three million people without power along the u.s. eastern seaboard as it slams into new york bream high winds and rapidly rising sea levels live pictures from the big apple as it braces for the words of irene. live from moscow you're with our new so now way with our top story we begin in libya where rebels have given a resolute no to moammar gadhafi is reported suggestion to sit down for talks the national transitional council says prison not negotiations is in store for the fugitive colonel let's cross live to our cheese room the notion of is in tripoli and joins us you've spoken to the rebels what exactly have they told you about gadhafi suggestion. well indeed we have been able to speak to the rebels' information minister here in tripoli and he's made his position quite clear the

rebels will not negotiate with the criminals the rebels will not negotiate with the killers they want to get our fee and they're running after him street after street district after district and as soon as they catch him they will throw him to jail this is what rebels position. this statement comes after the new solution of the period. news that. khadafi is information chief has apparently called a peace headquarters. headquarters in new york and has said that gadhafi is ready for talks with the rabble to form traditional government and his even appointed his third son sided to lead the negotiations and this news comes just a week after a successful assault by the rebels on the libyan capital tripoli which became kind of breakthrough in the libyan six month long. civil war and. dramatically

changed the situation here in libya and just days after and one. himself claimed that he will fight till his diet and call people to come and fight and to resist and not to give up and to die with here well meanwhile the rebels are progress and quite well they're currently control in most of the country and including the capital tripoli and they are now claiming that they are preparing for what they call this final battle an assault on kid off his native town city which is six hundred kilometers east of the capital tripoli they say they are now waiting for nato to clear the path for them and as soon as this done they will. advance towards city at the same time the rebels say that the go round to go in with. khadafi supporters there and if it's exactly where they will no be any

military operation if only they can return and north and ration will start within the next two days we are also receiving information from been gaza from the eastern part of libya where the rebels leader is saying that it will take for them more than ten days to take control over. the city of sirte of course of course if they will be operational. what fact he says is the political instability having on the everyday life of libyans right now what are people telling you while the people here in tripoli especially in. everyway and specially in tripoli are struggling because currently the city is facing severe sure the chauffeur electricity gas line medicine and water garbage everywhere on the streets because municipal services have been paralyzed people trying to deal with that themselves they're taken out to

the streets with brooms and. trash bags trying to clean them. now live in in fear of an acute because there is no police but they also try to deal with it themselves coming out to the streets and organize in kind of armed volunteers to for checkpoints so the situation is very hard to call here in tripoli. back to right our financial live from tripoli thank you very much for that update. journalist neil clark says nato allies are rushing to do business in libya spreading reports the war's over. what is very clear is happening here is the rebels are trying to teach this to the international audience and trying to make out their complete control of the country that could happen is finished that the war is basically over and that everyone supports them the situation is rather more complex than that it's a very very divided society along tribal lines and the gadhafi regime which was

secular did manage to hold the country together for a long period and now we're going to see tribal warfare broken out and it's very clear. he still has lots of support in the west is of course that you have no support and everybody behind the opposition but it isn't true what nato has done here basically is transform a situation where there was demonstrations against the into a full scale civil war the western powers who are again change. really want to get their money back and they want to get money they want to profits this whole enterprise what about humanitarian intervention that was entirely bogus this was all about talk. and installing a new regime which would hand out the contracts to western companies and would be much more amenable to to american its allies generally. buy from moscow here with r.t. coming up or on the hurricane watch the city that never sleeps has turned into a ghost town you can see here this is as hurricane irene sweeps up the u.s.

coast and it's closing in on new york city. the russian government has ordered a major shake up of the country's space agency after the loss of yet another unmanned mission a progress resupply craft failed to reach the international space station and burnt up in the earth's atmosphere six crew members aboard the i s s will now have to ration out for food or water and they have left parties checking griefs reports. the moment it's crashing down. on way the story from the baikonur cosmodrome three hundred twenty five seconds later the progress. craft atop a soyuz rocket plummeted back to earth i thought it was a plane a first but then i realized queens never fly there or quietly then it turned into some white object and then saw that it was sparkling and i heard a loud noise it was like three bangs one really loud and two quieter it was due to

dock with the international space station on friday delivering essential supplies to the six crew members on board rocket malfunction has been blamed for the unsuccessful launch as a craft ascended into orbit a signal failure here meant the third stage in the sequence in this part of the rocket was an activated as a result it failed to ignite a propel the progress out of the earth's atmosphere. teams have be sent to southern siberia out-i republic to look for signs of any wreckage amid fears toxic fuel may seep into the surrounding soil and water supply so far they've drawn a blank but already the repercussions of the bush mission are being felt much further afield with the question of how to resupply the international space station proving the most pressing. operation glamourous always keep in mind the possibility of a big cargo space ship not docking to the international space station for some reason

so that go on board has enough of water and food supplies to survive on for another three or four months until their. cargo spacecraft arrive to the space station time then maybe on the side of ross cosmos russia's space agency but the loss has still raised significant alarm bells this or you as a rocket carrying crew is slightly different but not more that much there than the one that was the progress they're going to want to make sure anything that is similar could go on about why all happened when i say. there's more turbulence of russia's space program back in december when three clone a satellites the country's alternative to g.p.s. plummeted into the pacific ocean with this latest setback roscosmos says be forced to tighten quality control and hope there won't be a repeat of the problems that would be good news for the six astronauts currently

on board the international space station especially since after the scrapping of the u.s. shuttle program there's now global importance on the success of the soyuz. j.q. greaves aussie. this week north korea announced its readiness to resume international talks over its disputed nuclear nuclear plans the news came as the country's leader made a rare trip abroad to meet president to meet him it's major event discuss among other things a vital energy deal for north korea's struggling economy artie's katrina as are reports. a man of mystery north korea's kim jong il prefers to stay out of the media spotlight the great leader as he's officially known at home constantly fears for his life which is why he avoids planes has armored cars and eats with chopsticks designed to detect reasons but the fear of ongoing sanctions and tough financial times proved more significant as hey kim jong il embarked on

a widely publicized trip to russia making tracks from pyongyang in a special armored train gifted to kim's father by stalin the leader crossed the border with russia and made his first stop in the far eastern town of from there he traveled on the translate beren railway to the buy call region with the republic of video to as his final destination and a meeting with president of egypt his ultimate goal but before meeting with his current russian counterpart the north korean leader stopped to pay his respects to the first soviet leader this. is one of the biggest in the world and by stopping here kim jong il has made sure that the entire world knows that what might have been russia's past is still north korea's future as kim jong il's press service scrambled for their multitude of motion picture cameras to document the great leaders every word the two men get down to business. as far as i understand the democratic people's republic of korea is interested in the implementation of this

trilateral project in which the russian federation and south korea will also take part of the pipeline which would bring siberian natural gas to the holidays. it would mean money for the struggling north korea and a new market for russia the north koreans are not going to be able to pay a. price for gas imports from russia would ever pay but because the building the pipelines of the pipeline has to be extended into south korea to the south korean market but the formal state of war between north and south korea is a huge obstacle and this is yet another situation where russia has an advantage but she is in the perfect position to play this role because of their closer relationship with the united states over the past years because of the fact they aren't seen as a lot i did with north korea as china is you know president vaclav havel once said that we must change our ray of attention from what separates us to what unites us

and russia plays a unique role right now to help lead the world in that direction markedly different approach from some of the other members of the six party talks like south korea and the u.s. has constant sanctioning has failed to bring results and results are what this brief trip to russia appears to have achieved with kim jong il's announcement of a desire to return to the talks and implement a moratorium on production and testing of nuclear weapons if the talks resume for north korea is a chance to recover from recent bouts of famine and get some much needed food aid for russia it's a chance to do what everyone else has failed so far catherine as are about r t a lot of them. still ahead this hour on our a journey through russia all the way to the cure a region where an unusual festival held in the name of elaine and green best of all is entertaining adults and children alike. but first millions of new

yorkers who decide to stay in their homes are bracing themselves for the full force of hurricane irene well probably transport has been shot down a lot or rains now been downgraded to a tropical storm the weather is rapidly deteriorating with the hudson and east rivers overflowing and threatening to flood the big apple the hurricane is sweeping up the u.s. eastern seaboard and has claimed at least ten lives already parties were important is in new york businesses are are either have boarded up their windows or put cheap along their windows and you could feel the wind increasing you feel the rain increasing the rain is coming down like sheets of water in new york city michael bloomberg did have a press conference stating and urging all new yorkers to stay away from their windows move away from their glass windows because he says the winds are going to pick up speed friday new york city michael bloomberg here first time in history

issued a mandatory evacuation of certain parts of new york city three hundred seventy thousand people live there all these evacuation zones a lot of people chose to not move chose to stay in their homes we did get to speak with some people doubt were heading to the stores to buy up supplies saturday here's a little bit of what they have to say. this is the only real one that really had a major evacuation or so years to do you know something no we don't know but one thing i'm scared about it like going outside in the i'm lying. on the water like hurricane katrina like that there's me the public transportation system. in new york city has also been shut down that includes the trains the buses i could tell you that the city is prepared for the worst most new yorkers are hoping that

the story is being overblown that it's being hyped up but i can't imagine that in time in this kind of time a time of economic crisis where city would go and spend so much money and the federal government if this was not a serious storm and at this point we're waiting for seeing it seems a little bit like a movie where you know you don't know what's going to happen but you're just prepared and that's the circumstance here in new york that's i could tell you right now. well we're keeping a close eye on developments on rambling on america's east coast you can check out some live images broadcasting here from new york and get more from our website r.t. dot com to witness the extreme weather that's been unleashed on part of the u.s. . europe spreading debt crisis is threatening to draw in france as the government announced new austerity measures earlier this week amid concerns it could lose its aaa credit rating the new deficit reducing package will see some twelve billion euros worth of cuts plus

a tax hike for the rich daniel bushell explains the move could be too little too late it's fear social unrest is around the corner. enjoys a triple a credit rating but now which one of the boys gets ratio is among the world's top rated stakes. just to follow the u.s. and be downgraded just repaying interest on its this year has overtaken education and defense as the government's biggest spend was just. presided over the biggest jump in debt levels in our history books that carry too much water. or. france is going to the tolerance limits of prime minister as explained the new road of spending cuts this week but to call them is fear things. those cuts go nowhere near enough and you can compare it with people saying we're going to buy a lamborghini and buy

a porsche and they call that heresy doctors board frauds these huge debts burden is bringing crudely of dream versus mint in schools and hospitals. and hitting. into current. computers. very old. equipment our own. fashion true. the situation's explosive say experts and frauds could be next to witness roy it's like those in britain with deprived regions like the inner part of cities and the suburbs. are certainly segregated to very high extent far more so than in the u.k. or in germany so yes unrest could come from the suburbs and spread through. because these flying is all from france as he turned over budget they taze pacific island of new caledonia with students climbing street protests over the cuts he's left the

job of presenting a bill to his prime minister he'll let them take the flak for it and hopefully unions students retirees can march directly and protest against the ministers while he's bathing in the sun so because these absence in this time of crisis writes leading newspaper le figaro may be clear both politically but his failure to tackle the country's troubles now could be creating even greater problems for the future of the new bush you'll see paris. coming up to twenty minutes past the hour let's take a look at some headlines from around the world in brief on continues in syria with activists claiming government forces have opened fire on protesters in some cities killing at least two people it comes as the arab league announced it will send an envoy to the country to hold talks with president assad and seek an end to the violets meanwhile iran has reaffirmed its alliance with syria but warned that also

listen to his people's legitimate demands more than two thousand killed since anti-government demonstrations began in march. a series of overnight bomb attacks is left six people dead and injured at least seven in baghdad explosions targeted a police patrol in one of the city's neighborhoods when half of the council. officers officials say at least two hundred fifty people have been killed by extremists in iraq in july alone. to brazil now where at least five people have been killed and more than thirty others injured after a tram popular with tourists in rio de janeiro after coming off the tracks and skidded down the street before crashing into a lamppost it's not yet know what caused the accident and if any foreigners were among the casualties it comes just two months after a french tourist died if only out of one of the trams as it was crossing an aqueduct she got. a kasi unselected there

a new president this weekend alexander will now leave the country that's been exhausted by two decades of tensions after it declare independence from neighboring georgia and start seized in his bosky reports a challenging task lies ahead for the new leader as the next chapter for a cause you go dawgs. he promised to make a pause it a stronger state know what it's on the one five has the power to do so winning fifty four percent of the vote in friday's presidential election out of two rivals has given him a clear mandate with some citizens of the small caucus republican willing to travel a long way to support their man as i came from crimea to vote for our public he helped war veterans like me a lot when we had tough times. alex on that unquote up was feisty president one the man he succeeds as leader sergei bug option died in office last may the two saw a pause in independence recognized by russia and

a number of other countries in two thousand and eight with both men helping prevent war with georgia at the same year for almost two decades after a pause it declared independence from georgia a fear and uncertainty marked life in the country the mood now seems to have changed the early battles for independence led many scholars in a policy as capital you can see how badly the parliament building was damaged cleaning up the rubble and getting things back in order will probably be the toughest part of the job for the new president keeping good ties with russia and restoring the economy will be the top of on clubs agenda at that but out of a bargain we have to admit and that is true we see certain growth but it is not enough we need loans and serious investments. the campaign was monitored by more than one hundred international observers from countries including france austria and israel when i was invited to. have an earthquake the reaction from the georgian always says oh no don't go sir about my ideals or anything or independence and i

can't exactly you support what you are doing here you know because you're fighting for your summer and geo tournament independence democracy for an election observers ignored the threats and gave the poll a clean bill of health these elections have been very well planned and have a. not for the high stuff as well as the result the outcome has meant another positive step for democracy in the region according to the election monitors the new man faces stiff challenges in leading his country with a hostile neighbor in georgia and a legacy of difficulties following independence citizens will be hoping the man they've chosen this president will help herald a new era for their country. our team support. now it's time for the latest in our close of series for events or to areas of russia where few have traveled before.

this week where in the care of regent located around a thousand kilometers east of moscow the city of care of his remount is a renowned cultural center famous for its folk arts and crafts while in the summer the region is house to an annual festival celebrating a common green vegetable r.c.c. gregor of no joins in the fun. it's the pride of the kirov region the annual cucumber festival the governor himself invited journalists from all across russia just to showcase the region's tourist potential organizers here make the bold claim that the pickled cucumbers in this village of stubbins are the best in the world. so while the players saying folks always extolling the virtues of the green staple there's only one store where the actual vegetable can be bought but you're going to

try to kilometers to be in this care you know i'm curious about what it is that makes them so special but i'm a bit disappointed i wasn't allowed to buy more disheartened by the long wait we decided to take our search to the locals it's the middle of the pickling season looking a little if you can with the harvest that but then brine. and mixed with. the recipe to what makes them special is a strictly kept secret that the magic ingredients are deal garlic and horseradish. but the truly unique part of the local pickling process is that the sealed barrels are dumped in the river for six months it's the cold war to give them a subtle shortie flavor luckily we found some pickles left over from last year's crop all the stalk of cucumber has made me quite hungry for the local delicacy decide to give it a try myself. thank you traditionally the care of region has been

known for its dim covered toys base an ancient pagan date these clay figurines have been handmade here for hundreds of years the handicraft strict tradition prescribes that artisans most depict very specific subjects namely peasant women and improbably colored down the most. this is not just a trademark of our region this is russia's visiting come out you won't do well to take notice the toys can only be made by women and apprentices have to perfect their craft for yaz before they can be called masters of the must. before i became a tool maker thought making the same things over and over again would be boring but actually they always turn out different and once i have most of the traditional motifs i my grandchild and. local authorities are hoping master classes like this one will become a tourist attraction and

a recruiting ground for new craftswomen. eager a party cure of region. well in a few minutes you can watch our special report on the death penalty in the united states after a short break i'll be back with the headlines and then that reports coming up for.

you as you know song was sixteen years old when he committed these murders that's not to say that song so it should not be punished for his crimes sean is being no rational person can deny that sean has been punished is being punished and will be punished. as ours must be executed for the brutal crime committed this is a punishment this is not. imagine. it's. cause we've been immersed know me whatsoever. and i didn't come here justice. and heard the first. this congress man. finally where i think. my thought is now.

the movie.

libyan rebels have turned down a reported all for by moammar gadhafi to negotiate a power transfer as they prepare a final attack on the colonel's hometown and. there's a big shake up in the russian space agency after the loss of another on man mr annan with signs is now washington resupply the international space station and prevent disaster. live pictures here from new york city as hurricane irene has been downgraded to a tropical storm it still has left over three million people without power along the u.s. eastern seaboard it is now it slamming into new york bringing fly winds and rapidly rising sea levels. now it's the first part of our feature on the debate over capital punishment in the u.s. stay with us.