breaking news. lands in germany after being released from prison in russia that's after president putin signed a pardon on what he called humanitarian principles also. the idea that people don't deserve access to knowledge because people cannot deal with. wiki leaks associated co-producer of a movie which shows just how hard it can be for whistle blows to get the truth in print. and syria's embattled kurds take their ambitions for autonomy to a new level demanding an independent seat at next month's international peace talks in switzerland.

from a studio center here in moscow which just past midnight this is r.t. international so after a decade of incarceration. is free russia's most high profile prisoner left jail and travel to germany on board a private jet to reports now from. heard the first comments from. himself he placed a short phone call to the newspaper the new times in which he said after ten years the feeling of freedom is amazing now it's believed that that phone call was placed not too far away from where i am here in central berlin at the upper class hotel the aren't a lot hotel not far from the brandenburg gate in central berlin though the reason we believe that he's there is because former german foreign minister hans dietrich

again sure was seen leaving that hotel to go and give a statement to german television now missed again sure has it seems been instrumental in bringing mikhail khodorkovsky here to lynn and he has to have done a lot of work prior to him arriving here in fact he met me at the airport and help him achieve a receive a visa for one year to allow him to stay inside the shamed end zone now the fact that we saw is to ensure leaving the hotel and he was in the same convoy of cars well that leads us to believe that mr hart of course he remains inside that central berlin hotel now in that interview that mr game should give to german television station he said that. he was very grateful to the mercy of blood amir putin for granting him his pardon now that echo statements that had been released by one of mr holocaust the spokespeople through a an open letter and witchy thanked president putin for for granting him this this pardon on humanitarian grounds now in terms of response from the german government

angela merkel's folks person released a statement saying the german chancellor welcomed me. here to berlin and praised hans dietrich genscher for the work that the veteran diplomated had put in order to secure this she also spoke about the the work that the german governments and russian governments had done behind the scenes in cooperation to allow. to come here and spend his first night of freedom in ten years in. in this open letter from the heart of the outlines his immediate plans and his immediate plans are quite simply family and friends he wants to spend time with is his loved ones his mother is very very sick she has been receiving treatment here in berlin for. some time and both his mother and father are expected to make the journey here from moscow where they currently are on saturday also believe that his son from his first marriage who is in new york is also going to be making the journey here as well as

other family members and friends now in this letter he said that was what was most important to him right now was with hugging his loved ones shaking hands with friends and spending the new year's holidays together with the new year's holidays incredibly important in the russian calendar we're looking at a day that friday began without us knowing where he would be would he be released on friday at all it turned out to be a real. roller coaster ride of stories about where he would end up and what what where he actually was and my colleague or to skin of the caps what went on in russia before he arrived here in germany prison worker of course you spent his last days of imprisonment situated around a thousand kilometers north west of moscow in the town of six years used to be part of the gulag system during the soviet times it was quite a confusing day here where we are some people were talking about him driving like a choir others were talking about this helicopter which took him off to germany

whole thing came as a complete surprise to everyone including these lawyers and his family members i haven't accepted what has happened yet too much has happened since yesterday for me i'm still feeling lost and confused i guess i still can't believe it i have spoken to me who called us on the fine we are right national committees and figuring out what we're going to do next and the past ten years i've gotten used to living in this reality where my dad isn't present. and i can only see him once in three months to realize the next hour that i now will be able to see him every day to talk to him directly without worrying i'm someone listening and it's unreal and just today he's still staggering but also significant is that all the events that have been unfolding the have been for less than twenty four hours when the president broke the news that we. asked him to be fired and we did it on the next day apparently just a few hours after that of course he went free from jail let's take

a closer look at how critical is relations with the russian law over the last ten years well back in february of ninety seven he became chairman and c.e.o. of the private corporation you course which produced a fifth of russia's oil could become the country's richest man about six and a half years later he was arrested on fraud charges around the same time linked to the privatization of state assets when he was eventually found guilty in may two thousand and five and sentenced to nine years in prison he appealed and had one year taken off that sentence then in december two thousand and six there was a second case against the former tycoon he was charged with embezzling three hundred fifty million tonnes of oil and those proceedings also ended with a guilty verdict and a fourteen year sentence but the court counted time already served well legal expert and blogger alexander curtis believes there's no surprise he has knelt decided to leave russia personally i don't think he would want to stay in russia that's my own. personal view i think he will want to go somewhere in the west it

may be that germany is an easy place for him to go to but i wonder whether he want to stay there permanently he might want to go to britain he might want to go to the united states i doubt that he want to stay in russia itself he's been in prison for ten years he's business has been destroyed his political career if he ever intended to make what has been destroyed within russia he is a discredited man. much speculation in the western media has suggested hostility surrounding the winter olympics in sochi could be a reason for his release but author and russian affairs analyst martin mccauley i spoke to him earlier disagrees but i don't see really a direct link between her recovery and sochi because no one's going to play that for his release because the vast majority of russians don't really care he was one of the rich is not a national average russian doesn't. like these people are very rich so they're very

supportive many ways are broad but the other point of view is that russia needs fall and direct investment it needs a climate in which foreigners will invest in russia so this may be linked to improving the f.b.i. because. as long as he was in jail the average business was the worst that could happen to me or one of my friends. know he's out and they may in fact come back and say right possibly the environment is. we're closely following developments now that mikhail khodorkovsky has been freed and these are the latest pictures from outside his family home in the moscow region we've been getting reports that members of his family plan to join him in berlin where he arrived on a private jet and our cameras are also camped outside the hotel where he is reportedly stay baeza live pictures there from but in an earlier we saw the former german foreign minister hands dietrich genscher walk out of that building so these

are live pictures right now on r.t. international stay with us for all the latest. despite a vigorous attempt to whistle blows to expose the wrongdoings of governments is often quite difficult for them to find media outlets willing to publicize the truth media stana recent movie backed by wiki leaks highlights their struggle. spoke to the film's director. it's been described as a wiki leaks 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 me do. 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 what united states the

empire and our johannes wall 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 to people we 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's. still going to version resign your bills you want to do more with. the other. question is to. get. another things additional in case after

case editors would initially show interest and then back off. to me it was surprising. not as much based on the idea that these countries are bastions of free press or not. but i was more surprised about. in their limitations i was surprised that many of the of the editors journalists that we met. in the central asian republics they would would actually explain that there are certain things we can publish in certain cases we can actually see where fear of. having your funds or something else does actually physically influence your ability in reporting them. and 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 challenged by works the main point which which we're trying to make isn't that you know there is 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 from 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 there it's not just the elitist dick it is. it's incredibly insulting but i'm 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 them. 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. and you can watch the movie right now on our website. well meanwhile here international on the screen in just a couple of minutes we report on the latest spy revelations courtesy of edward snowden many more countries well helping the n.s.a. than previously thought. after the.

secret. to build. fortunately. mission to teach me why you should care about. this is why you should care only. speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here. from the world of the interviews intriguing story.

you. visit. an independent seated next month's international peace conference in geneva they say their interests in opposition to both the syrian government and the rebels the kurds pushing for autonomy in northern syria have been fighting to protect their homes from radical islamist rebels well the. kurds are the largest ethnic group without a country in the middle east they are mostly spread out across the region they call kurdistan they make up a keeper nora seein of groups in turkey's syria iraq and iran with a total population estimated around forty million and as artie's reports they have their sights firmly set on long awaited independence. 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 are 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 here across the border in turkey as much as twenty percent of the population is kurdish they fight for independence has long been a thorn in ankara side but most of the larger longer. always called for kurd fighters they have more weapons and they'll never give them up easily but it's in syria where the kurds faced a toughest fight they were 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 villagers pursue fina forty five kilometers from aleppo so all it does is make them tougher fight as they're 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. the syrian government's been too busy with the civil war leaving the kurds to fend for themselves on one analyst told us the desperate has capitalized on the power struggle to the fullest. the kurds in syria was

a bold and by the fact that the arab spring came about of the regional powers busy with internal strife with. the stability of the governments. of the different factions syria fighting each other and the government is weak and the kurds have found an opportunity to run the ground to whatever they can and we're territory. historically has been to my to take he's not very happy because what he sees if the. the because in syria get hold of them have some sort of autonomy turkey fears that this will translate into. the kurdish population to demand the same rights or similar rights. time now for more world news in brief.

policing car and gaze it occurred to series a protester to guess clashes started when crowds of supporters of deposed president mohamed morsi took to the streets after friday prayers gatherings took place in defiance of a controversial law restricting rallies banning to many times across egypt leading to numerous arrests. at least eight people have been killed in a double bombing in iraq the two explosions struck a live stock market in the tiled north of the capital baghdad while the victims were being buried another bomb went off killing three more just yesterday a group of suicide bombers targeted ships pilgrims in another region taking as many as thirty six lives. bloodshed in iraq this year has reached levels not seen since two thousand and eight on our website at r.t. dot com we've got a special project looking back at how the violence of twenty thirteen has unraveled . the murder of a town in a turbulent area of southern philippines has been gunned down along with two other members of his family in the airport a fourth person was also shot and waiting for a car outside the terminal when the assailants one of them reportedly wearing

a police uniform opened fire the motive for the killing is unclear so far. and also the world update their sound checks are being conducted on theaters across london's west end after receiving collapse at the historic apollo theater on thursday at least eighty eight people were hurt when a section of the century old plaster ceiling fell over seven hundred twenty thirty go as watching the show some reports suggest cracks in the roof that allowed water to drip through engineers into to conduct a structural assessment of the whole building. a number of european countries a third party partners of the united states spying program one another words they help america monitor the world that's according to a fresh batch of leaks provided by edward snowden denmark the netherlands spain and germany are among the countries named well the reports contradict earlier revelations which suggested germany was a subject of surveillance not an active part of the program just a former advisor to the u.s. justice department says the n.s.a.

scandal has caused a rift among america's on ice. spread. so many other countries including our ally. which is completely unnecessary diplomacy economic relationships with other countries all for the purpose of gathering and storing a bunch of data on innocent people all over the world who are suspected of doing absolutely nothing and i think. it's not among the countries some of whom have been helping the n.s.a. . only see the. world. because again and their tentacles have been far reaching. right now christmas one of a wish list well the world's first robot astronauts is missing out on what kind of present here on. the international space station you can find out about that.

takes nothing but. to successfully treat. i don't mind. breaking method. is more than ninety percent effective. the european union's a long term credit rating has been dealt a blow out of the pools as downgraded it from triple a to double a plus despite recent signs of recovery being used as an example that the block is going in the right direction but reports many are still looking abroad for better options. despite painful austerity 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 carlos wants to be are you sugar company debit 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 sound used to be this is the same true. for three hundred euros. fifty here and. 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 effect of immigration in the country and now it is back growing sectors of this economy which are importing workers from outside of violent on high wages with high skills and so forth completely deserve it gandalf but that is starting to get all these and little bit of a tension within the population as well the european commission statistics office figures

show thirty five thousand more people left are linda didn't arrive to last year making arlin go from having had the highest net immigration levels in europe to the highest net emigration in just six years if we feed the family. i believe it 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 sort of the. you mean here besides my immediate family really all my friends who go on here from london or canada or just completely cross the world so i made a very easy for you and while the holidays draw back the irish to their native land it will take more than a bailout exit to keep them home just are still here r t r. we'll have

more fooling around thirty minutes from now here on r.t. international before that larry king is politicking after the break. there calling obama's happy smiling sophie photo with the danish and british prime ministers at the mandela funeral an international incident but before we rail on obama for doing something stupid a funeral we need to clear one thing up the washington post says that this action occurred at the memorial service after the funeral was over and trust me after about three hours of serious lectures at a conference or some sort of super long wedding most of us would just be banging our heads against the wall out of boredom and i'd probably check my email about seven times obama's place know i said most of us but the president isn't supposed

to be like most of us because he represents all of us it's one thing when you're fourteen and too stupid to realize that sophie photos at the wake after grampa's funeral is a bad idea but it's another thing entirely when one of the most photographed and powerful people on the planet takes a selfie at the memorial service of someone he claims to respect although i might sound annoyed this sophie is pretty much irrelevant this is just a big error of etiquette there are plenty of real concrete things with real consequences to be bad at obama over like our being religious wacko rebels in syria or signing into law the n.b.a. i wish with all my heart that we only had to be angry with obama over some minor etiquette errors but sadly they're just a drop in the obama bucket but that's just my opinion.

largest consumer sees and i see it with me in the country is the federal government is simply safe from. these government. this the united states privilege and it was done in public has to realize it can't just by. just throw it away. for instance belongs to the united states environmental protection agency and i found this on a dump site here this is not always. the producers of these left when i should be able to look at these i believe that they should be responsible for their products from cradle to grave. fatal from mexico comment of mental health property all sucked american corporate it also belongs to the washington metro area transit authority properties of a dentist aids pay trend and trademark office. the

host of an iconic sunday talk show david gregory moderator of n.b.c. news meet the press joins us to answer questions instead of asking them from washington's amazing museum plus a look at christmas in washington including scenes from inside the white house with first lady michelle obama all next on politicking with larry king. from the fantastic museum in washington d.c. it is now but there's no place like this the newseum as we call it right right my fiance yeah it's a want to say news museum and it will have david gregory the moderator of n.b.c. news meet the press he's moderated since december of two thousand and eight he was

the chief white house correspondent during the regime of george w. bush and meet the press is the oldest running sunday news talk show in american television history when you got this job before we get into things yeah and what was that like. it was extraordinary told you well our brar news president the time steve capice called. him a dive it was some time after that as you remember tom brokaw filled and i think n.b.c. news did the smart thing which is after something is significant is that to to ease the transition into put tom into the job i think that was appropriate and it was a nice way to bridge that gap because it was going to be a difficult transition for anybody and it was thanksgiving i was in new york with my wife and our kids and our president called and said i was going to be moderator of meet the press and you know there had been a lot of speculation. running up to that but i was i was blown away i mean it's.

it's it was always something that i thought about i never thought that it would necessarily happen i could imagine him leaving that job and i certainly couldn't have imagined it at that stage of my life thirty eight years old to be in that position so but i remain blown away because it's just an amazing job i interviewed larry speed that the first was. he was and he he really you know he owned a piece of show and he well yeah and he conceived of the show and you know we have a lot of photographs kind of the pictorial history of it and it's extraordinary and it was a radio show was a radio show and you know rose kennedy wrote back and talked about what it meant for for her sons all three you know to then three three and four to have been on the program and ted kennedy spoke about how important it was to the family so yeah it was spivak was it was the guy and he really came up with the idea that you.