the storm irene leaves three million people without power along new absence from seaboard as it slides into new york were the high winds and heavy rain. just after nine pm here in the russian capital and you're watching our t.v. and we're bringing you the day's news at the week's top stories well we start in libya where rebels have given a resolutely no market office reported suggestion sit down for talks with the national transitional council says that all the colonel deserves is a rest and not dialogue but if it has spoken to the rebels and has more 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 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 statement comes after the new solution for the period that. khadafi is information chief has apparently called a peace headquarters and has said that gadhafi is ready for talks with the rabble to form a transitional government and 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 a kind of breakthrough in the libyan six month long. civil war 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 cut off his native town city at

the same time the rebels say that they go she should run to go in with khadafi supporters there in syria and if it's successful they will no be any military operation if only they agreed to surrender if not try to ration will start within the next two days while the people here in tripoli are struggling because currently the city is facing severe sure the show for electricity gas a line magazine and water garbage everywhere on the streets because municipal services happened 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 anarchy because there is no police but the. also try to deal with it themselves come out to the streets and organize in kind of armed volunteers to for checkpoints so the situation is very hard very difficult here in tripoli.

all nato allies have already spent millions of dollars in their participation of the coalition's campaign in libya are now racing to cash in on a profitable oil deals artists are for us of course now on the coalition members lining up to secure lucrative energy contracts. drill to the heart of most modern was and you'll strike oil whether or not the sayings true when it comes to libya well it's going to play a pivotal role in the country's future q we have to fear restructure interest. western interest to protect it just want. to rebel to ordinary. government interest to restart spending all this possible a stranger to the concept of friends with benefits berlusconi's being quick to casey up to the new transitional council inviting the public face of the group. to

italy to. these places european allies in the nato bombing campaign began back in april put up with a switch sides and began courting the rebels in full the wall almost a third of its least daily energy needs were imported from libya an oil giant any was the largest foreign operator in the country the government here have been doing all they can to safeguard these contracts but the if they will be able to maintain these previously close business ties is by no means a given in a post gadhafi libya the future looks extremely uncertain and there are little guarantee one of the biggest problems for italy and other western countries since the beginning of the war has been the struggle to adequately understand the internal workings of the rebels themselves. among the rebels there are many factions islamists tunisian people. if. you're sick and many of these

groups of rebels are from the politicians be fooled. with gadhafi and then they completely changed their face they went with the wind as they send it to me i think that corrupt politician. yvonne met gadhafi personally on a number of occasions three business connections less than a month the gay she returned from a fact finding trip to libya with a handwritten letter she says was written by gadhafi to berlusconi in it he allegedly says he was surprised by your decision to join the coalition against libya especially after we signed a friendship and cooperation treaty between our two sides the cittie he's referring to he was trying just two months before the libyan uprising the less he goes on to ask why did you join our enemies without any diplomatic dialogue or investigation berlusconi now seems t.v. is he making me friends it was that maybe the final chapter that deathy many fear the conflict will continue i would dare to see

a doc you can talk to him for which he's among the rebels so there is no actual. sense or. no concerns to me to be an internal you know actual person to talk to. be. with her foreign media now is silly along with many in the west could well find that previous lucrative relations may turn out to be just as fickle of the rainfall the weather friendships there for. the international observers say the rebels are a weak and divided force which may not be able to properly govern the country but middle east expert glazebrook told r.t. that that's exactly what nato wanted to happen in libya. this war is fundamentally a war to maintain africa in a subordinate position in the global economy in twenty ten get there he made a proposal to the african union that was that don't you look for that no african

country would allow us based on. soil since that time the u.s. has been desperate to get rid of gadhafi when we talk about the rebels but this is a very disparate group of people really who's calling the shots as nato few leaders that we hear about matthew jabril abdul julio these are people who have stablished links with western financial institutions going back over several years so really when when we hear from these people they're mouthpieces of major place the libyan state we the same as what's replaced the state in iraq and afghanistan which is a dysfunctional gov complete lack of security for gang warfare and civil war and this is not a mistake for nato they would prefer to see failed states and states that are powerful and independent and able to challenge their germany and those who are fighting for nato and in libya and fighting for the t.n.c. really need to understand that this is nato his vision for their country may need to wake up and saying that they're being used here. well coming up on r t we're on

a storm watch the city that never sleeps great braves farkle storm irene as it's we have something the u.s. east coast moving through. now the russian government has ordered a major shake up of the country 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 all six crew members aboard the i.s.o.'s will now have to ration out the food and water they have left artie's jacob green's 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 a first but then i realized queens never fly in their clothes or 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 bang one really loud and two quieter it was due to dock with the international space station on friday delivery of century supplies to 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 pell 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 planners always keep in mind episode bill of

the of the 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 all use a rocket carrying. a crew is slightly different but not more that much to. the progress they're going to want to make sure anything that is similar could go on that what happened. supplies those 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 has been forced to tighten quality control and hope there won't be

a repeat of the problems but 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 r.t. . this week north korea announced its readiness to regime international talks over its disputed nuclear plans now the news came as the country's leader made a rare broad to meet president dmitri medvedev and discuss of all other things a vital energy deal for both koreas struggling economy artie's you've got to of our 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 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 quests on from there he traveled on the translate beer and railway to the by 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 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 so it's not 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 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. who is 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 but for russia it's a chance to do what everyone else has failed so far catherine as are of our will on the day. and still have for you this hour a journey through russia all the way to back you know all over the region and then for

a possible health in the name of believe and respectable as entertaining at all sad children like. the millions of new yorkers decided to stay in their homes as hurricane irene swept through the city bringing partial flooding at a power shortages while it's now been downgraded to a tropical storm all public transportation will remain shop throughout sunday irene is sweeping up the u.s. eastern seaboard and has claimed at least fifteen lives artie's medina port my reports now from new york. city was prepared a way in advance before i remain begat its way down the eastern seaboard but at this point things seem extremely calm relatively calm the sun actually looking out of my window in the sun is beginning to come out here in new york city where that does not mean that there are not been any damage from this tropical storm no i really 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 and the wind became extremely heavy it was downgraded to a tropical storm as you mentioned at this point there's been severe flooding along the hudson river in manhattan and in all the outer boroughs of new york city there are how out in power shortages according to con edison more than three million people are long eastern seaboard how about the last hour now on manhattan all the emergency workers and first responders are dealing with major flooding for the old lying areas of manhattan as we remember it was in new york city mayor michael bloomberg that order a mandatory evacuation of certain parts of new york city those are wrangled lying areas. proximately 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 our way out of the storm as it made its way to your according to what we are all just are saying this storm has now passed new york city is heading towards rhode island newport rhode island and new england and it could even become a little bit greater as it gains momentum heading that way 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. well we're closely following the developments unraveling on the east coast of america which has been hit by a wave of extreme weather because a lot more channels watched most recent also present videos from hurricanes. and europe spreading debt crisis is threatening to draw in france as the government announces new austerity measures earlier this week amid concerns it could lose its aaa credit rating all the new deficit reducing package will see some twelve billion

euros worth of cuts plus a tax hike for the rich but as artie's daniel bushell explains the move could be too little too late with fears that social unrest is just around the corner. enjoys a triple a credit rating for now put it one of the choice ratios among the world's top rated states many investors bitterly to follow the u.s. and be downgraded just repaying interest on it this year has overtaken education and defense as the government's biggest spend. causes presided over the biggest jump in debt levels in our history books that carry too much water. or. france has gone up the tolerance limits of prime minister as he explained the new road of spending cuts this week but economists fear things. those cuts go nowhere near enough. people saying we're going to buy a lamborghini and buy

a porsche and they call that austerity doctors warned for huge did burgeon is bringing critique of drink this month in schools and hospitals. getting. into. computers. very. fashion. the situation's explosive say experts and friends could be next to witness routes like those in britain to proved regions like the inner part of cities in the suburbs. are certainly segregated to very high extent. or in germany so yes unrest could come from the suburbs and spread through nicolas sarkozy's flowing of pull from france as he turned over to his 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 in protest against their ministers bathing in the sun because these absence in this time of crisis right leading newspaper le figaro may be clip of politically but his failure to tackle the country's troubles now could be creating even greater problems for the future of the new. paris. let's now look at some news that made headlines today across the world on the left continues in syria with activists claiming government forces have opened fire and protesters in separate cities killed five people it comes as the arab league announced it will send an envoy to the country to hold talks with president assad suit and add to the violence meanwhile iran has reaffirmed its

alliance with syria but warned that assad should listen to this people's legitimate demands more than two thousand have been killed since anti-government demonstrations began in march. a series of overnight bomb attacks has left six people dead and injured at least seven in the iraqi capital of baghdad explosions started at a police patrol in one of the city's neighborhoods and 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 over. about gazans elected their new president this weekend aleksandar on lead the country that's been exhausted by two decades of tensions after a declared independence from neighboring georgia and. reports a challenging task lies ahead for the new leader as a next shopper for dogs. he promised to make

a pause it is stronger state know what it 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 caucasus republic willing to travel a long way to support their man. i came from crimea to vote he helped war veterans like me a lot when we had tough times. alexander was vice president one the man he succeeds as leader said again 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 the same year for almost two decades after a pause declared independence from georgia fear and uncertainty marked life in the country the mood seems to have changed early battles were independents 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 one clubs agenda. we have to admit it and that is true we see certain growth but there's no no we loans in series in this. the campaign was monitored by more than one hundred international observers from countries including france austria and israel when i was invited to. have. a very quick reaction from the georgian always says oh no don't those are about my ideals so it's over any period of independence and i can do what exactly do you support what you are doing here you know because you are fighting for your sorrentino turn of the independence democracy for in the election observers ignored the threats and gave the poll a clean bill of health these elections have been very well planned and have been operative at the highest level as well as the results of 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. r t so cool. and now it's time for the latest in our close of series where we venture to areas of russia where few have traveled before. and this week we're in the care of a region located around a thousand kilometers east of moscow the city of kid all of it is a renowned cultural center it was for its folk arts and crafts all in the summer the region is host to an adult festival celebrated a common green vegetable art is either

a good on their times in the front. it's the pride of the cure of region that annual cucumber festival the governor himself invited journalists from all across europe just to showcase the region's tourist potential organizers here make the bold claim that the pickled cucumbers in this religion. stubbins are the best in the world. so while the players sing folk songs extolling the virtues of the green staple because only one store what actual vegetable can be bought for i've traveled eighty kilometers to be in this queue 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 you know the cucumber the harvest that put in brine. and mix with.

the recipe to what makes them special is a strictly kept secret but 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 said that the cold water gives 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 dim covered toys base an ancient pagan day tease these clay figurines have been handmade here for hundreds of years the handicrafts trick tradition describes that artisans was depicted very specific subjects namely peasant women and improbably colored animals. this is not just

a trademark of our region this is russia's visiting card 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 masters of the must before we came to make us 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. local authorities are hoping master classes like this one will become a tourist attraction and a recruiting ground for new craftswomen. eager of nerve. cure of region that's all for this hour i'll be back with a recap of our main story shortly to stay with our team.

during. the story. friendly. dynamic. difference.

welcome back here's a recap of the week's main stories and today's made headlines libyan rebels have turned down a reported offer of by more bardolph each to negotiate a power transfer as they prepare a final attack on the colonel's hometown. there's a big shake up in the russian space agency after the loss of another on mad mention and scientists now rushing to resupply the international space station and that a disaster of. north korean leader kim jong il rolls through possibly russia by trade the first meeting with president medvedev saying that pyongyang wants a resumption of international talks that will bring peace to the peninsula. out of the full story.