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 in the pleasure boat the ball carrier sank in the volga last sunday. at the most 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 didn't talk is that people were basically buried alive in anti-matter 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 too much water so 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 in the strong current oil slicks had to watch him drown in front of him yuri was the d.j. for the disc on the bottom deck he only just managed to escape. and i remember clearly that water was rising very quickly it was a matter of seconds i survived because we saw through communed two in the cellar started pushing people legs through it at that moment waves me up on the surface and then i saw that the board 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. 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 i

witness is 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 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 portal thora to 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 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 been made to the bulgaria sinking and more controversially into why two ships which reach the scene before the arabella didn't pick up a single person but reports the crew members instead took pictures on their mobile

phones. and you with all the passengers were shocked there were about seventeen people on a raft many had cuts and injuries that were bleeding we yelled for help i saw the boats 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 play room 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 avoidable shipping disasters tom bottom party. in an exclusive interview with our t.v. captain of a ship who helped rescue most of the survivors from the bulgaria has described the horrific scene you can watch is

a dramatic account in an hour here on our team on our website r.t.e. dot com. 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 he hired a former deputy editor of the paper had been arrested by his own officers investigating illegal accessing of mobile phones and corruption the former news of the world editor rebecca brooks was arrested and questioned for twelve hours as part of the same probe before being released on bail. who's a former intelligence officer for m i five believes the timing of her arrest raises a lot of questions they ask is one hundred slightly suspicious turn of mind one might think that the police by taking this step at this stage. allowing her little wriggle room i shouldn't have to say too much and perhaps also would have to say

too much about the leaks of the police or great service in london as well so it's very very interesting timing the amount of information that is unnoticed about the entire linkage between news international and the police i mean it's amazing the focus has tended to be on the journalists themselves and not only that allegedly corrupt police officers who have been receiving money to provide protected information and of course it's not just about the phone hacking scandal there are other practices their peers have been implicated such as the technique of pinging where you triangulate some of the location using and they've all phones now the only people who really have access to that sort of information would be vetted police officers working for the counterterrorism branch office special prosecutor or potentially of course the spies so where and when all this was going on is a very interesting question but it does show that there's a sort of endemic corruption and a failure of accountability and oversight as well within the police force. meanwhile rupert murdoch is trying to rescue news corp's 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. teenager whose voicemail was intercepted and 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. radio even the sky writers thought imitates life the 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 that seems to get more scandalous every day the list of something like four thousand names which the police have have since about two thousand and four two thousand and five and yet they promise facie 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 b. sky b. look sure to go ahead his arch rival the guardian newspaper releases catastrophic allegations of amoral 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 sky b. into investing in the times and if you are for example the guardian or the daily telegraph you would welcome it 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 we should be.

you know. 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 all but shut down the press complaints commission and already talks of statutory controls to govern print journalists back in springfield mr burns is to water it as the townspeople open up their own newspaper and he's almost right we. can truly the media. rupert murdoch he is beautiful man murdoch found as did 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 just as he looks set to consolidate

control over a launch 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 have known about it for years. still ahead this hour the dangers of a debt default we examine why the u.s. is on the brink of a financial mind where and what it might do to try to avoid it. and . square a four week old frenzy as high speed formula one super cars screech through the center of moscow. new nato airstrikes have hit the suburbs of the libyan capital tripoli as colonel gadhafi valve's will 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 would deal with the raw. transitional national council until an interim government is in place new measures that give the insurgents access to could offer his assets including billions of dollars which have been frozen in american banks but as political commentator ted rall sides the move marks a radical shift. the united states usually doesn't extend diplomatic recognition to a regime that is not in the count going all that it's an hour 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 between the taleban in the northern alliance the northern alliance were the former regime that had power in kabul and they enjoyed 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 seeing and certainly there's no doubt that traditionally there's always been a very high component of jihad even around bin ghazi so unrealistic to assume that that is not still the case the u.s. has an amazing how it should be skids full of hundred dollar bills to third world countries and expecting them to end up in the right hands and that's not really going to happen the recognition of the rebels by more nations may bolster their spirit but it's a different story in combat fears of fighting for a key eastern oil town has ended with heavy opposition casualties as daniel bushell reports it's thought france is now trying the tactic of talks with the libyan regime after failing to deliver a knockout blow to khadafi. books is like bragging will destroy their reply lives they're often wrong and gets a mill city surprise i french foreign minister alan should

pay both did france would win libya in quotes days or weeks the war's into a fourth month the final round inside nicolas sarkozy with his western allies seeing short little opponents fighting back well it's not just an embarrassment for sarkozy it's an embarrassment for all nato for the whole west paris even admits all being libya's rebels but on some somalia wench to libya for training within the last two or three years that's documented we have to fly records 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 un vote on foreign intervention in the country. needing it was

a good person. giving. none of. this. witnesses may to libya's causing widespread atrocities for every one military person that was supposedly a casualty there were ten civilians for all its categorically ruled out saying we rolled troops protect but predict is the only way now to break the libyan deadlock the moves of splitting the nato coalition silvio berlusconi head of keep italy admits invading libya was a mistake russia abstained did the un's vote warning bombs would bring havoc in libya which plays said the latest talks with counterpart sergei lavrov will quote lloyd lee diplomats speak for a blazing row. with elections just annoying months away sako advisers said

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 because these are jogging fans excessive sweating is understandable as his libyan spring is turning into a mouse and 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 a 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 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 legally binding guarantees that it's a proposed system is not aimed against russia sergey lavrov stressed to voice of

russia radio in washington the need to prevent a new arms race. fix on the ground that being created on the basis of american national design of missile defense which was not accepted by us is a reasonable way to respond to what is there sieved as being the purpose of the system we want at this particular moment to stick to the original agreement that there would be no parts of the system which would. compromise which would. create risks for the strategic stability and for the but then in the strategic stability area namely strategic arsenals 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 of the date of his trial on charges of corruption and unlawful killing of protesters approaches. venezuelan president hugo chavez is back in cuba for more cancer treatment including chemotherapy no more malignant cells have been found after he had surgery to remove a tumor from his pelvic region he has transferred some of his powers to his ministers during his absence but didn't agree to an opposition call for a temporary handover of all presidential authority his battle with cancer has raising doubts over his fitness to lead the country but he still plans to run for re-election next year. a senior aide and a close ally to afghan president hamid karzai has been killed in the capital kabul after a group of armed men attacked his home a member of parliament also died in the attack the taliban said it was responsible

claiming it was one of their biggest achievements in a decade the attack 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 brother. time is running out for american politicians to agree on the next move in sorting out its soaring debt the deadline to lift of the nation's fourteen point three trillion dollar debt ceiling is looming ever closer as lawmakers struggle to find a solution president obama is urging democrats and republicans to ignore their differences to avert armageddon leading credit rating agencies say there is a risk of 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 further borrowing the impact on the u.s. economy the world economy and the global economy really depends on 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 that increases borrowing costs not just for the federal government but for seven thousand that cross the country the united states i don't think anybody thinks united states is getting away with this anyway longer they've sort of reached the point where every everybody in both parties agrees that the debt is just too high and they're just they can't borrow any more you can't be borrowing for you know the sort of annual expenditures it's not a sustainable model for any country if this debt ceiling goes up or if the u.s. credit rating is downgraded and that would have you know sort of the current the current recession and slow down the recovery. things are a little better in europe with italy now the focus of stopping the euro zone heading into oblivion roams approved a tough seventy billion euro cuts package to avoid a debt wiped out it's the euro zone's third largest economy and could prove too big for its neighbors to bail out meanwhile eight out of the ninety european banks have

failed stress tests to see if they could survive another financial crisis economics professor patrick min ferd says some of you countries may have to accept a default as wealthier nations no longer want to pay for their costly rescue. and i think we've known all along that a lot of banks in europe and the north would not pass stress tests if these stress tests included the possibility of somewhere in default because of course they've got loads of greek and 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 the 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 get to give it back to them so there's no bailout really impressed by these rich northern countries and therefore

the other countries have to think of some way of getting by and that's going to be default in the struggle for land rights in israel there is one place that's still deserted territory it used to be a flourishing palestinian community but now israelis are eyeing it up as a luxury getaway artie's policy or as the story. this old 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 is not only having to come back and to bring. my village. to see the hobson's the world this rain also to remind. my tire that. your coup de graff among the cacti and fick 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 that disappeared in forty eight and sixty seven most of the original houses of lifter are still here so the only we heard of sure thing. and shouted mama mama. they will shoot do they do with the whole the whole debate the whole deal they were to do they were our mother took us inside the room in the corner and then the table so as to protect us your cop 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 jewish state almost inevitable as the man who lived his house in london for nevertheless if he was forced to do or he lived just because you were reared and 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 only your hundreds parents they were

also refugees fleeing arab countries we life had become dangerous after israel was created these ready government sent them to live in lifter your nieces to prevent arab owners from returning or in their came here on their for the i believe here years without water without electricity the came here to jos the land for them and their memory here is a 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 lived in these houses for forty six years all that remains are stone walls where wild flowers and grass now grow lifter is empty. and it's into that emptiness that the israeli government 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 live there as we do in all the neighborhoods of jerusalem but many luckier could say it's palestinian land and a double injustice why you want to destroy our house and realize. yanni. for that there are three world came from anywhere in this thread why i can't move in my village and come back with them back to my freedom and living in. this new me. and. so i'm going for palestinians lifta is a physical the mind 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. several moscow streets were impassable on sunday afternoon but not because

of the notorious traffic jams they were sealed off to temporarily become the realm of the fast and the furious and a high octane performance formula one drivers burned some serious rubber against the amazing backdrop of the kremlin walls it was part of the annual moscow city racing show featuring famous f one drivers and winners of the world rally championships it's a taste of things to come for russian f one fans as the country will get its own grand prix in three years time. i'll recap today's and of this week's main stories for you in just a few moments don't go away. wealthy

british style sun it's time to rise. markets on scandal find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to name two crimes a report on r.t. . wealthy british style it's time to buy.

anything and everything. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports. and broadcasting live direct from the heart of moscow this is our team sean thomas let's take a look at your top headlines a snap cable has forced rescuers to restart the complicated operation to lift the massive bulgaria cruiser that sank a week ago claiming one hundred twenty nine lives. in the murdoch media scandal claims another scalp has britain's top cop quits over connections to journalists suspected of bribery and phone hacking former news international chief

executive and news of the world editor rebecca brooks has also found herself once again dealing with police behind closed doors but this time under arrest before being released on bail. the libyan rebels have been recognized as the legitimate governing authority in the country by the u.s. and thirty other countries but colonel gadhafi remains defiant and vows and never to leave libya as nato airstrikes continue. and a transatlantic cash crunch as america struggles to raise its debt ceiling in a time to avert a default while the euro crisis is spread to adding more pressure on the simple currency. and now check out our documentary about the siberian far east a mixture of european and asian cultures as well as traditions that go back for thousands of years.

the region deep in the siberian far east is one of russia's newest territories. two thousand and eight it brought together the chip. regions and with it a striking mix of asian and european culture. traveling around you can find buddhist temples spooling national parks and remote villages that still practice traditions that date back a thousand years but if you're flying here in the regions vibrant capital. one of. course the best way to get to know is to have a local show you around and i know one lady here who's. a bit of what life is like in the fast lane. just over three hundred thousand people and it's a real mismatch of styles it's one of the only cities in.