from the still. don't come. the death toll from devastating floods in the south of russia is now at one hundred fifty three thousands of homes many people injured in the resort regions the worst ever disaster. a clash of words while syria the u.s. lashes out at russia over the drawn out crisis while the chief international envoy to syria tries to draw attention to other countries he says boosting the conflict. suspense of the ecuadorian embassy in london julian assange extradition deadline passes by all the while though his wiki leaks website prepares to release millions of damaging files on those cashing in on the war in syria.

with the stories that made headlines this week and today this is the weekly on our with me will receive. that our region is coming to terms with the sheer scale of the devastation inflicted after flash floods struck overnight on friday many people awoke to a nightmare with their loved ones simply washed away in the darkness at least one hundred fifty three people so far died in the deluge thousands of houses were swamped affecting over twelve thousand residents. in the worst hit town and he did manage to speak to some of the survivors. you can see here behind me the river next to the town of crims all the deborah that's been flooded into there by that deluge of water that came into the night and here we can see just

a little part of the damage that that immense amount of water did this small house close to the river one of the worst hit one of the first hit it pushed this carriage down with ease up against the side of the house the straps there have been pushed out all this their brick road into the front garden the fence has been pushed down and all around this town the first people are starting to come back to their houses to try and assess some of the damage and some of the costs of all of this water many of them really in a state of shock they may have survived that night but the cost to this town and all the damage are immense but out my cousin woke me up at around one am and told us to get out we found ourselves kneedeep in water but i jumped out of the window while my wife went back to get our papers she could not get out so i had to run to the back of the house you know by then the doors of the room will blocked so i

broke the window and pulled her out the water was all over the house. not mine i go till to the house and come to the thing so the stream wouldn't wash me away then to lakewood men came up and helped me on to an emergency truck and a senior so i got up now i saw my neighbors we. proceed to make your ship this used to be movement is moving room this used to be a bedroom the house has been completely gutted from the inside by the router which came right up to the tops of the windows with miller managed to escape and sat there might on a neighbor's fence where house collapsed she was perhaps you can read know his neighbors say just down the road a neighbor on our room and had her house collapse on top of. his target reporting. well these deadly floods in southern russia have sent reverberations all across the country the region is a massive tourist with thousands of holiday makers that heading every summer to the

region but with travel communications now paralyzed news about friends and loved ones caught up in the disaster area is limited as karen tara reports i'm here in moscow standing in front of one of the major transportation halts this train station behind me are where the trains depart to head into and we've been seeing cancellations and delays but more importantly it's the families who are suffering families of those people who are still stranded in cross and they can't even reach them let alone not by train but even by telephone a lot of the electricity is still out over there and so you really can't make any sort of phone calls to find out what's going on there on the ground so a lot of fear a lot of concern but you also have children in summer camps it's a very popular spot for children to relax throughout the summer and while most of the children in these camps have been evacuated still many are unaccounted for and parents here telling me today that they just want to find out if everything is

alright keep in mind now cross the thought that is right by all the right on the black sea and the main port is also dealing with the runoff of houses and dead bodies as well as even a sewage leak so on top of the catastrophe that's going on you have people in the area who can't even get fresh water or food so very major situation going on right now and it's affecting not only the people there but people throughout russia as well and now for the first time in months government protests the hottest topic in russia's blogosphere a discussion of the floods now dominating the charts buying votes a look at some of the rather controversial comments. the blogs years have been buzzing obviously giving support and also reiterating the shock of this disaster more importantly sharing some of the witness accounts and just sending support to the people who have been affected by this you know social media is a place where people can share their thoughts they can you know debate about things

that is important to them but what i really want to share with you is some of the tweets and some of the messages that really shocked me and i want to start off with this tweet that we got now it says those did should blame themselves they voted for this stability now as any human being with any heart do you think how callous can somebody why that and tweeted to the rest of the world it's a this is a tragedy that's happening we should be supporting these people who have been affected by such they've lost their livelihoods some have lost their you know their families they need support now i just want to go to another tweet here this is some of the political jabs that some people have been using twitter and some other good social medias to politicize things it goes the most important thing now is to make sure putin doesn't fly a fire extinguishing aircraft as he normally does and discharge more water on the city now seriously i mean this is a time when people should be coming together it's not time for politics it's time

for people to rally and go help those people thirteen thousand of those people are going to be displaced after this tragedy it's really just a political jab now last week which i think is the most important this is what people should really and this is what people have been pushing towards is this tweet that goes flying all of two crimps guy urge everyone to forget about the political views and help the people that's really what's important now and mr pearce corben a founder of the weather action foundation and someone who specializes in such abnormal events of the day could be more to come. i would describe it as a water of a launch due to huge amount to writing for in a war idea over a short time and then it becoming concentrated in coming down the mountain. in terms of short range could. possibly they could if they had enough south a lot more nitro but i would say there's a risk of this targeting ferry norm definitely can see the risk of

a repeat of these things still around them and people need to well you know. be able to move quickly all be on the ground i mean i suspect one of the problems is a lot of people have been building properties quite near to the water courses and that has resulted in this as in a lot of other parts of the world and. actually join some of the rescue teams and the desperate search for survivors amid the devastation he filed this report a bit. we were told the emergency ministry units just got a call from this neighborhood seeing. people heard wild screaming during the floods and actually right now emergency ministry group with search dogs there trying to find the survivors. as you can see right over there. rescue teams always

do a thorough examination of every meter of the debris site and may still be oxygen under the debris so there is hope that there could still be survivors trapped underneath . sadly emergency workers did not find any survivors this time but they went on with their work we spoke to the couple who called them and they are still in shock at what was happening to them. that's where the water level was at its peak at first the waist high flood threw me right into the corner over there luckily i managed to grab that was tied then i crawled up and over the railing and got inside the house and then i just climbed the ladder. there are many theories and rumors surrounding the krims disaster some people doubt that the flood was caused by severe terentia will rain alone they claim that it could have been water discharged from the nearby reservoir but russian investigators working at the scene deny those claims they say all surrounding them are intact and they were functioning properly

. in this particular case. of the flooding during the rains which accumulated a huge amount of water any kind of deliberate or to discharge is technically impossible as an overflow pipe to release excess water in safe quantities. so the search for survivors here and groups continues and there is still hope that more lives will be say. well at least but they're also both in the region and are continuing to bring us the latest throughout the day here on out here but do bear in mind though you can also follow all of our correspondents who are covering the story on twitter you can see the scenes of devastation read the stories of survivors and get the latest reaction on twitter. now the timeline of the tragedy as well as all the latest news footage and photos from the zone of disaster always available for you now at r.t. dot com with just a click away we have the stories of outstanding bravery from the flooded areas one

policeman in particular he died rescuing locals he did manage to save two children before his boat had overturned r.t. dot com has more details on that. now let's get some more details on this all in the i suppose the technical side of this tragedy when our joined live by mikhail carlin an engineer of hydro power systems our thanks for coming on our team today there are rumors that local authorities released water on purpose from a nearby reservoir is that actually possible at this particular site. i believe that there were. there were more of the water storage. over the dam it's tricky for you to a chameleon to reach. on the floor. for my finger fuck smoke that. emerges disappears from

a very very. only . gave. now what would be the amount of water because i've looked at the diagrams of this in question and i understand there is an overflow valve so if water levels become too high there's an overflow system where excess water is channeled out through a fairly small pipeline all things considered would the water coming through the overflow pipe valve be enough to cause the destruction we've seen. my medium absolutely known because. it certainly it was created to provide the dish edge which will not cause any damages to the sick is below the it will flow. only

possibility to make such kind of dishwasher for the if it will come over the top of the dam it's one of those it's. controlled by the photos from say that a leaf and i think that is going to be is a reason for this accident fisher price. now there are there are comments on the bloggers at the moment certainly conspiracy theorists suggesting the data was a problem it had a problem as a some point but what i understand is that below the down there is a joining of three faily large rivers three rivers that joined into one a are you understanding are you thinking that it's the combination of these three rivers coming into one the possibly resulted in the main river bursting its banks is that where the problem lies do you think and yes i think that. because accidents are caused by the. overall three rivers and.

accident because of their by the conditions of normal it favors the conditions and . in any case it can and is the caused by the what today is it or is it possible with your understanding of hydroelectric dams and just dams in general is it your understanding actually that this dam prevented the tragedy from being worse than it could have been ultimately meaning ultimately meaning that the flooding could have been worse. every day was critically issue there for the. premiere and then it goes away accidents and. normally created in the brave many years old world. i'm sure even where the condition can do region and i think that it that i'm going to. fall through this church.

all right i'll let her out early and i do appreciate you joining us on the program here on our calcutta linen engineer of hydro power systems thanks for joining us on the program today. but we're coming to you live from the heart of moscow and diplomatic peace efforts in syria although unsuccessful so far will continue that's according to special envoy to the country kofi annan he also warned against blaming russia for the crisis deadlock saying the role of other powers to send weapons and money into the conflict zone is being down played from syria with this report r t s maria phenomena. commenting on why the international peace efforts haven't succeeded so far u.n. and arab league special envoy to syria has retreated but success as absolute of the plans on all parties been involved in this conflict and the syrian crisis should be and could only be resolved through doll the end of the geneva peace initiative just like other international peace plans is teamwork and it is absolutely unacceptable

and not at all constructive to blame on only one side he has signed that they have been a lot of talks about russia while little is said about nations still sending money and weapons to the syrian rebels kofi annan has mostly been talking about friends of syria group that accused russia and china of supporting the syrian regime and of hampering peace process here in syria even threatening that these two nations will pay a price kofi annan has said that iran could not be excluded of the peace process and should be part of the dialogue something america has been strongly opposed to syria is in war right now we've just returned from the homes in the central part of the country and this is a really sad picture what we saw here's my report from homes. at least parts of honey may be back on the syrian army control but their patrols never stop soldiers are searching house to house they're looking for terrorists or

snipers but that's not what they usually find. some people in their homes became their grades too and this room look human bones but at least one person. who seems to have been burned to death. in the next house we find three more charts call's. activists claim up to eight hundred thousand people have been killed since the uprising began sixteen months ago the u.n. estimates around town found. we have no way of telling if these remains or others like them were even counted at all. bab amr used to be home to one hundred thousand people now we're driving through area people have left military almost the only human beings left in this area this is he can see behind me this is a cemetery almost untouched actually while the rest of the city it looks completely like the cemetery buildings schools mosques all in ruins and no sign of life while

many signs of this is one of the tallest buildings in the area and we can see from this balcony two completely different pictures two completely different realities look there beautiful pictures peaceful city while over there well we can see war homes the opposition hotbed has always been at the heart of the uprising against president assad is a bad job amr if you could have been the epicenter of the questions between the rebels and the army since it's been shelled heavily now so you can see it's quiet here but just steps away just misses away another. some time here and this is where the things are happening right now it's standing behind these rays strange rays quite safe but from time to time missiles reach this area too this is why would a hurry up. but with brian other homes the district as you can see also almost completely destroyed everything shops building schools even mosques we were told

that this district was cleaned from terror months ago but as you can hear not far from here questions still continue so we were actually told not to go any further as simply dangerous soldiers come to our location and tell us the rebels woke up so we leave. our t. homs syria. but the u.n. observer mission concluded earlier this week that violence in syria had reached quote president of levels while iraq claims the conflict is being stoked by an influx of al qaeda neil clark a contributor to britain's guardian newspaper says that are some key international players are actually inspiring but terrorist factions when presidents i first came out and said it was foreign terrorist groups like al qaeda were sponsible much of the violence in syria that was dismissed by the west but now we've got the iraqi government the un secretary general saying this and that what's happening is of course we've got this kind of unofficial alliance between the west and its allies

and radical islamic terror groups down of course in the western style i don't want the violence to stop that's the sad reality and i think we've got to be very clear now there's no reason for anybody to be using violence in syria we had the vote back in february and it was a nice on the new constitution eighty seven percent of syrians voted for it we want to see a more clearly stick government in syria more clear a list of political systems that that's what we want but we're not going to have that what we've got a responsible forces who are backing violent groups and what we want is i said many times if we want the west and its allies to say to the rebels now let go of your arms support peace and reconciliation. this is now after a national election on saturday maad by violence on boycotts the vote counting is now underway in libya so far the country's liberals are claiming an overall lead contradicting predictions that islamist parties would sweep of the polls a political columnist and author ted rall had his concerns and suddenly voicing

them about how much weight the final result will carry if any at this stage you're in a post revolutionary or post counter-revolutionary depending on your point of view situation at this point law and order is really the top priority of running post gadhafi in libya under the previous regime tripoli in the west were dominant now what's going on is that the think the base rebels feel that they have they believe they have won now and they're either going to try to dominate the west the way that they were dominated during the coffee era or they're going to break away entirely and follow the model of south sudan and to try to declare independence and we've already seen that with this because he has some of the drape the. kroto state kind of like an iraqi kurdistan with its own flag and so on what you would fact italy is a civil war that's carried out at the ballot box where different sects and tribes

are running candidates against one another and trying to dominate the countrymen that way that's not a recipe for democracy there's just not ready. and so i could have you with us here on r.t. today the deadline for julian assange extradition to sweden as ordered by britain's highest court expired this saturday there was a remains at the ecuadorian embassy in london where british police have no jurisdiction he's currently awaiting a decision on his asylum request to the south american country but shortly before he sought refuge there a staunch produced his latest and much talked about interview program exclusively here on r.t. latest episode just last week so laura smith now runs down the highlights of the series. through a few weeks where we expose the world secrets these jackets belong here it's going to be an attack by the united states strongly condemn. it promised

an insight into the world tomorrow julie and i saw and interviewed opinion formers and activists from across the political spectrum. and with the first guest being hezbollah leader has. the program proved it wasn't going to hold back from the get go talking to a man the mainstream media has ignored for six years what we call for in serious negotiations dialogue with them is there a format that they're always going to carry out because the alternative to that no one cause of the first is to somebody inside syria because the sensitivity of the situation in syria also noticed it was very into civil war and the and this is exactly what america and israel want for syria elsewhere the joined up europe project came under fire from david horowitz in a show that pitted the outspoken right winger against radical leftists. with the age old ideological fight threatened to turn physical had they been in the same

room horowitz maintains europe is dead agrees it was a disease. astra spirit europe europe is a cultural theme park it's significant that's what happened that's what your welfare state that just took you out of the plot i have had personal experience with a socialist dream paradise of sweden and i can tell you it is nothing like the other party the global politics change also made waves but two more on the guest list the eminent thinkers tarik alley and no chomsky the world protest movement showing modern politics are no longer fit for purpose to them the answer could lie in latin america in bolivia and mentioned a couple of times one of the most striking things that's happened there is the most repressed part of the population of the hemisphere the indigenous population has moved into the political arena i want you to know i am not defending it i think he

is a dirtbag i think he is a dirtbag he obviously has no problem using his fifteen minutes of fame to sleep with anyone who is crawling dividing media opinion but getting real people talking today in a soldier's show hit the ground running and the public on the twitter sphere have an appetite for more nothing short of groundbreaking revolutionary casting highly engaged in one significantly represents to five the times i'll miss it. the looking forward to season two of june the sound show. but there's no guarantee season two can happen and i'm not for the death penalty so if i'm not for the death penalty want to do it illegally shoot a shot of this guy would have one forcing for me and nobody would know. he was a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life the feeling is mounting that the us would indeed prosecute judean as songs for west fear knowledge or worse

given half a chance he's currently here at the ecuadorian embassy inducted waiting to hear whether he'll get asylum it's still the prospect was first raised off mike during his interview with the ecuadorian president for the show broadcast on r.t. mutual admiration is clear in that interview and it ends on a friendly but chilling note as who is me the pleasure to meet you julian least in this way and cheer up you're welcome to the club of the persecuted. thank you. i saw it has given us a glimpse into the future shape of the world we live in while his own future hangs precariously in the balance laura smith london. despite its editor's plight wiki leaks itself remains on daunted the whistle blowing web site publishing

the so-called syrian files the organization promises millions of e-mails exposing international companies interests and dealings in syria as well as the government's in a workings as well the initial was released so far show that an italian company in particular supplied assad's government with cutting edge communication equipment as recently as february the online group promised even more damning revelations to come the amount of information is expected to dwarf that of wiki leaks infamous us diplomatic cables leak just one rather from the government accountability project says the fact syrian files are making headlines despite the criticism against assad and wiki leaks proves the group significance. if these leaks were meaningless fluff or not in the public interest in knowing cared no one would report on them and they would see julian assange djoser crackpot and no one would pay any attention to it the fact that they're being reported on inherently shows their

worth despite the fact that credit card companies that choked off financial support to wiki leaks and that he is holed up in the embassy this organization is continuing to function which is a testament to the by ability of wiki leaks as an organization especially at this time and i find all of this very interesting because it shows number one we can leaks is alive and well despite the best efforts of so many countries to shut it down and number two that as much as the mainstream media wants to distance itself from wiki leaks the syria files are the front page of every major newspaper in the world right now. you can stay with us here on r.t. it in just about a minute from now also discovering a russia team takes you to a small but bustling strip of this big country lying right at the heart of europe so you know. all.

the news today. these are the.