as it slams into new york green high winds and heavy rain. at seven pm in moscow you're watching our t.v. on nice now with the day's news and weeks and a look at the week's top stories we start 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 all the colonel deserves is a rest not dialogue if an ocean has spoken to the rebels and has the latest from tripoli. 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 off me and they're running after him straight after street district after district and as soon as they catch him they will throw him to jail this statement comes after

the news solution the news of the plane that. duff is information chief has apparently called a peace headquarters and has said that duffy is ready for talks with the rabble to form a transitional government and even appointed his third son sided to lead this 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 well meanwhile the rebels are progressing 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 cut off his native town city at the same time the rebels say that they go she should run to go in with his supporters

there in syria and if it's the cash for they will no be any military operation if only they agreed to surrender if not. will start within the next two days while the people here in tripoli are struggling because currently the city is facing severe show the show for electricity gas a line medicine and water garbage everywhere on the streets because municipal services happen paralyzed people trying to deal with it themselves they are. taken out to the streets with brooms and. trash bags trying to clean them they also now live in in fear of an acute because there is no police but the. also try to deal with that themselves from now to the streets and organizing kind of armed volunteers to for checkpoints so the situation is very hard to call here in tripoli. well concerns have been raised over who is to control libya's

stockpiles of chemical weapons with reports rebel factions have been infiltrated by islamic extremists washington cannot guarantee terrorists will not get their hands on the arsenals but has pledged to try to prevent it from happening. it has more. tripoli a city in chaos there's constant gunfire both aggressive and celebration and on the outskirts of the capital stockpiles of chemical weapons nato know very little about the people who might come to power in tripoli so now if you've got this cache of weapons of mass destruction that again people really don't know what's there and if this is falling into the hands of certain people i mean the situation is potentially disastrous despite the heavy presence of rebels in tripoli the chemical stockpile appears still to be in the hands of what's left of gadhafi government that's both good and bad news following

a series of meetings in two thousand and three moammar gadhafi agreed to allow weapons inspectors into libya the first step towards abandoning his w m d program in return for a normalizing of relations with the u.k. and u.s. they agree that he wouldn't use or move the material but now thanks in part to nato support of the rebels he's on the back foot and may feel he has nothing to lose by disregarding that agreement cry victory or martyrdom will strike an ominous note to those who know his weapons potential given the violations of the national territory of libya by nato led rebel forces i think that the idea that he would be beholden to these types of agreements would be off the table at this point and certainly he was quoted as saying in early july that he would be willing to strike out europe if tripoli was attacked so i think it's a fair as. to say that if there is that capability that he would be looking at that

option at this point at any rate but the alternative rebel control of chemical weapons is arguably worse according to many some of the rebel factions have links to al qaida or a commentator abdel bari atwan says the west got itself into this trouble now it has to decide how it will figure it out and the options aren't attractive we know that you know the majority of the people who are fighting for the muslim extremists so how the people is going to be with those people about the mobile of chemical i believe their post their fear would be more problematic than that. if you there are some indications nato is considering putting peacekeeping troops on the ground in libya regional experts warn that could be seen by parts of the free libya movement as an act of aggression but having supported the rebel movement nato must now deal with the consequences even if that's w m d armed islamic extremists lower and that

our team has to. turn away as richard spencer says there's another war raging in libya mounts between the rebels over hold be in charge after the gadhafi regime falls i think would be us as accomplish is to establish a calming civil war in libya which we have financed we will be and we will have trained number of the people who will be killing one another. children and think that these rebels are these nice little folks who want democracy and freedom and mcdonald's this is clearly a chance for them to gain power and maybe get some revenge against north enemy but mainly for them to be in control and they're going to be fighting with each other. for the next months and years. coming up on r t we are on storm watch the city that never sleeps braves tropical storm i. as it sweeps up the u.s. east coast swing through the big apple. 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 burned up in the earth's atmosphere but six crew members aboard the ayers house will now have to ration out the food and water they have left parties jacob griefs reports. the moment it's came crashing down. launched on wednesday 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 at first but then i realized the coins never fly and they're all quietly and then it turned into some white object and i saw that you were 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 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. operational planner always keep in mind that possibility of 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 space agency but the loss has still raised significant alarm bells this or you as a rocket carrying the crew is slightly different but not much different 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 it's of life there's more turbulence of russia's space program back in december when three cloner satellites the country's alternative to g.p.s. plummeted into the pacific ocean with this latest setback roscosmos has been 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 to sell for the scrapping of

the u.s. shuttle program there's now global importance on the success of the soyuz. greaves r.t. . but the failure of the science rocket to propel the progress into orbit puts the entire manned space program in question now is now saying the international space station could have to be abandoned if science launches don't resume soon but space expert mark ham sells says there is no viable alternative to the long serving russian rocket. the soyuz is a very reliable vehicle but it's still got a something like a one in fifty a little part of the money fifty failure rate so as long as you're using expendable vehicles this sort of failure is bound to happen you know every fifty years to sixty eight flight the soyuz is a more reliable system in the shuttle remember the shuttle did not have an escape system so when it failed the crew were in very serious trouble whereas the soyuz has a very effective escape system so both the rocket and the escape system have to fail

before the astronauts are in any danger. this week north korea announced its readiness to resume international talks over its disputed nuclear plans the news came as the country's leader made a rare trip abroad to meet president dmitry medvedev and discuss among other things of vital energy deal for north korea's struggling economy. 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 he. embarks 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 borneo to as its final destination and a meeting with president of age if 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 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 but 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 in the pipeline which would bring siberian natural gas to the hub of asia

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 foremost of war between north and south korea is a huge obstacle and this is yet another situation where russia has an advantage bush 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 doubts 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 well on a day. you with art see why from moscow still have this hour journey through russia all the way to secure a region where an on your small festival held in the name of a league and green vests the ball is entertaining adults and children alike. but first millions of new yorkers decided to stay in their homes as hurricane irene

swept through the city bringing partial flooding and power shortages well it's now been downgraded to a tropical storm all public transportation will remain shut throughout sunday i read is sweeping up the u.s. eastern seaboard and has claimed at least eleven lives already marti's more important i is in new york now joins us live marina it seems it wasn't as bad as some people thought it might get but it's not every day of course that new york sees a tropical storm how is the city been dealing with it what's it been like. well and he said this the city was prepared a way in advance before i remain begat it's way down the eastern seaboard but at this point things seem extremely calm relatively calm the sun actually looking out of my way down the sun is beginning to come out here in new york city but that does not mean that there are not been any damage from this tropical storm no i mean was a hurricane but according to meteorologist when it was making its way down the

eastern seaboard once it i went through out through north carolina it downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit manhattan we did see sheets of of rain coming down out of the wind became extremely heavy it was downgraded to a tropical storm as you mentioned at this point there's been severe flooding are along the hudson river in manhattan and in all the outer boroughs of new york city there how out then power shortages or need to con edison more than three million people all along the eastern seaboard how about last hour as you mentioned at least eleven deaths that resulted from hurricane. or tropical storm irene making its way down the east now and then hot note all the emergency workers and first responders are dealing with major flooding for the low lying areas of manhattan as we remember it was in new york city mayor michael bloomberg bloomberg that order a mandatory evacuation of certain parts of new york city those are lying areas

approximately three hundred seventy thousand people who live in all those different areas a lot of people evacuated and a lot of new yorkers chose to stay and are way out of the storm as it made its way to new york according to what we are all just are saying this storm has now cost me york city is heading towards rhode island newport rhode island in new england and it could even become a little bit greater as it gains momentum heading that way on at this point the city is dealing with lots of writing on making sure that you know no kind of power outages increase throughout new york city but it did turn out to be a lot less than what was anticipated and what was hyped up and at this point it's just about cleanup here in new york. right marina for nial live from new york thanks for that update. and we will continue to keep

a close eye on developments on rambling on america's east coast stay with our web site r t dot com to get the latest news updates images and some live broadcast throughout the day. 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 but as our tuesday a bushel explains the move could be too little too late with fears social unrest is around the corner. pretty treatment for the. put it one of the choice dates ratios among the world's top rated states many investors bet on it to follow the u.s. and be downgraded just repaying interest on its debt this year has overtaken education and defense as the government's biggest spend was just mr circles is

presided over the biggest jump in debt levels in our history books that carry too much water. or. france has gone above the tolerance limit admitted prime minister as he explained the new round of spending cuts this week but economists fear things as bad those cuts go nowhere near enough and you can compare it with people saying we're going to buy a lamborghini and they only buy a porsche and they call that austerity doctors board france these huge debt burden is bringing truly under-investment in schools and hospitals. hitting. winter and. computers. very old. equipment old fashioned. out of the situations explosive say experts and frauds could be next to witness roy it's like those in britain was

deprived regions the likely spark the inner part of cities in 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 nicolas sarkozy's flying a fall from france as he can on budget they taze pacific island of new caledonia students planning street protests over the cuts he's left the job of presenting them to his prime minister he'll let them take the flak for it and hopefully unions students really. a protest against the ministers well he's behaving in a certain because these absence this time of crisis what's leading newspaper le figaro may be clear both politically which is for you to call the country's troubles could be creating even greater problems for the future don't you see.

a look now at some global headlines in brief this hour unrest news is syria with activists claiming government forces have opened fire on protesters in separate cities killing these two people it comes as the arab league announced it will send an envoy to the country to hold talks with president and seek it out into the violence meanwhile iran has reaffirmed its alliance with syria but warned bat also should listen to his people's legitimate demands more than two thousand have been killed since anti-government demonstrations began in march. a series of overnight bomb attacks have left six people dead and injured seven in baghdad the explosions targeted a police patrol in one of the city's neighborhoods more than half of the casualties were 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 trial popular with tourists in rio de janeiro after coming off the tracks it skidded down the street before crashing into a lamppost it's not yet know what caused the accident and the foreigners were among the casualties it comes just two months after a french tourist died falling out of one of the trams as it was crossing and. now it's time for the latest in our close up series where we've answered to areas of russia where few have traveled before. this week where in the care of region located around a thousand kilometers east of moscow the city of cura is a renowned cultural center famous for its folk arts and crafts and in the summer the region is host to an annual festival celebrating a common green festival parties eager and now 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 it take all cucumbers in this village of stubbins all the best in the world. so while the players saying folksongs extolling the virtues of the green staple there's only one store where the actual vegetable can be pulled out of china eighty kilometers to be in this case i'm curious about what it is that makes them so special but i'm a bit disappointed i wasn't allowed to buy most disheartened by the long wait we decided to take our search to the locals it's the middle of the pickling season the little if you can with the harvest that put in brine. and mixed with.

some of the recipe to what makes them special is a strictly kept secret at 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 served at the cold war to give them a subtle shawqi 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 so i decided to give it a try myself. thank you traditionally the kirov region has been known for its them covered toys bay some ancient pagan date these clay figurines have been handmade here for hundreds of years handicrafts trick tradition describes that artisans most depict very specific subjects namely peasant women and improbably color down the most of the day this is not just a trademark of our region this is russia's visiting come out it won't do well to

take notice the toys can only be made by women and apprentices have to perfect their craft for years before they can be called monsters yet i still use the must know before i became to make 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. local authorities are hoping master classes like this one will become a tourist attraction and a recruiting ground for new craftswomen. eager of. cure of region. a recap of the week's top stories is coming up after a short break. as

you know song was sixteen years old when he committed these murders. that's not to say that song so it's a not be honest for his crimes song is being honest no rational person can deny that song has been honest is being honest and will be honest. the sellers must be executed for the brutal crime committed this is a punch this is not. a mention.

that stands to. cause you. any mercy on your whatsoever. and i didn't come here as justice. and heard the rumors. as congressman. ronald martin. and my that is now. i got out of the military in ninety sixty six i got over because the things i saw the things i was doing and this reasons that we were given for doing and it was a personal protest. during the vietnam war in

a two war movement emerged that altered the course of history this movement didn't take place on college campuses but in barracks and on ships it penetrated only military colleges like west point and it spread throughout the battlefields of vietnam yet today few people know about the g.i. movement against the war in vietnam. after the army we always said free the army or fun travel and adventure but it really meant to be harmed. hungry for the full story we've gone to. the biggest issues get the human voice face to face with the news makers. he's telling. friendly. dynamic.

friends. among. us who are to live from moscow our top stories libyan rebels have turned down a reported offer by moammar gadhafi to negotiate the power transfer as they prepare a final a time on the coming home town. there's a big shake up in the russian space agency after the loss of another on men mission the science is now rushing to resupply the international space station and prevent disaster. north korean leader kim jong il rolls through half of russia by train for a meeting with president medvedev saying pyongyang wants a resumption of international talks that will bring peace to the peninsula. and tropical storm irene leaves over three million.