from a. local. breaking news this hour whistleblower on a private bradley manning has been sentenced to thirty five years in prison after he was found guilty of america's secrets to weaken leaks. moscow mass hysteria rebel claims that syria's government launched a major chemical autonomy of damascus are denied by officials and locals accusations coincided with the arrival of yuan and that's to gauge. britain on leashes it's on the towel now as to the debate on surveillance targeting publications journalist and even that partners were pulled from the media's reaction.

this is a lie from moscow on breaking news this hour whistleblower bradley manning has been sentenced to thirty five years behind bars the former all the private league's thousands of classified u.s. documents to wiki leaks will also be dishonorably discharged producer untrue blake is in the courtroom when the sentence was read out and joining us now live andrew andrew nice to see so you were in the courtroom so can you tell us why that's ok to tell us the details. yeah i finally was here today we're here in fort meade maryland after waiting more than three years for the sentencing of private first class bradley manning and as you said colonel denise lind just handed down a sentence of only thirty five years and i say only because private manning came into this case looking at potentially a life a life sentence he would have faced life had he been found guilty of aiding the

enemy and then when the conviction was finally handed down a few weeks ago he was down. back some sentence of only ninety years so thirty five years is really much less than a lot of people had expected and even the prosecution asked the court for a minimum of sixty so thirty five years for a twenty five year old soldier yes it's a tremendous amount of time but it's way left way fewer years way less years and then people had really had in that there got to a lot of people that i had talked to you were really kind of predicting the worst and. for private manning say fortunately that wasn't the case in the case around the money since the beginning so can you sum up all of his tribulations. yeah i mean it was three years ago that he was first picked up outside of baghdad iraq he was deployed as an intelligence analyst with the u.s. army and he was arrested and charged with a number of crowds related to his admitted role with the anti-secrecy website wiki leaks manning earlier this year actually admitted yes over the course of

a couple of months i uploaded and shared all sorts of files that were diplomatic state department cables one time will be detainee assessment briefs documents from the afghan war the iraq war manning did all this he said because he wanted to lift the fog of war he wanted people to actually see how the u.s. people is behaving overseas and his revelations really did spark a lot of debate which is exactly what he wanted regionally he said that he made these disclosures so that people can make informed decisions recently he also said you know maybe i took the wrong road he made a statement in court last week and said i there were other ways i could have done this perhaps you know who am i to think that a junior intelligence analyst could really change the world but so private manning has supporters around the world news can be protests and rallies across the world actually today and this me one from the white house at seven thirty now they're chicago new york all over the country and abroad people have been asking for the president to just get rid of this case for a while now and later on the defense will begin the appeals process they plan on

petitioning president obama to pardon p.f.c. manning and we'll have a little bit more details on that later in the day following up press conferences. produce thank you very much. a human rights oxygen is to. live from london to this concept of mines a sentence welcome to. five years only says five years according to our correspondent in jail given that prosecution demanded sixty has. been also light. i think the judge and indeed the a-bomb illustration was very wary of giving him. sentence because of the backlash they fear from public opinion in america and around the world so i guess that this is sort of what we were expecting but i've got to say that it is quite extraordinary that bradley manning has got thirty five years for telling the truth and exposing us war

crimes lies and cover ups while the people who committed these criminal acts have walked away scot free they have never ever been prosecuted if you go back to the mile a massacre in vietnam by u.s. troops in the late one nine hundred sixty s. the people who blew the whistle on that war crime were never prosecuted it was acknowledged they were exposing an injustice but then contrast what actually happened to the perpetrators of the mile a massacre. william calley the main soldier in charge of that massacre received a three year sentence which he mostly served under house arrest for killing dozens of vietnamese civilians yet here we are all these years later and bradley manning gets thirty five years for simply telling the truth and exposing criminal acts it just seems very very unfair justice system but don't you believe that there was

some sort of political motivation behind the sentence. but certainly think there's a poor motivation behind the prosecution you know it is a notable fact that president obama has how ruston chased and prosecuted more whistleblowers than even right wing republicans like richard nixon and ronald reagan that is a pretty damning indictment of president obama and his democratic administration whistleblowers are not criminal they are the canaries in the mine who warned us about danger they warned us about untruths about hidden realities that people in power don't want us to know whistleblowers are essential to democracy and that is why bradley manning edward snowden and wiki leaks are so important they're shining a light on the grave injustices that successive us administrations have sought to

keep secret thank heavens down to them we know the truth we now know what is being done in the name of the american people and indeed the people of the world also know that that is a good thing not a bad thing bradley manning is a hero he remained a hero all the years he was in prison he remain a hero after his released while the obama administration will forever live with this shame upon its record. we know that bradley manning was cleared of aiding the enemy what is the reason behind that. what first of all i think that the legal case the evidence that he ate of the enemy was virtually nonexistent or best very very flimsy so i think that it was quite right and proper that he was acquitted of that charge and i think it would have been really quite extraordinary if the judge had pressed that one and given

a guilty verdict i think the uproar among legal experts never mind the wider public opinion would have been so great that would have been our own goal by the obama administration so i think that the powers that be were very relieved that he didn't get prosecuted on charges of aiding the enemy because quite clearly he had no intention of aiding any enemy of the united states he simply want to expose injustice and he said all along that he was motivated by high ideals by a belief in the rule of law by a belief in international humanitarian law which forbids the kinds of war crimes that he sought to expose but doesn't the government here have a right to protect secrets and send a strong message. well there are secrets and there are secrets yes there are some things that you know governments can rightly argue should be

kept secret but when you've got a united states military prosecuting the war in iraq and afghanistan where there are serious grave allegations of human rights abuses and consistently u.s. personnel are not prosecuted not prosecuted even though innocent people have been taken to going tandem obey and held there for eleven or more years without trial or charge it is extraordinary that when there is evidence for example of the apache attack helicopter killing of eleven civilians in iraq the collateral murder video which probably many exposed none of those soldiers have ever been prosecuted none of them are even being investigated it just seems to the average person this is a mis appropriation of justice the man who exposes this gets prosecuted and gets thirty

five years in jail while the soldiers who not only killed those eleven iraqi civilians but joe laughed and insulted them in the most offensive way they walk away scot free that is just not fair that is not a democratic principle no regime anywhere in the world should ever be allowed to get away with war crimes or crimes against humanity the citizens of the world have a right to know and if that means breaking secrets the government is wanted to hide so be it those are not legitimate secrets ok peter tatchell your rights activist thank you very much indeed for speaking to us. munnings ks ha sparks in terms of debate within the q us as well as internationally over whether he's a hero or traitor and also he's going to track down is joining us now live to discuss the reaction to the five year sentence on rodney manning so how do you

think the american public will react to this particular sentence. well you are among bradley manning supporters we hear on the one site i mean thirty five years murderers get more leniency and some sort of a relief on the other side he will not spend his whole life in prison but he certainly will be robbed of this use as his lawyer put it many people support bradley manning because they support the public's right to know they don't necessarily support the fact that he broke the law but they realize that there were things that would have never been exposed to debate it had not been for bradley manning now generally speaking americans don't care much when it's about their governments wrongdoings abroad they care more about domestic policies possibly that's why you don't see a huge percentage of support for manning in opinion polls but bradley manning may have actually gained more support in the wake of edward snowden's revelations more and more people are starting to realize that the government will always be trying to sweep controversial issues under the rug u.s.

troops may have never left iraq had the iraqi government granted them immunity from prosecution something that the obama administration was trying to negotiate around the same time bradley manning leaked all those eye opening files president obama would have not announced the review of fairness a surveillance program see if it weren't for edward snowden whether or not that review is just a symbolic gesture is a question worth asking but still we wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't for the leaks in the meantime the government has intensified its crackdown on whistleblowers and not just whistleblowers but also journalists not only have they almost blurred the line between whistleblowers and journalists but also this notion is being propagated that an act of journalism can be a threat to national security the other day journalists here were discussing the detention of glenn greenwald spouse in the u.k. mr well being the journalist who put forward snowden's revelations the spouse who was detained at the airport under the case terrorism act in the white house knew

about the decision to detain him in advance so the media here were discussing. this is i keep hearing the phrase journalism is not terrorism and different channels in different contexts it would say this journalism is not terrorism and one could argue if we reach the point when journalists have to repeat that over and over it means something so obvious it is not so obvious anymore so the question is if bradley manning gets thirty five years more than many murders what does he make of journalists who used to source of their investigations of their reporting is not a secret with the us government would do to julian assange if they got their hands on him but what does it make of manning supporters also traders so many questions that are related not just to bradley manning's own future but also to the future of journalism and the public's right to know. town life from washington d.c. thank you very much indeed. she's been following bradley manning's trial closely

and our website coma is keeping you up to date find the latest analysis and opinion on the mining scam. conflicting reports coming from syria where rebels claimed the government launched a massive chemical are talking of damascus so you're an official's deny those allegations and some locals say they have seen no evidence of an assault all this comes as u.s. inspectors or in the country and the russian foreign ministry believes the timing of these accusations is not accidental also is correspondent in the region policy and are reports media reports are citing the syrian revolutionary command council which says that government forces loyal to the syrian president bashar assad were flying over the area after the bombardment using chemical agent now this is attack happened in the rebel held area of eastern damascus in a place called eastern ghouta the area has witnessed heavy fighting between

opposition fighters and the army what we are hearing is reports that the north front which are fighters that are affiliated with al qaida are also operating there now some appeal to suggest that more than f.l. thousand people were killed in this latest attack but other reports talk about dozens dying graphic images have flooded the internet showing an alleged victims choking foaming at the mouth and displaying other possible symptoms of the attacks in syria the origin of this footage however is unverified an effort needs to be made that no one knows where it was filmed or who filmed it we are trying to get more details at this stage from the area we have been speaking with local residents who complain that there was fighting there earlier but they insist that there have been absolutely no signs of any kind of chemical attacks the first to break this news was the saudi arabia network. now suddenly arabia has its own agenda inside

syria it's anti the syrian president assad and therefore any kind of reports of the use of chemical weapons we must take this into consideration reports have been vehemently demarc denied by the syrian government while the. has caused a huge storm elsewhere in the world the u.k. is demanding an immediate action by the united nations security council the arab league says that the incidents should be investigated at once and all of this comes at a time when u.n. inspectors are inside the country conducting a chemical probe the situation with chemical attacks is far from clear we need to make the point that the first reports of chemical weapons was that they were used in the field back in march the nineteenth this year by the tech fieri terrorist groups when they launched a rocket attack in kabul. now that did cause widespread destruction in syria immediately demanded an investigation from the united nations the syrian government

also has said that it is aware that sara and projectile are being manufactured. in the suburbs of damascus and this has been confirmed by fighters who've been arrested by the syrian army the united nations for its size has said that it has received up to thirteen reports of chemical weapons used in syria the one from the damascus government of the race mainly from the united kingdom france and the united states both sides of the conflict and here we're talking about the rebels in the government have however denied using chemical weapons the inmate the united nations independent investigator carla del ponte to say that there was strong support suspicions that the rebels had used this illegal seven gas issue has become part of political manipulations in terms of what is happening inside syria the american president barack obama has declared that any kind of chemical attack would be a red line that could ultimately trigger american intervention inside syria but as

i say what actually happened today at the moment for some clear. political analyst patrick having some believes even if it did take days it's too early to point the finger at the syrian government. of course if we look at the history of this particular region to go to a region where the attack it's said to take place is very active with the front and they've also been implicated in using makeshift chlorine bombs in aleppo back in march so there is a track record there the evidence unfortunately does not stack up with the present claims of the syrian government perpetrating these attacks who benefits from a chemical attack in syria while the opposition benefits it's quite obvious the syrian government does not benefit the opposition benefits because this would be the key to unlock the. airstrikes and bombing campaign over syria all of libya. the opposition would like

a libyan style coalition with nato in order to force the regime out of power in damascus so they clearly benefit from any reports of a chemical attack in syria. over the course of the civil war the syrian opposition has repeatedly accused the regime of mass atrocities and chemical tunks many such claims coincided with major political events and diplomatic efforts and in most cases the number of victims proved to be exaggerated and here are just a few of the examples here in july twenty eight twelve as the u.n. discussed a possible intervention in syria the rebels announced a civilian masika in the tremseh carried out by the government that later proved to be fools by observer mission to the town in august just days before u.n. security council meeting they derive masika happened once so more saddam was blamed but it was later found that the rebels will most likely the papa traces in december as russia the u.s. on the uan met to discuss a peace plan the west accused assad of chemical weapons fall in the ninety's and

that also was not used later in december as u.n. peace envoy lakhdar brahimi met with assad in damascus the rebels alleged another civilian masika strike on a bakery. and initial media frenzy it was those who reported that all the people were opposition fighters killed in battle and an april this year the rebels repeatedly provided the u.s. and britain was proof that assad had used chemical weapons and that it was seized upon by the west to funnel arms to the opposition while a u. one independent investigation found it was most likely the rebels behind the chemical. news after the short break to stay with us.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so poorly please you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard luck and was a big. good lover jury kirby was able to build a complete most sophisticated robot which i don't think he'd leave doesn't give a darn about anything mission to teach creation why you should care about humans. this is why you should watch only.

this isn't c welcome by the british newspaper that broke america's most surveillance and was forced to destroy the files provided by edward snowden has explained why it gave the government the guardian ad to set a source has threatened legal action to stop the paper from reporting the n.s.a. leaks altogether and chose to destroy documents which culprit anyway also saw sea level. you've had your fun and now it's time to return to the documents said the unnamed government official to the newspaper editor it could be the stuff of movies oh it isn't. we were faced effectively with an ultimatum from the british government that if we didn't hand back the material or destroy it they would be to law in recent months the guardian newspaper has come to be known as the paper that's been exposing secret material from

a troop of information passed on to wit by former contractor of the national security agency edward snowden but in recent days the editor of the newspaper is also publicized what had gone on a behind closed doors here how security officials had ended up in the basement of their offices overseeing the destruction of hard drives and computers which contained the very information the paper has been exposing a bizarre turn of events salaries moochers says that came all the way up from the prime minister's office once it was obvious that they would be going to law. i would rather destroy the copy than hand it back to them or allow the courts to freeze our reporting and i was happy to destroy it because it was not going to inhibit our reporting we would simply. not from london a twenty first century possibility in a highly digital and connected world the revelation by rusbridger came just a day after the detention of david miliband a partner of the guardian journalist and glenn greenwald the journalist who had broken the story of snowden's leaks and the same materials around it was obtained

under the new case terrorism act and was held in question for nine hours at heathrow airport it caused an outcry among politicians and journalists and even david anderson the independent review were of terrorism laws who demanded an explanation prompting the u.k. home office to go on the offensive the government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security those who oppose this sort of action need to think about what they can do if they want to protect the public to tell the public what it is they're protecting them from a generalized statement about terrorism in general doesn't really do the trick you've got to be able to say well the everybody. and he's got what in danger of the public for the following reasons you've got to have reasons for no such reasons have been advanced miranda's new tension as well as the destruction of computers and the guardian's basement have one of britain's most respected newspapers in the spotlight the story teller has become this story this is

a very damaging moment actually for britain's reputation for free speech being laid bare the way that the british state is very prepared to use terrorism legislation to use accusations of terrorism in order to shut down what looks to be journalistic practice good healthy investigative journalism with some of pointed to be noticeably lackluster response from the country's other newspapers following russell religious revelations especially considering that press freedom appears to be at stake the business of reporting securely and having confidential sources is becoming difficult in these documents there is the stated ambition to scoop up everything and store it all and to master the internet this is the language that's being used internally does or celia r.t.e. london. and these tales of all those stories going to be easily found on our website altie dot com and there are always plenty of stories on our website including a trickling time ball the threat level of the nuclear power plant is about to be

raised to serious paraders as contaminated water as it is seeing is seeping from one of the times but they can't even trump way it's going. to be prepared and examine drone hunting could become a new challenge it will rain a few bones as the country's military hopes to put a new security improving sumpter on the school curriculum. one of the russian far east and biggest issues is brace for months of occupations with floods expected to break record levels the deluge in the region caused by have you rains earlier this month left more than one hundred towns and villages submerged tens of thousands of people were forced to flee from their homes in search of shelter his crew has been following the emergency operation which is now advancing to the east and according to full costs this lot has not reached its peak and regional capital has barb's most of its infrastructure have been left

underwater. as the nations force. in the region are cautiously optimistic that the worst has passed and the water levels are beginning to recede however that is not the case particularly in the city of how about oscar which is on the threat of becoming the administrative center of russia's far east and also the second largest city behind got it all stop water levels that have already broken records are continuing to rise now russia's emergency services are heading east and we're going to join them. now from the skies the damage caused by the flood to split all to see one point five million hectares of land submerged under water affecting around one hundred fifty communities and attention is now shifting east up until now it's being made legal communities affected by the floods but there's a real concern that the city of cut off is about to be submerged work is on the

continuing around the clock twenty four hours a day to fortify the city must flood levels continue to rise with the peak expected in the next twenty four hours now the deputy to the minister of the plains has been explaining exactly why focus of attention is now shifting east. would a levels are finally going down especially in the northern parts of the region right now where mainly concerned with evacuating people and a cleanup operation it's a very important stage we have a lot of work to do as the flood has dealt a lot of damage we also need to provide locals with food and drinking water and we have all the equipment required for this now a cold go in the full of the ladies also heading towards the city that is going to be deployed to the temporary accommodation centers that have been set up around the region to give thinking water and shelter to those who have been displaced but with the water is not such a normalizing till mid september it could be

a few more colder planes and all they needed over the next few weeks. and carry out those calls talk with pizza out. there's a medium leave us so we leave the baby. by the sea potions to cure the play your part of the physical. push is that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politicking. r t. one of the new will show a marginal i shall be made to polish face by this time people in the.