it was to keep us safe. tonight a christmas greeting with a message you'd never expect edward snowden addresses t.v. viewers in britain warning too much spying could damage the way the next generation thinks but he adds still time for a cure. that's really mass graves and thousands dead across the country but done escalates was some question whether there's more to the rest than just an internal conflict. while the white house praises drone strikes as a pinpoint accurate antiterrorist weapon r t this hour looks at a staggering number of civilian casualties the amount the tax rate. and the islands happy bail out these people they're wondering whether the end justifies the means. couldn't do anything at all i think that was the sticks and i had no way i

wish to speak to some of those trying to keep a roof over their heads as banks push to repossess homes from struggling families. it's ten pm december the twenty fifth here in moscow my name is kevin zero in this is a very merry christmas to if you're celebrating it right now of course from all of us here and indeed there as they say so for those of you in britain evening who cozied up in front of your t.v.'s to watch the christmas speech you better know it wasn't the only message on the box oh no an alternative address was delivered by a man who believes there's no reason to stick to the rules because got the story. christmas day here in the u.k. is a sacred tradition it's all about the christmas turkey the family gathering of course getting around the telly to watch the queen's speech with your family this year the

queen was wishing brits a merry christmas she spoke about the birth of grandson about the years achievements bought channel four airing an alternative christmas message from n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden who of course revealed the extent of mass government surveillance programs in the us the u.k. and other western countries and he was speaking today all about privacy he said that george orwell's one thousand nine hundred eighty four was the real fairy tale compared to the reality that we're living with right now and he said that children born nowadays are really going to grow up with no concept of privacy whatsoever that all their thoughts are going to be recorded and analyzed which is pretty somber stuff for christmas day but he did end on a positive note saying that together the public can work for a better balance to end mass surveillance and the to remind governments that really

if they want to know what the public is thinking they should ask and it's cheaper than spying so the christmas message from channel four this alternative message has become somewhat of a tradition in itself it's been delivered in the past by the former iranian president ahmadinejad's by nine eleven survivors from new york by brigitte bardot margin lisa simpson and the idea behind it is really to provoke thought and to get people to question the status quo that little bit more channel four said that they chose edward snowden for this christmas message because of the extent of the revelations that he has brought to the public this year and the questions that he's raised around democratic society so they're going to be hoping that they will have not just fear as towards quest. getting that status quo that little bit more by having edward snowden talk to them about privacy today. the u.n. is sending over five thousand more troops now there's almost doubling the number of

peacekeepers the post to the computer goes to deadly violence which the u.n. says has already claimed thousands of lives. as the details the u.n. says that investigators discovered a mass graves in the rebel held city of then two with fourteen bodies at one site twenty bodies at a nearby site but the possibility of there being either even a third site now tens of thousands of people have fled the country amid fighting between rebels that are supporting former vice president riek machar and president salva kiir forces you have to remember that south sudan is a young country and a civil war is what initially caused its breakaway from the north you know the united states campaigned for it some experts believe that washington's enthusiasm for south sudan's autonomy had less to do with humanitarian issues and more to do about the south sudanese oil reserves now the irony right now is that no matter

which way you slice it the international community has another crisis on its hands that may be costly and complicated the country's top u.n. humanitarian official said the death toll from the past ten days has surpassed one thousand but added that there's no official firm counts it may be more it may be less nobody knows what we do know is that the violence is spreading and spreading quickly. there washington's no submarines to the one of africa to help evacuate its citizens from south sudan the u.s. has been engaged in the region indeed since the nineteen seventies when old john chevron discovered all that washington was also one of the biggest champions of south sudan's recent independence also in a store in gerald horn who was mediating the sudanese civil war and back in one nine hundred eighty s. spoke to me at a place why the u.s. wanted another country on the world map right now you're in states with basically the midwife for south sudanese independence the united states and israel were

opposed to the khartoum base of government not least because it would seem as being anti israel and was perceived as being pro palestinian not only that but there is oil in sudan and the oil is in the south in this problem out there going to war and then there is the china question the chinese state oil company is deeply invested in south sudan and for allowing the chinese was also seen as a tool through which could be accomplished through independence and the such and for south sudan chevron felt that it would be in their best interest if south sudan works to see because it would be easier to exploit the oil in a divided country as opposed to a united country that was a major reason driving the split do the math we're talking about hundreds of thousands of barrels produced in south sudan and with oil let's say roughly at one hundred dollars a barrel you can see that this is

a pretty penny. joe horn with me still to come on out a close friend of the ukrainian opposition is no longer welcome in the country apparently report on why former georgian president mikheil saakashvili ended up on a no entry list won't be cheering protesters in kiev in the near future plus the fukushima catastrophe still cost a shadow over the region with the fears now that fresh fish from the sea around the plant to contaminate it to eat. as repair to say farewell to twenty thirteen artie's looking at events that made headlines this past year. these are. braving the elements in the want to. see u.s. oil giants chevron. this comes after a massive hunger strike that returned the world's attention to the place that summed up the gulag of our times.

is an undeclared global battlefield in which a young man is just one of the front lines. well today we're looking at a decade of america's drone warfare a yemen and pakistan that's left the population in fear of a strike any time anywhere and on anyone this year source of billion victims testify before the u.s. congress but this story is a waved away by the white house that insists that these terrorist attacks have pinpoint accurate in the latest incident up to seventeen people were killed in a rural wedding ceremony in yemen. next reports on the human price of america's war. it says no faith for the one who has no trust but both are now in

short supply in this part of yemen for months the class has been without its math teacher and this pupil without his father this is the big show about a charity i didn't know. his name is still on the staff schedule but i leave hasn't been here since signing out of class on january twenty third the last of the the finality the father of three was killed by a u.s. drone alongside his twenty year old cousin salim a college student who drove them in a borrowed to yoda they picked up two strangers who turned out to be suspected al qaeda militants witnesses reported a whirring sound in the sky then missiles struck their car. the smell of death was everywhere some of the bodies were burned beyond recognition the rest were ripped to shreds and scattered all around. i found a part of saleman side the car the rest was outside we only recognised him by a piece of his trousers. you couldn't tell who was who if they were even human it

was sickening. one drone change the sleepy farming village for ever less than an hour's drive from yemen's capital kabul lawn is far removed from al qaeda operations but without warning it was thrust into the war on terror. saleem's mother shows me where her son used to sleep she can't bear to get rid of his things although she knows she'll never return home. god help us i don't understand until the next day that an american drone killed my son why tell me may allah deprive them of their souls like they robbed us of our son he was the only one providing for this family all we have left now is our tears we only target al qaeda and its associated force and even then the use of drones is heavily can strike before any strike is taken there must be near. certainly but no civilians will be killed or injured the highest standard we can set.

accept there was a deadly failure yemen's interior ministry confirms the cousins had no links to terrorism in a country where tribal ties surmount all the loss was felt far beyond the family the white house has never acknowledged the deaths let alone the strike but mohamed shows me the evidence this is what killed them what's thought to be a fragment of a hellfire missile launched from a drone. the u.s. believes this is its best weapon against al qaeda although not officially at war in yemen the covert drone campaign has been dramatically ramped up here under president obama. yemen's al qaeda threat is real it's plotted attacks on international airliners and caused hundreds of deaths the cia describes it as the most dangerous and active branch of the terrorist network

the defense is that drone strikes have seriously damaged his ability to plan attacks but critics here say it's doing the exact opposite it does not contain the ghosts of the facts that may have contributed to the growth and expansion of the at some point when i get off powerful enough to be able to inflict serious damage the u.s. war on terror has no borders often waved remotely with cruise missiles and drones it's an undeclared global battlefield in which yemen is just one of the front lines of fight against groups like al qaida in which ordinary civilians also end up paying a price. i ask obama to bring my dad back to life all the kids at school have their fathers but we don't reporting in calm on in yemen i'm lucy catherine of. foreign policy analyst phyllis bennis says the u.s. routinely turns a blind eye to international law whenever it stands in the way of the government's

goals there is no justification for killing children old people noncombatants there's no legal justification there's no moral justification the fact that these are the victims these are the actual victims of u.s. drone strikes goes to the heart of what's wrong with drone strikes the idea that they are somehow surgically accurate is simply demolished that argument is demolished by the amnesty international report by the initial report of the un special rapporteur the reality is that in the u.s. says we have determined that it is legal to use drone strikes in afghanistan to use drone strikes in pakistan where we are not at war the fact that it may be a violation of international law is simply dismissed as irrelevant international law in the united states unfortunately is too often only applied to other countries and not to ourselves it's not just the heavy civilian death toll that america's

drugs drugs have brought to pakistan people can even leave the area where the aircraft are waging war correspondent went to a region that's been turned into a walled off rage for the u.s. military machine got that report if you're not called already today next hour. thanks we will a small news after a short break including why people are all in the still facing financial troubles as we head into a new year despite a better picture being painted for the country's economy. these are. braving the elements in order to stand up to us oil giants chevron. this comes after a massive hunger strike that returned the world's attention to the place that sums up the gulag of our times.

is an undeclared global battlefield in which a young man is just one of the front lines. that's a. good lumber tour curbeam was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which on fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach creation why it should care about humans and. this is why you should care only on the. ukraine has been thirty six foreigners including former georgian president mikheil saakashvili from entering the country those declared persona non grata or suspected

of working with the ukrainian opposition to destabilize the situation in the country during the on going on to government protests to push. well the most prominent person on the list is obviously former georgian president mikheil saakashvili a well known supporter of the so-called color revolutions he's already visited the kiev's independence square once and december there are allegedly another twenty nine georgians on them. among them is a man who is on the international wanted list for being behind the unrest that broke out during the protests in may two thousand and twelve in moscow besides georgians there are also european union and u.s. citizens who have been banned and treat grain ukrainian parliament member who initiated this move said that all these foreigners have been working with the opposition to destabilize the situation in the country however from what we know

there aren't any high profile european or even american politicians whom we saw so many times in the end of independence square in kiev and to name just some of them it's victoria nuland the u.s. deputy secretary of state who visited the protests twice and even hundred out some cookies to the protesters as a sign of support the e.u. diplomatic chief catherine ashton who helped talks both with the government and the opposition and even the u.s. hawks senator john mccain who is well known for supporting regime changes he was he had been to key of the so-called orange revolution a decade ago he was active during the arab spring in egypt and libya and he even let his support to the syrian rebels so far there's no evidence that any of them made it to the blacklist of visitors in ukraine and although the ukrainian

authorities say the entry is temporary it seems to be already working as several people have been turned down at the border. online feud r.-t. dot com unhealthy food but not for the employees it seems that r.t. dot com we've got the story of why mcdonald's is apparently pushing its workers to choose a salad instead of a burger and piracy for good cause well we'll tell you an iconic heavy metal band is now trying to use data from illegal song downloads to fill their concert venues good idea or not you can make your own mind up always plenty of stories to invigorate your wind on our website. the irish banks may have managed to shake off the burden of an e.u. bailout but at what price to the man on the street homeless organizations there are estimated sixteen families lose their homes every month just in the capital dublin and as artie's test facility finds thousands more are still battling the banks to

keep their homes. most people here remember the celtic tiger with a sense of melancholy economic boom times in the mid ninety's up until two thousand and seven that went bust in no small way the young for the structure behind me would have been the offices of the anglo irish bank one of the struggling banks that was effectively nationalized it was a stark reminder of the property boston the ensuing banking crisis and the painful austerity that continues to today and for some irish families though there is also a daily reminder the threat or reality of losing their homes we had a mortgage was very high on the value the property was falling below the mortgage so i ended up with a cash offer five hundred passengers and two thousand and eleven and i was delighted but the banks refused to accept the offer because it wasn't more which was eight hundred climb with arrears so instead the preferred term which of course . repossessed the house while arlen may have officially exited its bailout it's still mired in debt and the end of september almost one in five home loans worth

a total of twenty five billion euros were still not being fully repaid homeless organization focus arland estimates that sixteen families lose their homes each month in the capital the banks have had a catastrophic effect on data activity that aren't on business to paralyze the entire nation they have failed to deal with the mortgage crisis but coming up a creative solutions we can measure how much the bailout has cost us in monetary terms we have never evaluation how much this is cost us in emotional and mental health terms i could barely push. one foot in front of the other because i just i just i couldn't sleep nights i couldn't think about things i get up to the school run and then i go back to bed again and you know i couldn't do anything at all i think i was this desk and i had no way out and new law was passed in december which would automatically discharge a person from bankruptcy after three years as opposed to the current twelve year

term personal insolvency arrangements can also be made for those who want to just and other debt with this perhaps there's a glimmer of hope for people like julia i've got to back up for christmas. you know it's bad luck and the reason why i'm hoping to be bankrupt christmas is that i can start again let me become what i was before does or sell your r t r l and. now world news in brief egypt's military backed government officially declared the muslim brotherhood a terrorist organization that move could lead to harsher punishment for members of the group and those financing at the hundreds of brotherhood activists have been arrested after the ousting of president morsi in july if officials accuse the group of big behind tuesday's deadly bomb attack targeted a police headquarters in the city of mansehra also learning tonight hundreds of opposition supporters of clashed with police in thailand as they tried to enter a registration center for upcoming elections new polls were called for february after weeks of anti-government protests demanding the prime minister and the

country's main opposition party promised more protests and said it would boycott the election. the iraqi capital baghdad been hit by twin blasts killing as many as thirty seven people injuring scores more explosions targeted an outdoor market in a church as worshipers were leaving a christmas service we spoke to the president of the arab lawyers association in the u.k. he believes the iraqi government's too preoccupied with an internal power struggle right now to deal with the sectarian strife out so you have maliki who is the new dictator in iraq and you have other politicians who want to remove him so that they can stay in place and what the. there is what's called the politics of the process which is really a sham it is not a real political process because you cannot have a political process when you are losing something like twenty thirty people a day this is a civil war the fault of the end of the day must lie with the government because the government any government anywhere has a duty to protect the people has

a duty to protect the society has a duty to make the life of the ordinary people tolerable at least and this is what this government is failing and indeed over one thousand people lost their lives in violence this year in iraq the deadliest for the country since two thousand and eight together with the investigative group iraq body count we launched project online to track all the deaths and attacks that ravage the country well that information is there for you in r.t. dot com.

almost three years after the fukushima nuclear tragedy it's still casting a big shadow over the japanese seafood industry local fishermen say they're doing their best to keep contaminated fish and consumers table and they do discourage discard most of the catch but that is a lexer jessica went to see how safe it really is and the day. work doesn't stop in the port of saumur despite being just a few kilometers from areas still ravaged by the twenty eleven tsunami and still contaminated by radiation seafood of all shapes and sizes lands here several times a day not only fish has traditionally been the integral part of the japanese culture but also one of its prized acts boards last year alone the exporting companies pocketed more than two billion u.s. dollars however there are serious concerns now this particular catch was made in the waters of the pushing my nuclear power station after it became known that he

drawled existing at the fukushima nuclear power plant was severely radiated fears grew that the contamination could be spreading into the pacific there are significant contamination in the bottle sediment especially in the paul and the rebirth system so that we can find a very very high concentration of the right. fish factories around the fukushima prefecture now have to take radiation measurements but despite lab workers assuring us the fish was free of any harmful particles were taken samples from every catch we make and if we ever find even slightest trace of radiation will destroy the whole catch so far there has been none this fish is safe and even the nuclear plant operator tepco is standing firm that the nearby waters are clear of radiation this is decision is pretty much on the control we've built fance is not polluted ground where there's a leak into the ocean we were surprised to learn that most of the seafood we saw at

the port of soma will never make it to the shelves of fish markets or restaurant tables. most of the fish caught within the thirty kilometer radius is thrown into the garbage because it is radiated and tepco is paying local fishermen for it so they're happy and keep silent some of it though makes it to stores but only locally seafood firms here are under threat and there are five perfect responsibly affected by contamination in the sea accounting for almost forty thousand tonnes of fish per year but things may get even worse as the third anniversary of the fukushima disaster approaches south korea has become the first country to baron japanese fish and seafood imports and. reporting from japan quick break next and coming up we continue our report on the impact of documents leaked by wiki leaks.

more the twenty fourteen olympics what's this place like and the line is is so special as the russian resort prepares to welcome the world power the game shaking the city's present and future a lot more so it will bring you this is the moment there are reports you for a look very cold and snowy windy mountainous tough yet beyond the olympics but the

. starting germ of the first on our team. i got tired. because there was an article about. about me here conditions of work since we did turn to the set have when they were here and it's really about this time. and the years. and it is just that they interviewed the very frank with me and they told me about different things that you

couldn't report to calm things that they could hear the censorship to be experienced in there. at their workplace or the material that was published two of the six journalists that are tired of you they retracted their statements so you see the. base you see you need that you get some good news cam or you think out of a long text or something i think if somebody does an interview with you and then you're entirely open frank about it. and then after a while maybe you realize that this is going to be shown on television and your boss is going to see this and your mother is going to see this and then you know you start understanding the consequences it's not just a conversation between you and your friends but they were just informed about it because i think to an extent. and i made a very big mistake there with that article and the mistake that i did was that i

was. hired to do a very journalistic very typical journalistic work. about journalists and the standards for doing the journalistic work about journalism has to be one hundred times higher because they were. there will immediately you backfire and they will start to criticizing what you do in a completely different way than if it's a regular person because regular person doesn't have the power to were. to say no. he's got to deal. here is a cable marked secret no four and that means that not even allowed states are allowed to read and it's about a meeting between the u.s. ambassador and the curate is foreign minister and it goes like this and. then besler and the curious for.