transit. your best way to the heart of moscow. ukraine southern republican sets a date for a referendum on further autonomy from kiev as thousands rally against the ultra nationalist which has risen from the rubble of the capital's independence square. a new clue as to the whereabouts of the ousted president yet a kind of it shows he announces a news conference to be held in southern russia after dismissing ukraine's interim leaders as illegitimate asking for protection. also amnesty international accusing israel of using excessive force against palestinian protesters in the occupied territories saying some killings could be tantamount to war crimes. secret documents reveal a british intelligence agency g c h q is intercepting and storing webcam images

from millions of unsuspected online users. from a studio this is r.t. international with the twenty four hours a day the rise of ultra nationalism in ukraine is causing tensions in the south of the country the center of unrest is now in the capital of the we're told this region of crimea a local parliament there has voted to hold a regional referendum which could push them even further away from kiev control. is in crimea. the crimean parliament has released the local prime minister from his duties basically dispersing the the government as well and has set a date for a referendum over whether or not to stay with you crane and this date is may twenty fifth which is the same day when the new authorities in kiev are planning to hold

nationwide presidential elections in fact they've said that crimea is have no rights to hold any sort of referendums independently under new laws which have been passed recently in kiev and now in the meantime over and over the night here in the capital of the crimea a group of unknown pro russian activists got inside the building of the local parliament and race russian flag on top of that they however did allow deputies to enter inside and there are no reports of any sort of aggression from them now also several thousand people gathered outside of the palm and as well a pro russian activist with russian flags and well the people that i've spoke with they're very concerned about the things that have been happening in kiev especially about more and more nationalists coming to power there and they say that they are ready to protect their national identity just to explain the east and southeast of ukraine where we are now is heavily populated by ethnic russians now all of this is

coming after clashes erupted on the wednesday also in front of the parliament between pro russian activists and probably ukrainian ones most of whom are crimean tatar arce and it started as a rally but then political tension grew into like one. bar more ukraine here in the crimea nationalist slogans are being shouted alongside pro russian ones they share the same went but definitely not the same political views i . i. know. we all came out today to show that without our approval no decisions will be made we see the. crimea is a part of ukraine but the majority of people here support russia in the u.s.s.r. the crimea belongs to the russian soviet republic until may nine hundred fifty four when the then soviet leadership decided to transfer it to the administration of

saudi do crane and when the u.s.s.r. collapsed in one thousand anyone in the crimea was left as a part of independent ukraine but for the last few centuries mainly ethnic russians have been living on these lands alongside minorities including the muslim crimean tatars. the crimea always used to be russian and was passed over to the crane unlawfully it's time for justice to prevail in the square in front of the a local administration building here in see if at all will have. a vision. for devotion and what role you when you and gulf war roll russian with the russian flags there was actually a year and the tensions reaching the boiling point. even though i knew several effects that would most of the crimean tartars have been siding with the ukrainian nationalist but they were never able to agree on much it was about tatars want their own crimean tartar government but the idea is too far fetched to me at this

point however nationalism is far more important than logic but the majority here are expecting the local crimean authorities to exercise the political will and not oh well a new ethnic offered in europe to break out i you go to school of r t reporting from the crimea. meanwhile a video has surfaced online of alexander music the current leader of the ultra nationalist group known as the right sector and this group was at the forefront of the violent protests that rocked the ukrainian capital for to shows research has method of dealing with the remaining authorities. don't you just wouldn't want to go. what you just didn't. want to. get was it. because. it

was a trick a barge into a prosecutor's office in central ukraine and attacked an employee he was demanding to see the prosecutor who was not there he then began to terrorize staff members assaulting one of them and threatening to time up and drag him out quote like an animal. when a man of radical views which could join ukraine's ultra nationalist party in ninety ninety one in the church and more he fought alongside the militants and prides himself on personally hitting three tanks and killing a number of russian soldiers has previously been accused of organizing an assassination attempt on a fellow party member and was convicted of kidnapping a businessman and causing him grievous bodily harm while despite all that he ran for ukrainian parliament and twenty twelve n l stands at the helm of the country's nationalist movement while the whereabouts of ukraine's ousted president viktor yanukovych remain unknown but he did release a public statement suggesting he is in no mood to give up the fight to hold on to power or he's of the reports. the unocal fish saga has largely resembled

a hollywood thriller something along the lines of catch me if you can he fled the ukrainian capital five days ago after a huge outbreak of violence here ever since his can his whereabouts have been unknown some have been speculating that he is still in ukraine and the new ukrainian power in kiev were quick to brand him as a criminal to slap a wanted on him and to declare him as a fugitive but apparently on the call which may be resurfacing in russia here first of all he published a statement handing it over to several russian news agencies saying that he was still the legitimate president of ukraine elected in a constitutional manner every decision made in the key of parliament in kiev according to an accord which was illegitimate and he was willing to fight until the very end to bring the constitutional order back to the country at the same time he said that he and his competitors have been receiving death threats from people he described as extremists and that's why he asked russia to provide protection for

himself some rumors and those are sources not yet confirmed by any official in russia have reported that in fact the russian government granted this protection for unocal which but now the latest news is that one of the officials close to the ousted ukrainian president said that the other which will hold a press conference in the south than a russian city of stuff on dawn on friday at about five o'clock local time certainly a lot will be clear if this press conference takes place and which would probably clarify what his next steps will be and with a country more polarized than ever there's no better time for the ousted president to speak out that's according to international relations expert mark slow burner. while technically still the having rights as the president of the ukraine after being driven out by this putsch in kiev he's released

a rather powerful statement we have seen a complete deterioration of the situation in kiev this putsch has shown that they really have no power. to control what is going on certainly not in the entirety of the ukraine but even more locally the ultra nationalist mobs which which. cynically made an attempt to ride the tiger of their violence into power are now in control of the streets so. i guess at this point must feel he has . to try to restore order to the country meanwhile comments on the crisis have been coming in from high level ministers from nato countries for more on very action here's our correspondent in. nato defense ministers expressing a lot of concern over ukraine as well as their perception of the kremlin's response the nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen called on russia not to do

anything that would quote escalate tension or create a misunderstanding he told a meeting of the nato ukraine commission in brussels the latest developments in the crimea were quote dangerous and irresponsible also raising the alarm of the new german defense minister now she weighed in at her very first nato summit in brussels let's take a quick listen the situation in the ukraine particularly in crimea fills us with great concern it is of the utmost importance that we prevent a breakup of the ukraine and that special forces in the country are strengthened. so lot of concern about whether ukraine remains in one piece or not the russian foreign ministry meanwhile issuing a statement in response to all this saying that the nato defense ministers were sending a quote wrong signal in their statements urging all sides to refrain from making what moscow referred to as provocative statements this alarm not just coming from the nato ministers but reflected in the western press as well the news has certainly made front page headlines with

a lot of speculation that moscow's decision to hold military drills is linked somehow to the unrest that's a notion which the russian defense minister sergei scheuer who disputed saying that the emergency military drills were routine and largely unrelated to the developments in the ukraine he did go want to say that russia is of course closely monitoring the developments there and there as well as around the russia's black sea fleet which remember is based in the crimea with the western media has a long standing history of making moscow out to be the bad guy that's the view of political analyst. of course. people in the west and there are nationalist crawlin use in ukraine our interest in dimona is in russia russia has no intention to recall a terrorist or the former soviet union by military force are our government and our nation and we don't need new territory so this is just that they acted you had all

the global media in general all the media internet media newspapers television they were alive to attract users so it's very it's a very handy way to attract viewers by creating the sort of pain but i think it's irresponsible it's clear to me about how to. russia will not intervene militarily you mean russians will never fight ukrainians. in the military we. so all in my view this is all just and. i'm sorry break my heel in russia showing them even if russia does not start a whore the foreign media and started for it once of turmoil to push ukraine further towards a default both the e.u. and the i.m.f. is so far pledged to offer financial support but that's a lot that's likely to come with some painful conditions here are some of the reforms the i.m.f. was demanding from the previous administration first of pension reform the

government had to increase the retirement age also a number of benefits and welfare payments should have been cancelled including those for school children and the elderly and they transiting gas prices need to be pushed up both for businesses and the private sector with households facing up to a two fold increase state on coal mines primarily in the east of the country were said to be privatized and on top of that agricultural land had to be put up for sale to a political analyst if william and dull believes that the west has been taking advantage of ukraine's fragile politics. the conditions that the u.s. that wants to impose is simply a looting and plundering what of the prime economic areas that are interrelated linked since the soviet union era to the russian economy the united states government is making verbal silence about money the u.s. treasury is not in any political shape to give billions of dollars to the ukrainian economy estimates are thirty five billion required this is

a manipulation from the outside would do stay with us a lot international as we closely follow all the latest developments in ukraine more expert opinion is also available right now online at r.t. dot com more international news stories coming away after a short break. democratic revolution or government cool as russia and the west trade blows ukraine lies. what does the future hold for the deeply divided country. to kick right on the scene. first trip.

and i think you're. on a reporter's twitter. instagram. list international is accusing israeli forces of using reckless violence in the occupied palestinian territories a new report from the human rights group goes as far as to suggest some killings may actually be war crimes already has the details. this amnesty international

report that is some eighty seven pages reviews the behavior of the israeli army in the occupied west bank of a period of three years from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and thirteen and what it found is that the israeli soldiers behaved in an excessive and reckless way resulting in the death of multiple palestinians in what some might say is war crimes as you can well imagine the i.d.f. has dismissed the report it says that amnesty international has a complete lack of understanding of the situation on the ground and that in fact during the same time period there was a marked increase in palestinian violence on the israeli army and on the list the report documents the death of some forty five palestinians in this time period it talks about a pattern of unlawful killings it also says that in addition to these there were at least two hundred and sixty one people were seriously injured by live ammunition and an additional eight thousand who were seriously injured by other means including rubber coated bullets in the same time period there was only one israeli

soldier who was brought to book he was sentenced to one year in prison with five months suspended and allowed to remain in the army albeit at a lower rank. you're looking good he's the right to ramstein to national israel and he believes the authorities are killing children armed with nothing more than rocks . one of the cases that we document in the report is a dog story of. his sixteen from the village. near ramallah he was shot by israeli soldiers in the leg he tried to flee and then was shot two more times in the head and in the back to death nevertheless right dispersal right control measures do need to be used in some circumstances and they and they have been having a surely the military does have to maintain control let me give you an example i myself of a five year old son we live in tel aviv if he were to throw a rock at a car he would be severely punished by his father for one perhaps

a police car would come and you know be very concerned that could have hurt somebody that does not warrant. shooting a child that does not warrant arresting children for long. amounts of time without their parents these are patterns that we see serially in the occupied territories this is the way that the israeli military treats palestinian society the biotech giant proclaimed by some as the most evil company in the world is once again drawing fire and you study suggest monsanto's roundup we could be linked to a highly toxic and deadly kidney disease more about the dangers linked to the g.m. food producer online. also the websites nasa strollers discover seven hundred fifteen new planets outside our solar system almost doubling the number of planets known to humanity details on this story and much more available on r.t.

dot com. a new leaks on global surveillance practices claim that british intelligence agency g q has been intercepting and collecting webcam images from millions of online users. has details for us now from london. this was the british intelligence agency. with the help of n.s.a.'s program code named optic nerve and this is essentially collecting still yahoo webcam chat images from one point eight million yahoo accounts to be exact and then storing them on databases now the the images were an experiment in what they call automated facial recognition and it was used to monitor not just existing targets but also to discover new targets but it seems they were getting a little bit more than perhaps they'd bargained for because as they quite quickly put it it seems that

a lot of people do use the webcam chats just the conversation and so it seemed they had quite a large number of images of a sexually explicit nature in fact the documents revealed between three to eleven percent of the data they were receiving was of undesirable nudity as they call it now you're here you have over spawned a furiously to this saying that they had no knowledge or involvement in this and if the report please true that it represents a whole new level of violation that's certainly something that's being echoed in a public sentiment in response to these latest revelations was one social media eloquently put it c.c.t.v. on the street g c h q in your sheets who are let's get more perspective on this from an investigative journalist tony goes and joins me live now from the u.k. in bristol tony clearly they got more than they bargained for all those revealing images but surely the purpose of spying is intelligence gathering and that's

essentially what they're doing for counterterrorism purposes so why this backlash over over this. well this is got nothing to do counterterrorism has it because this is just yet another great day to trawl and there's all sorts of reasons why that is illegal apparently this sort of thing has to be sanctioned boy the foreign secretary or home secretary the highest levels in the u.s. has to be sanctions through the secret files or courts but there are very good reasons why this the people who committed this actually should be or are criminals i'm talking about those that have authorized the government level and. the individual operators who are collecting this data i mean out of all of the things we've heard i think you're agree bill we've heard about spyware being put on viruses being put on our computers our computers being stopped on the way to our homes to have spyware this kind of thing put on it we've also had denial of service attacks that is taking out web sites campaign groups and that sort of thing. and by

the n.s.a. but this is actually the most creepy so far anything and it certainly is webcams it's like an intruder in your living room and if you're just happening to people who are counterterrorism it's this is everybody they're after here two million users but why yahoo tourney what is there any you suggest that yahoo collaborated in any way. so i can you say again why yahoo is there any suggestion that yahoo collaborated in any way because it was yahoo web cams. well no yahoo have come out haven't they and said that they are extremely annoyed about this i mean the guardian reports that they are fevered in their in their denial of this kind of thing because of course this is massively damaging to yahoo and the previously in the trust between yahoo's users and the organization and i would think you will find i mean they've already been fighting in some ways these internet companies the n.s.a. and in the courts but this will make things even more it's me even more important

for yahoo to be to defend their reputation by stopping this kind of thing going on but a lot of people are saying why does it matter surely you know if you've done nothing wrong you should have nothing to hold but i'll tell you why it matters going to get a warrant their own laws in place to stop these mass data trolls and why does it matter this is why it matters is a book by edwin black here which recounts the way that the nazis used these massive databases helped with the help of i.b.m. back in the one nine hundred thirty s. to get the names and addresses of trade unionists gays and jews and this is how he got his addresses of innocent people to then go up and arrest so it's about time that we learned our history and made sure that these laws to stop these mass data trolls are in force bill and just also you say well if i've got nothing to hide but clearly a lot of people exposing some very personal images of themselves if edward snowden can leak highly secure information then how easily could these very personal images

get into the wrong hands how safe is all this information. well i think generally most of the organizations like yahoo do put a lot of effort into making sure that that data is secure as it travels across the internet unfortunately what's happening is it's the is there are people who are trying to make money out of this data scare for example boeing of just introduced their black phones i don't know if you've noticed which do encrypt the data on the phone itself but it doesn't stop someone like g c h q or the n.s.a. intercepting that data on its way through the telecommunications network and so really what's happened is that the criminals are way ahead of the legislation both in britain and in the united states and there's no proper oversight you know malcolm rifkind disposed to oversee things here in britain he's actually in the pay of defense companies himself so he's the wrong person to be overseeing as one of the former bosses the government communications headquarters here in britain said several months ago he's the wrong man for the job if we're serious about doing

something about data we've got to replace him number one ok so let me thank you very much indeed journalist tony goldwyn live from bristol. thanks but this is an international coming up after the break we get insight into ukraine's unfolding crisis from a former american ambassador to the country this is the international. transit route to vnukovo report your best way to the house of mosco.

minnesota vikings football player jared allen like many pro athlete stereotypes is actually doing something for society with us and f.l. fame and fortune he is providing homes for turning wounded u.s. veterans good job mr allan generally for some reason wealthy people don't do much to help other people besides giving money to charity to get some sort of tax break kickback the thing they don't realize that helping other people out is actually in the best interest of rich guys too if they would ever just stop to think about it a little more so mega wealthy that you could live in total isolation you're going to have to deal with the rest of the people in your country and the better off that average guy is the less likely he's going to need to steal from you to get by else work is fantastic because it gets veterans out of a desperate situation returning home wounded trying to struggle to find work in a bad economy and treat their wounds in a massively over expensive medical system yet ellis point is a drop in the bucket for the over twenty million american servicemen who have come back home but it shows that a wounded veteran with a place to live as

a much better chance at a good life and the fewer vets there are living under a bridge the better society will be but that's just my opinion. hello and welcome to worlds apart ukraine literally means a country a line on the adj and while this may be refers to geography it is also

a pretty accurate description of its current political situation whereas ukraine having to discuss that i'm now i'm joined by john hirst a former us ambassador to the country ambassador herbst thank you very much for talking to us pleasure now russia and the united states perhaps not surprisingly differ a great deal in how they characterize the events unfolding in the ukraine for russia it's a coup d'etat for the united states it's a democratic uprising or a democratic revolution and the images that are being broadcast from kiev are also strikingly different the russians see swastikas being painted all over central kiev and man armed men in balaklava storming government buildings while i think many americans have been showing those inspired faces of. protesters who are living and breathing democracy why do you think the contrast is so stark well first of all there are many swastikas being painted in kiev so perhaps. who are paid for

laws of the government is no longer in power to steal coal which is a government well that's not exactly true because our reporters our own. on the ground in kiev and they actually like you can see swastikas all over central kiev i mean. we don't know who actually is behind that but the sheer number is pretty is pretty staggering there's a olds an old point of analysis which says cui bono who benefits the only people who benefit by swastikas are those who want to try and discredit the protesters so the idea that the protestors are busy putting up and symbols of hitler i think propose for posterous what about the man in balaclavas because they're like rino for for a fact that they're behind the siege of the government buildings and by now government institution city halls have been taken over by protesters and in a lot of for ukrainian minister politics what about down while the true this is happened it's also true this is

a reaction to for use of oppressive government by micio to coach the seattle coverts was the beneficiary of mr usually goes democratic aspirations so you know which would be free and fair election in two thousand and ten and unfortunately since that time as president he has put increasing authoritarian strictures on the opposition so that led opposition to take up arms to continue with to enforce their democratic aspirations mischaracterizing the situation where you say they took up arms to the point is the best you know to covert and this is why he's no longer in power he authorized the use of live force including snipers as a form of crowd control against largely on protesters this is a this is a crime this is a crime well i think his argument would be that it is the protesters who are started opening fire against the police and riot police but i think one thing we can agree upon is that was the right is very very.