the home of the that's the gateway to the grand imperial surely the torch was pushed. socialist you see don't need to go and. read this and the colonel was hotel to retreat. he snapped cable has forced rescuers to restart the complicated operation to live through the massive bulgaria cruiser ship that sank a week ago claiming one hundred twenty nine lives. the murdoch media phone hacking scandal claims another v.i.p. scalp as britain's top cop quits over police connections to journalists suspected of criminal behavior former news international chief executive and the news of the world editor rebecca brooks was arrested in the day in london. and libyan rebels have been recognized as a legitimate governing authority by the country by the u.s. and thirty other countries but perle khadafi remains defiant in val's never to

leave libya as nato airstrikes continue. and a transatlantic a cash crunch as america struggles to raise its debt ceiling in time to avert a default while the euro crisis spreads adding more pressure on the single currency . and broadcasting live direct from the heart of moscow this is r.t. certainly glad to have you with us russian emergency crews are to restart efforts to lift the wreck of a sunken cruiser which went down in the river volga last week killing one hundred twenty nine people including many children a cable snaps during recovery efforts which have had to restart the cruise or bowl garia went down in minutes leaving most of the two hundred passengers no chance of escape in one of russia's worst ever shipping disasters are g.'s time barton

reports from the side of the catastrophe. as if to demonstrate just how difficult recovering the ball carrier is going to be the cable holding it just snap for the norm mighty bang 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 they began lifting the ship with other straps that were later to be put under it it serves to demonstrate just how difficult and dangerous its 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 into position in order that they could right 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 a one she was a very kind of girl and was always ready to help. 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 in time michael coffin we managed to get out through the windows i was there with my ten year old daughter i couldn't rescue her she small i too much water when i was pulled out i

realized my. child 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 and the strong current oil slick had to watch and drown in front of him yuri was the d.j. for the disco on the bottom deck he only just managed to escape me if i remember clearly that water was rising very quickly it was a matter of seconds i survived because we saw the window and the sailor started pushing people out through it. weaves in the surface and then i saw that the daughter was already underwater. over half the bulgaria's two hundred eight passengers and crew including the captain his 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 fuel 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 up a few others were found. but 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 ageing dangerous and badly managed vessel eyewitnesses and people connected with. ship came forward with

damning accounts of its poor condition and the stingy management before stick to keep sailing. i became captain of the vessel in two thousand and seven the ship had need 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 portal 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 balance including a broken engine electricity generators failing so that no s.o.s. signal or tunnel instructions could be issued and blocked emergency exits criminal cases have been opened and arrests being made into the bulgaria sinking and more controversially into why two ships which reached the scene before the arab didn't pick up

a single person but reports the crew members instead took pictures on their mobile phones. 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. the 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 plane room or 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 avoidable shipping disasters. r.t. . in an exclusive interview with r.t. the captain of a ship who helped rescue most of the survivors from the border area has described the horrific scene you can watch his dramatic account next hour on our t.v.

or on our website our kinda. britain's most senior police officer has resigned the latest high profile casualty caught up in the news of the world phone hacking scandal which continues to escalate sir paul stephenson quit as metropolitan police commissioner following revelations that he hired a former deputy editor of the paper who had been arrested by his own officers investigating illegal acts of mobile phones and corruption earlier in the former news of the world editor rebekah brooks was arrested as part of the same inquiry media analyst says the practice of police being paid for information by the media is not likely to disappear anytime 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 been leaking they're being paid for telling people where the celebrities have been arrested so actually manipulating the rest of people around is actually a practice that has become in trying or 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 the 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 level of 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 remarkable that it took four years for them to do anything about this and 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 to. on 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 i think so many people now are watching it including you know members of parliament select committees these are 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 in it's shrinking of this each day it's headline news and people are asking who's next. meanwhile rupert murdoch is trying to rescue news corp's a crumbling reputation he's spent the last forty eight hours apologizing for the phone hacking scandal with full page newspaper advertisements while also meeting the family of a murdered teenager whose voicemail was intercepted and as laura emmett reports it's a watershed moment for the cozy relationship between britain's politicians and press

. remediate on t.v. reveal even the scariest when art imitates life a long running simpsons takes a shot at its own no rupert murdoch aka montgomery burns in an episode broadcast apparently 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 and nine so it's the police of have since about two thousand and forty thousand and five and yet they got private facie evidence of criminal activity by these individuals and boy by the murdoch empire and yet they've not acted on it so why now just as the murdoch deal to take control of satellite t.v.

giant piece. sure to go ahead he's or tribal 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 you could have transferred some of the profits from. investing in the times and if you will for example the. growth you would welcome 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 lost 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 be.

that would suit the government just fine the british press is famous for its sharp teeth and no holds barred doggedness particularly where its own government is concerned prime minister david cameron has shut down the press complaints commission and already talked of statutory controls to govern print journalists back in springfield mr burns is quoted as the townspeople open up their own newspaper and he's almost right. is it possible to control the media because of rupert murdoch. beautiful murdoch found as did mr perkins 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 just seen it set to consolidate control over a launch section of the case media markets with rocks being pulled out from under him and it's all over the hidden scandal now revealed. police didn't.

know and that's how it si. still ahead this hour the dangers of a debt default. we examine why the u.s. is on the brink of a financial nightmare and what it might do to try to avoid it. and square a four wheeled frenzy has high speed formula one super cars screeched through the center of moscow. a senior advisor to the afghan president hamid karzai and a member of parliament have been killed during a suicide attack in the capital kabul the incident comes less than a week after karzai is half brother was assassinated the taliban that claim responsibility for the killing describing it as one of its biggest achievements in a decade meanwhile the u.s. led coalition has started handing over control of some of afghanistan's territories

to local security forces but journalist jerry van dyke who was once held hostage by metallica says u.s. led efforts in the region have been seriously undermined by the death of karzai his brother. it was not just the governor or the shadow governor of kandahar he was the most powerful and the most popular person throughout all of southern afghanistan this shows that right now with the canadian troops pulling out and with the u.s. trying to now focus on eastern afghanistan feeling that they have controlled the south there is now a vacuum of who is in power who can the west rely upon the taliban have claimed responsibility for this but it's not clear that the taliban are responsible they could very easily be a power struggle i've also heard and others have reported that he was responsible for perhaps starting to bring the taliban together with the united states to negotiate therefore someone would have had

a definite reason for. pakistan perhaps the taliban to start this we don't know yet who is responsible because they killed the person who had all the information. now was journalist gerry van dyke commenting on the killing of the afghan president's half brother. new it nato airstrikes have hit the suburbs of the libyan capital tripoli as colonel qadhafi val's he'll never leave his country this comes after his opponents have been recognized as the legitimate governing authority by over thirty nations led by the u.s. they said they wouldn't deal with the rebel transitional national council until an interim government is in place new measures to give the insurgents access to gadhafi has assets including billions of dollars which have been frozen in american banks but as a political commentator ted rall says the move marks a radical shift. the united states usually doesn't extend diplomatic recognition

to a regime that is not in macau going all that isn't it and doesn't even seem likely to be able to achieve power anytime soon do you mean the situation in afghanistan during the one thousand nine hundred sixty two thousand and one civil conflict between the taliban in the northern alliance the northern alliance were the former regime. had power in kabul and into diplomatic relations with the west even though the taliban controlled ninety five percent of the country it sounds just wishful thinking even physically if i were a diplomat i would find it disturbing and it's a bizarre situation i mean if the u.s. knows who these people are they're not seeing and certainly there's no doubt that traditionally there's always been a very component to these in the round because it's so realistic to assume that that is not still the case the u.s. is going missing it should be skids full of hundred dollar bills to third world countries and expecting them to end up in the right hands

a mistake really going to happen. the recognition of the rebels by more nations may bolster their spirit but it's a different story in combat fierce fighting for a key eastern oil town has ended with heavy opposition casualties as during a bushel reports of thought france is now trying to tactic of talks with the libyan regime after failing to deliver a knockout blow to die off. books is like bragging will destroy the republicans they are often wrong and gets a nasty surprise i. french foreign minister allan should pay posted france would win libya in quote days or weeks the wars in saw a fourth month and the final round inside nicolas sarkozy with his western allies seen shocked their little opponents fighting back well it's not an environment for sarkozy and some embarrassment for all nato for the whole west

paris even admits libya's rebels were written some somalia went to libya for training within the last two or three years just documented we have the fly record and everything else so it seems strange in many ways the whole western support of some of that i will 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 u.n. votes on foreign intervention in the country. this. week mrs. libby years causing widespread atrocities for every lying military personally that was supposedly a casualty there were ten civilians frauds categorically ruled out cindy grilled troops but expose predict is the only way they'll break the libyan deadlock the

moves the splitting the nato coalition silvio berlusconi head of key partly italy invading libya was a mistake russia abstained the un's vote wallie foreign bombs would bring havoc in libya to pay said the latest talks with child support love rothwell quote lloyd lee diplomat speak for a roll of elections just annoying months away thought good voices that a successful war could resurrect his chances instead one paper writes libya's becoming a slow motion call crash for france's deeply unpopular president. is easy jogging for excessive sweating is understandable this is libyan sprint is turning into a marathon the new bush will see paris. russia's foreign minister was in the u.s. capital this week to get clarification on washington's missile defense agenda

america is steaming ahead with deployment of its anti-missile shield in europe despite objections from moscow the u.s. claims the project is aimed at protection against an attack by iran or north korea but russia feels the system could threaten its own national security or moscow has suggested a joint missile defense program but that's being brushed aside by washington and nato the u.s. is also refusing. to provide a legally binding guarantee is that it's a proposed system is it not aimed against russia sergey lavrov stressed the voice of russia radio in washington the needed to prevent a new arms race. on the ground that being created on the basis of a miracle national design of missile defense which was not accepted by us is a reasonable way to restore and to what is received as being the purpose of the system we want at this particular moment to stick to the original agreement that

means there will be no parts of the system which would. compromise which would. create three six for the strategic stability and for the but then short in the strategic stability area in the midst of the trigger some of the participants of the system. now let's have a brief look at some other stories from around the globe. egypt's former president hosni mubarak has suffered a heart attack and is in a coma according to his lawyers but denied by health officials and state t.v. doctors were reportedly working to bring the eighty three year old deposed leader to consciousness speculation about mubarak's condition has intensified as the date of his trial on charges of corruption and the unlawful killing of protesters approaches. venezuelan president hugo chavez is back in cuba for more transfer treatment including time of therapy no more malignant cells have been found out or had surgery to remove a tumor from his public region he's transferred some powers to his ministers during

his absence but didn't agree to opposition calls for a temporary handover of presidential authority his battle with cancer has raised doubts over his fitness to leave the country but he still plans to run for reelection next year but. the clock is ticking for american politicians to agree on the next move in sorting out its massive national debt to avert the lou. possibility of default. the second is the deadline for raising the nation's fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling president obama has urged the republican controlled house of representatives to come up with whatever mechanisms it can to ensure the u.s. can continue to pay its bills analysts say if washington lacks the money interest rates could skyrocket and the value of the dollar could decline the seriousness of the situation was reinforced when two ratings agencies threatened to downgrade the united states and prized aaa rating and imagine wolf

a senior analyst at green kraft capital says the political dance over the u.s. debt ceiling has been going on for too long. america's been running on debt for years this is a disaster in the making and i would liken this situation here to a cancerous tumor inside a body there's no better time to cut the cancerous tumor out as quickly as you possibly can that said the u.s. government has been running on debt for many many years and we've been raising the budget total debt ceiling for many many years as a budget issue and we've successfully had deals struck that has become the political norm in the united states that whatever party is in the white house has to ask to raise the debt ceiling it's always been raised in the past the party that's not in the white house that's out of power screams and yells for three or four days at most usually about how the government spending too much and should live within its means the debt ceiling to main gets raised and it's business as usual that's been the case for thirty years so we have one side in the congress right now that's a sided no increase in revenue is acceptable i don't other side has decided that

not raising revenue is unacceptable and so we've reached an embarrassing impasse that has dragged on for weeks longer than it should and is the reason that we're going to see the growing chorus of foreign and domestic voices urging congress and the white house to stop riling already strained global markets with a political impasse. a moment of destiny is also approaching for the eurozone struggling to contain sovereign debt crisis italy became the latest european country to approve a tough seventy billion euro baggage including higher taxes and lower pensions meanwhile greece's prime minister has appealed to the country's european partners to wake up and end of the euro zone's continuing turmoil has come out of ninety one european banks failed the stress tests to see if they could survive another major economic crisis financial writer power for young says the italian people's response to the budget cuts will be even more chaotic in greece but there will be one

significant difference between the people who take to the streets between greece and italy and that is that they greece at least thank goodness the taxi drivers don't go on strike where is it plea i expect almost everybody is going to end up on strike and it's going to be absolutely chaotic the only way they can slip this through is perhaps because we do have this long lead in time until the cut to really start to make an impact in two thousand and thirteen but i think the problem is in the meantime how large a mind that the sort of the leftist opposition in italy for see the fact that silvio berlusconi due to many of the reasons most of which are outside of the direct school reason are well i mean he's a wounded animal at this point in time and in some ways i think he's going to get very difficult to hold his government together there are big problems in western europe the havens to be more directly to the east and everyone was talking fortunately except further to the crisis because the epidemic of contagion seems to be spreading and we have no political leadership seeming to do with it. several

moscow streets were impassable sunday afternoon but not because of the notorious traffic jams they were sealed off temporarily to become the realm of the fast and the furious and a high octane performance formula one drivers for and some serious problem against the amazing backdrop of the problem was it was part of the beyond your moscow city racing show featuring famous everyone stars and of the winners of the world rally championships it's a taste of things to come for a russian f one fans as the country will get its own grand prix in three years time . and i'll be back to recap today's end of this week's main stories for you in just a few moments don't go away.

with the end of the core war and the going away of the soviet union many people thought that nuclear weapons disappeared from the risk is not zero that something might be going off by mistake special it sounds a nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert. the pacific institute using a desert trip all as an extra bit but you know if you keep spinning

a trillion dollars a year on weapons of eventually you're going to blow everybody up you you know people are dying from these weapons but until we actually see it people don't make up nuclear weapons or build the nuke. that represents all of the firepower of the second world war and this second sound is the equivalent firepower of the world's nuclear arsenal today.