access all areas millions of people's internet and phone data is being harvested by a british intelligence agency according to reports that leading telecom companies that gave it g c h q unfettered assistance. in the u.s. calls to scrap a massive n.s.a. surveillance program are ignored as politicians seem more intent on attacking edward snowden. and america warns its citizens to stay away from the middle east because of fears al qaeda is planning a major terror attack with some experts saying washington's policies in the region continue to fuel resentment.

and live from our studios in moscow this is r t i'm sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us some of the world's leading telecom companies have been exposed to as giving a u.k. spy agency complete access to their networks giants like verizon business vodafone cable and british telecom were among the companies on a list published by a german newspaper that's according to a fresh round of revelations from n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden documents released by him suggest seven companies have been secretly providing g.c. h.q. with unlimited access to their network of undersea cables that has allowed spies to allegedly tap and to store data for millions of phone calls emails and facebook chats this comes as g c h q reportedly got one hundred million pounds from washington in exchange for access to the u.k.'s signal intelligence programs are tease her first has details. those companies operate

a huge share of the high capacity undersea fiber optic cables and that carries data for millions of uses now back in june the guardian newspaper has revealed details of an operation named tempera that heads it was alleged looking at the data hoovering programs for the british spy agency g c h q and that had said that they were able to access these companies fiber optic cables and access that huge chunk of information that was being carried in and store it for thirty days data that's been released by whistleblower edward snowden prior to his gaining asylum in russia not some of the companies have actually come back in the wake of these claims and have said that the questions relating to national security are for governments to answer not for the telecommunications companies but bt spokesman reported as having said they can reassure customers they are complying with the law and not disclosing

customer data in any jurisdiction and less legally required to do so now under the one nine hundred eighty four telecommunications act these companies can be compelled to cooperate with government and pass along that information if legally required to do so the question for privacy advocates right now is going to be whether or not these big companies are actually challenging and nothing when asked to parse over this big chunk of information and of course this is just the latest in a search of revelations that look into the level and scope of snooping by u.s. and u.k. intelligence agencies and indeed the degree of cooperation between the two countries now some of the recent revelations say the g c h t had actually been funded by washington to the tune of one hundred million pounds now that was for a period of very best three years and those payments made to secure access to british intelligence gathering programs and in return is

a list the g c h q were required to quote pull its weight another where the environment a real headache for downing street and those communications companies obviously going to be fearing a backlash from the customers over those alleged breach of privacy. british intelligence analyst to glenmore attorney or harvey says that you can do u.s. spies helping each other goes back a long way back in the one nine hundred fifty s. there was an arrangement between the united kingdom the united states canada the strait and using a whole new concept was a bold information and g.c. h.q. like the n.s.a. and it's a very big place in their operations in fact there are three main locations in the united kingdom menwith hill arrogated. the big dome. the stone office they call it it shows them and the wind so formal these have all been funded in the main by the national security agency and the management

management with that there are seven hundred fifty national security agency american employees working now so they mels together they might as well be known as the n.s.a. g.h.q. there are so close and while the scope of american led surveillance is raising eyebrows across the globe nothing has been done on capitol hill to curb the practices are these going to church or can explains what the government is doing to plug the voices of discontent both at home and abroad. while edward snowden as the messenger remains the focus of everybody's attention the u.s. government is trying to kill his message or at least contain it senior intelligence officials have testified in congress suring everything is done in accordance with the law congress has already killed the bill that would make the n.s.a. walk back some of its powers so as of now no concrete steps have been taken to rein

in n.s.a. surveillance but call for reform keep coming lawmakers are putting forward new initiatives earlier this week the president met with members of congress specifically to discuss slashing conspiring to stamboul of course attacking snowden is much easier for the white house defending this of their own state and here's what president obama said about that just in the wake of snowden's revelations and if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust congress and don't trust. federal judges to make sure that we're biding by the constitution due process and rule of law then we're going to have some problems on that trust issue a gallup poll shows fifty three percent of americans now disapprove of the government surveillance programs thirty seven percent approve and now the poll by the quinnipiac university conducted just in the wake of snowden's revelations shows forty five percent of americans say the government's anti-terrorism efforts have

gone too far restricting civil liberties three years ago that percentage was twenty five so it's a massive shift in attitudes but is longer snowden's own destiny remains the top story it will be much easier for the government to sweep the debate under the rug in washington i'm going to. the n.s.a. sweeping surveillance program didn't escape the attention of those attending a major annual hacking conference in las vegas one of the participants who goes by the nickname vince in the bay told our t.v. that given the government's much criticized snooping methods it's unfair that hackers are portrayed as bogeyman. the term hacker is sort of been demonized and. made into almost as a slur and the media in general you've got barack obama who is just brushing off edward snowden as just

a hacker and playing it off as if that's a bad thing i don't believe edward snowden meant act anything he just simply revealed information that he had already had access to and i don't think that's fair to hackers at all and a lot of it is to me is just curiosity i think because people just want to go into networks and see how they work or you know. some people are doing it for security purposes to you know find vulnerabilities in a network and those are hackers they they get paid to try to break into systems they have good intentions in mind that so so just suggests call somebody off the cuff a hacker as if he's you know automatically a crew that as if that means you're a criminal automatically i think that's really unfair it didn't take long for there to be an entertainment component to all this edward snowden has not only made headlines he's also become the new hero in a video game a new smartphone app called snowden run three d.

puts a digital version of the whistleblower in a never ending chase from what looks like a cia agent in the game the man on the run is collecting u.s.b. sticks and laptops containing secret information you can see him running through the maze there if he's caught in the digital snowden gets a one way ticket to guantanamo bay there's also a call uncle putin option which drops a hydrogen bomb on the chase or allowing the player to escape. now the u.s. state department has issued a temporary worldwide travel alert amid fears of a major al qaeda terror attack washington has already ordered the temporary closure of twenty one american embassies in the middle east due to the threat in the u.k. germany and france have also followed suit and announced that they too will close their missions in yemen for more on this we're joined live by foreign policy expert

ralph schoenman thank you very much for being with us here on our t.v. now apart from the embassies being shut down. a global travel alert has been issued are we looking at a possible major threat to the u.s. . we're looking at an exercise in state propaganda to change the subject because you have to consider the fact that fifty five percent of the american people support edward snowden seventy five percent of the american people according to the washington post and associated press totally blew disbelieve the government's claims that incident ubiquitous spying is anything to do with this so-called terror threat or national security you have under our under way an exposure of the totalitarian extent of the national security administration and indeed you know obama administration in its rapid construction of the architecture of the police state in the united states which the american people do not support and indeed edward snowden having been granted asylum in russia has earned the admiration and

support of a majority of the american people that's what underlies this so-called terror alert which is standard operating procedure for the american rulers they want to change the subject i should point out that they locate the origins of this in yemen a country that isn't under consistent is sustained bombardment by u.s. drones assassinating people including american citizens many of the so-called terrorists that are being. propagandized about by the united states or the very people that they are arming in syria as they did in libya the al qaeda fundamentalists who they claim and want to demonize are in fact instruments of the central intelligence agency on occasion after the occasion you bring up this war on terror for more than a decade we've had two wars the longest in u.s. history the military has been fighting this war on terror if al qaeda is such a threat now and have they even been successful at all. well actually we have to

understand at the origins of it was a marginal fundamentalist group financed and armed by the central intelligence agency in afghanistan this is essentially way of servicing what we call false flag operations attacks within the united states from nine eleven itself to subsequent such attacks where the stamp of the intelligence agencies of the u.s. government itself these are false flag operations in order to terrorize the american people and to numbed acquiescence in permanent war trillions of dollars for the u.s. military and to pentagon and to corporations which depend upon it is about demolishing a resistance in countries that have sought to obtain their own sovereignty it's just been really rolling back the end he quote colonial struggle in country after country across the world there's no base of support for this in the united states and people are concerned about the fact that his standards of living are falling forty five percent of children in the united states live below blow the poverty

level that one percent of the population that controls the united states less than one percent needs permanent war and the war on terror is an instrument for facilitating that agenda and nothing short of that that's when his current propaganda effort about embassies being quote is designed to do to frighten people and to get them to back up the n.s.a. spying which is ubiquitous and expanding at every moment what you mentioned this that this is a red flag or is it it's not even a real threat can closing these embassies actually stop an attack or is there some other thread that is threatening the united states right now well closing an embassy is vanishingly little to do with the. putative attack it's only by way of frightening people in creating a climate to change the subject once again i want to emphasize that since asylum has been granted edward snowden to so. you know former soviet union actually excuse

me in russia. by vladimir putin support for edward snowden has escalated in fact across the world and specifically in the united states people see edward snowden as a cert as a person who is exposing criminal activity in the part of the united states government in fact gran greenwald international in the guardian has exposed again in a most recent article a program called x. keyscore that allows intelligence agencies to carry out everything from dragnet service survey aliens to the reading in the content of all individual e-mails a program called prism and key score are a spying operation on a scale never before imagined in flagrant violation of the fourth amendment to the united states constitution the public does not support that and increasingly understand it the government is isolated in these operations the war on terror and these alerts and certainly embassies are designed to frighten people and to deflect

their support from edward snowden from bradley manning or from those who have the courage to expose criminality and part of the ruins of the united states all right appreciate your thoughts on the subject always interesting to hear what different people have to say about that ralph schoenman thank you very much for being with us here on r.t. are created thank you. well the conflict in syria is growing increasingly bitter with the involvement of extremist militants violence from al qaeda linked groups has spread to ever more remote communities in the country about two weeks ago around two hundred kurdish civilians including women and children were taken hostage in syria after clashes with jihadists that followed an attack which claimed the life of one kurdish leader. has a story. considering the complexity of syria you have to understand that there are dozens of groups of people who are divided by either faith or nationality or a city all of them are also involved in this bitter battle which has been going on

in the country for the last couple of years kurds are among the biggest ethnic groups that kurds are actually the largest nation in the world that does not have this date the dream of statehood is something that kurds have entertained for hundreds of years they are originating in iraq turkey and in syria now increasingly kurds in syria are coming under under extreme pressure from the radical groups which have permeated syria and are affiliated with al qaida recently severe clashes broken out in several villages on the border between syria and turkey primarily in the north and all that province several hundred kurds have been taken hostage by fighters of a loser front and they're also helping videos posted on the internet which claimed to be pictures all but kurds who have come under attack from the from the crowded for you to extremists truly horrific pictures now the kurdish militia has called them kurds in the region to unite in their struggle against the radical islamists

are completed with al qaida forces are also dreaming of their own state and it's not other than syria that they're planning to initiate their state out in fact they're saying they're going to get right to it's immediately after ramadan ends and that is just in two weeks on the situation in that region is in creative incredibly harsh and literally boiling at this point as we're having this very happening again hundreds of people of abducted from their homes. we're also hearing about people being killed just for the simple reason that they're kurds and it really doesn't seem like anybody is especially paying attention primarily the western media there is very little information on the subject if you try to look for it. well coming up in our program police in turkey have once again used to tear gas and water cannons against protesters. and that's as the government is accused of intensifying its crackdown on those angry at what's seen as prime minister heir to juan's authoritarian administration. and rock band the bloodhound

gang has been banned from a music festival in russia after one band member of the country's flag into his underpants on stage that's coming up later in the program.

wealthy british style stock. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on r t.

if the main competitor girl on the market is mother nature. may customers struggle with this. fight for each drop from an old turkey supplier. let people think i or prices pura want to. live on our teeth. they use it up there and wash their hands in it and flush their toilets when the same water. nestle's is selling and spraying water.

and welcome back you're watching our team in central istanbul turkish riot police have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse small groups rallying against what's seen as prime minister air to juan's authoritarian policies has been intensifying its crackdown on demonstrations that have rocked the country since may with some lawmakers saying that the ringleaders could face life imprisonment belief ghoul in based journalist witnessed the police intervention here's what she had to say actually people came back in the day we did social media and then we called and they said at one meeting people that think they did i would like hundreds of people were in fact think today while they were gathering to please attack by down with no official fiction the protests are illegal or put this are not a low do whole thing was in a sequestered in

a very cold this week because especially on friday the end of the debate a lot of people and the police actually closed the full street also to give the park to get the park in the park that still hold the clash has tried it in the protocol the may after that there was some small group attacked by the police and it will go going on all the way through thinking because nobody knows who is the organizers of this today and the police is right now actually thanking people we want to be political journalists and with the local and the trainers free also we can't get out we want to watch this. hassan rowhani is now officially. that's after he was endorsed by the country's supreme religious leader rowhani has was elected in june promising to end of the country's international isolation but his inauguration was greeted in the u.s. by calls from over seventy senators for tougher measures against the islamic

republic political analyst professor saeed mohammad marandi says the new president should not be underestimated what's interesting is often when the western media when it's convenient they say he's powerless but when it's not they say he's a threat like the former president ahmadinejad but he is a very powerful figure he is the second most important person in iran then he has the vote of over half of iranians and another election that had a very high turnout over seventy two percent almost seventy three percent if the united states is willing to take this opportunity to really evaluate its policies towards iran and take a serious step toward the iranians and president rouhani will definitely be willing to make a positive move themselves and to move towards rapprochement. well for more on this as well as many other stories you can always head to our web site r t dot com here's a quick preview of what we have lined up for you right now some are wondering if

america has just gotten bigger or maybe be worried this is after the head of the senate intelligence committee included both mexico and canada and what is considered homeland for the u.s. in a chart she used at a briefing find out more online plus. say they have discovered what they call a comet graveyard inside our own solar system many of the comments are only dormant but you can head over to argue dot com to find out what would bring them back to life.

american group the bloodhound gang have pulled a stunt that got them banned from performing at a russian music festival the band has been splattered with eggs into tomatoes while they were in the country after their bass player shoved the russian flag down his trousers during a gig in ukraine earlier my colleague bill dodd discussed the story with our correspondent oleksiak chapstick. the famous american punk band the blog gang had a concert in the city of odessa in ukraine several days ago and during that concert will be able to see that in the video now the bass player jared hasselhoff took out a russian flag all of a sudden and put it into his trousers before taking it out and throwing it into the crowd the front man of the band jimi properly later intervened said that he did not support of this action which is hard to believe because several days before that concert they had a gig in key of and during that concert jimmy properly was shouting the f. word russia from the stage now this story gets even more crazier because this band

was supposed to perform this weekend in russia in south and part of the country during the combine a festival they came over there they were told that they will not perform because the ministry of culture deemed this act is very offensive and that and they canceled their performance still they received their money and were on their way back to the airport when they were thrown eggs at their tomatoes and there was even a small demonstration in front of the front of the bus so they arrive to the airport went into the v.i.p. section when several men stormed into the base of the section and attacked the band reportedly one of the members of the band was strangled with this american flag so we can definitely say that this time lot on again would not need any water to let things burn because their bridges with russia are totally torched so after getting clearly a very angry reaction after arriving here in russia earlier you said you weren't too sure what the motivation was did they try and explain what happened because

obviously there are also a lot of questions when the reality of russia why did it happen while they try to apologize and said they did this simply to their fans in a death so of course they are a punk band they're no strangers to different sorts of controversies and during concerts in moscow and they've had lots of concerts in russia i've been to several of them personally they've been chanting something anti-american so this is like maybe their definition of controversy another time but definitely the antics with the flag putting it into the trousers this is something and seen before just as the attack on the musicians in russia something unseen before as well. it's now take a look at some other news making headlines around the world for you this hour police have broken up a sit in staged by hundreds of leftwing protestors in a small city in northern germany activists were trying to prevent a vigil by far right groups in memory of nazi war criminals who they say were abused after world war two annual vigil was cut short with some protesters facing charges for resisting authorities. flooding has forced more than

five thousand people to flee their homes in northeast china rains hit the region in the early hours of friday morning sparking mass evacuation of residents to safety water levels are still rising as further rescue efforts are underway. the world's largest dairy producer announced it had found the bacteria that causes botulism the country's authorities ordered the global recall of as much as one thousand tons of dairy products botulism is a fatal paralytic illness and of the bacteria which causes it is the most toxic substance known to mankind. thousands of people participated in rival demonstrations on saturday in the venezuelan capital of caracas opposition supporters protested against corruption and what they see as the government's persecution of political enemies at the same time the president's backers took to

the streets to affirm their support for nicolas maduro and rejects the opposition's allegations. a series of shootings and bomb attacks across iraq have left at least nineteen dead many of them civilians the deadliest attack took place about one hundred kilometers north of baghdad when a convoy carrying a top military commander was ambushed by gunmen the commander escaped but six of his bodyguards were killed more than four thousand people have died since january in the worst wave of violence in five years. coming up looks at the ancient custom of blood feuds in russia's caucuses region and how they are changing in the twenty first century stay with us.