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britain's biggest selling newspapers. for the news of the world. high profile photographers arrested in georgia are suspects in the spying after another. country's opposition says the government is muzzling the press to cover up its own problems. the credit rating agencies downgraded to junk status in these markets panicking over a fifth. international . this is with you twenty four hours

a day britain's biggest selling newspaper the news of the world has announced it shutting down in response to the phone hacking scandal. it follows evidence the paper had been intercepting the phone messages of murder and terror victims as well as dead soldiers the paper is a jewel in the crown of rupert murdoch's global media empire and a public inquiry has been promised by the government. has the details now from. it started off relatively new really with just we understood the news of the world had been allegedly hacking into the phones all celebrities and politicians and to be honest no one in this country really cared about that very much we will think that celebrities and politicians are sort of fair game as far as that kind of thing is concerned but then of course it escalated when it was alleged that the sunday newspaper tucked in to the telephones of relatives of soldiers killed in combat and also that those caught up in the two thousand and five london

bombings got of us which it is today in fact also the most shocking thing really for a lot of people in the first thing that was revealed was that news of the world journalists to diligently hacked into the telephone of missing. who was later found had been we also now know that allegedly seamy a police officers had been wrongly by the news of the world to to post on a criminal investigations and all the confidential information which the full a crime there are two things that we should take away from this for now one of them is surely this kind of action couldn't have taken place without pay from the very highest level and in fact i spoke to someone today who knew you know he's the editor of the current editor of the news of the world you have to keep this paper in high circulation around four million copies a day and you have to do it by any means possible so it's almost like he was giving the green light to that from the very beginning we don't know that of course and also is this an isolated incident is tapping attacking something that goes on

throughout the news corp and is it an isolated incident within news corp or that other newspapers in fact in the u.k. who engage in that kinds of those kinds of behavior those are the questions we should be asking. talking to me a little earlier from london well for more insight on this story let's now talk to media analyst and author phil reseize joining me from london as well phil good to have you here on r.t. another first question that comes to mind is why wasn't this stopped it seems that everyone knew what's been going on for years people knew about the dark practices the fleet street people knew that a lot of the behavior of the journalist did not perfect the proper journalism it was really slimy really disgusting but that culture had been allowed to preserve itself in fleet street because basically the politicians or anyone who spoke against it would find that they'd be targeted and their private life would be looked at so in a way fleet street and the sort of practices had

a lot of power over the british political caste in the important people of this country interesting you mention fleet street which is of course the heart of british newspaper the british journalists there. are you saying that other british newspapers are blameless and it's not just the news of the world that's under the spotlight now. now this practice which i mean to viewers around the world they may find it rather strange but basically it's a matter of phoning in to a mobile getting the answer machine and picking up anybody else's messages that have been left now this is a standard practice had been going on in fleet street but people didn't want to talk about it but i think what is true is that the murdoch press were the leaders in this the news of the world almost prided itself on being the most garish tabloid on getting the most. astonishing private sex stories of people you know any other misdemeanors that people had so this was the currency of the news of the world and this is what you know it was its name was built on they called it investigative

journalism but really all it was investigating was people's private lives which in my view is not the role of journalism it's being reported that the papers former editor andy colson who was also the prime minister's former media chief is to be arrested tomorrow over this scandal just held deep are the links between the murdoch empire and the british government. well this is what i think is the most fascinating thing of all and i think something changed this week you know for decades british prime ministers have been on their knees to the to the murdoch press because they knew that when the sun which is his main daily newspaper here in britain when the sun supported a british politician running for prime ministership you know they won it and then you'd find on the next day you'd find that prime minister reading the sun looking like an idiot saying well the sun got me elected i mean so you've got this demeaning of british democracy is that missing of democracy really which the murdoch press was at the heart of but i think and that was that for silence as well

because important people needed the murdoch press and they couldn't be there they couldn't attack it because of that and i think a line was crossed yesterday i think would what was what was we found out about what happened to the messages that you know the seven seven victims and you know soldiers in afghanistan that made the public and made politicians realise that actually they have to separate themselves from these practices and separate themselves from the murdoch press and not just fill murdoch's influence over british politics but also his influence on the british police interesting connections there the previous police invest investigation into the scandal actually failed to uncover any of the revelations we're hearing about now and of course we do know that is being a collaboration between journalists and the police on these journalistic investigations so what does that tell you i mean this is going deeper than just journalism isn't it. well i think that the action that the rupert murdoch took today shows that they'll be more revelations but absolutely it goes to the core of the british establishment if senior members of the london police are being paid

regularly by these people if politicians if senior members of all that sort of the way the political caste in britain if they own the press simply look at the power that that. has had and i think that you know if there's one really positive thing about this i think people are now realizing how damaging that has been to the simple life in a sense morality in public life in britain but it's closing down the newspaper bringing any form of justice those journalists who work now say look this is a very different newspaper to what we were what was around six years ago and that in a way are they being sacrificed where those who really they're accountable to and working for should be the ones who should be held accountable and possibly prosecuted at the very top of all of this organization i'm sure that's true but remember rupert murdoch has a very finely tuned business brain and in my view this was a business decision he has

a lot of things going on now one of them is to purchase the largest satellite network in britain called b. sky b. and that decision is about to be approved by the government that was in jeopardy i think he felt that as a businessman he had to sacrifice the news of the world because it in terms of the whole news international it's a tiny part of or back in terms of his global empire the amount of profits it brings so yes it was profitable case i don't think it's like that very easily by sacrificing news of the world do you think that deal then will go through because they have some of the news well some of the reaction some people are saying this deal could be in jeopardy now. well i think this dramatic gesture was an attempt by rupert murdoch to say i'm doing everything i can decline up you know my snake pit that the empire that i have whether that will will be enough i mean i don't know i mean personally i would suspect it's not because people are already seeing through this as a kind of stunt as a dramatic and something that the present journalist will certainly pay for but

something that in the end doesn't really have a great deal of impact on me his empire and furthermore he could maybe in a year have a sunday sun the sun is the daily newspaper that he's very successful at and reopen something like that so you know if i said irene branded news of the world so a lot going to change then perhaps well bill it's possible i wouldn't count it out one circumstances have changed and once maybe he's got this peace deal once things of you know died down when certain people or maybe like and be colson as i say cameron's former advisor goes to jail or whatever one certain things have settled i wouldn't rule it out but i tell you the most important thing bill in my view is that the political cast had been sucking up to rupert murdoch for so many years including prime minister david cameron he now has to stand back and say no i can't do it anymore it's gone too bad filreis very interesting to hear what you have to say thanks for your time thanks for joining us live in london.

you're with r t live in moscow still to come in the program this greece to take the last of the boats headed to. the un is expected to publish a long awaited report on israel's deadly assault on last year's. also. this is inexcusable it's careless. it's. growing with criticism it's come true high a price of stalemate and civilian. stories still to come but first unjustified and unfair but with the power to determine the fate of entire countries the verdict of germany's finance minister on the world's big three credit rating agencies after portugal had its debt downgraded to junk status the move is having a disastrous effect on the e.u. ripping apart the relative calm a second greek bailout panic is proving contagious with fresh emerging that also need another cash injection that comes with germany the biggest economy debates the

very legality of the bailouts the only fault of the ratings agencies is that they didn't grade portugal and greece any sooner that's according to right or not is up . the european union to three years ago said the problem with credit ratings where their their ratings couldn't be trusted then all of a sudden when they actually come up with plausible ratings against the european union suddenly the finance ministers such as mr showed large saying that oh these are discrete small companies because actually they're trying to get at the truth but actually one of the biggest things that they got wrong was the fact that they weren't being pragmatic enough when it came to the debt and the debt problems of the european union not their being honest and suddenly the politicians want to shut them up no realistically i think the question the ratings agencies must ask themselves because they were at fault here was why they didn't give better ratings a couple of years ago when it was absolutely clear to a large number of us that the european union had really significant problems and they were caught up in the way of the euro euphoria that was going on at that stage

and actually the e.u. itself has been dragging its feet for eighteen months over problems in portugal and greece and the difficulty therefore is that the e.u. hasn't acted fast enough and hasn't tried to cure the situation and i think greece well you know what i mean everyone ultimately gets fed up with someone who just keeps passing the begging bowl back in their fierce comprehensively doing something to try and help the situation and i think that it would be a very very neat thing if greece were willing to sell their gold reserves because at least that would show some willing to write their economy to deal with their taxation problems and to do with the fundamental problem of the public services. and the russian hysteria that talent george's opposition is described thursday's arrest of four people suspected of spying among them leading photographers including the president's personal snap this comes after nine russians and georgians were handed a lengthy prison sentences for anti government activity earlier this week even to spin off reports on what might be behind the arrests the arrests started only on

a wednesday and went on until early thursday and some really high profile photographers have been detained including the personal photographer off president mikhail saakashvili the official photographer off the georgian foreign ministry and according to the words this man has gone on a hunger strike in protest to his detention also photographer from the european press agency was detained as well and one from the associated press although we did receive word that he was released after having been questions via relatives of the detained see that they could be charged with espionage their homes have been searched their computers and cameras have been seized and now human rights groups in georgia say that this is a direct violation of the freedom of press and are demanding their immediate release on wednesday nine people were found guilty by georgian off doherty's of being part of a spy ring and supplying secret information to the russian intelligence service and

they were given some really heavy jail sentences ranging from eleven to fourteen years of imprisonment the longest one was given to our russian citizen really go who is believed to be georgian authorities to be the head of all for this spy ring and also its connection with the russian intelligence service but a lawyer say that this man is grieving and his relatives say that they can't even picture of him being a spy because this man hardly use a more well form but in general. spying scandals and controversy conspiracy theories are not new in georgia they've been happening quite often since president mikhail saakashvili came to power one of the biggest scandals was probably years ago when georgian authorities are now taking advantage of a cool at one of the country's military bases but the opposition says these are

probably cities being conducted by india also used to divert the public's attention away from a real economic and political problems and they do exist was just remember the recent violence clashes between anti-government protesters and police in d.c. . one of georgia's main opposition leaders says that the arrests are a way for the country's president to hang on to his job for suckers surely writes no it was the continuation no. this is the main basis for these don't mr. and me i would be is the way to why he should care. power because the second care which really. is going through all these. documents. for you work your congress why george. why do. you always.

keep. and keep. but he's going to get so much in the agents or. rebel fighters in libya have blamed a lack of ammunition and a lack of nato support for their failure to advance towards the capital tripoli. is it targets only minute treat facilities dr franklin lamb a director of americans concerned for middle east peace told me earlier that doesn't match what he's seen for himself in tripoli. i can give you five examples one is the down's syndrome children center which was completely demolished by bombs that serves over five hundred thousand children around this country and their headquarters was bombed as you know secondly as you know the killing of eleven shakes up in breakdown who were on a peace mission they were bombed the micro bus that was bombed two weeks ago that

killed nine people know they are hitting civilians we had a report this afternoon from a fellow from human rights watch who estimated that for every one military person that was supposedly a casualty there were ten civilians it's not excusable however many collateral damage arguments we have with the kind of precision weaponry and the laser targeting this is inexcusable it's careless is negligent it's criminal i spent the last week visiting neighborhood committees think of them as neighborhood watch over a million have been armed i've seen women here some as old as in the sixty's a one woman and there's seventy training i think we're going to see a popular militia a popular army. emerge from the neighborhoods if there's an invasion. friendship bound for gaza with aid has been stopped in crete comes as the un is due

to report on last year's israeli raid on a humanitarian for target which killed nine turkish activists reporters being held because of a row between israel and turkey which followed the attack neither side can agree on the wording of an apology as we are now explains. why at the heart of the dispute is the whole question of an apology and here is temple is insisting that tel aviv apologize for its role in events so far the israelis have refused to do this the israeli foreign minister particular avigdor lieberman insisting that israel will not apologize presumably because the israelis are fearful that it will open the floodgates for a whole photo of legal claims to be made against the jewish state instead israel says it will express its word grit for the loss of life now for the last few days almost round the clock israeli and turkish representatives have been meeting in new york to try and hammer out some kind of agreement that is acceptable to both sides we understand that the sticking point is over the wording of the document now no doubt both sides want to reach some kind of agreement prior to the u.n.

issuing this report because it won't help in terms of we conciliation it will be much harder for every consideration to be made after the report is issued but we do understand at this stage is that we do is that the u.n. report says that the blockade is not illegal but it does criticize israel for existing use of force and you need to remember that that excessive use of force lift nine turkish citizens on board the largest ship them of the mamma did athens has imposed a blanket ban preventing any ship from sitting sail if it plans to sail to gaza what we do know is that one of the ships the french boat which is called the dignity that has some eighty twelve people on board it's a sail yesterday when state but today when it stopped to be feeling create there it was stopped by the greek will find seas and now the ship known as the audacity of hope its american captain was detained the charges were. that he was endangering the safety of passengers he has been released but that is not necessarily

a good sign at all because another ship the canadian ship it is known is that to he not that ship did see it say oh it's also being full steam and turned to greece and made all the passengers and all the crew on board have been detained at the same time there is something happening that's being called a flight and that is an expectation of some six hundred activists from fifty european destinations flying into israel's largest hoping go in tomorrow find a nice many authorities as you can well imagine are on high alert the israeli press is reporting that they have the names of some three hundred people who plan to fly in the israeli police are not confirming that but no doubt they will be a lot of attention tomorrow on the airport where people plan to show their support not only for the tiller but for the people of gaza and palestinians in general. we have more on the stories we're covering here at r.t. dot com here's a quick look at what's there for you the moment one man got himself out of the grain to take revenge on the man who tried to kill him. with one ton of money to

prank causes huge traffic jams on one of moscow's busiest roads as drivers rushed to pick up big money more on that and. all the time. in ten minutes bring you the latest headlines for you before that's an interview with a leading russian astronomer stay with us for that here on alt. thank

you. and only her sister. thank you very much for being with us today you have promised that i'm twenty years time you will have discovered life on other planets are we actually talking about aliens or are merely some of the. talking life forms because one particular form such life cover is a separate question of whether there is life come to legends and civilization are a possibility but this cover of life is of primary importance in want form. of the sun what i'm going to tell you is a paradox the form will definitely be well known to us in my opinion and i believe

experts generally agree on this life and intelligence should they exist elsewhere at all should be highly human like as a scientist would you guarantee one hundred percent that we will discover life yes and i will explain why you see there is this rational scientific outlook on the universe a process can either bigger or if there is at least one similar occurrence of it it is a regular phenomenon for some time scientists believe that the solar system is something unique but nowadays we find that most stars how planets are that we furthermore the formation of planets is an inevitable process that occurs when a giant molecular cloud forms into a star about a thousand parts located around different stars have been discovered to this date over five hundred stars are known to how the planets a million planets are projected to be discovered within the next ten years. moreover some of the recently discovered planets not only resemble the earth by

composition but also seem to have. an oxygen necessarily indicates the presence of life the question time the earth runs out of its resources and they will definitely be depleted someday perhaps in a few billion years do you think there is a chance that humankind will be able to inhabit other planets. if you will you see what you're talking about i'm not an expert on this although i do have a feeling that life is generally organized in such a way have been any species exists for a certain limited period of time it is highly possible humans are no exception the primary destination for human colonization will be the moon and might not live long enough to see this but you definitely will as it will happen within the next twenty to twenty five years three global powers some of the united states the european union and china are already competing for set up the first lunar observatory and hence the first colony on the moon therefore how do you believe in aliens when they will be in what sense do i believe they have visited us of that and their existence

. if there was intelligence and a civilization outside earth then we would call that civilization extraterrestrial but the term is used quite differently by the public to refer to phenomena we supposedly observed here on earth that i do not believe in one of the u.s.s.r. was the only country in its day to host a grand experiment the general staff of issued an order to the various units under the defense ministries command to report any unidentified flying objects they were called on identified atmosphere phenomena about them the program was called up of the net it was divided into two parts the defense ministries net look at what might be traces of new types of weaponry the other than and it's the so-called a n n and looked for phenomena previously unknown to human kind for more than twenty years. of course one sixth of the earth's territory even at as we had military stationed

outside the u.s.s.r. at certain points all those people monitored the skies for u.f.o.'s every single day they detected approximately one thousand out of the usual phenomena only two of which may explain to this day for the rest re the manmade or natural of some of them are amazing you would not believe me if i told you about some of the things that were found people didn't know such things could happen airplanes abandoned by pilots who flew on for days a missile was wanted tempted by passed a passenger jet by a mere two meters we saw something of the sort later on in ukraine i believe it has been proven quite convincingly that extra terrestrials never visited us we recently spoke to jill tarter who works with seti and she told us that the villian so indeed exist there are civilizations should be much older and more advanced than ours and she said ellis was not contact us but there is a joke we have in the fact that extra terrestrials and not contacting us proves that they exist and they're smart but seriously we know that there is no speed

faster than the speed of light it takes light from the star closest to earth for years to reach us it would take us centuries to devise a means of transportation if that would allow us to travel this distance we know for a fact now that the star closest to us is devoid of life the next star the d.s.a. is twenty light years away it would take us. to think of a way to get that physical star travel is impossible that's my belief it's good we would have to revise the whole science of physics miracles do not happen and science. twenty years ago largest country. to. see. what had been committed to each began

a journey. where did it take them. from. the earth. it's.