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riviera. sutra photo. of tara. the credit rating agencies. to junk status. as the government is muzzling the press to cover up its. international news and comment live from moscow this is. britain's biggest selling

newspaper the news of the world has announced it shutting down in response to the phone hacking scandal that's it follows evidence the paper had been intercepting the phone messages of murder and terror victims as well as dead soldiers papers a jewel in the crown of rupert murdoch's global media and a public inquiry has been promised by the government. has the details. it started off relatively. really with just we understood that 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 we all think the celebrities and politicians are sort of fair game as far as that kind of thing is but then of course it escalated when it was alleged that the sunday at the newspaper attacked in two 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 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 are diligently hacked into the telephone of missing. who was later found to be and we also now know that allegedly seamy a police officer had been wrongly. on a criminal investigations and all the hope that you information the full. 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 an ok from the very highest level and in fact i spoke to someone today who knew the editor of the current editor of the news of the world who said to her 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 tapping attacking something that goes on

throughout news corp and is it an isolated incident within news corp or all the 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 nor am i talking to me from london a little media analyst and author phil reasons told me that the scandal is likely to spell the end of arrangements through which police and politicians depended on coverage by newspapers but since. the paper's closure will have little effect on his media empire 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 diminishing 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 i think of the action that you know that rupert murdoch took shows that they'll be more revelations the program member revered 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 yes it was profitable but he can sacrifice that very easily 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 but i tell you the most important thing in my view is that the

political cast have 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 talking to the learner here on r t still to come in the program the priest attains the last of the boats headed to blockade of gaza and the un is expected to publish a long awaited report. israel's deadly assault on the left is a potential also. this is inexcusable it's careless this negligent it's criminal. a nato campaign in libya is growing criticism it's coming too high a price of stalemate and civilian deaths. unjustified and unfair but with the power to determine the fate of entire countries that's the verdict of germany's finance minister on the world's big three credit rating agencies after portugal had his debt downgraded to junk status the move is having a disastrous effect on the ripping apart the relative calm brought by

a second greek bailout panic is proving contagious with fresh fears emerging that are and may also need another cash injection that comes of germany the use 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 as according to writer and editor patrick young. the european union to three years ago said the problem with credit ratings were that their their ratings couldn't be trusted then all of a sudden when they actually come up with plausible richards against the european union suddenly the finance ministers such as mr short block are 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 under debt problems of the european union not their being almost and suddenly the politicians want to shut them up now realistically i think the question the ratings agencies must ask themselves because they were told here was why they didn't get better returns

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 wave of euphoria that was going on at that stage and actually the e.u. itself how it's been dragging its feet for months over problems in portugal and greece and the difficulty therefore is that the e.u. hasn't acted fast enough on housing. hard 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 with comprehensibly 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 choose some willing to write their economy to deal with their taxation problems and to do with the fundamental problem of the public services. russian hysteria that's how georgia's opposition is described thursday's arrest of four people suspected of spying among them leading photographers including the president's personal snap and this comes after nine russians and georgians were

handed lengthy prison sentences for anti-government activity earlier this week but if you want this kind of reports now 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 mikheil saakashvili the official photographer off the georgian foreign ministry and according to 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 georgia in our forty'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 duty sgt really go who is believed to by the georgian authorities to be the head off of this spy ring and also its connection with the russian intelligence service a lawyer say that this man is grieving ill and his relatives say that they can't even picture of him being a spy because this man could hardly use a more well form but. general various spies 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

a few years ago when georgian authorities announced that he prevented a coup at one of the country's military bases but the opposition says these are published the stance of being conducted by stories 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 tbilisi. one of georgia's main opposition leaders says the arrests are a way for the country's president to hang on to his job. for suckers surely writes novels the continuation of. the may be for these are almost always see in our bodies in ways right here. power because the suction is secondary which we do it in so many sceptic you going

through all these. explanation of the war and you work your craft there is why i ga. is really. your way explanation. but he's going to get so much an agent's orses. and in a couple of minutes report on how some people in russia are a coping with the age old problem of growing old. while in the west people are perhaps about aging mainly because of the associated health problems here in russia aging is linked to poverty loss of dignity and loneliness. that's total come before us russia's foreign minister slammed nato for its cynical actions in libya in an interview with russian t.v. so you lavrov said that the alliance is tactic of bombing the country until colonel

gadhafi steps down has inflicted too many unjustified civilian deaths of or is been following what had to say. we heard from a very vocal of today really criticizing. the essential mission creep of going outside intervention into the libyan situation now he parsons' between what's happening in libya the bombing of the former yugoslavia and fight saying that the bombing campaign by nato against colonel gadhafi has actually gone on far longer than the bombing campaign that was conducted against parts of the former yugoslavia. it's obvious that. the bombing should go on until gadhafi backs off but the human cost of these political statements very high. well it wasn't just libya that was on the agenda. to speak about he also brought up syria he did say this he was concerned

that the focus seems to be wholly on the assad government and how to get rid of. this isn't acceptable that the opposition should resort to violence provoking peaceful protesters to join acts of violence and therefore making them a target for police or security forces a message has been wanting to put across has been that they want to hear voices not violence to try and come to peace in the middle east and in north africa libya. nato claims its targets only military facilities dr franklin lamb director of americans concerned for middle east peace told me that that doesn't match what he's seen for himself in. but 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 to think of them as neighborhood watch over a million have been armed i've seen women here is 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. a

friendship for gaza with aid has been stopped in crete it comes as the un is due to report on last year's israeli raid on a humanitarian fraternal which killed nine turkish activists report has been held back because of the row between israel and turkey which followed the attack neither side can agree on the wording of an apology as paula sneer explains one of 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 the brains so far the israelis have refused to do this the israeli foreign minister in particular avigdor lieberman insisting that israel will not apologize presumably because the israelis are fearful that it will open the floodgates for a whole photos 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 will help in terms of the conciliation it will be much harder for every conciliation to be made after the report is issued but we do understand at this stage is that the view 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 the not 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 speak french boats which is called the dignity that has some eight to twelve people on board it's a sail yesterday when state today when it stopped to refueling crete 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 it will because another ship the canadian ship that is known as the to he met that ship did see it sail it's also being called stupid turn to greece and made 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 it will. find a nice many authorities as you can well imagine are on high and this israeli place 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 the support not only for the tiller but for the people of gaza and palestinians in general. we

have more in the stories we're covering. here's a quick look at what's there for you at the moment should you log on to find out how and dug himself out of a great move to take revenge on the good try to kill him. loose on the web site of the moment a prank calls a huge traffic jams on one of moscow's busiest roads as drivers rush to pick up fake money more or less and plenty of all the stories and features blogs at all to dot com. now in our regular russia close up series our crew takes you to the gateway to siberia.

ural mountains is bisected by the famous trans-siberian railway there is one of russia's main food supply giving a rich agricultural riches with one of the city's as its capital has an aging population. reports it's found a way to give them a helping hand. she may be eighty nine but the xander avon and doesn't have too many happy memories to dwell on a loveless childhood a work colored youth a hard working adult life at twenty five she married an older man and devoted her time to caring for him they do have children so she always knew eventually she'd be alone most people used to ask me why i was so much they would say you don't have kids why do you and i would respond if i had kids they'd help me when i'm old and since i don't have children i needed to work hard at least they would accept me in

a retirement home yet her faith to get trained she could never have expected when alexander could no longer care for herself and was about to move into a nursing home a local family offered to adopt her overnight she received two grown up kids and a granddaughter who seem to need her just as much as she needed them my mother passed away and we just couldn't come to terms with it we were really longing to how grandmother in the house or a device company around this family's part of the senior adoption program pioneered in the qur'an region six years ago the local authorities say it's a win win for all involved senior citizens receiving family care and they're dotting family getting benefit payments in return. one hundred dollars. the month may not seem like a lot but in remote russian villages where jobs are scarce any source of income is valuable. places senior citizen in

a nursing home it's close to local budget between four hundred and five hundred dollars per month but they live with family it's down to about one hundred dollars per person they cannot make a fact is obvious but the most important thing is that elderly people enjoy the comforts of family life yet despite its apparent all round appeal the program is still small involving only around fifty passion and there is a cultural reason for it traditionally in russia elder care has been seen as a responsibility of family members being placed in a nursing home we still associate it with shame and stigma and it seems that the idea of living with strangers is not the easiest south either. one dispassion or join galina and her mother their arrangement was it would be only for a year or so not be seventy two and has no children no close relatives and she is deeply concerned her deteriorating health will be a burden for others. like it here we haven't heard

a single fight for them why should they care for me when they can barely move around i don't want to burden anyone. and not doesn't feel there is a lot to celebrate about being all that helps her remaining time will be brief she says at least now she has somebody to to talk. getting older is one of the biggest fears in the russian society on par with wars over terrorism natural disasters and crime and while in the west people are perhaps that about aging mainly because of the associated health problems here in russia is linked to poverty loss of dignity and war illness. but at least for these two passionate it's no longer the same old story. artsy region. well that brings you up to date for the moment here on r.t. i'll be back with a summer of all my new stories in about eight minutes from now in the meantime with

billions of galaxies and trillions of suns do you believe that we're not alone in the universe next we meet a russian astronomer who says we are playing host to visitors from our interstellar neighborhood.

and in the cluster. thank you very much for being with us today that you have promised that i'm twenty years time you will have discovered life on other planets are we actually talking about aliens or merely some of the. talking life of course what particular form such life is a separate question or pools where there is mine. some television civilization are a possibility but discovery of life is of primary importance in what 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 if not purely scientific outlook on the universe a process can either bigger or if there is at least one similar occurrence of 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 in the furthermore the formation of planets is an inevitable process that occurs when a giant molecular cloud forms into a star about a thousand planets located around different stars have been discovered to this date over five hundred stars are known to have planets a million planets are projected to be discovered within the next ten years with 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 acquires a 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 like you if you will 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 of that 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 or i 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 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 you 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 object 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 people of course one sixth of the earth's territory even move them out as we had military stationed outside the us is all at certain points all those people monitored the skies for u.f.o.s. every single day they detected approximately one thousand out of unusual phenomena only two of which made unexplained this day for the rest were either manmade or natural some of them were 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 once detected 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 a valiant. indeed exist their civilization should be much older and more advanced than ours and she said was not contact us but there is a joke we have in the fact that extra terrestrials are 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 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. is twenty light years away it would take us.