today's news in the week's top stories here on our team international the e.u. calls on turkey for more openness and a massive corruption probe that's triggered on a resident and major government shake up. we continue our look back at two thousand and thirteen this time the story of the computer worker who blew open the u.s. extensive global surveillance network. russia's foreign minister talks started about the years of breakthroughs and challenges from syria to the missile defense spat with nato. it's eight am in moscow i match reza bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r.t.

international turkey needs to handle its deepening corruption scandal with more transparency according to the concerned european officials the probe that forced the arrest of twenty four people including the sons of two ministers and a massive government reshuffle is seen as prime minister heir to ones biggest challenge since coming to power more than a decade ago meanwhile some four thousand people gathered began in demanding the pm step down r t sarah for of has been following the protests. it's not some uncommon sight so the style of those streets a year that's been marked by widespread protests but this time the rallies taking place in the wake of the corruption crackdown that's what the government the threats to prime minister comes not just from the streets but from within his own posse the turnout for the demonstration was significantly smaller than that seemed to some of them the last of the clashes break out between police and protesters but

added i've been in power for such a long time has maintained control a lot of people said that a lot of good things to the country right now the. only actually it has become very very simple protests. in the senate if there is little. that is not of this is. big enough to still. be too publicly out of the protests the prime minister remains defiant and continue to blame the corruption probe well of foreign conspiracy you know if you get a second wave of detentions may still be possible in the time being is that look for basically a prosecutor publicly she's to the infos meant being in the government's pocket or teasing a court decision to carry out will wait for government officials and their families as political drama continues to unfold acutely the biggest test now facing the embattled five minutes the two lies ahead of head match. test for

mr. extruded crush. than we can see. the future of. whether people think may be very difficult. for them. because that would be like the elections take place and talk to the corruption. you. don't see the. journalist and blogger as you gabler was in istanbul's taksim square she says turkish society is becoming increasingly east but. it's not just the crash and scandal it's just one of the recent explosives that kind of came upon our day one and its leadership. people who are against

a ruling party and against the are no i'm but then there are still a considerable amount of people they so concerned about a very charismatic leader and they still believe in everything that he says so whenever he goes on camera as in my nice hour everywhere else that he's been in the past week ever since the corruption case that erupted and he's been saying that you know this is a conspiracy theory that this is the work of israel or the u.s. or argue that movement itself people do believe him. still to come here on r.g.p. u.s. central bank marking its hundredth birthday but critics saying the fed is seeking to capitalize on the recession is brewing. put humpty dumpty back together again in terms of wall street or is this. a system that i think is a working less and less for for the person on the street you take a look at why the federal reserve is standing strong i mean rising debt and inequality in the u.s. . and a former russian oil tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky values to fight for the release of his associates after being freed from prison in

a few moments we'll look at how they ended up behind bars in the first place. but before we get to that we're just a few days left in the year two thousand and thirteen we're looking back at the events that shaped this year. thurston who has arguably generated more global headlines than any other was a previously unknown i.t. worker from the states while on the job at the cia he didn't like what he saw so edward snowden went public telling the world just how far and wide america's electronic surveillance really went but the truth had consequences reports on how the n.s.a. whistleblower joined a list of those persecuted for exposing government secrets edward snowden says george orwell's fictitious big brother is no match for the u.s. national security agency the types of collection the book microphones and video t.v.'s that watches are nothing compared to what we have today snowden revealed

that a secret court rubber stamps warrants for telecommunication companies to hand out the data of millions of their customers he also leaked the programs that the government uses to track virtually anything anybody does on the internet and also store that information. and he showed how the u.s. government had lie about mass surveillance does the n.s.a. collect any type of data all on millions or hundreds of millions of americans. no sir while most americans think to edward snowden the u.s. government tectum as a spy and a traitor the united states government classified its evidence of its own criminal misconduct its its violations of the bill of rights what we're doing is advocating tele tarion procedures which is gathering information about all the individuals in the world. the former intelligence contractor is now in exile knowing for certain

that he'd go to jail should he return to the us like bradley and now chelsea manning who was sentenced to thirty five years in jail this august so we could leaks manning released many thousands of diplomatic cables and video proof of us involved linking want to find. another man who found himself in jail this year was john king the first u.s. official to confirm the government's use of waterboarding to interrogate suspects i caught up with him shortly before he went to serve his two and a half year sentence i have never believed that my case was about a leak i have always believed that my case is about torture in the hunt for whistleblowers journalists have been targeted as well u.s. authorities secretly tapped the phones of dozens of associated press journalists the partner of glenn greenwald who broke the story about n.s.a. surveillance was detained in london while carrying materials from edward snowden to

british authorities so closely cooperate with washington now accuse him of quote kerry's. aaron swartz was neither a whistleblower nor a journalist well it was a champion of the free internet fighting against censorship ills and advocating the online when the use of. as much taken from a shyness possible on the government on january eleventh the twenty six year old committed suicide. prosecutors wanted to put him in jail for up to thirty five years for downloading academic articles from a subscription based research website at his university with the intent to make them available to the public this was somebody who was pushed to the edge by what i think of as a kind of bullying by our government a government that treated him as if he were nine eleven terrorists edward snowden's revelations showed with the kind of surveillance that governments are doing by missy's out the window but this year we'll also learn what happens to those who

embrace this new age of openness and accessibility of information showed that while governments in the u.s. government first and foremost one their populations to be open and transparent they themselves become increasingly secretive in washington i'm going to check on our team. began on june sixth when britain's guardian newspaper published a court ruling demanding u.s. phone company of arise and hand over its customers phone records then came the exposure of the government's prism program collecting user personal data from surf including google and facebook it was later revealed that the n.s.a. had been spying on global leaders followed by claims that a number of countries were also in on the snooping former cia officer ray mcgovern says those behind the surveillance should be brought to justice. i am delighted to hear that ed snowden on his desk in honolulu had a copy of the constitution of the united states of all dog eared because he used it to argue with his and his campaign there it is say as to whether what they were

doing was legal whether it was constitutional whether it was a crime for them to be corrupt to be cooperated in using their technical expertise to violate america's privacy right and left the question should be why those who are aided and abetted this whether they should be. i suppose in their case and brought to trial for these of gross violations of their solemn oath to to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies throughout the day on our team were showing the film media stana program about a group of wiki leaks associates who travel across central asia in search of media outlets willing to publish leaked u.s. diplomatic cables but also host an extensive discussion later on sunday on the world's whistleblowers on the challenges they face and the risks they take all that and more still to come on r.t. international. street. strategic leadership.

team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents. united states is trying . to meet more pro-american counter your ignorance pressure. country blocks the way to information freedom. media stuff are today. russia's top diplomat says the u.s. and its allies are moving closer toward moscow's position on syria but where some key issues with nato still need ironing out sergey lavrov spoke exclusively with r.t. about yours foreign policy achievements here has been obvious among those who interviewed the foreign minister. lavrov things are finding the time to meet with us we have three channels here are spanish r.t.

arabic and english. with a whole year to cover there were lots of things to discuss it brought russia several diplomatic victories including the chemical arms deal with syria geneva two is the next step according to mr elaborate of preconditions from the syrian opposition remain among the key obstacles including the one for president assad to step down something that the west is now moving away from. the threat of jihadists coming to power in sitting at the caliphate and the realization is doing that region change is not the way to resolve this problem our western partners are becoming increasingly clear about this. there are also changes in russia's relations with the west and apparently there are signals for more transparent and trustworthy ties on both sides but of called warming talent is still something that must pass to deal with. some need a members have a food be against russia which is really said this leads to similar european partners still wanting to keep. and even move these lines eastward countries that

could either be with them or against them in the comments for the last november's nato drills near russia's western borders the largest in ten years six thousand troops from all member states as well as finland sweden and ukraine practiced defending the baltics from an identified threat from the east while president putin is question of what was the point of still planning to build an anti missile defense system in europe without a threat from iran still hasn't been properly answered by washington there aren't any firm guarantees the system want to be aimed at russia either you're going to skim off r.t. moscow. and also find our full exclusive interview with russia's foreign minister on our website r.t. dot com you can also find it on our you tube channel. three to x. oil mogul not how to carve ski may still be deciding exactly what to do next but one thing he says he knows for sure is that he wants to get former associates out of prison among them is one serving a life sentence for organizing several murders but how tough he claims he was put

behind bars unjustly artie's peter oliver has more after ten years in jail. has now decided to do is need phone freedom and some of his plans have caused a few raised eyebrows. some of my comrades remain in jail they are my fellow sufferers for example my friend platon lebedev alexei protrusion says there are still other political prisoners in russia not only those related to the u. cos 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 chew good was the head of security for his daughter coasties oil company you cos he's currently serving a life sentence for finally counts of murder. in two thousand and seven a court convicted of ordering the shooting of blood in me a pet you call of the mayor of a child in siberia. heard clashed with you cross over his insistence that the oil

giant paid taxes due to his tone the court found no link between the murders and the head of you cos however because widow believes this was a crime that went to the top. general complaining because it was registered there when it came to tax revenues that he was answering to the mayor never to uganda be met with before they depended on him and that was the only reason why he even imagine it only time will solve the mystery surrounding my husband's murder but i just like how to keep a consensus and clear his conscience. while on trial for the murder of pair of legs going with already serving twenty years in prison for the attempted murder of former holocaust visor all good cause dinner after quitting her post with you cos she went on to work as the head of p.r. for the mayor of moscow it was then that a bomb was placed in her moscow apartment fortunately it detonated while no one was

home. sees the holocaust these comments about political prisoners as self-serving. how to craft a hostage of his own party he can't act differently now if he ever recognizes what his security forces were doing and he will automatically become responsible i think now he fears that the next super to get in you may start talking and what the third ucas case could potentially be is a further investigation into those murders and assault which the company's security forces carried out a lot of craft he has no other choice he will continue to insist people from the security department are political prisoners that are and he will pretend to be pushing for release the are being heaped upon mr holocaust skier's left some of those watching feeling that only half the story is being told. he has still a lot of oil not physically by mean self fiscal many police

and every kind of businessman in the best who had done the same old school ended in prison above this story told in the with a teacher all of a billion and on dot com to learn more about mass resignations in the world's most populous country as many as five hundred chinese municipal lawmakers are now jobless after dilling the system read about what exactly made them take flight. and this time the poles and wires might not look like a cutting edge space or over but that's exactly what nasa is planning to send to one of saturn's largest moons in search of a new discovery. u.s. federal reserve celebrated its intensity of this week although more than twenty million unemployed americans were unlikely to join the party the country's debt is continuing to climb with the central bank accused of failing to prevent the recession and allowing inequality to rise more from artie's marina port. secretive

powerful wealthy and now it's got a birthday america's central bank wields enormous and almost unchecked power over the world's largest economy your. underneath and that means basically the. other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take the country has seen as many as eighteen recessions since the fed was created leading many to argue it has singularly failed to end the boom and bust economics that it was designed to prevent it's been abject failure it's been a dismal failure in promoting prosperity. sustainable prolonged prosperity and raising the living standards of americans. for the past thirty years have produced the biggest growth of income inequality wages for the low and middle

class have remained stagnant while the fed has allowed banks to double in size accounting for forty percent of the u.s. economy the fed has twelve regional banks and this one in new york is not only the largest it's also the closest to wall street salaries profits and bonuses have all grown over the past century one thing has shrunk the value of the u.s. dollar has declined a reported ninety five percent since i'm there across central bank was created following the two thousand eight hundred actual crisis millions of jobs in homes were lost. wall street went on to make a record breaking profits courtesy of the feds want to cheat if easing program done is it's basically taking a lot of the credit that was on wall street's balance sheets and it's it's brought it onto its own balance sheets and so it's playing this huge support function in the economy andrew sar who spearheaded the first quarter of q.e. has apologized to americans for what he calls

a backdoor bailout for the bang. most americans can't really get credit after the financial crisis still to this day even though wall street's been stabilized and so we have this long term decline in the economic prospects of the average american and yet a lot of our leadership both in washington and within the fed specifically are really focused on trying to put humpty dumpty back together again in terms of wall street and resists resuscitate a system that i think is a working less than last four for the person on the street for one hundred years america's currency and economy has been run by unelected and virtually unaccountable central planners and while the fed has helped the rich get richer the gap between the top one percent and the rest. is the largest it's been since the great depression merino point i r t. some of the fed's harshest critics liken it to a ponzi scheme set up by financial high fliers to line their pockets with cash even

today it's very much determined by the big banks themselves you can get a nomination and become the director of the new york fed without the ok of the big banks themselves and in fact people aren't aware that the banks actually pay for the operating expenses they did the federal reserve itself so it's always been an institution for the bankers and you know it's really a bit of a misrepresentation to say that the fed is going to stimulate the economy pumping money into the economy what's happened is that money ends up in the hands of the investors and speculators but because that money is not getting into the really kind of a mom and pop business you know stimulating real investment united states we don't see any real recovery in the real economy for real folks here in the united states . declaring egypt's muslim brotherhood a terror organization earlier this week deep in wounds in the divided country the

move came into effect after a suicide blast in the police headquarters in the nile delta that killed fifteen people there street unrest flared daily in different corners of the country is people going to the anger of the crackdown former islam is leaders an anti government activists some clashes turned deadly leaving almost release in cairo university campus which was set ablaze by angry students saturday one of them killed as police moved in to quell the riots journalists are here i mean believes everything is being done to make sure the muslim brotherhood is wiped from egyptian politics well this is a new escalation in the long running feud between the security state and the muslim brotherhood what they are trying to achieve is to crush these this group all together and not to leave any room any space for that and doing to political life again but they see more defined the never saying that the who is

the real terrorism here and they feel that this is a return to plead january twenty seventh the return of the police state requests of measures being taken. all measures taken to silence any form of dissent so i expect more violence small bloodshed and it's a vicious cycle. you know some other stories making global headlines this hour anti-government protesters in bahrain have been met with tear gas and sound bombs hundreds turned out across the gulf state following the arrest of the head of the main opposition bloc shake. his party in one of the main drivers of the arab spring inspired protests that started in two thousand and eleven opposition campaigners say rulers are leading the country for dictatorship widespread torture and detention and hundreds of jailed for human rights rebels. activists in the serious a government airstrike on a crowded food market in aleppo killed at least twenty five the city's become

a major front in the war between the army and the rebels the barrel bombs campaign comes ahead of a key peace conference planned for next month with the main opposition alliance threatening to pull out of talks if the air raids continue the u.n. estimates that well over one hundred thousand people have been killed on both sides since the war began more than two and a half years ago. iraqi security forces arrested a prominent sunni muslim lawmaker and government critic a raid on his home in the western unbar province killed at least five people including his brother and guards there are fears the incident could inflame ethnic tensions in the region as often is seen of anti-government protests sectarian violence is on the rise in iraq with more than eight thousand people killed there this year. the world's youngest country on the brink of collapse just two years after it appeared on the map what started as a power struggle in south sudan between the president and his sacked vice president this week descended toward civil war fighting in the oil rich states already claimed more than one thousand lives of this month artie's posts leader looks at

the core of the conflict. it is the glutes newest country but it is south sudan who will be on the brink of its own a full blown divisive conflict you know dealing with a civil war that knows no bounds in terms of how long that's would last of course it has no determination as to how many people lose their lives not to mention those who will be displaced and the latest coup the vice president forced out which exclaimed ignited his loyalists into a deadly rebellion yet just two and a half years ago the world rushed to recognize south sudan with washington among the loudest supporters in south sudan has mining reason reserves and it also has massive oil reserves those are the biggest interests land for oil mining and agricultural production the agents of power that have put in place the government of silva kerr the agent that supported the south sudan sudan people's liberation army would be the government of uganda and powerful factions from the united states

including corporate executives from the oil companies for the oil companies have served their interests have been served by bringing deescalate to power which they did and they succeeded in creating a separate independent state called south sudan now though a key oil producing area has fallen into when it gave forces a huge blow to a government that relies on the industry for just about all of its money well i'm afraid it's going to affect each and every one of us worldwide you will see the tail on a pullback in terms of production levels from the south sudan which would impinge on global world prices of oil goaltimate the we would feel it at the pumps in respect of where you are in the world where you go to a lot so prices would go up that would have taken the markets in the lost cause ultimately the biggest losers would be the south sudanese people solid fuel systems are pulling stuff out and in many cases winding production down to zero last weekend for american service personnel who did as their military aircraft came

under fire doing an attempt to evacuate u.s. civilians to say. president obama warns that he may take further action to keep american safe i mean south sudan was never you know a country that had proper infrastructure and the main complaint from from the people is where is the money going why are most south sudanese on the edge of survival and you know the new government is already driving there said dispense and building these huge houses this fledging nation born out of decades of civil rule is facing the toughest taste of ritual to existence but the population wary of fine seeing and feeling has fallen down the priority list of those championing the moves to get south sudan put on the map of course here r.t. . still to come katy pilbeam has more from the world of business with venture capital stay with us.

the year that was two thousand and thirteen and what has made it memorable we ask in this edition of crossfire we excelled in who disappointed us what stories captured our attention because of hope or due to despair. he survived war atrocities. to make a final decision. has changed his life and the world around him. by giving up. hope. and love to so many children. nikolai the miracle worker on the tape. on their way to

antarctica the crew of the i can to make sure that a face many challenges. here you have to look out for yourself crashing on to rocks trapped in pack ice in extreme conditions anything can happen and article always comes up with surprises you have to keep your eyes open because if there's always something going wrong the ship carries huge reserves of water food fuel as well as helicopters and people able to survive extreme conditions they're ready for anything even an apocalypse she's really an incredible ship calling all antarctica stations this is academic a field of radio check please respond.