well. i never thought fire could spread that fast but the wind was very strong it was like a hurricane and police told us to leave they knew to was dangerous to stay here it was only thanks to them where i live and who thing god it wasn't at night because then there would have been much more victims. one elderly man desperately trying to leave his burning house got struck by falling why is the electric shock. friends and neighbors have been round and there were many tales of courage. if i didn't come back on time my neighbor would have been burnt alive because she didn't see the fire approaching from both sides she could have been trapped in the middle at the last moment she ran out in her gown and slippers she's left without her identification and any of her documents the devastation wasn't just restricted to property. i buried my rottweiler he was tied near the house when it caught fire he panicked and didn't let anyone approach on time him.

he was burned alive it was a good dog people are now coming to terms of how everything that has been lost but they are help is coming from many. we've come here to one of the temporary refuge centers where people have been turning up in their hundreds bringing food and clothes and offering help to those who lost everything in the fire with so many people left homeless the government has promised immediate help and that new houses will be built by wind in the meantime philip is like. a left trying to pick up the pieces. but the margins he serves in the fire services have really struggled with this to put people out that prime minister putin speaking about to help you fight as he's pledged one hundred thousand dollars every family house lost but we can hear more from him now not everything has been done to fight the fire but it's not the right time to place blame. we need to consolidate. the

disaster already we've heard it's running into millions and millions of dollars worth of damage and everyone just very anxious to contain the situation. emergency crews are hunting for more than two thousand barrels of highly toxic chemicals floating down the chinese river towards russia it was thought the drums might reach the country in two weeks but some experts now say they could arrive within days. explains the potential danger. the river is one of the biggest sources of freshwater in russia's far east and in the city as well standing now and it's ecology is still under up attentional threats because china is just several dozen kilometers away from here and so is this river which joins the where the place where this emergency happened the chinese authorities do say that they've managed to extract several variables which have been previously washed into the river as

a result of the biggest flood in a decade china has experienced several more thousand barrels are still in the water in the sun for river and or en route towards the end towards russia china has built eight beers in order to prevent them from getting here but there are several factors suggesting that anything could happen for example out of the seven thousand barrels which of initially got into the water three thousand of them contain toxic substances including acids which make it cause harm to humans and animals and it's not clear how many of these so far extracted barrels actually contain these toxic substances there are also reports that some of the barrels may have sunk to the bottom which makes them up attentional future a threat for the ecology and also obviously makes it much more difficult to extract them to the surface this is not the first time that china has experienced such problems back in two thousand and five a huge chemical spill has left millions of chinese without the supplies of fresh

water and the authorities on both sides are monitoring the situation at the emergencies ministry here is already monitoring the quality of the water so far they haven't reported any abnormalities but they do see that there are already planning ways to distribute fresh water to the local population in case of contamination does happen of course we'll be monitoring the situation and we will report on this story as it continues to develop. live in moscow a little later in the program some of the close up is the. original russia tradition to become a canvas for contemporary art and satirical. first a stone in veterans who sided with the nazis during world war two against the soviets a gathering in the north east of the baltic states it has sparked outrage over why the country's authorities are welcoming fascist sympathizers and some of those who want to oppose the meeting have been barred from entering. not says i'm one of the

most feared movements the world has a countered yet there are those who glorify it today. there were two liberation wars in the world one began in nine hundred fourteen the other nine hundred thirty nine soon there will be a third war and it will start here gaining momentum and giving the world true freedom. the estonian waffen s.s. were created by german forces in one thousand nine hundred four and sent to battle the anti hitler coalition forces thousands of civilians died at the hands of those soldiers get their glorified as the true heroes of a stone. rallies like these take place every year with full support from the government people turn up in full regalia wearing nazi symbols and selling german war souvenirs a bitter pill for those who are trying to stop naziism in the baltics from rearing

its ugly head. they to hold rallies but few managed to take part as the authorities in a stone you did everything in their power to stop them yes. i'm not going myself because a stunning or thirty's in two thousand and seven put the latvian anti fascist committee on the blacklist we all received explanatory notes my note contained a hardly credible statement that the latvian anti fascist committee posted a threat to a stunning statehood and civil order. blacklists with no explanations sudden inability to speak anything but a stony and our crew witnessed all these tricks the empty fascist organizations however say nothing will stop them from calling the world's attention to this because the pain is too raw even sixty five years on so. i presume these clothes for a second time and came up to the barbed wire and all of

a sudden i imagined that excuse me please. thank. the stand off between welcomed neo nazis an unwelcome anti fascists is almost absurd authorities go as far as to ask the anti nazi activists to turn down their microphones as the sound interferes with the s.s. veterans rally. and as they lay flowers and light candles at the graves of soviet soldiers and histo new labor camp victims they can but wonder how can the rest of the world tolerate such a glorification of not says the entire world mourns the victims of the nazi killing machine here in a stony however those who participated in the murders are viewed as heroes and are given more glory and many believe they ever deserve the anti fascist movements here in the baltic states however do say that they will put in every effort to prevent this attempt to rewrite history as much for the future generations as for the

memories of those who lost their lives in the second world war. r t. let's take a quick look at other stories making headlines around the world at this stage of the day the death toll from the worst floods in pakistan for decades has reached eight hundred million people being affected by the waters triggered by monsoon rains for some four hundred thousand stranded in remote villages they damaged bridges have hampered rescue efforts a state of emergency has been declared with torrential rains expected to continue throughout the weekend. hundreds of protesters an indian administered kashmir killing two and injuring following the demonstrators tried to set up police camp and threw stones at offices for other activists were shot dead during protests against indian rule on friday over the last six weeks twenty three have been killed by government forces muslim separatists in kashmir been fighting for an independent state to merge with pakistan for more than twenty years. an earthquake

has rocked southeastern iran a day after another quake in the country's northeast left over two hundred injured there are no reports of anyone hurt in the quake but there is extensive damage iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to quakes experiences tremors almost daily. a memorial service is being held in germany to remember those who died in the stampede at the love parade techno music festival last saturday chancellor angela merkel broke off from her summer holiday to attend the service in the western city of duisburg twenty one people died and five hundred were injured during the mass panic and crush that seven foreigners were about the day. when our close up team travels around russia so you can see some of the country's lesser known areas and this time we take you to the kaluga region. lies just eighty kilometers from moscow and has existed since the thirteenth

century the picturesque town as many hillside churches however is not all about traditional religious architecture it's held as have become a canvas for contemporary art. discovered. where else so close to moscow would you hear church bells ringing so often every fifteen minutes and at a dozen churches similar tenuously this beautiful chime can be heard in the provincial town of bor of school located just a few kilometers away from moscow and it's the closest cause of the kaluga region to the capital it takes so while defenders hilltop position thanks to the all protect who started to build of the town in the early fourteenth saying morris comprises of several unique churches like the christian old believe us church also the legend that the monastery adds to the tiles must see least but more of it is not only about traditional texture and golden days sent crosses it's houses are

a can of us for contemporary art to self-taught artist cheney is recording the history of his hometown through his paintings but his art he says comes that applies. charm of the russian provence to which nothing it seems could be added it could. be retired construction engineer has turned a whole town into a giant canvas and the demeanor of tunica rock and his native born collect full culture and splashed images of churches historical figures and still live on its walls in all one hundred new roles. ninety five percent of people in our town don't visit on galleries and museums to talk and thus they can take in the outdoor exhibition perhaps it's not the great is art of all time but still this is art the

towns near like to images until the muralist turned into a satirical commentator after the artist made a wall sized political cartoon featuring a local governor he became persona non grata. there were three paintings on this one is left to others will whitewashed under the pretext of this house being repaired the man has already destroyed ten of my works the biggest nero decorated a local bakery now that it's been whitewashed some locals have unclaimed the bread tastes wars well side is too holy for up to make up his brush including the opposite of the mayor's office this painting for example depicts historical figures space travel they arise a constantin. while based on your own right opposite the mayor's window is typical soviet satire well done cucumber the sets. the mayor

didn't appreciate the humor of jeanie cove was fined several times and even faced court charges a local newspaper criticized him as a moral especially after he painted a controversial image of a religious martyr in a town where every second citizen is a regular churchgoer but surprisingly the biggest local ministry doesn't think the artist touched a raw nerve to go to their words we say i can painting is the bible in colors the same could be said about these paintings there the history of our town and colors it's especially good for the young people who were raised without knowing their roots. monk maxime turned to religion at the time of year is truly can russia images of abandoned churches and wide washed icons are still strong in his memory he's convinced that the artist should not give up and should continue with his dream of painting all of the board of squid he's new or else to talk with more

about why the provincial town of bor of schizo favorite of so many tourists and historians are now joined by expert in russian history and all the texture professor william brumfield hello and thank you very much for joining us you're welcome you tell me about the town of war of held a deep place for you why is that what is so special about this i think part of it is the landscape the river that runs through the town creates a park but it also creates ravines and hills that played an important part in the history of the town and that's preserved today the other thing is that the town is off the main road there's no railroad so that the architectural heritage of the old pals of them for a bit remarkably well for free for some call this that above might have more history would concede from here for the town of forest do you agree i certainly do in terms of its history its architecture its spiritual heritage it has seventeenth

century frescoes. the main cathedral is a late sixteenth century it's a monastery of many dramatic historic events in fact in a monastery one of the main figures by jadine models of i was incarcerated and ultimately died there then later of course its role in. the repel and various invasions in the pali on it conveys in a second world war the so that it's always been very much a part of the history of russia's are like the first time he visited bored of it was about twenty years ago wasn't it how has the tone changed since that i think it's to change to a remarkably and for the better they haven't destroyed what was left from the pay off and the problem of prosperity comes to a place let's hope that the town will remain just as well preserved historically for the next generations to thank you very much but a little side to your west william brownfield expert in russian architecture and history from the town of bor of sc in the color good region. well

a little later we'll be taking a journey back in time is around look the secrets of the ancient towns along russia's historical golden ring later in the program will be joining modern andrews in the mid to discover its glittering white stone cathedrals which are on the you know scope world heritage list. the magnificent gold and white something cathedral was built in eleven fifty seven it was the principal place where the princes of ancient russia were crowned and as a sign of political and religious it can be seen from kilometers away. and that's in about ten minutes from now here on r.t. but first one of the biggest leaks in u.s.

military history a week ago the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks published over nine hundred thousand classified documents some of them suggest the cover up of hundreds of afghan civilian deaths the white house claims the files threaten national security when i. met up with julian songs the founder of the web site that made the secrets public and you can hear what he had to say in just a few moments from now. i'm here in london talking to julian assaults the founder of the whistle blowing

website wiki leaks which this week released a huge still say of documents relating to the afghan war which mr s. solves describes as detailing the every day squalor of war do in a sauce like you very much for talking to r.t. now you've had a wide range of responses to this publication ranging from praise right down to criticism is that what you were expecting you know we knew this was serious material it covers a six year period of war and ninety two thousand reports and almost every incident serious incident that the u.s. military i wasn't called to together with the times and locations number of people killed except for. so we knew that it's in great importance as a historical document and as a primary resource to be used for further investigations and we also know from those sorts of cases that we've dealt with previously that we always get pushback i

whenever we review abuse by some of what i say should we always get that organization or its friends pushing back to try and steer the message away from you know occasionally sort of being raised and one of the main criticisms has been leveled at you is that you have published the villain. it is the names and in some cases the g.p.s. coordinates of people afghans who cooperated with the u.s. military and even come under some criticism from human rights organizations for that and a u.s. official has called it a potential hit list for the taliban what's your response to that it was appears the mostly be media beat up i mean where we're looking at the issue seriously to see whether that is true we did hold back pete dean thousand reports for for the through the review because they had this sort of classification that suggested maybe they contain that sort of material we approached the white house to ask them for assistance in reviewing material before we published the white house they don't

accept that request at this stage we're looking at this is mostly a media beat up of course we are very concerned to make sure innocents are protected so we're very happy to receive any evidence which report is possibly revealing information about someone who is who is innocent there's also been a suggestion that the release of this information will make it harder for allied forces to get afghans this is to cooperate with them while what we reveal and that's what we've been doing for the path for years is the truth about how when i was ations actually behave you know if afghans don't like how those organizations actually behave then of course it is their right to engage with them or not engage with them it's not so much that there is it i think is the potential danger that they might be in now that such a huge body of information is in the public to may once again that is an allegation by the london times and that

a publication who was in the oppositional relationship to the guardian paper that we collaborated with printed fourteen pages on monday elation to this issue the times of london printed zero pages in relation to this issue on monday so they are now in an adversary relationship because they weren't interested to the party that washington says that these documents are out day. says is there any truth to that claim well it depends on what you're talking about if you're talking about how the war has progressed of course they know that the war has been going since two thousand and one that's nine years this material covers the last six years with the exception of the last seven months now the exception is in accordance to some degree it means that you need to do is not all tactical. significance of anything talk about troops who are about just about to do something which means it is over a century no threat to. u.s.

military forces but is deeply important for understanding the progress of the war now that the white house said that while the material only goes up to december a new say but we released obama's new policy on the war but obama's new policy on the war was in fact a continuation the previous policy except more troops so why shouldn't the war change so dramatically just because it's reality money policy changes being put in place the white house's rhetorical trick was to. say suggest that there was in fact no overlap between obama's policy and this material in fact obama's policy came in to send a first and this material carries through in fact to the end of the year you've said that the under reporting of civilian casualties starts at the bottom with the sort of cullman soldiery and that really no policy change at the top is going to filter down into that what do you think could make a difference it's stream

a hard situation the answer is not. for all western forces will i suffer members the tube. going to mars. because that would lead to a power vacuum and so on but i mean the answer is probably a staged withdrawal. making agreements between the taliban and the afghan government as that stage withdrawal continues and i predict there will be a continuation of the civil war and we're going to be once forces of the establish some kind of equilibrium that we will see an increase towards peace and has done is to gain from the release of all this information for the afghan people i mean that is their country and this is the history of their country and if they are to effectively manage and control their own destiny they need this information to understand what is happening to their country but we can also say you know

it's people united states. u.k. strayer and others in the coalition who are actually paying for all this war and he was sending its soldiers to be killed in this war and those people also have the rights to understand what is actually happening but here you can probably know pitiful it is all those military companies. who are making extraordinary profits by providing service services to troops weapons or clothing and so on but isn't the taliban the afghan insurgency likely to gain from this as well because you have inadvertently maybe exposed the weaknesses of the allied forces we have to be careful there remember this is a civil war. everyone says taliban but in fact the taliban are i've got news this is

a civil war that is going on and that the taliban are part of the. of the afghan people now they're also part of the will perhaps of the odds are. the pakistani secret intelligence service and of course perhaps they're part of the will move so what you're a view he was giving some money to this but in terms of the movable bodies on the ground people who actually do work the taliban is part of the will of the afghan people and. the united states and other forces need to recognize and understand that that is part of the afghan people and if you're shooting taliban you were shooting the afghan people this material doesn't paint the behavior of any military group in a lot there's blood on all sides due to not sauce thank you very much.

hello. hello hello hello. hello. hello.

could have you were this is auntie comes you know from the russian capital twenty four hours a day top stories now of the russian inferno twenty eight people have been killed and thousands left homeless as far as far as rage in a record breaking heat wave. fishing chinese authorities struggle to retrieve thousands of barrels of dangerous chemical waste from a river that supplies fresh water to self east and ruptured. nazi defense of sorties brought anti fascist protesters from entering a stadium as expert nazi soldiers are commemorated in the bill. i'll be back with another update for you in less than fifteen minutes from now in the meantime join us for journey back in time as the secrets of the ancient russia's historical golden ring wasn't injuries as in the telling of the game it to discover its glittering white stone cathedrals which are on the eunice go world heritage list that's next.

hello and welcome to brother here. the capital of the ancient rules realize the full size of russia it's always here and it's a toss i was as it's one of the closest gold ring cities to moscow it's a popular day trip enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of tourists every here. people have lived in this area of russia five to twenty five thousand years the city was founded in eleven o eight by olga to be among the most for the city gets its name of a new research suggests the city is even older dishing about.