a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to. today's news in the week's top stories on our team international the e.u. calls on turkey for more openness amid a massive corruption probe that triggered an arrest and a major government shakeup. and continuing our look back at the year that was this time the story of the computer worker who blew open the u.s. extensive global surveillance network. and russia's foreign minister talks with r.t. about the years of breakthroughs and challenges from syria to the missile defense spat with nato. nine am in moscow i matras there bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news we begin in istanbul where turkey needs to handle

its deepening corruption scandal with more transparency according to concerned european officials the probe that forced the arrest of twenty four people including two sons 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 again in the capital on her demanding the pm step down further is in istanbul with more. it's not uncommon sights on the stubbles streets in the year the books 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 as well and now 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 other times been in power for such a long time has maintained control

a lot of people said that a lot of good things stirred the country right now of. actually it has become a very big. protest for. this summit very slow going i. don't know if this is. big enough to. publicly out to the protests the prime minister remains to continue to play in the corruption probe well of foreign conspiracy and a second wave of detentions may still be possible that the tide being a deadlock for mainz the police the prosecutor publicly she's the enforcement being in the government's pocket or teasing a court decision to carry out will wait to government officials and their families . to listen to john that continues to unfold acutely the biggest test now facing the embattled five minutes the two lies ahead of him match. test for

mr. extruded crush. than we can see. the future of country. whether people think may be very difficult. for an. i think that what they like the elections take place is full of the fact that the corruption scandal created out there is that it's that the. international relations professor mark almond believes the ongoing on arrest comes as no surprise considering prime minister erdogan is recent political course . going to buy many of the city's opponents is being. told he's also sensibly accepted the secular constitution of turkey because you have to stand for election because he has been reinforced in excess of election. stewards will students

policies that are more open more islamic forces for instance restrictions on so you know how to hold his own conference about how we go straight to the morality codes and he's among some groups of months because of supporting. him and level as we always do new to the world economic crisis and what i do and in those who support was the jews don't seem to be able to produce economic growth growth through and of course without going to geishas of corruption to keep their feet to the people so since now we have now cases of corruption lawsuits will generally be tortured into these. and. many people in the past who say well whatever's wrong is going to run on better all. still to come there's something fishy about the food near fukushima radiation if you're forcing japanese fishermen to dump most of their catch contamination continuing to spread more than two years after the nuclear disaster there were four on that still ahead. and

a former russian oil tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky valuing 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 months. but first just a few days left in two thousand and thirteen we're looking back at the events that shaped the. the person who arguably generated more global headlines than any other this year was a previously unknown i t worker from the us while on a job at the cia he didn't like what he saw so edward snowden went public telling the world just how far and wide the u.s. electronic surveillance network really went but the truth had consequences for a guy named shaky on reports on how the n.s.a. whistleblower joined a long 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

cameras 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. 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 to tell what 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 u.s. like bradley and now chelsea manning who was sentenced to thirty five years in jail this august so we can be smelling released many thousands of diplomatic cables b.t.o. proof of u.s. involvement and i don't 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 have served his two and a half years sentence which 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 in the states balan's was

detained in london while sharing materials from edward snowden to british authorities so closely cooperate with washington now accuse him of quote perry's. aaron swartz was neither a whistleblower nor a journalist but it was a champion of the free internet fighting against censorship he fills in advocating the online when the use of. as much information as 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 but this was somebody who was pushed to the edge by what i think of as a kind of bullying by our government a government for 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 will also learn what happens to those who embrace this new age of openness and accessibility of information that showed that while governments in the u.s. government first and foremost won their populations to be open and transparent they themselves become increasingly secretive in washington i'm going to check on our team it started on june sixth one of 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 data from firms such as 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 eavesdropping former cia officer ray mcgovern says though by 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 come patriots 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. disposed peached in their case and brought to trial for these of gross violations of their solemn oath to. support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies and throughout the day on our t.v. were showing media stana program about a group of wiki leaks activists across who travel across central asia in search of media outlets willing to publish leaked u.s. diplomatic cables also host an extensive discussion later on sunday on the world of

whistleblowers the challenges they face and the risks they take that's all here on r.t. international. street just a. strategic region. cover team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents. the united states is trying. to be a local media more pro-american counter to your ignorance pressure. country blocks the way to information freedom. media. are today. russia's top diplomat says the u.s. and its allies are moving closer toward moscow's stance on syria but with some key issues with nato still needed resolving spoke exclusively with r.t. about the u.s. foreign policy achievements was among those who interviewed the foreign minister allegedly said he. thinks we're finding the time to meet with us we have three

channels here are spanish 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 he would do is the next step would he just elaborate 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. and the realization is doing that we change is not the way to resolve this problem or worse importantly for 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 times on both sides but a cold war mentality is still something that must pass to deal with. the media members have a food be against russia which is really said this leads to some of our european

partners still wanting to keep dividing lines within europe and even move these lines eastward the countries that could either be with them or against them in the comments for the last november's needle 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 practice defending the baltics from an identified foot from the east while president putin's question of what was the point of still planning to build an anti missile defense system in europe with out of 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. moscow you can find the father scores of interview with russia's foreign minister right now on r.t. dot com or anytime on our youtube chat. frida x. oil. may still be deciding what to do next but one thing he says he knows for sure is that he wants to get former associates out of jail one of them serving

a life sentence for organizing several murders but out of house he claims he was put behind bars unjustly peter all her husband after ten years in jail. has now decided to do is need found freedom and some of those 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 patrician 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 society can lead to the release of some people who no one thought would be able to walk free to choose good was the head of security for his daughter coasties oil company you cos he's currently serving a life sentence for counts of murder. in two thousand and seven a court convicted her children of ordering the shooting of blood in me

a pet you call of the mayor of a town 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 we're so believes this was a crime that went to the top of the american by the us was registered there when it came to tax revenues it was answering to the mayor next to your guns with the hope they depended on him and that was the only reason why he even matter if only time will solve the mystery surrounding my husband's murder but i just like how to ask you to confess 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 he will automatically become responsible to whatever i think now he fears that. may start talking and what the third ucas case could potentially be is a further investigation into those murders and assaults which the company security forces carried out a lot of craft he has no other choice he will continue to insist to people from the security department up political prisoners that are and he will pretend to be pushing for release the ideal ation being heaped upon mr holocaust years left some of those watching feeling that only half the story is being told. he stole a lot of oil not physically by mean self fiscal many police

in every kind of business man in the best who had done the same would have all tools ended in prison above this story is told in the west. peter all of a billion click on r t dot com to learn about mass resignations in the world's most populous country as many as five hundred chinese this is the lawmakers now jobless after gaming the system read about what exactly made them take flight. and this may look like a tangle of poles and wires but it's really a cutting edge space rover that's what nasa is planning to send to one of saturn's largest moons for a new discovery. japan's seafood industry says it's blighted by contaminated catches nearly three years after the fukushima nuclear meltdown polluted surrounding land and waterways they can't convince customers their fish is safe even though authorities insist they're doing their

best to show that they've got a grip on the problem alexei are reports. 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 cat was made in the waters of the pushing my nuclear power station after it became known that he drawling system at the fukushima nuclear power plant was severely radiated fears grew that the contamination could be spreading into the pacific. a significant contamination in the bottle sediment especially in the paul system

so. 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 cage 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 groundwater as 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 all 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 stools but only locally seafood firms here. the threat and there are five reflectors possibly 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 bear in japanese fish and seafood boards and. reporting from japan. earlier this month a huge amounts of beta ray emitting substances were found at another reactor at the crippled fukushima plant the government wanted to complete the decontamination work by next march but it could now take another three years japan expert alex kerry says tokyo has done so much to keep hidden secrets hidden it's hard to assess the actual scale of the disaster. entire system of management of total effect of the entire nuclear industry of japan is going to rely on unskilled

uneducated that specialist d. the workers the guys they pick up off the street and are brought in paid a daily wage wouldn't have and some of them don't even realize they're going into a radioactive circumstance well it's not professional. it's a comedy of errors and the attacks are just one of many many structures that were built hurriedly without extra t.v.'s without consulting him or national specialists it's fair to say that it's a big mess and it will get worse but really real problem is that the government has that so much energy in hiding the information that at this point i can i think it's fair to say that nobody knows what's really going on europe second largest economy might be out of recession but it's facing a deepening homeless crisis we talked with some of those forced to call the streets their home just ahead. but first declaring egypt's muslim brotherhood a terror group earlier this week deep in wounds in

a divided country the move came into effect after a suicide blast at a police headquarters in the nile delta that killed fifteen people st honorat flared daily different corners of the nation as people vented anger at the crackdown on former islamist leaders and anti-government activists some clashes turned deadly including the most recent cairo university campus where several buildings were torched by angry students saturday one of them was killed as police moved in to quell the riots carol based journalist shahira amin thinks everything is being done to make sure the muslim brotherhood is wiped from an object politics . well this is a new escalation in the long running feud between the security state and the muslim brotherhood what they trying to achieve is to cross the sun. all together and not to leave any room any space for the group to enter into political life again. they see more defined in the never saying who. is

the real terrorism here and they feel that this is a return to read january twenty seventh 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 it's a vicious cycle. now to some other of today's stories from across the globe later on sunday a rescue ship should reach a trout russian research vessel that's been stuck in thick antarctic ice since tuesday it's hoped the australian ice breaker will reach the stranded academic shokalskiy after a failed attempts by french and chinese ships despite being stuck in the ice since christmas the scientists aboard the ship policy are said to be in good spirits and continuing their work. and the government protesters in bahrain have been met with tear gas and sound bombs hundreds of turned out across the gulf state following the

arrest of the head of the main opposition bloc sheikh ali salmond he's been one of the main drivers of the arab spring inspired protests that started in two thousand and eleven opposition campaigners say bahrain's rulers are leading the country for the dictatorship with widespread torture in detention and hundreds jailed for human rights rallies. activists in syria say 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 rebel groups the barrel bombs campaign coming ahead if you keep peace conference planned for next month with the main opposition alliance threatening to withdraw from talks if the air raids persist the u.n. estimates that well over one hundred thousand people have been killed on both sides since the war started more than two and a half years ago. iraqi security forces are arrested a prominent sunni muslim lawmaker and government critic a raid on his home in western on barre province killed at least five people

including his brother and guards there are fears the incident could inflame ethnic tensions in the region that's often a scene of anti-government protests so tarion violence is on the rise in iraq with more than a thousand people killed there this year alone. christmas in paris normally conjures many romantic seasonal images but not for the thousands of homeless people in the french capital whose numbers have been on the rise since twenty eleven as marie if you know she reports. a time of seasonal joy cross europe but not for all. these people have nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat if you have reasons to feel festive although some try. to see what happened while you on the street. rob oh it's still very odd the system in france is designed so that anybody could be a minister to a show that's a very big decision on the shoulders people you know think of as coins because they know they could be here one of the back of that is here that economic decadence is

here we are collapsing and i know no one wants to to address that and to this in france europe's second largest economy the number of homeless people has increased by fifty percent since two thousand and one despite the promises of successive left and right wing governments to sort it out a year ago one hundred fifty thousand people had nowhere to call home. in paris alone it's thoughts more than eight thousand people leave rough today and the current economic crisis is not helping all reparable the funny the family the same time family experience with kids the club example yes who are allowed to what you want to pay for accommodation abroad or not because prices are already activities in the right place little instruments are in their cars going up or for some students sleeping on their universities not all step bel-air lead become more and more numerous. dimitri spends eight hours a day underground because this is his job and mean by begging for proof of that for

the hardest thing is loneliness that's what we are many but we are alone all by ourselves alone and gets needle sympathy from the authorities. at this amateur video shows french officers trying to read essential to reason street from what i mean by shopkeeper is considered a blot on the landscape lesser said before seven of them are crazy. they become reminders of unstable wife ends up with anger disrespect or even brutality of the homeless themselves every night of patrick has been living rough for three years even the language he speaks is different they call it street french. do. one has money no one has a job but in spain greece italy france everywhere in europe through before there were jobs but today there's nothing they would only do. as the day ends patrick

takes a picture of us for twitter his wife five homeless people in france participated in a social project called tweet from the streets to raise awareness of the rising numbers of those spending christmas out in the cold status show society here is more loyal to homeless people than in any other european country and one of the reasons behind it is that many think during a time of financial instability and a lack of trust in what's to come for tomorrow they can find themselves among those asking passers by change proof national party or a person from france. next story of the wiki leaks team who traveled across central asia searching for media outlets willing to publish lead diplomatic cables stay with us.

a year that was two thousand and thirteen and what has made it memorable we ask in this edition of crossfire who excelled things who disappointed us what stories captured our attention because of hope or to the despair. your love i think. brings the superior not even news you didn't build christmas present i'm not sure if this is the right place to propose it exploded or. just these particular people we're working with who the fuck all that oil why was i do they do anything why.