nicolae the written word. on the. breaking news it's now fought a terror attack in the russian city of volgograd quote have been carried out by a man fifteen were killed by a suicide bomber targeting the city's main railway station. and the week's top headlines of mass rallies in turkey to demand the government step down over a wide ranging corruption scandal are met with a tough police response. as we look at the stories that shaped twenty third to mean a year that saw cia contractor turn whistleblower edward snowden expose america's far reaching global surveillance. the old media over there is simply a branch of the establishment. wiki leaks founder julian assange says talks started to you about journalists failing to challenge governments as we discussed media

staff a road movie about activists on a mission to reveal sensitive u.s. secrets. from our studios in moscow you're watching r t international with me and he said now wait let's get straight to our developing story this hour several versions are emerging about who's carried out this suicide bomb attack in the southern russian city of volgograd some evidence allegedly points it was a man while the first reports said it was a female suicide bomber it's been confirmed fifteen people were killed in the bombing which targeted the city's central railway station archies arena brings us the details. the remnants of a man's body have been found at the scene of the blast according to various reports

there is the remnants of a hand clutching a grenade and there's also reports of a grenade that was just covered just a little while ago discovered at the scene of the blast as well so now the authorities are saying there is a high possibility that in fact a man could have been involved in this blast in volgograd prior to this there was talk about a female suicide bomber we actually were even getting reports about her identity she is reportedly been wanted by authorities since march of last year when she was last seen in dagestan this southern russian republic the president of russia for the reason why do the president has sent his special envoy to volgograd as well to keep to keep track of the situation there is video of the blast out there on the internet of course and know there are also reports from witnesses who are saying that the blast was incredibly powerful and let's have a quick listen to what the people who were actually there at the scene had to tell about this i was inside in the waiting i heard an explosion i didn't realized what

had happened and i saw the giant engines do was completely ruined and people were coming out with. i was with a child not far from where the blast happened i saw a blast shot its last flight and i pushed the child to the floor and covered him with my body. we were drinking coffee there was an explosion i was lucky to be wearing a hood save me from all the shattered glass we heard screams my coat is covered in blood now the first three days of the new year have been declared to be days of mourning for volgograd it's important to remember that this is a city which has just had a similar terror attack happening there just two months ago nicked a female suicide bomber has blown herself up on their boss. well there's been a lot of reaction to the events in volgograd on social media on twitter eyewitnesses have been posting their reports from the scene throughout the day here

some of them let's take a look a photographer a local one saying the blast was so powerful it blew the doors off of the sation another volunteer saying that many people were helping the injured and then a c. deputy head of the city tweeted that all of volgograd top officials were actually at the scene to help as well we spoke to senior lecturer at moscow state university marks the bota he explained why he believes the city came under attack although good is the principal focus simply because it's an easy and close target to the south of the caucasus just yesterday there the russian security services reported that a principal aide to the self-styled amir of the caucasus doku umarov was killed in a dog stand by security forces i think we can look at this attack today as for more

than likely a very rapid reaction revenge attack for the killing of the local arts. let's cross live antiwar activists don de bar to discuss this further he's in new york don who may have masterminded this attack and what would be their goals here. yeah masterminding is i think the important part you know you're looking at the condition of either principal or agent and you know the people on the ground who did this perhaps may be you know anonymous players just individuals who were cited one way or another but you do not move weaponized explosives into a major city without the aid of very powerful forces state actors usually. here in the united states the condition of laws particularly since september eleventh is that a friend of mine a civil rights lawyer is in prison because she gave

a press conference for someone that was deemed a terrorist because that was considered under american law is considered under american law providing material support certainly funding the acquisition of weapons explosives and such and allowing the trans shipment of those from one location to another where they use this terrorist weapons is a crime of at least equivalent value and so i think that the focus should be for the entire international community to take a look already at who are the state actors that are enabling these things saudi arabia comes to mind for example and to make them the international pariah is that they should be and to impose criminal sanctions on those responsible within those governments i think that the important part really is to find out who allows this you know these kinds of things to happen when able to them and to put an end to what already in front of the international community i just want to bring our viewers up to date with what you said of course you were following two leaks that

came out that saudi arabia did in fact make an offer to putin to kind of try to quell any kind of terror activity ahead of the olympics he obviously didn't take that offer to have them in any way involved in the caucuses but just speculating here how much of a hand could have a country like saudi arabia have and how much could this have to do with geopolitics in the situation in syria i mean it sounds crazy but everything is so interconnected. i don't think it's crazy at all first of all i should have started with this my sympathies to the people of volgograd who have already given in the defeat of fascism seventy one years ago this february much more than any city should have to give for them to have to suffer this is just very regrettable to. look go from tripoli to damascus to tehran which is where they've tried to incite similar activity unsuccessfully thus far that you can see that there's

a path of the century from the mediterranean that runs through those places into russia and ultimately into china also as they back up from the other side with the pivot to china the united states is essentially at war with those countries that are not. its imperial property russia china the brics construct other similar things here in the americas are cutting it on their business that's how they see it and they will do everything to stop that they're not above using terrorists ask anyone in that whole region and i again think this is a problem that the international community has to bring to the fore and settle finally down to bar antiwar activists live from new york thanks for that. will be closely following developments and we'll bring you all the latest details as and what we get them in this developing story you can also log on to our team dot com for a minute by minute timeline of today's events in volgograd. and

look now at the week's top stories thousands gathered in turkey's capital ankara to demand the resignation of the country's government as after a violent dispersal of protesters in istanbul on friday night where police used tear gas and rubber bullets against crowds the rallies were sparked by a corruption probe that's led to a major cabinet reshuffle and arrest of government officials r.t. sarah firth has been following about. it's not uncommon site so list those streets in a year that's been marked by widespread protests but this time the rallies taking place in the wake of a corruption crackdown that's rocked the government the threats to prime minister now comes not just from the streets but from within his own policy the turnout for the demonstration was significantly smaller than that seemed to some of them the last of the clashes broke out between police and protesters the editor has been in

power for such a long time and has maintained control a lot of people said that a lot of good things to the country right now because it was absolutely it has become very good for protests from. the some of the very slow going to the regime but we know that the this is. big enough to still. be clear publicly after the protests the prime minister remains defiant and continued to blame the corruption probe well the foreign conspiracy you know a second wave of detentions may still be possible for the time being it's deadlocked for mains with police across the key to publicly keys to law enforcement being in the government talk it over if using a court decision to keep. carry out will raids government officials on the families as the political john that continues to unfold ok at least the biggest test now facing the embattled five minister still lies ahead of him

a batch of a. test for mr rather on the. very early election as he would have to stumble extremely crucial. badly conceived. through a rabbit and assumes a revised their policy is rather bad if you try to continue but if. the other people think bad maybe very difficult time waiting for granted. and it could well be that when these local elections take place that the full impact of the corruption scandal really felt sort of a stumble. mourners ahead for you right after this break including a look back at the stories that shaped twenty thirty. berland social science center just published a study suggesting that two thirds of muslims in western europe hold their

religious roles in the laws of the countries that believe that if you read the bible if you get if you go into christianity you find the sentence that you should obey god more than. that means religious schools more important and more convincing those of the students of the very same thing love is now referred to the muslims. speak to language. programs in documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about six of the ip interviews intriguing story are you. trying.

to find out more visit arabic t.v. . has twenty thirteen winds down we're looking back at the biggest stories of the year. how does a hero and condemned as a traitor cia a whistleblower edward snowden reveal to the world just how much the us is spying harvesting information and story q.j. amounts of phone and internet data with every new leak and i say surveillance appears more and more far reaching our teens going to church or can looks now at how the revelations are changing the world and the cost to the whistleblowers. 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 leave to 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 techmeme is 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 said to caving to tell a 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 u.s. involvement in war crimes another man who found himself in jail this year was john key the first u.s. official to confirm the government's use of waterboarding to interrogate terrorist 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 terry's. aaron swartz was neither a whistleblower nor a journalist but he was a champion of the free internet fighting against censorship bills and advocating the online release 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 somebody who was pushed to the edge by what i think of as a kind of bullying by our government a government who treated him as if he were nine eleven terrorists edward snowden's revelations showed with the kind of surveillance that governments are doing i would

seize out the window but this year will 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 won their populations to be open and transparent they themselves become increasingly secretive in washington i'm going to check on our team. let's take a closer look at what snowden exposed about n.s.a. surveillance its collective millions of phone records in america every day and it also has access to internet giants like google facebook microsoft and as harvesting online data around the globe on top of that the security agency targets european citizens and even taps e.u. leaders but at the same time germany and the u.k. along with australia and canada are actually closely collaborating with american intelligence but an american governments and companies are a major target for u.s. spies plus the n.s.a. is collecting data from fiber optic cables that carry most of the world's internet

and phone traffic former cia officer ray mcgovern believes those violating privacy should face justice not the leakers. i am delighted to hear that ed snowden on his desk in honolulu had a copy of the constitution of the united states all dog eared because he used it to argue with his his compatriots 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 but the question should be why those who are aided and abetted this way they should be. spose impeached in their case and brought to trial for these of gross violations of their solemn oath to do to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies

media stan is a road movie which follows wiki leaks activists on a mission to reveal sensitive u.s. secrets we're showing you throughout the day here on r.t. international i discuss the film with a special panel of guests including julian assange is the creator and one of the journalists films trying to give up secrets. what makes this documentary so interesting is that we have different media organizations in different countries but all starting out of the same place. journalists come to them offer them the same type of material us government diplomatic cables and then we see what the response is publish not publish censor some things and document what they're thinking as they're doing in most cases. there are very significant skip a constraint in fact most cases resulted in publication by the organizations concerned

at all of those materials and. do you feel like the mission you documented in media stan was a success there were a lot of reactions i remember in tajikistan with people saying you're not going to make a difference nothing will really change if we speak about making a difference for the mission in itself was a success. obviously in the regards to actually getting the material published in the various medias it's difficult and call it a great success because they were actually quite well not that many newspapers neither in central asia or for that matter here in the united states that were particularly interested in publishing the full material that they got access to and from that respect no it wasn't a success but from a broader respect of course we can see that the leaks releases have have. have made a large impact they're going to. change the way that we interact with media.

since then and i think that if we just look at the. the whole affair which is has been going on for the last how for a year or so that is a consequence of. releases and that is the fact that. the there is no there is no direct. censorship which is feasible by a particular media organisations with replication that happened in different countries in different places where it is possible for them to become. in afghanistan obviously the risks are a whole different kind of risk there are you going to continue your work to try to keep revealing the truth. i think this is our responsibility as journalists to reveal what's happening behind the scenes within the government and the regional level as well as international level so i've been working as a journalist since two thousand and six in afghanistan. the risks to be generous in

afghanistan is so high it sends to since the since early two thousand and thirteen there have been sixteen cases against. journalists violation of violence and many other cases against journalists in afghanistan so that there are there is a high risk to be a journalist in afghanistan but this is our responsibility not to give up and continue our work as a journalist and whistleblower edward snowden and use the media and not wiki leaks to channel his revelations don't you think that's a good sign that he was able to do it through the media. well i think it's quite sad actually it would snowden didn't go to infect the media he went to someone that's closely associated with us and specific journalist glenn greenwald and another specific journalist laura portress. the most prominently a couple journalists to wiki leaks has gone glenn greenwald's for his part was then

working with the guardian has lists the guardian. as a result. of the censorship by the guardian all of that material to date less than the point five percent of the snowden documents have been published but the majority of the media are still reluctant to challenge the government like you said and speaking of glenn greenwald recently he reprimanded journalists across the globe for not standing up to the government lets out so have a listen to what going greenwald had to say at a recent conference in hamburg. what is that we were targeting in the behavior of the media over the past six months is just revelations have emerged almost entirely without and despite the role of the us media and their british counterparts is to be voices for those with the greatest power and to protect their interests and serve them. your highness i want to ask you is it as bad as greenwald is saying

generally speaking if you just understand that the powerful media institutions are part of power rather than being being so to speak. of information you just understand that very idea then obviously you will start looking at the media consumption of news or information in a different in a different respect so yes of course there is that. and if we look at an institution such as the washington post which was one of the first institutions that had access to snowden's documents they decided not to publish anything i mean practically didn't publish anything and what we can understand from that is that there is a direct relationship between between the different power institutions in our societies and media is most definitely one of the most important power institutions that we have in our society. recap now of breaking news it's been confirmed that

fifteen people have been killed in a bomb blast in russia's southern city of volgograd. but i bent down to collect my documents when i saw a flash of light and there was a blast i was thrown back by the explosion when i came to my senses a man who was carrying out only outside was i able to get a breath of fresh and started to understand what was happening. were injured by the blast at the city's central railway station the blast was extremely powerful causing doors and windows of the station to be blown out completely from evidence now suggests it was a man who carried out the blast and there's a report suggests that it was a female suicide bomber. we'll bring you the latest from volgograd at the top of the hour up next though it's worlds apart with.

summer break a time when all students rejoice and most importantly relax but in russia summer break for male students could change dramatically and involve lots of guns currently male russian citizens have to put a year into the armed forces but the ministry of defense thinks that they can make things easier by having students spend their summer breaks in the military this training would tie in with their future professions such as engineering students being put into military engineering position now the question is does your summer break belong to you or another words of the government have the right to tell you what to do and make you serve in the army even if just for three summers during your college years i think the answer to this really depends on your culture in places which haven't been invaded countless times or have a strong individual ism streak any form of conscription sounds barbaric and oppressive but if you come from a country that is less individualistic and has been attacked invaded by pretty much

every country that possibly could like russia then having a draft makes more sense i think this program could work and if i was in college i would be pumped to spend my summer vacation with some heavy artillery but this is definitely not a universal idea for all countries i don't think liberals or libertarians in america would take too kindly to it and rightly so but that's just my opinion. wealthy british science. is not on. markets find. find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial. headline. prime's a report. on

the welcome to worlds apart in addition to its religious significance christmas is also the most celebrated secular holiday of the year of reflecting a very peculiar place that religion plays somewhat in daily life what is the current state of affairs between the church and the state while to discuss that i'm now joined by dr gary roberts a member of the international consortium for law and religious studies dr roberts thank you very much for your time we're having this conversation that has a very complex i would even say a love hate relationship with religion about a century ago churches and mosques were actively. blown out by the authorities nowadays at the state actively supports their construction but i think one thing that these historic rounds have in common is that both have been by the state and i

wonder what does it really tell us that religion is to this date or rather. not separated as we would like to believe well i believe that the religion very own specific and i would not speak in terms of strength. i would rather speak of what kind of tasks. and what kind of. religion there are differences there are overlapping fields also and one just has to see whether state and religion do fulfill the tossed probably well at least when it comes to russia leaders here make no secret that they believe that the tasks of the state and the church clearly overlap they want religion to. moral void that was created with the collapse of the soviet union and the dissolution of kong.