outlawed website the silk road if found guilty he is facing thirty years behind bars artie's marina portnoy is following the story. u.s. federal prosecutors are accusing self-proclaimed bitcoin evangelist charlie shrem of selling one million dollars in bit cooling to users of the website silk road prosecutors say those same users then to use the digital currency to anonymously purchase drugs in the deep web black market the twenty four year old c.e.o. of instant and co owner of the manhattan bar ever was arrested at j.f.k. airport on sunday he's being charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business money laundering conspiracy and failure to file suspicious activity report no according to a release from the u.s. attorney general's office shrum allegedly conspired with an underground cooling exchanger who's also been arrested in connection to this case this arrest instantly made headlines particularly because shrum is known as the bitcoin wonder boy determined to help the digital currency go mainstream back in june i interviewed after his bar became the first new york city es

that smaller things could spark both tension and maybe more tension that we would like to see marina portnoy r.t. new york. and the arctic is not only resource rich it also an alternative trade route from russia and asia to europe due to the thawing ice ships will soon be able to navigate it without the help of icebreakers the oxy crude is almost twice as fast as this southern route across the indian ocean and through the suez canal and christopher perry is a strategic for costa and for one british navy officer and things arctic countries won't be the only ones to join any regional dispute 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 exist out there in the arctic already the chinese. greenland and places like that and i think there will be a scramble by some of the other countries for some of those resources when the ice does recede so you're not just going to have the northern sea route across the top russia. northwest pas

under the polar sea bed it might be rather tricky there were how to agree on dividing it all up marina portnoy in our picks up this rather frigid issue. 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 th

to ask russian authorities to help protect him as whereabouts here in russia are kept secrets marina portnoy has details of the. for the former n.s.a. contractor. despite his temporary residency in russia it's fair to assume that n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden follows what's reported about him throughout the world however it's the recent death threats rather descriptive ones published in the us media that is causing the thirty year old to request extra security and protection from russian law enforcement the website buzz feed quoted an anonymous u.s. intelligence officer describing how he would have assassinated snowden if he had the chance another unnamed pentagon official has been quoted saying he would have simply love to put a bullet in snowden's head or he not restricted from killing an american snowden's lawyer says the former contractor is constantly accompanied by private guards but that may no longer be enough to ensure his security. we clearly understand that there is a serious danger for the life and health of edward snowden and n.s.a. intelligence officer says that it's easy

left more than a thousand opposition fighters dead since the start of the year and as artie's marina portnoy reports somebody washington's previous indiscriminate support for the rebels is partly responsible. when the enemy of your enemy is your enemy things can get complicated it's a conundrum the us faces in syria where political financial and military support to the rebels has subsequently served to create a new hotbed for al-qaeda if bush are us did not. stay in power or if he's weakened then syria could become that base another base like pakistan and afghanistan before it tutus to be used as a springboard to go into these other countries oh experts say an influx of extremist groups has turned the war torn country into a terrorist training center posing a greater threat to american interests than the leader washington wants removed these groups are much more dangerous and we have hands of thousands of international fighters coming in in a very fundamentalist capacity we've almost come full circle after afghanistan where nine eleven were where we are seeing these groups still fighting for

a single punch police recently arrested a man suspected of at least five such attacks artie's marina portnoy is following the disturbing trend. you're walking down the street minding your own business and without warning police say they are investigating yet another knockout attack attackers mainly in their teens targeting victims at random it's called the knockout game the goal of this violent and twisted so called game is to knock a stranger unconscious with a single punch a feared phenomenon across the nation the ongoing brutality has claimed lives in at least three u.s. states here in new york city more than ten people have been randomly assaulted among the youngest a twelve year old student among the oldest a seventy six year old woman was walking along warman avenue when a man struck her in the head this man too scared to show his face on camera says he was attacked last month while walking home from work surrounded me and one of them as i tried to get away one of those steps now towards me and. with the clothes is on the face in some cases suspects have been arrested and charged howev

information is simply failed to produce actionable results in averting terrorist attacks archies marina portnoy explains. when edward snowden first revealed the u.s. government's indiscriminate collection of every american's phone data u.s. president barack obama defended the program insisting that dozens of threats around the world have been a bit courtesy of the national security agency and i say chief general keith alexander claimed metadata collection has thwarted fifty four different terrorism related activities post nine eleven now unfortunately for the white house a new study shows that the numbers they're using well they've been slightly inflated because an analysis of two hundred and twenty five terrorism related cases in the u.s. since the september eleventh attack has found that the n.s.a.'s program has provided evidence for only one case that the study by the national based nonprofit new american foundation has concluded the bulk collection of data by the n.s.a. has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism researchers found that in the majority of post nine eleven t

highlighted the challenges that american whistleblowers face when they try to expose wrong doing a marina portnoy or now has more on or snowden had to say. during the live q. and a student was asked by one person if america's democracy could recover from the damage the n.s.a. spying has done on liberties snowden's answer yes but only if laws are corrected overreach of agencies are restrained and senior officials are held accountable for abusing and s a program so that he made it clear that there's a lot of work that needs to be done now during his back and forth in his exchange with various citizens he mr snowden underscore the fact that he believes that not all spying is bad some spying is necessary but he says that the biggest problem citizens now face is the technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance where governments are seizing communications from billions upon billions of innocent people every day he believes that people should be able to dial a number make a purchase send an s.m.s. write an e-mail or visit a website with out thinking that it's going to be on their permanent record in an

members of a fractured group will take part in the talks aimed at ending syria's bloody civil war marina portnoy reports. amid mounting international pressure syria's opposition has decided to take part in next week's geneva two peace talks the group which faces its own internal divisions announced its decision saturday following a meeting in is stamboul now hearts of the syrian opposition were previously critical of taking part in peace negotiations that could help syrian president bashar al assad they say stay in power this syrian national council a main power opposition bloc even threatened to pull out of the coalition if the general assembly voted in favor of attending the geneva two it seems though however that pressure from the u.s. and western countries cause concessions to be made the conference will be held under the auspices of the un and it's co-sponsored by russia and the u.s. it's scheduled to begin on tuesday january twenty second it is aimed at finding a way to install a transitional government that will subsequently pave the way for to ending the nearly three year old civil war w