i'm not wanting to be involved in politics. or to call ski reveals his plans for the future at his first news conference as a free man but some questions about his past are being avoided. people consistently overlook the european court of human rights has repeatedly said that he's guilty but that never seems to get to. a suicide car bomb attack in syria reportedly claims the lives of up to seven children that comes amid allegations that is the miss macks occurred dozens of civilians in damascus suburbs. i. mean you can't hear it in your home. if you think it apparently not many would especially after a report found the cancer causing chemicals were found in water samples collected

near fracking sites in colorado. the latest developments and a look back at the top stories of the past seven days this week on r.t. and lindsey france thanks for joining me because he says he is where he will not pursue a career in politics or in business the former oil magnate outlined his plans for the future on his first news conference since his release from jail. there's a new month's supply. i'm not planning to be involved in politics which i've already made clear in my letter to president putin and confirmed many times i'm going to devote myself to social issues of just in the in this to the struggle for power is

just not for me but it was a list of the more you despite the former president being flooded with question some aspects of his past were avoided by the media as peter oliver reports because of how to cope he entered into the press conference in a whirlwind of media hype into a room packed to the rafters with journalists many of whom were congratulating him on his release as a political prisoner however there is a nother side to the yukos saga one that's not often heard. free after ten years this is that some of these comments after his release of raised eyebrows i mean. some of my comrades remain in jail they are my fellow sufferers for example my friend platon lebedev alexei protrusion there are still other political prisoners in russia not only those related to the you cause case i am free now and

i'm asking you to think of it as something which symbolizes that the efforts of civil societies can lead to the release of some people who no one thought would be able to walk free. to choose again was the head of security for mr holder called skis oil company you cos he's currently serving a life sentence book by counts of murder if you have a court finding a person guilty of murder i think it's very difficult for anyone to then say well he's guilty but he's not actually guilty because he's a political prisoner i find it quite order in two thousand and seven a court convicted it too good of ordering the shooting of that immediate bet you all of the mayor of a town in siberia and his widow believes this was a crime that went to the top. their core skills behind the murder of my husband he's a free man now it's painful for me to talk about this because nothing can bring my husband back the international community should know the facts how that cost you should confess his sins and stop trying himself as

a victim the court found no link between the murders and the you cause head holocaust he was jailed in two thousand and three for fraud and embezzlement he refuses to accept any guilt for the crimes he was convicted of despite the conviction being backed up outside of russia to people consistently overlook the european court of human rights has repeatedly said that he's guilty as well but that never seems to get reported. peter all over r.t. berlin. earlier we spoke to jurgen l.c.s. here be editor in chief of politico magazine compact he says there are parts of the former all of our past the west prefers not to know. totally unknown in the west. a big economic oh criminal. have her stolen a lot off for money from the russian people and from the right kind of state that he has still a lot of oil not physically

a bar by means of fiscal or many police. every kind of businessman in the west who had done the same would have all thought that in prison this story is i'm told in the west there are are speculations and there are kind of pressure on him from the corrections of the anglo-saxon oil industry to mingle into russian politics to go all back into the game or it is unclear what will happen. if you want more on the release of make. head to our website r.t. dot com where we have reports in-depth analysis and opinion. to syria now where a suicide bombing near a primary school has reportedly killed six seven children rather in the province of alms this comes after dozens of civilians were allegedly massacred by islamists in the town of art is arabic channel went there to talk to witnesses air 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 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 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 a 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 crime must have been committed in this town houses were said don't fire without people. 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 which is now the only hope of the families waiting for news of their loved ones inside the town. r t western powers have indicated x. months peace talks in geneva may no longer involved calls for assad to be removed from power it's actually feared extremists could take control of the country if his

government fails washington says it's willing to meet members of the newly formed islamic front group which is implicated in the bloodshed and i'll drop you spoke with an adviser to the u.s. congress who warned to extremists can't be trusted well first of all it would be a strategic mistake if the us administration or europe or their allies would be engaging in a partnership and a partnership meaning they would be collaborating with organizations that are she hobbies and have not committed to become moderates or recognize the fact that if they come to power or part of power they will recognize human rights that did not happen that would be a mistake of the size that was done in afghanistan and maybe done again with the taliban next year the number two if the united states will engage or has engaged some of these organizations probably in the goal of a very tactical engagement to make sure that those forces are not going to bring

more foreign forces from the outside including al qaida but again i'm very skeptical so we have to have a better strategy to engage with the more moderates with the seculars and also with the minorities that exist in syria today. infertility birth defects and cancer are potential side effects of chemicals found this week near fracking wells in colorado but that hasn't stopped us energy companies pushing ahead with their drilling operations and is gonna teach you can reports residents living near the wells have almost no allies in their fight for a safe environment 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 his 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 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 conceit that the rights it seen come in survival from oil and gas production issues really put him in charge

of also regulating the protection of groundwater from going down swells and there's any parent. conflict of interest 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 of four point two million dollars lawsuit for defamation steve lipski is 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 so why do you sell us our says the environmental protection agency has not put nearly enough resources into studying the effects that fracking has on groundwater

but that didn't stop the p.a. from coming up with a reporting favor of the practice. phillips kids were advised to vent the gas constantly to keep it from accumulating under their property as their neighboring gas wells continues to frac slide thousand feet deep we're pretty much standing around on top of the one hundred years from now when somebody dies because there's some time being at the border and they're able to trace it to this frac him and we've got the osa staff who cares invest in a few last three 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 alone to get a healthy environment in their homes. or to keep taxes. meanwhile across the atlantic the u.k. government would like to see greater energy exploitation in the countryside or importers lay the groundwork to open up vast areas of britain to exploration

including shale gas drilling now the light blue on this map over here has shows how much land has been earmarked for that and the u.k.'s energy minister has hailed the report as the next step in unlocking britain's fracking potential but friends of the earth helen rimmer believes it's time to stop before it's too late we've only had one hundred full of explorer truly drilling sites across the u.k. but already we've seen huge local opposition whether it's in the south or just a little over 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 potentially so fracking we're going to see even more position 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. a co-founder of the pirate bay website is being treated almost like public enemy number one that's according to his lawyer who says he's in solitary confinement with

a little contact with fellow inmates that's after he was charged with packing into a danish government database plus. putin admits he's jealous of obama and explains why moscow is pouring cash into ukraine the annual marathon q. and a session with the press that's after a short break. good lumber tour to mccurry was to build a new age most sophisticated read books which will unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care

about humans in britain this is why you should care what you only. choose your language. week over the internet or some other. choose to use the consensus to. choose the opinions that you think are great to. choose the stories that imply. choose access to your. president could held his annual marathon q. and a session this week which lasted for more than four hours bombarded by dozens of questions he shared his thoughts on the hottest topics of the here are to pissed off was there they'd 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 all 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 set it right from the last few weeks with mass protest both in favor of against moving closer with the e.u. moscow is giving kiev a fifteen billion dollar all to help because of 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 governing ukraine not so long ago. was a foreign minister also headed the parliament to machine is a former prime minister you shanker 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 downs 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. the current amnesty which should affect up to twenty five thousand people coincides with the twentieth anniversary of rush scots dushan members of the workers and greenpeace activists from the so-called arctic story are expected to benefit so obviously this issue was also mentioned including the president's stance on the organization itself. and this ship had entered our exclusive

economic zone was not responding and they tried to scale the platform after attempt to stop the second boat started ramming our border guards is that a civil discussion about protecting the environment is just so p.r. or an attempt to blackmail racketeering or someone's order to disturb our work on developing resources what happened should serve as a lesson and unite us along with greenpeace in joint efforts to minimize environmental risks instead of just making a fuss. 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 you go to school of art moscow. he's not a killer or a terrorist but he's being held in conditions as bad as if he were online activists and legit hacker got for its part is one of the founders of the file sharing

website the pirate bay has been accused by denmark of stealing millions of personal id numbers and it's not the first time one of the pirate bay creators found themselves in court by the website first came under fire back in two thousand and six when it got on the wrong side of hollywood and was taken down for several days when swedish police raided its headquarters several years later at its founders were charged and eventually sentenced to a year in prison for encouraging copyright violations earlier this week r.t. spoke to support home parks lawyer who told us her client is treated much worse than is warranted by the charges against him. it's got a little bit better since we talked the last time he's been moved to a different facility. to be honest the first facility the first prison it couldn't it couldn't really get anywhere else and that so now is an different facility and he's been allowed to. be with another in mexico it's another inmate two hours per week but it's still not good yes allowed to go outside as well one hour every day.

and during that hour he would you know by coincidence be able to talk to other inmates he's certainly not good at giving given the conditions that other in the same case would be given believes very cautious about this case they don't really want anything to go wrong because it's a very sensitive sensitive case in denmark. turkish police have fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators in istanbul people poured into the streets to vent their anger over a massive government corruption scandal. that's after at least twenty four people close to prime minister air to wana were arrested on suspicion of and battlement money laundering and bribery by the turkish leader dismissed the case as a conspiracy to discredit him and his government dr john berryman ton of the

istanbul guys that told us what he thinks is behind the unrest in turkey behind the scenes there is talk about the fact that this corruption scandal erupted because there is a struggle between the. originals party and the so-called usenet movement led by foot to look and. and so in the role of those who say that there is a need to struggle for the soul of turkey and in the in the in the political field between the me between those two is going movements but for the moment i think that on the state to state. because he is very steadfast in his. promotion is that he has nothing inside and outside forces who are trying to turkish turkish progress and as a result he's firmly entrenched in this no planning to go anywhere however how this whole corruption scandal will play out ran that people are going to cost of zero

next year. time for a brief look now at some other news making headlines around the world. a suicide car bombing at an army checkpoint in eastern libya has left at least thirteen people dead and scores more injured a truck approached the site and exploded when soldiers approached to check the vehicle government troops in the east of the country regularly come under attack from armed militias. thousands have staged a rally against racism on the streets of the swedish capital stockholm this comes just days after neo nazis attacked anti-racism protesters when two people were stabbed hundreds of police officers were deployed along the route of the march but there were no reports of violence. they did their duty end of war repaid with sickness servicemen of the royal air force were tasked with carrying out nuclear tests in south australia at the height of the cold war and as artists are sellable ports calls for the u.k.

government to compensate them are getting louder. it was seventeen when he joined the royal air force and was eventually posted to marling in south australia nuclear tests were carried out there in the fifty's with some publicity but minor trials reportedly continued in secrecy until the my nine hundred sixty s. . we knew every or for every fortnight flew in with a nuclear from. which we are loaded onto a lorry and it was taken away and. we did what we were doing with what he termed fifty illnesses he believes were caused by his exposure to radiation that linger started manifesting started off with tb started having degeneration of the spawn to alter. condition which can only be of traced back to genetic source so i have the question in my mind.

was it many was it because i was there and many others are asking the same questions even before world war two radiation was a hazard the problem is measuring it in a meaningful way very very difficult indeed and nevertheless there is undoubtedly i think tradition among the british authorities not to own up to any responsibility these people were experimented on quite honestly and it was disgraceful how those soldiers were created and they've long been asking the government for recognition and compensation their service is part of history a war you allies of future generations will not forget but for those who would actually serve the forgetting is not an option especially for those who feel that a decision they made decades ago may have cast a shadow on their lives of those of their loved ones if you look out of the

country's nuclear countries a treaty that veterans and compensate them and recognize them and we stand right at the bottom of the table that is wrong france the united states and even the tiny island men have already done so but the ministry of defense maintains that while there is a quote huge debt of gratitude owed to the veterans the government rejects any link between veterans' health problems and their military service citing a two thousand and ten health needs audit. overall the rage and severity of problems reported was typical of older people in the u.k. in general any veteran who believes they have suffered ill health due to service has the right to apply for no fault compensation jeff knows the clock is ticking and while he's hopeful he has no illusions about how difficult the fight will be at the very least what he wants is this and so he found you only need one cos the money won't need to say thank you we're like ghosts. we don't exist does or sylvia

r.t. london i'll be back with you in about thirty minutes what's more news but up next an in-depth discussion on the n.s.a. spy scandal with a white house security veteran and worlds apart. you're

coming. to europe you. have you with us you're on t.v. today i'm going researcher.

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 are these reforms really as whipping as they are 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 the 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. believe 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 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.