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. the way. the end is now a very difficult draw. will bring you all the details in just a moment.

around the world. a sensation hungry media is refusing. to leave bread with a little help. with the top stories of today. more than three hundred people were stranded on board a ship in the freezing waters off far eastern coast still awaiting rescue it's the last of five vessels that became stuck more than

a week ago when they became trapped in the ice. and has more on the rescue mission . the operation is now in its final stages or at least approaching them there are two ice breakers currently trying to get ready to tow out the last of these ships on december thirtieth the first ships became stuck there in the ice at the height of the drama there were five ships stuck in the ice two of those managed to get free themselves two of them were towed away and now we're left with just one the largest of the ships with three hundred people on board and it's required these two ice breakers to come together to try and move it the last ship stuck in the ice is a supply ship used to resupply the ships at sea so it's obviously a very big ship one of the other ships being towed away now the will be ready to to start that operation they've been there obviously for over a week now. to all these three hundred crewmembers. there is no immediate danger

to them they're in an ok state we managed to talk to the captain earlier and he told us about his hopes everything depends on the weather when the wind comes down the rescue operation will become quicker right now the cross an icebreaker is on its way here we have enough water and food supplies that can last us for four months. it was the weather that really caused all of this crisis in at the beginning very cold temperatures for the season about minus seventeen degrees and a lot of very high winds have created ice formations very fast and very thick ice which made all the ships get trapped in the first place and then slowed down the rescue efforts. artie's tom barton reporting right there well this is artie live from moscow and later for you in the program we report from iraq's slums under. scatterings for a meager life in junkyards untouched by the billions of american dollars being pumped into the country's reconstruction. a series of mysterious and mass animal

deaths around the globe have been battling scientists and stirring speculation the first incident to be noticed was when black birds began falling from the sky in the american state of arkansas on new year's eve then flocks of birds dying in sweden and italy as well as millions of fish from brazil to new zealand it triggered some far fetched online guesswork theories over the course range from pollution to signaling the beginning of the end miami based of that lewis race told r.t. that it's happened before but a thorough investigation is needed. but. it's impossible to say for sure what's happened to the birds and fish until proper investigations are held in fact i don't believe that these events are interlinked he followed one after another and that attracted universal attention it's not the first time that the world is observing such phenomena it's happened in other countries too i've done moment the

investigation in arkansas claims or not top see has revealed the bird suffered from internal bleeding but the research is yet to be completed we could also be dealing with some new virus a single eve is another possible explanation but i repeat that food investigation is needed to establish the cause of what's happened and find a scientific explanation for it. security is being tightened britain's major transport hubs it's the latest in a series of measures with european nations increasingly fearing imminent terror attacks authorities say they foiled several serious attempts and that the wave of recent arrests is proof that they're coping but as you go to this kind of reports from austria people are wondering how the terror suspects are managing to walk straight through the front door of the e.u. . like many others small you would be and downs in southern austria seems quiet and peaceful while never judge

a book by its cover one of its residents is now under arrest suspected of being the brains behind. we couldn't extremists in plotting attacks in the heart of the european union an ethnic chechen was detained at the airport in vienna as he returned from a pilgrimage to mecca news about the incident went around the world streams really none of the locals seem to know much about it. we didn't hear anything about it i'm afraid i wasn't. i know nothing about it and i don't care some didn't want to be filmed at all but was it really because of a lack of information. and the deputy chief of one of australia's biggest newspapers christopher has been personally following this case armed with only a voice recorder in no t.v. crew he was more successful in getting the locals to share. his with a really big population become unity with. so that people can watch what

comes next i mean this is just my neighbor he was here with me and now he has his arrested because of her suspect. terrible out with his wife and children really appear to be leading an ordinary life one of the most striking facts about this latest case is that the suspect has no hands he claims he lost the after being caught up in violence in chechnya now investigators are looking into or no other version whether his hands were all off while handling explosives this is raising questions and austrians hell well asylum seekers are checked before getting the green light bar she has one of the most liberal asylum policies in the european union and last year alone the country. received over fifteen thousand refugees from across the world with such an inflow of newcomers is becoming increasingly called to find out who is who we want to know from the government in how many cases they

actually did as background checks to make sure that this people are not criminal or dangerous second in how many cases austria has received. information from countries of origin. and search in how many cases asylum seekers actually have been refused the latest arrest is part of a massive police operation targeting an alleged extremist network in late november twenty six people were detained in belgium germany and the netherlands all suspected of recruiting so-called jihad just can't get it in financing terrorist organizations it can be here in one year and it can be in any other town in europe in an effort to get more information seekers the e.u. is no meeting deals with countries of origin including russia but many experts warn

with hundreds of thousands of refugees already living in the union because sequences of policies of some of its member states still lie ahead. or g. vienna austria. still ahead for you in the program fruits of a diseased soil ukraine plans to come here to the surrounding the noble disaster zone r.t. hears from the scientists some of them claim it's harmless while others say it's sowing the seeds of trouble. the us is pumping billions of dollars into regenerating iraq but with thousands they're still living below the poverty line many have yet to see any improvement in the standards of living as artie's sebastian maya reports some are forced to live in dumping grounds scavenging through waste just a few dollars. at seven am every morning fatima crouch is outside her house and along with her sister and cousins begins to sort through garbage displaced from

southern iraq that most families too poor to send her to school and so she works eight hours a day sorting through baghdad's landfill collecting plastic and metal that will be shipped abroad for recycling a reward for carting forty pounds of trash around two dollars and fifty cents behind me six acres of back that's trash to many this is just waste but for the families here this is not only their livelihood but also their homes over two thousand people live on baghdad's landfill. making their homes out of the garbage that the rest of the city throws away there's no running water or electricity and certainly no access to medical treatment if someone gets sick they have to be taken to hospital the same way they get drinking water by donkey cart can you believe in iraq you would live in a shack meat from garbage people hoped for and change so we could see that iraq is still a wonderful place at least by god the old regime is gone and we have

a new government but look at her situation reliving and shocks america spending fifty three billion dollars on the reconstruction effort in iraq but the residents of our jet haven't seen a dime of it what they have seen though is the sectarian violence that drove them from their home five years ago. we used to live in abu ghraib you know then america came the war increased in iraq people started killing each other and so we fled because we were freed in two thousand and five names family moved to the landfill and has been living there ever since too afraid and too poor to return home you know the american occupation turned iraq into a battlefield as well as sowing the seeds of political corruption how can americans stand back and watch without intervening in this situation everybody knows about the failure of the iraq economy this is having a terrible impact on the ground zero. socially and economically. experts worry about the children who grow up too poor to go to school without an education and

they're easily preyed on by criminal gangs and terrorist organizations who lure them with money and promises of a brighter future. how can i fulfill a dream when i leave in fear i can't accomplish anything nothing good security if you really want to go back home if there is no work we only need security that's it iraq remains a very dangerous place where kidnappings and murders are part of daily life for these families living on a trash can still better than living with sunni neighbors back home but until that is possible until american reconstruction dollars reach the quarter of iraq's population lives in poverty children like fatima will continue to collect trash in order to survive sebastian mire r t in baghdad. and while the us piles billions of broadhead sleeving little in the u.s. for those who choose to make america their new home thousands of immigrants secure the sort after green card finding they're being sidelined as lauren lyster explains

their education and experience is being ignored condemning them to a life of low paid work. in the united states and here in new york every year countless people play the lottery. entering for a chance to win for a mega million dollar fantasy and believing a few dollars and a dream could buy them turn for the life of a ticket that could change their lives every year more than ten million people also play a different kind of lottery and fifty thousand when meet one of them my name is owen and her husband teenage son and seven year old daughter you see here. are immigrants from nepal they entered and won the united states diversity visa lottery this lottery is a congressional mandate it's supposed to be an opportunity for people to come to america from countries with historically low rates of immigration the jackpot with

permanent residency the prize is not cash but green cards and this startling experience was due to a lot of we had to start from scratch from zero once we got here two years of struggling with joblessness after finding their education in nepal doesn't count in the u.s. setbacks they never expected this we didn't know people used to say you're educated it will be easy america's a big country with a lot of facilities life will be better but in reality it was a thing the fit in. us to hire. experts who work on immigration issues a lottery winners really are given no resources from the government that invited them here and the struggles of jimena and her family are not unique for most people we have been counted it's been very difficult they reflect a group of immigrants who come to the u.s. not because of a job lined up or a family sponsoring them but for many because of the vision of what they can

achieve they really have that american dream and coming to the u.s. they know that they've invested in their education and they. i think that the united states is the place to put that skills those degrees and that ambition to war with the greatest possible return. when many find is maybe something new here already of an ethnic neighborhood like this one that has southeast asian music restaurants and fashion what many struggle with is finding economic opportunities that are any better than what they had in their home country or even finding jobs that allow them to survive here we're seeing a lot of the downward mobility of immigrants and often very highly qualified goods . finding foreign degrees and experience don't count for many u.s. employers these immigrants end up taking anything it means engineers and business managers and up his cab drivers and cashiers according to a study two out of five ford educated immigrants are either in this situation or

unemployed all together it's an american dream they want to wake up from if you got if we had known this we wouldn't have come life was much easier in my country people who see their plight firsthand argue the government should help more i do think it's the state department's responsibility and i think that the united states is going to lose out relative to other countries taking that step possibly losing out to countries such as canada and germany unless they make sure winning the lottery actually pays off lauren lyster our new york. now it's just after quarter past the hour here in moscow let's get an update now on some of the some of the world news stories today here on our u.s. congresswoman has been seriously wounded after being shot in the head outside a grocery store and i resign or six others were killed in the rampage democrat giffords was beating she said to be in critical condition one of the aids was killed in the carnage as well as a nine year old girl police have arrested

a twenty two year old man over the shooting. and voting is underway in southern sudan in a weeklong referendum that could see one of africa's poorest and most troubled nations split into the christian dominated south is widely expected to choose independence from the mainly muslim north and deadly clashes have marred the run up to the weeklong ballot the vote is part of a two thousand and five peace deal which ended decades of civil war that claimed two million lives and displaced nearly twice as many others. police in mexico have found fifteen headless corpses south side a shopping center in the resort town of acapulco they were among more than two dozen bodies discovered handwritten signs were left nearby indicating the deaths were related to rival drug gang turf wars the victims were old men in their twenty's. and so had for you this hour here on r.t. we die for cover on the outskirts of moscow.

and of course overexplain is that moscow is being hit by a ten megaton. desolating most of the city they say even though you know this is just part of the visit to the bank it certainly feels very real. but you might not think of the contaminated child noble landscapers fertile ground but ukraine is planning to develop parts of it. scientists are divided some believe crops are immune to the radiation caused by the nuclear disaster twenty five years ago but others say disturbing that land would risk another catastrophe. takes up the story. these berries may look ripe and delicious but they're definitely not part of a healthy diet the bush is inside a thirty kilometer chernobyl exclusion zone in ukraine and radiation levels are off the scale people do not live here anymore but same cannot be said about

flora and fauna some say it is the absence of anthropogenic harm in the church novel exclusion zone which made nature develop here rapidly after the one nine hundred eighty six fallout in chernobyl the environment suffered badly one strip of forest was burned by radiation and turned red people left the area but mother nature stepped in now chernobyl is home to many species of wild animals and rare plants scientists from slovakia studying most in the area made an incredible discovery a lot of the plant life is immune to radiation. we still don't understand how it's possible plans to grow. at the very beginning of the earth when life started the. activity on the surface. level up. somehow stay inside the plant

how much problem and the millions of hectares of land were left contaminated a quarter of a century on kiev has decided that this soil no longer poses any threat to humans in march twentieth. will launch a plan to get things growing again. we will establish what parts of the contaminated areas could be used for agricultural needs there is a possibility that cultural products will be grown there when we have so much unoccupied land why not use it. those well familiar with chernobyl like the idea. that half a million people work to clean this land of radioactivity now we're being told this is dead land this is not true just look at nature's riches and the exclusions if you were however there are those who worried about what could end up on the dinner table critics fear ukrainian and russian markets could be flooded with radioactive

agricultural products and there are legal hurdles. ukraine has a law regulating any activities in the exclusion zone it says no agricultural products can be drawn on this land and for now experts no possibility of this law to be changed. the dominant view remains that the nearest safe zones from the blonde are still hundreds of kilometers away in northern ukraine and some parts of belarus the dead zone injured novel is still deemed too dangerous despite some optimists but the fact is radiation can stick around for anything up to twenty four thousand years. alexi russia ski r.t. reporting from chernobyl ukraine it's only a few decades since much of the world feared total annihilation with the soviet and american atomic superpowers hovering over the red button today many countries including russia now lead the charge to get rid of nuclear weapons but reminders of

those dark days still exist as peter all of our reports was it's a door like no other designed to stop a nuclear blast is that here doris was a pretty big thing as a shock wave or one of her straight here's a way to board one point five goals are the same terms that interest will score it was a committee. of was it has a war sickness about six meters or frame force of concrete if you had been lucky enough to escape the initial explosion inside or enough food in air to last about two weeks it was to command and control all the surface forces and nothing more. but you know what some days later nuclear war all fires in radiation level decreased as a level where when you can walk and breathe in special protective suits

those stationed at the shelters would have had less the ninety seconds to put on a suit should radiation be detected inside and i could tell you that they aren't easy to get on in a rush stock nor are they particularly comfortable where. it's not just these purpose built facilities they were designed to protect in case of a nuclear attack one of moskos iconic landmark is also that to protect biggest shelter in a war that has a mosque or metro system the station is. constructed as a bunker and it can see people who is. at the time a strike the museum prides itself as being very hands on encouraging visitors to reach out and touch the past which. it's not my can only means even when nothing can be teched here on the contrary everything can be taxed is just going to hold

a gnat a wedding equipment used when the bank was a parishioner. the complex extends kilometers underground creating a rabbit warren below the streets jam packed with people comes a deep underground visitors to the bunker get a chance to experience what it would have been like if moscow would ever being hit by a nucular attack and this facility of how to beat the red lights flashing out the sirens wailing and a voice over explains that moscow is being hit by a ten megaton you kill a bomb decimating most of the city i have to say even though you know this is just part of the visit to the bank it certainly feels very real to peter all of it on t.v. . now you can always check out r.t. dot com for more on the stories we're covering as well as blogs and videos from all of our contributors there's a plus one for you on line right now and rediscovering abkhazia as duty increasing number of tourists are becoming entranced by the country's picturesque landscapes

as sightseers replace soldiers from georgia. also how israeli army secrets are a mouse click away as troops share more than a short on social networking sites details are available for you twenty four seventh's atiba dot com. t.v. . american american censors that is have taken the n word out of the classic novel huckleberry finn the word was deemed offensive to the african-american community but critics say the book is a work of art and a product of its own time. gauges feelings among residents in new york. a new edition of mark twain's huckleberry finn is being published this time without

the n. word has political correctness gone too far this week let's talk about that do you think they should be editing it like that no you don't sound so it doesn't sound the same no no but what if it was a word that was derogatory towards you. yeah maybe what if it were a word that was offensive to you. i would look at this of a piece of art so some mark of deference no matter what it should stay has there ever been of piece of art that has offended you absolutely. you know i think what about twenty years ago there was a work called piss christ by andres serrano. it was offensive but andre serrano had the right to create that work and i think it provokes some very good discussions as to what art can do and should do what if they wanted to add the bible to take out all the offensive parts. i'm against all kind of things that you should take out

so i think everybody should have their own opinion and they should be able to say what they want yeah i think so what if it was offensive to you i don't listen. that's the way debt free will thing do you think it actually adds to the work yes i mean that's what the. temper of the times was so if there were words that were offensive to this time period should those be included in our literature and reflects what we're about today. yes who should be governing what's offensive to people and what's not there should be no governing and individual should know if they respect themselves respect their parents they would know what's right and wrong but don't you think people are going to have different points of view on what's offensive and what's not yes but that's why i just bring it down to if you do respect yourself and respect of the people it all comes out leon.