why you should care about. this is why you should care only. big british brother is watching the middle east the independent newspaper says the u.k. is running a secret snooping station intercepting e-mails phone calls and web traffic. to syria's opposition says it will allow access to the site of an alleged mass chemical attack near damascus following russia's request looks at how terrorist groups are taking advantage of the cales being cause that. political turmoil in the military power grab in egypt won't stop the u.s. from sending aid to the country president obama says that wouldn't do anything to reverse the actions of the interim government our top story.

international news and comments live from our studio center here in moscow where it's just turned eleven pm this is r.t. . reportedly been operating a secret data gathering base in the middle east part of a one of the half billion dollar investment in global surveillance britain's independent newspaper claims it obtained this information from edward snowden's leaks but the n.s.a. whistleblower himself says he has not released any information linked to these allegations nor smith has the details. well the independent friday morning published an article that said came from leaks made by edward snowden about this secret internet monitoring station a base in the middle east to intercept all sorts of internet traffic in the middle east and then cost data into western intelligence agencies basically what it does is taps into internet cables that run into the the sea extracts that data and then

passes it to g.c. h.q. here in the u.k. and to the n.s.a. in the states is particularly valuable according to the independent because it can access cables that apos between submarines to very sensitive data and it's called the dog the project which is designed. to intercept global digital pictures the world will take to everything they were able to hold a million miles old people in the world the fact that running under the sea over the world would make our old world think that even though we. think that they don't have to be everything. that you know we're going to work you and if you cross the border and have to go through these cables the cables that make landfall at various points if we show you a map of how the cables lie you can see that a lot of them make landfall in the u.k. those transatlantic ones so the u.k. is very important in this operations need now says that this week didn't come from him atoll and glenn greenwald in the guardian says that it's the type of disclosure

it's exactly the type of discussion that the journalists working with snowden have to liberally avoid it given that it relates to middle east surveillance and the potential impact that that could have on surveillance operations that then did release that wolf notion says that he thinks it was the british government itself he says that the government's trying to trying to make out that the leaks from snowden generally harmful across the board not in the public interest across the board and that these they're doing that by deliberately releasing harmful information themselves and pretending that it comes from him in order to discredit him and the journalist that he's working directly with glenn greenwald says that at the very moment that. but the detention of his partner at heathrow airport or the airport over the weekend and the government's trying to tell the court that the really the release of this information is not in the public interest it could potentially be dangerous here is a disclosure that could potentially be dangerous it really fits in according to the

guardian and to snowden himself with what the government's trying to do where we're constantly learning more about the massive collection of data but what exactly does it mean for the average citizen. with whom this prisoner through contact with and you will be able to identify all the communications partners and also of the type of communications. are to examine what exactly intelligence agencies can find out about your life a little later in the program. the syrian opposition says it will guarantee safe access for u.n. investigators to inspect the site of an alleged chemical attack the statement follows demands from russia a u.n. official is also expected in damascus on saturday to negotiate government permission to look into the reported assault will earlier discussed how the opposition's latest statement will affect the investigation with all of the

nicholas coming. after understanding this statement came from the syrian national council which is essentially based in turkey and it's a bunch of men in suits and they're notoriously disjointed there has been a lot of criticism about their actions they can't seem to come to an agreement at the same time we also have to understand that we're talking about syria which is at this point penetrated by a whole number of rebel fighters a lot of who are actually associated with al qaida who are not exactly working together with the s.n.c. so this is the can say yes of course come in and take a look and actually they're insisting that the u.n. inspectors have to call and take a look and do their investigation within the next forty eight hours it's absolutely vital but the same time there is no guarantee that they will actually provide safe access considering that this is the area where the fighting continues between his forces and the rebel forces and of course u.n. inspection team that's been in the country for a few days anyway looking at previous reports our coverage starts but what sort of progress has it made any developments not entirely because you have to understand

that these are these reports that they're now investigating came a month ago right on the very similar circumstances again they were coming from the syrian opposition takes several months for the u.n. or the team of the u.n. inspectors to get there but the irony is that we still have absolutely no credible support to those statements as well in fact russian minister of foreign affairs said that there has been a rocket fired indeed on wednesday but it was very similar to a rocket that was fired by the syrian opposition some months ago and that rocket was indeed laden with with chemical agent of unknown origin and just finally what is the international action. is behind this alleged chemical a lobbyist like russia for example there are some countries there calling on immediate investigation there saying the u.n. should pay very close attention to these reports but there have been some studies which insist that u.n. security council should immediately look into this into the into the this. and if

the chemical attacks are proven to have taken place then the u.n. should use force on syria and russia again reiterated their point that this is absolutely unacceptable to exert this kind of pressure on the syrian government which by the way seems to appear as if they are absolutely willing to offer to cooperate with the u.n. inspection team in terms. of the town and minister of foreign affairs of russia has actually said that this looks like another wave of antigovernment syrian propaganda which is essentially being perpetrated by the syrian opposition meanwhile pressure on the syrian government is being made worse by american insisting that the rebels are not capable of carrying out such attacks michael maloof he's a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the u.s. secretary of defense and he says the media is being largely distracted by unverified reports coming from your position the syrian government has actually

called upon the un to investigate but they cannot. open up areas that are under the opposition control they can certainly. ask that the u.n. come in and look at whatever documentation they might have but so i think that this is a very serious development and what's happening is that the regular media is just assuming that it's the it's the syrian government when in fact they're being fed information from the opposition so i think everyone has to be very careful and certainly policymakers need to be very careful before they take any action it's going to be very very difficult to really get to the bottom of this latest episode the turmoil in syria and across the region is proving fertile ground for radicalized groups and that's adding a new dimension to the u.s. war on terror as well if he's got a gun now explains. while washington says he has crippled al qaeda in afghanistan

and pakistan wising from the ashes of the arab spring is new all different affiliated groups metastasizing in the middle east and africa feeling more and more comfortable in countries torn apart by terror in the north of syria in the territories presumably controlled by the rebels the al qaeda affiliated is planning to announce an islamic state terror is not the only way they're winning support their exercising its soft power to somewhere between preaching terror here you see militants doing some ice cream diplomacy with children and al-qaeda sponsored ice cream contests for kids what could be more innocent all kind of mind it or affiliated groups feel very comfortable in the post revolution chaos of libya in iraq after a decade of civil war still stages terror on a regular basis in less than a week more than two thousand prisoners many of them all qaeda fighters have escaped from prisons in iraq libya and pakistan those were violent raids around the

same time washington closed almost two dozen of its missions in the middle east and africa fearing some major terrorist attack and yet at the same time washington says this as a result of the enormous pressure we've put on the group we have eliminated all of al qaeda senior leadership in afghanistan and pakistan and because the current leaders leaders of al qaeda core so worried about their personal safety they're far less able to plan attacks the question some ask is how can washington simultaneously be sole paranoid about the war on terror and be so dismissive of the threat of terror at the same time in different countries the u.s. has repeatedly put the threat of terror on the backburner for some greater goal in of ghana's than the goal was to defeat the soviet union the u.s. directly helped al qaeda and bin laden there in iraq the goal was to get rid of saddam hussein there was no al qaeda in iraq before the civil war broke out fall. in the u.s. invasion now in syria the greater goal is to remove assad from power to offer what

helping al-qaeda directly or indirectly become that tradeoff that the west was willing to make to achieve a greater goal or whatever it was but having made the trade up the u.s. would then spend decades fighting what it had sparked in washington i'm going to check out a lot of card has been embraced in the media to promote itself recently by launching an online magazine even allegedly attempting to advertise itself on twitter well earlier this month an account purportedly belonging to the terrorist group asked its followers for p.r. ideas but the campaign was torn apart by trolls security analyst james burgett urge social networks to bombard the account with mocking tweets and one of them included a proposal to release a film in titled dude where's my car bomb another user advised al-qaeda to use more cats in their videos there's also a suggestion to open a fast food chain called joe's among other ideas was to sell as arm of bin laden's

porn collection on e bay all this trolling cause the account to be suspended but beyond the humor column cavell author of exporting made america democracy believes the u.s. is paying the price for allowing al qaeda to exist in the first place. al qaeda is merely an instrument that the united states. developed you know loans and facilitated. the argentines in afghanistan we funded the foreign mercenaries these jihadists are a security agency believe there are thirty or so. they can manipulate these your heart as. to their own ends but it's a cynical paternalism that many of the jihad is should be aware of because they see them as easily manipulable but as we saw with september eleventh to

those along the attacks on the united states and other attacks that is not the case . he lives here in moscow with you twenty four hours a day coming up for you this short break protests in egypt continue but the u.s. is determined to continue providing aid to the divided country with president obama saying stopping it won't prevent bloodshed the details on that in just a few minutes. choose your language. we can we know if you're going to stay still some.

choose to use the consensus here to. choose the opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories that imply to. choose the access to your office. news continues here in r.t. islamist supporters of the ousted mohamed morsi gathered for fresh rallies across

egypt after friday prayers hundreds took to the streets in cairo for what the muslim brotherhood dubbed a friday of martyrs well despite the return of the military to power in egypt president barack obama has said while the u.s. is reevaluating its relationship with egypt it's unlikely he will cut aid he said stopping it wouldn't reverse what the interim government does and at this point the u.s. needs to take into account what's in the long term interests of the egyptian people and of the united states is self defense consultant moeen roof spoke to a little earlier he says that washington just wants to keep a friendly regime in power the americans are ensuring that they have a friend in power they will always provide aid and this is why they're not canceling aid at all are obama's statement makes it clear that he's supporting or the u.s. government is supporting the present status of the military being in power to say that they're concerned about what has been going on the toppling of morsi and his

detention that's just trying to fool the citizens of egypt. resume normal relations as soon as the civilians sort of go back home you know or stop protesting but the military and the united states government have had a very causal relationship for four decades so that's that's not going to change. time now to look at some of the stories all t's online team has prepared for you today all in fun a monster blaze follows a tanker in eastern siberia injuring solomon causing devastation and watch this spectacular footage right now on page. plus bound to defend freedom but apparently not freedom of the written word on top of my prison bans detainees from reading russian classic make. it into accusations america is ignoring its own values on

a whim. to. write the scene. of the first trip. and i think you're. on a reporter's. instrument. to be in the. leaked german security documents have shown the country doesn't trust the new windows eight system fearing it provides the n.s.a. with remote access and that's according to one of the country's newspapers although the german government denies it earlier reports indicated the country was a major target for u.s. intelligence let's remind you of just how much data is being collected the n.s.a. has been more active in germany than any other e.u.

state targeting up to half a billion data connections every month phone calls emails mobile phone messages and web chat logs all of that data eventually made its way to n.s.a. headquarters in washington but apparently allows this as snowden's leaks indicate that they work with the n.s.a. no questions asked on a regular day up to thirty million german connections a watched and that could double during particularly busy times and how much and how exactly is the average citizen affected by all of this are these people over finds out. should the average person be concerned about their online information being stored by security services you can analyze a person's social graph as it's called so you will know with whom this prisoner is in contact with and you will be able to identify all the communication partners and also the type of communication so often and often respect events in germany the

country's highest court ruled that storing data on citizens was unconstitutional however leaked documents show very close ties between the german b.m.d. and the n.s.a. with information on germans being passed from one to the other all in the name of security says the woman at the top will not put since it's impossible to have security without inconveniences those involved in data protection say the inconveniences of now gone too far and we had suspicions that such a scheme was in place but not the sheer the mere extent of this regular and and. unwarranted and disproportionate measures that are taking place taken place by foreign intelligence services and we definitely need limits and effective and transparent controls the major worry for the individual is that a system that we are told is there to protect society is being used to keep the

indiscriminate what we do online this is tim is not working for law enforcement this is now our catching rock to us this is about taking all of our communication and allowing to identify our communication. it's fairly common practice for an employer to check out a prospective employee on social networks to find out more about who they are about to hire however the level of information gathered by security services is in a different league in. of information you could see exactly who people call an e-mail on a regular basis see the doctor the employer may think this guy's going to have too many sick days and go elsewhere using information that's supposed to be confidential on social networking sites like facebook people freely give away information about themselves but long after you've clicked like on a web page or even search for something online that information follows you like

a shadow they will know what you have been in the last three four or five years maybe what you have been interested in through all the time you might not even remember yourself would you have been looking on google but this is and will know. peter all of a r.t. early. presidential hopeful ron paul earlier joined larry king in a new episode of artie's politicking to blast u.s. government secrecy now he thinks whistleblowers like manning and snowden who simply revealed truth should be treated as heroes rather than traitors at home you can watch the interview in full later here on r.t. but in the meantime here's a brief preview. i want as much transparency of government as possible i think wiki leaks has worked very hard to make sure there's nobody's been injured in there's no evidence anybody has but if our government is doing something wrong and they're hiding it from us i think there is

a moral obligation of those people who know and can reveal that to us to let us know they should tell us but they government complains oh no they're going to release this information to the enemy why i'm not the enemy the people's not the enemy the people ought to know what's going on we ought to have our privacy is protected and the secrecy of government challenge when it's totally unnecessary and most of this is very unnecessary all the spying that they do i. know wreaking here all melty massive flooding continues to devastate the far east with more pools expected now here's a look at just how big the flood zone actually is it sprawls across three russian regions that you can see here and to give you an idea you could fit the whole of from and germany in that now there are all pockets that have avoided flooding but many more have simply being engulfed the main city within the flood stricken area

risks the same fate paul scholes has more now on the situation there. well water levels in some parts of this region have already broken records that have stood since the eight hundred seventy knots of six hundred and forty two centimeters in all thirty say that at the moment the water stands out above seven meters and with the rain set to continue on the water levels continuing to rise we could push the eight metre mark which puts the city in real jeopardy now the problem is being caused by the river which you can see behind me it's bust its banks and the real fear is now that it's going to trickle in and start to submerge the city authorities are working around the clock to try and prevent that from happening you can see the sandbags behind me dams have been built but the problem is as the water levels continue to rise the dams need to rise with them so it's a twenty four seventh's around the clock job to try and reinforce the city around eight hundred fifty people have so far been evacuated from the city or also to be

asked to leave the property some of decided to stay some have decided to go those that have gone have been housed in temporary accommodation centers in places like schools and sports arenas and sports complexes the authorities say they can house around four thousand five hundred from the city at the moment although that figure is expected to rise to about ten thousand should the problem deteriorates two planes of humanitarian aid are also heading this way from moscow including things such as food drinking water and medicine president vladimir putin is heading this way early next week along with prime minister dmitri medvedev and they're expected to assess the damage which at the moment is mainly the rule remote areas on the outskirts of the city where entire communities have been submerged and destroyed but the theories with the water level still rising this city could be at risk in the problem could yet get a lot worse. now to some other news from around the world in our world update this hour and. and this is

c.c.t.v. footage from one of two deadly blasts in lebanon's northern city of tripoli authorities say the attacks on two more skilled forty two people and left another three hundred fifty injured both blasts targeted friday prayers in parts of the city where two syrian opposition clerics are known to preach however it's not clear if either with their lebanon's prime minister has condemned the attack calling it an indicator of just how dangerous a situation you can treat is in. the security forces have fired tear gas at protesting students in colombia's capital who responded with homemade molotov cocktails the black clad youths are said to be part of the urban section of the fark terror group the clashes come amid a second wave of national strikes this year with roadblocks paralyzing many areas across the country week. the man who killed thirteen people and wounded more than thirty in a shooting spree at a u.s.

military post has been found guilty on all forty five counts against him thirteen of those charges were premeditated murder and army major nidal hasan now faces the death penalty the military jury will decide the sentence on monday as our never denied his guilt saying he planned the jihadist attack because of america's wars in iraq and afghanistan. and to portugal now where giant wildfires four times the size of lisbon had devastating forests in the north six hundred firefighters are struggling with huge flames while helicopters are pouring water on them from the air to try and regain control with very little risk to populated centers earlier fire in the same area killed one firefighter and injured nine more . iceland is thinking of dropping its bid for membership in the e.u. the country's foreign minister will consider dissolving the special committee which is working on the negotiations iceland suspended talks ahead of parliamentary elections in january and the euro skeptic coalition which took power never

restarted the asylum and economics professor at the university of iceland used to support the idea of his country joining the e.u. but changes mind at the heart of the issue is that iceland is a resource wealthy island in the middle of the north atlantic whereas the european union is a central european project to integrate these central european economies into. economic area through institutions like the common currency and the common market now. the issue is whether fitting iceland in these news can negotiate sions is like putting a square peg through a round hole. and that is the. source of the. what you call it the going backwards in the negotiations. that's brings up today for the moment i'll be back with a news team with more in just half an hour from now in the meantime pete in the vel discusses middle class unrest in our global society that's in crosstalk just after

this short break. they say geo politics is a lot like a schoolyard and while obama snubbing a meeting with the president of russia to in theory punish him for the stoughton incident sounds kind of amateur that is the kind of stuff the girl you did when you're sixteen would do cancel date just to show you how much her feelings are hurt let's not mistake the canceled meeting with cutting off diplomatic relations which is the total rejection of any form of discussion with another country which really isn't a bold and possibly dangerous but a call message but obama did was more like a minor annoyance he knows that he will talk to putin again in the near future i

mean how are they not going to talk in the next g. eight summit what is he just going to have to hide behind merkel the whole time and hope it works out or ducked behind the shrimp cocktail whatever here's a russian accent one could argue that to appease republicans he had to do something to look strong after the student but this grandstanding just comes across as silly passing something like a new jackson verda commandment yeah that is how you could shows people that you're really mad even if your anger is irrational because stone pretty much did the right thing but that's just my opinion. as a. hello and welcome to crossfire we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle writing in protesting middle.