the hotel rooms the home of the gateway hotel the grand imperial truly the taj was the bush coromandel that's hotel the closeness of which i don't need to go and. read the same the colonel was hotel treat. today's top stories in the review of the week for not see the talk of recovery rescuers are struggling to lift the russian cruiser from the bottom of the fold the river where it sank in a matter of minutes last sunday claiming one hundred twenty nine. relatives and investigators are looking for answers as to why the ship sunk so fast we'll bring you all the details from the recovery site in just a moment. the scandal claims another skulk britain's top cop quits the focus of the florrie over the phone hacking scandal switches to the police the former news international c.e.o. rebecca brooks is arrested earlier in the day. banking

on change libyan rebels now have full diplomatic recognition from washington and with its access to colonel gadhafi has assets frozen in the u.s. . and intercontinental cash crunches america faces up to the possibility of default europe's debt crisis contagion calls more pressure. you're watching the weekly on r.t. with the main headlines of the past weekend also the latest developments. it's being described as the biggest boating disaster in russia's modern history in the space of. three minutes of pleasure cruiser with two hundred eight people on board

went down in the volga river taking over half of its passengers with it and one hundred thirty people were killed many of them children a week later the operation to raise the ship from the bottom is underway but it's proving to be a serious challenge as tom barton now reports. as if to demonstrate just how difficult recovering the ball gary is going to be the cable holding it just snap for the norm might see buying the crane holding it rocked backwards and the cable whips up against the side of the ship that cable was there to try and support the ship to try and write it before that again live from the ship with other straps the later to be put under it is certain demonstrate just how difficult and dangerous this operation is going to be if there were divers under there they could have been in great danger from the snapping cable they'd previously been trying to turn the ship around to get it into position in order that they could write the ship and then bring it up to the surface but there's

a lot of other complications involved very poor visibility a lot of weight involved and a long a long and lengthy process is going to be needed we were told just recently by a spokesman from the emergencies ministry it's going to take many days before they can begin to even start raising the ship that's going to come as a blow to all the investigators who were hoping for answers to come from the raising of the ship and all the relatives and survivors waiting on the bank for some news of the remaining fifteen bodies a mountain of cuddly toys never to be played with they the 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 she was a very kind 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. is that people were basically buried alive anti-matter coffin he managed to get out through the windows i was there with my ten year old daughter i couldn't rescue her she swallowed too much water when i was pulled out i realized much. it was gone in the chaos to escape 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 in the strong current oil slick had to watch him drown in front of him yuri was the deejay for the disco on the bottom deck he only just managed to escape. i remember clearly that water was rising very quickly it was a matter of seconds i survived because we saw a broken window in the cellar started pushing people out through it at that moment

pushed me up on the surface and then saw that the board was already underwater. over half the bulgaria's two hundred make 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 the sunken ship it was a terrifying picture i have to say despite a huge search and rescue operation after the initial survivors were picked up he were others 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 of 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 on the stingy management who forced it to keep sailing. i became captain of the vessel in two thousand and seven the ship hadn't even 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 were lied 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 of bound including a broken engine at a tricity generators failing so that no s.o.s.

signal or tunnel instructions could be issued and blocked emergency exits criminal cases like you know and arrests being made to the bulgaria simpler and more controversially into whites from ships which reached the scene before the our fellow didn't pick up a single person that reports the crew members instead took three pictures of on their mobile phones the way you have is a pleasure to go into and you will hold 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 boards passers by any different direction towards cars 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 particular associated with the ship's place where a group of children were gathered when the ship sank. just some of the young victims in what will go down as one of russia's worst and most of voidable shipping

disasters tom bottom. the captain of a ship who helped rescue seventy seven people from the sinking ball carrier has been describing the horrific disaster scene in an interview with r.t. and you can see that in full next hour. london's police commissioner has resigned as britain's newspaper phone hacking scandal escalates still further it follows revelations he hired a former news of the world journalist as a media advisor at the same time as his force was supposed to be investigating the paper's conduct just hours before that before the news of the world executive rebecca brooks was arrested and with claims of hacking and bribing police and media analyst and reporter phil reese told me earlier here in r.t. that the practice of police being paid for information by the media is not likely to disappear any time soon. this is a good example of what the police have been doing in the kind of murdoch years they've been using a recip in leaking they're being paid for telling people when celebrities have been

arrested so actually manipulating the rest of people and it's actually a practice that has become in trying now in my view as a result of the kind of bribery thing so this would hardly be out of practice but i don't think it's going to deflect opinion i mean there are so many m.p.'s now and indeed so much of the british establishment which for so long kowtow to murdoch is now prepared to get to the bottom of this and weed out those people who have been corrupted and different levels remember that four years ago right the police had these bags with i think it was a leaven thousand letters about four thousand celebrities and victims of crime and all these other people and they knew they were taking part investigation and these bags were just left there i mean it's amazing it's remarkable that it took four years for them to do anything about this meanwhile senior police officers were wining and dining with members of the murdoch empire they were they were meeting them for drinks privately one even hired them a thousand pounds a day to work for him so you know what does this tell us about the relationship

between the police and the news corp employees well it's very very serious and if this can happen at the top of the police look at the example that gives the officers down down the lines now you could well you know can any organization properly examine itself but so much is at stake but if that operation is seen to be corrupted as well i think we've got you know an even bigger problem and i think so many people now are watching it including you know members of parliament select committees that investigative bodies within the british political system they're all all eyes are on this let alone all the journalists who are looking at what's going on so i think that the ramifications of this is so big i mean you know britain is this is shaking at this each day it's headline news and people are asking who's next. phil reached for him to be a little earlier a senior aide to afghan president hamid karzai has been killed in the capital kabul lothar a group of armed men attacked his home it happened on the day the u.s.

started handing over control of some of afghanistan's provinces to local security forces and less than a week after the assassination of president karzai hearth brother wall for more on these latest developments i'm now joined from chicago by steven levy a progressive radio news host and author stephen the half brother and a key aide of the afghan president both killed in less than a week because i was saying just as the u.s. hands over power to local forces in parts of the country what do you make of the timing of this. i think the term used last year accidental but i recall a early article i wrote i'm going to have here and several years ago i called it the last war. and it is for. the president but on a story with a small security detail you know be practical a marine division to go see him. very carefully but if he

came up with a small security engine he would last five minutes. the resistance live bearers want to liberate the country toward the plate or they'll take any opportunity here to try to get any official if he were able. to really comes out here who don't want to be happy to know who they want to take full of beer if you're but it's more about sending a message to america to nato good by pulling out of some of these provinces they're making a big mistake and it's too early you say the timing is accidental isn't it more symbolic from the taliban. well if if if if if a person killed at any point in time and wasn't with the person one knows it would have to wait for another time so here's this symbolism in the all i would say is more determination and symbolism bill i mean i meet these people very bitter women

liberated country very brave is exactly what the vietnamese did they were here for occupation the afghan resistance which is what i call them they will not stand for resist those basic above feel wage will grow below where obama came and offers there were thirty thousand u.s. troops near the tree more than triple the number of one hundred thousand now we clear so he says to one for a ten thousand but the end of the shia more next year well they need to change their plans if there's one more important recall involved not only under a hundred thousand u.s. troops thirty or forty thousand other troops there are well over one hundred thousand private security contractors blackwater types they were. included i had mercenaries you never hear is discussed in egypt media so combat

forces way from onil private security forces may go in and take the place america came to afghanistan to stay here not leaving so your saying that there really will be no withdrawal as such and yet a bomber is trying to send that message to the american people not mainly to score political points ahead of his possible reelection who want to think the american people won't fall for that oh the american people can look over all the. issues and of why did he still be so many of his no would grow from iraq or afghanistan he was no leader all i hear from you and from germany. south korea from italy and there were sixty five years ago we'll hear a very strategic reason for being in these countries all the way or growth would never happen for maybe all of them this is the strategic reasons cheery but it

gives you a very important country there's a lot of oil in the past be an area where russia is competing with with america and america wants every way garbage can gear it using afghanistan as a pipeline for incident system to build able yeah they've built with a war but it's also a living being spirit area targeting russia so if you can show. even at the definition between combat troops and support troops now do you think though the afghan forces already really going to be able to take control clearly they will still need some help from those support troops not the combat troops because there are reports though from areas of the country that there are areas of stability which should in fact be a sign for hope and indeed if those afghan forces have support from american forces that's had to promote stability further is it not well not certain. in u.s.

. forces or you know you've reported attacks by afghan forces killing u.s. forces how loyal can these people be we're proud of the afghan forces because they needed a chair a little human is extremely high and reach these people or if you're. iraqis want to cure of so maybe component of forces if americans which will dampen hooley of the world to the americans or. maybe even more people will do the wrong despite you being very insistent that there is actually no put out no withdrawal the actual talk of u.s. led forces being pulled up by a bomb. with these timetables it's actually really giving encouragement to the taliban to fight even more it's sending the wrong message could be could be right but i think they're determined anyway and i've not recently all made

a year ago i called my local u.s. commanders on the ground so low that clarke and me are just a little bit curious were all including general well officers it meaning the air here war is lost it cannot be won and our center mysel in this is a fair america wages war not just the windham but the wages them because the profits are so great the war profiteers one of these wars waged so here and war is the longest the us is three years from now we need the air i mean by far the longest in u.s. history because we knew the money to be made a ten million dollars ten billion dollars we know or don't read every book besides the regular theater appropriations bill e.s.p.n. or you were rationed this is money the honor and all the way to profiteers bill

ok stephen thanks very much indeed who knows in ten years' time you and i may still be talking about this thank you very much and be civil and progressive radio news host and author joining us live there in chicago if you feel. the time is running out for american politicians to agree on the next move in sorting out its soaring that at nine to lift the nation's fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling is looming ever closer as lawmakers struggle to find a compromise president obama is urging democrats and republicans to ignore their differences to avert armageddon leading credit rating agencies say there's a risk the u.s. could fail to resolve the deadlock quickly effectively the budget is approved fund managers say it's unlikely to solve the problem of america's debt. you know and the state already has been downgraded in the world markets every i'm not the only person who knows that united states is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world look at their value of the u.s. dollar is down fairly significantly over the past few years they have to increase again ceiling for the moment there's no question about their choice though for the

future is they've got to take an axe no they've got to take a chainsaw to government spending and do something about it they're not going to do that they might announce they're going to do it for this to get the budget ceiling passed but it's going to have any effect everybody sees that washington is not going to solve this problem and more and more people are looking for something to replace the u.s. dollar. things a little better in europe with italy now the focus of stopping the eurozone heading into oblivion runs approve the tough seventy billion euro package to avoid the need for they not it's the euro zone's third largest economy could prove too big for its neighbors to say meanwhile eight out of ninety european banks have failed stress tests to see if they could survive another financial crisis for sure and people not all believe the latest developments prove 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 colonies in the mediterranean in line with economies like germany fast growing economies like germany was never going to where the only way to get out of this mess is for those countries to go back on their national policies to devalue growth moving. into exports going in at the moment because if they're there 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 lisburn or even talk of greece or the people out on the streets in athens i just wonder how long it will be because the people out in the streets in rome ran in lisbon and thought 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 italy italy a third largest economy in the euro zone of late largest economy in the world i think the eurozone can actually cope with greece and portugal the smaller economies if italy goes the whole thing could cave in because if it really goes italy's

economy is intertwined with spain's and of spain and italy go then we are in serious trouble. a new round of nature where strikes as rattle the suburbs of the libyan capital tripoli as colonel gadhafi valid never to leave his country in the face of assaults by the alliance and the rebels this comes after the opposition became the legitimate authority in the country in the eyes of more nations and us more than thirty other states recognizing that a diplomatic meeting on friday saying he would deal with them until an interim government is in place recognition by the contact group on libya also gives the rebels access to billions of dollars of gadhafi has frozen assets in u.s. banks but as one commentator ted rall says the move is a radical shift from the international stamp. the united states usually doesn't extend to diplomatic recognition to a regime that is not in the capital that isn't and 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 nine hundred ninety six to two thousand and one civil conflict there we couldn't tolerate on in the northern alliance the northern alliance were the former regime that had power in kabul and the interior diplomatic relations with the west even though the taleban controlled ninety five percent of the country it's almost just wishful thinking and frankly if i were a diplomat i would find it disturbing 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 even around and ghazi so it's unrealistic to assume that that is not still the case the u.s. has an easy habit of shipping skids full of hundred dollar bills to third world countries and expecting them to end up in the right pants and that's not really going to happen. now let's have a quick look at some other stories from around the globe egypt's former president hosni mubarak has suffered a stroke and is in

a coma according to his lawyers doctors reportedly working to bring the eighty three year old opposed leader to consciousness but health officials and state t.v. have denied saying the barracks condition is stable becomes of the country's prime minister reshuffled his cabinet in response to renewed public protests demanding political reform. and that's why the president hugo chavez is back in cuba for more cancer treatment including chemotherapy and more malignant cells have been found after he had surgery to remove a chimney from his pelvic region and he's transferred some powers to his ministers during his absence but didn't agree to opposition calls for a temporary handover of all presidential authority he's battled cancer has raised doubts over his fitness to lead the country but officially he still plans to run for reelection next year. or constitutionally speaking charges could be way for up to one hundred eighty days at which point of rice president will be sworn in to act as president until the next elections well for more on the situation there now

let's speak to run away venezuela based journalist. thanks very much for being with us here on r.t. so hugo chavez says that he still plans to run for reelection next year but just how much of an issue all of these health problems to. his holding on to power there in venezuela. isn't holding on to power first of all i mean he's been elected each time he has been in office and certainly were he to run again most likely as polls showed today he would win so it would be an election of the people it's not a hold on power and of course i mean no one knows no one ever knows what can happen with your out so you know he's he's trying his best right now as he calls it himself he's fighting the greatest battle of his life to come out of this situation on top and so far he's been doing excellently i mean he had the humor extracted in june no more cells have been found cancer cells are in found his body obviously the

chemotherapy is a necessary precaution he's going to do it and you know he has the right attitude he has a positive optimistic attitude so as long as all things go well scientifically and medically personally physically emotionally he should be prime but nevertheless he is having to delegate for the first time ever could this not though we can his position i don't think so i mean basically the functions that he's delegated are administratively nature and i mean there are things that he could continue to do i mean he's not going to be mentally incapacitated you know he's just going to be physically distant and you know i lead going undergoing treatment but he still will remain in front of government be activated electronic signature so he can sign his three documents he's going to be in via teleconference on different cabinet meetings and of course he's already on even though he's getting his first chemo today he's tweeting about things happening in the country here is part you know i'm

t.v. involving everything. people are quite surprised he has gone back to cuba or not stayed in his country those questions have been raised and you would of course be a lot easier for him to keep an eye on what's going on if he stayed in caracas not really in fact the opposition was primarily speculating and pushing for him to go to brazil i mean it just so happens you know the opposition. it's value is very right wing it is very anti q grants and have a thing against cuba were he to have chosen to go to brazil i don't think they're out it would have been the same whatever he'd have chosen to go to the united states they probably wouldn't have said a word about it so it's really just because it's cuba it's an old nemesis you know the latin american right wing and so there are certain old fears are stirred around that by i mean again the powers that he delegate delegate are going to strain to really about signing necessary financial documents things that he could do by it would be better and more efficient to have the vice president but in the first. let

me just ask you he has been a clear opponent of washington with his alliances with cuba of course iran and syria there are some who say that his health problems could be exploited by the u.s. to try to remove him. they are being in the us and in fact. with those in the opposition well one is through sort of the psychological campaign in media just trying to portray this perception of a weak child of an ailing child as of a terminally ill child isn't trying to sort of stand it when he hears it wasn't. or . chop it i mean he's already gone through the biggest part of this which was obviously the surgery and coming out of it not having lingering cells and i think we are pretty much are familiar with working with therapy and luckily i mean he's in he's in a good spot none of his organs have been affected it's not a cancer of an organ and. there was no spread whatsoever i mean he has pretty good chances so the image though being protected and yes i mean he has fallen els so

it's a surprise and and a shock for many in venezuela but again we've seen him over the past few days a strong passionate. as he usually does in bands and i mean sort of back to as much as he can going to his usual level of energy and recognizing at the same time the necessity to delegate and not just because he has to undergo matter but you remember because he needs to do that anyway i mean he's someone who because of his own feeling. and responsibility of the things that need to be done in this country has taken it all upon himself and nobody can do that i mean he's tried to do it and it's taken a toll on his body so i think that delegating part is going to be a very good result overall for venezuela all right and actors in venezuela that the tries somehow to say that this is a power vacuum or i would just remind people that in the united states ronald reagan and candidate three cancers during his presidency and in fact was operated on in one thousand eight. hundred of the most remembered presidents of the united

states thanks so much we've run out of time thanks very much for joining us live there in caracas. of our top stories for you in just a few moments there with us live in moscow. for the full scale we've got it from the biggest issues get the human voice face to face with the news makers on the t.v. . wealthy british style it's time to.