president. to syria. to the negotiating table. we talked about how they are changing the world.

the world. thank you for joining us this news just in. so one of russia's highest profile prisoners the former oil tycoon mr khodorkovsky is now set to walk free he spent a decade in jail long tax evasion charges. big surprise. reports. he may well be one of the most well known prisoners in the world but the idea of a pardon for former russian tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky was unexpected to say the

least rather really 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 a four hour q. and a and not one question about fred of course ski and then this if you don't know who the kospi recently wrote a petition asking me to pardon him he spent more than ten years in prison this is a serious punishment he saw as humanitarian reasons saying his mother is sick and i believe taking jus 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 the former c.e.o. and founder of the oil company yukos built a fortune that made him russia's richest man after the collapse of the soviet union snapping up state assets at a bargain price in often dubious circumstances other course the fall from grace

began in october two thousand and three when he was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion he and his business partner plateau never dead were found guilty in two thousand and five and handed eight year sentences four years later fresh charges were brought against the two men and twenty ten both were convicted of money laundering and embezzling two hundred eighteen million tonnes of oil worth twenty seven billion u.s. dollars. holder called skis here by sentenced to fourteen years in prison. word of his pardon and imminent freedom came as something of a surprise for all sides including apparently his lawyers debates are raging over whether this is a pair start a smart move but most intriguingly about what's next for mikhail khodorkovsky and he's now a r.t. moscow. yeah i mean they were saying what is next for khodorkovsky what will his role be in russia when he walks free of foreign affairs analyst martin say if he

says he'll never be the man he was back in the one nine hundred ninety s. what is not going to happen is that he's going to be a credible figure in russia he was significant in the one nine hundred ninety s. because of the twenty first century for two reasons first of all because of his vast financial wealth and political clout from putting together you cosyn the first place and he doesn't have the yukos conglomerates. they said more so that's cool and secondly it was a figure from the one nine hundred ninety s. he was able to amass so much wealth so far as the oligarchs in the chaotic yeltsin era right after the collapse of communism this is now in history in russia meantime in europe has been reserved a reaction to the news of course a cough pardon the chancellor merkel saying she's been discussing his release and it's glad it's finally happening and the head of the european parliament martin scholtz he called president putin's decision progress meantime across the atlantic

though it's all quiet on capitol hill nature can report on. their reaction in washington to the news about their upcoming release is very muted it would be fair to say there is no reaction other than perhaps a written statement from senator mccain has been bashing president within three years and he wrote this russian president vladimir putin's announcement today that he may pardon me that uprising and welcome news well first of all sent a mccain misinterpreted the president's announcement a little bit it did not say he may pardon you said he will pardon us media said that the decision had to do with the olympics this late for example ran an article saying that it's because of pressure from the u.s. that president putin is pardoning because of the cost but again no official comment here in washington. all right let's get more details on this breaking news story here on r.t. international let's cross over with the go to piss going off we can speak to him on the phone right now yeah go to rory here in the moscow studio breaking news here

what can you tell us about this or were you just a few minutes ago you became known that the president had already signed the ruler to release about of course becomes just less than twenty four hours after he had been you like he was trying to do so. we found out that the former tycoon had asked the president for a pardon. going to push him agreed that the man has already spent over ten years behind bars is mother. going through some health problems he said he was ready to sign all the necessary documents just go away and it could be good for the. court to just be to create also a minute to go we're going to be on our way towards the. detention facility where couldn't. we even yet see him to be our house outside we will also

know that you were. on his way to the former take. his going off with this breaking news here that the russian president has now signed a pardon for the former oil tycoon jailed ex tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky we're now getting reports that he may actually be walking out of prison in the absolutely immediate future now russia's act of mercy it hasn't gone unnoticed by activists in the united states calling for president obama to grant a pardon to a contractor turned was simple edward snowden who of course has faced a witch hunt from washington for unmasking the n.s.a. is all seeing eye for story coming your way a bit later here on r.t. international. all right for now the european union's credit rating has been dealt a blow to standard and poor's downgraded it from aaa to double a plus the agency said the blocks financial profile has deteriorated let's get more on this now ati's peter all of a is in for us and good to see you peter so ultimately the european union no longer

at the top of the tree when it comes to its credit worthiness is might be shining sending shocks to the markets what do you know right now. well what we've heard is that s. and p. standard and poor's the financial services agency have decided that the european union's credit rating of aaa was too good for it so they've downgraded it one point to double a plus now the reasons that they've given for this is they said that the financial profile of the e.u. deteriorated also that there was a lack of cohesion within the european union and if you look across the individual economies that make up the e.u. well it's it's quite clear that there's winners and there's losers economically here in germany things are looking pretty good when it comes to the economy it has risen sharply towards the end of twenty thirteen the amount of business that's being done however you look elsewhere look at france where it's deteriorating and it's also other countries like greece which is still suffering from extreme

financial problems economic problems there you can see why they've done this now just this last week the you agreed that they would they agreed in principle how they could put together a banking union perhaps this was an attempt to to assure their creditors that they were trying to get some cohesion the fact they put that plan a plan in place doesn't seem to have of sway them one bit in the slightest now so the e.u. overall credit rating being lowered to double a plus that follows the likes of member states like france italy and spain who all suffered a similar fate now if you actually look across all of those contributing to the e.u. budget becomes even clearer why they've done this the average rating by s. and p. for those contributing is is just being downgraded itself from double a plus to double a that reflects the fact that there are some countries that are doing better than others and there isn't that union within the european union when it comes to finances now one of the countries within the e.u.

that has seen the the green shoots of resurgence is ireland they were able to leave bailout conditions just recently however as my colleague tess are still reports it's still not stopping the irish from looking abroad for better options. despite painful a steady three years and counting the irish capital of dublin is relatively bustling but the same can't be said for all other parts of the country carlo wants home to be are your sugar company that at the forefront of industry now stands empty this sound is only one hour away from dublin but niles apart in terms of the economy even if you just grab a surface a look around you'll see a lot of these boarded up houses or shop fronts or for sale signs a shadow of what this used to be this is the same tree. for three hundred euros. fifty period. while the government heralded arlen's exit from its international bailout as

a success many find little to celebrate with others having long moved on in search of greener pastures people with skills people with jobs and i live in the country we thought that we put behind us the black plague effectively immigration out of the country and now it is back growing sectors of this economy which are importing workers from outside of ireland on high wages with high skills and so forth completely deservedly but that is starting to draw these and little bit of attention within the population as well the european commission statistics office figures show thirty five thousand more people left arland it arrived last year making arlen go from having had the highest net immigration levels in europe to the highest net emigration in just six years if anyone. did leave he said we want. you. here and when young emigrants do come back it won't come as

a surprise if they're just back for the holidays like feel one who had just arrived from perth he left two years ago after completing a science degree and went on to become a videographer in australia there wasn't anything so. keeping it here besides my immediate family really all my friends who go it's a londoner canada just completely across the world so i made a very easy and while the holidays draw back the irish to their native land it will take more than a bailout exit to keep them home does are still your r t r. r r t international coming to you live from moscow syrian kurds want their own delegation for next month's peace conference on syria it's known as geneva two and just last month the group declared an autonomous a government deep inside the country now kurds are a large ethnic group in the middle east and the majority of them live in the region known as kurdistan it's the area well it's right around here and it's bordering at

least four countries we've got turkey syria iraq we have iran and the total population of kurds there in all of the regions is forty million now they are one of the world's largest ethnic groups without their own state but as artie's polis live reports history could very soon be in the make. discriminated repressed and divided for years the kurds were the scapegoats of the middle east but now the fortunes have turned resilient and hopeful history is on their side for four thousand years kurds lived in iraq now they're enjoying defect autonomy and many believe independence is not far away but is now practical is not run by a powerful state in baghdad and strongly believe that we are moving towards. a full independent kurdish state in the north of iraq across the border in turkey as much as twenty percent of the population is kurdish their fight for independence

has long been a thorn in and her side but. always called for a kurd fighters they have more weapons and they'll never give them up easily but it's in syria where the kurds face the toughest fight they are caught up in the middle of a bloody civil war their territories are being claimed by al qaeda their villages raided their people killed residents of this kurdish village of pursue fina forty five kilometers from aleppo say all it does is make them tougher fighters they are prepared to die to protect their land and their people. now every night they want to restart the clashes but now we're well prepared because we made new bunkers so we have more ability to them before if they attack us we are ready to defend ourselves but if they don't we want to attack anybody. with such a strong fighting spirit and even stronger desire for sovereignty the kurdish influence in this part of the world is growing and arguably it might be only

a matter of time until a new state appears on the map of the middle east policy or r.t. . well let's give the latest here on r.t. international we've got a breaking news story for oil tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky is about to walk free as president putin has just signed his part and we can all talk to his mother live on the telephone here on the program meaning marina. hello it's a rory sushi here in the studio marina he's been jailed for ten years and you could be reunited within days how you feeling right now. could you please repeat the question i'm so sorry it's rory sushi here i was just saying that you know your son has been jailed for ten years and now you'll be reunited what could be within days if not hours how are you feeling right now and.

we're having some having some issues here with the already over here maria hi it's rory sushi and aussie international we're going to try and get back to you in just a few moments here on the program please stay with us and thank you. for your patience here i mean still to come in the program going. through the veil of the workings of and wiki leaks we talked to one of the creators of a road film shot by julian assange team of journalists who embark on a trip across central asia trying to find a place where the leaks would be welcomed. wealthy british style. markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike stronger or a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kinds of reports. from some of the sixteen percent imports came from. the european union is ironically taking fish from some of the poorest nations on earth so this is a very serious and very urgent problem that needs immediate international action. on the territorial waters they fish they load the fish into the ships and leave for europe. to day illegal fishing just taking the bread out of our mouths.

it's all an international live from moscow american activists are calling on president obama to pardon edward snowden of course he's still in russia on a temporary asylum u.s. authorities want him to stand trial for leaking details on the n.s.a. snooping well the plight of whistleblowers to suddenly been documented a very well then a new form called media star is out to be shot by a crew of wiki leaks journalists and it costs live on that dangerous mission to seek any media outlet that will publish or even broadcast their wiki leaks secrets . it's been described as a wiki leaks or road movie following the journey of a group of wiki leaks associates across central asia searching for media outlets to help publish secret diplomatic cables with making it. something which which i would like to call an acid test and our us interest was one

of the u.s. state department cables where you give these cables to certain. publications and see how they react to it most of the publications had difficulties in responding to and publishing secrets that had to do with the united states with empire and our yohannes well strong helped direct the movie although a feature film wasn't the original plan initial goal was to actually distribute this material that bradley manning allegedly makes to work in weeks and. in that attempt to get the material out to the public and people will realize that there were. some interesting things happening in the way that the media were actually reacting to it the team traveled through central asian republics from kazakhstan to us occupied afghanistan all in an effort to partner with local news outlets to redact and then publish relevant cables do it with. social diversion

resign your bills you were to do more with. the other. question is to. get. another thing to this notion in case after case editors would initially show interest and then back off. the meat was surprising. not as much. the idea that these countries are bastions of free press or not but i was more surprised about the honesty. in their limitations and was surprised that many of the of the editors and journalists that we met. in the central asian republics they would would actually explain that there are certain things we can publish in certain places we can actually see where fear of. having your funds got down or something else does

actually physically influence your ability and in reporting on. what you know in this particular test the material is american. but it's hard to tell to what extent it's a question of fear particularly from the united states or if it's a fear from the local regime a censorship of sorts that johan is believes exists within the western world as well the idea that censorship is something that exists in. third world countries and speak but not in the enlightened west that idea i think has. been very challenging but we're complex the main point which which we're trying to make isn't that you know there is somebody which is more censored than somebody else the main point is that there is there is a certain degree of censorship everywhere and what would you say is the biggest obstacle to freedom of speech and freedom of information these days it's the

biggest obstacle to to freedom. of speech is the obstacle which isn't in our minds it is the the idea that the people don't deserve access to knowledge because people cannot deal with it and that idea in my opinion is it's not just a little stick it is. it's incredibly insulting but in making a film about the boundaries of press freedom johana says he discovered a world that's moving away from old boundaries one of the most amazing things which has happened. with these releases and particularly if we speak about the n.s.a. documents. is that the censorship that we had just a few years ago has become irrelevant. as our analogy international we will bring you the third part of that alternative movie if you can stick around for that.

for now on the program afresh snowden leak reveals the netherlands spain and germany have all joined the so-called five eyes club ultimately working hand in glove with the intelligence services of the u.k. the us however it's still unclear how the collaboration with these third party states works as previously revealed the u.s. has been closely watching as a target. just. visor to the u.s. justice department she says the n.s.a. spying is simply fractured the trust among. the n.s.a. has spread its reach into so many other countries including our ally. which is completely unnecessary destroy its diplomacy disrupt economic relationships with other countries. gathering and storing a bunch of. people all over the world who are suspected of doing absolutely nothing

and i think we were. not among the five countries some of whom had been colu to helping the n.s.a. gather this data but we see there were. far reaching because again and this is tentacles have been far reaching. on screen and online as well that are loads of stories for you to check out including this one the u.s. air force feed left red faced and furious software a top commander skips a nuclear exercise to get drunk in russia and spend his mission in the arms of two foreign women. head to the website you can find out what the misconduct is now cost the seaman. lighting up sydney skyline a spectacular shard right there it's actually done by stained glass mosaics being projected onto a cathedral to celebrate the christmas holidays check it out. in motion section

about dot com. right into the aussie world up there let's get some other global headlines for you in brief a gunman is shot four people dead at an airport terminal in the philippines capital manila a local mayor his wife and baby were among the victims and the family were waiting for a car outside the terminal when they wearing a police uniform approached fired at close range and fled the motive right now. and more than eighty people have been injured at least five of them seriously off a part of the roof collapsed during a performance at the apollo theatre in london police say everyone trapped inside now been freed when the roof caved in it took parts of the balcony with it a seven hundred twenty people in the theater at the time the venue was built in one thousand.

dollars let's get out to our breaking news story here on r t international oil tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky is about to walk free as president putin has just signed his part i'm now we did manage to talk to his mother on the phone here's what marina had to say. well you are right in your first remark you know you i can't quite realize what has happened freddy has been you know for me ever since yesterday afternoon so i feel a little bit confused actually. i don't think i can call the cops guy or their story for cutting off the end of it though we will have more from her shortly the mother of four more oil tycoon jailed for the past decade that of mikhail khodorkovsky president putin has just signed his pardon now as promised here on the program it's the third part of the media star movie all about the risks and

challenges faced by whistleblowers. 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 us military to take care of the al qaeda problem for them for free could be really entice and 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 fought 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. and. not. this is the right place. these particular people we're working with. anything. why would they work with these chemicals why would they not work with these mold many of them for money yes and this needs to be said they do this for the money yeah but the i am why

everybody has one thing well known what a liar it's why did you have to do this yeah this is the first day that i was judging. and the man you are judging no not even with yours or the ending this movie is judging that it's a fact i'm just saying in issue b. we need to be concerned that we are not going our own places saying we're better than you are because i've had the situation and i fucked off and yours too there this is what i'd like to see this approach to the one where if you seem out of seeing that you you go to two people you know nothing there as you start talking to them this earlier we can extend then when they have with us has a strong reaction you're like strong reaction when they said they were promised the cables because they didn't know me going to the first place it was no no you action or before you have you have quarrelled then you get a slightly different opinion then you don't get that you only get the response they want to get supposed to show in the audience what they will say about these things

do you not think that it is an interesting question to see if media around the world will do this and he will and he went on stealing of thing well that is an interesting question if you can interesting question no to they are too scared to pull the u.s. government document on the morning of the written knowing or even if they see it there are many other criteria is witness are you what walk walk are to what criteria are used the arguments. interest newsworthiness i know now that you can write a script every news organization that has a website it has a website developer who can just go. like that and they get free hits in google. it is very very it is very very profitable to publish cables because you don't have to write cable it's free stories. the point as far as i see it is the. we were about.