the olympic flame is handed it to russia during the traditional ceremony in athens it will now set off a record setting tour around the host country before arriving in sochi for the two thousand and fourteen winter games. a new revelation from edward snowden's leaks shows that the n.s.a. attempted to crack a web service designed to provide privacy as tech giants try to mend their reputation damaged by cooperation with the agency. and a fifth straight day of deadlock sees the u.s. government in paralysis with economists the ringing of the alarm over an impending disaster we report on the red versus blue standoff is costing america.

and you're watching our team live from moscow i'm john thomas going to have you with us. now the olympic torch of the two thousand and fourteen winter games has been handed over to russia after covering its final leg in the greek capital and will now be flown to moscow to begin its sixty five thousand kilometer tour of the host country farmer reports on the festivities in greece and the flames of future route. well the olympic flame for saatchi twenty fourteen has officially been handed over to the russian olympic committee and it took place here at the historic high cost stadium during an elaborate ceremony that started with the greek figure skater pony artist mark courses running into the stadium with the torch that's the same torch that was lit up an ancient olympia just under a week ago and since then the torch is being doing a chore of greece with that greek leg of the relay did come to an end and you may

have seen the torch was then given to the deputy prime minister of russia dmitri and he received it from a promise who is in fact the president of the helen nick olympic committee and if you look closely you may have seen that that torch was then used to light a small lantern and it's that lantern has officially been taken to the russian embassy here in athens this before being flown on a plane to moscow for the start of the russian leg of this allin pick torch relay sixty five thousand kilometers long it will see that torch go to the top of mind tell bruce it will see that torch go to the bottom of lake baikal it will also go to the north pole and also be fired into active space for a space walk up at the international space station before coming back down to earth in time to light the limpid colder and in sochi the opening ceremony on february the seventh so it is a fabulous journey it's a journey that will cover the length and breadth of russia going across all nine

time zones and it is believed it will give ninety percent of the country a chance to actually see through its very significant it should be spectacular and it's well worth looking forward to is really trying to show the link between the ancient and the modern games that we have enjoyed today in the form of the summer games but also the winter games that take place and will take place in sochi on february the seventh. well you can head to our website for the highlights from the olympic torch handover ceremony on r.t. dot com we have in depth coverage of the grand spectacle in athens. the olympic torch is on its big journey to structure. one hundred twenty three days. through two thousand nine hundred towns and cities of russia. relayed by fourteen thousand people or sixty five thousand to one. in a record setting trip by land air. and others face.

a live torch relay special coverage on our. americas a national surveillance agency is in an apparent crusade against any online privacy according to another fresh revelation from edward snowden's leaks the n.s.a. has repeatedly targeted a web service that is often used by journalists and businessmen to make their internet communications anonymous meanwhile several tech giants including google and microsoft are currently suing the u.s. for the right to disclose the scale of their cooperation with the agency artie's lucie county office more. in the wake of the u.s. national security agency scandal much of the tech industry has been critical of government snooping some companies named as partners in the n.s.a.'s prism program including google and facebook even sued the u.s. in order to set the record straight they're hoping to fight the perception that the n.s.a.

has direct access to their servers but transparency might come with financial incentives the snowden leaks prompted dire warnings from internet giants predicting that american businesses would lose tens of billions of dollars in revenue abroad as scared users turn to local alternatives one industry nonprofit survey found that ten percent of two hundred seven officials at non american companies canceled contracts in the wake of the leaks fifty six percent of non-u.s. respondents said they were hesitant to work with u.s. based cloud computing firms some researchers even predicted the cloud computing industry as a whole could lose up to one hundred billion dollars by twenty sixteen but so far none of that has panned out in fact some of the internet giants who helped the n.s.a. gather data on people overseas say privately they felt little if any impact on their business and when it comes to internet empires some of those very same firms dominate the internet traffic across the globe. google and facebook rule most of the world that's according to

a new survey from oxford university as this map shows the only major countries not under their sway are china and russia also kazakhstan korea and japan here local providers have managed to maintain their domination of the market and there's a number of theories as to why one is that cloud customers have few good alternatives american firms have most of the market and switching costs money another reason is that tech buying companies elsewhere believe their own governments have scanning procedures that are every bit as invasive as the american programs and so despite the spying revelations it seems to be business as usual for the tech giants who worked with the n.s.a. reporting from moscow i'm lucy catherine of r.t. the founder of an e-mail service that was used by edward snowden attempted to defy f.b.i. requests to provide the security codes to the system that's been revealed in documents recently disclosed by u.s. court but a judicial standoff eventually led. to make the painful decision to shut down his

service of us and explain to our t. why he chose to do so. i took the stance that i did not try and protect a single person but because i was concerned about the invasion and the sacrificing of everyone's privacy rights that was accessing my system i know they threatened me on more than one occasion with jail i think the only reason they didn't do it is because if they had the service would have eventually shut down on its own with nobody to maintain it and the only reason they didn't arrest me after the shutdown was because of the the media the public but it's pretty scary to to think about what lengths they're willing to go to conduct these investigations and you know effectively what's going on is just completely undermining what little trust there was in commercial technology product here in the u.s. google yahoo facebook they've been fighting requests via the fai's

a court they've been fighting requests like the ones that i received. the fact is they've been losing days of government shutdown have done little to cool tempers in washington where lawmakers are still bickering over budget issues specifically obamacare republicans are refusing to agree on a spending bill unless the president's signature health care law is delayed or stripped of funding lawmakers estimate that america will run out of money if it doesn't raise its debt ceiling by october seventeenth currently hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been laid off in the u.s. with organizations as big as nasa forced to wind down operations otherwise it will mean default which would have horrendous repercussions for the world economy as professor william robinson from the university of california santa barbara predicts . if the u.s. congress did not approve or blocked raising the debt ceiling really that would spark a global economic crisis it would be tremendous for if the u.s.

government would stop making payments on its bonds on again on its debt that would throw the entire global economy into a crisis date investors institution those individuals as of what it time to pull out of the u.s. this would throw stock markets into a worldwide into a major crisis sooner or later the dollar cannot continue and this is just another sign of the weakening of the dollar as the international reserve currency and so these types of crises are going to continue to promote there's the long term context in which this takes place and that's the climb the gradual decline of the united states as a hedge of money power worldwide politically and economically meanwhile britain is dealing with its own deficit in a very different way coming up at two o'clock g.m.t. max kaiser weighs in on london's solutions. of course only in the u.k. would they come up with an idea of backing their wealth of creating wealth through property so this is the first head by max and it's turned crown estate into

sovereign wealth fund labor m.p.'s to urge basically this is a great idea because other countries like norway famously have a sovereign wealth fund from all that north sea oil china has trillions of dollars in reserves made up of a chilling us dollars and then more chileans of other currencies britain however they sold sixty percent of their gold under gordon brown they have no sovereign wealth fund and they've got an economy that's overly reliant on fraud and re hypothecation so yes i say to the queen elizabeth respectfully turn all that unused collateral into something that can help the nation think of it as being on the vanguard in this global financial war and when it's not sexy don't you want to be a war queen you can be like there's a financial war going we're going to put up the palaces collateral defy the financial war you know it's exciting get on t.v. make a few speeches you could make a movie about you you'd be the spam is that some of these previous monarchs made movies about that are now canonized in hollywood you too can be famous in hollywood

too yes. and still ahead in the program as international tensions around the arrest of greenpeace activists keep mounting we traveled to the russian oil rig where it all started in just a few minutes the crew of the drilling platform share their first hand accounts of the events that led to the detention of the campaigners. for citizens in switzerland could soon have the opportunity to choose their vocation without needing to take wages into consideration the nation's government is debating an initiative to pay each citizen an automatic two thousand euros a month the story much more after a short break right here on our two. point being the expensive car saloon. like new

clueless the new fashion show. also in designing bags and shoes in the best shop windows. but. luxury is a school. this is a lost cause. constantly on our cheap. dramas that can be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. faces change the world lights now. full picture of the day. from around the globe.

local. t.v. . and welcome back if you are watching r t russia has a rebuff to the netherlands initiative to launch legal action over the prosecution of greenpeace activists while school authorities say they repeatedly demanded the arctic sunrise a vessel registered in the netherlands to halt its activities charged with piracy the activists were arrested on the ship after an attempt to board a russian oil rig artie's may for an ocean of has traveled to the same rig to find out the crew's accounts of the events. national the. teapot over there is and. it really set to begin.

pretty as long there was preparing to become russia's first offshore oil rig in the arctic other nations want to catch up until at least two thousand and twenty very early warning the rings captain was informed that the arctic sunrise vessel was just a few kilometers away and that its behavior was out of ordinary. the worldwide automatic identification system also known as they can track almost any sheep within a twenty mile zone and know their unique identification and position course and speed if it wants to be seen for them balloons you see on the books with us on the road the boat was identified as the arctic sunrise but then it disappeared from our radars which could only mean they switched off their systems it constantly changed course and speed was approaching and then moving away from the rig again at one point they breached

a three mile safety zone around the rig for ten to twenty minutes. the captain told us he tried to contact a suspicious vessel sent a message warning it not to approach the read any closer it was met with silence the rigs captain twenty five years at the helm was also well the crew isn't tensions but you could imagine the worst he had experience with dealing with greenpeace activists before. last august when pieces of tick sunrise brought a dozen environmental activists to the platform for a protest over the dangers drilling could pose to the environment the u.s. drug use to reach the righ and eventually managed to get on it and spend about ten hours there the head of greenpeace russia used the success to accuse the rig's management of been unable to provide security which could have disastrous consequences if it had been a terror attack the official claimed a year on the pressure group tried to repeat the stunt for the captain it was like

deja vu he saw first two and then three boats approaching the rig bridge in its safety zone protected by international maritime law he should act. reaction from the rigs crew as well as border forces patrolling strategic waters was well coordinated and quick they stopped him what happened next the world learned from various videos later pasted on the web. we knew it was greenpeace vessel but as to who was on board and what their aims were we had no idea there could have been anyone there especially when we saw them launching speedboats look they used these ropes to try to get on board and two of them succeeded we continue talking to them in english they didn't the baby there was a woman and a man and this is when border forces had to intervene. with use of article four or more and they posed

a minor threat until the attempted to board the platform and that we have to prevent by all possible means because they could damage equipment and sabotage our work this raid is a place of extreme danger. then riggs cruz says it learns lessons from last year and jokingly thanked the activists for helping them improve their ability to protect their righ but for the activists themselves people from nineteen countries including russia this is no joke they're all now charged with piracy if convicted they could face up to fifteen years in jail it's off to the law now to decide regional shawty from the charas sea in russia's north meanwhile around the globe thousands of protested to demand the release of the activists demonstrations were held under the slogan free the arctic thirty which is the number of people detained greenpeace said that protests were scheduled in over forty countries with dozens gathering at a rally in russia's capital as well. u.s.

military forces have conducted two separate operations in somalia and libya targeting senior terrorist leaders in the somali town of bar away u.s. navy seals raided a villa of a leader of the militant group according to reports troops came under fire and had to withdraw before they could confirm the state of the militant leader there were earlier it was suggested that he had been killed the operation was carried out as a response to a deadly attack on a nairobi shopping mall last month that took the lives of sixty seven people another operation has been conducted in libya's capital tripoli and the american military seized. a senior al qaeda figure wanted for his alleged role in the one nine hundred ninety eight u.s. embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania he has been on washington's most wanted list since two thousand when a new york court indicted him for his part in planning the attacks. will now be

brought to america for trial. now for some more world news making headlines around the world for you this first in iraq blasts across the nation have killed at least sixty six civilians a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of shiite pilgrims in baghdad another explosion occurred inside a cafe in the north of the capital the recent spike of sectarian tensions left more than one thousand dead in september alone. a nine year old girl has been seriously wounded by a shooting in an israeli settlement in the west bank officials reported that she was hit by a single shot while playing outside the attack was reportedly carried out by a palestinian sniper from a long distance an investigation is currently being conducted. so it's could soon start paying its citizens a monthly salary of two thousand euros just for being there the idea is now for

a national vote having received the backing of one hundred thousand signatures in principle it's an extreme social safety net but those behind it have bigger plans here's our trees growth. cash by the truckload the proposed basic income initiative arrived with a splash and the promise of two thousand euro a month for every swiss citizen intended to let them live without basic financial worries imagine you're being born and society tells you while calm you will be cared for and asks you what you want to do with your life what's your calling imagine imagine that that feeling that's a whole different atmosphere parliament were presented with a petition signed by over one hundred twenty thousand people proposing the idea of paying everyone if they work or not so switzerland is set for

a referendum. it could be one of the landmark historical moments like the abolition of slavery or the civil rights movement of course those who don't want it will find excuses i know but those who do want it will find solutions and. campaign is announce their intention to spread the wealth with a glitzy stunt four hundred thousand swiss francs about three hundred fifty thousand euro worth of gold coins deposited on the square in front of parliament what this initiative hopes to do is turn switzerland huge mouthfuls of gold into the base for all its citizens when you look at the globe say ok we want to do a pilot project what do you do you pick a small country ok a contrary which is i'm embarrassed about all the independence you know we're not part of the you but here for this project it could be could be an advantage apart from being independent of brussels supporters

a sighting another major reason for this idea to be successful here. if there is anywhere that can find its way through and great now we have the ball rolling stone two way yes. no question it will then be up to lawmakers to determine exactly where the money will come from unless those financing issues are worked through and with the prospect of tax rises it may prove difficult to convince enough swiss that the idea of money for nothing is a good one the older generation they lived their whole lives in and out of the system so it's it's hard for them to actually realize what this means and they have fear of course their pensions and everything and they don't instantly get that it's actually everything placements on the old system the concept behind the initiative is that the current system of work and pay is outdated for a progressive nation like switzerland but with the question of people willing to work if cash is just thrown at them it could turn out to be

a gamble too far for votes is peter all of. the switzerland. where we have plenty more stories for you on line including working to death in japan boys of some companies are dying from strokes heart attacks and other health problems found to be related to overworking you had an r.t. dot com for the full story maybe reason is like off just a bit. on the motion page of our website we have footage from the moscow international festival which is expected to attract over three million people in the stores and much more online for you. hezbollah has reportedly pulled a large numbers of its troops out of syria where they have been fighting against the opposition rebels it's thought the lebanon based militant group had up to ten thousand people in the country but that may have dwindled to just a couple of thousand artie's policy or traces the rapid rise of hezbollah from

a small militia to one of the most powerful political and military forces in lebanon. remember this war hizbollah fired almost four thousand rockets into israel seven years on the group has crippled the missile also no problem in washington to say the group has more missiles than most governments in the world had some thirteen or fifteen thousand. before that and now according to. the fifty thousand. most small militia that emerged in the early eighty's hizbullah has grown to an organization with six malignancies government a radio and satellite television station and programs for social development it's been called a state within a state has one who are the only for this bill are is a very interesting combination it's not just a political party and not just a resistance group but a combination of both they have a political wing a military wing and an economic wing it builds

a very respectful place in south lebanon and in the places where the shia are living in lebanon are. the movement ones hospitals clinics schools as well as agricultural centers that provide farmers with technical assistance and training it supports families of fighters who die in battle but hostility to israel is the party's defining platform especially since may two thousand when the last israeli troops left lebanon largely because of the success of his beloved fighters but where is his bill as popularity peeta then opinion over the organization is divided most of the arab and muslim world see hezbollah as a resistance and social movement more powerful than the lebanese government but the united states european union of course israel and others regarded as a terrorist organization terrorist organization the terrorist organizations like hezbollah started to me as a terrorist organization to take action against its recent intervention in syria

has also been highly controversial beirut and many in the international community have criticized the group for. on the side of the syrian president bashar al assad that is human have a long. trip we go shave community in lebanon because by the way the leader of the ahmed movement. gave. the tape in one thousand nine hundred seventy four seventy five which for the first time. since the. war even a nine hundred eighty two syria has supported to develop islamists she had organization which became his between eighty two and again five. syrians gave. up this alliance grew stronger because of common cause it's kept iraq from becoming the predominant regional power and stopped israel's efforts to bring lebanon into its orbit. what i can tell you is that syria is a key element in an axis of resistance this is why no one knows for sure how an

american aggression against syria might play out of in chile not even the americans who would be pushing for an intervention in. israel has already trying to hand and although she won't publicly admit it it's widely accepted tel aviv was behind at least four military strikes inside syria aimed at preventing weapons from being transferred from damascus to his but. in a shift from her usual noncommittal public stance tentative also recently called for assad to be toppled but any attack on syria will undoubtedly invoke his beloved tell. a tsunami or that could make the war in two thousand and six look like a minus level policy on t.v. and if. coming up we look at the toxic environment surrounding the workers that provide european market markets with cheap leather you're watching or two don't go away.

recently the ministry of internal affairs of russia declared that they're going to dress to increase operations in and around the moscow subway system with a major emphasis on illegal immigration there is an odd paradox when people talk about dealing with illegal immigration in terms of what the police should do people want the police to deal with it but any means of trying to actually do anything or generally taboo any form of asking people to see ideas viewed as an invasion of privacy or racial profiling well i don't know how exactly anyone can prove they are or aren't a citizen without id and if you're looking for people who are forward and thus different then how can you go about looking for illegals without looking for people who are different profiling if they were looking for a criminal of slavic origin in uganda when the police be wrong to stop me due to standing out from the crowd i don't think so that's not racial profiling it is just

common sense obviously it is best to fight the causes of illegal immigration rather than asking for id in moscow subways but they have to do something so i guess id checks are here just. but there's a big difference between looking at someone's passport and doing stop and frisk or involuntary blood and urine tests that is when immigration control goes over the line but that's just my opinion. today the european.