a saudi prince who defected from the royal family slams the gulf war nikifor widespread human rights abuses and a violent crackdown on the opposition and in an exclusive interview with r.t. . saudi arabia's oppression of anti regime activists has intensified with the arrest and long jail sentences leaving the number of political prisoners in the country with well over forty thousand. and the latest leaks reveal only the likes of russia china and iraq are ahead of america's allies on the n.s.a. spying the place.

they welcome you watching r.t. this morning with me and very far. now in recent weeks saudi arabia has launched an offensive against anti regime activists arresting many in sentencing some two years in jail the total number of political prisoners has now surpassed forty thousand according to some reports the crackdown has even forced a member of the ruling family to defect r.t. arabic spoke exclusively to saudi prince how they'd been. who accuses them or nicky of corruption and silencing all voices of dissent. the government is obviously scared of the arab revolutions and they responded as they usually do by resorting to oppression violence arbitrary law and arrest but the easiest thing they can do is deprive you of your salary or fire you altogether that the ruling regime is not guarded by justice and this is especially true of the ministry of interior there is no independent judiciary that has both police and the

prosecutor's office are countable to the interior ministry the ministries officials investigate crimes they call them crimes related to freedom of speech so they fabricate evidence don't allow people to have attorneys things like that happen all over the place they even put people under arrest for an indefinite amount of time even if a court rules to release such a criminal or the ministry of interior keeps him in prison even though there is a court order to release him and there have even been killings killings and as for the external opposition saudi intelligence forces find these people abroad there is no safety inside or outside the country could you describe these people who oppose the royal family and what are their goals opposition used to demand wider peoples representation in governing bodies more rights and freedom but the authorities reacted with violence and persecution instead of

a dialogue and now the opposition wants this regime gone but we both know that despite numerous human rights violations and saudi arabia your country seldom faces straight decision from the west and from the united states in particular when senior u.s. officials meet with their saudi counterparts basically can't be any critical comments from washington because i mean riyadh what the white house certainly does maintain a longstanding alliance with the leaders of saudi arabia that cemented by common interests in the middle east to that end there are classified contacts between riyadh in. us administration in recent time they've been employed to step up the government administered reforms but those reforms are not driven by the elites desire to empower the people of the kingdom of the instead they are merely urged by reforms that the regime might fall unless that reforms itself in question is widespread in saudi arabia there is no free speech no freedom of expression corruption is rampant in all areas for most live a bureaucrat so high ranking officials that every civil servant is very skilful in

using bribes in their operations. the saudi regime is crackdown remains largely ignored by the international community leaving it free to advise other regional powers and home to move towards democracy and seize lindsey friends night takes a look at the country's own direct code of dealing with its internal democrats as saudi arabia violently squashes the voice of any opposition and we see it sitting front and center in discussions of the democratic transition of power within other countries such as syria on the one hand it reportedly ships arms to the opposition in syria on the other hand peaceful opposition in saudi arabia is answered with prison sentences torture even death for people who have voiced their own opinion in fact in october two thousand and twelve amnesty international called on the saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against pro-democracy protesters here are just a few examples from this year alone on june seventeenth me cliff mari was convicted

of sowing discord and other offenses through writings and exposure of human rights abuses he got five years in prison june twenty fourth seven men were convicted of inciting protests illegal gatherings and breaking allegiance with the king mostly by joining facebook pages and posting messages they each got between five and ten years in prison that we've got on the same day website editor rafe badawi convicted of insulting islam and authorities through his website and during television interviews he was sentenced to seven years in prison and six hundred lashes and these conditions anyone with something substantial. to say about the government society or religion would be blamed for keeping a low profile and this is where the man being called the saudi comes in no one knows who he is what he looks like or where he lives his prolific tweets denouncing the ruling family as corrupt and enriching themselves from government coffers have earned him over a million followers he is known only as much to heat i spoke with him over google

chat to find out why he stays in hiding because it's not for safety i asked him why you remains anonymous he said ironically and on anybody boost his credibility and courage as people to follow him and talk about his stories without worrying i asked if this meant that people could pay less attention to his biography and more attention to his message he pointed out there were can destroy your credibility easily and deter people from dealing with you if your identity is public. to heat is forced underground a new monarchy backed religious diversity center has launched its own charm offensive in vienna according to its mission statement it encourages dialogue among followers of different religions and cultures king abdullah has also announced a donation of one hundred million to set up a united nations center for fighting terrorism one of its four pillars is to prevent conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism and ensuring respect for human rights so while the king's clerics preach a hardline form of islam that often becomes

a breeding ground for extremism saudi arabia is assuming a moral high ground in advising other nations in transitional democracy. activists . spoke in detail to r.t. about exactly what human rights violations are driving people into the streets despite the fear of arrest. and the strength of the human right and you know nothing we have issues related to is a purely political and civil rights and freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. this is main issues that causes a lot of people to see action or just want to got rid of kenyans who are trying to form isis you can demonstrate or quote this. which is banned by the government and what we have seen is that there is no active moves to stifle the king of or. at least that is now in civil society to create some kind of momentum or push for

somebody form meanwhile pepe escobar who's a correspondent for the asia times explained how he thinks i agree this is trying to extinguish the flames of the arab spring. basically it's carrot and stick carrots in the form of a sixty billion dollar handout program by king abdullah at the beginning of the arab spring in two thousand and one the saudis were horrified by the beginning of the arab spring in neighboring bahrain so they bribe their own subjects number one number two this stick is against the shiite minority roughly ten percent of saudi arabia who lives in the eastern province that's where most of the oil is by the way they don't want to bring down the house of souled essentially they want more participation the judiciary not answering to religious powers in basically more democratic freedoms this is not going to happen in saudi arabia period nor in the

other g.c.c. go for cooperation council petro monarchies as well so it's an enormous a paw kristie they say to the americans and they sell the war that they are intervening in syria for a more democratic syria post assad and inside saudi arabia it's the sunni shiite divide and they go against ten percent of their own population. meanwhile police in egypt have warned they are ready to disperse the city in protest of thousands of supporters of the deposed president mohamed morsi raising the specter of more violence in the next few hours security forces plan to cordon off protest sites to stop anyone else entering morsy supporters are preparing to build concrete barriers and have apparently bought gas masks to protect themselves against a gas violence is being calm and since a military coup on july the third with at least two hundred fifty killed in clashes involving the police and army. all reports

a bell true is in the region and closely following developments and keeping you up to date on twitter and you can also check the latest pictures from the scene on artie's instagram. right to see. her story. and i think you're. on our reporter's. instagram. and still ahead feed this hour yanking democracy washington's program to broadcast its values directly to key wins goes off air is vital budget cuts ground the plane helping to transmit a signal heard by no one plus hundreds ready to push its international creditors out after settling its debt and purse chief financial stability on its own.

most of these voices the couple to last for violence or thirst. of the window climbed into an untried started. we pushed it a little way here we were drunk. and soon who you're an alcoholic nearly all of them are homeless orphans with no money or relatives. or you may go without me. for a moment but there it felt like i was back with those street hooligans who could have beat me up at any moment of the. year that i turned my back i couldn't help wondering where my safety. isn't a warden is there the father you could say that slobber raises us he makes normal people out of ugly duckling.

live. live. live. the speed. her. mum will. live.

good luck. and. a little. interview. live. lists.

welcome back now keeping an eye on washington's own allies including the is a key priority for the u.s. national security agency just behind the likes of russia china and iran that's been revealed by german magazine der spiegel which has seen documents leaked by fugitive u.s. whistleblower edward snowden peter oliver now looks at who ranks where on the n.s.a.'s watch list. of the latest information to come out about the n.s.a. spying scandal is being published in news magazine here in germany now the. documents that were leaked by edward snowden and dated from april of this year now those documents outlining just the extent of how the united states was spying on e.u. countries now the twenty eight member states it says were looked at in terms of foreign

policy international trade and economic stability none of them apparently security related but those were the the areas in which the n.s.a. pursued the hardest now there was also spying taking place and information being gathered with regards to technology and energy as well. also revealed in these documents that have been put forward in news magazine show a breakdown of the countries which the n.s.a. targeted the most now they split into a couple of key is of importance now in the in the top to have countries like china russia iran pakistan and north korea but just underneath that you have countries like germany france and japan all nations that consider themselves allies in close allies of that of the united states now these revelations as they continue to come out from those huge bottles and bundles and bundles of information that edward

snowden brought with them when he when he fled from the national security agency from the contractors that he was working with continued to turn up a treasure trove of information about just what was going on and these most recent documents seem to back up previous leaked documents that show the n.s.a. was spying on the e.u. e.u. offices both in brussels as well as around the world now when those when that information was released in beagle magazine a few months ago well that caused outrage across europe and we're seeing more of that now as these latest revelations come out that the e.u. was seen as a key target for spying by the united states. the father of the man who uncovered washington's appetite for private data has been granted a visa to visit russia and go to our website to find out when snowden plans to visit his son in russia where he's been granted temporary political asylum. what about long with heavy weaponry russia is about to stage

a contest which sees huge tanks take to the sporting field of battle you can get the details. it is a billion dollar transmission to nowhere for decades america has been beaming its message of democracy directly into cuba and including from a plane broadcasting over the island but the signal has been successfully jammed in washington is being forced to admit no one is listening. explain.

old habits die hard having spent decades unsuccessfully attempting to undermine the cuban government the u.s. keeps trying washington funds a t.v. channel and a radio station that specifically target a cuban audience with programming that features prominent cuban dissidents you are doing and of power to the germans and projects like toward democracy which the channels website advertises as a how to guide for transitioning from dictatorship to democracy all done in the hopes that one day the communist leadership in cuba will fall how soon do you think that's going to. well i hope so i'm probably three years we need to work really hard maybe the martine media are working very hard but the cuban public remains largely unaware of their efforts which have you ever heard of radio marti no i know nothing about it. the marquee itself acknowledges the limited reach of its radio

and t.v. programs we'll have for any way to reach that with the information in the general queue of people became government jams the martys radio and t.v. signals to circumvent that the u.s. has employed a variety of methods one of them errol martini a plane that had been flying over cuba to transmit u.s. broadcasts the u.s. broadcasting board of governors that oversees iraq marty has asked congress to discontinue the program two years in a row admitting it has been a failure it's hard to believe we're still wasting millions of tons paid dollars on beaming a gem t.v. signal to fewer than one percent of cubans can see from an airplane to the island at a time when u.s. lawmakers cut funding on social programs for a low workers that a time when we hear calls to defund us public radio and television washington still spends millions of dollars every year on a media operation to do. overthrow the cuban government in washington i'm going to

check out. some other world news now al qaeda front group the islamic state of iraq has claimed responsibility for a string of blasts in shia parts of the iraqi capital baghdad the attacks claimed over eighty lives and left almost two hundred fifty injured militants said the attacks were a response to the security forces operations a recent spike in violence almost one thousand people killed in july alone. israel has given the green light for another one thousand two hundred settlement homes to be built on palestinian land the palestinian chief negotiator said it will hamper efforts to find a two state solution during peace talks set to resume in jerusalem on wednesday despite settlements being considered illegal under international law israel refuses to halt construction the decision comes after the german foreign minister during her visit to the jewish state insisted the international community should not

create any new obstacles to negotiations. and in colombia at least seven people have been killed after a truck plowed into a group of protesters the driver allegedly lost control of the vehicle when he was attacked during a rally miners were voicing their anger over poor working conditions. now hungary is a bank to pay off its debt to the international monetary fund and then wants the credit to go on the country was saved by the washington based group with a twenty five billion dollar loan five years ago but isn't renewing the aid in order to avoid closest scrutiny of its policies he looks at how budapest is cutting loose. and family can now enjoy picking a pram for their soon to be born child when the global recession reached the country they struggled to repay their mortgage but thanks to a government support program their flat now belongs to them and they've saved at

least ten thousand euro in that time factor that in the end they're critical situation the government is now quite strong. we are seeing there are not soft steps but look at hungary's economy of late and you'll be hard pressed to find much to be optimistic about the economy is now fading better than during the recession but still most of the. negative territory while inflation is even higher than in the crisis years the country's opposition firmly believes hungary would stagnate without e.u. hungary's and mad to receive peer. funds and this is very important ninety seven percent of the new developments today finance from e.u. money however seeing what's happening in greece and spain budapest is not keen on grabbing the hands of the international lenders and in this case it goes beyond merely the bravado rhetoric often voiced by the country's prime minister. thirty

steps between the building of the national bank of hungary and the head office of the international monetary fund in budapest but that is as close as they get a letter from one building to another at the end of july said that hungary no longer required the services of the i.m.f. and that its employees must leave the country as soon as possible the country's deputy economics minister on any kind of open to still a t towards brussels or the knowledge is that what the e.u. bureaucrats are offering this is not the past his message is we can handle it on our own but a greece that. according to g.d.p. after two hundred structuring and averaging is hundred sixty percent in hungary below eighty percent the european average is know about eighty five per cent we are not able to finance the public that on the market will have to introduce the reference which make the country more competitive and that is what we have done in the last couple of years and i think they are good basis to have an

independent economic policy next year hungary will host parliamentary elections and some say the hardline stance with the e.u. may be part of a political campaign by the right wing leadership but analysts are not ruling out that should government be reelected the prime minister may take his standoff with brussels to a completely new level. initiating a referendum on leaving the repeal and union all together and exclusive ski auntie reporting from budapest in hungary it is just coming up to twenty five pos nine here in moscow i'm back with more news in about half an hour but in the meantime stay with this report cold last chance.

the u.s. government project arrow marty has been in place for twenty years this project was designed to break the media monopoly on cuban television by putting u.s. government propaganda up to t.v. screens this injection of american t.v. works with a blimp and a c one thirty military plane working in tandem you know this would actually be a major achievement in the history of technology if it actually worked this program which over the years has built up a billion taxpayer dollars simply does not work but continues to exist despite the cuban government completely blocking the transmission the official logic of continuing the program is that it would send a bad message to the cuban government if they stopped brilliance and action but the big question is who gives the u.s. government the right to propagandize cuba is just because they have a different lifestyle doesn't mean it is wrong and the u.s. government does has the right to destroy it and even if cubans on mass actually do hate their system then it is their job to change cuba not the military industrial complex and its cronies in washington but that's just my opinion.

was party to some degree or a few words you tell to bring everyone together here everyone's here. can you see everyone fifteen people really pleasantry i was wondering what fishing with my eyes deceive me when yes i would but of course when it comes to fishing he can do that for now as well that ask him to call everyone together and. you know why you're late what's the problem you had that was what you always mess everything up with you is not useful. what am i doing film a clown. most of these fifteen boys have been in trouble with the law for violence or whatever. of them are

homeless orphans with no money or relatives. or uncles. as he's known isn't a supervisor he's their adoptive father. you really are right here this is really what i've been slaving for for all these years just as will be nobody here by ten o'clock in the evening. did i give everything up of that's what you want to build a human being. i should scream at you now and everyone has to say thank you uncle sam of your wisdom or truth. for a moment back there it felt like i was back with a straight hooligans who could have beaten me up at any moment as i turned my back i couldn't help wondering you know am i safe.

with. my. blood i almost twins in fate they never knew their fathers their alcoholic mothers was stripped of parental rights the boys were sent to an orphanage and repeatedly state they showed no interest in study. and by the age of eighteen had frequently been convicted of theft or assault. ship there's nothing to do here at all you just drift from one place to another like an idiot going to run

into some guy with beer to join in and soon you're an alcoholic. after leaving school they found themselves on the street and joined in the tourist local street gang. was arrested and charged as an accomplice he was given a three year suspended sentence then when they tried to steal a car they were close to being put behind bars. we broke the window climbed in and tried to start it yeah we pushed it we pushed it a little way. here we were drunk yeah we were drunk. yes i fell asleep in the car and they got us the police held me from five in the evening until two am and then they let me go. to show up at nine the next day but i didn't i was fed up i was drinking like a fish yep you i saw a bomb once and so mice.