former russian tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky is getting ready to meet the press after finally being reunited with his family in berlin following his surprise release from prison. also this week eighty seven ians are executed by islamic rebels in syria while western nations signal upcoming peace talks might not need a sad removal after all. and a big deal for ukraine russia agrees to buy fifteen billion dollars of its debt and slash the price of gas which kiev hails it fresh from bankruptcy. and i welcome you watching a weekly here on r.t.

intensional. now in a few hours mikhail khodorkovsky is set to give his first press conference since he was released from jail after ten years behind bars the man who was russia's most high profile prisoner is now in berlin where he was reunited with his parents and on saturday parties peter oliver has been watching the scene at the five star hotel where the ex thai king is stay. because of course he spent his first full day of freedom in ten years here. and the other lot hotel just behind me though he met with his son pavel who flew from new york at order to. be with his father thrilled to be here and we went through many of the day because my father is free car my family used by to go with him and we're very very happy we're going to be. true to yourself also because of course he's bothered father would flow in here from moscow this mother has been here. quite quite

a lot in the recent past she has been receiving cancer treatment here at birdland city hospital. you mean function shock to me as do kundalini i'm going to see him now i feel like it's one of my regular vet days where you see the whole reason behind because of course you've been granted the presidential pardon on humanitarian grounds was the the ill health of his mother so they have been reunited here the press secretary of the russian president dmitry peskov now he said that because of course the remains of russian citizen he is a russian citizen he's free to return to russia whenever he would like and live there should he want to also you said that he's he's free to stay here in germany should he want to as well it's pretty much as simple as that and no peskov also outlined the letters that were written by her to call ski to vladimir putin he said there was to one of them was a personal letter to president putin the of the was the official petition to be to

be released from prison and that it was that petition that resulted in him receiving this part in this release on humanitarian grounds to the former german foreign minister to again sure missed again she seems to have been instrumental in making sure that my god what a cause he killed come here the german chancellor in a statement paid tribute to the work done by mr gained share in this say in bringing her to call ski here to germany and she also praised the work done by the german government behind the scenes in making this possible and welcomed me how to cope ski here to germany so that's the way it stands will be will all eyes focused on the berlin wall museum a little later on sunday when we'll be hearing from the car how to cope ski as he outlines what he plans to do next well political analyst and expert on russian's human relations alexander was one of the first to greet macau horticulture ski on german soil here is what he said his face didn't change in the past ten years i haven't seen him for ten years. and i think he didn't lose his humor he still.

very strong. was invited by the former german minister hans dietrich genscher to consult him in his push to release. but are doesn't think the x. or magnus will involve himself in politics in the future but if he does foreign affairs analyst martin c.f. says he has little chance of becoming as powerful as he was in the one nine hundred ninety s. what it's not going to happen is that khodorkovsky is going to be a credible figure in russia he will significant the 1980's the beginning of the twenty first century for two reasons first of all because of his us from now until well from political clout from putting together you cos of the first police and he doesn't have you close conglomerate. but you said more so that's cool and secondly he was a figure from the ninety's he was able to so much wealth as we all guards did in

the chaotic yeltsin era right after the collapse of communism this is no engine history in russia mikhail khodorkovsky press conference will be at twelve g.m.t. in berlin and of course we will be covering it live on air and online as well at r.t. dot com. at least eighty civilians including women and children have been slaughtered in the syrian town of address north of damascus after it was raided by radical islamic some reports put the number of those killed as high as two hundred artie's arabic channel went there to talk to eyewitnesses of the bloodshed. terror still fills the hearts of those who witnessed the militants entering the town about drugs they saw panicked disoriented people running for their lives and they ran themselves they will never forget the despair in the eyes of those who were forced to stay behind we have no reliable way to communicate with the people trapped inside address but officials are saying the atrocities against the civilian

population are continuing and people are being butchered and even burned alive and every bit of news coming out of the town is doing a new blow to those whose families are still being held by the militants everyone working for the local authorities was to be killed regardless of their religion or going on in a chanel they were all taken to be killed and they took everyone even those who supported neither the government nor the rebels they were all either tortured killed or used as human shields the things being done in the drawer unthinkable they're slaughtering children and throwing them out of windows and no one's doing anything about it i guess the syrian authorities say they have evidence confirming that massacres have taken place and address the dad will attack here and many other areas which remain under the control of the armed opposition the situation in syria has now deteriorated to the point that international norms of combat are no longer being observed. he's an industrial town with

a lot of the us residents working both in the private sector and for government added so yes horrifying crying must have been committed in this town the houses were set on fire we had people travel inside the official from the syrian army which is a position just the side the town that continues to carry out surgical strikes as part of their effort to liberate address which is now the only hope of the families waiting for news of their loved ones inside the town. meanwhile western powers have indicated next month's peace talks in geneva may no longer call for a sans removal that amid fears the extremists will take control of the country should his government for the u.s. says it's willing to meet with members of the newly formed islamic front group which is also said to have been involved in the bloodshed in and we spoke to a geo political analyst who believes there is no peace looming as long as the u.s. continues to support the islamic states in recent weeks there's been an important

shift in the relationship between the united states government on the one hand and what is being presented as the new islamic front and we see that the united states is in fact goes to. establishing a dialogue with the leaders of these terrorist organizations i should say that in this particular case the people who have dialogue with the terrorists they have blood on their hands they have provided funding most of the military and look just a cold financial aid has been china holds to these al qaeda affiliated organizations and that's what we have to address there could be no peace as long as the west military alliance supports the terrorists. now as if fracking linked earthquakes were bad enough. if you can't get in

here now. if you make it with me the texans living in the shadow of the shale well whose drinking water has started to burn this story coming up shortly. president putin held his annual mouth in q. and a session this week which lasted for more than four hours bombarded by dozens of questions he shared his thoughts on intelligence leaks the controversial greenpeace case and tensions in ukraine. off which there. never met personally but is revolutions surely made an impact on the world the answering a question about edward snowden the president didn't reveal his exact whereabouts but he couldn't resist humoring his own relationship with barack obama and you were surveillance tactics. you want to know how my feel about mr obama after snowden's leaks i feel jealous i feel jealous because he can do these things and get off scot

free still there is nothing to be happy about but on the other hand there's no reason to be frustrated however tough the criticism against the us may be all these measures have always been aimed at tackling terrorism but there must be some clear rules and certain agreements including those of ethics. ukraine was also discussed that actually set it right from the last few weeks with mass protest both in favor of against moving closer with the e.u. moscow's giving kiev a fifteen billion dollar loan to help the corporate severe economic problems and according to putin integration is not the core reason behind the wave of unrest. those who are pushing forward the idea of signing an association agreement with the european union these people would govern in ukraine not so. was a foreign minister also headed the parliament to machine care is a former prime minister you schenker was ukraine's president why didn't they sign

these papers when they were in power no one was standing in their way so they could have gone ahead and sign them and there'd be no problem today i have legitimate doubts that the current protests are about moving closer to the e.u. it's an internal political struggle and signing or not signing this document is just a pretext for. the current amnesty which should affect up to twenty five thousand people coincides with the twentieth anniversary of russia scots members of pussy riot and review sacks of us from the so-called arctic story are expected to benefit so obviously as we've mentioned the quoting the president's stance on the organization itself. ship it entered our exclusive economic zone was not responding and they tried to scale the platform after an attempt to stop them their second boat started ramming our border guards is that a civil discussion about protecting the environment. it's just. an attempt to block my little record searing someone's order to disturb our work on developing

resources. should serve as a lesson and you know it's us along with greenpeace into an effort to minimize environmental risks instead of just making a fuss and. of course these are only a few topics touched upon which you also talked about recent diplomatic breakthroughs like the syrian chemical arms deal and the iranian nuclear program the conference was attended by over thirteen hundred journalists and lasted over four hours. r t moscow. meanwhile in ukraine opposition groups in kiev's independence square may echo each other's anger over the deal with russia but once the protests arrive at a unity to a little less solid after the break we assess three faces of the country's opposition. down the stand your correctly that you don't believe that ad what snowden performed a public service may be in the best interest of the united states but at least in

the best interest of humanity here countries don't want to turn over their playbook to the other side and that's essentially what's happened here it is true that it is heard a big debate about the role of our intelligence services in the united states i think that debate was coming anyway after nine eleven but i don't think we've had sort of anything in the interest of humanity served by this episode. choose your language. clearly we can without any financial system still some. choose to use the concentric circles choose to tell us that you've been great to. choose the stories that impact your life. choose to access to your office.

hello again the crane could still sign a trade deal with the e.u. next year although on better conditions that was the management this week from the country's prime minister the opposition has accused present an ecovillage of pulling the country's assets to win concessions from russia but as artie's alexia share of ski reports the rallying crowds are far from united. he used to deliver hammer punches in the boxing ring and now he's given up his world champions belt to succeed in politics but old habits die hard but danny klitschko likes to use boxing language even in his politics his sponsors name is the ukrainian democratic alliance for reforms which abbreviates to the ward which translates as a punch yeah. i call out a victory in

a courtroom battle if i make you my personal pronoun. carrying the status of a living sports legend in ukraine klitschko made a rapid rise in politics with his party making it into parliament last year briefly known as a politician of relatively mild views she raised many eyebrows once a year and provoke a major brawl by directing the ngo fired up protestors at security officers during a rally. ukraine cannot be controlled like one controls the situation in the books and bring the chaos is too big in the country now i like klitschko but you can't use force to change ukraine another card in the opposition pack is our c needs a new x. foreign minister relatively young but experienced in politics if you took the reins of for what prime minister yulia timoshenko sparty when she was put in was a new president vocally advocating her release. in order to

release the prison. guard. the secular government with the. comment the president has a bill on these matters though not everyone is buying it should do a shanku walk free his days at the summit of the greats politics will be numbered and last but not least i looked at the book the leader of the nationalists of all the movement gays migrants jews and particularly russians have been in his crosshairs all along. he wants to surrender us ukrainians to servitude to eternal slavery under moscow. book supports your integration for ukraine but many say his values are incompatible with the european ones the worst foreign policy well if you will work if the if you can work with them together in elements in your radicals ok i think they will see you i think you basically represents into fields and to ukraine's affairs europeans you exactly you raise the stakes will cry in the

european countries in the region of recently the risky assault of the civil war and writing the tide of you know my down anger the troika of ukraine's opposition looks like a solid unit but appearances can be deceptive when the storm settles and the twenty fifteen presidential election draws closer the lack of a clear opposition front runner could play into your local which is hands and these three men would hardly miss a chance to grab at each other's throats to be their one alexy russia r.t. reporting from kiev in ukraine. if you get a chance to take a look at our web site seeing this plenty on there including. breaking radioactive wreck or this huge amounts of data re-imaging substances are discovered at the crippled fukushima power plant in japan on line we weigh the risks of toxic leaks into the ocean and no worry christmas in orbit is spacing titian delays

a second vital space walk to fix a faulty cooling system you can check out all the details at r.t. dot com. this week a group of researchers claims to have found another risk that fracking poses to human health they say the chemicals used can disrupt hormones and have been detected in the colorado river locals living near the site already claim their property prices have tanked while rank smells and earthquakes plague their daily lives and that's not all. expects. the local government in texas tells steve lipski that the water from his well water that he can set on fire is safe to drink and to use in his home. you can't get in here. thank you but steve has the assessment of other experts who say he's well is it ticking bomb in his backyard loaded with methane and other contaminants why the

starkly different assessments steve claims that a fracking operation nearby contaminated is well and that texas energy authorities are shielding the gas company. they don't want the world to know that it really is this bad they don't want it in official documents but it could be that the fracking allowed gas from lower formations into the aquifer and subsequently into steve lipski as well the gas company denies the claim the lipski is sued the range resources corp but the firm counter sued and won in cause and effect evidence a ground water is incredibly difficult to prove my d.s.l. us are is an engineer who worked with the federal environmental protection agency is not surprised that the state oil and gas regulator sided with the gas corp to be a conceit that the rights it seen come in survival

from oil and gas production issues should be put in. charge of also regulating the protection of groundwater from going down swells and there's any parent conflict of interest in that. determined to fight for his home father of three steve has been shipping fresh water from the city on trucks at a cost of five hundred dollars a month. but the family now faces another blow from the fracking corporation a four point two million dollar lawsuit for defamation steve lips his dream house and it's a beautiful property has become his nightmare several of his neighbors apparently have the same problem but they're reluctant to speak out after they saw how the gas company went after mr lipski they shouldn't expect much help from washington either this is the first time adios a loss are says the environmental protection agency has not put nearly enough

resources into studying the fact that fracking has on groundwater but that didn't stop the e.p.a. from coming up with a reporting favor of the practice. believes his word vice to vent the gas constantly to keep it from accumulating under their property as their neighboring gas wells continues to frack this guy thousand feet do you are pretty much standing around top of the one hundred years from now when somebody dies because there's some time in the war and they're able to trace it to this fracking everybody else instead who appears in that in a philosophy for now it seems that the authorities at all levels are so fired up on fracking potential profits that households like steve leaves his family are left to fight a low to get a healthy environment in their homes. going to check on our team parker county texas we modern new energy boom may be coming to the british countryside but so far

has been given a far from warm welcome a government report has laid the groundwork to open up vast swathes of the u.k. for oil exploration including shale gas drilling the light blue on this map shows how much land has been marked for potential fracking the u.k.'s energy minister has hailed this report is the next step in unlocking britain's fracking potential but as friends of the earth helen rimmer told us it's time to stop before it's too late . we've only had one hundred full of exploratory drilling sites across the u.k. but already we've seen huge local opposition whether it's in the south easterly wind or the northwest where we're seeing it now and i think with the government's new licensing round which is going to open up another two thirds of the country to the potentially to fracking we're going to see even more opposition and i think the government is going to have to put a moratorium in place like it had done previously and actually listen to the concerns of communities because there's a very loud and clear message. some international news in brief now

a suicide car bombing at an army base in eastern libya has left at least six people dead and injured more than fifteen it is reported all those killed in the explosion were soldiers no group has yet claimed responsibility of course we'll bring you more as we get it. i enjoy many reports say over one hundred policemen have been injured as they clashed with protesters stars and to the streets to oppose the massive extent of a squat in hamburg object will hold police responded with water cannons the building has been occupied for more than twenty years but authorities see playing it is that risk of collapsing. in sudan rebel troops it's least became all over g.c. states of guinea taking control of much of the country former science and vice president has been accused of leading the group and attempting a coup meanwhile for people where we were injured when rebels opened fire on a u.s.

mission to evacuate american citizens from the region at least five hundred people have been killed since the fighting began as the government struggles to hold on to the capital. and occupy romania activists have clashed with police in front of bucharest university it had started as a peaceful rally calling for the resignation of the president and the ban on fracking remaining has been engulfed in a wave of anger against the energy giant chevron which is planning to drill for natural gas across the country. up next on a boy talks to michael allen a man who worked on u.s. national security for both bush and obama the n.s.a. spy scandal and whole lot more are up for debate in worlds apart.

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 mad 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. hello and welcome to all the party ordering and major overhaul of intelligence operations once every ten years is seemingly becoming an american tradition. last decade was brought about by nine eleven this time around by public opera or over

the extent of anastase surveillance but are these reforms really after whipping as they're presented in the media well to discuss that i'm now joined by michael allen who've worked on national security policy for both the bush and obama administrations mr allen thank you very much for being on the show if your book blinking red you describe what you called the most momentous overhaul of america's national security infrastructure since the second world war spurred by the nine eleven and the iraqi misadventure but i wonder if that sweeping reform really brought any substantial change because previously the intelligence community was criticized for inadequate communication among various agencies and as the boston bombing revealed that communication was still inadequate the cia used to be in believed it still has the dominant role within the intelligence community so what

has really changed as a result of that major overhaul that you describe in your book i think you're on to something and that's one of the central questions in my book blinking red which is all the institutional reforms and new intelligence agencies that we set up after september eleventh and after the intelligence failure in iraq whether they have done a good job as we say here in the united states connecting the dots trying to collect information and connect it to each other if they have some sort of effect that might give us a warning of a terrorist attack like in boston or any islamic extremists that might be coming after the united states or our allies well one thing that has definitely changed is the massive infusion of money since two thousand and one the united states has spent i think over a five hundred billion dollars on intelligence during that period. an american officials have long claimed that you know the main outcome of that exorbitant

spending was the lack of any. additional catastrophic terrorist attack but of course many other countries achieve the same result for much much less i wonder if these. you know all that spending has really led to any increase in efficiency of operations or rather what they have had possibly an opposite effect because we all know that when money is not an issue efficiency is usually not the first concern well i would disagree with you i don't think it's exorbitant spending at all when you look at what happened in the united states on september eleventh to have two of our biggest buildings in new york knocked down the pentagon attacked and another plane that was heading for washington d.c. that was very appropriate spending and i think we've seen the results of it you mentioned other countries other countries are not the target that the united states is for islamic extremists and so i think the united states citizens have gotten

what they've paid for when they because we've been able to for you all and prevent numerous attacks on the continental united states and in europe with some of our allies because we're spending so much more money on intelligence and because we're able to have a more capable intelligence service going after threats to our country well you just mentioned nine eleven and that was of course twelve years ago but if we consider the. funding that the cia has requested of the intelligence community or rather has requested for the fiscal year of two thousand and thirteen it is still pretty high for fifty two billion dollars and it is expected to stay at that level at least until two thousand and seventeen and just to our viewers to make it clear it is pretty much the same or similar to what the united states was standing on until there.