the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on. today's top stories on the review of the week on our t.v. task of recovery rescuers are preparing to lift the russian cruiser from the bottom of the volga river that's where it sank in a matter of minutes last sunday claiming around one hundred thirty lives. as the operation to raise the sunken ball get really get some the way both investigators and bullets. bring more details from the recovery site in just moments. apologies or just keep on coming from rupert murdoch for an ethical practices by one of his newspapers as he struggles to keep a lid on the scandal are threatening to bring down his media empire. banking on

change libyan rebels now have full diplomatic recognition from washington and with access to colonel gadhafi assets frozen in the u.s. . and international intercontinental cash crunch as america faces up to the possibility of default europe's debt crisis contagion piles more pressure on the view. you're watching of the weekly on artsy is where we feature the stories that made headlines this week it's been described as the biggest grossing disaster in russia's modern history in the space of just three minutes a pleasure cruiser with two hundred eight people on board went down in the volga river taking over half of its passengers with it nearly one hundred thirty people were killed many of them children a week later the operation to raise the ship from the bottom is about to get.

reports. at the moment a dive platform a few kilometers into the river behind me boats keep ferrying for a foot from the base camp here taking divers and crews out to that platform where two huge cranes have been brought up from volgograd further downstream down the river and those cranes have now been used to attach cables to enormous cables around the bottom of the sun can bowl garia now the complications that there are with lifting the ship are all pretty much due to things that happened in those few disastrous minutes last sunday and the first is that the ship when it when it sank and then fell to the bottom it fell on to its left side which mean it means that they could be bodies trapped underneath the left side of that ship and it's also going to need to be righted so it's it's on an even keel before they can lift it so what will happen is and what's due to supposedly according to the information we have could start very shortly is that that that ship will be righted in preparation

to be lifted divers will then be able to go under and search potentially for bodies that may have been trapped underneath that ship another very important moment is going to be when they just start to lift the ship they're going to try and send the divers in to search for essentially for the hole that little water and whatever managed to sustain to sink the ship and when the divers find that they're going to have to repair that hole and pump all the water out before they can lift the ship so in both of those operations they met that may also at the same time hopefully provide answers as to where these remaining fifteen bodies are and also the answer to everyone's talking about why this ship sank a mountain of cuddly toys never to be played like they are flowers and candles a testament to the children among those who drowned when the pleasure boat to bulgaria sank in the volga last sunday.

we study together for a year she never had arguments with anyone sure is very kind of girl and was always ready to help. the ship sank in just three minutes turning a summer afternoon on the river into a scene of horror didn't just is that people were basically buried alive and shame at the coffin we managed to get out through the windows i was there with my ten year old daughter i couldn't rescue her she swallowed sea much water when i was pulled out i realized my child was gone in the chaos to escape and many other families were also torn apart one five year old boy lost his mother and grandmother and was only kept afloat by a man who grabbed his hand another man unable to hold on to his son and the strong current oil slick had to watch him drown in front of him yuri was the d.j. for the disco on the bottom deck he only just managed to escape. and i remember

clearly the water was rising very quickly it was a matter of seconds i survived because we saw two in the sailor started pushing people out through it at that moment on the surface and then sold the board was already underwater. over half the bulgarian two hundred eight passengers and crew including the captain is wife and child never made it out meanwhile as the arabella another pleasure boat arrived at the scene she was surrounded by people screaming and drowning unable to reach the banks of the vast river three kilometers away. as we approached it was hard to distinguish in the dark water people who were alive from the rubble that was floating around people were in panic when we rescued them in a state of shock some suffering from other traumas they were all covered in oil field that was leaking from a sunken ship it was a terrifying picture i have to say despite

a huge search and rescue operation after the initial survivors were picked. this found. the divers and cranes working in this water have been trying to recover just something of the lives lost and families destroyed in those few terrible minutes but they've also been working on the question the cost so much why did the bulgaria sink and sink so fast. as the list of bodies recovered from the ship grew so did the number of revelations about an aging dangerous and badly managed vessel eyewitnesses people connected with the ship came forward with damning accounts of its poor condition and the stingy management who forced it to keep sailing. i became captain of the vessel in two thousand and seven ship had made been renovated for a while before that there were big problems with the engines and power generators repeatedly mention that to the management and even had an argument with them port authorities say they will lie to the ship was only supposed to carry one hundred

forty people but was loaded with over two hundred they were told it was carrying twenty more tales about and including a broken engine and a tricity generators failing so that no s.o.s. signal or tunnel instructions could be issued and blocked emergency exits criminal cases like being opened and arrests being made into the bulgaria center and more controversially into why two ships which we've seen before the hour didn't pick up a single person but of course the crew members instead took her pictures around their mobile phones. is here. with all the passengers were shocked there were about seventeen people on a raft and many had cuts and injuries that were bleeding we yelled for help i saw the board passers by in a different direction towards because on. a slow process of raising the bulgaria has now started up with it will come the potential for answers but also terrible

memories in part. associated with a ship's plane or a group of children gathered when the ship sank. just some of the young victims in what will go down as one of russia's worst and most to avoid a ship. from boston. where the captain of a ship who helped through rescue seventy seven people from the second area has been describing the horrific disaster scene with us here about so you can see it in full in about forty minutes time or find it online right now at our website c dot com we've got all the latest reports on the intense search and recovery operations since the tragedy happened you can keep up to date there and while you're online records you are check out our new tube channel for more stories and of course the rest of us. it's.

the. top stories of the week this is the weekly on artsy british politicians are trying to distance themselves from rupert murdoch denying they were close to his media empire in the wake of the phone hacking scandal but prime minister david cameron has admitted that he's held more than twenty meetings with executives in the past year is now desperately trying to rescue news corps crumbling reputation that today the media mogul made a second apology for the phone hacking scandal and already admitted serious wrongdoing on the pages of british newspapers and met the family of a murdered teenager whose voicemail was intercepted and is also used at laura reports it's a watershed moment for the cozy relationship between britain's politicians and the

press. but every media outlet in town t.v. review even the scary to when art imitates life a long running simpsons takes a shot at its owner rupert murdoch aka montgomery burns in an episode broadcast currently coincidentally this week. but it's not the only piece of timing in the extraordinary phone hacking case it seems to get more scandalous every day the list of something like four thousand names which the police have had since about two thousand and forty thousand and five and yet they promise i see evidence of criminal activity by these individuals and boy by the murdoch empire and yet they have not acted on it so why now just as the murdoch deal to take control of satellite t.v.

giant piece guy be sure to go ahead his rival the guardian newspaper releases catastrophic allegations of a moral journalists and their shady practices that when the deal collapses the times for example which currently loses money could have transferred some of the profits from. into investing in the times for example of the guardian or the daily telegraph that it's not just rival newspapers who stand to gain from murdoch's empire crumbling the b.b.c. could retake t.v. territory loss to b. sky b. and the labor party which was wounded by years of relentless attacks by murdoch papers can finally take revenge but where will all this lead.

that would suit the government's. just fine the british press is famous for its shot teeth and no holds barred talkativeness particularly where its own government is concerned prime minister david cameron has shut down the press complaints commission and already talks of statutory controls to govern print journalists back in springfield mr byrne this as the townspeople open up their own newspaper and he's almost right we. can truly love the media. murdoch found out that it's mr burns that you just can't buy all the newspapers those outside his control have been gunning for him for years and this time they may have succeeded it's just a scene that sets it consolidate control over a lot section of the u.k.'s media markets the drugs being pulled out from under him and it's all over the hidden scandal now revealed that the police did knowing about

it for years newer and it's hot seat. for you this hour here on our worries about default for example why the u.s. is offering a financial nightmare and what it might do to try and avoid. the story of an arab community forced from a century ago and still have no right to return. a new round of nato airstrikes has rattled the suburbs of the libyan capital tripoli that's kind of gadhafi vowed never to leave his country in the face of assaults by the alliance and the rebels this comes after the opposition of became the legitimate authority in the country in the eyes of more nations the us and thirty other states recognize them at a diplomatic meeting on friday saying they would deal with them until an interim government is in place the recognition by the contact group on libya also gives the rebels access to billions of dollars of cafes frozen assets in u.s. banks political commentator ted rowlands says the move is

a radical shift. from the international standpoint. the united states usually doesn't extend diplomatic which mission to add regime that is not in the capital that isn't in power and doesn't even seem likely to be able to achieve power anytime soon but you can look at the situation in afghanistan during the one thousand nine hundred sixty two thousand and one civil conflict there between the taliban in the northern alliance the northern alliance were the former regime. had power in kabul and the diplomatic relations with the west even though the taliban controlled ninety five percent of the country it's always just wishful thinking and frankly if i were a diplomat i would find it disturbing that it's a bizarre situation if the u.s. knows who these people are they're not saying and certainly there's no doubt that traditionally there's always been a very high component of jihadi he's been around and ghazi so it's realistic to

assume that that is not still the case the u.s. has an amazing have it but shipping skids full of hundred dollar bills to third world countries and expecting them to end up in the right hands and really going to have. all of a high level recognition of the rebels may bolster their spirit but it's a different story and combat fierce fighting eastern oil town as i did with heavy casualties among the opposition. to reports it's a thought process as well trying to talking a tactic with if you know regime failing to deliver a knockout punch to khadafi. books is like bragging will destroy the reporter lives there off the wrong and gets a mills the surprise i. french foreign minister should pay postage france would be libya in quotes days or weeks the wars into a fourth month the final round inside nicolas sarkozy with his western

allies seem shocked little opponents fighting back well it's not just an environment for sarkozy to members from for. the whole west paris even admits libya's rebels but it turns some somalia went to libya for training within the last two or three years. documented we have to fly records and everything else so it seems strange in many ways the whole western support of some of the rebel groups in libya must be questioned because in some cases i think we are effectively arming al-qaeda it's all making a mockery of the un vote on foreign intervention in a country where a lady with no good person. learns that living. now. all this well. this is the bigger of libya's causing widespread atrocities for every one military personnel that was supposedly

a casualty there were ten civilians. france categorically ruled out sending troops but experts predict is the only way now to break the libyan padlock the moves the splitting the nato coalition silvio berlusconi head of key partner italy admits invading libya was a mistake rocher of staying in the un's vote warning foreign bombs would bring havoc in libya to paisley abilities told through counterpart sergey lavrov will quote lloyd lee diplomat speak for a blazing row with elections just annoying months away thought it was to set a successful war could resurrect his chances instead one paper writes libya's becoming a slow motion crash for france's deeply unpopular president so as these a jogging fan excessive sweating is understandable this is libyan sprint is turning

into a marathon. see paris. with the top headlines of the week this is our weekly time is running out for american politicians to agree on the next move. story the deadline to lift the nation's fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling is moving ever closer as lawmakers struggle to find a solution president obama is urging democrats and republicans to ignore their differences to avert. leaving credit rating agencies say there's a risk the u.s. could fail to resolve the deadlock quickly or effectively but zeke miller from the business insider website says both parties understand the dangers of boring. so what the credit agencies do and you know we heard from moody's on wednesday and then from s. and p. both warning severe consequences if the government doesn't raise the debt ceiling in time including a possible downgrade from the government's aaa rating and their bad increase of borrowing costs not just for the federal government but for seven thousand miss

apologies across the country the united states i don't think anybody thinks united states is getting away with this any longer they've sort of reached the point where everybody in both parties agrees that the debt is just too hot and they're just they can't borrow any more you can't for you know the sort of annual expenditure it's not a sustainable model for a country if this debt ceiling goes up with the u.s. credit rating is downgraded and that would have you know it's a big problem the current debt the current recession and slow down the recovery. well things are a little better in europe with italy you know the focus of stopping the eurozone from heading into oblivion approved tough seventy billion euro package to avoid that wipe out it's the euro zone's third largest economy could prove too big for its neighbors to bail out meanwhile eight out of ninety european banks have failed stress tests to see if they could survive another financial crisis economics professor patrick miller says some e.u. countries may have to accept default as wealthier nations no longer want to pay for

their rescue. well i think we've known all along that a lot of banks in europe and in the north would not pass stress tests if these stress tests included the possibility of sovereign default because of course they've got loads of greek in portuguese and spanish debt and so there was never any question that one of the reasons why it might be in germany's interest to bail out greece is that it's if it doesn't it's going to have a banking crisis of its own and will have to bail out its own banks but i think that the judgment of the taxpayer is they'd rather bail out their own banks if they have to then keep on giving money to greeks who may never give them give it back to them so there's no bailout really and prosperity of the rich northern countries and therefore the other countries have to think of some way of getting by and that's going to be default. right if we are like the week's top stories here on the weekly let's take

a moment out sutured got some other headlines from around the world today the u.s. led coalition has started handing over control of some of afghanistan's territories to local security forces but central but me on the region it's become the first of seven areas where that to happen ahead of the end of nato its combat operations in the country in two thousand and fourteen senior ministers and foreign ambassadors marked the event by visiting a province which has remained relatively peaceful throughout the new decade long occupation of afghanistan. but as well a president hugo chavez is back in cuba for more cancer treatment including my therapy no more militant cells have been found after surgery to remove a tumor from this region he transferred some powers to his ministers during his absence but didn't agree to opposition calls for a temporary handover of all presidential authority his battle with cancer was raised doubts over his fitness to leave the country but officially he still plans to run for reelection next year. egypt's prime minister has begun

a major cabinet reshuffle after public protests demanding political reform again flared up in the country the foreign minister has resigned while two new deputy prime ministers have been appointed interim prime ministers are being forced to make changes after widespread anger that little appears to have changed at the top since mubarak the former president was ousted. on monday the israeli parliament passed a law forbidding its citizens from boycotting jewish settlements on occupied palestinian territory the decision has already been strongly criticized for violating freedom of expression and damaging the image of israel as a democratic government prime minister benjamin netanyahu faced a stormy parliamentary session on wednesday as he tried to defend the old legislation imposes fines on israeli and the settlement activists and allows settlers to demand compensation no more part of duty from the boycott divestment and sanctions movement in ramallah says the. bill will only make the pro palestinian movement stronger. and has never been a democracy and can never be

a democracy so long as it's an apartheid state so long as it has tens of flaws discriminating between its jewish none jewish citizens so long as it denies millions of palestinian refugees the right to return home and so long as it continues with its occupation of the west bank including his true salaam as well as gaza so a country committing such by the issues of international law and of basic human rights cannot call itself a democracy professor illan popular israeli historian maybe had it right when he said israel is that heaven for which is a democracy only for the master class not for everyone if anything israel is going it's really pushing fast forward in digging their graves of its occupation under apartheid as long as. rights are not respected by israel as well as the occupation continues apartheid continues then i look refugee right continues at least to me and i have no choice but to continue to resist to continue to struggle. well in the

struggle for land rights in israel there's one place that's still a deserted territory it used to be a flourishing palestinian community but now israelis are eyeing it up as a luxury getaway his polish live reports. nestled in the mountains of jerusalem are the remains of a once bustling arab community only the memories of those who once lived here have survived intact i feel. the comeback and the gloomy. and i. have seen the hobson's goodness in. my car that. you could order grew up among the cacti and fig trees but in one nine hundred forty eight just before the state of israel was declared his family evacuated unlike the hundreds of arab villages they disappeared in forty eight and sixty seven most of the original houses of lifter are still here so the only we

heard of june. and shall be. applied. to the whole caboodle whole group a whole. hour another inside the room in a corner and then the table so as to prove to. us he could was one of seven hundred thousand palestinians who became a refugee in one nine hundred forty eight his childhood home was quickly absorbed by the newly established a jewish state almost ridiculous being appalled lived his house in london for nevertheless if he was forced to do just because he was rewritten he is considered as absentee and he lost the property in the early one nine hundred fifty s. jews moved into the abandoned homes like you or your hundreds parents they were also refugees fleeing arab countries will life become dangerous after israel was created these really government simply to live in lifter your lease is to prevent arab

owners from returning or in the current here for leave here near as without water without electricity and here are the jobs that are for them and the memory here is very important most of the original two hundred jewish families lived because life in the mountains was difficult and the government was slow to develop the area no one has lebanese how this for forty six years all that remains are stone walls where wild flowers and grass now grow if there is empty. i didn't see that emptiness that israeli governments now plans to build more than two hundred luxury homes a chicago tel shops and a museum insisting they'll preserve the area's history we will find ourselves with a neighborhood where history has been conserved there will also be documentation and the story will be told of who lives there as we do in all the neighborhoods of jerusalem but many luckier could say it's palestinian land and

a double injustice. roy. and. yeah me. for a rude to be world came from anywhere in the way i got in my feelings and come back . to my privilege and live. with. me. and. so i'm going for palestinians lift is a physical reminder of injustice and survival but for a fair number of israelis it's an eyesore and they'd rather not be reminded of what happened here every time they drive into jerusalem policy r.t. lifter. he is coming to you live from the heart of the russian capital now our several moscow streets are impassable right now but not because of the notorious traffic jams but they've been sealed off the temporarily become the realm of the

fast and furious the annual a moscow city racing show was a full throttle in a four wheeled frenzy that seems drivers pushing the pedal to the metal and i'll be doing each other televisions at top gear team were there to kick it all off or rather push it all off as they send this unlucky miss out on punching seven hundred meters and the bungee yet there was somebody inside a female member of the audience who is hopefully well strapped in both women and the story the woman and machine emerged on stage and even though the heavy rain couldn't stop formula one's cars from speeding past the kremlin it's a sort of rehearsal for the f one grand prix which russia will host and three years' time. all right so i'll be back with a recap of today's news on the week's top stories in just a few moments. richard

disciplinary. words. could the penitentiary system transform a criminal into a law abiding citizen. can prison life behind bars an arche.