as a. russian tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky who spent more than a decade behind. and tax evasion. i missed international says hardline syrian rebels have established a new form of tyranny and forcing a reign of terror with secret prisons where children as young as eight. pride and prejudice london rejects an e.u. offer to fund food banks despite hundreds of thousands of people in britain going hungry our top stories.

this is international and breaking news this hour president vladimir putin says he will sign a motion to pardon the jailed russian tycoon because of cortical ski the businessman who spent more than ten years behind bars for embezzlement has reportedly already filed a petition to be pardoned. as more. well the president was hosting a media conference which lasted over four hours but the biggest news came after it finished he was surrounded by journalists and someone asked the question about me and suddenly the president said that the former had asked him to be released and he says the man is already spent over ten years behind bars and he is ready to sign all the papers to wed in three. who the kosky recently wrote a petition asking me to pardon him he spent more than ten years in prison this is a serious punishment he cites humanitarian reasons saying his mother is sick and i

believe taking jew account of all the circumstances it's possible to take a respective decision and in the near future i will sign a decree to pardon him artie's managed to reach. the mother by phone into what she had to say gradually with. the news came absolutely out of the blue last time i spoke with him was back in august and he didn't show any intention of filing a petition i totally support any decision of his he needs to be set free his children and even grandchildren grew up without him. because of course the used to be among the wealthiest people in the world and the more the most influential in russia until he was arrested back in two thousand and three charged and found guilty of fraud and then in a second case of money laundering and in this latest announcement from the president was we did it with applause by human rights groups would reportedly came as a complete surprise to us and even his family members. get more

reaction on this here with me to discuss whether putin did the right thing or not is. international relations and security studies at moscow state university he's with here with me in the studio and also our senior political correspondent and he said now and on the line from frankfurt we have geopolitical analyst. and john boehner he's founder and chief editor of the russia on line trade journal he's joining us live from london first of all and he said despite the much more to amnesty did anybody really see this coming it is a big surprise isn't it well surprisingly enough bad to date it's already happening people are debating whether or not they expected this especially on social networks for me personally i've been covering russia for the last eight years i was shocked mark why did it happen and is it good news for russia well why did it happen i think that first we should say that this is probably a p.r.

attempt by the putin administration head of the olympics to gender some good press coverage some goodwill towards russia but also i think to deflect a little bit of tension and anger away from the e.u. and the united states over their recent losing the bidding war over the ukraine with russia or. certainly such a lympics tainted by the gay propaganda law do you think this is a move really to appease the international community and it is a pretty sort she p.r. exercise well i think it's a very effective move in the sense that. through his sons and the foundation of the united states has been a very proponent of propaganda against mr putin russia. so that takes the. ground from under their feet remains to be seen

how mr hodder behaves when he's paroled and on release for sure he has. the line that he or i will talk about that in a minute what the implications are for putin and indeed for khodorkovsky but william is this something that the west will receive positively. i don't think so i think i think so yes. it's a sign of weakness if i may can conclude the sentence or it's a sign of weakness as the west will interpret it first you have to understand the reason for the propaganda campaign on the gay rights issue the holocaust is shoe on the pussy riot issue and so forth these are attempts to isolate russia and to weaken her while at the same time it justifies the so-called new cold war with a missile defense in poland czech republic turkey etc so. it's operate in a whole different level and i think some people in the kremlin president putin

misunderstand the nature of western propaganda they will invent issues if they don't have them or because they let some children get in there let joe replied to that because you gave a very quick answer saying he has when we will say no just quickly respond to what . will basically i i disagree i think that the release of mr holder will be viewed positively in the west and i mean that the strains of anti putin nineteen russian propaganda. are you know the l b l g b t rights issue is one this completely separate from mr cause of course ski there may be links in people's minds between hard of course and the magnitsky issue. because they're both a matter of law. whereas the l g b t. possibly falls into the

same category as pussy riot and that they're portrayed as being an abuse of human rights and so on but they are. ok ok well let me just. say these people become celebrity prisoners these are well known people in the west and this is a great gesture of suppose from putin but is it is it actually a genuine change in direction for the country or is this truly a p.r. exercise no i don't think this is any genuine change for the country if we're talking about a move away from law and justice roast russian citizens in both of these cases feel that their crime and their punishment was well deserved and i think that this could create a little bit of domestic backlash because the russian people will question why they haven't. served out their full sentence but i have to agree that i do not think that this will be received positively in the west i think that nothing the russian

the putin administration does can please. the west this point. i just want to say that so far. unlike what john said in london it hasn't quelled the anti russian sentiment in fact people after this announcement and you can debate it until the end of time whether it was expected or not a lot of the western journalists found the most interesting thing that couldn't talk for too long today even despite this enormous news whether or not you expected it or not and i think putin's in a very very difficult position because it's a lose lose position if he didn't do this he would be criticized if he did this criticize he said today he envied obama it's just for that reason that has put him there taking a big gamble here. saying that could be a negative reaction among some people but the opposition they would love to see this happening. could we see him perhaps becoming part of the opposition here the movement. oh i don't know maybe from outside of russia i can't speak to that the

terms of his. freedom and so forth but i think the the operation that holder cos he was a part of the his foundation in the west is negotiations with chevron exxon mobil and the carlyle foundation to take over. russian oil and pipelines and so forth before he was arrested. those issues are part of the dismantling of russia as a functioning state and that remains the goal of nato until this point and these gestures are going to be laughed at i can wager you that the guardian b.b.c. c.n.n. and so forth that tomorrow or the next day will find a reason to. paint putin as as weak by doing this go ahead joe you know it we want to respond to that job i don't i don't i know you want to respond to that. well i think that the tide

a swinging in london and elsewhere in favor of mr putin. just as an example last night i had i had a taxi driver who and that was turkish here in london and he had me talking russian to. associate and he said oh you're russian i said no no i'm british but i speak a little bit of russian i lived there for a long time and he said oh you're like mr putin i said mr putin is doing good things for russia and he then said i agree and i would i particularly like the way he stands up to other international countries especially the united states and i have a great deal of respect for him in fact i wish he was a teacher he said i would do anything to send my son to study. what do you make of that impression from abroad yeah i i think both the internal the

liberal minority liberal opposition in russia and the west will only read this the way they want to that it's proof that these crimes were politically motivated which even the european court of human rights has ruled that in the case it is not but that is the way they will read it that is where the western mainstream media will present it on putin sides i think it presents that he feels at the height of his power he's just had three fuge diplomatic victories in the last year. the great british protest movement two years ago petered out to absolutely nothing he's at the height of his power forbes just ranked him the most powerful man in the world and i think he's indicating by this that he sees no threat from hundred koskie or or from the pussy riot vinai anarchists and he sees this is a magnanimous gesture in a p.r.

gesture there was no international pressure on him to do this if there was if he had bowed to international pressure he would have released them long ago we do have to remember that both are due to be released very soon what are called skins do to get out in august although this does as putin said seem to indicate that any of the other pending charges against him will probably be dropped. so we demand what committee specter wants khodorkovsky is free then. well. it's hard to say these are being called a cause and what you will do i suspect you probably fairly low profile but the handlers who are around him in washington and london and so forth will try to use him as kind of a martyr figure maybe but. i think that if you have short legs i don't think it will go very far and then they say you should take this man what will the people usually say i mean are going to touch on this and that it's not exactly portrayed in the west what but russia a lot of russians do see him as

a criminal and thought he should have served out his sentence but that's talked about almost not at all in the western media i just want to be the devil's advocate and say even if this was a p.r. stunt ahead of the olympics what's wrong with that like the olympics in itself is essentially why do countries want the olympics they want the investment they want to improve their country why does it have to be a bad thing. well you know i think it can be seen as a clever move as they said they were due to be released any time soon. he doesn't feel under any threat and i think this can be seen as a magnanimous gesture it will at the very least reduce the talking point criticisms that can be directed against russia during the olympics doubtless they will create new ones but it does go some way towards the reducing the number of things they can complain about but you do say that this could set a precedent in terms of the legal system wide release a man who still hasn't finished a term for which you know he was found guilty of huge financial crawly to me and i

think to many of the russian people the more important thing is that he has continued even while in prison to play the part of political martyr he has never admitted to his crimes and has never shown any time of repentance for them which i would think personally is a prerequisite for a pardon or an amnesty and i think that this is a very important thing i think the rest. people react somewhat negatively towards this whereas when i say the kremlin is saying that this petition in itself to them was interpreted as him admitting his guilt that's an interesting little well it but nevertheless whatever you think about it is an extraordinary turn of events this is get the final thoughts from john there john boehner in london before we finish well i think it's i think it's a very positive mood on the move on the part of mr putin i think the pardoning of mr hodder koskie opens

a new chapter in the called the saga i mean this is a very long controversial story. and it goes back to the the man a tep bank where many people lost their savings and that still has not been clarified resolved or dealt with in a court of law john thank you very much indeed for your thoughts only raise a little possible charges hanging over ok yes sure that is a good point just finally. well i think this point the more the more crucial issue is. what putin what russia does in terms of the eurasian space and all these other issues are secondary in the fact that he made this agreement with ukraine on the loan and on the natural gas prices. sets the stage for a major positive development of that economic space anything else is secondary the

future of western europe of germany germany's economy lies in the success of that your asian common market and the extension of the shanghai cooperation countries of china and so forth so in that regard i think in a few weeks this woman simply has been forgotten it's a p.r. attempt i think by putin i think you misread the west as i've said before and that they will play it up with another spin with it thanks very much indeed for that just a final thought from the studio guests here and we just i think it's an interesting year for putin to have chosen to do this let's not forget about snowden manning both asked for a pardon and went ahead and pardoned. books of we haven't even actually heard whether we'll accept this pardon and if it is a possibility particularly if he has political intentions that he may not accept it he why this confusion was a legal team they didn't even know about it said well this this back and forth i

think it's very likely that there was a letter sent by whoever in that hundred consulate signed it but particularly again if he does have political attentions whether directly or indirectly he is of course going to deny that he ever requested from or about a senior lecturer a researcher in international relations and security studies at moscow state university also a senior political correspondent and he said now we hear and from frank footstep political analyst joe biden live from london founder and chief editor of the russian trade journal thank you very much ought to be your thoughts on this. if you were investors or expressing your opinion on the presidential pardon through the markets people being told us earlier wouldn't be so happy about a more critical mark to actually get up to once he is out the my sales index gained over one percent is means that the index is now on its longest winning streak since september got telecommunications financials oil and gas stocks all right using by

one point three percent on average an international investors have been calling for more transparency and this is another stage inclusions campaign to make russia more desirable place to come and invest in the south the idea of twenty thousand has been the year to fight corruption with tons of asian also featuring putin's target is now the proof is in the numbers our capital outflow a constant battle for the russian economy which has been stalling along with the rest of the globe of course by demonstrating that russia is becoming more transparent this is a way a chance of more money being being spent here most importantly tempted transfers to foreign accounts now let's talk about what is next for once the richest man in russia no one would presume that despite his company you kids getting auctioned off due to tax fraud and or investment crimes he still some of his billions somewhere but where that is the question really have a bank account in states where a lot of his family are perhaps more exotic a tax

a bird of paradise are we don't know all his billionaire days was all his money invested in ucas is gone now after ten years in prison will he be eager to start investing in weeknight in his business career or will he want to retire leave russia and spend the rest of the days with his family there is no forget when he was at the helm russia was a different country and also saw he has no power or friends left. well just to remind you how many ended up where he is now let's have a look at the background when febrile one thousand nine hundred seventy became chairman and c.e.o. of the oil company one of the world's largest state oil companies producing a fifth of russia's oil by september two thousand and three he was the wealthiest man in russia and one of the richest people in the world it was at that time he was arrested on charges of fraud linked to the privatization of a formerly state owned mining and fertilizer company and he was found guilty in may two thousand and five and sentenced to nine years later that year an appeal reduced

sentence by a year a second case against him began in december two thousand and six on charges of embezzling three hundred fifty million tonnes of oil he was found guilty in december two thousand and ten and sentenced to fourteen years but the court ruled that already spent behind bars should be included while this is off the international news for you coming up shortly after this break. journalists trying to release documents. pressure. country blocks the way to information for.

business. thanks. to children as young as eight years old are being held and tortured across a network of secret islam is prisons in syria that's according to shocking new reports the jails or printed by one of the fiercest rebel groups the islamic state in iraq and the levant its practices and laws are so harsh that amnesty

international has equated it to a reign of terror smoking or behavior deemed anti islamic can lead to lengthy sentences these detention centers and even worse cleaner nicer she's not just international researcher told us what people face in these jails there is widespread torture torture of adults including and also children the most common form of torture is flood games flogging against detainees take place on a daily. on a daily every day basically it includes flogging against children we have witness says former detainees who told us that they have seen the children as young as thirteen to fourteen being flogged scores of times their detainees are sentenced to death at a trial that does not exceed three minutes which is. outrageous

really one former detainee child us that he once counted the number of lashes falling on a child he counted until ninety four and he stopped counting any more. washington's commitment to the rebels in syria however means it's willing to talk to even the most hardline groups and so he's going to con reports washington says it's willing to negotiate with the so-called islamic front in syria just days after the front kicked the western backed supreme military council out of their headquarters and seized their warehouses to do we can engage these on a front of course because they're not designated and you haven't yet the islamic front includes groups that are demanding a hard line shari'a state it would be a strategic mistake if the us administration or europe or their allies would be engaging in a partnership and

a partnership meaning they would be collaborating with organizations that are the hardest and have not committed to become moderates or recognize the fact that if they come to power or part of power they will recognize human rights that did not happen while washington is we valuating whom to support in the fight against assad all qaeda linked groups have made significant gains in the north of syria where they've pushed out other rebel forces in the name of allah the gracious and merciful. when you're firing rockets it's allah who fires them with your hands these strikes are only a drop in the ocean the lines of the islamic state are fulfilling their old from iraq to lebannon is islamist forces are better trained and better armed some of them got their training fighting against the u.s. in afghanistan in the one nine hundred eighty s. when the u.s. was arming the anti soviet mujahideen in those days some got their experience and their arms fighting against the u.s. in iraq much more recently washington says the islamic front that it is willing to

negotiate with does not include designated terrorist groups like job and the so-called islamic state of iraq and live on but on the ground in syria there are so many different groups that the labels could be relevant residents of the town of audra near damascus can't name the exact rebel group that executed over eighty civilians there including children earlier this week. the u.s. has supported the syrian opposition on the premise that washington would be able to discern different shades of extremists they would figure out which ones are less extreme but even the report that there was no battle over the warehouses between the islamic front and the western backed supreme military council is one indicator of how blurred those lines are and how flawed is the assumption that one can distinguish with certainty between those groups in washington i'm going to show our team. britain is being accused of putting ideology before common sense first off the london turn down the offer to fund food banks despite having more than half

a million miles of the going hungry or smith looks at why. just a stone's throw from the seat of government in westminster is something that's becoming a more and more common sight in the u.k. this building's used as a food bank handing out emergency supplies to families so poor they can't afford to eat as the cost of living rises the number of people turning to food banks increases with its funding tighter all the time but nevertheless the government has turned down a potential twenty two million pounds in funding for food aid why because the money comes from the european union britain we've caught a government with a very anti european ideology appears to be more keen to. warn europe to get credit for something than to get money which can how fate hungry people are if you are starving you need some food and you pray to die and this

government's refusal to cry in the carriage is literally taking food out to the merits of the hungry the european aid for the most deprived fund amounts to two and a half billion pounds but the position britain's taken means the country will receive just two point nine million and instead of using that for food aid as intended it's expected the government will spend it on helping unemployed people find work all well and good to say critics but there are people who need survival basics now and this money is meant for them. about with more news for you with the news team in just over half an hour from now in the meantime the kaiser report is after this short break.

the parliament of yemen has put forward a motion to ban drone attacks in the country the motion is now waiting approval by the president and it's probably impossible to enforce unless they could build a really big net or something isn't it strange that now after years of drone strikes in their country the parliament just wakes up to the fact their systems are getting blown up from the sky to be fair yemen doesn't have a ton of cash and i could see how having the well equipped and funded u.s. military take care of the al qaeda problem for them for free could be really entices i mean it must be scary to be a politician with lots of power hungry terrorists about this would be the first time in history that a stronger foreign power for a weaker states battles for them but the problem is that according to the huffington post a former u.s. state department official in yemen says that every year drone attacks create eight from forty to sixty new terrorists why they create terrorists because according to the human rights watch seventy percent of the people killed by drones in yemen are

civilians you know if the yemeni government is really free from washington's grasp and really wants to deal with their al qaeda problem they'll have better luck doing it themselves with the good old rifles and bayonets pointed at the right targets but that's just my opinion.

welcome to the kaiser report and max kaiser you know this week it was reported that factory farm towns are being said the mass from the bottom of chicken cages a combination of feces feathers and on the chicken feet which includes antibiotics heavy metals disease causing bacteria and even bits of dead rodents i know if you're thinking you're thinking that sounds a whole lot like the federal reserve banking system it was the factory farm citizen consumers fed cheap credit laced with feces bathers and dead rodents and an eating chicken feet of one hundred years of old toxic debts of money printing pushed by financial disease causing banks to bacteria and both feeding the systems resulting disease on healthy consumers stacey a gruesome story that is really.