the death toll from devastating floods in the south of russia has topped one hundred seventy thousands of homes just one to many people injured in the resort region's worst disaster. a clash of words while syria burns the u.s. lashes out of russia over the crisis of the chief international envoy to syria tries to draw attention to other countries he says are boosting the conflict with and cash. and suspense of the ecuadoran embassy in london is due in the extradition deadline passes. waiting on his asylum request.

with a look back at the top stories from the past seven days and the latest developments this is the weekly on r.t. russia region is coming to terms with the sheer scale of the devastation inflicted after a flash flood struck overnight on friday many people woke up to a nightmare with their loved ones simply washed away into the darkness at least one hundred seventy one people died in the danish thousands of houses were swamped affecting more than twenty thousand residents. in the worst hit town and he spoke to some of the survivors of the tragedy. you can see here behind me the river next to the town of crims all the deborah that's been flooded into that by the 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 one of the first it pushed this carriage down with ease. he's up against the side of the house the stripes there have been pushed

out all this dead 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 the 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 i don't know but i think my cousin woke me up at around one am until this 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 a chance so i had to run to the back of the house 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. i go to the house and come to the fence so the stream wouldn't wash me away then too late to maine came up and helped me on to an emergency truck and

a senior so i got up there i saw my neighbors brief collapse i think you might you should this used to be living room this used to be her bedroom the house has been completely gutted from the inside by the router which came right up to the tops of the windows with million managed to escape sat the night on a neighbor's fence where house collapsed she was perhaps know as neighbors say just down the road a neighbor on a river and had her house collapse on top of thousands of workers with heavy equipment trying to clean up the fast amounts of devery and to provide people with shelter and with food but things are becoming more difficult as time wears on food supplies are short people here are exhausted they are hungry and increasingly they're angry. russian president vladimir putin flew over the area and is calm

and met local leaders to try and decide what should be done to help people here as best as possible and he's demanded an inquiry looking into if there could have been moved things that could have been done to help protect this town and its citizens and the region from the floods the swept through here and floods that have claimed so many lives. the deadly floods in southern russia have sent reverberations across the country the region is a massive tourist harbor thousands of holidaymakers heading there every summer but with travel and communications now paralyzed news about friends and loved ones caught up in the disaster area is limited his art is counter archie. 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 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 that god that is right by all that 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 a very major situation going on right now and it's affecting not only the people there but people throughout russia as well. for the first time in months

anti-government protests so no topic russia's bloggers fear discussion of the floods and dominating chants analogies to say looks at some of the controversial comments. 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 hard 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 the 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 than social media's 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 the professor chris williams from new york's pace university just purchased a little earlier here on r t he says the flooding could be just one of the more

consequences of climate change. well i think scientists generally would be very wary of ascribing any individual weather events no matter how extreme to definitively to go global warming but i think you can certainly say that if you look at the massive flooding here or the wildfires in siberia or the fires across the southwest united states the flooding in the midwest last year or the fires around moscow in two thousand and ten there's a pattern side to develop whereby you can say that things to extreme weather events that were maybe only happen every decade or two every twenty years and now it's going to happen with increasing frequency so you getting every two to five years. out is tens poskitt joined some of the rescue teams in the desperate search for survivors amidst the devastation we were told the emergency ministry units just got a call from this neighborhood saying that people heard loud screaming during the

floods and actually right now emergency ministry group with surge dogs they're 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 with 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 with at its peak at first the waist high flood through me right into the corner over there luckily i managed to grab a front that was tied then i called 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 tarantula 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. so the flooding during the rains that accumulated a huge amount of water any kind of deliberate or to discharge is technically impossible it has a mobile flow pipe to release excess water in sea quantities. so the search for survivors here and groups continues and there is still hope that more lives will be saved. then it's built ski continues to bring us up to date via his twitter stream and in his latest tweets he says a group of local residents have inspected the nearby reservoir by helicopter and concluded the rumors about water being deliberately released from it all baseless.

keeping on the pulse of the latest developments see the scenes of devastation read the stories of survivors and of course get the latest reaction all right now on our team's twitter challenge. and we calculate in who's an engineer of hundred passes them says that dams are usually constructed so that discharge waters pose no threat to nearby residential areas. certainly it was clear to still provide the dish not cause any damages to the city it's the law as it will flow. only persuaded you to make such kind of dishwasher for the eve for it will come always at the opposite it's wrong or close. or controlled by the photos from such a leave accident through the course of their birth the conditions of. the condition . in any case it's going to be across the birth of.

the timeline of the tragedy as well as all the latest news footage and photos from the disaster zone are always available for you on our website that is r.t. dot com there we also have stories of outstanding bravery and heroism from the flooded areas a policeman has died rescuing local people he managed to save two children before his boat was. going to auntie dot com for all the details. you're watching the weekly here on coming up to thirteen minutes past the hour in the russian capital the syrian president has accused washington of backing terrorist gangs in order to destabilize the state bashar al assad was speaking ahead of his consultations with the international envoy to syria kofi annan who's arrived in damascus and hans diplomatic mission continues despite his earlier comments that international peace efforts haven't changed anything at all it is more of a notion it has more on that. commenting on why the international peace efforts haven't succeeded so far u.n. and arab league special envoy to syria has retreated six hours absolute of the

plans on all parties involved in this conflict and the syrian crisis should be and could only be resolved through dollar when the geneva peace initiative just like other international peace signs is teamwork and it is it is absolutely unacceptable and not to talk constructive to blame on only one side because sound that this has 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 see where it is in the war right now we've just returned from homes in the central part of the country and this is really sad picture what we saw here's my report

from homes. at least parts of hundreds to maybe back under 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 charred skulls. i have to this claim up to eight hundred thousand people have been killed since the uprising began sixteen months ago the u.n. estimates around ten thousand we have no way of telling if these remains or others like them were even counted at all. by bomb or used to be home to one hundred thousand people now we're driving through ghost area people have left military

almost the only human beings left in this area this is he can see behind me the city cemetery almost untouched actually while the rest of the city 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 they're beautiful calm 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 there's a reactor bomb that 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 meters away another district sometimes 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 to this is why would hurry up. but was there another home see this as you can see also almost completely destroyed everything shops building schools even mosques we were told that this district was cleaned from turkey months ago but as you can hear not far from here questions still continue so we were actually told not to go any further i just simply dangerous soldiers come to our location they tell us the rebels woke up so we leave. our t. . homs syria. after a turbulent national election yesterday marred by violence and boycotts vote counting is now underway in libya so far the country's liberal islamic coalition is claiming an overall lead contradicting predictions that hardline islamist parties would sweep the pole well where libya now stands with richard spencer he's

a founder and coeditor of the online magazine alternative right dot com richard when this revolution began and yesterday's election could only be dreamed of is this really now the beginning of a new libya. well i'm afraid it is the beginning of a new libya and that is a movie in libya that is weak that is morally by chaotic infighting and sometimes tribal loyalties expressing themselves and about credit process and it's a libya that no longer has a strong man who in his own small way was actually willing to challenge the washington consensus so there is going to be a new libya it's going to be a weak libya and that is what the united states won it certainly being a weak libya while the n t c has been in power and many say it's lost his credibility and it's time has run out do you not think though and then elected general national congress would actually change anything. no i think we're going to have a democracy much like we have a democracy in iraq or in afghanistan there are going to be very ineffective

leaders there's going to be a lot again a lot of a lot of these things that we westerners don't always understand about these countries that we try to reengineer these tribal loyalties religious divisions which we don't really understand are going to affect the political process and it's there it's going to be an ineffective our lists regime but again that seemed to be the main point of the invasion i don't think we should of all ourselves that washington is invaded or bombed attacked libya and installed a democracy in order to do the libyan people in the world a favor they wanted to weaken libya and they wanted to take out a man who was challenging. the washington consensus to these too soon also for voters to get involved in party politics after all no reason would be to vote for what over forty years and it's always too soon and all the sleep too unstable to

have something like this happening right now. well that's quite true i think people certainly have not voted for some six decades or something like this but again i think what's important to look just to see here is the ways in which washington is willing to work with people who we might think of as dogs or islamicist or so on and so forth that they will actually do things that benefit those groups and it's a kind of divide and rule strategy in the sense that you know a decade ago we had saddam hussein as a strong secular nationalist leader he was taken out the people who were actually empowered by that were shia religious leaders if you look at libya we were bombed and we're working with islamicist rebels to attack get off the so you know the united states is kind of willing to work with these thugs so long as some basic tenets are maintained and that is a that the oil must flow and be that it must be denominated in dollars and i guess

see that you don't have anyone that is really going to challenge washington a course of fear of if those thugs as you call it and many of those who are against this election are coming from the east if they all supported and and they actually turned against one supposedly unified government do you think that perhaps they could pursue independence and that we really could see the country now splitting into two. that's a possibility that we would have created a civil war by taking out a strong and in a way it was only someone like the da feet that could have held that country together a lot of people said the same thing about iraq i remember there was even talk and joe biden put up a bill of some sort of dividing iraq according to religious lines and be a sunni and shia and i think a kurdish section as well but again i think it more likely scenario is that libya is just going to be caught in this swamp of che yada inviting democracy and that

it's just going to simply be a weak country where there's not really effective leadership maybe even a little bit like lebannon where you just have these ethnic religious disputes that are never resolved it's just kind of an unhappy political system and again we're back to my theme week on tree roots and thank you thoughts which is spencer founder and current of the online magazine alternative right dot com thanks for joining us like that. thank you. for the deadline for julian assange extradition to sweden as ordered by britain's has called expired this saturday the whistleblower remains at the ecuadorian embassy in london where british police have no jurisdiction he's currently waiting a decision on his asylum request to the south american country but shortly before he sought refuge there it sounds completed his interview series here on our to me and smith has been looking back at the highlights. i'm julian assange. it is through here it will be expose the world secrets these documents belong the united states government being attacked by the powerful united states strongly

condemned what. it promised an insight into the world tomorrow judy and i saw an interview to opinion formers and activists from across the political spectrum. and with the first guest being hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah 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 is that for a matter of a long it's going to be carried out because the alternative to that no one cause of the first is about inside syria because of the sensitivity of the situation in syria the alternatives to us there is a civil war 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. 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 disastrous spirit europe but europe is a cultural theme park significant that's what happened that's what your welfare state just took out of the pie 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 sea change also made waves but two more on the guest list the eminent thinkers tariq ali and noam 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 you 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 julian 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 broadcasting highly engaged in one significantly representative of the times i'll miss it looking forward to season two of june astound show. but there is no guarantee season two can happen and i'm not for the death penalty so if i'm not for the death i don't want to do it illegally shoot the son of a guy was 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 u.s. would indeed prosecute judean ass on spillway 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 thought that 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 the interview and it ends on a friendly but chilling note as he. is being a pleasure to meet you julian least in this way and welcome to the club of the persecuted. thank you. thank you. i saw his 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. u.s.

japan germany and the u.k. are among countries who pledged sixteen billion dollars in aid to afghanistan to secure the country's future after foreign troops leave in twenty fourteen it comes amid reports that six nato servicemen have been killed in the east of the country just a day ago american secretary of state hillary clinton named afghanistan as a major nato ally medea benjamin is an antiwar activist and says there's no guarantee the money will be put to good use. but naming afghanistan a major not nato ally puts it in a category with israel and japan which allows afghanistan to have special preferences when it comes to buying military equipment and being involved in training that nato organizes so it keeps afghanistan within the nato orbit for many years to come i think in terms of the money that was pledged it really is is not different from the money that has been given to afghanistan in the past

unfortunately it is much less than the amounts of money that have been spent on the military and given the corruption that exists in afghanistan there's no guarantee that this money will be well spent. twenty seven minutes past the hour now you've been watching the weekly here and brief recap of the top stories in just a few moments coming your way stay with us live here in moscow. and leave. you.

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 thought. we wanted to present. something else. and astri claims in the process is perfectly sweet to.

see jesus christ said that it brings nothing but clean power and comfort but the environment knows better. and the industry isn't telling the whole story. they're goddamn liars. very here to operate this land make as much money as they can and get the hell out of. the. line to russia would be soon which brightened.