with much stronger an overall look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports on our. breaking news on r.t.e. edward snowden could have the chance to stay in russia indefinitely a russian lawmaker says the n.s.a. whistleblower will be offered extended asylum more on this story just ahead. former virginia governor bob mcdonnell and his wife appeared in court today they stand accused of perceiving gifts from a wealthy c.e.o. for political favors the party was at the hearing and brings you a special report coming up and in switzerland the syrian peace talks could end before they even start today representatives of the government and the opposition failed to meet face to face we'll bring you all the details straight from geneva later in the show.

it's friday january twenty fourth five pm in washington d.c. i live here and david and you're watching r.t. america. we begin today with breaking news that russia plans to extend its offer of asylum to former government contractor edward snowden beyond august which is where when his one year temporary asylum was such the end this is all according to remarks by russian lawmaker alexy push cobb who spoke today at the world economic forum during a panel discussion alexey hinted that the extension of temporary refugee status for snowden could be indefinite saying he will not be sent out of russia it will be up to snowden the u.s. has charged snowden with the espionage act a charge that carries harsh penalties just yesterday attorney general eric holder said granting the whistleblower clemency would be going too far but holder did say that he's open to pursuing a deal with snowden if he pled guilty to criminal charges it's unclear however what that deal would and tail. so don is also addressing the possibility of returning to

the u.s. yesterday in an online q. and a snowden was asked what it would take for him to come back to the united states in response note and said that he knows his return is the best resolution but that it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistle blower protection laws for more on all of the different questions he answered yesterday let's turn to our tease megan lopez. the former national security agency contractor responsible for leaking over one point seven million classified documents to the world and turning america's intelligence apparatus on its head took some time to answer questions from the public this week this is the second time edward snowden has taken to the internet to argue his case here's what we learned during the brief question and answer session stoughton once again took aim at section two fifteen of the patriot act which allows for the book collection of telephone metadata snow to pointed to this mass surveillance as the n.s.a.'s biggest offense against the

american people and said there is no possible justification for it and a democratic society he claims the n.s.a. violated the constitution one hundred twenty million times but failed to uncover even a single terror plot snowden warned that the dangers of bulk collection are twofold first the knowledge that these programs exist causes self-censorship consequently making all of us less free and second collection of the sort creates a permanent record where something you searched on the internet out of curiosity years ago can be used against you today the thirty year old criticize the feis of courts as a rubber stamp court which approves ninety nine point nine seven percent of all government requests he says that only eleven requests were ever denied out of the thirty three thousand nine hundred in the courts thirty three year existence at the same time snowden acknowledged that intelligence agencies do have a role in protecting national security interests he said the men and women who work

for the cia and the n.s.a. are trying to do the right thing and are worried about the same things that he is edward snowden took some time to talk about his own situation saying he is well aware that there have been threats on his life but asserted that he will not be intimidated into submission he also said that he wants to return to the u.s. but cannot given the nature of plant whistleblower protection laws snowden wrote quote. one of the things that has not been widely reported by journalists is that whistleblower protection laws in the us do not protect contractors in the national security arena there are so many holes in the laws the protections they are ford are so weak and the process is for reporting they provide are so ineffective that they appear to be intended to discourage reporting of even the clearest wrongdoing if i have revealed what i knew about these unconstitutional but classified programs to congress they could have charged me with a felony finally he made a plea for international bodies to come up with global security standards that

would force privacy rights but also protect countries against attacks stood wrote quote nobody should be hacking critical to life infrastructure like hospitals and power stations and it's fair to say that can be recognized in international law snowden says laws won't prevent dangerous hacking from taking place only science and technology can do that so for now it looks as if he's not coming back to the us any time soon but he stands by the decisions that he made and then attempt to bring the us back to what he sees as its core principles in washington maggie lopez r.t. and glasgow university students have launched a campaign to get edward snowden elected as rector he's one of four official candidates for the three year post also known as highly unlikely to take up the post of person glasgow directors are elected to represent students chairing the university's ruling court glasgow university student live no no

a pox about why some students are voting for snowden. the reason which shows edward snowden is because we know that he is a hero he's a brave man who risked a lot of things to let the people know the extent of us media surveillance and intrusion into our private lives and we just want to show him that we appreciate what he's done it is a clear message sent out to those who are monitoring us that we will not stand for this and that we do not this we do not accept this kind of criminality which would be more symbolic than anything because he will not be able to actually physically come to class go it will choose a representative for for him in situations where he cannot personally attend but his duties will be to hold the title of the rector of the university we have gotten worse we've had an overwhelmingly positive response of course we will do everything we can to make sure that this actually happens that was glasgow university student no lack. and the justice department has now accused the government's largest

private security background check contractor of defrauding the country of millions of dollars the company coming under fire is u.s. investigations services and it's being accused of filing six hundred sixty thousand flawed background investigations which is forty percent of the cases the company pushed through so the government in a four year period this is all laid out in a twenty five page civil complaint filed by the justice department which will now join a whistle blower's lawsuit against you yes that's underway in alabama district court the complaint charges that the company used its close ties with the federal government to conceal its practice of flushing or dumping background checks that means the company would often push through government cases that didn't have proper review but are all officials say u.s. i as conducted a faulty two thousand and eleven background investigation of both edward snowden and aaron alexis the defense contractor who killed twelve people in

a shooting spree at the washington navy yard last year and its defense the company says the allegations related to a small group of individuals and it added that since first learning of these allegations nearly two years ago we have acted decisively to reinforce our processes and management to ensure the quality of our work now joining me now is pro chatter gee the executive director of corp watch thanks so much for joining me thanks for having me so you as i as handles about forty five percent of federal background checks which are used by the defense department department of homeland security and more than one hundred other federal agencies how is it that none of these agencies were able to determine what was happening and flag it much earlier on. well this is sort of better background checks actually goes back probably hundred and twenty five years and what we now know is u.s. investigation services in fact event really agency that was privatized by the

clinton administration in one thousand nine hundred six so historically there's been a system in place private checks and done routinely on some nick two point three million people a year because every time you get a background check it is to be renewed after every few years or so so this is an enormous amount of work and for some reason the clinton administration said it would save money by privatizing it and so they sewed into the colorado group of five hundred twenty five million dollars in one thousand nine hundred six and the last fifteen years or so this is been standard practice now when this is done by a company put profit of course since the given profits based on the number of investigations they do the more investigations that do they do the faster they do it the more profit they make and so what you had that in fact even though u.s. assets is a small group of people and ince points in

a different direction there's been several lawsuits particularly in california of individuals who work for us i asked who complained that the company was forcing them to work faster and faster and faster so it's true the u.s. assets suspended people in pennsylvania but in fact if you look at the record over the net last two years there's a group of people as. opposed to one by the name of catalina recall and i would much two thousand and eleven said she wasn't even allowed time up what breaks in her work day and she sued the company and in fact there was a settlement of nine hundred thousand dollars same thing in general last year you go tomlinson sued the company saying that he was being asked to do best occasions in a week so that you know almost wow i. that is you know that is incredible and do you know if that has to do with the specific whistleblower case that's now taking place in the district court in alabama is that connected at all. well the thing is we

don't actually know the details of be exact cases what justice department is saying is that as many as six hundred sixty thousand of these cases were quote unquote flushed which means essentially what happens at the end of the month in order to make their quotas you can get that profit the company would basically sign up going about your investigation saying done done done check check check and this is what the case device we don't know exactly where the for example edward snowden. aaron alexis case in alabama we're proud of this because the details of this haven't been revealed and what i would also you know a lot of the scrutiny is come up to it at snowden fled the country and right first and then moscow i would say actually that's actually a really bad reason for them to do this investigation is that i wanted to ask you specifically about that you know the dozens farm is going after this company aftermath of edward snowden and of course the navy yard shooter aaron alexis had it

not been for these two incidents threatening security do you think that does this department would be pursuing it. the way it is it's doing it now that's a really good question and i think the u.s. government the obama administration is using this in some ways never cold it to save face and say you know the reason why we have it snowden is blew the whistle is because of a problem the outside of control now in actual fact if you look at the you admit snowden's background there's no reason actually to have suspected him if if the office of personnel management was in charge of the investigation of edward snowden i think it's actually very likely that he would have passed scrutiny on the other hand our own alexis the man who killed twelve people and then was shot dead last year in september should have been and he was checked by u.s.

eyes should have been caught this is a man who you know has got into fights in texas in seattle you know it has been cited for disorderly conduct in georgia and he's deposit u.s.i.s. a scrape that was propped up chatter d. the executive director of corp watch. now to virginia where former governor bob mcdonnell and his wife maureen were in court today the two were indicted on fourteen counts tuesday after a lengthy federal investigation of their relationship with the former c.e.o. of a dietary supplement maker the former republican governor and his wife officially entered not guilty pleas at a court hearing this morning artie's liz wahl attended the hearing in richmond and brings us more. oh it was the first court appearance for the former governor of virginia robert mcdonnell and his wife maureen at the federal courthouse here in richmond virginia at the arraignment both of them pleaded not guilty to the charges against them counts ranged from conspiracy fraud and falsifying documents now the

charges stem from a relationship that the mcdonald's had with a wealthy businessman a man that owns a nutritional supplement company the prosecution alleges that the mcdonald's use the office of the governor to gain personal financial benefits financial gifts it's all mapped out in be an indictment the gifts include everything from oscar dela renta address is a rolex watch money for their daughter's wedding and thousands of dollars in loans all of it adds up to about one hundred sixty five thousand dollars and in return the prosecution alleges that they use their position of power to grant to promote this company and to grant special access to government leaders now before the arraignment the judge made it very clear that this case will not be tried in the media but will be tried inside that courtroom cited

a local rule local rule fifty seven prohibiting any anonymous leaks to the media the judge made it clear that he will anybody that does leak to the media will face severe severe penalty is as for the mcdonnell's today they walked into that chamber hand in hand smiling on this day that could be the beginning of a very long saga their trial date is set for july twenty eighth if they are convicted they will each can face a maximum penalty of thirty years behind bars here in richmond virginia liz wall r t. syrian peace talks in geneva fell flat today. a after the western backed opposition refused to take part in face to face negotiations with the syrian government's delegation the two sides are seemingly finding no common ground on the notion that president bashar al assad should stay in power artie's igor piskun of

is in geneva with more. it began frankly to seem like the negotiations were turning into a complete disaster until your special envoy on syria lakhdar brahimi came out at the end of day and said that he did manage to get both the soon afterwards and the opposition present here in geneva to get in the same room and talk that's going to that's going to happen on saturday and he didn't really provide a lot of details about what they're going to talk about he said that even the ways that he managed to talk them into it are his diplomatic secrets which she is not ready to share with the journalist but he did say that right now the most important thing is for both sides of this conflict to understand what they're here for in geneva and what these talks are all about because the negotiations were supposed to start at eleven am this friday and. they were supposed to sit down at the same table and formally greet each other with mr brahimi present there as well but since the opposition said they were not ready to sit down at the same table with the of

tory's formally the talks never started so throughout the entire day u.s. special envoy was meeting separately both with the authorities and with the opposition their representatives have been coming out to journalists and accusing each other basically of sabotaging the in negotiations and it became clear to us that both see the only way out of this crisis is through negotiations based on the agreements reached at geneva one the opposition says that they want to talk about forming a transition transitional government in syria without president assad there while the authorities are saying they're ready to talk about cease fires they're ready to talk about joint efforts and when it comes to president assad future political future that has you decided by a nationwide election with anyone willing taking part and the people of syria deciding that the talks now are going to start really on saturday we don't really know what exactly they're going to be talking about but really getting even them in the same room is already quite

a deal. limited success that was r t z corpus going up. and a senior european union official met with ukraine's president today during a political stalemate after days of clashes between police and protestors opposition leaders are still demanding the resignation of the government and are calling for early elections peter oliver is in ukraine with more. but been hearing from president dick the un a covert chaffed of the latest rounds of talks between the government and the opposition now he's announced what's been achieved so far he said that the january sixteenth laws that were brought in to clamp down on demonstrations that they would be changes to those laws and now the opposition and government have agreed that there will be an amnesty for all people who are being detained by police during the riots that we've seen here in kiev as well as across the rest of the country now what we're going to see next week is a emergency session of parliament here in ukraine during that emergency session

we're expecting to see a reshuffle of victory on a covert his government he said he's going to change a few members of personnel around now in terms of the violence of being going on here because the articles it is said that he points the finger towards the groups all foreigners to be responsible for the majority of the worst violence blaming them for killing in provoking the situation here the president said that he will do everything to try and bring about peace saying that all legal means at his disposal would be used as he tries to bring some kind of come back to the practically if the rest of ukraine we're looking at about a dozen cities in the west of the country where police and rioters have clashed it's government buildings official buildings that have been the the target for these these new riots in the west of the country the worst affected cities overlooking the cities of ivanova find golf. writers had tried to take

government buildings on thursday night we now see after a vicious standoff that they have succeeded in breaking their way into government buildings in nothing in the elsewhere in chad not see. well what we've seen there is around one thousand riot is facing off against around one hundred. police in one of the main government buildings there it's been some quite a scene coming from from not standoff the police there of course outnumbered tend toward situation under which was one of the first cities outside of kiev to see violence there they occupied the government buildings also major roads in the city how be barricaded some ways towards the. this well the ukrainian prime minister mr is. has said that there will be negotiations they'll be talking to the e.u. and switzerland about. trying to east tensions here in ukraine and see if

they can help to perhaps broker some kind of peace between opposition rioters. the government here know the news what's been coming out from ukraine has been making headlines around the world and we've heard comments from. u.s. leaders some of those comments is being claimed only really succeeding in inflaming tensions here in inflaming the violence now is artie's peter oliver. and a juvenile court judge set a trial date in the case of sixteen year old jack daring manning a teenager who has been charged with misdemeanors after a stop and frisk earlier incident this month but the straight a student says that he is the victim manning says that a philadelphia police officer sexually assaulted him during a pat down which he says left him with a ruptured testicle. she patted me down again and then i felt her reach and she

grabbed my butt and then she grabbed to squeeze the get in poured out and that's when i heard something pop i felt it pop. had a press conference today police released surveillance video of the confrontation the surveillance camera circles and ten second intervals so only part of the incident is documented we had it down so you can see here the struggle between manning and officer manning claims he was on his way to a basketball game when officers stopped and frisked him squeezing his genitals so hard that he had to have emergency surgery a confrontation ensued and the sixteen year old was charged on three counts including resisting arrest the police report says officers approached manning after they saw him running down the street and what they say appeared to be ski masks the boy says it was cold and his face was wrapped in a scarf at a press conference today police commissioner charles ramsey said the department has launched an internal investigation into the incident but manning's attorney won't allow investigators to speak with the boy or his mother manning's attorney want to

know what i mean you know all of this is a young man with no history with the new director of the war and then the news of this. i will go with you don't know what this is say at this point is that. manning's attorney is calling for a federal investigation into the matter but police tell us the teenager's family has yet to file a formal complaint. and for years now it's been difficult to avoid hearing a justin bieber song on the radio but now the pop star has taken over cable news as well ever since the one thousand year old canadian was arrested for drunken driving and resisting arrest after miami beach police caught him street racing and a lamborghini thursday police say bieber admitted he had been drinking smoking marijuana and taking prescription drugs r.t. producer rachel kurz is here to talk about how this bieber fever is making everyone a little bit sick rachel what is going on how far do the groups of bieber fever go

here well we're in the newsroom so we see these screens all of the time of all the other cable news networks and throughout yesterday it was very clear that they were totally enraptured with this justin bieber story totally nonstop all we were seeing was his mug shot everywhere but there was one moment on m.s.n. b.c. that i thought was particularly emblematic of what was going on here and just to set this up andrew mitchell of the afternoon was surprisingly having a moment where they weren't talking about justin bieber they were talking about the n.s.a. she was asking the former chair of the house intelligence committee which she thought about reports that the n.s.a.'s data collection was illegal and this is what happened next. i think at this point we should seriously consider not not can comment on it let me let me get you congresswoman let me interrupt you just for a moment we've got some breaking news out of miami standby if you will. right now in miami justin bieber has been arrested on

a number of charges the charges reading the charges including resisting arrest and driving under the influence he's appearing now before the judge for his bond hearing let's watch. yes so there's a little painful to watch it is so painful to watch right it's so i'm going to let you finish with talking about ending a key part of the patriot act of use here exactly but this is the best arrest of all time so yeah that's kind of emblematic of something that we saw all throughout the day this total obsession of something that really doesn't have an impact on anyone's daily lives is this just the state of cable news now it certainly seems that when i think that it has to do with the fact of what people are actually interested in watching right i mean people like to think that they want to watch really informative television things that tell them about what's going on in their world but there was actually a huge vigil outside of the miami beach police department yesterday in support of justin bieber i mean this vigil was much larger than a lot of the actual police brutality protests that we've covered here at r t what

was the vigil for him in solidarity with justin bieber i mean young girls who can't drink neither of course can bieber legally but but all of these young girls essentially saying morning we need is a rat you justin we're so sorry that this happened to you this you know this horrible thing where when you were drag racing you know drunk and high. no one was sick or died but there was a vigil very exactly so it's very interesting to see that you know this is what people are interested in doing so profit driven organizations are going to go where they think the clicks are and where they think the ads are absolutely and we can't forget that he is canadian you know you can do he's here he's doing his thing but he's not actually from this country so are there implications i mean could he be. deported he faced deportation you know these are a lot of questions that people are asking was he treated fairly for instance there are people who have been deported who don't have the same kind of fame as just some people who've been deported for much less but i do want to show you something that r.t.d. has created kind of in remembrance of this day of infamy of cable news. let

me interrupt you just for we've got some breaking news out of miami following the breaking news of the. nineteen year old. justin bieber is now before the judge. wow yeah i do so if you just want to watch people who are going to make fun of other people covering justin bieber rather than actually covering him keep going to that was our he was our shameless plug of the day he's a producer rachael currency as always a pleasure thank you you thank. and according to a top army commander the u.s. army is working on becoming a quote smaller more lethal deployable and agile force but how would this be done well it involves robots of course at the recent army aviation symposium general

robert cone head of the services training and doctrine command said the army was exploring ways to shrink the size of the brigade combat team from about four thousand soldiers to three thousand over the coming year and replace the lost soldiers with robots and unmanned platforms in his remarks cohen said i've got clear guidance to think about what if you could robotically perform some of the tasks in terms of maneuverability in terms of the future of the force in terms of what these robots would entail talked about how the army could use unmanned ground vehicles that would follow manned platforms while in the field that he said would lead to a decreased necessity for soldiers to carry armor and protection meaning they would be able to reduce the weight of a brigade brigade combat team now there's no indication that this transition would happen in the next couple of years but by two thousand and thirty the commander said the nature of the force could look very very different and that does it for

now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at amir david. i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question more. ukraine

or at least the country's capital kiev has descended into chaos protests have turned extremely violent and the social order is on the verge of collapse to what degree do protesters in kiev represent the ukrainian people what do these protesters believe in and what do they really want is ukraine on the path to nowhere.