an attack on a program news channel in syria kills this after president assad declares on national t.v. that the country is in a state of war. a us senate committee passes a bill banning russian officials it believes to be implicated in human rights violations the route was sparked by the death of a lawyer while in russian custody three years ago. also. london two thousand and twelve is actually starting to look more like a security event. not a sporting event the games organizers are under fire for flaunting a battleships and rockets well it seems the olympic park is still easily open to attack.

it is a pleasure to have you with us here today this is our city with me rory suchet live in moscow one of syria's pro-government news stations has come under attack leaving up to seven employees dead that's after president bashar al assad addressed his cabinet on national t.v. saying the country was in a state of war the government raided the headquarters of the privately owned t.v. channel twenty kilometers outside damascus in the early morning syria's information minister says the terrorists blew up buildings and kidnap several people rebel forces though deny that they've targeted any media outlets the attack comes after president assad called on his newly sworn in government to do everything they can to win the ongoing war in their country the latest now from damascus with artie's

maria from. this is the strongest statement from president bashar assad since the uprising began sixteen months ago and i have to say that things that are indeed dramatic here on the ground the conflict is definitely escalated fault mold in one hundred people have reportedly been dead in the last in just the last twenty four hours and earlier on tuesday the rebels attacked the president's elite republican guard just a few kilometers from the mask a center and in the night before president bashar assad's speech before a new cabinet we've been hearing the sounds of heavy explosions and intense shelling and opposition activists to have late to colditz in the poorest day of clashes between the rebels and governmental forces say this is the uprising began last march the government. later after after what happened on tuesday that a number of terrorists have been killed many of them have been captured including foreign nationals but we also hear in about

a dramatic arrival just from the ministry side as well unfortunately we have to admit that there is little the international community can do about the syrian crisis at this point but still we are we see some international really after its own the table the u.n. observer treaty mission here in syria has been suspended to become too risky for and to dangerous for about three hundred monitors to work here on the ground and then for now the mission remains a frozen and since there is no progress here well we been hearing from u.n. special own envoy kofi annan his his pushing the international conference take place the weekend the lever and the idea is to bring global and regional powers who have influence on both damascus and the rebel forces and see to and the can hammer out and try to hammer out a new approach to solution to the syrian crisis and the idea is to invite see raised ally iran this is this something most code. has supported what has been

rejected by washington we need to get together and. let's be serious let's be serious although you know national selfish agendas in the context of syria have not worked the only thing which they have generators of further a good vision of the situation and growing growing while and so if it's time to get serious and to make sure that we all exercise our leverage on where we can exercise leverage in syria in order to revert to the implementation of course. the u.s. and its allies have their road and contact group of series called friends of syria but the problem with these groups is that they've they've only been dealing always with the rebels that with only one side they will be meeting next week as well and of course this is anything but not easing the tensions here in the region. for national reporting or meantime a un human rights council investigation has found that the killing of some one

hundred civilians in the syrian village of houla in may could be blamed on forces loyal to the regime however it also said it couldn't rule out the possibility rebels or even four and mercenaries were involved the syrian delegation at the session in geneva called some of the conclusions extremely politicized and even walked out of the meeting author and historian gerald horne believes mass civilian slaughter still can't justify that of outside intervention and the diplomacy remains the only solution. keep in mind that the north atlantic nations and where there are lies particularly saudi arabia or relatively isolated on this matter of think the international community is more than less than the libyan adventure recognizing that these crocodile tears that are being shared about civilian deaths in syria are basically a cover scene shames a lot of libya needs national community does not work that the happens basically because of the steadfastness of moscow and beijing and iran. and i think it's

very important for the iranians to be represented in this upcoming meeting or a real party in interest and it would be contrary to international peace and security if they continue to be excluded from sort of course. and a biased approach to the events in syria gets in the way of not just politics but also john limbs that we can report on this shortly here on r.t. an internal b.b.c. report costs doubt on the channel's accuracy over its coverage of the arab spring revolutions we speculate whether the broadcaster is slipping off the pace. and homegrown terrorists could be talking to al qaeda training grounds blooming thanks to the arab spring and the u.k.'s top spy warns of a brand new threat. this is our duty u.s. senate committee has approved a bill of blacklisting russian officials it seems to be implicated in human rights

abuses the senate has yet to vote on the so-called magnitsky bill named after a lawyer sort of a magnitsky who died in a russian prison three years ago he was detained in two thousand and eight on charges of helping a british investment fund to carry out tax evasion of the details not belonging to artie's guy in a church. senate foreign relations committee has passed this so-called magnitsky law now at this point it has little to do with the actual person that the proposed legislation was named after sergei magnitsky who tragically died in a washington jail back in two thousand and nine the wording of this new punitive legislation is much broader if passed by the senate it would require the united states to deny visas and freeze the assets of russians generally accused of human rights abuses the fact of the matter is that the u.s. has already barred eleven russian officials allegedly implicated in the death of sergei magnitsky from entering the united states but the names of those people have not been disclosed russia retaliated last year by taking similar measures against

eleven american officials accused of human rights violations in u.s. secret prisons in iraq afghanistan guantanamo president putin called deaths in prison a tragedy it's being investigated by russian authorities deems this kind of legislation as interference in their internal affairs a kind of interfere is that will most likely backfire also made it clear that they will be forced to adopt similar measures and the potential list of american officials involved in human rights violations around the walls can be very long including torture practices again in iraq of ghana's than guantanamo so this could trigger a series of tit for tat moves which will aggravate relations between the countries as far as the obama administration they feel working hard on russia's admission into the world trade organization on lifting the outdated jackson invented amendment in order to give american businesses have better access into the russian market and later this summer congress is set to vote on a legislation that will strike down this soviet era amendment to which would

decades had limited u.s. trade with russia but there are attempts in congress to attach this new human rights bill to the upcoming bill on establishing permanent normal trade relations with russia that's what the act is called and frankly moscow is worried about the attempts to replace one punitive. anti russian legislation with another. but he's going to try to reporting there will meantime political consultant has done your wagner believes that american politicians are banking on a return to cold war fear mongering ahead of the elections but the fallout could be painful. with the election season heating up as it is to a fever pitch now there can't be too much doubt about why this is happening at this time if you look for example mr romney's approach to russia calling russia the u.s. number one foreign to geo political with everything else that is going on in the world it seems really surprising to me that he would choose to do this the bigger

issue for americans is what this may mean for american businesses in russia that's a very big issue another question is whether it's going to be conducive to eliciting a cooperative response in foreign affairs from the russian government i don't see how it's going to be less at that it seems to me that it's very ill timed to have this kind of sort of cold war era rhetoric flying about in washington at a time when it really needs russia's cooperation on a number of very important issues it seems to me what the u.s. ought to be doing is finding a way to cooperate with russia on these issues rather than inviting it to have some sort of a difficult relationship going forward and i know that was a political consultant daniel wagner with his assessment of the timing of repercussions of the magnitsky bill of. tempest here in moscow where european

governments are becoming increasingly worried at the growing number of home train terrorists who can travel freely all across the u. but a search of a radical islam in some countries is also a sponsor to counter a rise in far right extremists and with aussies reporting. in the war on terror and in the fight is raging and you have them a bit with thing in. the days people are saying that boundary the freedom of speech for that rhetoric but at the same time extremists being expressed under the banner of freed in their village in this ongoing struggle is a. a much more serious problem radicalization the growing number of young europeans where i see the threat is the young unemployed who are told and shown repeatedly you're not really one of us it doesn't even matter if you've been born here but if you have not been integrated and those will be millions coupled with

a religious. valve for relief valve for anger which shows the internet actually your brothers abroad are being blown up or killed by executive people where you live why i'm going to terrorists to me mary actually a small part of the global threats they have a disproportionate impact is that possible carrying citizens who understand the countries they live in have good connections they're easy access to information investigative journalist the nearby atty has been closely following the rise of fundamentalist websites so many not only muslim but. there are converted to islam have sympathy with the terror and the london and this is even yet such lead to radicalism and i think i need to terrorism this is not just radical muslims his views have been carefully monitored the rise of anti

islamic sentiment in the west has also been steadily growing what i really really have a problem with is this third totalitarianism called islam you have nots as in which we have to see that you have communism which is more or less defeated and the third one is islam. the danger posed by radical anti immigrant thinking it's a tragically demonstrated in the to rethink attacked by and is daring brave it in no way with increasingly anti islamic rhetoric coming not just from controversial speakers the from european politicians questions are now being asked about just how responsible these fees really are and in the war of ideologies in europe right now it's become hard to know just who it is that poses the greatest terror threats. now the u.k.'s top spy agency believes that new terror training camps in arab spring countries could pose

a major threat the head of m i five said the uprisings which nato and its allies have supported allowed al qaeda to move right on up to two hundred extremists from the u.k. thought to have joined heavily armed groups abroad a middle east peace activist dr franklin lamb believes nato's bombing of libya alternately paved the way. when you've got an operation like nato all slaughtering civilians in pakistan afghanistan iraq of course it's going to activate them and give them the opportunity as you know al qaeda has urged its leadership a surge of people to go to syria and get training and go to southern turkey and also in libya it was a rush to enter and to topple the regime i think that was the classic mistake i spent four months there got to know a number of the different factions and it was clear that al-qaeda was there some cases they were training the same militia of the british were training and the

americans or the french were training and now they're joining they're increasing their ranks two months three months ago there is a congressional hearing a cia analyst told in the congress because there were three hundred marks around al qaeda in syria now they are surveyed just thirty one hundred so because nato got this thing going in libya there was this opportunity and there was no will to respond to an opportunity and that's what we're seeing now. if you go to our web site r.t. dot com you can get more of the stories we're covering online at the moment for example the getting obesity off the menu a federal program in the u.s. pushes overweight americans to seek counseling to combat what the state considers an epidemic of expanding waistlines. in the ecuadorian embassy is in britain now the u.s. get ten thousand messages of support for julian assange has been for asylum in the

latin american country about the anxiously awaits the decision in the meantime though you can catch the whistleblowers exclusive talk show on our website. it's. the official auntie application. called touch from the dumpster. on the. video on demand.

and. now in the palm of your. question on the dot com it's good to have you with us here on r.t. today just a moment ago the world update but for now the b.b.c. has acknowledged its coverage of the uprisings in the middle east could have been brought up a special internal inquiry concluded the generally impartial it lacked context that accused the b.b.c. of being slow to highlight human rights abuses by rebel factions in the libyan war and underestimating the violent nature of the syrian uprising as it began their if you also stated that the channel failed to provide international reaction to the events sole focus on smaller countries like saudi arabia and. t.j. walker from a media training organization says the b.b.c. is a losing its status as a leading broadcaster. there isn't biased always in favor of the bigger story the true revolution is always going to be more exciting it's going to be

a bigger story and that's what reporters want to be a part of doesn't mean it was good journalistic decision but that is a that is reality when it comes to major networks the bigger problem for the b.b.c. is there are just so much competition it's easy to be the gold standard. when you really have no competition and that was the case for so many decades around the world these days you have more and more networks you have more and more luggers citizen journalist websites and there's a lot of good stuff out there and every level of the professional level at the citizen journalism level so it's harder for one organization to be the dominant voice. our a straight a twin bombings in iraq now starts off the r.t. world the bombings have killed at least eight people and injured nineteen across the country the first blast went off outside at the house of a shiite cleric in a baghdad suburb

a second explosion came just minutes later as neighbors gathered at the scene june has been a violent month in iraq with over one hundred forty people mostly shia pilgrims dying in insurgent attacks. the u.s. commander in afghanistan is meeting with pakistan's top general today focus on reopening key military supply lines which were closed to nato convoys in november after an airstrike by the military alliance killed twenty four pakistani soldiers and no progress has been made on the issue since then ahead of the meeting though another u.s. drone attack killed four in the country. libyan officials have denied claims that the last prime minister to serve under moammar gadhafi was abused in jail on sunday two newsier extradited. back to libya human rights groups say he faces a very real risk of being tortured and as president was against the extradition worried that libya's new regime offered no guarantees of

a fair hearing. just a moment on dimitri in the business for now though the london olympics are exactly one month away but the city's security operations are already under attack while fighter jets and drones are guarding the skies and big brother watching every move skeptics believe that won't help those inside the olympic park because basic security there isn't up to scratch as artie's laura smith investigates. london two thousand and twelve is almost upon us and with just one month to go it's not just the athletes who are going up a massive security operation is also getting into gear we've got battleships on the river thames with. we've got pilotless drones with. missile batteries dotted around the city personnel with untold numbers of firearms are you've got to question the probe proportionality of this london two thousand and twelve is actually starting

to look more like a security event. not a sporting event. a security event with a little bit of incidental sport on the eleventh cakes this is the u.k.'s biggest ever peace time security operation and the numbers of personnel. on the ground during the games they'll be twelve and a half thousand police officers supported by the occasion by the way that a whole thousand soldiers but insiders are saying basic security here at the olympic park is seriously lacking investigative journalist lee hazeldean is under cover with g four s. the security firm that won the four hundred fifty million dollar contract for the games he's posing as a trainee and says rule recruits vetting arms training are substandard i was asked during the training exercises to be a would be terrorist i was given a knife a real gun and a fake i.e.d.

the gun was in my bag preserve didn't see it it is a good several times he still didn't find it he got behind one and. it didn't go he hadn't turned on police says he's raised his concerns with g four s. but was told to mind his own business no one from the company was available to comment for this report meanwhile the organizing committee remains resident about see here is absolutely the top priority for us you know we want the people you know come to visit london in twenty twelve to be absolutely confident that they're going to be safe and secure you know you go security and x. ray machine all of that anything pretty with you and that way you can check that anybody coming in to bring anything within the can do anybody any damage that snow . not least experience of the operation and he's pessimistic about the safety of visitors to the olympic park i took a huge nation there you know there's one road if i mean you should get sued by one person and fifty people go through different pierces that's fifty rounds of

ammunition in the olympics and that's a massacre right then and there if a terrorist or a terrorist organization is intent on getting into the olympics all they have to do at the moment is queue up with a month to go the head of m i five says his organization can't guarantee the security of the games what people are asking is the point of the heavy artillery if the park itself is left wide open laura smith r.t. london. it's that time of the hour again a search out of a tree at the business desk i could see you again though i understand the standard and poor's had a nice surprise in store for russia not absolutely sure it's confirmed its credit rating at triple b. also gave it a stable outlook now the s. and p. analysts believe that low debt levels that russia has are balancing the risks of the world's top energy exports from volatility on the commodity markets and that at the time that many agencies have been cutting sovereign debt ratings especially in

europe also russia will be the perfect place to find a job the next few years as there will be many vacancies at least that's according to the wealth management division of bank of america merrill lynch says that the country will have at least nine million jobs up for grabs in the next decade that's because of russia's demographic problems there aren't enough people available to replace the aging workforce in the country banks analysts expect local employers to raise salaries by roughly six and a half percent a year to prevent their employees from looking for another job and by twenty twenty this could more than double the average salary in the country proud to talk more about these two stories these two issues surrounding russia now joined by the chief economist at. bank of america merrill lynch for four russians here. very nice to see there so how important do you think is this confirmation of russia's rating a triple b. by u.s. and b. . what of course there is nothing bad. related to

the fact that the rating was not reduced or was not kept of course seven hundred fifty other countries russia is much more protected against the potential adepts allied to the idea that if i do it on the markets and of course it is stable outlook is also a good development and basically just reiterate the best and great breaking for russia is always a good thing to have in the greater part of it by some of to the work of your colleagues from bank of america merrill lynch and they basically saying that russia's demographic problem the aging population is somewhat of an attractive competitive factor when it comes to economic growth is that right. yes in fact i would i would say that they are for according to kinetic theory as it is indeed that the adverse demographic trends he's a negative development long term trend negative for the long term trend for i count on me for a developed economy that's maybe it's a negative trend it could be

a negative trend for economy like you are europe like japan or us but russia is still a developing economy we still have a lot of things to do you know to do we have to and they catch up mode and adverse demographic conditions said the indian the current environment is actually supporting to bring russian g.d.p. per capita much closer to the developed world all right but do you think that the the fact that there will be such an imbalance on the labor market with nine million vacancies available will not cause very sweet especially c.i.s. nations to increase migration to take these positions. are first of all russia is already one of the largest actually i think it's a second largest emitters did nation for immigrant labor in the world after us. and i would say that the very idea that we do have this immigrant people here immigrant labor here actually highlights the fact that the labor cost in labor actually labor of the. usa labor cost in russia is that structurally higher than it should be. so

this immigrant flows actually highlighting this how supporting the idea that this positive trends in labor cost labor costs and labor incomes and actually do exist all right all the marilyn would never have come to russia. this sort of ice continue. and people would have never come to russia otherwise right if less than it was over we had higher wages. logical marilyn's has also been saying that it expects russia to keep raising taxes due to increasing social spending how soon do you think we could expect this to happen. while prior to election the new president of the ordinary a president a new war president has promised a lot of spending and we do think that most of these spending promises will be funded by raising taxes higher seemingly don't think that russia will be able to will be willing to actually told the world of finance all the spending and therefore they give the ever increasing spending to spend in tickets who have to be

financed by higher taxes it might happen within the next let's say i mean these outlook is based on the horizon of eight years until twenty twenty so i guess within that period we might see some things happening all right. thank you very much that was the chief economist of bank of america merrill lynch for russia and the c.i.s. presenting a rather peculiar outlook for the russian demographic situation which may mean that the aging population could be a competitive advantage when it comes to economic growth. always a pleasure to meet you thank you very much and you will see this time next hour. just a moment of the headlines we'll be back in just. the

. russians would be so much brighter if you knew all about some from feinstein.