the battle for arctic riches heats up as climate change opens the region to increasing economic political and even military competition. the presence of u.s. troops in afghanistan beyond twenty fourteen is thrown into doubt after the latest killing of civilians by american forces. and as the n.s.a.'s mass surveillance antics draw unwelcome comparisons to the stasi of east germany r t talks to a veteran of the feared envy or the cold war spy service about the differences and similarities between the two. we're watching r t international from our moscow studios i'm lindsey france thanks

for joining me. as the arctic sea ice melts away at an alarming rate access to vast oil reserves is opening up and countries bordering the region are determined to defend their slice of the pie the polar seabed may hold as much as fifteen percent of the world's under scuppered oil and thirty percent of its gas let's take a look closer look at how nations hope to benefit from the receding northern icecap now while the lion's share of the arctic natural wealth is still hidden five nations are leading the charge for its resources that's canada denmark norway russia and the united states the other arctic council members are finland iceland and sweden they're trying to expand their influence in that region the organization also has twelve observers states most of them european but it may last year several key asian powers china india japan singapore and south korea established links with this club the economic rise of asia means that its influence on what happens in the arctic could be crucial but as our great important i have found out the battle for

the region could take a dangerous turn. melting ice caps in the arctic have ignited a military build up over the world's smallest ocean and the riches buried beneath it the arctic circle is believed to contain thirty percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and fifteen percent of its oil the future of the world economy to some extent is dependent on the arctic and i think you know russia and canada the united states and norway and denmark are very interested in exploiting these resources last month canada abruptly claims that it owned the north pole while the united states with its alaskan outpost has plans to boost its military there claiming it lacks operational experience and needs to police the thinning ice as it's replaced by fuel filled maritime traffic but that's not all. actually u.s. submarines are deployed not too far away off the norwegian coast it would take us

missiles sixteen to seventeen minutes to get from there to moscow so we really hope that with all the things that have been happening in the world over the past few decades we put the cold war confrontation behind us in all five countries bordering the arctic sovereignty rights to resources within two hundred nautical miles of their territorial waterways but a growing opportunity for a bigger slice of the pie is what many fear can inevitably spark a twenty first century cold war in the frozen waters are also unexplored resources that we don't know yet to which country belongs which could be of course of interest to many countries i do think that. smaller things could spark. tension and maybe more tension that we would like to see marina porter r.t. new york. and trade wise the northern sea route offers a highly attractive shortcut for russia and european ships as far as fuel and other

goods they need to get to asia and to to find ice this passage could take as little as twenty two days and slash transport costs for comparison the southern voyage through the mediterranean and across the indian ocean is roughly twice as long we heard earlier from christopher parry a strategic forecaster and former british naval officer he thinks disputes are unavoidable in the race for the arctic where i think we could have some disputes is there a number of other interested countries such as india china korea japan all getting very interested not just in the northern sea route but also in the resources that exists out there in the arctic already the chinese are operating greenland to places like that and i think there will be a scramble by some of the other countries for some of those resources whether the ice does recede so you're not just going to the northern sea route across the top or russia and the northwest passage across canada you're also going to have a route around twenty fifty straight across the top of the north pole now that

means that there are countries that in the past of face each other across the north pole that icy waste are going to have open water for a quarter few months of the year and that will introduce different perspectives different geometries you're going to see canada and you know the states also entering into the arctic so it's going to be an interesting situation grist to the point he probably around twenty forty five twenty fifty people will be getting ready for that of course it in the years leading up to the. relations between the u.s. and afghanistan are in jeopardy after the latest killing of civilians by american troops in the war zone the afghan president says seven children and a woman died in a u.s. airstrike on wednesday nato claims the incident took place during a counter terror operation and admits that at least two civilians were killed by mistake the route has cast fresh doubt on whether kabul will sign a key security pact with washington the deal would see thousands of american troops remain in afghanistan for another ten years some analysts say the afghan government

should demand reparations for the killings. that's always the argument that the foreign powers make they always make it sound like they're invading a country just because they care so much about the people that are under attack but all over the world you can see the fruits of us foreign intervention these kind of massacres are really built in to foreign interventions you can see it wherever this happens whether in the middle east africa asia anywhere the result is poverty misery suffering they've never improve the lives of the people in the people have the right to run their own country a president karzai if he represents the afghan people should be demanding that reparations be paid to the people of afghanistan for the so many crimes that have been committed there for all the people killed for all the lives lost for all the poverty and misery created by u.s. intervention and those reparations shouldn't come from ordinary working class americans it ought to come from halliburton it ought to come from general electric and all the military contractors that have made so much money off of the destruction of the people in afghanistan and so many other countries in the world. on our team dot com right now cheating in class was never more dangerous it turns

out that thirty four u.s. air force officers responsible for allotting nuclear weapons are not as highly trained as you might expect they were only able to pass the monthly competency test after receiving the answers via text message. and also on our website it's not the alps or any other world famous skiing destination it's north korea's attempt at a top class which resort all you want to know about kim jong il and pet project is waiting for you online. right from the sea. first trip. and i think that you're. on our reporters with their. instrument. in the little a. little. when leaked files from the us national security agency revealed that american spies

had been keeping close tabs on a key ally germany the government there was furious comparing the practices to those of the stasi east germany's notorious secret police artist peter all of our met with a veteran of that service to find out just how similar the two really are. on finding out that the united states attempt to private mobile phone and glimmer confronted president obama with this claim. former offices in the east german secret police which was known as the stars e of a warning for the n.s.a. if they think must surveillance is the solution to a nation's problems who quote if it's even the best qualified and most advanced secret service cannot save the state we showed you that away from the professed shock of the politicians at the n.s.a. spying ability how does it compare with the actions of the east german secret

services cheering the cold war disk and now it's really this is exactly as illegal as some of the tactics that the stasi used to employ it is a breach of human rights but the government machine is so powerful that you can't stop it edward snowden's leaks about the shape and scope of n.s.a. surveillance show in germany as one of the top targets for u.s. snooping again. on top of the ominously named devil's mountain life the remnants of the last major n.s.a. spying program to look into the private lives of the people of berlin or it's a bond and now back in the day this post was used to listen in normally private phone calls of thousands of citizens in both the east on the west of the city. then it was thousands of calls now it's millions sometimes tens of millions of data connections that are tracked and logged in the movie the way they do it now is much

more intensive your web browsing history credit cards they can build a profile on you way easier than was ever possible in my day. he didn't have access to this type of technology they rely on developing personal contacts. even those who were working in counterintelligence in the west were ours even they said it we were pretty good even then the fear of being listened into is taken seriously as one former officer charged with looking into nato told us human those fires my superior officer is there any technology we have that i can use to stop eavesdropping on my calls yeah answer yes just don't pick it up these veterans of the spy game might be impressed by the capabilities of the n.s.a. but they're cautious about the quality of the information collected for lessons yet they relied too much on technology that technology might let you locate a person or listen to their cause it doesn't let you know what they think with the

usa doing all it can to justify its intelligence gathering the operation dubbed two point zero by critics except to continue for some time yet peter all of a r.t. germany. president obama is expected to release a proposal this week on limiting the n.s.a. surveillance practices attorney kevin zeese says that the agency and the manner in which it operates has got to change to avoid alienating u.s. allies. i think where it shows is the germans i think the rest of the world is well they now know what they're dealing with they're dealing with a technological peeping tom that doesn't care about abiding by the law or respecting other nations rather leaders and i think the world has to unite in some way to come to deal with this issue of privacy invasion i think the world the world to say we're not going to deal with you if you're going to be behave this way with your largest empire world history your extreme militarism includes a this dragnet surveillance we're going to use

a longer world to say no you know i need the world i think is a becomes a very clear choice for our leadership i think our foreign policy is that one or stand that thing we need to deal with the world needed to have them in a way respect and things need to change. the n.s.a. revelations came courtesy of edward snowden and his hiding from washington's purse prosecution prosecution in russia. played a solid we meet a woman who stood up in support of him and his fellow whistleblowers in fact in her own unique way. a film in oregon is suing nike for one hundred million dollars claiming that the company failed to include a warning on its air jordan stickers that they could be used as dangerous weapons after he used his own pair to beat a man. in other pimp this from the pacific northwest bill gates continues to

pimp out your privacy and data to the n.s.a. and many other forgot to spy agency want to give a few bucks rather than use a sneaker this pimp the boys this company's software products including skype as a dangerous weapon against the constitutional rights of unsuspecting customers on the products. gates to himself when he gets caught. this immediately goes so we leave to be. part of the scene motions to. play your part of the physical. issues that no one is there with to get that you deserve answers from. politic you. are today. he.

took on june sixteenth one thousand forty one we had a graduation party at school and the war broke out. the shops were always full of goods. in september leningrad was blocked. one day mom went and saw that all the shelves were empty. in november the. warehouses it was the main storage place for all the food in the city people would be eating the earth because it had small traces of sugar in it i tried to eat it as well but i couldn't. look at the lists incredibly heavy bombing. it was a directory very shelter and everyone was buried underneath. all of them.

good leverage sure. to build most sophisticated. doesn't sound anything mission to teach creation why it should care about humans. this is why you should care only. over ninety five percent of egyptians have voted in favor of a new constitution put forward by the military backed interim government that's according to early results from this week's referendum announced by the interior ministry is almost opponents boycotted the vote claiming the no campaign was never given a chance by the authorities well true reports from cairo. how many people thought

this would be the case as there's been a huge drive by the government and the military pushing people to participate and yes it's really a multi-million dollar purse to campaigns by businessmen across the streets calling on people to ratify this constitution and this is what the government really be looking for is a big yes as this would basically be a standard approval on the political right now we would see basically pave the way for elections and possibly also paid to brace for a president to come this and the seat of egypt to fight to be there and general ability to tell sisi who said he might run if the people want him to so this will be a huge blow to them is the brother hates me because the situation is basically illegitimate and i've been boycotting with this yes the constitution will basically be make it even harder for them to fail to function on the streets to give the dismissal of the government to leap forward with elections so we'll have to see what's going to happen next but the most motherhood and i suppose have said they will start step up the process so expect that in the coming days. the vote on the constitution

followed a month long military crackdown on members of the muslim brotherhood and other activists who objected to the course taken up by egypt's new rulers protests without prior permission were banned the muslim brotherhood often found its hands tied as the group was branded a terrorist organization the president of the arab lawyers association told us this new constitution of egypt on the road to dictatorship once again. the lawyer i've read the constitution the present constitution and the one before this present constitution the biggest problem in it is that it puts the me and the armed forces above the state and above the constitution people have to understand that egypt is the only out of country that the army actually is in control beyond any other country all the people who rose against mubarak are no being and you situation in every sense of the word even. at the

present moment i think the government in egypt at the present moment it's gone way beyond the previous regimes and its treatment to the citizens who do not support it . with roughly sixty percent of the world's population living in countries where the death penalty is enforced at a martin takes on the issue in today's breaking you can watch the show ten minutes time. with the us sitting just behind china iran iraq and saudi arabia in the number of state sponsored executions death penalty opponents have plenty of motivation to end capital punishment in this country and while many of these prisoners are indeed guilty of heinous crimes consider this since one thousand nine three hundred twelve people have been exonerated by d.n.a. evidence alone and of those prisoners eighteen were facing death sentences of course hundreds if not thousands of convicted prisoners have no access to d.n.a. evidence virtually ensuring that they will never be able to prove their innocence

which is why the decades old case of fourteen year old george stinney is so important one hundred forty four said he became the youngest american citizen to be executed in the twentieth century for killing two white girls in south carolina this being the jim crow era cells the justice system completely failed stinney the moment he told officers that had talked to the girls on the day of their deaths without his parents or a lawyer present and he was taken into a room terror gated in according to police confessed to the crime within an hour however no written confession exists and reports at the time say that the officers offered stinney ice cream in exchange for the confession fast forward to today where a group of lawyers are trying to clear his name and force the state of south carolina to admit this grave injustice but of course for every person trying to create a more just society in this country there are those who want nothing more than a return to the middle ages.

western intelligence agents are reportedly negotiating with the syrian government to cooperate against jihadists syria's deputy foreign minister confirmed western spies have indeed been in damascus for talks it's not clear which countries are taking part in the negotiations and the u.k. has denied any involvement meanwhile the syrian opposition says that if the reports are true it would expose double standards in the western camp which had until recently been openly opposing the damascus government one intelligence expert told us that western nations had no choice but to work with assad. not in recognition of a number of factors one of those sees the inability of the syrian opposition and the rebels to get our act together politically but also i think there is a recognition that militarily the rebels are unable to deliver on their promises in any case perhaps of more immediate concern to the west and this is particular case in the european capitals it's clear that elements of the syrian opposition

comprising fighters jihadist fighters of gone from countries such as britain germany spain its trip to syria to fight with al-qaeda linked forces that actually pose a threat to european countries themselves so this recognition has meant that security services have of course been forced to think like to address this in the best way to our national interest and of course inevitably that means particularly since it's likely more i think recognize now that assad will be around for some time to actually make those links even if discreetly with back with the regime's intelligence services. some other world news in brief as our master around the clock protests are raging in thailand's capital where crowds are refusing to leave the streets for a fourth day it's a bid to disrupt bangkok and force the government to step down overnight gunshots were fired at a crowd of demonstrators injuring at least two people the prime minister has confirmed that she will go ahead with snap elections in february in an effort to calm the situation. in iraq government forces have regained control. a small town

near the city of fallujah following an air offensive the advances being hailed as a major success for iraqi troops who have struggled to force militants from the area fighters from the islamic state of iraq and they live on tend to group have controlled most of the anbar province for nearly two weeks now they've also stepped up violence across the country forcing the prime minister to issue a plea for international help. around ten thousand people of marched peacefully in the spanish city of birth last in protest against the government's plans to revamp the area opponents claim it would displaced residents and waste public funds the standoff spilled into violence in the past few days and solidarity marches were held in the capital forcing the burgos mayor to suspend the project. numerous protests in support of whistleblowers such as julian assange bradley manning and edward snowden have taken place around the world in recent years our team meets one

woman who chose a different way to show her support for the movement. she's a lawyer she's got a ph d. in international law and she was a lecturer but she's also pose for glamour calendars what some would say would be provocative or racy photos of her age she says is to raise funds and awareness for the works of whistleblowers and other activists like that today we're joined by dr rolls with a fuller thanks very much for joining us today but what i'd like to know is why did you choose this matter of getting awareness why not another way well actually i have written articles on whistleblowers in the military so i have actually written quite lengthy articles that are going to be published but i really thought that. in order to make a difference to these with lawyers who as we know are in jail or. at the moment i needed to involve myself in a more material way and i thought well how can i do something that isn't just

a matter of talking i think there's quite a lot of consensus on this issue because we've talked enough i do think that something like whistleblowing and revealing violations of international law is very empowering i think there is attention given to these issues obviously however i do think that people hear about these issues and they might you know get you complain in private or perhaps say on that they've been unfairly treated in private but i would i'm trying to do is give people a way that they can contribute materially because you can sit and you know complain in the poverty something like that but this is a way to actually make a contribution to funding the legal defense or for example organization awareness or organizational help for whistleblowers not necessarily i just wiki leaks or. also we're finding out public internet work and fair which is a canadian initiative reforms also one place was a blowers are very important as well so this way it gets away fast and basically put our money where our mouth is and help with people going. up next as promised

it's abby martin with breaking the set. the majority of congress are now millionaires for the first time in history according to the center for responsive politics which sounds pretty insulting when the average american is not doing so well financially this seems bad like a bunch of rich guys rule the country which they kind of do but one could argue that congress isn't rich enough first off due to inflation a million dollars is not as much as it used to be especially the cost of a campaign to get in a congress costs around one million six hundred thousand dollars so yeah a million dollars of net worth may sound pretty rich to you or me but the expensive game of us politics these guys can't even afford the costs related to getting the work electoral campaigns are a big money affair so it is no surprise that people like you or me can't get into the law making business without selling at least

a little piece of our souls to someone who has very deep pockets so again the problem isn't that congressmen are wealthy it is that many of them have to get constant financing in order to maintain their positions and as you average folks know once you're in debt they've got you by the throat well that's just my opinion . i'm at a martin and this is breaking the sat you know at this point pretty much nothing surprises me when it comes to the overly curious and government entity known as the national security agency but i guess i still thought that here at least protected

from n.s.a. snoops if you want to play offline so. all of terror in the privacy of your own home what's not see according to new york times report the agency has planted software in almost one hundred thousand computers around the world that don't have to be connected to the internet this data use then see it works there's something called radio frequency technology which allows the n.s.a. to use a covert radio channel to access the microchips in the machines and deliver the data to a listening post up to eight miles away but don't worry according to the n.s.a. the only computers that are called most of those are the enemy targets but now world war everyone's presumed guilty before proven innocent aren't we all considered enemies now let's break this. the key please please take and leave very hard to take that a little bit on the line that he ever had sex with the other three there

are those. that believe. the. little. oh oh. please. please. please. put the u.s. sitting just behind china iran iraq and saudi arabia and the number of state sponsored executions death penalty opponents have plenty of motivation to end capital punishment in this country and while many of these prisoners are indeed guilty of heinous crimes consider this since one thousand nine three hundred twelve people have been exonerated by d.n.a. evidence alone and of those prisoners eighteen were facing death sentences of

course hundreds if not thousands of convicted prisoners have no access to d.n.a. evidence virtually ensuring that they will never be able to prove their innocence which is why the decades old case of fourteen year old george stinney is so important one hundred forty four said he became the youngest american citizen to be executed in the twentieth century for killing two white girls in south carolina this being the jim crow era south the justice system completely failed stint in the moment he told officers that had talked to the girls on the day of their deaths without his parents or a lawyer present and he was taken into a room interrogated and according to police confessed to the crime within an hour however no written confession exists and reports at the time say that the officers offered stinney ice cream in exchange for the confession a subsequent trial was similarly a complete farce said he was represented by a tax commissioner named charles plowden who according to mark jones an author who has written extensively about the case.