the americans are gone but with feel for free 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 none joffe the areas affected by fighting so the biggest increases we believe it's because of weapon sled 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 deal 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 for three hundred five 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. is old enough for school but have 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 two other children one severely deformed the other with a hole in her spine like many of the couples in this city are 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 not suffer in silence. help with their lives in the day. 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 it's the living victims of that war's toxic legacy who are still paying the price with the captain of our team not just iraq when lucy explained to my colleague matt trends why it's still so difficult to gauge the full extent of the health problems plaguing the region. 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 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 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 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 discouraged 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 had 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 knowledge of 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 governor 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 just with that

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. exactly sixteen minutes past the here in the russian capital the most go the british government appears to be rethinking its stance on the syrian rebels we've got details and analysis on that just ahead stay with us.

the news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of kandahar. operation. you know 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 realize that everything you thought you knew. was a big. news continues here on britain's prime minister has signaled a change of heart on weapons supplies to the syrian rebels david cameron says he's still backing opposition groups fighting against the government but admits that

these groups include in his words a lot of bad guys. has the details this is and did come on the back of recent to warnings from a military officials here saying that doing so could have world britain in an all out war not to mention the reluctance of some members of his own party as well as the sort of public the question of will the u.k. actually arm this is the answer in a number of different ways and mostly in varying degrees of maybe and most likely so now we've seen about a david cameron has really taken a significant decline down in terms of rhetoric in an interview with the b.b.c.'s andrew marr you specially said that he fully support still the opposition however again said that the groups included quote unquote a lot of bad guys it's interesting to see how the rhetoric has changed throughout this conflict let's go back to the early days of the conflict back in two thousand and eleven were cameron have pointed out and put to put pressure on the assad regime that he had called on the international community to quote unquote and gauge

the opposition and still maintaining a strong tone a year after that he continued calling on allies to help the opposition and essentially push the idea of a syria without assad now this year there was a bit of a toning down he did say we must think carefully before any course of action at stake. and bearing in mind that this statement was made after the u.k. and along with france had strongly pushed for the non extension of the e.u.'s arms embargo to syria in order to have more options in terms of action and a just this month the foreign secretary william hague had said that there has been no decision to send arms to the syrian opposition but nothing has yet been ruled out he said this a day after cameron had signaled abounding that idea of arming syrian rebels drawing criticism from atop a syrian rebel commander in fact of betrayal and here we have a shadow foreign secretary douglas alexander commenting on the kind of contradiction in rhetoric coming from of the leaders of the government saying that this confirms the confusion at the still surrounding the government's approach to

syria and then we arrive at the very latest statement of david cameron essentially calling the situation in syria a stalemate and again at knowledge in the existence of bad guys as well as extremist factions which he says the u.k. should have nothing to do with so he made it clear that the u.k. will not be intervening by supplying weapons although he also indicated that it could still a set of normal legal equipment so will this be the last final position of the u.k. considering the number of times that rhetoric has changed perhaps perhaps the best a gauge for that will be how all of this translates on the ground in syria to salute their labor m.p. khalid mahmood told my colleague andrew farmer earlier that the british government's finally realizing that a political solution is the only option realize the position that is really. is not one that's sustainable that it will be able to do with it what is the solution do you think is it a diplomatic one is that still an option on the. that is the only option that is on

the table we should have learned this from what happened in iraq what happened in afghanistan i'm less you have a stable establishment you have a system that continues to stabilize that country you will not be able to move forward there are significant al qaeda influences out there and all you'll be doing is supplying more sophisticated weapons if you're going to do that to all qaeda and i think it's seen the common sense of not doing that all of us need to get together and say look guys we need to resolve this when it was only through amicable settlement whether that involved the side or not i'm not to that but we need to keep tact the syrian army the syrian forces in order to have stability in that country and we don't know what was there could be iraqi. e.u. foreign ministers have agreed to blacklist the armed wing of the lebanese group hezbollah as a terrorist organization the u.k. and the netherlands insisted on sanctions citing evidence that the group was behind

last year's attack on a bus carrying israelis in bulgaria european leaders are also concerned by hezbollah's role in the syrian conflict where it's been helping the army in fighting the rebels well let's get some insight on this from sami ramadani he's a senior lecturer sociology at the london metropolitan university while the decision by e.u. ministers comes a year after the bombing in gary allegedly plotted by hezbollah why did it take european officials so long to react. well basically because it's nothing to do with the with the terrorist attack and area because but again it sounds. totally hostile comes tank shell of the dozens even that circumstantial evidence has as but if you. and european political to get on the record saying about really. is not the issue. here is to do with the recent developments within syria and lebanon itself whereby

there are still possibilities of greater intervention by the west by the united states backed by some european countries on. that intervention in syria it is also ironic. that they do this on the same time hizbullah's. in the syria conflict near the city. borders primarily. is to do with the hezbollah fighters engaging. with the terrorist organizations led by. front. type organization so britain from. countries i've just designated has his relief i think the. british some foreign secretaries

were fighting. the bot guys in syria well putting aside that you just put aside his blog's activities in the region and look at the domestic situation there it is a key player isn't in lebanese politics or can the entire you afford to actually band in times with a group which presumably represents a large. population a percentage of the population in the country does it it's a substantial force banks to organize. and certainly has one political party that has the biggest following of all. remember although has been. because primarily horrigan eyes in the south and some suburbs of beirut but it has a coalition rounded off significant christian sunni muslim secular left nationalist organizations and in fact all this coalition forms a majority in the lebanese parliament and one of the key allies of his fact is the

leader of the lebanese parliament was the saying by distinguishing between the aspect all the movement and the political aspect presumably that it will still carrying on talking. within has been already quite confusing isn't it that message it is absolutely and i think that at sixes and sevens it's partly to placate the united states. has become pressure from the united states and from israel. to escalate again. i don't so i think that quite developments and syria as well. but within the lebanese context hezbollah's. very powerful force they seem to be the west seem to be. increasing is support for the for the brute force is posed to

hezbollah and its just. i'm really adds to the tension in the region if you like. and it adds fuel to the fire potential fires and the lebanese context as well as the syrian context thank you very much indeed for this summary roma downey senior lecturer in sociology at london metropolitan university life here on all three thank you. well next we take a look at the week's top sporting action with kate partridge i'll be back with the team with more in half an hour from now. i'm most interested in the medical situation. though he did a little doeth. in the news today and. other states and in egypt.

speak or language. programs in documentaries in arabic it's all here on all t.v. reporting from the world talks about six of the c.o.r.p. interviews intriguing story to tell you. in trying. to find out more visit our big. dog called. mission free credit patients free transport charges free. range month free. free. to tide free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects for free media oh god our t.v. dot com. hello

welcome to the auto show hof and our the latest sporting action from russia across the globe with me kate partridge i'm here at the top stories. italian super sport right up until now to die is off to a crash on the first lap of the world superbike round in moscow. while setting the standard the wall student games closes with a lavish ceremony and record medal haul for the host we assess the sporting legacy focus on. russia. and sandstorm brazil thrash favorites italy to nail to make up the beach tennis while champions at the t.v. event here in moscow. but first major sports after italian super sport rider and i answered that he died in a horrific crash during the world superbike round here in moscow because i didn't get out of reports. the second level moscow stage of the superbike world series

started brightly but finished tragically where they contributed to an incident their first race where several riders crashed out on the slipper a track including twenty one champion carla striker britton storm sykes then suffered his second deck nicol problem of the weekend as his motorcycle stopped and burst into flames during the fourth lap then knew the way through the race it began to rain heavily and the teams that used it starts to change tires shows there is was leading for the most of the way but his team made more kamil andriy closed the gap late on to win his second race at the moscow track actually was believe it or race today i heard it was started by the thames was pulling away head and i'm really worried i'm one of the guy in he was very consistent so a second for me was looking good for the present as lead but unfortunately it was the race in the second tier supersport.