it was a. holiday greeting with a message you'd never expect edward snowden delivers a christmas speech warning that too much time could damage the way the next generations are things that there's still time for a cure. for any strike is taken there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured. while the white house praises drone strikes as a pinpoint accurate to terrorist weapon at this time great number of civilian casualties. and islands happy bailout exit leaves people doubt wondering whether the end justifies the means. i just i couldn't sleep not so i could think both things i get up a good school run and then i go back to bed again and you know i couldn't do

anything at all if you think i was this dish. aussies pigs to some of those trying to keep a roof over their heads as banks push to repossess homes from struck mean families . international news and comment life from moscow this is aussie international with me hello and welcome to the program christmas comes but once a yes so for those in the u.k. who close it out in front of t.v. to watch the queen's christmas speech it probably came was no surprise that it wasn't the only message on the box and alternative address was delivered by a man who believes there's no reason to stick to the rules. story. christmas day here in the u.k. is

a sacred tradition it's all about the christmas turkey the family gathering and 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 her grandson about the year's achievement spots 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 u.s. the u.k. and other western countries and he was speaking today all about privacy he said that george orwell's nineteen eighty-four was a 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 channel four said that they chose edward snowden for this christmas message 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 can be hoping that they will have knowledge of us towards questioning that status quo that little bit more by having edward snowden talk to them about privacy today. jim kelly the executive director of the open rights group and he told us that snowden showed how the n.s.a. surveillance weakened security technologies and exposed exposed us all to criminal activity. i think it's really important that he have this opportunity to tell everybody in the u.k. about what he's what he's been able to tell us so that we can start to think about

how we reform surveillance in the u.k. that would start in the show to seize that every ball be as fundamental as a result of the kind of surveillance that's taking place not only we've gotten a bill from security agencies but because they weakened security technologies in general they ain't ordinary people bundle to the activities of common criminals who can use the same vulnerabilities that the n.s.a. have introduced to hack people's computers steal their identities take information from them. with less than a week say twenty four seen west something out the most people saw news of the outgoing get. these local to be. braving the elements in order to stand on u.s. soil giants chevron. this comes after

a massive hunger strike that returned the world's attention to the place that some have dubbed the gulag of our tides. is an undeclared global battlefield in which a young and it's just one of the front lines oh. oh . in the latest in our series the problem of drone warfare in the middle east in yemen a decade of america's war on terror has led the population fearing a strike any time anywhere and on anyone they see yet so civilian victims testify before the united states congress but that tragic stories were waved away by the white house which still and says they aren't a terror attacks are pinpoint accurate in the latest incidence though up to

seventeen people were killed in a rural wedding ceremony in yemen. and of now on a 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 mouth teacher and this pupil without his father this is the big charity. 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 finally the father of three was killed by a us 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 and 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. they 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 this 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 didn'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 certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured the highest standard we can set. except 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 growth of. fast may have contributed to the growth and expansion of. at some point when we can slug enough powerful enough to be able to inflict serious damage the u.s. war on terror has no borders often waged 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 come on in yemen and lucy catherine of. foreign policy analyst phyllis bennis says that whatever comes to international law the u.s. feels it has a free pass. 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 the sounds of us 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 if the us 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 they have a civilian death toll that america's drone strikes have brought to pakistan people that can't even leave the area where the unmanned aircraft are waging war correspondent one to a region that is now a walled off firing range where the u.s. military machine or child report next. the un is doubling its peacekeeping mission in south sudan where thousands of believed to have died in the recent unrest last is also sending marines closer to the country to help evacuate its citizens the world's youngest country is going. to get but it's now on the brink of civil war a power struggle between the president and his deputy has inflamed deadly tribal tension america has been gauged in the region since the one nine hundred seventy s.

when oil giant chevron discovered all that was a big helpful push south sudan's independence also a historian child one was amazing in the sudan in a civil war during the eighty's explains why the us wanted another country on the wild land. united states was basically the midwife for south sudanese independence united states in its real world posed to the khartoum 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 part of el duque and nor and then there is the china question the chinese oil company is deeply invested in south sudan and for a way the chinese was also seen as a tool through which could be accomplished through independence and searching for stuff to them chevron felt that it would be in their best interests if south sudan

work 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 girls produced in south sudan and while literally roughly at one hundred dollars a barrel you can see that this is a pretty penny. this is all seeing to national says a cop on the. if you push it microsoft if it will cost the shot a would be a regional with fears that fresh fish from the sea is a round the blond parts are contaminated to eat stay with us after the break. to st augustine. strategic mission to try. a longer covert team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents. the united states is

trying to. make local media more pro-american they encounter fear ignorance and pressure. country blocks the way to information freedom. media stuff on our t.v. . you're

watching international life from moscow welcome back egypt's military box interim government has officially branded the muslim brotherhood as terrorists and declared its activities both at home and abroad illegal the organization is blamed for choose a suicide blast in months era that killed sixteen and wounded scores of others the muslim brotherhood denies being involved and is demanding an investigation cairo based journalist shahira amin believes the government's called evan d'etat against supporters of the ousted president morsi. this is a new escalation in the long running feud between the secured clearly brotherhood what they're trying to achieve is to crush the islamist group all together and not to leave any room any space for that group to enter into political life again.

they see more defined the never they've already called for protests on friday saying that the coup is the real terrorism here and they feel that this is a return to pre-judge and you were twenty eleven the return of the police state repressive measures being taken. all measures taken to silence any form of dissent so i expect more violence more bloodshed and it's a it's a vicious cycle europe showing tentative signs of improvement of the austerity scars run deep of the nations who needed bailouts ireland became first to prove that it can now go it alone but its banks are gunning for homeowners who've fallen behind during the lead his tests are seen limit some of the families living under threat of being turfed out on to the streets. most people here remember the cold to

tiger with this sense alone call it economic boom time for the mid ninety's up until two thousand and seven that went bust in no small way the un 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 vs to me back in crisis and the painful austerity that continues to today for some irish families though there's 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 i climb with the rears so instead of 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 where the 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 without and on business to paralyze the entire nation they have failed to deal with the mortgage crisis but coming up with creative solutions we can measure how much the bailout has cost us in monetary terms we have never evaluation how much this is cost of 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 at school run a minute and then go back to bed again and you know i couldn't do anything at all or think i was this dish and i had no way out a 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 would be bankrupt of course. you know it's bad luck and the reason why i'm hoping to be bankrupt christmas is that i can start again become what i was before does or assume your r.t. ireland. and the world will know ways to keep our cash saved but it's a different matter for bitcoins as one how plus only discovered back to the host has found out the hard way you show it is printed bitcoin on air to thousands of years only to get digitally pick pocketed by hackers more the story online. cost of piracy would tell you how iconic heavy metal band iron maiden plans to use data from illegal song downloads to fill their concert. forward georgian president mikhail saakashvili has been declared persona non grata in ukraine here has also been to thirty five other people from georgia the e.u.

and the us from entering the country all of them are suspected to working with the ukrainian opposition during the ongoing antigovernment protests his diapers color has more for. 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 independence square ones in december there are allegedly another twenty nine georgians on the list 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 some european union and u.s. citizens who have been banned and treat brain 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 jury in 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 is 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. now for a look at some of this hour's news headlines severe weather in britain has made it a chaotic christmas day for tens of thousands of people high winds and heavy rain have bought of the country leaving many without power around a thousand homes were flooded following mass evacuations in southern and central parts of the country as a warning that life threatening storm conditions will persist. deadly blasts have hit the iraqi capital killing at least thirty seven people and injuring scores more explosions targeted an outdoor market and the church as christian worship was left a christmas service there we spoke to the president of the our bloggers association in the u.k. who believes the iraqi government is true preoccupied with an internal power

struggle to deal with sectarian strife so you have maliki who is the new dictator in iraq and you have other politicians who want to remove them so that they can stay in and what is 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 where 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 as a duty to make the lives of the ordinary people tolerable at least and this is what this government is failing japan is famous for its seafood but fishing near the devastated figures from a nuclear plant isn't perhaps such a bright idea local fisherman claim their landing immense amounts of contaminated

fish and do their best to keep it from consumers tables even though the authorities insist tests show save. skin now or explain. work doesn't stop in the port of salma 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 cat was made in the waters of the bush team on 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 righteousness in the act but a poor eighty 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 the slightest trace of radiation will destroy the whole catch so far there has been none of this species safe and even the nuclear plant operator tepco standing firm that the nearby waters are clear of radiation this edition is pretty much on the control we've built fan says not to let polluted ground waters 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 but 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 professors possibly affected by contamination of the sea accounting for almost forty thousand tons of fish but year but things may get even worse as the third anniversary of the fukushima disaster approaches south korea has become the first country to bear in japanese fish and seafood imports. reporting from japan. the next step for you the fast pato we can make spread maybe meatiest on announcing to national to state.

although i have gone duck hunting a few times i've never seen the duck dynasty t.v. show but gosh if i heard about the scandal involving one of the stars of the show phil robertson who got suspended for making what many consider anti homo sexual comments in an interview this celebrity scandal is creating a lot of arguments about freedom of speech on social networks many people who believe that robertson deserved to be booted from the show for what he said argue that freedom of speech means that robertson can't be arrested by the government for what he said but the any t.v. channel has the right to fire whom they like the thing is that if this situation were reversed and robertson was fired for making pro l.g. p.t. statements then people who are currently defending any right to hire and fire as they please would all be bashing the t.v. channel for violating the star's freedom of speech think cry that firing him would violate his rights and i'm sure some websites would make him into a hero or demand a boycott a closing of a n.d. forever very few people actually believe in freedom of speech for all they just

believe in freedom of speech for people who agree with them but that's just my opinion. well going into the. seasons he has put has already been plenty to celebrate this december on this month's show wheeling how the future of penn so lazy section stone cold to make movies with an instant messenger under revolutionary exoskeleton makes life worth of heavy lifting. she obtained cheer on a. new gun control.

does use it but this but the from this to quote good i think i would have to define time ago. jim moved movement viewed as if it were the. people who tell a company. good luck a good one and i'm a. bitch is not a one of more than with what you looked. at it and it didn't appear to be true and it was not me true nichols but the city needed it but it's pretty good with the compass card. because the hospital. would disagree with this

if it's anything that resembles that of the civil rights reasons for her to be able . to provide information on the public to provide information on the particular disease residing in the. oval leg of the hundred budgies t.v. and some of the news that. proceeded to pick a pretty with. the person to close it. to provide information on a market of stocks and it's doubled like you'll need to do better. than it looks then and if would it still losing. what makes it in the input a minute she's the third most abusive one. i'm going but. you didn't when you sign your. nose no no no no i just. got that. really don't want. no more than a little come to get us closer to this week of us don't.