partners in spying german intelligence is accused of using america's notorious surveillance program to its own advantage that just weeks after burning condemned washington snooping activity german chancellor angela merkel faces stiff questions over just how involved germany was in the prism spying program. the us invasion of iraq is blamed for an epidemic of the effects and cancer due to the military use of depleted uranium we report from a former war zone where the health cost is turning out to be even worse than originally thought. britain's prime minister admits there's too much extremism among the syrian rebels he's clearest indication yet that london's unwilling to go for full scale arms deliveries will be asking what is behind the apparently.

i welcome you watching r.t. with me. now a german magazine claims that palin's intelligence services have been making good use of the us national security agency secret spying program that's raised questions over chancellor merkel's early condemnation of washington's surveillance tactics artie's peter oliver reports from berkeley. german chancellor angela merkel had to rigidly said that she only found out of the extent of the united states's spying programs through the media and it now comes out thanks to n.s.a. internal documents that have been reported by dish big news magazine that well they

were far more involved than she let on that indeed in fact they quote in the dish people article the internal memos that say that there was a willingness to take risks and pursue new opportunities for cooperation with the u.s. that was shown by the german authorities they also were talking about the head of the b n d germany's foreign security service that he showed an eagerness under desire to cooperate turns out that germany actually operated one of the main parts of the the expansive spying program it's called x. keyscore program that basically anybody who they were looking into they could find out exactly what was being searched online by that particular person and it's estimated around five hundred million. connections were being monitored every month by this spying program here in germany alone so it was quite an extensive program

this news comes out is quite embarrassing time for german chancellor angela merkel there's an election coming up in september the involvement of germany in the n.s.a. spying program is being used extensively by the opposition mrs merkel was saying before she either didn't know what her own security services were doing or that perhaps she has misled the german people in germany it seems far more involved in the n.s.a. spying program than perhaps they were let on before while the original classified documents released by american whistleblower on the run edward snowden showed that the united states has been closely monitoring europeans especially germans one german m.e.p. went as far as comparing the practice to the stars eat. germany's infamous secret police the justice minister said the reports were too alarming to be ignored and angela merkel's response was bugging is not what friends do and she also slammed what she called cold war tactics earlier i spoke with beatrix from the dog and

election candidate for the alternative for germany party who said the chancellor's statements don't stand up to scrutiny i don't have any reason to believe her everything she said so far has been a lie what we have discovered now is that the germans all are also using american technology for spying on the german people so it makes absolutely no sense to say that they did know that there was some spying going on mentioning it we shouldn't call it's buying but monitoring on every single citizen i don't thing that eighty million people are monitored by anybody and the german government does not know it no i don't believe the chancellor the government has come out and said that its cooperation with the us intelligence did help prevent a major terrorist attack in germany in two thousand and seven so do you not think that will certainly sway people in germany to think well perhaps we do need something like this. when the when the federal

minister for interior. business minister frederick was asked specifically this question he couldn't even mention we couldn't even name the terrorist attack who had been prevented and then he later on he said well it was a terror terroristic attack and a very early stage so i mean what is a terrorist a good tech in a very early stage so they haven't shown any evidence for what they what they're doing and this is why i can't believe them anything and you know monitoring eighteen million people around the clock seven days a week twenty four hours a day and declaring this war on terror i think that for each of us and this is what people starts to understand that monitoring everybody without any reason has nothing to do with the with giving security to everyone this is what we don't believe. meanwhile the u.s. has expressed its concern over the fugitive whistleblower edward snowden's bid for

temporary asylum in russia moscow is expected to grant that request and says the lack of an extradition treaty with washington makes handing him over impossible. explains one journalist asked president putin what about washington's request to extradite edward snowden he said and i quote here russia is not going to extradite anyone no one ever extradite anyone to russia russian officials were asked to expand on the extradition situation between russia and the u.s. the office of russia's prosecutor general responded by saying that the u.s. does not cooperate with russia on the extradition of criminals is that in the past ten years russia has made at least twenty extradition requests that were either ignored or denied take a listen to what you just because of the united states systematically refuses to hand people over to russia for prosecution including those accused of serious offenses so we have plenty of examples of such behavior around twenty cases in the

last ten years most of them we've been denied the extradition of killers because of laws and people implicated in corruption in washington so it's the lack of an extradition treaty which they themselves are not willing to conclusions now one name on that list of russia's extradition requests that the u.s. never acted upon is ileus a lot of he's wanted in russia as a terrorist alias of metaphors the right hand of the internationally recognized chechen terrorists now quick reminder of who was in one thousand nine hundred five shuttle bus i have and his gang attack to the city of blue john of his and took up to one thousand eight hundred residents of that city hostage in a hospital including one hundred fifty children at least one hundred forty people died as a result of that attack also as he gained power in the region i have stated his objective to have all muslims in russia break away from the country it was a call to start a war on all fronts and all along with him was. stock market among shuttle bus

saves other crimes there was the hostage crisis at the moscow theater nord-ost in two thousand and two one hundred thirty people died there so the right hand of this monster ileus a lot of a rise in legal ways somewhere around two thousand and three settles down in boston and receives political asylum despite russia's requests to treat him as a criminal and send him back to russia at the beginning u.s. federal authorities appealed the boston course decision to grant a lot of asylum after all the us had by then recognized. it was boss as it carries them but nothing came out of that appeal federal authorities later withdrew their opposition to granting the us after a lot of asylum after a number of political heavyweights in the u.s. tuned in to support the chechen militant so according to russian officials there is no history of extradition between the u.s. and russia instead there is a history of requests ignored and requests the night. be you decides to put the

armed wing of hezbollah on its terrorism blacklist shortly we delve into the possible motives behind the moving get live analysis and what it will mean for both europe and the middle east. a more than a decade on from the u.s. led invasion of iraq the country seeing an abnormally high rate of birth defects health experts link this to the use of depleted uranium in military assault since birth mutations are fourteen times more common than in hiroshima after the second world war. north explored the terrible health cost of the war in the city and the jaff. hundred and sixty kilometers south of baghdad the sacred shiite city is known for its holy shrines and is surrounded by one of the largest cemeteries in the world some of the heaviest fighting of the iraq war took place amid these graves its legacy still haunts the residents it was born with

severe birth defects he's only eight months old but the doctors don't expect him to live past his first birthday. i felt like these that you were not hurt the news i ran out to his office and the taxi. but for his mother layla there's no escaping the reality her son has a nervous system disorder and his muscles are slowly wasting away. it's a recurring nightmare for leila and her husband three of their children were also born with congenital deformity as none of them survived and while they don't have proof they believe the radioactive ammunition used by american forces during the war is to blame the rule isn't over yet if the americans are grown but were filled for free from the consequences of spiraling numbers of birth defects and high miscarriage rates have also been recorded in fallujah and basra where american and

british forces used heavy munitions at the start of the war but our visit to knowledge off revealed that the phenomenon may be far more widespread in iraq than previously known dr sundin's and saif is one of the few scientists who's been documenting cancer and birth defects here and she says as in the midst of a growing health catastrophe. after the iraq war rates of cancer leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically none joffe the areas affected by fighting so the biggest increases we believe it's because of weapons like depleted uranium and hospitals here cancer is more common than the flu. defeated uranium or d u cuts through armor like a hot knife through butter more than four hundred tons of it is estimated to have been used in the two iraq wars the vast majority by u.s. forces the pentagon did not respond to our request for comment but the military generally denies any link between exposure and cancer or birth defects it also says deal weapons are only used to penetrate enemy tanks but

a new report funded by the norwegian government found that was used against civilian targets in populated areas including not jobs in two thousand and three it notes a lack of transparency by coalition forces over the use of depleted uranium but describes one incident in najaf where a bradley armored fighting vehicle fired three hundred five d.-u. rounds in a single engagement. the heavy fighting may be over but in nearly every street we visited in this neighborhood multiple cases of cancer and children with deformities no one knows what's making people here sick the families want answers and they want to help us of is old enough for school but have to be cared for as if he's a toddler he can't walk he can't speak he can't even go to the bathroom on his own use of brother is healthy but the family has birdied two other children one severely deformed the other with a hole in her spine like many of the couples in this city they're simply too afraid

to have another baby and they're left feeling totally abandoned no one cares about what's happening to all of the other families in this area even our own government doesn't do anything to help what can we do this is our fate it's a fate that many and suffer in silence. help with the rockies lost their lives in the. decades since the u.s. led invasion all across the country their memories are honored in cemeteries like this one the dead may be the most visible reminder of the human cost of the war but if the living victims of that war's talks look like to see who are still paying the price this accounting of our team not just iraq. you see explained to my colleague trey's of why it is still so difficult to gauge the full extent of the health problems play you in the region. we've heard about the depleted uranium the birth defect story coming out of fallujah for example because there's been several t.v. pieces and print reports talking about and showing in fact we hear in r.t.f.

showed the birth defects in the city of fallujah when we were completely stunned by is the fact that this is happening in many more cities that have been previously reported including knowledge of where we visited when we showed our filming her and i on the ground in the city literally every single residential street that we've visited in several neighborhoods we found multiple cases of families who had children who were ill families who had lost children had to burry children families who had many relatives who were suffering from cancer and while these people can't necessarily prove that it was depleted uranium or are the causes of these diseases this is something that they say has risen dramatically in the years since the invasion how widespread is it i mean how far across the country the problem is that nobody knows exactly and that's because there haven't been large scale studies done we haven't seen big teams of international doctors for example going in and sort of

looking at different cities comparing the number of birth defect cases between the different cities there really simply are no reliable statistics for birth defects in iraq and so nobody can really say exactly how big this problem is and the big problem with with the iraqi government as well one of the surprising things that we found in speaking to the doctors on the ground is they say that they reportedly have been discarded or discouraged by the government from talking out openly about this to the press in fact the biologist that we had spoken to who was researching the issue in the city not to give us the interview in the privacy of her home on the roof there instead of in her laboratory she said that there is an active sort of push by the government perhaps not to embarrass the coalition forces not to really talk about this issue which we were really quite surprised by we tried to visit the hospital in knowledge of that was dealing with. some of the victims that some of the deformed birth defect dad children they didn't let us come in they didn't let us film in fact they didn't even let us do interviews with the governor with the families or the doctors working there at all the iraqi officials certainly

had not put in the resources that they could be we spoke to families not japanese that they've gone to local officials you know they've asked for help they were essentially told tales said by you know it's a really sad story i'll talk to chris busby has been one of the most outspoken scientist researching the impact of depleted uranium and he told us what he lived out of visiting family. we went to we found the levels of concern about formation and cancer and we looked at the parents of the children with congenital malformation and we did analysis of the head to see what was inside the head that might be do you know toxic might be the sort of thing that could cause congenital malformation and the only thing that we found was you really knew we found your brain in the hair of the mothers of the children with congenital malformation is not that we know that you're a new ms you know toxic that it causes these these levels of genetic damage and because of that it also causes cancer so you can work slowly back from that towards

your own you know the only the only source of uranium was the use by the american forces the american led forces of uranium weapons not only depleted uranium weapons as we later found enrich the uranium weapons which we believe they were using in order to cover their tracks so i think we have more or less proved these facts. or is a result of the use during the two wars of uranium and the particles that the uranium weapons produced you watching r.t. you know we're going to take a quick break now but i'll be back with more news in a company. i've seen the per session of the cross many times it doesn't matter if there's snow a heat wave or hail stones from people keep on going i don't expect anything just one i told myself i keep on going as long as my heart told me to which that's all i

wanted at the moment mickey i have sinned so my choose cd i'm carrying these sayings on my shoulder. do you want me to put a bandage shared no that's fine a lot of people were so exhausted they could barely walk their feet hurt and some of them fainted google really back to it three two wanted to keep going i don't know what tomorrow will bring.

i. welcome back now britain's prime minister has signaled a change of heart on weapons supplies to the syrian rebels david cameron says he still backing armed opposition groups fighting against the government but it meets that these groups include in his words a lot of bad guys that's quite a turnaround from his aggressive stance in the early days of the conflict back in november twenty levon cameron called for closing gauge went with the rebels the following year he called for more international aid to put the syrian government under pressure as of last month he was still vehemently anti is sad but not so sure that arms shipments are the best way forward syria's top rebel commander has already cues the british pm of betrayal for abandoning plans to arm his fighters and this brings us to the present but the syrian government advancing on rebel positions the official opposition failing to unite and cameron describing the

situation as a stalemate labor m.p. mahmoud told me earlier that the british government's finally realising that a political solution is the only option i think is realise the position that is really put it is not one but sustainable that it will be able to do with it what is the solution do you think is it a diplomatic one is that still an option on that it has to be. that is the only option that is on the table we should have learned this from what happened in iraq what happened in afghanistan i'm less you have a stable establishment you have a stable system that continues to stabilize that country you will not be able to move forward there are significant al qaeda influences out there and all you'll be doing is supplying more sophisticated weapons if you're going to do that to all qaeda and i think it's seen the common sense of not doing that all of us need to get together and say look guys we need to resolve this when it was only through

amicable settlement whether that involved the solder not i'm not picky about that but we need to keep tact the syrian army the syrian forces in order to have stability in that country and we don't know what war is that could be racked by. the e.u. has agreed to put the armed wing of the lebanese group hezbollah on its terrorism blacklist at a meeting of foreign ministers in brussels london insisted on sanctions after blaming the group for last year's attack on a bus carrying israelis in bulgaria european leaders are also concerned by hezbollah's role in the syrian conflict where it's fighting alongside government troops against rebels or for more ness i'm joined now live from beirut by dr franklin lamb who's an international lawyer and political analyst thank you very much for coming on saying arteta saving firstly what you think is the motive behind this why the european governments labeling hezbollah a terrorist organization. well there's two motives

the fundamental or the immediate motive that changed the situation from last thursday where the british and the americans were leading this cause a lot eight votes so what happened between thursday and monday morning to make the immediate cause the e.u. act and what happened were dozens and dozens of phone calls according to congressional sources afternoon from washington to european foreign ministries and the message was this the background was that the israelis led the has been squeezing kerry on the upcoming policy negotiations kerry wants her at least to make the noises the is ainus regime to make some noises that there are serious. yes that will make the white house look better so the trade off was to take away

the headlines from the e.u. boycotting israel you remember that they're going to boycott even academic think of the eight hundred jackson the in the west bank are being boycotted they're joining the sanctions why cut this absurd israel no one is you know the last way to retain the headline the american squeezy europeans and said look given this through throw away this this easy tactic go ahead and lined up for votes and they squeezed on the american squeeze the europeans to given this vote the gold is symbolic it doesn't have a great deal of significance other than public relations and of course in that respect it's important but as you noted i think there are two exclusions there still going to allow dialogue with his policy political department just not a military way well that's nothing new how many european countries has been talking to be a full blown over terry when they're very secret they don't talk to anybody much so

that's that's no change the other thing is that see you have a pledge then it's not going to affect the government of lebanon but that raises very interesting questions for among others lawyers you've got the hezbollah is now supposing a terrorist organization but they dominate what the cabinet and also the legislature has a new executive branch how can't establish between the two how can you distinguish between the government and the terrorists down how is that possible. well you can't and that's the point that that's why this has only symbolic significance or watch what happens i don't think the europeans are going to end up sanctioning anybody it's too complicated it would take a talent of lawyers to figure out the language and how you draw the line what are the e.u. do did they declare a levanon

a terrorist or are weighing of because of the connection has follow supports the military we've seen that in the last hours the lebanese army now is a terrorist organization and the americans and the others won't give you a sure raises anymore raises lots of questions i think what we're going to see is the european do nothing they got their head why they took the pressure off the israelis for they were actually that the e.u. boycotted the occupied territories and they changed the headlight for a few days and that's i think what the deal was but i don't think it's going to have any impact on now on hezbollah which is a fundamental resistance organization and relies on the support from the people and not the europeans but what is going to happen the word this afternoon rather syria that could happen the assad government most of those believe it's going to stay there's going to be half

a trillion dollars worth of contracts to rebuild that country starting within the year guess who the first twenty eight countries are going to be lined up to get aid let's see what happens with some of that so they are labor. especially yeah are you saying or the u.s. got more to gain than lose by. severing its contacts with lebanon and effectively had you saying this is a financial motive for this. no the opposite they have their reason and i think they will to have good relations with lebanon and also syria syria is going to hand out some major contracts and if they as the e.u. is now condemn hezbollah as a terrorist organization least it's a military wing and it's almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. the europeans may not get some of those kind of contracts and then tries to get those

contracts i think is to make sure that they don't do anything i'm very thankful internet he finds that they don't really. that will be the reaction from has been large as quickly my reaction is it was a feel go operation please israelis at the white house and that's about it i were not going to see much consequence coming out of their heart also that but they caved to you. merican not pressure like a thank you we have an active time thank you that it stuck to franklin lamb an international lawyer and political analyst thank you. up next will be following one of russia's oldest and biggest the images.

i talk with you and many times about the absurd things going on all around us like kids being thrown out of school because they had a gun that shoots bubbles or various people getting punished for their tweets and facebook posts it's only abstract it's hard to truly get angry over until you see the results or playing a stupid video game just carter sarcastically said to someone who called him crazy oh yeah i'm real messed up in the head i'm going to go shoot a bunch of kids at school l.o.l. j k. and for this bit of sarcasm he spent quite some time awaiting trial in a texas prison not only that according to his father he was being attacked brutally on many occasions leading to both to pull concussions and black eyes and in the end he had to be thrown into solitary confinement for his own good you see this is the ugly reality of those who fought the bad side of political correctness you know i don't talk about these stories just for fun the main thing that i'd like to say is that it wasn't for some anonymous coward in canada turning him into the authorities for doing absolutely nothing this young man would not have to live with the memory

and possible injuries from numerous assaults to the anonymous canadian who turned him in i sarcastically wish you a horrible fate but you probably get me arrested for it so just say that it's people like you who allow tyranny to exist but that's just my opinion. it wasn't i just stood up and went. i didn't expect anything i just want i told myself that i would keep going as long as my heart told me to follow the people and that was always wanted at that moment which. is but though i felt something i want to tell my future children about us i still don't know what it was maybe i'll understand it later i just was sitting and crying yesterday i can't explain it.