four thirty am in the russian capital thanks for being with us here on r t these are your headlines more than five hundred wildfires still raging across russia fed by dry conditions from months of high temperatures experts predict another bout of smog from moscow and surrounding districts after a few days of clear skies fifty three people have been killed in the fires thousands of forced to seek medical help because of poor air quality president obama has offered russia experts and equipment to help fight the wildfires. russia holds memorial services to mark a decade since the sinking of the curse in the barents sea the nuclear submarine sank during a naval exercise killing all one hundred one hundred eighteen on board most of the crew members were under thirty years of age authorities have led before the torpedo for the tragedy the worst in russia since the fall of the soviet union. and the nuremberg court rules on a case brought by a fashion house popular with neo nazis the controversial german brand was defeated by a left wing political group that it had accused of lampooning its designs the logo

of storage home our futures of stork with a hitler like mustache. coming up an award winning film about how landslides floods and blasting a result of a mining project in the u.s. are driving families from their homes stay with us that's coming up on our. on the day of this interview the small creek less than one mile from their home flows black i mean it's not normal that's coming from an abandoned home odds are it's come from sorry pot. i don't know. what takes bait. out caught. maybe a few more years. i don't deny help this went down tremendously. and i don't ever look to be helped as i don't ever look to the side not bankers in the vein of i can do to help me. but i only thing i want now i want

a good moral i want them to quit pump and are quitting jade and whatever they're doing i want them to quit that. and. it's all mopped really bad. for the last twenty years. it's been hard. you can't make it without good water. from the moody. blues. currently there are over one hundred forty billion gallons of coal slurry contained in more than one hundred lb ments in west virginia alone the total quantity of coal slurry in the rest of southern appalachians is no. on december twenty second two thousand and eight a coal ash impoundment at the tennessee valley authorities kingston fossil plant

failed when an earthen dike broke spilling over one point one billion gallons of coal ash sludge over three hundred acres. coal ash sludge has waste created from the burning of coal at the kingston coal plant it is believed to contain toxic compounds including arsenic and mercury. the tennessee valley authority estimates the cost of the cleanup over eight hundred twenty five million dollars this spill is ten times larger than the exxon valdez spill in alaska and is believed to be america's largest environmental disaster to date we're throwing away the next generation's most valuable resource and that is water and one of the best sources of water anywhere in the world and maybe the best source of freshwater in proximity to one of the world's largest fastest growing populations. you know with all the and all the lawsuits and all the carrying on

that goes on in the in the press and you know the vanity fair's in u.s. news and world reports and all at that where the authors are warning people to believe that that we're absolutely strip in appalachia down to nothing. in order to get the mineral is patently untrue it's patently untrue when you look around at the forest and elton's that we have a recent environmental impact statement from the e.p.a. estimates over eight hundred square miles of mountains of already been destroyed this includes the permanent destruction of over four hundred fifty individual mountain summits across the region the report also indicates the permanent loss of over twelve hundred miles of mountain streams. although federal regulations for mine reclamation require that mountaintop removal sites be returned to their original contour these mines are routinely granted wavers mined areas are typically

graded and then hydro seeded with less bodies or grass which clings to the compacted shale and rock that now makes up the topsoil nature builds soil for free but she creates the soil very slowly and so you're talking about thousands of years to go from something like a rock mass that has essentially no soil raised to very thin covering up to generate a few centimeters of soil you're talking about hundreds to thousands and tens of thousands of years continuing at its present rate the projected loss from mountaintop removal mining is one point four million acres in the next decade an area equal in size to the state of delaware. by the summer of two thousand and six and wiley has formulated a new plan for pennies a promise. our government to do it or a local school board state school board will do it in a way it shows and you know and parents and grandparents it's up to you to get this job or to kids you know we're going to money for schools one way or another. like

going to school in our community and. it's it's showing that our government is come to this and we can't get up and done for children. the. eat eat eat. eat eat. eat eat. eat eat. we're going watch week charleston west virginia the worst what do you see you all know this is the rise awareness and raise money for no school and also opens a lot of doors of the plank to chapman in our communities as far as mountaintop removal what it's doing to those in in in the mining industry to our communities this is a perfectly viable one what it's actually doing to our children the governor made us tightening our kids our future by our tomorrow he should die almost up and for

our kids of march fourth don't have them all. live at least for. burning of coal those for over a century has been one of the most deadly things that and humans have done it through the air around them even after one hundred years of burning coal after one hundred years of so-called improvement of air quality according to the american lung association twenty four thousand people a year still die prematurely from air pollution from coal plants in the united states almost forty percent of the carbon dioxide emissions come from coal one of the things that has to happen. is that the politicians the leaders of the administration as well as congress state legislators and administrations in the states all those leaders have got to finally say ok we want to call in the two thousand election in west virginia was widely credited with giving. president bush

the margin he needed to take the oval office was the first time the west virginia had gone republican in something like seventy years and guess what's going to happen come november we're going to carry the state of west virginia thank the callers he was widely credited for giving bush west virginia so it was no secret that he had a large debt to pay to the coal industry and they made sure he paid it throughout mine safety throughout the rollback of regulations on dirty power plants through a variety of places he essentially stocked all the regulatory agencies with with former coal industry lobbyists or executives by two thousand and one the bush administration made of white wording changing the clean water act designating waste its bill this wording change cleared the way for the expansion of mountaintop removal mining throughout southern appalachians. on january twenty second of two

thousand and two president bush returned to west virginia it is such a wonderful day for us and for west virginia to host a special me with those with a special bond to our state ladies and gentlemen the president of the united states i'm. we can do a better job in america one of these days we're going to be driving you know automobiles that are fueled differently and that's going to be exciting times for america and we're just new technologies coming down and we can encourage those technologies so conservation. take a logical development got to be an integral part of energy folks we need more supply you know workers welcome back here in the back and he said i'm real repairing a machine that digs for gold. we need to use coal we got a lot of it and we need to make sure that we.

wait around. for the past twenty years larry gibson and his family have been fighting to preserve their ancestral home place on kafer down outside charleston west virginia and when i met with the coal company defied all my property here me and my family members and they tell me that we don't give a damn about people who carry cholera we don't give a damn about the people on top of that mountain all we care about is profit we're making and it was the dollar it was our body and the. know we were playing there and it is a vice president cultural production and using kids from massey coal one thousand nine hundred three told me this gibson created the stanley heirs foundation refusing to sell his family's fifty plus acres to coal companies before mountaintop removal began his family cemetery was surrounded by mountain ridges today the family cemetery looks out on reclaimed mountaintop removal sites eighteen years

ago when i came back and it took me for you to clear my family's cemetery and in ninety nine to now on the third a restful and eighteen goal when i started this i couldn't get to people to listen now even my own family. and i don't know about turned a corner how press the knob on a or that was there was before this knowing there in my own mind. the lord is. the young as of the day were never seen where i've seen the young as of the day were never seen the mountains the earth. no limits no boundaries for you to roam. gibson uses the land of capered mountain to educate the public about the effects of mountaintop removal one of the biggest questions people asked me if i had a picture of the mountain before was destroyed here people know why should you take

a picture of a mountain for it's going to be here forever. day by day the seventy five hundred acres of active mountaintop removal mine continue to encircle his property. another family cemetery sits across the ridge on the active mine site although regulations require that family members have access to these cemeteries requests are often not easily granted. on memorial day of two thousand and six keeps in a group of supporters make a trip to the cemetery i want a day we're going to go on the mine site at the cemetery over there and we get to how all around and different things going on and i still to me a safe the whole idea would be shown in public out forty to get to cold even under a graveyard. after filling out a den of occasion and release forms the group is permitted to enter the mine site in a one and a half mile hike to the family cemetery. sleet

i. didn't mention having to sign a release to go visit my family. i did so with you. the first water hole i respond then in my life was up then how on. the water i would not there now were guys there were six seven hundred foot high wall there now. my mama give me birth. in the light. well. you can get to the cemetery through there are going to go round. they used to be a road over here. one right here. one i hear.

your people are taking part in history is playing december third been here for two hundred seventy years and never had as many people at it in the last hundred fifty years last time on topic come through here they wouldn't or gentleness or kind. the sense we got a minister here i won't tell you are a half a cent on my. show and these people for a rainy fifth graders the first time when julian come here four years ago we had kate stone who had dates on him they're no longer here if they're even in saying that we came and got him. and not the case and in order to down is going to say alan johnson our side is we're just not been heard here for alone long time in mid august of two thousand and six the west virginia department of environmental protection revoked a permit to massey energy to expand its plant and marsh fork elementary by building a second coal silo the d.p.

determined that the second coal silo was placed outside the permitted boundary of three hundred feet from the school after maps of the preparation plan were found to be an accurate. live. nobody would stand up. nobody would stand up to the street. i stand up for my grandma or fly i stand up for two hundred forty kids as well i'll represent the old philip morris fork elementary and i will stay and and i will fight and i will do

whatever it takes to get something done for those children that day as who's left him no more i'll hold on to that it. was such. an. i was. thinking along the line. don't really. believe. it if he said. well no i couldn't talk to as many folks i have along the way that

a lot of folks shows for revenge a kind a lot of folks on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school in the issue in one of our goals was to come here and hopefully make a stand a bird and off feel that we have conflict all three of them and i'm going to school for a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue notice very important for me to walk on march fourteenth two thousand and seven the state board of surface mining overturned a west virginia department of environmental protections ruling that denied massey energy a permit to build a second coal silo behind the school this decision cleared the way for the expansion of messy energy's coal processing facility two days later a coalition of citizen conservation groups including mountain just a summer activists returned to west virginia governor joe manchin is office. for her. record. that.

god. will. tell you and the real. first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raining outside right now are safe. about smudge's day i'm sorry. does that mean anything to you we've preached you know for three years you know superman has been there i think when these can't be used to be accountable for that what i want to ask you to do i'm going to do back to back warner we need to clear this way because people got to get back to work or were. there were more work.

you have to get a new school that's all why you're broke you're i ain't lying here i'm telling you we're not budging there's more coming. your. way around my your business might you know what they're offering their. market rate for remaining a whisper in the air while he's trying to worry wart results the day we want our kids to. share. wired to our kids a deer. for company in the cove feel. they're on the wrong side of the i don't. know we are the cradle that bring their money out of them out of the little farmer where you need to be

took care of her build her children. for the state good old business you such as whether school should be. new schools should be built a decision goes first we have to look. i've heard the low. the school board with the decision on a new school that march forward before a vote of the people of raleigh. so they can determine the final outcome from sales so i. know all i could i hope that corby. heard for the or. if. you. can hear the good read and may say. we are certainly there who. like what.

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how's that parking. cars appliances is sold you're until they come to visit you. do you think the property bought on credit really belongs to you. depending on. the observed nature and discover its beauty. communicate with the wild and learn. test yourself and become free to. see what nature can give you an auntie. something to fill in the military because i thought that it was my duty that it was something that i could do to help my country. my government i find it

necessary for america you know there was a lot of drug abuse there was a lot of murder of american officers and soldiers there are a lot of good stories. to go out. before the war i always thought i wanted to win a lot of medals are going to have a lot of decorations but afterwards i realize that they don't mean anything they're not that important. i don't i don't i never kept the medal.

wealthy british style. time to. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause

a report. soon which brightened. movements from funds to impressions. screen stocks on t.v. dot com. more than five hundred wildfires are still raging across russia fed by dry conditions from months of high temperatures experts are predicting another route.