m r t r. fighting in the dark a blackout in syria after a terror attack on a key gas pipeline the latest hardship to hit a population gripped by conflict. the price of crude now it's acute and here we have exclusive footage from the city of you out of an every day battlefield for families who refuse to leave their homes. every bit as secret as your thoughts. and crew tours guantanamo bay prison but mind is showing off the sterile corridor. on a concrete floor you're seeing what there is to see you know how report. of the u.s. military that's coming your way in just a few minutes. i mean you don't want to means new apologies from washington as the

u.s. ambassador to germany is someone to explain reports the n.s.a. top. private. it is a busy day for news here on r.t. today thanks for joining us as we broadcast live from moscow. a key gas pipeline in syria has been blown up leaving much of the country without power for several hours and the government accuse the rebels of sabotage with the blast reportedly being followed by heavy gunfire that middle east correspondent paula as details well we're just hearing. because funded in damascus who says that power has been restored to the country but this follows a night of panic in which the capital damascus was plunged into darkness there were also parts of. in the north and the west of the country that were in blackout after

rebels hit a gas pipeline not far from damascus that supplies power to the south of the country by all accounts this does seem as if it was a well planned orchestrated effort that had been in the making for quite some time there was also a military checkpoint in the west that came under fire there were casualties there there was also a church in the town of dumas that was bombed this is in addition to the two main squares in damascus these are the squares of my yard and our best men and they were also hit by mortar shells not i visited the town of young walk which is on the front line from where i filed this report and this is young walk south to mask ten months ago it was home to one point two million palestinians today ten percent remain the price of room so it's acute here where it's divided families

and pressured brother against brother. lee betrayed we cannot trust them anymore eight days ago abu movie and his wife came home for ten long months they'd lived on the streets not once giving up the hope they'd return this is one way to be and the will come we are coming to kill you bashar scribbled on the walls. whatever happens i will not leave my house again i would like to destroy the walls and build them again i could not be worse than this. for one year syria's palestinians managed to stay out of the conflict but the infiltration of foreign fighters with big dreams and even bigger promises of money forced the residents of young men to choose sides and take up arms against people they've known their whole lives. and i have some friends fighting on the other side we're not friends anymore the ones who displaced us from our houses and destroyed our homes are not our friends. with. each day

a bomb movie leaves to fight them but not before he stepped furniture high against the windows to protect his family from snipers life inside these bullet riddled boards is as dangerous as it is outside his two sons as vulnerable as their mother every time the father walks out the door but it's always a painful favor all movie carefully helps her husband prepare for battle she knows he needs to go but each time he leaves behind the same an onset question. every day when he says goodbye i wonder if you will come back or not like when he got injured he didn't come back i want to find him in hospital there are a lot of men like him and women like me but not a lot of fighters have bought their families back to yarmulke the snipers are in shooting range and three days earlier shrapnel from a bullet blinded up to maurice left eye but the thirty three year old doesn't have

a choice he has nowhere else to move his family and while the southern part of your milk is still in the hands of the rebels his home or what remains of it has been freed by palestinians who like other more we are fighting alongside the syrian army and. when i go to the battlefield my mind is always with my family and i hope i will come back safe to them they care of them and i pray that if i get more tired they will find tender people to look after america. the fun time is now two streets away but and he's come maids the battle hits closer to home each time they take aim to secure the streets for the families often it's a neighbor friend and sometimes even a brother who's pointing the gun back at them. syria international inspectors are right now in syria overseeing the destruction of the

country's chemical weapons also the facilities designed to build them though some are wondering whether the nationwide power shortage of here today could actually be an attempt to try and undermine their work the attack in damascus today the shutdown of damascus the power outage this is a terrorist act and right now john kerry's very happy chuck hagel is very happy president obama is happy this is what their policy is is to fund and finance and coordinate through the joint special operations command in the cia this kind of terrorist actions against the people of syria they may be partly designed to carry out a disruption of the weapons inspections because of the weapons inspectors have had all kinds of trouble getting into areas that are under the rebels control where chemical weapons we nisshin seem to have been used there's been lots of near misses mortar attack shell means and other kinds of military. disruptions of the

weapons inspectors program and much of it and i think almost all of it is coming from the rebel side because perhaps they have something to hide. the rebels are still reluctant though to negotiate with the syrian government putting together a list of conditions damascus should make the before they start talking of the bonds that were made though at a friends of syria gathering in london this week moscow believes the communique the group of eleven states who sympathize with the opposition came up with could ultimately jeopardize any chance of dialogue with a resolution from the london conference clearly says the assad regime should have no role in the future of syria and places the blame for the conflict squarely on damascus and says it was clear who carried out the chemical attack in august while moscow took issue with the wooding because it claims it could provoke the assad regime into backing out of the forthcoming talks in geneva a us defense analyst ivan eland you told us how this overwhelming support to the rebels is more than likely going to backfire the al qaeda groups are dying now

dominating the opposition they're the most ruthless and oftentimes when you have a big civil war a chaotic civil war the most ruthless conning people rise to the top and i'm afraid that the west is in an illusion that these rebels are going to be some sort of a democratic force and i think oh obama now he's wised up to that i think and he's always been a bit reluctant to get involved in this with heavy amounts of u.s. aid and i think even the turks are now attacking some of the rebel groups they're threatened by some of them on their borders and they have been supporting the rebel groups and probably steer are supporting someone so the situation is getting very chaotic but i think that the rebels if the rebels take over are you could have you know you could have an al qaeda dominated portion of syria. mark still to come on the program here with the trade with the west and east ukraine for the best of both worlds it's getting trouble those details coming up. the american media gets its

teeth into allegations against a russian diplomat based in the u.s. something he's labeled as and the echo of the cold war. ten minutes past the hour here in the russian capital another day and another apology demanded for the n.s.a. spying activities the german foreign minister has summoned the u.s. ambassador to get some answers about allegations that washington had tapped chancellor merkel's personal phone for the role of the now joining me live from berlin for more good to see you so the u.s. ambassador has been summoned just how seriously are the german officials taking this. well germany is taking these allegations that anglo merkel's telephone is being tapped incredibly seriously the statement from the foreign ministry that. alerted us that the german the us ambassador to germany had been summoned stress

the fact that foreign minister vest developer would be meeting with him in person now usually a junior diplomat would have taken a meeting like this but the german side wanting to get to the bottom of these allegations is as quickly as possible now this follows up a phone call from angle and merkel directly to barack obama on wednesday after the news broke that perhaps the united states had been listening into the personal phone calls of the german chancellor now a spokesperson from glimmer said that if this turned out it had happened it would be completely unacceptable and said that angela merkel wanted an immediate and comprehensive response from the united states from the u.s. side well the white house issued a statement saying that the u.s. was not listening into angela merkel's phone and had no intention to do it in the future however notably didn't mention whether they had done in the past so to washington in a state of denial over the latest revelations with n.s.a. spy scandals has anger merkel's mobile phone really being tapped by the n.s.a.

do you are you expecting any legal reaction to this or perhaps we're just dealing with another bout of diplomatic lip service. well we have seen we have seen action starting to take place over the n.s.a. spying revelations that have come out following edward snowden's leaks of course it started off as just demonstrations all across europe with some huge demonstrations here in berlin but we're now starting to see real developments the european parliament. has suspended the swift accord with the united states now what the swift agreement was is it shared banking data between the united states and the e.u. it was supposed to tackle terrorism it was supposed to allow investigators to see if money was being used from accounts to help fund terrorism elsewhere now that's been suspended because it seemed that the united states were using that to get banking data on e.u. citizens now also the european parliament has said that well they've tried to put

in place some tougher laws on data sharing with the with the united states and also told member states to put in place their own. their own precautions to try and plug holes in what seems to be a very leaky ship of data here in europe with all of that that leakage heading towards the united states now it's also starting to put a real dampener on potentially huge trade deals now it is being negotiated at the moment say potentially multi billion dollar trade deal between the e.u. and the united states in the spying scandal because it seems to have gone beyond terrorism which is the original mandate of the n.s.a. that they were looking to try and fight the war against terror and started to look into businesses and personal e.u. citizens well you companies in the business leaders aren't too keen to sit down for negotiations with the united states well as it was said during the german elections perhaps with microphones under every desk listening in to all of their business secrets so this has potentially huge far reaching implications on not just

diplomatic relationships but also business relationships between the united states and europe exactly peter so not just people of the world being spied on by the n.s.a. but world leaders as well but you know will the n.s.a. ever be held to account or perhaps it's just above the law artie's part of all of our thank you. well let's get some more details on this now of course live to a young spokesperson for data protection and n.s.a. spying on the pirate party and a thanks so much for coming on our team today good to see you with a mission objective over the n.s.a. is to fight terrorism the latest revelations now apparently the german chancellor is a terrorist well thank you very much first for being here. i think when we look at what came out in brazil and what came out in mexico lately it is totally clear that and as a surveillance is not only about terrorism and if you look at what the leaks of

edward snowden in brazil then we saw a list of. politicians from brazil that was presidential proved that the n.s.a. should wiretap them so i think the same thing happened with melkor and obama and cause must have known all of this so how but realistically speaking for the claim that germany was totally unaware of the us of the n.s.a. spying on it do you think that's entirely accurate do you think the german officials did and why i think if you look at what happened in germany. the conservative government was protecting the secret service cooperation between the german services and the n.s.a. over a long time. i think edward snowden is right when he says that the german secret service and the german government is in bed with u.s.

authorities and they say now if indeed the allegations are proven to be true it becomes out that it is that it's a fact excuse me that if indeed the n.s.a. has been tapping angle of merkel's phone what kind of consequences do you think could come from that or basically nothing. well as i said already two months early . if this really is there is really a proof and then there should be of course political consequences and that would mean that in the us general keith alexander has to step back from his position or. even barack obama would have to think about stepping back from his position because it is clear if such surveillance measures opera's generally approve then of course obama is here responsible but do you think that with the n.s.a. and its mission objective as i've mentioned before is to prevent terrorism through any means as they deem possible do you think they're not justified in the n.s.a. by spying on people i'm glad merkel and other world leaders and the rest of us is

the n.s.a. making the world a safer place. well of course surveillance of course can protect us from terrorism but if you look at the whole n.s.a. scandal they have been so many leaks and so many documents i have not seen until today a single document that can prove that a terrorist attack was. was came out because of the n.s.a. spying programs so that no success rate right now while all of that we see from the documents and from the leaks that came out is and buz of these surveillance measures is just tell me you talk about an abuse of the surveillance measure when it comes to the issue of the laws that are right now being pushed forward by the european parliament could be slow as effect the goal of fighting terrorism do you think. well i think what we've seen now in the european parliament is that we have

suspended the agreement or they have passed a resolution to suspend it so it needs to be approved by the nations in the european council this is one first step but then the next big step would be to think about is a safe harbor agreement and to come up with a general data protection. reform in your rope this is a process where the discussion is already running right now and i think this is a very good thing to do because you always have to take into consideration that surveillance the public private divide although these surveillance programs are done by the n.s.a. are done by the secret service that is maybe not really bound to the law in europe of course all data that is collected in any way can later be f. used and if you look at prism than many surveillance measures by the n.s.a.

feet by. by. human common mr stone but you mention the issue of prison prison was actually a relative of the genie program that was used to spy on all the diplomats inside the united nations a young spokesperson for data protection and i say spying at the pirate party a pleasure to have you want to see today thank you thank you. so washington says it buying to thwart terror attacks on our website you can read an independent report suggesting the agency's activities were nowhere near as effective as the u.s. government would like the public to believe. are much more news after the break if you can stay with us.

there's a so we leave that maybe. the same motion security. is an. issue is that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from. politic you. couldn't take three. three. three. three. three. three. videos for your media project for free media r t v dot com.

become if you live from moscow thanks for joining us today i was the most maligned jail on the planet one ton of prison keeps its affairs and scandals all tightly under wraps and also found out just how far they'll go to make sure nothing gets out and as i see it and our crew visiting the facility sent this report however this report sent to us only after have been heavily censored by the stuff of guantanamo bay prison. transparency is a word repeated by u.s. officials working at guantanamo like a mantra by those few who are comfortable speaking on camera you see the conditions under which the detainees live you get to talk to the people who are responsible for garneau we make it is transparent as possible and those preferring to remain on identifiable like the majority of officials we were permitted to speak to every

week we get media like yourself international media or local media or whatever and they're welcome to come you know we tell them what we have any journalists workflow at guantanamo starts with a mandatory introduction to media rules the so-called operation security briefing material that you guys are gathering to make sure that it abides by our policy here even though transparency is a word brought out by all the personnel we talked to on the ground we as journalists access to detainees aside are asked to be very careful about the shots we filmed all the backdrops and at the end of each day videos are reviewed and any shots deemed unacceptable are deleted this one will be ok because palm trees are not too controversial remind you of any frowned upon seaward like censorship it's in this series the program established to her. program accomplished with regulation sorry old video and audio recordings and even sketches are carefully studied cell phones are banned from camps we're not supposed to put anything on facebook or anything like that or in our even worry about talking about

it over the you know anything over the phone this said purpose of these ground rules to protect the safety and security of get more operations to detain easier not to get their vision so we try to photograph them to take down we are warned violations of media ground rules may result in restricted access denial of future visits and or removal from guantanamo bay. people just kind of mislabeled it and they have a call to get for be just not leading. giving the true picture i mean the only people who knows what goes on get more is os i'm going to news and getting the detainee's side of what goes on at get most apparently just couldn't be done after an extensive explanation of how exactly we are to film the prisoners the amount of detainee face time we get a total of one minute and five seconds through a dark glass window the reason we're given out of respect for them and and not using them is as you know. you know. making

them some kind of curiosity you know on film the thing like that we don't want to do that despite our requests to not even film but at least witness more real prison or life a high ranking guantanamo admiral convinces us that we actually have a lot more access than we think you're seeing what there is to to see you know. given the amount of time that you have here to to see if we are as transparent as possible after one minute glimpse at one our schedule is in fact all booked up i think i mean they they were taken to the detention camp kitchen to witness how well things run their will since we're not really being allowed to close to the detainees this might be the closest glimpse of their life we might be getting today we're being told that these are the meals that they're offered on a daily basis. we're also taken to the only local radio station all made up like zombies in the audience military personnel serving at the base do you do any news

related to the tom's attention can. read that. public media because you know there's enough journalists over there covering their music sports and talk radio pure infotainment rains here. and so we learn there we're not the only ones simply being treated to a show and party one tunnel bay cuba. it's been reported in america the head of a russian cultural exchange program is being investigated by the f.b.i. the security agency reportedly looking into his alleged spy activities this report to watson is that we're not going to. at this point we know that there are several outlets and american news outlets were very saying that the f.b.i. is looking into the hundred thirty people roughly who have gone there to russia on the cultural exchange program over the last twelve years the head of the exchange program you decisive is now being investigated as

a man who have who have been viewing these young up and coming young americans as possible intelligence assets the man himself the results of had this to say on the subject matter it's some kind of witch hunt to young boys and girls that have gone to russia demanding to be told to watch the hows and whys they're trying to instill a fear of russia in american society there is no concrete evidence of misters eyes of guilt presented by the f.b.i. but we do know at this point that they have found it suspicious that those who have gone on trips to russia again on a cultural exchange program i must remind you those who have gone on these programs have stayed in comfortable full tells have gone to various russian cities such as moscow and st petersburg and have on occasion even met with some people from the mayoral circles we do have this reaction from the russian embassy in the united states let's have a listen. such horror stories are reminded of cold war days it's a blatant attempt to distort the activities of the russian cultural center whose

goal is to develop trust and cooperation between the two countries but so far all this hype is coming just from news outlets f.b.i. themselves are neither confirming nor denying these reports and as we all know really the man in question mr. hasn't been proven guilty and he should remain innocent unless have proven otherwise or just a moment here on r t orks on a boy and worlds apart in. new zealand is boldly going where no government has gone before and according to reuters has decided to create a regulatory body to oversee recreational drugs that is their opening pandora's box it has at least temporarily given approval to fifty substances for sale at special

stores which are bad and most other countries the body is trying to take a more scientific approach and determine which substances are actually harmful to the user you know i've heard the argument that the war on drugs just wastes massive sums of money effort and lives and you need turn a futile battle which is true it does but the only option people give is just legalize all drugs there are a few problems with this one something is legal that tends to make it ok is it really ok for you to spend your whole life in a trance to avoid reality is it really ok for everyone in town on friday night after work to go to an ice crystal meth rampage the other problem is that the war on drugs fails because it is fighting the drugs and not the reason why people take them which is to escape reality why do people want to escape reality because in modern times or post modern times we live a soulless pointless isolated consumeristic existence of working in a pointless office job just to get poor so we can scrape by. get some cheap plastic junk at wal-mart when people's lives are empty they will fill them with something through

a needle but that's just. a lot of welcome to worlds apart committing atrocities in the name of justice was a common theme in both the levy and syrian conflict but while the world seemed to be united in its intention to bring perpetrators to college in libya it's old but the case in syria why has the notion of international justice lost its appeal so

quickly while to discuss that i'm now joined by the former chief prosecutor of the international criminal court luis moreno mr moran now comp i really appreciate your being here on the walls apart it's a great honor to have you here my pleasure the first time i have a long interview brush i like you well you know it was extremely interesting to me to see how the tone of your statements on syria changed over the last few years and you started out by on equivocally calling assad a war criminal but most recently you seem to be a bit more ambivalent and you seem to recognize that crimes are committed by both sides i wonder if you had the power to prosecute bashar assad now what would the charges be. going to say that i think we have to understand the war is remembering how to manage this conflict. when this thing happened that suddenly you see must've killings and crimes the trash can be is what about

that should make some efficient prevention and what happened is normally in the past the intervention was bombing or nothing bombing or do negotiation in conflict that you can on their sheet that's why we have to be creative and with define what is a proper way to solve this conflict that is idea just about. conflict i think your mandate at least in the past was prosecuting crimes and i think just last year you're very very straightforward about calling assad a criminal for what you called indiscriminate killings of civilians now of course this is something that many other countries like russia and china would dispute that i still would like to press you on this point what do you think the crimes being committed in syria specifically by that we know of course i'm sorry i'm sorry i never mention one you cannot have one war of them from me.