even allow them to do this the first nation to disarm without questions the united states. tens of thousands staged mass protests in ukraine's capital kiev to be opposition hopes to force the president from power by the government porter that as security services investigate claims of an attempted seizure of power. you stand with the people of ukraine. the five hundred will go to. foreign politicians fanned the flames with statements of support for the demonstrations some even travel to kiev to spur on the anti-government mood. us oil giant chevron resumes drilling near a village in romania furious locals have engaged in a bitter fight against the fracking site they say will destroy their livelihoods. the jury would use those with guns to race to the dogs. the editor of the guardian

newspaper offers a robust defense of his paper his reporting of the n.s.a. surveillance scandal he was being grilled by a u.k. parliamentary committee. you're watching the weekly here on our t.v. live from moscow i'm lindsey france thanks for joining me ukraine's security services are looking into an attempted coup by some of the opposition leaders this is tens of thousands of anti-government protesters gathered on sunday in central kiev for a massive rally the opposition calls on supporters to stage more protests early in the morning and block more public offices pasco is following the developments from kiev. there's a still ambiguity over the exact figures on this also no one saw to take over the key demands of the opposition as well heavyweight boxing champion batali klitschko

taking to the stage behind me and hurting the protests and the protesters to remain peaceful was similar tainio slate giving the government an ultimatum but i have to say despite klitschko schools we can pull this evening the mosque men carry nationalistic flights over pull down a statue a monumental lenin and smashed it with sledgehammers elsewhere today there are a number of key demands big outlined by the opposition as part of that ultimatum these include the fact the protesters should be released any protesters who've been arrested throughout the course of these demonstrations on those that come down violently on the protesters last weekend should be punished other key demands include the resignation of president viktor yushchenko vagina's government and an immediate election now on their part the opposition opposition have called for a nationwide general strike and they continue to surround the blockade key governmental departmental ministers of buildings here in the center of kiev for

their part the ukrainian security services say they vesta gating what they are calling in a tent to seize power in the country and it's also much on sunday that the e.u. foreign policy representative catherine ashton is set to visit kiev later this week to try and find a political solution to the crisis on the whole movement really has been void why support from european officials as my colleague arena galicia now reports for you were saying is not the only one neighbor seeing and government anger on its street but for some reason cleaves independence square has captured the minds of not politicians from here on and the u.s. we have seen a veritable parade of them here in the running out was with the opposition leaders and even sometimes taking them to school they just. for the crowds and yet few seem to have made the past to hear it from both sides from the country's leaders and their supporters. right there from an assistant u.s.

secretary of state we stand with the people of ukraine who see their future in europe and want to bring their country back to economic health and unity to former polish president share the supporters of euro integration must remain firm and seize the momentum of the protest this is the only way they can get you know coach to make concessions and current members of the european parliament we suffer all civil society and democratic opposition in its claim to have possibility for the nation to express its will and saudis which means every election what began as a pro e.u. push descended into an out and out attack on the leadership the usual buzzwords of democracy justice and the will of the people were interspersed with not so subtle calls for president they can acquire which to admit has been beaten i mean this is clear here it's an internal affairs arsalan hodge and they're not even hiding it

anymore so this is something that's should be unacceptable. as a democratic standard widely seen as a clear breach of diplomatic conduct it also raised questions in moscow. but i can imagine how our german partners would have felt if russia's foreign minister decided to attend a rally that was being held against german room i don't think they would consider it a friendly step meeting with opposition members is one thing but taking part in rallies that's interference in domestic a fat list that the mission early in the week the government survived a no confidence vote in the ukrainian parliament was younger she was defeated by the democratic process opposition m.p.'s went home to block the stage and stalling parliament. outside protest leaders called on people. to take over as many see because this is a sparse about what should have been a public debate on the pros and cons of the friendship has descended into a foreign fueled meddling to boost in opposition to the different axe to grind

illegals go r t. a journalist neil clark explain to our t why he thinks european politicians come to ukraine to support the protesters something they wouldn't do elsewhere on the continent the west just want to bring down the ukrainian government we want to push ukraine away from russia we have the coalition you can go into ukraine saying the government has got to change its course there's going to be fresh elections this is not democracy this is a democracy it is the green people voting election president there be another option too and it's a question of observing the democratic process and respecting it but i'm afraid these requests are not respecting democracy here they're trying to incite regime change in ukraine or at least bully the government to change its policies or call early elections it is completely wrong that it was happening in spain this was happening in greece as it has been happening we wouldn't get the mikes of polish m.e.p. germany piece going out and and show their solidarity with the protesters so the double standards are absolutely outrageous really ruling party officials are urging

the protesters to go home they said the blockade of administrative buildings is preventing the approval of the twenty fourteen budget which could have an impact on state salaries and pensions across the country so far though there is no sign of the rallies abating thousands of pro-government activists staged rival rallies in kiev and across the east of the country the polls suggest ukraine is sharply divided along geographic lines in the west more than seventy percent of people favor trade with the with europe and in the east less than a third want closer links with the e.u. analysts say that if the people refuse to choose they would back the government. if there is a pro e.u. neo orange revolution there would be a pro customs union pro russian counter-revolution so it would be the path to the civil war because let's face it in the industrial base in of the east they

know that if they join the e.u. package they would of course they will never join the e.u. itself they would lose customs privileges in russia and their industrial goods which are still being exported to russia in increasing quantities would certainly become thirty five percent more expensive which would price them out of the market in the same time i doubt very much that e.u. countries will certainly express an interest in buying ukraine real goods so even if the reason attempt at the violent overthrow of the government there would be definitely a very sizable counterforce ready to come onto the streets it is no longer two thousand and four when no one was willing to risk their skin for. this by violent clashes between locals and the authorities operations have

restarted at a fracking site in northeast romania the shale gas well was being developed by us energy giant chevron with an army of police to ensure security on site of the residents are horrified at the prospect of thousands of toxins tons of toxins actually being pumped into the land which provides them with their livelihood artie's was to cap it off is there. in a remote part of romania a day of rage and fury. protesters stormed a work site operated by chevron and police responded with full force those who didn't leave willingly were dragged away so you can see. in what country we are living the police forces are behaving like a private protection company for the show overall. but what the people here want to know is who will protect them from big business this is one of the poorest corners

of the european union but it's believed to sit on top of large reserves of valuable natural gas it's the sort of place that's changed little over the centuries and most of the residents still live off the land land which could soon be pumped full of toxic fluid in order to get the fuel underneath it's a simple everyday action drawing water out of the well for the villagers here and put in jest this is really what's at the heart of the matter the environment and the water for them it's not so much about fighting chevron as it is about protecting both their lives and livelihoods but if you have run the beef all my years i have been working on the land it is the only live the time now. during the day isn't your typical sort of protester a farmer all her life she and her husband were also some of the first villagers to speak out against chevron's plans to drill for natural gas in their community we've heard horror stories of water supplies being polluted forests no longer being green

we don't want to risk everything for this company to make a profit chevron says it's committed to working with the local community to drill without damaging the environment it insists that it is abiding by all safety rules but that's not reassuring for farmers like the silly. of a camel they could compute you destroy if we just want to protect what's important . and that's what they've done for more than a month now braving the cold villagers set up makeshift tents across from the company's drilling site chevron did temporarily suspend its operations but last week the camp was raided by the police. i was punched in the face it was humiliating rumanian but the police treated us like criminals i felt like we were thrown down to do a few booking retired ourselves together to form a human chain they were kicking ass and beating us with their bottoms i was tricked here there was another religion i was in hospital now because of how hard they had

him in the stomach. and on saturday more violence would began as a peaceful demonstration was broken up by force another arrest the protester and but demonstrators continued to get taken away in this car in some ways it's a case of david versus goliath a tiny romanian village fighting to get an energy giant chevron off of its land but despite the arrests despite the protests and despite the clashes the chevron trucks are already here and the work looks set to go on reporting and put in just romania for r.t.e. i'm lucy catherine and. many believe the chemicals used in fracking could accumulate in the soil and water and even air pollution act of us claim there are over a thousand documented cases of contamination near drilling sites help arrests could include sensory and respiratory damage environmental safety campaigner george barda says that even if the fracking victims go to court they'd be unlikely to win. you

know. maybe a poison or children but it's going to be to the people in neighboring plots of land don't pay the ones that have to suffer the consequences so huge increase rates of cancer of all sorts of a spiritual problems thousands of families have been forced to move out of that areas and one of the reasons that we're not hearing more about the specific stories of illness is that in order to get any kind of compensation from these trucking companies they have to settle out of court because they can't begin to fight the legal battles that everyone can afford. on top of chemical pollution and water contamination fracking is also blamed for causing earthquakes on r.t. dot com read how texas communities are being rocked by unexplained tremors which locals insists are down to fracking. now we demurred this week that's sweden's in on the n.s.a. spying what's more it's accused of peeking through the kremlin hall swedish t.v. reported fresh leaks from edward snowden that stockholm fed intelligence from

russia's leadership and energy giants to the united states here's what the chief editor of the news program that broke the story told r.t. earlier about their findings we have revealed the. very close relationship between the swedish defense radio authority f.r.a. and their american counterpart n.s.a. and. according to the documents. if i may have spied spying on the russian leadership and they are passing this information on to n.s.a. we got access to these documents thanks to edward snowden so for we have don't have any details more than the documents are mentioning. that they're talking about unique intelligence they're talking about classic intelligence and they also mentioning cables the spokesman of f.r.a.

didn't give any comments but. when axed asked about being. seen as a leading partner that's the way that spell it in these documents for a is a leading partner to n.s.a. then he says ok that's flattering he ses so that's the only comment we have received so far meanwhile the editor of britain's guardian newspaper was grilled at a terra hearing this week alan rusbridger faced questions after exposing the scale of the global surveillance program in which the u.k. played a major role here are some of the tactics used by in peace if you know about the during world war two would you it from some but it doesn't have a sheet of the knots. but the editor strongly defended the reporting and he insisted the accusations were vagas that national security was not breached and the articles were in the public interest rusbridger also pointed out that parliament had failed to provide proper oversight of the security services so the catastrophic

leak that didn't happen was dealt with by the n.s.c. with the following exchange. can we assume you are having discussions with your american colleagues about the hundreds of thousands of people who appear to have exposed to your information get a very much. all three of us rebuild in those discussions jim. thank you very much . the hearing sparked concerns both at home and abroad over the issue of free speech in the u.k. journalist glenn moody believes it's all part of a deliberate campaign to publicly embarrass the guardian it's theatre because it's actually for internal consumption it's really for the united kingdom and david cameron is trying to demonstrate that he's the strong man that he's tough on terrorism that he's not going to let journalists you know tell him what to do and therefore he's coming out with these statements which for the rest of the world thinks pretty crazy because everyone is saying from president obama downwards that we should have this debate about what all the limits of surveillance and what kind of oversight should we have and it's really only david cameron the u.k.

government that's saying we shouldn't do that. on crisis recovery from iceland but the government has decided on a debt write off rather than an open a line of international credit that's just after this break. i was thinking somehow i had to come back because mom was waiting for me. i just knew that everything would be fine for some reason the were so confident because we were going to get married officially and. he came back how could he not come back because the mere thought of it never crossed her mind. the militants decided to try and break through to her new guinea screaming grenade

. go to the explosion blew him will run his back. a little and it was all over all. we know that our comrades and our commander won't leave us no matter how tough it gets we're team. your boys get it was a senior in his military trio. on video he knew that if he didn't smother that grenade with his body wars just comrades would die he gave his own life to save his friend's. life from our studios in moscow you're watching the weekly here on r.t.m. lindsey france thanks for joining me iceland's economy shows cautious signs of growth after being thrown into a recession back in two thousand and eight that's after the government pursued

policy some of europe's financial chiefs condemned a suicidal now instead of trying to save its bankrupt banks the government let them go to the wall the leadership then decided to reject a last deposit repayment scheme swayed by protesters who said the plan was unfair instead every household in the country will now have twenty four thousand euros written off of their mortgage banking executives accused of causing the crisis in the first place are also being pursued by the state fessor binary economics rodney shakespeare believes that iceland setting a remarkable example. you must rely on your own national bank for your own uses for your own real economy and for the spreading and if you don't do that you'll be trapped into debt in the same way that when you got greece you've got iceland which you've got every country in the world is being tracked into increasing debt and all that happens is that they increase the levels of the debt

and smash the populations down we need a revolt against this global financial system and in its own way iceland is setting a reasonable example thank you iceland. the international monetary fund has criticised the icelandic government's policies saying there is little space left for additional debt relief measures the fund also claims that by leaving the insolvent banks to fend for themselves the country has already let down its biggest creditors crew went to two of the biggest lenders the u.k. and germany to gauge opinion sounds great yeah it was just to get rid of you perfect because then obviously you can spend that money was a real. treat said we would hope the spam is just the code so that sort of turned the money that it would make to the street well i think would be better for the country when the economy. is the public good. thing because we can afford it it would be very great to everyone could. think about us i think it's

a good thing we used to have laws in germany where you could get subsidies as a home owner but that's a thing of if this is ok. i think for individual people it would be good news but not for the country you know for the money comes from for such gifts. if you ever wondered how wiki leaks got one over on the united states defense and state department head to r.t. dot com and you get the story from the man behind wiki leaks julian assange just marked as third year in the ecuadorian embassy in london. a record level of radiation has been recorded at the fukushima nuclear plant in japan experts say that such a level could kill a human in twenty minutes get the full story online. tens of thousands of people including sixty world leaders are expected to attend the funeral of nelson mandela in a week the world has been grieving over the former south african president and

legendary anti-apartheid fighter since he died on thursday post lare follows mandela's course from an angry young rabble to a global icon of equality and compassion. he's the man who pulled a troubled and divided land back from the brink of civil war the man who after twenty seven tough years behind bars walked free from prison in his heart was not revenge i think that his greatest legacy to this country is reconciliation. in the last three decades the world timelessly polished the image of nelson mandela and image recognized around the world only coca-cola is better known better men who struggle for racial equality again south africa's ruling white minority had a dark side the world has conveniently forgotten about nelson mandela been leader of the struggle. a radical. someone.

embraced violence and as a necessary political instrument at a particular juncture in our history this house was the secret headquarters of the african national congress it was here in the early sixty's that mandela and his comrades launched the armed struggle it was also here that most of them were wasted put on trial and sentenced to life in prison south african journalist chris bishop believes the one nine hundred sixty four trial that saw mandela and his comrades sentenced to life helped turn the world in their favor during the trial. these gentlemen who were on draw the rivonia trial as they went from being the accused of being people in the dark as slowly transformed they became the benjamin franklin's of africa they became the freedom fighters they began the man of principle who is standing up merely for the rights of others and it's only to turn world opinion around from reviled terrorist to one of the

greatest freedom fighters to have ever walked the earth the story of nelson mandela is remarkable a man who stood up for the rights of people everywhere but also a familiar tale of governments putting a garland of flowers around your neck one day and a rope the next. r. t. johannesburg south africa. some world news in briefing on our highlands prime minister has he dissolved parliament has called for elections the move comes up the opposition resigned and and made weeks of sustained protests. and violence hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demand the country's leaders step down the crisis was triggered by an amnesty deal that could have seen the ex pm return to power. violent clashes have erupted in brazil between rival football fans during a match one person was reportedly killed and several other seriously injured police fired rubber bullets to break up the fight found violence has become common in the country raising security concerns ahead of next year's world cup. a series of

bombings across the iraqi capital have left at least thirty nine people dead and more than one hundred injured the deadliest attack took place in the shia district of baghdad our car exploded near a workshop peace activist. believes the situation is worse for many than it was under former dictator saddam hussein six months after the bombings in ninety one there with electricity there was telephone again there was a fair distribution. russians people didn't die of hunger people they died because there was no no and not enough clean water i'm sure on the local diseases the sanctions imposed by the united states but there were basic services that people have heard of and it's not like the situation now where the. occupation eleven years know. that there are no basic services. that's all for me

lindsay france for today roy will be in the chair next hour before about our debate show talking about his next. we speak your language. program see documentaries in spanish what matters to you. a little tentative angles keep these stories. that true spanish. visit. so the lesson we teach to the world is that the best way to defend yourself is to get yourself a nuclear weapon and of course the biggest culprit of using nuclear weapons and producing nuclear weapons and weapons about struction is my birthplace of the united states and i find it absolutely insane that we sit here and talk about iran

suppose of nuclear weapons program when you know the united states is producing every kind of weapon under the sun is spending more than every other military on the planet combined and it's involved in more war and more death and more suffering than every other nation combined and yet it's sitting there on a pedestal talking about other nations developing weapons of mass destruction. that we even allow them to do this the first nation that needs to disarm without question is the united states. dramas the. stories others to refuse to notice. things is changing the world. picture of today. from around the globe.

hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle power sign and the road ahead washington so-called peace process to resolve the israel palestine conflict has produced little if any results in fact the palestinians are experiencing excel aerated illegal land seizures palestine is quickly being wiped off the map is it time to accept a one state solution and or look to global institutions like the un to replace the current negotiating framework. to cross-talk the palestine israel conflict i'm joined by my guest so ryan support ehrlich in irvine she is an independent researcher and writer and in new york we

cross to norman finkelstein he is a political analyst and author of cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it norman you've been a great scholar of the so-called peace process of the last twenty years coming to the studio today i noticed that the u.s. secretary of state has gone to the middle east to kick start talks well i could have read that headline almost any month of the last twenty years so norman isn't it time to start a new format because it ain't going nowhere i don't quite agree with peter we have to be careful about what's happening now because i do think it is going somewhere but not the place where justice would more to go right now secretary of state kerry president obama and various other parties to the conflict seem pretty optimistic that they can ram down the road to the power.