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

and broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t. i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us and best gaiters say they are looking at a number of possibilities of who carried out a suicide bomb attack in the southern russian city of volgograd that killed fifteen people artie's correspondent margaret how is at the scene of the tragedy near the railway station. well i'm standing here in volgograd literally a short path down from the volgograd regional train depot just behind me where a bomb went off sunday december twenty ninth killing a fifteen people so far and a sixteenth person believed to be the suicide bomber over thirty five people in new

to change now though it was originally reported that it was a female suicide bomber now believed to be a male by law enforcement officials possibly a male bomber at this point it's inconclusive they originally believe the suspect to be a female twenty six year old from the republic of dagestan however finding a male finger in the clip nade the suspect thought to be male by law enforcement officials the role of the female is the use of a bomb just twenty minutes past noon ripping through the corridor of the volgograd train station it was detonated around the security checkpoint this instantly killing the police officer trying to stop the bomber now the police have since found that another device was in fact a present but did not detonate so whomever intended this and planted the bomb and carried out this mission clearly intended massive harm now the emergency ministry sent a fully equipped plane from moscow to volgograd with medical personnel including

a trauma surgeon trauma surgeons on board to collect those seriously injured those that were taken to the hospital they're now coming to grips with the horrifying consequences that resulted from today's blast take a listen she's not on the list my daughter i'm looking for my daughter she was at the train station so you know my son father and niece were inside the train station with the last one of their old in intensive care and now they're badly injured they were headed for train to moscow but never made it. the explosive originally reported that at its core it was covered with metal fragments. make that bombs impact more deadly one nine year old girl in critical condition her mother was killed in sunday's blast also two young boys believed to be cousins they also died from the bombing of the train station one of their fathers is alive in critical

condition at a hospital now taking a look back on the events of sunday in volgograd here's our. the bomb went off just before one pm p.c. train station it did to nation ripped through an area around a security checkpoint as it suspected passengers waited for their luggage to be inspected. 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 scaring me only outside was i able to get a breath of air and saw the to understand what was happening. 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 and say hey aaron rodgers who are. among those to die at the scene was a police officer who was reportedly trying to stop one of the suspected terrorists

from carrying out from risk mission. to go i was with a child not far from where the blast happened i saw a blast shot at last i pushed the child to a floor and covered him with my body because officials say the bomb was equivalent to policed ten kilos of t.n.t. and nesting was supported by the scene of devastation only the security checkpoints prevented this to be much worse and unexploded the need was found of the scene of the bluster and now investigators are looking at whether second bomber was involved this is the second time in just a few months that the southern russian city leapt in to terrorists a bus and a passenger. it 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 both the great engine and those days are the very heart of our citizens here only decent nations but this

year three does have decided perhaps understandably that the pacific is should be considered even goes by team most. now there has been a lot of reaction to the events in volgograd on social media in fact twitter eyewitnesses have been posting their reports from the scene let's take a look at some of them in fact a photographer who lives very close by said that the blast was so powerful huge doors at the railway station were completely blown out another witness reports that people immediately arrived at the scene to help victims while the deputy head of the city tweeted that all of the top officials are at the site of the incident now we spoke to senior lecturer at moscow state university mark sloboda 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 of the year of the caucasus doku umarov was killed in dog astonished by security forces i think we can look at this time today as for more than likely a very rapid reaction presidential attack or the chilling with this local arts. your research fellow at the international institute for counterterrorism believes that cooperation between countries is essential to avoid extremist attacks. well it's not just blacks are not always not always easy to prevent it and as you know that takes place in other parts of the world gentlemen said that the last several months ago in boston in america again by it we generally came from chechnya for the set up to be all such a cop has to be prevented he must lead a very good intelligence and they did it just to be with the hands of the company

consent all they said is that they have a head of post go through a should be between countries because sometimes an attack is being planned the month place at the expense of the different part of the local community. so we will be closely following the developments and we'll bring you all of the details as we get them in our team is on scene you can also log on to our team dot com for a minute by minute timeline of the events in volgograd. under the week's top stories with 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 and it saw more than twenty officials and a businessman arrested and lead to a major cabinet reshuffle the situation escalated on friday when police launched a violent crackdown on protesters calling on the government to step down r.t.r. first reports.

it's not an uncommon sight solaced on 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 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 the seen this summer than the last of the clashes break out between police and protesters but added i'm still in power for such a long time has maintained control a lot of people said that a lot of good things stirred the country why now the. mood actually it has become very good for protests. in this one if there is little. that is not of this is a victory bell to stop this speaking publicly out of the protests the prime minister remains defiant and continue to blame the corruption probe well of foreign

conspiracy and a second wave of detentions may still be possible if the tide being a deadlock for mains with at least a prosecutor publicly accused the law enforcement being in the government's pocket by refusing a court decision to carry out more raids on 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 a batch of a. test for mr abraham. to stand extruded crush. van we can see. a rabbit pen assumes a very. bad future country. but other people think may be very difficult. for them. and it could well be that when days later the

elections take place that the full impact of the corruption scandal really. surf on the starboard. two thousand and thirteen is almost in the books and we're looking back at the most important stories of the year. and it's a whistleblower edward snowden became one of the world's biggest names this year is 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 art he's going to judge you can comments 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 lie 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 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 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 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 wartime just 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 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. airline swartz was neither a whistleblower and more a journalist whether he was a champion of the free internet fighting against censorship ills 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 but this was somebody who was pushed to the edge by what i think of as a kind of bully or 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'm a sees 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 they showed that while governments in the u.s. government first and foremost won their populations to be open and transparent they didn't sounds become increasingly secretive in washington i'm going to check on our team. snowden's leaks have been released to constantly since june you know 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 it seems that data from some of the world's biggest internet companies is not out of the n.s.a.'s reach either now british and german intelligence apparently helped the u.s. gather all of this data even though the u.s. is allies with e.u. states it did not stop america from wiretapping european leaders now latin american governments and businesses are also under the watchful for of the n.s.a. u.s. intelligence actually seems to have most of the globe covered snowden revealed that

they tap data straight from the fiber optic cables which carry most of the world's online traffic a former cia officer ray mcgovern thinks those violating privacy should be facing 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 whether 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 media outlets do if they were given some secret documents the media stand road movie answers that question a team of wiki leaks journalists travels across central asia and

a later to britain and the us offering up classified cables to the press films creator julia songe and one of his companions spoke to artes and he said earlier what makes this documentary so interesting is that we have a different media organizations in different countries but all starting out of the same place. the 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 a sense of some things and document what they're thinking as they're doing in most cases. there are very significant as could be constraints in fact most cases resulted in no publications by the organizations concerned little of it was published some materials and no obvious do you feel like the mission you're 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. actually getting the material published in the various medias it's difficult to call it a great success because there were actually quite well not that many newspapers neither in central asia or for that matter here in the united states that it was ridiculous even in publishing the full material but 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 haven't made a large impact they say and they 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 half a year or so. they wrecked consequence of the weekly releases and the fact that.

it is you know direct censorship which is feasible by particularly musicians be replications and in different countries and different places where it is possible for them to become soldiers in afghanistan obviously the risks are a whole different kind of chris 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 stan. 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 sixty 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 edward snowden should 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. 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 which she has gone clean green worlds for his part was then working with the guardian has left the guardian as a result. of the censorship by the guardian but all of that material to date less than zero point zero five percent of the snowden i think documents have been

published and. 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 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 what the greatest power and to protect our 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 part of power rather than being being so to speak mediators of information you just understand the very idea that. looking at media and consumption of news or information in

a different and different respects so yes of course 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 and the documents they decided not to publish and. i mean practically didn't publish anything worse. than what we can understand from that is that there is a wrecked 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 was that we are now to some other stories making headlines around the world and this is michael schumacher the seven time 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 after the incident he was airlifted by helicopter to the grenoble university hospital center the director of general care

described his condition as serious. after the accident which took place at the marable resort in france mr schumacher was transported to the grenoble university hospital center you arrived at the clinic in a coma and underwent immediate surgery for a serious head trauma. and violence continues to rage across south sudan government troops clash with rebels from the so-called white army near the city of bor military reportedly used helicopter gunships against the rebels fighting ruptured it despite the government's offer of a truce to end the conflict in the country oil rich south sudan has been in turmoil since two thousand and eleven when it gained independence this month alone at least one thousand people have died in fighting in south sudan. a newly freed me hi-lo koskie will dedicate himself to helping what he calls political prisoners the man who until very recently was russia's most high profiled inmate says he wants to pay

back his debts to the people who are still incarcerated but as artie's peter oliver reports their cases have little to do with politics. after ten years in jail. has now decided will 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 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 society 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 five counts of murder. in two thousand and seven

a court convicted goodnow 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 widow believes this was a crime that went to the top. of the american by the us was registered there so when it came to tax revenues it was answering to the mayor next to you guns going with that argument with the hope they depended on him and that was the only reason why he even managed care 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 pairs of legs going was already serving twenty years in prison for the attempted murder of former holocaust visor all good cause. 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 because the owner 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 but he will automatically become responsible i think now he fears that the next super two can start talking like that 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 crafts 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 argile 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 a bought the by mean self fiscal many police. and every kind of businessman in the best who had done the same would have also ended in prison above this story is told in the west. peter all of a billion well coming up after the break it's worlds apart with host oksana boyd stay with us. it's. very hard to take a. look. at that fact with her make

her. feel. for the people. right seems. first rate. and i think the church.

on our reporters were very. instrumental. to be in the middle. 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 the very peculiar place that's religion plays in one day live what is the current state of affairs between the church and the state while to discuss that i'm now joined by dr gary hart 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 involve countries .