it is now thought a terror attack in the russian city of volgograd could have been carried out by a man of fifteen that were killed by a suicide bomber targeting the city's main railway station. and into this week's top of the news in turkey riot police crackdown on protesters demanding the government step down after a high ranking corruption scandal. and our team looks at events of that shape in the world in two thousand and thirteen we review the revelations by former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden which exposed america's massive surveillance. the old media organizations are we a branch of the establishment. we also talk to wiki leaks founder julian assange about the state of journalism today and his new media road movie where he and

others offer up secret documents to various media outlets. and broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our team shawn thomas glad to have you with us now investigators say they are looking at a number of possibilities of who carried out a suicide bomb attack in southern russian city of volgograd some evidence now suggests a man that may have been involved in the first reports of those said it was a lone female suicide bomber it has been confirmed fifteen people were killed in the attack which targeted the city's central railway station. has details. the bomb went off just before one pm on the cross busy train station it did to nation ripped through an area around a security checkpoint as in suspecting passengers waited for their luggage to be inspected before leaving 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 was carrying me only outside was i able to get a breath of air and saw the to understand what was happening. and i was inside in the waiting hall i heard an explosion i didn't realized what had happened and i saw the giant entrance to was completely ruined and people were coming out with the heritage projects burned among those to die at the scene was a police officer who was reportedly trying to stop one of the suspected terrorists or one from carrying out from reverse missions i said to god i was with a child not far from where the blast happened i saw a blast shot its last flight i pushed the child to the floor and covered him with my body officials say the bomb was equivalent to least ten kilos of t.n.t. an estimate supported by the scene of devastation only the security checkpoint prevented this from the much worse and unexploded grenade was founded the soon of

the bluster and now investigators are looking at whether a second bomber was involved this is the second time in just a few months that the southern russian city has fallen victim to terrorists a blast in a passenger bus in october is still wrong in the memories of people here back then it was a female suicide bomber she killed six and injured over thirty others the first three days of january have been declared days of mourning in the volgograd region those days are the very heart of russia's new year holiday celebrations but this year authorities have decided perhaps understandably with the stevie's should be canceled if you go r.t. moscow. people injured in the terror attack at vulgar grounds at railway station are on board a plane heading to moscow to undergo medical treatment in the capital's hospitals meanwhile people are crowded in volgograd hospitals awaiting that news about the condition of their relatives and friends or even looking for them but he's not on

the list my daughter i'm looking for my daughter she was at the train station. my son father and niece were inside the train station went to the last one of. their own in intensive care now they're badly injured they were headed for the train to moscow but never made it. there has been a lot of reaction to the events in volgograd on social media on twitter i witness as have been posting their reports from the scene here are some of them let's take a look one of them a photographer who lives nearby tweeted that the blast was so powerful the huge doors of the railway station were completely blown out another witness reports that people immediately arrived at the scene to help the victims while the deputy head of the city tweeted that all of volgograd top officials are at the site of the incident now earlier we spoke to senior lecturer at moscow state university mark slip botha he explained why he believes the city came under attack. well look good

is the principal focus simply because it's easy and close targets to the south of the caucasus. just yesterday there the russian security services reported that a principal aide to the self-styled leader of the caucasus doku umarov was killed in dog astonished by security forces i think we can look at this in time today as for more than likely a very rapid reaction presidential task for the chilling this will be ours and i were activist don de bar believes that the international community should bring to account the state actors that enable such terrorist attacks people on the ground who did this perhaps may be you know anonymous players just individuals who are incited 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 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. we will be closely following the developments and will bring you all of the details as we get them in you can also log on to our t.v. dot com for a minute by minute timeline of the events in volgograd. the week's top stories in our weekly program we start in turkey which has seen a wave of massive anti-government protests reminiscent of last summer's demonstrations this time public anger was sparked by a corruption scandal it saw more than twenty officials and businessmen arrested and

it led to a major cabinet reshuffle now the situation escalated on friday when police launched a violent crackdown on protesters calling on the government to step down artie's reports. it's not uncommon sight so they stumble 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 rocked the government the threats to prime minister now comes not just from the streets but from within his own party 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 as a guy was going to power for such a long time has maintained control a lot of people said and a lot of good things the country right now the. move actually it has become very very simple protests. in this. region

that is not of this is. big enough to stop this speaking publicly out of the protests the prime minister remains defiant and continued to play in the corruption probe well of foreign conspiracy and a second wave of detentions may still be possible if the tide being in deadlock for mainz with the police the prosecutor publicly accused the law enforcement being in the government's pocket by refusing a court decision to carry out more raids government officials and their families as that political drama continues to unfold arguably the biggest test now facing the embattled prime minister still lies ahead of him match. test for mr mammograms. strewn across. van we can see.

the future of country. but other people think may be very difficult. for them. and it could well be that in the days like the elections take place that the full impact of the corruption scandals created. so. it's. well would you like to know a secret a little bit later in the program we look back at the impact edward snowden's security revelations had on the world while wiki leaks founder julian assange tells us about his road movie where he offered secret cables to media around the world all that in just a few minutes right here on our to international. the media leave us so we leave the media part of the scene potions to cure the. party

there's an. issue is that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from. politics only on our t.v. .

you're watching the weekly here on r.t. glad to have you back with us now to two thousand and thirteen is almost in the books and we're looking back at the most important stories of the year. and as a whistleblower edward snowden became one of the world's biggest names this year has u.s. security leaks revealed just how much everyone is being spied on america says the fugitive former contractor is a traitor and wants to try him for espionage but as artie's are going to judge you can explains other whistleblowers have already paid the price for lifting the veil of secrecy 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 light about mass surveillance does the n.s.a. collect any type of data at 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 invited 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 catering to 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 u.s. 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 terror 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

the british authorities so closely cooperate with washington now accuse him of quote kerry's. aaron swartz was neither a whistleblower in the war a journalist whether he was a champion of the free internet fighting against censorship villains 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 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. the

sea is out the window but this year will also learn what happens to those who fully 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. now snowden's leaks have been released to const constantly really since june let's take a look at the most important ones the world learned that the national security agency is collecting millions of u.s. phone records daily and it seems that data from some of the world's biggest internet companies is not out of reach of the n.s.a. either now british and german intelligence apparently helped the united states as well gather all of this data and even though the u.s. is allies with states it didn't stop america from wiretapping european leaders latin american governments and businesses are also under the watchful eye of the n.s.a. u.s. intelligence actually seems to have most of the globe covered and snowden revealed

that they tap data straight from the fiber optic cables which carry most of the world's online traffic former cia officer ray mcgovern thinks those violating privacy should face justice and 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 and his campaign there it is say as to whether what they were doing was illegal whether it was constitutional the question should be why those who are aided and abetted this way they should be brought to trial for these of gross violations of their solemn oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states. now what would it media outlets do if they were given some secret documents the media road movie answers that question we will be highlighting it here on r t a team of wiki leaks journalists travels across central asia and to

later to britain and the us offering classified cables to the press the film's creator julian assange and one of his companions spoke to our tease and he said now an earlier. 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 the 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 result in publications by the organizations concerned at all of those published material and how. do you feel like the mission you've 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 or if the mission in itself was a success. obviously when the regards to actually getting the material published in the various medias it's difficult to call your 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 you were declared you interested in publishing the full material that they got access to some in that respect no it wasn't a success but from a broader respect of course we can see that the leaks releases have made a large impact they will say and. change the way that we interact with with media since then and i think that if we just look at the. whole say affair which has has been going on for the last how for a year or so that is that they wrecked consequence of from weekly releases and that

is the fact that it's now a days there is no there is no direct censorship which is feasible by particularly nations with replication that happened in different countries in different places where it is possible for them to become soldiers 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 have been working as a journalist since two thousand and six in afghanistan and the risks to be a journalist in afghanistan is so high it sense too since early since early two thousand and thirteen there have been sixteen cases against. journalist relation 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 edward snowden should use the media and not wiki leaks to channel his revelations don't you think that's a good sign but 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 going green world and another specific journalist laura portress. the most prominently a couple journalists to wiki leaks has gone clean greenwald's for his part was then working with the guardian has left the guardian as a result. of the censorship by the guardian all of that material to date less than zero point zero five percent of the snowden i think documents have been published.

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 let's have a listen to what going greenwald had to say at a recent conference and hamburg what it 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 that 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 part of power rather than being being so to speak mediators of information you just understand that very idea then obviously you'll

start looking at the media consumption of news or information in a different in a different respect so yes of course there is that bad. 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 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 three. now take a look at some other stories making headlines around the globe this hour michael schumacher the seven time of formula one world champion is in a coma after a skiing accident in france schumacher was skiing with his fourteen year old son in an off piste area between two marked runs he suffered severe head trauma and days

in critical condition he was airlifted by helicopter to a nearby hospital. violence continues to rage across the south sudan government troops clash with rebels from the so-called white army near the city of bor the military reportedly used helicopter gunships against the rebels fighting erupted despite the government's offer of a truce to end of the conflict in the country oil rich south sudan has been in turmoil since two thousand and eleven when it gained independence in this month alone at least one thousand people have died in fighting in south sudan let's now recap our breaking news it has been confirmed that fifteen people have been killed in a bomb blast in russia's southern city of volgograd. i bend down to my door when i saw a flash of light and there was a blast i was thrown back by the explosion when it came to my senses. only outside was i able to get a breath of fresh and to understand what was happening. dozens were injured by the

blast at the city's central railway station the explosion was extremely powerful causing the doors and windows to be blown out completely some evidence now suggests it was a man who carried out the initial blast but first reports from the scene said it was a lone female suicide bomber. coming up after the break we'll take a look at how classified documents into the public domain is even trickier than finding them in the first place but for our viewers we visit a norwegian island in the arctic ocean for a glimpse at life there. i'm middle school kind of guy i like tradition and heritage and all that stuff when i look to the past i see that there's a lot that we could learn from our ancestors however one thing we don't need from

them are debtors prisons which according to a fox news report are somehow on the rise in the united states in the twenty first century the a.c.l.u. and the british center for justice claim that the local courts have been sending individuals with unpaid fines and fees jail which the courts may not even realize is illegal these courts are locking up people with fines that have exploded in size due to interest imposed an initial amount and for the representation they had when they were in court which i always thought was supposed to be free but worst of all some are still in prison for fees they occurred while being in prison like having the audacity to use toilet paper hey that's taxpayer money down the toilet the kicker to this all is that throwing people in prison for their public debts costs more than the debts the prisoners have to pay off that's right the local governments lose money doing this someone please resurrect the founding fathers america is running out of time if you aren't worried about this comeback of debtors' prisons are you think those rednecks deserve it so let me ask you

something how's it going with paying off all your loans and bills i hope for your sake you don't miss a payment a fascist my opinion. why is the price of gold so high. demand global demand do you think gold is money. the value of the only place we have to live of the water that we need to survive it's not compared to bill i mean gold we're not going to eat gold we're not going to bait with gold. we're not going to drink what clearly what amal is and is in a desperate economic situation absolutely right what we're wrong to do is say

therefore any kind of economic development from the outside is going to be a benefit their only purpose is to extract as much money as possible to feed into the global financial system. with me or part of the geo political economic system that's extremely or split to do. first of all is a question whether mining should even be carried out altogether can it be done in a way which doesn't destroy people's lives resources environment and soon will you know those are pretty serious questions mining is not a what a moment problem it's happening in asia in africa and south america in central america in mexico and it's even happening in canada and the united states.

frontline of port city of society people international justice people rights with its rights truth good governance freedom of information peace democracy not crossing i w p r i didn't do carp i didn't feel makes a difference. the greatest guarantor of freedom is true if we're going to be working with it we can experience it in different parts of the world in different countries we are really looking for a media partner in the context of somebody that would be interested in thinking and working with the policeman here you're here and if you think that this is something going to hear that you can work with me we would be willing to give in to your well

let me get a check was a little bit and he goes of course but boy i wish there was a. test to work on these stories that we have a problem of problem or share more of us on. you know that there is the problem is that you know it's no use telling you space. into any of their. last year's elections and there were a group of journalists here it's the working man that's how people meet in a plot against often could he trust this he is a free man i said information but they still didn't give me a letter but if you sign it it means that you will be the person who takes this and we decided yes i need you and then i'll get information but you know you can only give in that because you are the one that control i don't care if you're here because i wrote it because i can speak english when ever you want to be a country.