former russian tycoon mikhail holder 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 civilians are executed by islamist rebels in syria while western nations signal upcoming peace talks might not need a removal after all. and a big deal for ukraine russia agrees to buy fifteen billion dollars of its debts and slash the price of gas which kiev hails as its rescue from bankruptcy.

the latest news on the week's top stories here want to national with me. thanks for joining us. and in just a few hours may help 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 son on saturday let's now get more from all over who's live in berlin for us so please or what have you learned about what are called skis plans. well mr hart of course he's currently taking a tour around the berlin wall museum here in the german capital that's where in a little while he'll be giving his press conference where he will be expecting to we'll be expecting about your pardon to hear his real future plans also we expect him to to thank those who have supported him over these years he spent in prison

now the aside from that he has given a few short interviews and what we've learned from those interviews that he's given is that he has no intention according to he says he has no intention to enter politics or he has no intention to try and pursue assets from his former company you costs which was then went into bankruptcy. now he has hinted that he would return to russia at some point in the future he could make a return to russia at some point in the future this comes after a statement by president putin spokesperson yesterday in which they said well because of course he remains a russian citizen there's no reason why he couldn't come and live back in russia any time he's free to come and go as he pleases but if sunday is said to be the day for the for the press and for cameras and finding out what mr hard of course he plans to do next saturday was very much that day for family here in berlin he was

he met and was reunited with his son pavel who flew in from new york and his mother and father. and boris who flew in from moscow now what must have been a very emotional reunion unification they haven't seen. outside of a prison setting in ten years so they had this to say when we spoke when r.t. were able to catch up with them about this emotional reunion. i think it's such a shock to me i still can't believe i'm going to see him now i feel like it's one of my regular visits thrilled to be here and really early in the day because while there is free. my family is by going to go with it and we're very very. well we all be waiting to find out what he has to say when he gives that press conference out the berlin wall museum slightly unusual venue for a press conference to be given here in the german capital perhaps symbolic of the

changes in mr hart a company's own life peter just remind us how he actually ended up in berlin. well it has been a whirlwind tour really on thursday president vladimir putin said that yes because of course he would be pardoned would be released from prison at that point we didn't know just how quickly things would take place on friday he was released from the prison the pardon was signed he was immediately released he picked up a russian passport as he was leaving the prison service then we were trying to find out where he was going to go next there were rumors he was going to moscow rumors he was going to st petersburg then it emerged that he was leaving on a private jet heading here to berlin now that private jet was put on by the the former foreign minister of germany hans dietrich genscher and it seems that mr genscher has been instrumental in making sure that mikhail khodorkovsky could come

here to germany he also it seems help things along to make sure that mr out of course he could receive a visa to allow him to be here in the in europe and in berlin we're expecting to hear promised not of course yet the press conference to some thanks towards mr gage for the work that he's done it seems this is something that. i had been pushing for quite a long time and had been working towards now. since he's been in berlin as he said he he met with his mother his father and his son they're all saying that they're happy to be reunited we heard from him in an open letter that at the moment he really wants to concentrate on enjoying the holiday season with his family we don't know how much more we're going to see of mr hart of course after he gives this press conference later on sunday but that's where all of our eyes are focused right now to see what he has to say when he faces the world's media for the first time as a free man in ten years. we're all looking forward to hearing from mr hodder

crossed himself in less than two hours time out of the live from there lynn and peter many thanks indeed for that. and political analyst and expert on russian german relations alexander rar was one of the fust to greet me. and soil and here's what he told us his face didn't change in the past ten years i haven't seen him for ten years. i think he didn't lose his humor he's still. very strong mood alexander rah was invited by those for my german foreign minister to trade kagan sure to consult him in his push to release her confiscate cast politician of poor people from the euro skeptic i'll turn to germany party heart of why her confiscate is enjoying such a woman welcome in his country people germany do know very little about.

i mean he was known as an audit guard who had been put on trial in russia and send him to jail for the last ten years that is all that people in germany don't understand that mr cosby is not a freedom fighter or something like that that he was a businessman before he was imprisoned and not very much known to the german public and i would suggest that the german politicians should welcome mr edward snowden maybe in the same way in germany but there is very little the german politicians are doing for this person we haled hold a press conference will be held at twelve hundred g.m.t. and we'll be covering it live on air and online for you as. accomplice in an elementary school in syria's homs province has reportedly killed five students and two of schools and perry's head this week at least a few civilians including women and children were slaughtered in the town of dry

north of damascus was raided by radical islamists some reports put the number of those killed as high as two hundred. channel one that 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 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 but officials are saying the atrocities against the civilian population are continuing how people are being tortured 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 and everyone working for the local authorities was to be killed regardless of their religion organ aman ational they were all taken to be killed 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 a drawer unthinkable they're slaughtering children and throwing them out of windows and no one's doing anything about it because the syrian authorities say they have evidence confirming that massacres have taken place and address the dad latakia 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 agencies horrifying crying must have been committed in this town houses were so don't fire without people trying. to shield from the syrian army which is a position just outside the town that continues to carry out surgical strikes as part of their effort to liberate address which is now the only hold of the families waiting for news of their loved ones inside the town. r t.

meanwhile western powers have indicated next month's peace talks in geneva may no longer call for assad's removal not to meet the as extremists that will take control of the country should his government fall and a u.s. set as its willing to meet the members of the newly formed islamic front group which is also said to have been involved in the bloodshed in iraq we spoke to a political analyst who believes there's no peace looming as long as the u.s. continues to support. in recent weeks there's been an important shift in the relationship between the united states government on the one hand and what is now being presented as the new islamic front and we see that the united states is in fact no goes and 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 logistical financial aid has been china holds to these al qaeda affiliated organizations and that's what we have to address there can be no peace as long as the west military alliance supports the terrorists. this is our senior national sort of come on the program the extending reach of the n.s.a. around the globe will be looking at what nations get hope to get in return for spying for america. it's late about now president period how his annual marson q. and a session there so we go which lasted for more than four hours but by dozens of questions he shared his thoughts on intelligence leaks the controversial green peace case and tensions in ukraine. was there for. they've never met

personally but his revelations surely made an impact on the world. serious 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 u.s. 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 said it right from the last few weeks with mass protests in favor of against moving closer with the e.u. moscow is giving kiev a fifteen billion dollar loan to help cope with severe economic problems and

according to put him into grecian 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 long ago to new it was a foreign minister also headed the parliament to machinegun is a former prime minister who was ukraine's president why didn't they sign these papers when they were in power no one was standing in their way they could have gone ahead and sign them and there'd be no problem today i have legitimate sounds 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 dushan members of pussy riot and greenpeace activists from the so-called arctic thirty are expected to benefit so obviously this issue was also mentioned including the president's

stance on the organization itself. their ship that 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 self p.r. or an attempt to block my little racketeering someone's order to disturb our work on developing resources that will happen should serve as a lesson and unite us along with greenpeace into an effort to minimize environmental risks instead of just making a fuss. of course these are only a few topics touched upon which 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 you've got off r t moscow. meanwhile in ukraine opposition groups and caves independence

square may i go each other's anger over the deal with russia at one of the protests they unison looks a little less solid after the short break quest sounds of three faces of the country's opposition that's after the break. down the study it correctly that you don't believe that ad words no than perform the public service may be in the best interest of the united states but at least in be best interest of humanity here countries don't want to turn over their play book 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.

do we speak your language i mean some of the will or not of the. news programs and documentaries and spanish matters to you breaking news a little too much of angles to the stories. are you here to. try to alter the spanish find out more visit eye to allahabad r t v dot com. this is the week international welcome by ukraine could still sign a trade deal with the e.u. next year. on better conditions that was the announcement this week from the country's prime minister the opposition has accused president yanacocha of warning the country's assets to win concessions for russia husing this argument to bruce

protests in the capital and these are live pictures now from independence square where thousands have gathered in support for the opposition that has and he's in exile your chest here of course the iranian crowds are far from here and i said. 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 all habits die hard with the ticklish call likes to use boxing language even in his politics his party's name is the ukrainian democratic alliance for reforms which abbreviates to the ward which translates as a punch. i call to victory in a courtroom battle i make you my personal opponent was hearing the status of a living sports legend in ukraine klitschko made a rapid rise in politics with your sporting making it into parliament last year. as a politician of relatively mild views he raised many eyebrows when she nearly

provoked 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 boxing ring 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 r c needs a new x. foreign minister relatively young but experienced in politics he took the reins of forward prime minister yulia timoshenko sparky when she was put in prison it's a new custom vocally advocating her release. in order to relate to our research. dollars are building. the secular government to support the claim to the common good results a bill on the site though not everyone is buying it should too much shankar walk free his days at the summit of the greats baltics will be numbered and last but not

least i looked at the book the leader of the nationalists 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. supports your integration for ukraine but many say his values are incompatible with the european ones the worse the impalas think well anything will work if that if we can work with them together in the elements and the radicals ok i think it's a dangerous game i think it's basically represents interference and to ukraine's affairs european union is there to be prepared to raise the stakes in a european country in the range of basically the risky assault of the civil war in this riding the tide of you know my down and 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 line a good 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 reporting from kiev ukraine. have a look at our website when you have a chance plenty of interesting things on that before you breaking radio actually records as huge amounts of these her a missing substances are discovered at the crippled fukushima power plant in japan online weigh the risks of toxic leaks into the ocean. and whistleblowers will never feel alone as somebody is always following them at the end based journalist and ally of edward snowden says he's being spied on and his house has been upgraded and fun for yourself that it's more than paranoia about. the net of america's spies across the globe is extending the latest leak from

edward snowden has revealed norway's been sharing intelligence with the u.s. on russia's politicians energy companies and ordinary people the arctic nation joins canada as one of the essays an accomplice is again magic and best to gaze the motives nations have to share their secret data with america's spy agency. we knew that canadian and u.s. intelligence services were close edward snowden's latest revelation speaks to just how close he gave the canadian media a top secret four page memo a recent one dated april twenty third team by the way that says canada has set up covert spying posts around the world and conducted espionage against trading partners at the request of the us national security agency edward snowden has also revealed that although the canadian intelligence agency employees twenty times less people than the n.s.a. it has done a lot of work for the n.s.a. apparently including spying on foreign politicians and diplomats during the g.

eight and g. twenty summits this document says the see as e.c. which stands for the communications security establishment canada shares with the and i say their unique geographic access to areas unavailable to the u.s. now for course it does not give details on what those areas are that could be the spying posts that canada holds toward the n.s.a. around the globe that could be about the ork to the exploration progress of which is interesting to a number of sheriff stakeholders due to the region's energy resources the fact is that those agencies are so secretive that there is no way of knowing where that information goes and how it's used do you have all these corporate people working inside n.s.a. and so they've got access like working for booz allen he had access to all this information to. so i mean certainly the corporations themselves with the people that they have working in these positions could look at that data and gain. leverage for example if they were if they were bidding on

a certain contract for or against other competitors around the world that's certainly possible now william binney was an n.s.a. official twelve years ago that's when he blew the whistle on what he saw as the agency's indiscriminate data collection over the years the data collection has grown dramatically and with it grew the list of intelligence services cooperating in addition to the traditional five buys where you have five english speaking countries spying together on the rest of the world from edward snowden we learned about nine more eyes in europe helping the n.s.a. some more than others there are many questions like what are they getting in return but when we learn about spying on trading partners it's becoming clear that it's not just about chasing terrorists in washington i'm going to check on our team. and now to some other world news and brief a suicide car bombing and on the base in eastern libya has left at least six people

dead and injured more than fifteen it's reported that all those killed in the explosion were soldiers no group has yet claimed responsibility that and we'll bring you more on this story as we get it. in germany were full say over two hundred policemen to have the injured as they clash with protest signs will stick to the streets to oppose the most victory over scores and found objects were told that police responded with which the building has been occupied for more than twenty years the sources claim it's a risk. i. down the rebel troops have seen a key oil producing state of give it taking control of much of the country there was south sudan vice. as i don't recall the shah has been accused of leaving the group and attempting a career and while four people 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's travels to hold on to the capital. after next axon a boycott talks to michael allen and none who worked on u.s. national security for bus bush and obama to an icing spying scandal and more are up for debate and while the bond if you bombing. they're 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 will just be banging our heads against the wall out of boredom and i've probably checked 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 are being real. just wacko rebels in syria or signing into law the end 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 worlds apart ordering and major overhaul of intelligence operations once every ten years is seemingly becoming a new american tradition last decade was brought about by nine eleven this time around by public opera or over the expanse of anastase surveillance but all of these reforms really after whipping as they're presented in the media well to discuss that i'm now joined by michael allen who 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 nine eleven and the iraqi misadventure but i wonder if that's whipping reform really brought a new 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. forms 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 and 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 that have 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've 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 are able to have a more capable and.