edward snowden is reunited with his father after months of being on the run from washington's prosecution for exposing the extent of america's global surveillance program also. whenever you see the president talk about exceptionalism. what he's trying to say is the rules of civil behavior. doesn't apply to him we can be said of tells it as it is as he talks about the future of the freedom of information in an exclusive interview with. the red cross lashes out at austerity which is likely to create social unrest and extremism hundred twenty million europeans now live in. the brink of poverty in just a few minutes we'll be going live to one of the representatives of the red cross right here on r.t.

also. a massacre pro-government civilians in syria human rights watch reveals details of a rebel atrocity our top stories this hour. live from studio center here in moscow where it's just to nine pm this is. edward snowden has had a good few days having been reunited with his father in russia and honored for blowing the lid off and this a surveillance operations the interest around the intelligence leak has launched a new debate about whistle blowing and the role it plays on the details. edward snowden met with his father at an undisclosed location presumably here in moscow he said there is little hope that he son will ever go back to the u.s.

because in the u.s. edward snowden is most certainly facing jail time and judging by the significance and the scope of his revelations it could be a lengthy one and also judging by the way the u.s. government treated other whistleblowers together with law and snowden in moscow the group of whistleblowers who supported word they delivered to his sam adams the war gates awarded to an intelligence professional who has in the view of the award julie taken a stand for integrity and ethics this thursday we were they were in our studios here in moscow discussing their meeting with edward snowden as well as what it's like to be a whistleblower in the u.s. now take a listen here's a snippet of the panel we had here on what he has done is turn the conversation to discussion not just the united states but around the world in terms of the direct threat to the sovereignty of individual citizens people need to realize that there's a greater issue of human rights that is brought up by asylum and the fact that a number of people involved in his case like sarah harrison glenn greenwald laura

portress people are having trouble even moving around and getting where they're going i can speak personally and say we weren't worried about coming into your country we are worried about getting back into our own country and and that should be to the already united states of the end of the rule of law that's one change itself from its very own constitution the mechanism by which we govern ourselves so when you when you as in as a rule all use a secret law or interpretations of law we're in a whole new ball game it's pandora's box. we also spoke with julian a solider the man who is at war with secrecy he is now holed up at the embassy of door in london he can't travel to ecuador even though there is he received the asylum there he is afraid that he will be extradited to the west in an exclusive and extensive interview with my colleague mr science talked about what in his opinion needs to abuse of power whenever you see the president talk about

exceptionalism what he's trying to say is the rules of civil behavior. doesn't apply to him. whether that's in very another country or where the abuse of lords. then mr our science went on to talk about what happens when the government treats were suppliers as spies when it accuses them of espionage and the obama administration has charged more whistleblowers with espionage than all previous administrations combined you can find the full version of the interview with julian assange on our website r.t. dot com a red cross study has concluded europe is spiraling towards mass unemployment and inequality that's more than a phobia due to illegal immigrants and political and social unrest a ripening in the zone where one hundred twenty million people are now living in or very close to poverty the report also claims that used tackling of the debt crisis

will be felt for decades is all these factors are combining to create a europe whose future is more shaky than at any time off to world war two when it's talked more about europe's problems with kraemer he's the head of communications at the international federation of red cross so you're saying that europe's future is more precarious than any other time since world war two and yet we're hearing about economic indicators suggesting that europe is slowly coming out of recession so it's not that bad is it. but for us we made a mapping of forty two countries for our red cross red crescent national societies and the picture which is coming from this my being is indeed quite scary in terms of increased vulnerability in terms of number of people getting poorer of the world and that's a new poor us across europe so i will impression you that even if there is an economy of down there is a reason for all these people to suffer for decades because it takes time to

recover it takes time to get your livelihood and our concern is that these economic crises is becoming a protracted social and human you don't crises so this long term impact it's having an effect what on everybody who is on the poverty line in europe what we're talking about the southern countries that are experiencing war economic problems than perhaps the stronger performing economies like germany or is everybody affected everywhere. so the picture is very mixed of course you know that the countries where we feel are the most. affected. for example. we think that led us way and are very effective we know that spain and italy of course have mentioned the increasing social issues related to the economic crises so we know that indeed in some countries it seems much better we feel that inequalities is on the rise the number of pour is on the rise the research of

adding cuts on air of budgets is absolutely pregnant and of course the situation of migrants is. among the most vulnerable to be but of course the situation can trigger some risk of discrimination an increase of a chance and we have some concern about that xenophobia can be directly related to these austerity policies. it could be related absolutely we know that spotty is triggering but then surely increase violence it's a mechanical factor so we know that if not taking care of these social crazy that we can observe in many countries today the risk of increased violence is real when you put in perspective for us we will have an image of what poverty is like in countries such as india but what are you talking about in terms of poverty in european countries something similar to that. not seen you know in the sense that it's for example the factor for us which is extremely

worrying is the number of your boss i mean we have nine per cent of europeans today in jobs but they are on the other poverty line or and we know that for these people it would be extremely difficult to recover another example is of course about chills and employments we have an increase of an employed which are going through a red cross red cross and services we know that for example in spain the spanish red cross eighty per cent of the people there are serving being young unemployed people and that's extremely worrisome for the future of course the last example as well it's just briefly so clearly the red cross is already feeling an impact on this and helping people is though the red cross being listened to by those governments who are still pushing these are sturdy measures just briefly. but that's the call to action we want to to raise for the for these three bodies we need to get on she safety nets for everyone because we know that when the safety nets whether it is in terms of health. budgets if the seti nates are disappearing

the risk of poverty the risk of increased tension the risk of increased discrimination across europe and countries can ease extremely being and we need to be sure that is humanly turn crazy that i wore red cross red crescent societies are observing in many countries today doesn't turn into a moment of crisis in europe. what it said it makes disturbing reading your report there thank you very much indeed the head of communications at the international federation of red cross live here in our to much appreciate your time thank you to syria now where rebel forces were responsible for a civilian massacre in august now that's according to a report by human rights watch the u.s. based ngo carried out its own fact finding mission in the war zone and according to the watchdog an opposition offensive killed nearly two hundred villages living in pro assad communities the report calls the atrocity a coordinated attack suggesting it was premeditated based on the scale of the offensive the findings conclude the massacre was systematic and part of

a concrete policy in strongly suggest that crimes against humanity were committed and calls on the international community to bring the perpetrators to account when earlier i spoke to joe stork he is the acting middle east director at human rights watch and he says the foreign backers of the rebels could be considered equally responsible for the killing of innocents all the ones that we identified not being combatants not being. fighters on the government side women children elderly people people who you know there was actually no military excuse military reason why they should have been killed but where there were individuals who are citizens of kuwait. primarily kuwait gulf states are known to be funders and supporters of some one of the recommendations we make is that those governments kuwait for example restriction on background funding and we put out we

made very clear that if this kind of funding. continues to these groups that have been identified as responsible for these atrocities if that continues going forward the funders themselves could be considered or. i will bring you more in syria a little later in the program including details all the chemical disarmament process which has now been graced with the nobel peace prize also coming up in just a few minutes from now. to bring in the people seem to return the right group of people what made the statistics we talked to british activists seeking to name the many civilian victims of what the u.s. calls strikes in pakistan.

please please take me to take a. look. back with that right there oh. please. please. please. please please please please please. please. for. a.

i. use continues here in r.t. this year's nobel peace prize has been awarded to the organization hard at work dismantling the chemical stockpiles in syria experts from the group recently entered the country following international agreements which russia helped mediate let's get some reaction now from but as you know analyst and author of myths lies and oil wars f. william now will this prize really help this organization do its job in syria which after all is a hugely challenging tosk isn't it well i don't think the nobel peace prize is going to help the lemonade the chemical weapons out of syria i think i think that's going to be done on an entirely different level. i think the awarding of the prize

to that particular organization was really a political dodge by the nobel peace prize committee the norwegian parliament committee that awards the peace prize. in point of fact it should have gone to president putin and say this because he was his intervention into this entire process that gave obama and his scape route out of what potentially looked like it was going to be world war three and the organization is the organization designated to do such a removal job but it they did not make the initiative so i think it's a little bit strange that the committee awarded the prize today to the organization but it seems to have had a habit of awarding institutions organizations the e.u. last year and now this one and not actually individuals at the moment is there any reason for that do you think. well i don't know they awarded it to president obama before he even sat down in the oval office almost and they awarded it to henry

kissinger a few years before. they've awarded it to doctors without borders but i think they're keep in mind that the norwegian parliament peace prize committee is. very much a political body and it's very much connected to the nato agenda both in the civilian side and on the military side so if you look at a pattern of the awarding of the peace prize over the actually over several decades you get the very strong impression that it's underscoring a certain western agenda certain globalization the goal is for them to be well let's talk about this mission in syria at the moment some of the rebel factions have refused to sign up to the chemicals disarmament deal will they actually hamper the process and after all this initiative surely could be a step toward some sort of resolution to the crisis in a country. yes well it's hugely important to the change in the whole syrian

situation on the ground and every evidence that i've seen including from israeli accounts are that the. assad government in syria is cooperating with the removal process so but these rebel groups and we're talking about the al qaida linked al nusra and others. the same groups who were involved in the massacre of women and children back in august that you reported on earlier from the human whites rights watch report so they're i'm sure they're going to try to hinder it in whatever ways they can the question is whether the foreign backers of the bandar. prince bandar from saudi arabia the saudi intelligence chief and the saudi money in general has been backing al-qaeda in syria up until very recently if they're going to send a very strong signal to pull back and let the. weapons be removed peacefully so

that we just don't know yet complete chemical disarmament bonnin next summer which is the deadline that's going to be a big challenge and not necessarily a realistic one bearing in mind the second stances well apparently it's going to looks like it's not as complicated as have been had been feared by reports i've seen so it may be that it proceeds more quickly let's hope so certainly hope so great. political analyst on all of myths lies and oil wars thank you very much indeed for your time here not. or we've just got some news in here on r t concerning another boat carrying african migrants that set of capsized in the mediterranean reports are saying that the vessel with hundreds of people on board got into difficulties off sicily that's according to italy's navy it's believed more than two hundred currently in open waters italian navy ships and helicopters are at the scene or just last week more than three hundred migrants mostly from eritrea and somalia drowned near the italian island of lampedusa in

a similar incident to stay with r.t. for more updates on these developments there in the mediterranean. with the u.s. reluctant to admit how many civilians have been killed in its ongoing drone war in pakistan a u.k. nonprofit group has been searching for the truth and they're looking beyond simple numbers as our t.v. reports. i want to make sure that people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties that for the most part they have been very precise precision strikes against al qaeda and their affiliates for the most part being the operative phrase one organization is taking american statements like these with a pinch of salt and looking at just how precise these so-called precision strikes are according to estimates u.s. drone strikes have killed over two and a half thousand people in pakistan's remote tribal region since two thousand and four but london's bureau of investigative journalism is going beyond those casualty

figures and trying to name every single person killed by the cia's the use of drones in waziristan we've been recording the strikes and recording the number of people killed and now we want to move on to a new phase of the project to start recording been millions of the bad this is to help bring transparency to the public debate about the use of drones in pakistan but also more generally to bring return the people see manatees to return to flight with their people what made the statistics already the project has the names of two hundred ninety five innocent victims among them ninety five children there's a fundamental problem with the whole strategy of of using drugs almost inevitably this kind of remote controlled killing is going to increase the number of civilian casualties it has a tendency to towards indiscriminate assassinations there's

a kind of there's a kind of a gulf between you and your potential targets which i think inevitably leads towards a kind of trigger happy approach to killing in pakistan drones are deeply unpopular the country's u.n. envoy recently renewed calls for the strikes to end the continuing to violate pakistan's sovereignty international law and hume. right you read about the accounts of what the experience of drona times were actually like for local people and was there is that in afghanistan and elsewhere you have these and the pools just in the air bring over communities for twelve eighteen hours which creates a feeling of being in imminent strife creates enormous amount of tension and fear families have to leave the area the cia which runs the drone program has been accused of shielding it from being accountable to the american people as a civilian organization carrying a war across the border into the country essentially it's all countries as far as

we're aware the united states government is the only country outside of it because we believe that we should bring transparency to those actions so that the public face of america so the merits of the humanizing the innocent dead could be the first step towards opening up that debate remembering that civilian victims on names not numbers. are. activists across the world are preparing to run against genetically modified food giant monsanto hundreds of cities and more than fifty countries are expected to take part in saturday's march demanding a permanent boycott of what they call franken foods and helpful chemicals a previous international protest a may brought around two million people together they blame the g.m. john for polluting the environment and falsifying safety records but the company insists it's playing a key role in feeding the world's rapidly growing population and jeffrey smith he's written extensively about the dangers of g.m. foods begs to differ. when you look at being an edible feeding studies are

genetically engineered just the american academy of environmental medicine they said there's gastrointestinal problems immune system problems excel aerated aging organ damage reproductive disorders there's massive infant mortality multiple massive tumors early death there are so many things that are going wrong with me and i don't. bills that are being said g m o's and now we're seeing those things rising in the u.s. population since g m o's were introduced the current generation of g m o's has nothing to offer feeding the hungry world eradicating poverty so this is just been a public relations pin and they spent two hundred fifty million dollars over five years trying to convince americans that they needed to accept g m o's because it would feed the world i ask farmers all the time what do you think about santa even those farmers that use monsanto seeds often hate monsanto or fear might set to work

oh so that's why monsanto has been continuously voted as the most evil company on the planet year after year with stiff competition well we'll be closely following the crowds taking to the streets to protest against monsanto on saturday both on air and online. dot com military service is generally considered to be an honor but in israel ultra-orthodox jews in the still in the army a coming under attack from their own hassidic communities who see this as a sin. explains. it's the basic mission of a soldier to fight for his or her country but for the few hundred ultra-orthodox israeli soldiers the fight is on two fronts they're also coming under fire from within their own hasidic community it's for serving in the israeli defense forces in the hardcore religious neighborhoods the graffiti warns religious soldiers that if you made it here in the wrong place it was even a flyer distributed saying that to kill an ultra-orthodox soldier is

a blessing the soldier once his face blurred because he fears reprisals myself experienced in. those communities where. of twenty you can see them were surrounding reno sheltering. preparing grace for you and your friends and all. the harassment is gaining momentum is now even a phone hotline that's been set up so people can snitch on those they know are serving or they've seen in uniform it's gotten so bad that ultra-orthodox soldiers say they now ship the uniforms before coming home in these religious neighborhoods there's room for only one type of uniform the traditional black and white god worn by hard line observers those from the wife who was reading this call in uniform in jerusalem and they stop this call to speech. and then run away the problem is that most ultra orthodox jews believe the army is an unholy place many also refuse to recognize israel as they say they cannot be

a jewish state until the messiah comes and so fighting for the one via the other oversteps the boundaries of what's acceptable so basically of her only community is a conflict between how to relate. to the country and to the secular people in the country and they see those soldiers who are going into the army and that later integrating into israel certainly something that's important in. thing into their way of living for sixty five years the ultra-orthodox who make up about eight percent of israel's eight million citizens have largely been and now to skip compulsory military service to pursue their religious studies but the government's now decided enough is enough and the cabinet has approved a plan to gradually end automatic draft exemptions but when it just leaders are warning if the law passes it will be a declaration of war because. the issue is very simple the state is trying to turn

the ultra-orthodox into becoming more secular they say it openly they want to be incorporated into israeli society and remove us from what they call our ghettos of we see that as a war on our way of life on our religion we feel persecuted for the small number who do serve in the army they've been branded as collaborators and sellouts but the assaults don't bother david he's encouraging other ultra religious soldiers to follow in his footsteps after already serving a year and a half in combat he's about to be enlisted to become a commander i feel every every join us sir. it is only because it's the from the it's on. but. keep it was pieced together tape in a possible is a battle that has yet to be for. them. so that brings up today for the moment more news with me in the team and often out in the meantime cuts through the

spin of the mainstream media breaking the set is just ahead. you know it's getting old trying to beat the war drums to invade iran i think the let's invade iran talk has been going on since i was in college to keep the saber rattling rolling israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu declared in front of the un that iran is building nuclear weapons that could hit new york in three to four years no he said new york obviously he is trying to spook a certain country with nuclear destruction the delegates from namibia were probably unmoved sadly this time netanyahu failed to bring a funny cartoon bomb picture with him like in his two thousand and twelve un speech in which he also warned the world about the threat of a nuclear iran you know i might be more optimistic about israel accusing other countries of being nuclear threats if they had a better track record themselves although israel is

a bit candid with their arsenal according to a b.b.c. article the federation of american scientists believes that israel's arsenal has grown to about two hundred nukes based on their surveillance of ever expanding facilities inside the country also let's not forget that israel has plenty of ways to deliver those two hundred nuclear bombs if the need be so my question is why should we automatically trust israel with a lot of nuclear weapons but not iran is it because they're bureaucrats where european suits and shave i don't know it just seems to me that disarmed countries are better advocates for nuclear disarmament but that's just my opinion. hello hello hello i'm abby martin and this is breaking that the set since obama took office there's been a total of eight people charged under the hc espionage act the world war one piece

of legislation that was designed to prosecute. this is an unprecedented number in fact more americans have been persecuted for exposing information under obama than all other presidents combined i'm sure obama's war on whistleblowers investigative journalism is nothing new what is new though is a report released by the committee to protect journalists who are going to highlights how obama's aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers along with the broad surveillance of journalists makes the current administration the absolute worst on press freedom since the nixon now i know i report on this issue ad nauseum you're probably sick of hearing about it but just to show you the broad agreement with this viewpoint the c p j sites dozens of journalists from across the media sphere that concur take for instance david sanger of the new york times who said quote this is the most closed control freak administration i have ever covered or jane mayer of the new yorker's said it's a huge impediment to reporting and so chilling isn't quite strong enough it's more .