still center. just a ski lift in a sea of colors if you visit. in libya colonel gadhafi grip on power piece to be slipping away as anti-government protest is claimed to have control over most of the country's major cities. and has fallen and spreads throughout the oil rich middle east the world faces a surge in fuel prices threatening to drive economies into a new meltdown. that we can expect that british justice for handing him over to sweden sparking accusations of hypocrisy and how the u.k. has those facing far more serious charges. plus it's a race for the hearts and minds of fans as russians are set to choose the mascot for the twenty fourteen winter games in sochi.

live from our studios in central moscow this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day and violence continues to spread across libya as anti-government protesters are back on the streets demanding an end to colonel gadhafi is rule reports also suggest that in the capital tripoli security forces are running civilians loyal to the regime comes after scores were killed there on friday as army forces once again opened fire on rockets raining over one thousand. and six discussed a draft resolution on sanctions against the. people of various people across developments from neighboring egypt i believe this is the kind of gadhafi is losing his grip on power in the country we're hearing from inside libya that most of the major cities outside of the capital and. under the control almost under control of

anti-government protesters libyan soldiers are joining the protesters defecting away from good southie and we're hearing from those same protesters that this is a scene repeated in cities across the country now in tripoli gadhafi loyalists arming civilians in a setting up roadblocks at the moment it does appear that the company so it is quiet most of the residents of tripoli are remaining indoors afraid to go out onto the streets where those checkpoints manned by armed civilians are now on friday there was mass protests and violence in tripoli now this followed a address by colonel gadhafi to his followers in the capital and this resulted in a protest where shots were fired by security forces at protesters now we're also hearing some very troubling or geo comments coming out of tripoli suggesting that security forces pursued protesters to their homes in order to kill him and also

that the bodies of the days have been very very very quickly in order to cover up any atrocities that are taking place there now the number of dead expected to be well over a thousand in the violence that we've seen in that country now on friday as well there was a comment from colonel gadhafi is favorite son saif these mouthpiece if you will to the english speaking media he said that his family will die in tripoli if necessary they will live and die in libya the e.u. have said that they will put forward sanctions in the next week in the coming week now this is from the this message from the e.u. they said that they will do this they will put forward sanctions in coordination with the united nations and the u.s. in order to try to squeeze the gadhafi regime and freeze their assets but also to freeze the assets of senior figures in the gadhafi government it follows unilateral sanctions that were put forward by the u.s. . so paul doctor president of the british based arab lawyers association says any

sanctions against the country are just an attempt to control libya in the future. as it was absolutely. this is. the world community wanted to deal with. we would have at least mentioning my name would have. to. his family to be put on trial. if he had been threatened right from the outset he personally. because i think what's been the moment is to control the future of libya so libya has a government like we were lifting if we don't like the sanctions as far as. looking. for us to have been made. in his people who are doing the killing. the libyan revolt in sport fears of skyrocketing oil prices that may

affect the cost of everything from transport to food with a barrel of the gold approaching one hundred twenty dollars this week another said warning of significant economic threats if the unrest spreads you know because of ski explains how the problem is playing out in the u.s. . oriel three little letters. could have dire consequences on any economy and here in the united states or oil is sometimes also accompanied by really big. drill baby drill in dreams and with those three words you got yourself a political entrenched power house will drill new wells sure it will drill and the crisis in the middle east has inflamed and so what we have now are storing gas prices and fears of a relapse in the already weak economic recovery and on the heels of the unrest crude is heading for the biggest week we increase in two years and when oil prices

soar the price of food also skyrocket and so a vicious cycle begins for many americans a reality that is once again rally the base and its spokespeople perhaps for the wrong reasons and whenever there's a crisis either here at home or abroad it usually exploited politically i did government or the media it loves to hate khadafi is now threatening to burn up the oil fields experts are predicting a worst case scenario of two hundred twenty dollars a barrel if that happens i don't believe that this this particular interruption of oil supplies will last very long so if you're trying to tie drilling offshore with what's happening in libya i think it's a bit of a stretch a stretch that some are all too willing to make the oil fields are on fire and we have no backup plan. well he has lifted the moratorium in the gulf for drilling oil thanks to cass sunstein no new permits have been issued but permits and backup

plans aside what's really going to happen in an already ravaged economy are we see this in the middle east. and this in our very own midwest. so the last thing you need is the people who are. in the worst economic shape are the first ones to get hit by gas prices and this will cause a lot of discomfort to a lot of people who don't need this bad news in terms of violence spreading to other well producing nations in the region have been overshadowed and instead of asking how americans will cope with this are asking the question that never gets answered but at the same time seems to never get old who are our friends and who are our enemies for our tea diena kosofsky well steve the vien from the magazine foreign policy believes the oil market is unlikely to collapse anytime soon he says

there are stable countries like saudi arabia that can fill the gap created by disrupted supplies. markets have been calm down over the last twenty four hours saudi arabia has gone around and rightly assured everyone we not only can add more volumes to the market but we have added these the volume the difference that would create a situation in which prices would really skyrocket if another country finds so you loss million barrels a day it is offline from libya if algeria which is also having trouble if it goes offline that would bring saudi arabia right after the two to substitute for the ali and then you would see i'm not sure two hundred twenty i think that's probably an analyst trying to get headlines but but maybe one hundred fifty that that which is still pretty high. this is o.t.

here in moscow we will play more for you this hour including our weekly snapshot of opinion on the streets of new york. better class are responsible at all for where the economy is that right now now it's it's wall street and bush. the president is in the big apple's i phone of what people think about high taxes. still to come free but first union a soldier is preparing to appeal a london court ruling that he be extradited to sweden on sex assault charges the founder of the whistleblower we can mix website says the allegations of baseless and if he is handed over he will not get a fair trial artie's lorena's has been looking at why a soldier is being extradited from a country which is home for many wanted on far more serious charges. wiki leaks founder julian are songs learns the court has ordered his extradition to sweden to face questions over rape allegations and he's got some interesting questions of his own why is it. a nonprofit

to do a three hundred and sixty thousand dollars bail. why is it. under electronic house arrest. when i have not even been charged in any country he's not the only one asking not particularly as the british government has a history of granting asylum system fairly controversial characters recently the immigration minister admitted one hundred thirty nine suspected war criminals have been given the right to settle in britain permanently that thought to include former henchmen of saddam hussein an afghan official who tortured prisoners and rwandan genocide perpetrators basic tradition relating to asylum is that anybody can come here provided they are loaded provided i've got lots of money we will let them in because we want them in with their money. and therefore it's not

particularly the russian magnets and i only got the welcome here. shakes who may have a judaeus criminal record as it were of torture yet they were allowed just swung around london and knightsbridge bayswater wherever since the second world war the u.k. seen only two successful convictions for war crimes and despite recent retrospective laws this allows suspects to be brought to justice in this country according to anti torture campaigners redress so far nothing's been done people like that should be investigated by the u.k. police authorities. and if he is fission evidence found for prosecution they should be prosecuted in the u.k. you always are bringing these people to account these suspects but it seems very little is being done the list of the rich and powerful on interpol's wanted list resident in the u.k.

is low on and around forty people wanted by living here in two thousand and three alleged chechen terrorists akhmed zakayev was granted political refuge the same year asylum was granted to russian tycoon police bill is not convicted of embezzlement in russia it shows here the hypocrisy of the british courts. he is quite clearly been involved in the matter here over the years all sorts of very serious offenses which he may actually quite literally equate with terrorism and yet he is not being extradited and yet we see here what appears to be anyway a trumped up charge of rape which hasn't actually even come to charges in sweden this certainly does appear to show political interference in the court system here in britain and total hypocrisy from the british justice system while julian assigns looks set to be cast from the stage harbor of the u.k. into choppier waters it's unlikely he'll think from ptrace just. he may not have

billions in the bank to buy himself out of trouble so he'll just have to hate his friends in high places have influence associates defense team has vowed to now take his case to the highest courts in the land in the hague preventing his extradition meanwhile some of the world's no serious people suspect torture is terrorists and war criminals remain at large in the u.k. under the protection of the states you are at it. will still come in the program the olympic race is on but something other than medals will be won today. it has been afforded principle six months but now coming up we're going to find out which cartoon character gets the gold for the mascot of the olympic games twenty forty. first police in russia's southern republic of congo have blocked all the roads for a series of attacks in the capital it's already is announcing the situation is under control. brings us the latest from the region in the caucasus. we're here at

the back of the gas station that was attacked early on saturday morning armed gunmen reportedly shot the station and a deadly blast was prevented only signs to the fire crews arrival this follows a series of similar militant attacks here in the capital of russia's republic of korea just a few hours earlier that could have resulted in a major bloodshed up to twelve people simultaneously attacked several locations including traffic police prose and the office of federal forces but the plans to cause havoc in that you have clearly failed the frog there were no fatalities and just one policeman injured shows that there has been a turnaround from the last week's dramatic events in the volatile republic gruesome attack on a tourist minibus last saturday left three people dead and two injured further sells a cable tower it is skill leave in a resort was blown up and home sales in the village near grew back a ways and when

a car bomb was discovered all the incidents force their story just to close and i am to turn our operation on the region in that time and terrorist forces have already created their base with their concept lines and a makeshift explosive device now but as you know about her allies in the world the tile north caucasus police says that islamist terrorists operating in the region could be behind the latest attacks some experts say the lawyer they were carried out heat in several locations at the same time follows the pattern used by islamists operating internationally. anger is growing in the us over the super size tax burden for the middle class which quickly come to a head as thousands have been protesting in one northern state over plans to cut public sector workers collective benefits well this week people in new york they feel when they're required to make sacrifices not the super rich.

people across the u.s. are protesting proposed legislation intended to slash benefits for the middle class i do really protesting the fact that every day people are being asked to make sacrifices while wall streeters continue to profit even more this week let's talk about that i'm a member of this week's middle class and we say. we work for the all those and first and friday we we were for ourselves let's think. do you think that people in the middle class are responsible at all for where the economy is that right now you know it's it's wall street and bush. so why isn't vaal street paying more and why aren't they being asked to contribute more to health plans because the government would prefer to buy their pay a muffin and bail them out the upper class probably pays ninety percent of the taxes or more in new york city and new york state it's probably the same thing in

wisconsin i don't know the numbers but i think everybody is paying for it paying to keep the government moving so why are there isn't one riles up that if it if it seems like so clear cut to you why is everyone so in a fit right now where people don't want to give up what they've got we're not for the news coverage and or the social media and i'm not saying it's bad but we're not for the that type of coverage. we it would not be neither of these things either of the middle east things or the things going on with the states would be quite as hard as they are no matter who you think should be paying for the distressed economy the bottom line is that if you ask the middle class to relinquish benefits it's only fair to ask the same of the upper class as well. russians of course their votes for who will be chosen as the sochi twenty fourteen winter olympic mascot within an hour we'll find out who the winner is but in the

meantime we're now joined by sean thomas for more on the selection process took place sean good to see you tell us when hell will we know the results there. bro bill the actual internet voting closed at nine o'clock moscow time so just within a very short time from now now what's happening is the votes are being tallied there is a celebration going on right now a ceremony at this very moment where shortly the winner will be announced and i'm told that the various cartoon characters those top ten are actually nervously waiting in the wings biting their fingers to see which one of them will actually be the next mascot of the twenty forty sochi winter olympic games so all of the ten finalists still in the running at this stage. well actually no that is a very good question bill in fact here's the reason why one of the finalists one of the top ten was dead. which as you know is a russian cultural icon called

a frost and basically the judges and the. good judiciary committee has decided that they don't want this cultural icon to be licensed by the olympic committee and what that means is is that the winner the actual winning mascot will become the property of the olympic committee the international olympic committee and they don't want a russian cultural icon to be owned by anybody and so they have taken the dead character out of the running and i would like to think that they would take my character originally that i created six months ago sean check and replace it but i don't think that that's actually going to happen but me retraces just a little bit and tell you how this whole process went about six months ago the russian winter olympic committee said that they're going to open up a contest they're going to have the next mascot to be designed by russians for russians and chosen by russians and now we're waiting to find out what that exact

final will be we will be waiting and we'll let you know as soon as we do know but is this being a national voting system and how exactly will the candidates chosen to get into the thought of. well as as i mentioned just a second ago once that contest was announced six months ago. all sorts of fun and fanciful ideas that came out of the woodwork children were a big part of that they got involved in the race all sorts of different mascots and ideas were thrown out there in fact some of the ideas that were thrown out almost immediately was a skiing shot glass that was one idea there was also one i did against popularity a psychedelic toad if you will but the massive massive amounts of entries that came in those were narrowed down by a committee of celebrities politicians as well as entrepreneurs who brought it down to this very small group this top. group at that point in time an internet voting began and it was basically put to the russian public to say who do we want to be

the next mascot to represent us in the twenty forty games and so that internet voting stopped at nine o'clock moscow time and from that point on the votes are being tallied right now so it's been a very long process but it's been an inclusive process one that has never happened before in the history of the olympic games well as we've been talking about sharing shots old but the national t.v. show and looks like quite a spectacular show at the moment so no doubt you'll be bringing us the results all that posting a little later here on c.n.n. meantime sean thanks very much shaun thomason live in moscow. and of course as i've just mentioned we'll bring you up to date on the results of that mascot but it's all a bit of fun here in russia and of course you can discover more about the candidates on the website that's at r.t. dot com at the moment great bring special interviews with the mascot candidates you can watch the interest goals practice their team dance and also find out what's called the cross styles in his spare time. plus those that didn't quite make it you

can be in some terrible ferry from these mascots aspirations didn't quite fit the bill all that about. is. the official. called touch from the accused auction. video among. thieves now in the.

u.s. top military officials in afghanistan have ordered an investigation into claims of an american army unit psychologically manipulated visiting high officials rolling stone magazine published tell these psychological operations known as psyops were used to get more money and troops for the war minutes you can try to says this further reveals just how much the u.s. operation in afghanistan is being hidden from the public. inadvertently these latest revelations about the psyops scandal in afghanistan regarding the american leadership back in washington d.c. has also revealed their hypocrisy regarding the public coverage of the american occupation in afghanistan despite the fact that half a year ago their psychological operations has been rebranded into the military

information support operations and the essence of the whole american global information or to be for size this information campaign remains the same but it is the most important. under reported charge all these growling and unfolding drama regarding their american general unauthorized psychological operations against its political and military leadership back in washington d.c. . now let's have a quick look at some other major headlines from around the world at this stage of the day in effect the death toll from an earthquake that struck new zealand has risen to one hundred forty five with as many as two hundred still missing rescuers well that the chances of finding any more survivors under the rubble in christchurch a slim emergency services are trying to restore power and clean water off the mouth of the country's deadliest natural disaster for eighty years police are also on

high alert amid reports of looting and warnings there may be more tremors to come. and attack on a nato supply vehicle terminal in pakistan has left five people dead innocents far apart vehicles destroyed eleven oil tankers in peshawar no group has claimed responsibility for the bad pakistani taliban has carried out several such assaults on nato vehicles in the past three years about a surprise required by foreign troops in afghanistan a ship through peshawar. seven people were killed and dozens were getting clashes with security forces during anti-government protests in yemen's port city of aden the death toll has now reached at least twenty four since daily protests started over a week ago against president ali abdullah saleh is thirty two year rule loyalists opponents of the sixty eight year old leader held rival demonstrations in the capital sanaa after friday prayers. that's a brings up to date for the moment i'll be back with you with an update of the top

stories in just a few moments they with us live here in moscow on our team. my mom or your family. was.

he stressed steamier trisha's and this is true next on the price of healthy eating . meat to test these times is the allergenicity immune response lower nutrition in for environmental contamination don't you feel like a lab rat some consider the experiment is human treatment i believe significant differences big feel of the g have both at the g.m. that. they were treated so well themselves one question means one career you ask one question. and you might or might not be able to publish it but that's the end

of your career. good summer. excellent professional. medics travel bunch possessing an extra ordinary car. the doctor who helped many people in his country. political criminal responsible for thousands of deaths. was it an attempt to repent. or just escape a fair trial. the other line. on our team.