more than one hundred people killed and thousands of homes devastated as to wrenshaw rains triggered flash flooding and a popular southern russian resort area. tension overshadows libya's first election and half a century with cheers in the capital contrasting sharply with boycotts and attacks across the country. and a deadline set for june in the sand his extradition to sweden expires in a matter of hours but the whistleblower remains in the safety of ecuador's london embassy waiting for an answer to his asylum please. r.t. live here in moscow and just

a reminder that the alyona show which would have been on for the next hour has now been canceled so we can bring you the latest on the tragedy unfolding in russia's south one hundred five people are now known to have died after massive flooding hit the southern russian resort region of cranston that have been warnings the death toll is likely to rise the heiress want by torrential rain for around twenty four hours now artie's dennis but not ski joins me now on the phone dennis we've been seeing some astonishing pictures a little earlier here in r t coming out of the region roads literally turned into rivers all there now just how bad is it what do you see where you are. going to see the flood city area with. the four and five. months worth of rainfall over the forty four hours. inside little for the area of. our body down the one.

element. when you were called by surprise and rising water from the ground force of alpha seven people inspired think this is one of the movie communities are almost no multi-story buildings so versatile and over that was the lucky ones managed to force one of the roofs and cities and wait for the workers to come up. people were left to keep the glutes wired sell them to the local discovered the payment to a local supermarket with completely destroyed. supply of oil lamps of. those highways and delivered thick heavy kicks from the elements working many escape routes to see frank work either cancelled or suffer on their way to the black sea so the people are still waiting. for them to go further to soften them that's what the hell the. bar is one of the popular inacceptable said the good

mungo some of thousand people here can hear. the sounds the pipe dreams that suffered sadly of our youth and going and then i'll pass with fluid on our way to a disaster picking area we're told dozens of cars the most to isolate from siberia of them just as. many of those doing many of those people don't look old till the bigots of the example of these. make some of the more difficult to find in the us one of the most boring factors is that the region has a. camp for. children currently filled with over seven thousand kids. and our goal without one of them the temples of. the console it was obvious it was . a thanks very much indeed for that live update there on the phone obviously we have to get more from you as are you venture further into the flood stricken area in the meantime thank you very much dennis built scale corresponding increase in

the now i want to season survive has been sharing the firsthand accounts from the region devastated by the animal stories of narrow escapes and the loss of loved ones. but. a stream of water hit my car i lost control of the car turned over and hit a tree i just managed to climb out of the back door and cling to the tree just like you did. you know as of the rain was so large there were two children only by a roof but we couldn't hear them we could only throw someone close to them which was good but i am relatives who are in the house including the paralyzed grandmother and a young woman with her three month old child last time we got a call from them they said the water level was almost reaching the ceiling and they didn't know how to get out we haven't heard from him soon. that's not cross live to r.t. correspond to by what say you can tell us more about the rescue efforts in the stricken area a huge operation is underway just what's being done by the authorities to tackle

the impact of this disaster. well you know bill thirteen thousand people have now been displaced from these these amazing floods that have just stepped on over night now if you look at the areas that we're talking about you know these are the most hit areas obviously cream sick at the moment but rescue efforts are coming in the most important thing to remember is that these people need shelter more than anything else right now good shelter food warm blankets and clothing and so forth so rescue efforts from helicopters jim riches the services have now come down into that area to make sure that everybody is being supported now thinking about what else could they be needed i mean there's a lot of effort in terms of still getting people out of that water so you know emergency services are still trying to get people out of some of the tribe the areas that have been flooded so that's one of the most important things that they will be doing they've sent out helicopters they've sent out emergency services from both the moscow and the surrounding areas to go and help those people that early on

president putin actually made a visit to the disaster area to see how much has been have people been affected by this and obviously just to give the country a bit of more moral support and say that the country hasn't forgotten you we're here we're in support of you and we're going to do as much as we can to try to help you so far the damage to the area has been calculated to be up to thirty million dollars and that's just the beginning because we're still in the early ages of the disaster so we don't really know at the end of all of it how much really it's going to cost and looking back at the actual geography of this area when you think about why floods actually take you know if water cannot be absorbed into the soil it will cause disasters like this where the water needs to flow somewhere and if it flows in areas where it cannot go anywhere else this is where it's going to end up. in the series though emerging as to why they have been so many victims and predicted

to. possibly be more well you know bill this is it's this ass is like this when people come up with all sorts of theories now residents in this area say that there is a reservoir actually that you can see it's actually between the point town here and the actually hardest hit town of prince explosions right here so that water reservoir locals are saying that in there you believe that authorities might have actually pulled up the pipes early in order to let the water out but authorities are saying that cannot be possible everything that's on that reservoir in terms of security is in place so that cannot be the reason why there's so much flooding in those areas so that's just one of those series i think people are looking at something or somebody to blame for such a disaster that's just happened overnight really now when we think about this region of krasnodar you know this is not the first time that something like this

has actually happened to back in two thousand and two devastations over three months of during the summer period of rain you know there were lots of people died over two hundred thousand people died during that time so it's an area that we shouldn't say is used to such massive rain pounding and floods however we have seen such devastation before in the past in that area i think right now what's one what's important is to let the authorities do what they need to do is get the people out because surely as more rescue efforts go ahead there'll be more people who hopefully will survive this devastation and the numbers will no doubt continue to rise but we'll keep everybody updated in terms of what's happening in that area bangalter thanks very much indeed for that update on the rescue efforts there in christendom and of course we'll keep across a situation developing there in southern russia over the next few hours. joy tension and sabotage today all characterizing what's so far been libya's first

elections inhofe a sentry gang stormed a polling station in the north while boy called shootings in abductions have modified across the country in benghazi where last year's uprising began protests as this morning burned ballot papers and decried the vote and all more than one hundred polling stations failed to open and the three thousand seven hundred candidates are vying for seats in parliament predict to be dominated by islamists today less than a year since moamar gaddafi was executed by a crowd of revolutionaries it seems the country is more divided than ever former rebel commanders and tribal chiefs fight for power across libya with little hope that elections will stop the violence coming over us. this is the new libya political parties are now free to operate across the country . so to a countless armed groups they one spot to oust moammar gadhafi from power today it

is they who are in control that tag militias who answer only to their own commanders have grown more powerful than libya's police and army. which is why we must put limits on these militias because they are dividing the country there while libya is falling into decay almost one year after a nato backed uprising ended but after his rule libyans are taking to the polls for the first time in decades but with tripoli's transitional national council too weak to quell ongoing violence and the fear that elections will do little to bring peace . where is the conditional they said that they are going to protect this country and if gadhafi gone there is nothing left he said that libya will have national unity where is it. here is what libyan style democracy looks like armed groups calling for more autonomy stormed a benghazi polling station last sunday. in lists and ballots ablaze renewed tribal clashes broke out in libya's city of this past week alone saw the deaths of nearly

fifty people with hundreds wounded and when members of a local militia seized libya's biggest international airport in broad daylight last month security forces simply stood by and watched they vary in size from gangs guarding neighborhoods to small de facto armies like the one ins in taunton which still holds libya's most famous prisoner saif al islam when international criminal court staffers tried to visit gadhafi son they too were seized and held captive for nearly four weeks justice militia style may prove to be the biggest obstacle to whatever government libyans elect some groups are boycotting saturday's vote while others aligned with various political parties a dangerous trend that could deep in existing divisions secularists islamicists even former members of al qaida are among the nearly four thousand people vying for a seat in the country's national congress the choice of candidates is the will during for some that is precisely the problem this is because of their own i don't know. how congress may give the good times when years and years. so i think because

. millions of nk stained fingers will mark libya's first experiment with free elections but as the cases of iraq and afghanistan have shown voting booths alone do not equal a democracy and in the example of libya the line between freedom an anarchy is growing dangerously blurred whatever the outcome one thing is certain if unhappy with the result libya's armed groups now know what to do next. we are against i'm a dictator but if history repeats itself we will. see caffyn of our t.v. moscow. the general consensus so far is the islamist factions will pick up the lion's share of the vote as they did in post revolutionary tunisia and egypt and reese erlich journalist and contributor for monthly magazine the progressive says it's not them he's concerned about but before and backed militias sabotaging the election. libya considered itself a country even under moammar gadhafi the extent there was organized opposition it

was often led by this universe and they're trying to capitalize on that but it's hardly an exercise in democracy because the militias still have the main control and what they do particularly the militias aligned with political parties those forces are not capable of winning elections fairly so they're disrupting the elections and the response i think i get an interview a lot of ordinary working people or people in the street during my visits people are very very upset they think that a new strongman is going to come to power which is not what they fought for and they do feel that their revolution is being stolen and western interference is an issue the u.s. and western europe are very interested in maintaining the moral suppliers from. some of the countries that were being the loudest for military intervention are the ones who get their oil from libya and i think there is evidence that they're back in some of the more right wing islamist and military forces their forces are so

close together to. still to come the program discord in the heart of latin america ballasting a paraglider president hits relations between neighbors reconnects but she has his views on what lies behind the story. that's still to come because the u.n. special envoy to syria says the international peace efforts have not succeeded so far that since the violence continues to spread over the syrian border five people are being killed in neighboring lebanon as the army clash with rival gangs a writer at the center for research and globalization says they'll be no letup in the violence since the opposition supporters continue to aid the rebel fighters with arms. i think at this point these western powers are paying lip service to the the kofi annan plan and at the very same time undermining it completely by letting weapons come into the country from all sides just

a couple of weeks ago the new york times reported a bombshell article of the cia that confirmed the american cia is operating in a base in southern turkey and they're coordinating arms smuggling into into syria to to from the free syrian army and if we look at things like the houla massacre and the kinds of bombing tactics suicide bombing roadside bombing that we see going on in syria now this is not characteristic of syria or lebanon this is characteristic of al-qaeda in iraq. still many of the diplomatic advantage which seems to be on the side of the syrian opposition but the media are one as well and is always going to explain such overwhelming backing echoes another conflict. syrian rebels have rejected the peace plan that was put forward by the international community they made it clear that violence would continue so far the coverage of the conflict in syria has been so one sided that it seems the rebels could get away with anything the media in the us and in the west in general have focused only on what the government has been doing almost entirely leaving out the

atrocities act of terror committed by the rebels presenting a completely black and white picture but a conflict like the one in syria is never black and white and never simple the slanting of the coverage reminded some of the former yugoslavia before nato went bombing former yugoslavia at the end of the one nine hundred ninety s. the media focused on crimes committed by the serbs completely washing down the atrocities committed against the serbs with me here is jim the director of the american council for casa paul so i thank you very much for joining me thank you what are the similarities you see between what's going on in syria what has been going on in yugoslavia inform you that there are similar is i would say on all three crucial levels as we look at syria one has to do with the international system the rule of law the role of the security council another one has to do with the status of sovereign states and how you treat a sovereign state that has an insurgency within its borders and the third thing is

what we might call on the ground when you take a complex historical circumstance with communities historic grievances and as you said in your introduction atrocities and violence of that are committed on both sides in conflicts like this and attribute only to one side what you do is you to you you come up with the concept of do you fit the facts into the concept you don't take a step back in good faith look at what's really going on look at the suffering of people on both sides and how in good faith can you poor poor water on the fire to try to calm things down instead would you do as you find a smoldering fire you pour gasoline with words like genocide and so forth and then try to set. the stage for what you really want which is a victory for one side the side you've chosen and the utter destruction of the other side you know and one of the side lights of this in both kosovo and syria is something that's important to me is the fate of the christian population and why is it that in the name of fighting terrorism and promoting democracy and all this

other nonsense the united states always seems to find itself on the side of jihad just elements engaging in terrorism with the predictable results for the christian population as we saw in kosovo when half of the christian population was a box christian serbs had to flee the province and thousands of them were killed by the liberators the cause why and. i think that there are i think there are a couple of different explanations for it i think what is our cozy relationship with saudi arabia the gulf states that we want to show we're on the side of our friends who are so important to us when it comes to frankly money and international commerce i think by the way that even in a less dramatic form we're making a similar mistake when it comes to egypt and basically adopting the muslim brotherhood is our chosen voice of democracy in egypt which is also the same force that stands to benefit in syria if if our policy is successful. thank you mr texas we heard it many times the first casualty of war is the truth and we see it

happening time and time again the media urge to simplify matters and to eventually push a certain agenda becomes a weapon in itself a weapon which creates victims of its own in washington i'm going to. russia and china have rebuffed washington's threats of consequences what it sees as siding with the regime in syria the secretary of state hillary clinton said the countries must pay a price for that this is the support for the assad regime. we've been also one of the reasons for such harsh rhetoric. on the screen you see the majority believe the move points to the frustration of the west over the hampered minute to draw ninety percent think russia. china all stalled in the peace of an arrest is split between the two remaining options clinton's words undermined the geneva peace accord meant in any joint progress and that the harsh rhetoric was aimed at boosting public support for president obama's election slogan daughter you don't come to cast your vote. you can find this in the more online at the moment creating something else

there bright lights were spotted in the skies over parts of the u.s. and europe. find plenty more on the phenomenon online plus. israel slams the door on the u.n. officials from entering the country a fact finding mission to inspect the west bank settlements all that and dot com right now. the deadline set by the u.k.'s highest court for julian assange his extradition to sweden runs out in a matter of alice but the whistleblower says he won't leave the safety of the ecuadorian embassy in london until a decision on his request for asylum in south america is made all the sarah firth is more from outside of sanjay's place of refuge. it's been nearly two and

a half weeks now that julian assange has been holed up inside the ecuadorian embassy here in london after presenting himself on the nineteenth of june seeking asylum now today is the deadline for his extradition to sweden his appeal to the supreme court in the against the sexual assault allegations failed so it would have been the day we could have seen julian assange is put on a plane and sent to sweden and of course the big. his legal team have always said is that he would be then. gets in very strict free trial detention conditions and the overriding fear is that it would make it much easier for him to be extradited on to the u.s. but of course that's not going to happen today because julian assange took that dramatic step to seek asylum and you can see here today a number of his supporters still keeping vigil outside the ecuadorian embassy got

the banners of support for about seventeen days on a daily vigil we're hearing solitary read a saunters war resister an all star standing with the ecuadorian people in the heart that i might write decision which is to offer the guy short of a real sense among his supporters that this decision and the handling of his legal case it was a real failure for the u.k. in terms of defending human rights well now at the same time that you're in a sound is fighting his fierce battle against extradition we see wiki leaks once again coming into the spotlight and taking the headlines with a dramatic revelations over a new big leak the syria files more than two point four million e-mails that the group say that they have that they're going and have already indeed started releasing and that the inner workings of not just the syrian government but also western countries and western companies as well and that's going to be released in stages over the next. of weeks the last big leak of course the u.s.

diplomatic cables cable gates all the syria files even bigger than that eight times bigger in terms of documents and a hundred times bigger in terms of data and already we're seeing some of the revelations from not being explored so wiki leaks once again showing really that it's still able to do what it does best despite the fact that today in a soldier's fierce fight continues so furthur venezuela has pulled its diplomatic staff from power going after being accused by the government there of meddling in its internal affairs last month's impeachment of president fernando lugo blamed for a deadly crackdown on farmers has affected the country's ties with its neighbors particularly the city and she believes it's a sign of the u.s. promoting its interests in the region. carol why suffered a coup d'etat literally on the first twenty first of june when its democratically elected president. was ousted in

a twenty four hour pietschmann trial it must be the fastest pietschmann in modern history there are such agencies as us aid the united states agency for international development and it all has a lot of other aspects that spillover outside of paraguay because paraguay is considered together with bolivia the geo political heart in the south america so american but that's all we're pair of wife who also limited brazil's exit towards the pacific as a brick brazil russia india china and south africa and the united states at the same time is again promoting after that we american free trade association with its traditional allies in our region mexico panama colombia peru and chile so we would serve as a pacific wall against what they consider what the americans consider dangerous brazilian expansion because of the fact that it is not just in the commom within the bric countries but very much so even to a certain extent a political or a potential political ally of russia and china. twenty five minutes past

the hour in the russian capital an update of our top story one hundred five people have now reportedly died in the massive flooding in the southern russian president our region dozens have been injured and thousands of homes left devastated after five months of rain fell within twenty four hours rescuers are trying to evacuate survivors but the rayna swept away roads and seven communications making the effort six string to difficult the area is a popular seaside resort with thousands of russians flocking there during the holiday season we'll bring you the latest information on the disaster as it develops right here on our team. and a recap of our top stories we in just a few minutes from now stay with us life here in moscow.

there hasn't been anything good on t.v. . it is to get the maximum physical impact. before the source material is what helps keep journalism honest we.

we want to present. something all. the world to the. science technology innovation all the news developments from around russia we've got the huge earth covered. more news today violence is once again flared up the face these are the images

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