sky. syria's capital damascus suffers its fiercest fighting since the uprising against the government began as a special envoy kofi annan travels to moscow seeking president putin's support to end the bloodshed. the new see that in belgium leaving losers who does that leave the munira can live in trees tend to gratian insults about how immigrants in belgium feel about a new starter kit they say is nothing more than a guide for savages coming into the civilized world. to get away tourist or a place to decide the world's great occupy protesters demand transparency and media coverage as the wealthy and powerful gather at

a california retreat. from screaming all mine twenty four hours a day seven days a week this is our. most serious armed conflict has now engulfed the capital damascus and its suburbs with fierce battles between regime troops and rebel forces now taking place in broad daylight the military is thought to have deployed armored vehicles near the city center after the threat of a full scale assault on loyalist units across the country is in damascus. clashes between the army and rebels never stopped here in syria now the fighting is going on here in damascus activists and residents have described it as the heaviest the most intense fighting in the capital since the beginning of the revolt here last march was in fact this is the first time we see the battle in the very heart of the

regime damascus has been considered the area totally under governmental control the fighting recently has moved as close as to its suburbs there have been several assaults against opposition but in the eastern outskirts of damascus some fourteen kilometers from the city center now we're hearing about at least four neighborhoods in the southern part of damascus some twenty minute drive from the city center where government told troops are fighting gunmen governmental sources are saying that most of these gunmen are not from damascus but they've come here from homes in central syria and from in the country's north where the army has seen the success the opposition has been claiming that army has been using all tars and shelling these areas and also that they been using armored vehicles many roads within this city are blocked especially in troubled areas and troubled parts of the city

obviously what we can confirm is that we hear shootings and when daylight we've been able to see smoke over the city. solving the syrian crisis amid deep divisions between foreign powers will be the focus of today's meeting between international peace envoy kofi annan and president vladimir putin in moscow russia is accusing western nations of not working toward peace in syria and blackmailing moscow to take action against the syrian government parties john thomas has the details. those key sticking points are what is expected to be discussed between kofi annan and president vladimir putin today in fact russia saying that the west is not living up to the promises that were agreed upon in geneva just a short time ago which were to promote a dialogue between all parties involved in the conflict and for all sides to lay down arms in fact russia saying the west is using this as an opportunity for the u.n. resolution to try and impose sanctions on syria and possibly also to promote

a foreign military intervention something that russia is really trying to avoid pointing to libya as an example as a way that western military intervention just didn't work out saying that the situation in libya right now is just as messy as it was before the uprising in libya russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov said that the west is trying to blackmail russia into swing to their side lavrov also said that threatening that russia over its position on syria is beyond the scope of diplomacy and decency russia supports kofi annan on some peace talks in fact what they say is they support talks of all parties involved in fact they have said multiple times that they are not taking sides in this conflict they're not supporting the assad regime rather they want dialogue of all parties involved one thing that they do want is for a non to work more actively with the opposition something that the syrian government has decided that they are going to do they have appointed a representative of the syrian government to work with the opposition however the opposition when representatives came to moscow to meet with law but they said they

will not more and with bashar al assad and it is believed that these refusals stem from confusing messages from the west so right now what we're waiting on is what will actually come between the talks of kofi annan and president vladimir putin course russia saying that they fully support the kofi annan peace process brian becker who's a national coordinator for the answer anti-war coalition believes the u.s. is not likely to give up its tactics and pressuring russia. i think the russian foreign minister is in fact being very diplomatic when he says there's an element of blackmail or arm twisting the u.s. government the clinton foreign policy the clinton obama foreign policy is is akin to the way the mafioso works if you don't go our way if you don't do what we do we'll break your leg we'll make it impossible will threaten you blackmail and hostage taking is it is sort of a softer way of putting it in fact in the united states hopes to be able to break

russia and china down to have them intimidated on the international arena so it can do what it wants to do what is the form and civil war using all available elements of violence pushing aside the possibility of peace in order to accomplish its main objective which is to overthrow the assad government not because their government is undemocratic not because it's anti humanitarian but because it's not a proxy for the west and that's the real objective of the u.s. foreign policy in the middle east in syria and elsewhere r.t.s. counseling following developments in and around syria are currently in damascus and sharing its firsthand experience and the strength and set me on twitter and don't forget to check our facebook page for more analysis and insight in syria right. if.

thank you for being with our tina while syria dominates the headlines and another middle east country on rast remains off the radar in protest mood in bahrain is gaining momentum despite and govern. ban on all opposition rallies authorities in the gulf country are doing their best to dampen down opposition one of koreans most prominent human rights activists to all was a guest on julian assange this program here on our today was jailed for views he expressed on twitter just a week ago this was followed by the expulsion from the country of a us filmmaker one of the few western journalists still left in the country was

making a documentary about the. artist spoke to general about just how desperate the situation room you know. what i witnessed is an increasing increasing repression against the pro-democracy and human rights activists in the short time that i was in bahrain i felt like the situation was actually deteriorating it is across the country it is extremely widespread in villages and towns all over bahrain there is violent repression of attempts to demonstrate and attempts to protest even more alarming much more increase of house raids at night in middle of the night in villages all over riot police coming in surrounding houses brutally arresting people and imprisoning them taking people from restaurants swimming pools their private homes . this practice of targeting activists and demonstrators fortunately seems to be on the rise and very widespread right now and only time will tell i guess how how long

they will be able to keep struggling but i did not see any signs of people giving up i saw signs of people reinvigorated the bahraini regime is very determined not to let what's happening be exposed and so anyone who's going to bahrain with the purpose of the agenda of trying to show what's happening and trying to really expose the reality on the ground there is wants to keep them out and keep them silent as much as possible. all right it's nine minutes past the hour but still ahead in the program fixing it only the fate of legend wiki leaks and former bradley manning and the balance of pretrial hearings underway in the u.s. . and in the business bulletin moody's delivers a fresh blow to investor confidence as it slices the ratings up there see that's how it begs just days after

a cut the italian government bond rating join me for all the details about this. so for assistance for new job rates of. rates of leukemia for example the surgery that times. breast cancers more than ten times told cancers fourteen times if you get the exact details but the shoots numbers there's not nothing that you have ever found in any epidemiological study give us there is a way that brings victory. to its creator. he's not alone some are more severe than others we have something that is born without skulls without organised and sometimes with their legs totally twisted what means death to those who it's pointed out.

and studios use this window. and they're celebrating and they don't realize stand looking at their own future can't so. this is just. so subtle. i have. leakage and i show you to the extent how much i have leakers. here with our for decades belgium has offered a safe haven to immigrants mainly from muslim countries but now a new starter kit in the northern region of flanders telling moroccans homa behave is causing outrage immigrants feel insulted by being told to respect others and sort their domestic waste parties just are silly explains. did

you know that in belgium the flemish eat healthy live inside their homes most of the time and don't make noise after ten pm or did you know that men and women are equal and it's forbidden to hurt someone mentally or physically including your partner or children and that if you want to get a job you must learn dutch well these are just some pointers about the country in the new starters kit given to the moroccan government for distribution to moroccans who have gotten the official go ahead to immigrate to flanders it also includes a short video featuring testimonies from recent immigrants about their experience. in a modern society based on the principles of. where freedoms and rights for everybody also we've obligations with separation. equality of. with no discrimination principles but some were left rather dumbfounded by the kind

of information the packet contained. when you see that in belgian living who is what does that mean it means americans live in trees when belgian neighbor makes news and two three am because he's drunk and it keeps me awake during the kids to explain that he must respect the hour because we do not make news in belgium after ten pm this is around the world the starter's kid is meant to provide basic information but it may be too basic for some the proponents of the initiative say it was made to target immigrants with low skill or educational levels but critics say that what's written in it and some of what's come with it are simply patronized and insulting raising questions on the stereotypes locals may have on the foreigners coming to their country. and i think there's a very large racism in this excuse me but that's not how we educate about two thousand five hundred moroccans immigrate to flanders each year as part of family reunification or marriage migration as soon as they arrive they can join

a civic integration. program organized by the flemish government which primarily focuses on teaching dutch law not sure it's important to point out that in order to integrate you need to speak dutch i have no problem with that but what i have a problem with is this social cultural references they explain to you that in order to find your place you must culturally match a certain middle those in favor of the starter kit insists that the initiative aims to manage possible false expectations about belgium and to address the fact that integration has been ineffective so far you are able perfectly able to get the belgian nationality if you want belgian citizenship without even knowing one of the official languages of this country and this reflects i think the whole idea of what they call the in and integration policy which isn't really an integration policy because it's completely up to the people coming in to if they really want to

without if they're really want to integrate but for those who do want to integrate something else they can expect to find out is that the flemish are like walnuts heart of the outside but softer on the inside and one more thing it rains a lot of belgium but it doesn't rain money does or cilia r.t. brussels. and as the economic crisis bites hard in belgium and the whole of europe next hour max keiser and stacy her some of the more controversial ideas put forward to tackle the debts. german economists make the rich buy bonds the german it's a two for economic research d i.w. suggested that those with a substantial private fortune be forced to hand over ten percent of what they have over two hundred fifty thousand euros they're talking about confiscating wealth to pay for debts that were run up by corporatists and neo fascists and you know this is the haven't we seen this movie before it's called scapegoating we are now at war

without any equivocation whatsoever this just one of the sort about a policy issue it's not about an economic theory it's about a war world war three is on. pre-trial hearings are underway for bradley manning the jailed u.s. soldier accused her of leasing information to wiki leaks his lawyer claims manning was tortured and treated worse than a tourist during the early two years of solitary confinement he faces twenty two charges including aiding the enemy which also carries a death sentence my colleague kevin allen discussed the case with iraq war veteran michael prysner. the charges should be thrown out because bradley manning has been tortured and abused the u.n. repertoire and torture has come out and said that this was torturing him being blocked visiting him i'm so the fair trial is absolutely not happening for bradley

manning i think that you could say if you committed a terrorist attack you might get a fair trial then what bradley manning experience with this trial is very much focusing all the attention on him self but isn't there a danger this neglect to the bigger picture of course the very crimes that his legs expose themselves. oh absolutely you know this whole idea of eating the enemy which is what they're going to try to put bradley manning into jail for for the rest of his life possibly you know the death penalty is something that you mentioned as well this idea of aiding the enemy the government is trying to make the case that someone could find these things on the internet and then use that for propaganda purposes with anti-american sentiment which is ridiculous because it was the u.s. military that committed these atrocities in the first place it was them that committed you know the wanton killing of civilians on a regular basis both in iraq and afghanistan so it's the u.s. government's own actions that foster heat and resentment for the u.s. military and its occupations of bride i think you could say the same you know for

punishing rolling stone for publishing the afghanistan kill team photos these are things that the u.s. military is doing and exposing the facts isn't eating the enemy it's just telling the truth. all right well don't forget we've got every story covered on our website that's our dot com here's what we have three there right now. actually a newspaper has come up with a new way to boost circulation by some of its newsmakers an ad that's triggered outrage worldwide but the full story is at our dot com. from a day with justin bieber for their daughter to ranting the london i can't support we report on the most ridiculous demands on russian oligarchs abroad.

minutes past the hour and in the u.s. occupy protesters have to some to quiet california retreat where some of the world's elite gather every year demonstrators say the two weeks officially portrayed as a time of rest and relaxation as really a chance to discuss plans for the world's future so our abby martin to bohemian grove to see what triggers those rumors and growing protests for millionaires and billionaires the people that control the world control the central banks the build nuclear weapons i mean this was their summer playground straight from the san francisco airport headed to montevideo a city with beautiful redwoods and picturesque coastlines. the perfect getaway for the world's rich and powerful and in fact every year ceos media moguls and high level politicians flock here to the bohemian grove secluded camp out there making business deals there they're talking policy for a lot of conversation

a claim which members deny their motto here is that weaving spiders come not here which they claim means there's no business discussions it's just the vacation for the wealthy men author and activist mark dice has a rare grove yearbook issued every decade showing everything from men in drag to high profile politicians giving speeches the book shows george w. bush and his father giving lakeside talks along with presidents jimmy carter and richard nixon others who have attended our david brooks of the new york times along with c.e.o.'s from c.n.n. and fox jimmy buffett david rockefeller and henry kissinger mark also has an official two thousand and five membership list of grove attendees your typical warmongers george bush sr colin powell richard perle and your typical republican establishment and cider. for hundreds heeded the call to

protest. the people in the grove are about to be conquered. activists felipe in the siena worries about dangerous policies that are drafted from within the redwoods the nuclear program was discussed here and then developed later the fact that reagan was here in eighty and then afterwards we had the reagan revolution we know you're very well known and an event with so little transparency has bred theories some of them pretty wild about what goes on on the inside especially at the creation of care ritual where grove members burn a coffin effigy to a forty foot. peace and justice activist cindy sheehan speculates on the lack of media coverage as they are part of that you know they're saying they're the propaganda arm for the one percent the corporate media is the one percent. i mean if you look at it that way n.b.c. m s n b c c n n fox they are of the corporate one percent they're not going to do

negative stories about themselves about capitalism about global empire and war. how can someone own a two thousand year old redwood grove that's the question that the occupiers are asking about the bohemian grove which they say belongs to everyone and not just the one percent. here at the gates the bohemian grove a line of right police made sure that everyone didn't gain access to the lair of the one percent abby martin r.t.e. month they do you know california. time now for some other stories making headlines around the world. president hosni mubarak has been ordered back to prison after doctors said his health had improved and was admitted to a military hospital in mid june following reports he had suffered heart failure the eighty four year old former leader was sentenced to life in prison last month for his complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's revolution which toppled him. to canada now where police have arrested

a man in connection with a shooting at a barbecue that left two people dead and up to nineteen injured in toronto it's thought another shooter may have been involved in the incident which followed what is described as an altar cation around midnight in two fatalities were a teenage girl and a twenty year old man the majority of injuries were caused by a car shows around one hundred people fled gunfire. time for the business news with natasha so it seems car owners may have been paying too much for their oil is that right well possibly and that's because banks and other traders could have been to believe that oil prices in the same way that they reportedly raised interest rates banks and other traders could they could have led if you waited exactly what for the g. twenty which claims traders have an incentive to report prices the u.s. u.k. fishbowls want the cabinet to expand its inquiry into the rate fixing scandal to

actually see if world prices have also been fixed meanwhile oil prices agencies like platts are denying the allegations they are saying there's no similarity between lay bore and oil and the looting has slashed the credit ratings of thirteen italian banks just days after it cut the italian government bond rating the ratings agency says the financial problems in greece and spain have boosted the default three. for italy moody's has they dropped seven banks by one notch and in additional six banks white two daughters now moving on to the african markets let's start with russia which opened up about twenty minutes ago and what we're seeing there is that the russian markets opened on a positive note in fact the r.t.s. is already putting on more than or almost three quarters of a percent that's despite the latest stats that show that the country's industrial production remained unchanged in june compared to the devious mind but the bigger

picture looks not as good for the first six months of the year industrial production three point one percent now on to asia where trade is unfold swale what we're seeing there is also what out of the picture the nikkei is putting on around three quarters of a percent the hang seng is up around one to three quarters percent and investors of positioning themselves for the day's main event the much anticipated speech of the fed reserve chairman ben bernanke will be addressing congress later in the day trays of traders really hope that he'll head to more stimuli are on the way for the world's largest economy now speaking of the united states let's see what went on on wall street overnight and it was pretty much all down more than one of percent losses for the dow and the nasdaq that's following a pleasant surprise judy retail prices declined just like in april and may while most analysts expected and then crease now on to the currency markets the euro is

gaining against the greenback the sour and the russian ruble opened to the stronger to the euro and the u.s. dollar now on to crude it has slipped and through grad over the past hour after gaining earlier in the session if it had managed to keep up the momentum it would actually mark the seventh this great recession in a row of gains but karen as we see that's not happening and will will actually keep an eye on how that impacts the russians after the market going forward since we know that they are closely correlated. and i'll be back with a reminder of our headlines that's coming your way in just a few minutes. one

industry in the soviet union. not display our labors. for the attempt to get a job with the west. one. fashion be ok as for those who would have heard. this it for the soul be. inside. the soul whole started here before going global

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