currency from the realm for. the future. wealthy british stock. markets. scandal. happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports.

cost. to rescue the last five vessels trapped in the. far east coast for over a week. also among the stories that shape the week mass deaths of birds and fish around the globe conspiracy and apocalyptic theories some say science is struggling to come up with the answers. plus europe's asylum policies under fire last

year's string of terror arrests sparks accusations that black checks are to blame for the spread of an extremist threat. and we report from iraq where people driven from their houses by the war make a landfill sites their home and their livelihood. you all with r.t. as we highlight the top stories of today the week more than three hundred people are still awaiting rescue stranded on board of a ship in the freezing waters off russia's a far eastern coast it's the last of five vessels that became trapped in the ice more than a week ago. is following 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 the 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 tomba reporting that well it's been pounced on by conspiracy theorists puzzled scientists and even start up a media frenzy the alarming trend of unexplained mass animal deaths in different parts of the globe has still got everyone guessing it all started on new year's eve with reports of black birds falling from the sky in the american state of arkansas then there were flocks of birds dying in sweden and in italy and finally millions of dead fish from brazil to new zealand have triggered some fevered online speculation experts have suggested a range of explanations from

a changing climate to parasites and poisoning conspiracy theorists a secret government experiments could be behind the deaths with some even claiming it's a sign of looming armageddon miami based a veterinarian who is race told r.t. that a thorough investigation is needed. it's impossible to see 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 they followed one after another and that attracted universal attention it's not the first time that the world is observing such phenomena it's happens in other countries too have to 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 strange way it 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. still to come in the program the misplaced immigrants in the united states. they really have that american dream of coming to the u.s. they know that they've invested in their education and they think that the united states is the place to put. that ambition to work with the greatest possible. reality of getting a green card is only the start of an adventure which ends up making many people long for the. people do not live here anymore but same. flora and. controversial plans to pull disaster zone. security is being tightened britain's main transport hubs fears of an attack by terrorists on european countries authorities say they foiled several serious attack

the wave of recent arrests is proof that they're coping. now reports from austria where the e.u.'s asylum policies have come under fire for letting potential terrorists walk straight through europe's front door. 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 brain 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. 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 fond of this. 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 has been personally following this case armed with only a voice recorder in no t.v. he was more successful in getting the locals to share. his with a really big population become unity with chechens so that people can watch what what comes next i mean this is just my neighbor he was here with me and now he has his arrested because of suspect. terror plot 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 well investigators are looking into or no other version whether his hands were all off while handling

explosives this is raising questions on austrians hell well asylum seekers are checked before getting the green light 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 court to find out who is who we want to know from the government in how many cases they actually did this background checks to make sure that this people are not criminal or dangerous second in how many cases austria has received. information from their countries of origin. and insert 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 in europe in an effort to get more information asylum seekers the e.u. is now making deals with countries of origin including russia but many experts warn with hundreds of thousands of refugees already living in the union because of the policies of some of its member states still ahead. vienna austria. thousands of immigrants head to the u.s. every year in search of a better way of life the u.s. government attracts newcomers through official visa lotteries granting them green cards and as artie's lauren lyster reports for many people the quest for the american dream can turn out to be a grim reality. in the united states and here in new york

every year countless people play the lottery. and touring for a chance to win. a mega million dollar fantasy believing a few dollars and a dream could buy them so for their life 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 i 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 getting the food in the. us to hire. experts who work on immigration issues a lot of the 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 and 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 of 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 work with the greatest possible return. when many find is maybe something though here already an ethnic neighborhood like this one that has southeast asian music restaurants and fashion 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 this downward mobility of immigrants and often very highly qualified and. finding foreign degrees an experience don't count for many u.s. employers these immigrants end up taking anything it means engineers in business managers and up his cab drivers and cashiers according to a study two out of five ford educated immigrants are either in a situation or unemployed all together it's an american dream they want to wake up from if you've 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 a 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. well look at this hour we'll be back on the streets of the big apple what people there think about mark twain's classic novel huckleberry finn edited to make it more politically correct. still stones will break my bones but names will never harm so no name has ever been offensive to you know you know what you have to be emotionally disturbed to have any effect. when defending its record in the iraq war the us is quick to point to the tens of billions of dollars it's. spending on reconstruction but between rampant corruption

and gross inefficiency poverty stricken iraqis say they see little sign of improvement to their daily lives it means many are forced to do whatever they can to scrape by sebastian meyer reports. at seven am every morning fatima crouch is outside her house and along with her sister and cousins begins to sort through gardens 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 it's iraq you would live in a shack commute from garbage people who through the chain so we could see if it's iraq is still a wonderful place by god if you will tell you she was 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 is the sectarian violence the 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 and you know not only 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 both 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 it fulfill a dream when they leave in fear i can't accomplish anything nothing good security for everyone to go back home there's no work only need security that's it iraq remains a very dangerous place where kidnappings and murders are part of daily right for these families living out of trash still better than living with sunni neighbors back home but until that is possible until american reconstruction dollars reach the quarter of

a population that lives in poverty children like fatima will continue to collect trash in order to survive sebastian meyer r t in baghdad. the site of the world's biggest civilian nuclear disaster. has largely been a no go zone for almost twenty five years but now ukraine is planning to make use of the land which is still fertile despite years of radiation they want to use it for agriculture the shock proposals have led to a clash between experts over the safety implications as artie's alexy reports 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 sad about flora and fauna some say it is the absence of anthropogenic harm in the church nor

will exclusion zone which made nature develop here rapidly. after the 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 blonde life is immune to radiation. we still don't understand how it's possible plans are able to grow. at the very beginning of the earth when life started the. activity on the surface. level up. somehow. 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. of how familiar 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 in the exclusions. 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 product can be drawn on this land and for now experts you know 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 and is still deemed too dangerous despite some optimists but the fact is radiation can stick around for anything up to twenty four thousand years. ski reporting from chernobyl ukraine it's just twenty minutes past the hour here. website. where you can find the stories we're covering and much much more some of the items waiting for you online right now although this may look like a scene from a hollywood blockbuster but the training of special forces is quite real and it takes blood sweat and years of experience to.

find out why the u.s. police are trying to stop being filmed by the public for a number of. american taken out of the new edition of the classic novel huckleberry finn critics of the movie say the book is a work of art and a product of its time therefore shouldn't be changed that's what the people in new york have to say about. 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. doesn't sound the same no but what if it was a word that was derogatory towards you. maybe what if it were a word that was offensive to you. i would look at this a big 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 andre 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 dutch people think they 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 vist 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 in respect of the people it all comes out in the end you think people will naturally be an offensive to each other. will they necessarily know

should they yes sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hold so no name is ever been offensive to you because you know what you have to be emotionally disturbed to have any me. and there's something more deeper then in me . so it's ok for anyone to call anyone anything. it depends on how you say it depends on the context that you use the word but they're not you believe the end which should be taken out of huckleberry finn the bottom line consider how marginalized and boring the world would be if we take political correctness five. an hour now let's take a brief look at some other major headlines from around the world this hour us congress with critical condition after being shot in the head in a bloody rampage outside a supermarket in arizona a gunman opening fire on

a public meeting held by a democrat gabrielle giffords killing six and injuring twelve one of aides is among the dead as well as a nine year old girl and a district judge twenty two year old suspect is now in custody on authorities are looking for a possible accomplice. and sense of thousands of people have marched in pakistan in support of the country's blasphemy switch make insulting islam an offense punishable by death it comes just a week after the murder of the governor of punjab speaking in favor of repealing the law was the protesters also said to have shouted slogans in support of the killing critics say the law used to justify the persecution of minorities all others are concerned with the growing a fundamentalist movement. well there's a growing consensus among the major world powers that they should all work together to achieve a world that's free of nuclear weapons but it's not so long since the danger of a nuclear strike was a very real one with nuclear states keeping their fingers just over the red button

now the relics of that past have been transformed into a tourist attraction peter oliver takes up the story. god it's a door like no other designed to stop a nuclear blast is it here to doris was a pretty big thing as a shockwave or one of her stray it has a way to both want point five goals and other sandra that interest was garth was a mess of do with 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 end 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 their suit should radiation be detected inside and i can tell you that they aren't easy to get on in the rush of 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 there to protect the biggest shelter in a war that has a mosque or metro system the station is. constructed as a bunker and it can see through eyes of people who is. inside at the time of strike the museum prides itself as being very hands on encouraging visitors to reach out and touch the past which. is it's not like an ordinary museum.