that's crowds gathered in remembrance of those killed by the sinking of the volga pleasure boat it was the younger victims that seem to cast the longest shadow. these schoolgirls had lost one of their classmates. at the most we study together for a year she never had arguments with a new one she was very kind go and was always ready to help us sort of as divers reached the playroom one of the bokhari is up the decks they found the bodies of the children that had gathered that just before the boat sunk islam and once inside the boat the bodies were everywhere in the corridors and cabins most of them were wearing the lifeless. divers now have the awful task of bringing the bodies to the

surface those left behind can only wonder at how fast their families were torn apart. let's go to our colleague was on that ship she went on a cruise together with her family husband five year old son and also she was pregnant and was delivered her second baby in august she is not found yet only her husband managed to survive she and her son died. and for those children left suddenly without parents the terrible truth they may not be able to comprehend for years when she lost her mother and father we're all but will have to look afternoon she's only want to. know is did you tell her we can't she wouldn't understand. there is much that people don't understand about this disaster reports about the ship's engines failing about blocked emergency exits and electricity failure that stopped any s.o.s. or evacuation instructions going out criminal cases have been opened into why two

ships passing straight after the sinking didn't stop to pick up a single person and into why the aging vessel was allowed to sail in the first place but for those who have lost loved ones the case will never be closed tom barton. and on our website artie dot com you can read the account of one man who alone saved almost eighty people from the borg aria many of praise the captain of a ship that stopped and helped the stricken a pleasure cruise or he modestly points to his crew and passengers as the real heroes he said that everyone was touched by what they saw and rushed to help without hesitation he went on to describe how quote they took their own clothes and gave them to the wounded there's more on our website r.t. dot com. washington's proposed missile shield over a year remains a stumbling block in russian american relations that's according to foreign

minister now in the united states. joins us live from our washington bureau with a guy good to see you so it looks like i russia's foreign policy chief will have a chance to shoot some tough questions point blank today what's going on over there in d.c. today. well foreign minister lavrov is meeting president obama this morning and it's taking place the meeting is taking place behind closed doors so there's no way from knowing what they're actually discussing it could be the weather but they are definitely more pressing issues and one of the most irritating ones in the relations between the two countries is america's missile defense plans in europe president obama has scrapped the bush administration missile defense plans but they're going ahead with a new one foreign minister lavrov said where she needs firm legally binding guarantees that the project will not threaten russia's security washington has made reassuring statements before but moscow needs to have it on paper some analysts explain this urge that washington has for getting everything on paper with promises

in the past that were not fulfilled for example when the soviet union collapsed russia was assured that nato would not be expanding towards its borders but it did it continued recording new members so there is an understanding among the russians that words are good but words even legally binding document are better as well despite certain sticking points that still remain in the relations between the two countries the larger i've said the reset has worked he said now we have and i quote here a more reliable more predictable and more consistent partner so he is meeting president obama in a rather amicable and constructive moat in the last few years and the us have reached a landmark deal on arms reduction and cooperation in afghanistan and have gone forward in preparations for russia's accession into the world trade organisation you know the us administration is all for it but there is the u.s. congress which has to lift the jackson event a commitment it's long overdue it's a cold war rally but it's still there standing in the way of free flow of trade

between the two countries because there's those forces in the us who retain those old cold war sentiments and as minister lavrov said old habits die hard. as you're saying you know that moscow and washington do share a close friendship and it seems to be positive but again the european missile defense shield is a major major hurdle to overcome not being two of the world's major players the show should be plenty more to keep them busy apart from zero talking about the bilateral russia u.s. issues or what is on the agenda. well worry on international issues there are certain disagreements and the are being discussed with regards to leave you for example formants the lever of said colonel qaddafi must step down and there's no place for him in the future of libya and that's exactly view shared by the obama administration as well but russia criticizes the scope of the foreign intervention in libya moscow sees the actions of the allied forces there as violation of the un mandate missed the lever of said the resolution is being

wrongly interpreted as anyone can do whatever they want with moscow seizes the west now clearly taking sides in a civil war and extending the conflict talking about syria for minutes the lever of said the attitude of the west is exclusively about exerting pressure on one of the parties namely the syrian government and president assad and moscow sees it as the wrong attitude he said it sends the wrong message to the syrian opposition prompting them to believe that if they remain insistent in the situation keeps getting critical then the west will come to help them the way it is happening in libya miss a lot of said it is unacceptable that the opposition resort to violence agitating peaceful protesters into engaging in armed clashes and effectively turning them into targets for the police and security forces so those are different approaches as you can see and they are being discussed here is a busy day for the foreign minister these are going to live in d.c. thank you. well i still come on the program here on r t the battle for economic

supremacies in asia a look at the growing competition in trade between india and china and who seems to be on the losing end. of the worsening plight of the libyan people as the country faces a major hunger crisis following nato is aggressive bombing campaign. rupert murdoch's media empire has announced it's to withdraw its bid to buy outright control of the u.k.'s biggest satellite broadcaster b. sky b. it's the latest twist to the phone hacking crisis that's engulfed the company as the scandal goes global across the atlantic it's claimed that journalists try to bribe new york police officers for access to victims of voicemail u.s. senators are also calling for their own investigation into news corp meanwhile the british prime minister david cameron has also demanded a probe into the nine eleven claims editor in chief of a news service richard and it's believed the stolen data could easily be misused

and not just by tabloids but where this does become a question for national security is the idea that police are selling private phone numbers in private contact details of people like the royal family and the prime minister well this is not necessarily the same to sell these things to a newspaper as it would be to sell them to a terrorist organization but if you can do one you may be able to do the other so it's very serious the whole edifice of news international is deeply intertwined with the downing street machine all that has yet to come out and will cause a lot more headaches but i think what people talk to and. expecting is for the scandal to go up through the chief executive of news international to james murdoch and james murdoch himself many people say should step down whether he's for. this escape without serious damage is also doubtful although i don't think he's going to retire or leave the helm of the company. now the explosive mixture of media and politics in the hacking scandal that's gripping the world's attention is also

discussed in today's edition of cross talk you can join people of elena's guests next hour here on r.t. but for now a quick preview. in this particular case with news of the world it looks more and more like you had reporters and editors who are engaging in criminal conduct there is no concept of free press anywhere in the world that enables journalists to break the law if someone hacked my voicemail i would love to see them in jail but if you look at the criticisms that are being leveled at murdoch it goes far beyond that people are using this as an opportunity to attack him for his politics and for a straight and see as for his partisanship. in. our twelve minutes past the hour here in moscow wiki leaks founder julian assange is fighting against extradition in a london court for a second day the world's most famous whistleblower is wanted in sweden for

questioning over sexual assault allegations however investigative journalist attorney gosling thinks the case against him is focused more on destroying his name than on presenting any substantial evidence. still hasn't been properly charged with any crime in sweden this is the crazy thing about this entire case they want to extradite him for questioning but he hasn't been properly charged and it seems that the european arrest warrant has been used for this there hasn't actually been any kind of proper probably face is the evidence presented in sweden to show that he has committed a crime this is just he's just a very basic suspect i would draw a comparison with what we've seen in the dominique strauss kahn biomass case and that is that this looks to me to be some kind of sting operation so that the political people that don't like what the senate is doing their chance to get at him and he's becoming quite clear now that the us can there may be actually no prosecution finally in new york against him and i think we may well see the same

with. you without seeing life from moscow now the eurozone has been dealt a fresh blow as ireland's debt is downgraded to junk status by the moody's credit rating agency it's fueling concerns the country could need a second bailout this comes a week after portugal's rating was also reduced and follows speculation that italy might soon ask for a helping hand pull not northwest england has told r.t. that the latest developments prove that the single currency union is simply not working. this was always about politics it was not about economics the idea that you could have a column east in the mediterranean in line with economies like germany fast growing economies like germany was never going to wait the only way to get out of this mess is for those countries to go back on to their national policies to devalue to get growth moving. once again exports going in at the moment they can't reduce their debt because they couldn't see these are controlled by frankfurt they're controlled

by the european central bank they're not controlled by athens or lisbon or even talk of the people out on the streets in athens and i just wonder how long it will be before the people out in the streets in rome and in lisbon and in the open this thing is contagious this thing will move right across the continent specifically in the mediterranean and the big issue now facing the european union is really really is the third largest economy in the eurozone this place largest economy in the world i think the eurozone can actually cope with greece and portugal the smaller economies but if italy goes the whole thing could cave in because if italy goes italy's economy is intertwined with spain's and spain and italy go then we are in serious trouble the euro is inextricably to the whole project and it's linked to the european union if the eurozone goes quite frankly you can see this whole thing breaking go but that is why they're so desperate to keep it that's why this whole desperate to say that we in the u.k. are fed up with bailouts and the only way for these countries to survive is to

break out of this prison which is the euro zone. the world's it's two fastest growing economies india and china appear to have reached an economic faceoff the two countries have huge mutual exports but on india's part it's mostly wrong materials china specializes in manufactured goods the trade imbalance is putting new delhi at a growing disadvantage as artie's pria reports. it's dragon versus tiger in the battle for asian supremacy india and china are two of the fastest growing economies with the world's largest population vying for power and prestige in asia and beyond but where india led the way in i t and back office is china research head in mobilizing its masses onto the factory floor fuelling a huge trade deficit and a reality india is forced to accept that china is normal. moving. things that india post

world class space in nuclear programs yet struggles to create every day jobs making every day goods something this cotton tycoon knows all too well it's cheaper for him to export to china to get the job done than let india buy it back. we make a profit of ten percent more in the international market than the domestic market ironically it's indian efficiency that's part of the problem with supply rapidly outpacing domestic demand. if we don't export then the cotton prices in india will crush and farmers will suffer as they won't get even the original price this will increase the quantity of cotton and even the indian government is encouraging the export of cotton here in the cotton fields of india lies the heart of the indian chinese trade relationship more than seventy percent of the exports from india to china are raw materials like cotton however ninety percent of the exports from china to india are manufactured goods if india is selling well then why should it

matter while having a twenty billion dollar gap with your next door neighbor puts power in their hands and makes jobs in savings dry up at home and economists know that only by sewing up a successful manufacturing sector will india's large unskilled workforce be soaked up but it's a blind spot that's leading to blind faith. and we should focus on the. rest of the. indian traders seem satisfied too because the set up means the money keeps rolling in. the benefits in exporting is that we get a bigger volume of cotton and will to get paid on time but new delhi is worried knowing it has to cut its cloth before its economic run of luck is sewn up preassure there are tea in the air india. well you can always find more from you on

our website including the latest news and blogs and expert analysis here are some of the items i got for you there right now at our two dot com a snapshot from the stars how you could soon be able to see a picture of yourself taken from all of it with two special spy cameras installed at the international space station plus from catwalk to kept there was anything but model behavior at a russian fashion show as a world of beauty turned ugly. i know the full story behind the high heeled hostility. or they have already suffered months of civil war but now hunger could be the latest threat facing people in libya tripoli says the violence has meant that not even a fifth of the country's harvests are being gathered they want to dire consequences of fighting continues over the next few months stephen brown from our front page online magazine says that nato has rushed to intervene in libya looks like a major mistake the whole thing has backfired on both causey on

a nato they thought was going to be an easy victory they simply got caught up in. in their own human rights. going to the u.n. waging war of the u.n. and this is the result you know there's no decision this costing tens of millions of dollars to millions are being killed libyan civilians this shows of the war was never the libyan civilians it was about making sure the oil stayed safe with britain and france. and plenty more of our top stories at our website including interactive content where you can get involved if you want to dot com or you can tell us what you think may bring around the operation in libya bring it to and that is look at the stats and see what your opinions are and where they stand a pretty divided the majority of you believe massive protests in the country is part of. the campaign while others are split between. i think of the. escalating cost of the operation the killing of. tara at times.

dot com and. all right so let's check out some other international headlines for you this hour thousands are protesting in the egyptian capital cairo for the day demanding the removal of the military council and threatening to expand their sit ins and. demonstrators are also calling for president hosni mubarak and his aides to face prosecution for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising in february the military has warned protesters against using violence but. the half brother of the afghan president hamid karzai has just been buried in kandahar. i was murdered in his home there on choose day the taliban has described the assassination as biggest achievement in ten years shortly after the ceremony two explosions were reported in kandahar and a regional governor narrowly escaped a roadside bombing on his way to the funeral. time now for the business update with

maria. how well mark onto business here in our duty now ratings agencies like s. and p. and moody's have become the subject of vicious attacks from politicians across europe the agency's claim to give an independent assessment of the credit worthiness of countries but they have been blamed for helping cause the crisis by stirring up alarm or to discuss this i'm joined by an if i sense from that australia bank hello and thank you for joining us now can you tell us just how important is the assessment of a credit rating agency. very important in two different ways there first of all important because they set minimum standards against which investors can judge themselves there's a. credit rating which is applied to a bond and if a bond doesn't meet that credit rating an investor is simply not allowed to buy it

so i think it's important in that sense it's important also because it sets a psychological tone but i think we shouldn't over exaggerate their role because often the ratings agencies themselves are merely following what the market has already done so if the market is already moved to raise the interest rate on a country's debt significantly then the ratings agency will view that as having been a sustainable move and then will move its own rating to exhibit of interaction there's a bit of ebb and flow there's a bit of a two way movement there but they are very important in setting minimum criteria against which investors can actually buy bonds now they love why do you think that they're attracting all these complaints from politicians. what's a very good question actually at the moment attracting a lot of complaints simply because they're doing the job rather well now the ratings agencies quite justifiably came in for a lot of criticism during the global financial crisis they were accused of being

over up to mistake they were taking some fairly generous assumptions about its ability to repay there were sometimes overlooking some fairly fatal flaws in some derivative structures and it's fair to say i think most reasonable people would agree that perhaps the ratings agencies did contribute to the global financial crisis however i think there's been a notable improvement in standards over the course of the last two or three years and the fact that the ratings agencies now are actually getting so much criticism from european finance ministers probably suggest they're doing the job rather well . there is an argument that their ratings are biased that budget position of the u.k.'s far worse than in russia for instance yet it has a better rating. you know i don't think they're necessarily biased i think what they are doing is taking into account a broader range of factors than simply debts and the immediate ability of a country to repay eight for example japan has got a debt to g.d.p.

ratio of more than two hundred percent but the ratings agencies are rather happy to live with that because of the number is significantly higher than greece for example but the ratings agencies say two things first of all japan is a developed economy and it will over time create tax revenues and also it's got a very high level of savings so therefore it's able to finance its debt through internal sources when they look at the united states which is currently got a aaa rating frankly i think if the u.s. was in europe it would be something like a single a think the u.s. moved most definitely be downgraded if it was in europe but they look at us and say traditionally the u.s. has been a reserve currency that investors all over the world want to hold they see that trade is denominated in u.s. dollars and that itself. gives what's known as sonia a job gives a right to some income which otherwise wouldn't accrue to the country so it only gives necessarily bias but i can understand that sometimes it can seem a little unfair but i think that unfairness itself and that charge that somehow the

ratings agencies are not doing well actually i think it rather shows that they're doing the job. now let's go back to russia for a second prime minister putin says he'd like to see in a russian rating agency now how to go about building trust and be fair like you said. well it's a really ironic out here because the only way in which an ratings agency can build independent global credibility is if it seems to be free of all pressure now the only way in which it can really be seen to be free of all pressure is to produce a lower ratings on the ball all the assets that it sounds to consider rather than produce high ratings because after all if a new ratings agency whether it was in europe or whether it was in russia or whether it was anywhere else in the world if a new ratings agency miraculously decided in its opinion the rating was substantially higher than anyone else had previously thought i think that would

raise grave doubts about its credibility so ironically enough the only way that a new agency can build credibility is to produce a lower rating which of course would defeat the whole purpose of the object. nick parsons global head of foreign exchange bradley at national australia bank thank you very much for your insights. now let's take a look at the markets u.s. markets open this hour we are seeing positive in the seas there after a better than expected chinese growth gave a lift to sentiment and the european markets are mixed this hour after a downgrade of ireland by moody's rating at strange agency gets over and that bar is in focus group as are three point six percent so london making it the top gainer and that's as the luxury goods and. thirty percent in the first quarter. and here in moscow the markets are also mixed as direction remains uncertain in light summer trade. let's take a look at some individual movers on the my sex burbank has slipped into the red

that the losses are limited by an earlier report of hundred eighty percent jump in first after that profits or all carly is up more than one and a half percent after the even left that whole trash imports from russia and coal miner are spots korea is continuing its rally on expectations of its pick up a bit from the. and that's all the business news for now and join us for another obviates in less than an hour's time.

blind rush is going to be so much brighter if you knew about song from feinstein pression some. meals for instance on t.v. don't come. in india oh she's available in the movie the joint the hotel rooms the isle of violence the gateway to the grand imperial trying to talk west coast coromandel new kind of let her tell the closeness of her to say don't need to go and. run the sun

the candle was her job as a treat. now at six thirty pm here in the russian capital you with on me a quick recap now the top stories of the bodies of over one hundred people including many children being recovered from the boulder rip off the side of sunday as the sinking of a pleasure comes from rescuers continue the search for more. the american. russia u.s. relations. now on a visit to. the eurozone economic crisis deepens. downgraded to junk it's fueling fears the country.

now tipped to be. the man in charge of the. country's tackling the flow of illegal substances from central asia and europe. the problem of drugs and drug trafficking go anywhere no matter how much we fight it and today we're meeting with the head of russia's federal drug service. to talk about the details of his fight and the problems that. are trying to drugs on the global scale. thank you very much for joining us today according to a. more than seven thousand people have died in russia. since the beginning at the same time there are other. number is actually more than one hundred thousand

and that is actually. why is there such a huge difference in the numbers. you see the figure of seven thousand dead reflected in the number of people who actually died from poisoning that is they took such huge doses that their organs failed most drug users however don't die from overdosing they know how to measure that the reason for most drug related deaths is internal organ failure due to regular consumption do you think it's time . to implement some sort of punishment for drug use we have proposed a bill to distinguish between levels of crime which is being upheld by the government individuals selling large quantities of drugs will be in for more severe punishment all the way up to a life sentence for people not involved in drug related crimes will consider alternative action which may mean offering them the option of taking a therapy course instead of punishment.