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

and i welcome you watching r.t. with me and three farmer. now in recent weeks saudi arabia has launched an offensive against and regime activists arresting many and sentencing some two years in jail the total number of political prisoners is now surpassed forty thousand according to some reports the crackdown is even forced a member of the ruling family to defect r.t. arabic spoke exclusively to saudi prince how they'd been hard on our soil you would have accuses the morning 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 the easiest thing they can do is deprive you of your salary or fire you altogether so 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 the ministry of interior keeps him in prison even though there is a court order to release him there have even been killings killings and as for the external opposition saudi intelligence forces by means 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 freedoms but the authorities reacted with violence and persecution instead of

a dialogue now the opposition wants this regime gone but we both know that despite the numerous human rights violations in saudi arabia your country seldom faces criticism from the west and from the united states in particular when senior u.s. officials meet with their saudi counterparts basically convey any critical comments from washington visibly riyadh what. the white house certainly does maintain a longstanding alliance with the leaders of saudi arabia cemented by common interests in the middle east that in there are classified contacts between reared in the us administration in recent time they have 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 but instead they are merely urged by reforms that the regime might fall unless it reforms itself and oppression is widespread in saudi arabia there is no free speech no freedom of expression corruption is rampant in all areas for most of

a bureaucrat so high ranking officials every civil servant is very skillful in using bribes in their operations or the society regimes crackdown remains largely ignored by the international community leaving it free to advise other regional powers and hide to move towards democracy parties lindsay friends takes in the country's own direct code of dealing with its internal democrats as saudi arabia violently squashes the voice of any opposition 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 but dowie 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 in 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 asana 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 anonymity 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 the regime can destroy your credibility easily and deter people from dealing with you if your identity is public. to heat is forced underground a new monarchie 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. remark germany has come under fierce criticism over its arms sales to saudi arabia and other gulf countries with poor human rights records billions weapons exports to go of more nicky's have almost tripled in just two years these figures show that from five hundred seventy million euros in twenty eleven to almost a billion and a half in twenty twelve an anglo merkel's government has approved weapons exports of more than eight hundred million euros in the first half of this year suggesting the level will continue to grow the six countries in the region berlin sells weapons to are saudi arabia bahrain cats are q wait oh man and united arab emirates several of which have seen government crackdowns on anti regime protests since the arab spring saudi arabia is the biggest buyer security hardware worth one point

four billion euros was sold there last year also in two thousand and twelve amnesty international claimed that german made small firearms ammunition and military vehicles were commonly used by middle eastern and north african regimes to suppress peaceful demonstrations. well earlier i spoke to ask my but there we go executive director of the berlin based transform group which studies conflicts and political developments he told me there are other dangers to increasing arms sales to the gulf besides their possible use against protesters with also buying food groups from the worst so ensuring the maintenance of the legitimacy and standing the brawl by spending massive amounts of money or in the worst an economy and here we have not just through the middle of the member fall source. of arms are becoming really weapons of mass destruction there is absolutely no way to go and

see that the weapons but being shipped legally from countries like saudi arabia or even you do not fall into the hands of terrorists so the weapons will go and the hounds of. zambians. assure. you who would go. next it also in libya. it would be all along all the. absolutely no way of knowing how these weapons and without their. elsewhere supporters of egypt's toppled president mohamed morsy are waiting for security forces to raid their protest camps in cairo the army has warned it is ready to disperse the crowds taking part in cities raising the specter of more violence in the egyptian capital police are said to be about to cordon off protests sites to stop anyone else entering morsy supporters have built barriers

and apparently prepared gas masks to protect themselves against a gas violence has been common since a military coup on july the third with up to three hundred killed in clashes involving the police and army. well reported. by one of the protest camps at the moment and in one of her tweets tweet she says. it's from intervention and you can stay up to date with the very like to see. just by heading to the internet and go online to follow on twitter. yanking democracy washington's program to broadcast his values directly to cubans. budget cuts grand the plane helping to transmit a signal. plus hungry ready to push his international credits is. financial stability these stories and more coming up in

a couple of minutes. wealthy british.

market. what's really happening to the global economy. with max cause or run no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report on our. most of these voices the couple to last for violence or theft. but we broke the window climbed in and tried to start it but we pushed it a little way here we were drunk. and soon who you're an alcoholic or nearly all of them are homeless orphans with no money or relatives. are you afraid going to live without me. for a moment but verify like i was bad but those street hooligans are going to beat me up at any moment of the. year that i turned my back i couldn't help wondering why my safe. isn't a warden he's their adoptive father you could say that slava raises us he makes

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hello again keeping an eye on washington's own allies including the key priority for the u.s. national security agency just behind the likes of russia china and iran that's being revealed by german magazine der spiegel which has seen documents leaked by fugitive u.s. whistleblower edward snowden. who ranks way on the watch list. well 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 those 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. of countries like china russia iran pakistan and north korea but just underneath that you have countries like germany france. consider themselves allies and close allies of that of the united states now these revelations as they continue to come out from those huge bundles and bundles and bundles of information that edward snowden brought with him 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 showed that 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 that when that information was released in spiegel 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. on the n.s.a. spying tentacles could be reaching out from the u.s. embassy in moscow according to sources from inside russian intelligence online we've got the full story of the system known as x. keyscore which can watch everything internet use is in moscow ascending order king at you can head. more on that story plus also that. you can find out when long snowden plans to visit his son in russia where he's been granted temporary

political asylum. hungary is about to pay off its debt to the international monetary fund and then wants the credit gone the country was saved by the washington based group with a twenty five billion dollars loan five years ago but it isn't renewing the aid in order to avoid closest scrutiny of its policies alexi. it had been the past is cutting loose this 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 there are now belongs to them and they've saved at least ten thousand euro. to that the air in america because situation. is now quite strong so. there are lots of stats 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 important development figures are in their goods of territory while inflation is even higher than in the crisis years the country's opposition firmly believes hungry would stagnate without a good reason that the recipient of e.u. funds and this is very important ninety seven percent. of the new developments today finance from 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 is tight lipped on any kind of open the 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 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 by initiating a referendum on leaving the ropy and union all together and auntie reporting from budapest in hungary. in the syrian province of aleppo rebels have reportedly kidnapped a group of thirteen kurds and given them to militants who are already holding around two hundred fifty others hostage most of those being held were apparently captured last month by al-qaeda linked fighters the kurdish minority has become a frequent target for radicals fighting to bring down the government of bashar al

assad one al qaeda group pledged to turn northern syria which is densely populated by kurds into an islamist state in response the president of a kurdish semi autonomous region in iraq has vowed to intervene to protect those affected hundreds of kurds have allegedly been slaughtered in recent weeks although the exact number is hard to verify due to the chaos inside syria. that look now to some other al-qaeda front group the islamic state of iraq has claimed responsibility for a string of saturday's blasts and shia parts of the iraqi capital baghdad explosions claimed over eighty lives and left almost two hundred fifty injured militants said the attacks were a response to the security forces operations the holy month of ramadan often sees a sharp rise in violence and this one has been the deadliest in years. and israel has approved a list of twenty six long term palestinian prisoners to be released tomorrow ahead

of peace talks which resume this wednesday the move came amid a tough thing stance from both sides after israel announced another one thousand two hundred settlement homes will be built on palestinian land despite settlements being considered illegal under international law israel refuses to hold construction. massive blaze that one of venezuela's largest state oil refineries has been put out there were no reports of casualties the fire was reportedly sparked by lightning that hit storage tank sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky last year an explosion at another or a refinery claimed fifty five lives. so it is a half a billion dollar transmission to nowhere for decades america has been beaming its message of democracy directly into cuba 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. to the story.

old habits die hard having spent decades unsuccessfully attempting to undermine the cuban government the u.s. keeps trying washington finds 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 channel's 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 are 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 don't have any way to reach that with the information in the general queue of people became a government jams the martys radio and t.v. signals to circumvent that the us has employed a variety of methods one of them errol marty 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 taxpayer dollars on beaming a jam t.v. signal fewer than one percent of cubans can see from an airplane to the oil and at a time when u.s. lawmakers cut funding on social programs for a low workers at a time when we hear calls to defund u.s. public radio and television washington still spends millions of dollars every year

on a media operation to overthrow the cuban government in washington i'm going to check on. thanks for being with coming up next tough questions and contrasting opinions in an interview something. the u.s. government project aero marti has been in place for twenty years this project was designed to break the media monopoly of 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 continued the program is that it would send a bad message to the cuban government if they stopped brilliance in action but the big question is who gives the u.s. government the right to propagandize cubans 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. i don't want them to sophie and co i'm so mean shevardnadze and today i'm having

a very special guest that needs no introduction larry king larry spent twenty five years with c.n.n. talking to people then retired and has come back with his show larry king now which is also available on r t hi larry you know this is one of my first shows because my show premiered this week and here won a very for us the first guests. i'm honored to be one of your first guess was so excited but it's kind of like you know god given your first communion plus there's like whole satellite thing where i can hear is also like god but anyway it's really great that you're with us. thank you so this snowden story right it's all that everyone is talking about it's sort of turned into a fiction serious the leaks the chase the secrecy i mean many countries involved in it what do you see it's a disturbing disturbing story on the one hand americans pride themselves on privacy. it's almost in our blood we don't like to be eavesdropped we don't like

phones tapped we don't like people knowing other people's business that's part of the heritage and the other hand since nine eleven americans were rightfully so have a right to feel insecure and along comes this gentleman who reveals information that we have been that our phones have been recorded although they say the only kava numbers in the long of the phone calls take a long period of time then they investigate i come down on the side of you know it's a tough balance i come down on the side of the security agency in this case i think with probably care and as long as the that is warrants eventually and judges look good on this i think that we can have a hundred percent privacy but if you add snowden for an interview what would you ask him. well the first thing is obvious why why did you do this what prompted

you to do this and then of course as i don't know the answer i would have to listen to his answer and then follow up the way i interview is i don't preplan i don't pre-judge i've never prejudge that interview so i make no judgment about him i don't go in liking him or not liking him i go in being very curious about what prompted someone to do something like this one of the things that would fascinate me is if you're doing it for a moral reasons and your. it's pure honesty and you wish to see things better wifely. right so ok then twenty five years you were with c.n.n. then you're retired now you're back to interviewing with larry king now which is also broke us here on r.t. so why did you come back do you feel like there was something you hadn't achieved. good question sophie i i thought i could leave i have two young children a fourteen and thirteen i want to spend more time.