on the dot com. today's news and the week's top stories rebels convergent series two largest cities which were previously spared from clashes as heavy street battles forced people to flee the pope's while at the u.n. security council russia and china again veto a western backed syria resolution aimed to further tightening the screws on the regime alone. also appalling on the rights of rallies and the rage in spain as the public takes a stand against cuts with thursday's million strong demonstrating a new milestone in the fight against all stuff. that israel runs on a rather over the bulgarian suicide bombing which killed seven including five israeli tourists but some analysts accuse tel aviv of using it to gain international support.

dating news around the clock from moscow this is r.t. war welcome to you my name is kevin irwin and first in a round upon the top stories of the last seven days syria's two largest cities have become the focal point of intense street clashes between army forces and the rebels the regime of aleppo is now into its third day of fierce fighting with the main battle reportedly taking place there intelligence headquarters the rebels are involved the city from rural areas and engaged in clashes with government troops forcing residents to flee to safety reports of sporadic fighting also continue to pour in from damascus to the tensions there eased after security forces cleared rebels from key districts parties made for national visit the syrian capital. this week for the first time in seventeen months the syrian conflict has finally hit home in damascus billowing smoke clouds the skyline of one of the oldest inhabited capitals in the war old city which used to percent. station for its loveliness and

vibrant nightlife clashes between government troops and rebels have broken out in at least five damascus neighborhoods in medan where the fighting has been the fiercest tanks are rolling on the roads rather than cars with soldiers the only people left in the streets the reason why it's so hard to capture all these terrorists is because they can easily disguise themselves as civilians when we conduct our operations we have to and civilians and terrorists use that to move around the army has launched a major offensive following a deadly attack on the country's security leadership last wednesday national security building in the central damascus this is exactly where the suicide bombing happened here earlier on wednesday killing the country's defense minister and his deputy we were earlier been hearing reports that it's been a massive a very intense bombing but as you can see the building is not very much damage some windows broken and actually this is all the damage as we can see from here also

from what we can see from here we can understand that the explosion happened inside the building at a time when there has been a mitten between cabinet ministers and high ranking security officials free syrian army has already claimed responsibility for what happened and for the blast and for the killings many countries have caused the embassies here in syria had half withdrawn all personnel in this neighborhood alone turkish embassy over the saudi embassy this is the building of american embassy tallon embassy these embassies have also suspended their work overseas companies have also have it created their staff foreigners no longer feel safe here in the syrian capital and they have but ordinary syrians don't have the same choice the world has come to their door and they have nowhere to run and they're trying to organize their everyday life waiting for this nightmare to end one of the most important rule these days in the syrian capital is not to go to the cities troubled areas where the clashes between the rebels and the army still continue and the names of these neighborhoods. very well

known for everybody here might have been down. low no i won't take you to my down it's too dangerous but damascus is a very big city with a population of around two million people maybe these days even more with all displaced families from homes and other epicenters of the uprising from all across the country shelter now here in the capital and in some neighborhoods you can see pictures that you don't at all expect to see in the capital of a country and gulf with war or like this family alone picnics really very peaceful pictures so one can flick has been raging for seventeen months already people say they are tired they are exhausted but they also say that life must go on may finish our tea from damascus in syria well the rebels fighting government troops in the city of aleppo described their assault as an operation to liberate the city the editor in chief of the independent syria tribune explain to us that r t what he thinks really me. to liberate the city from its people that's what they mean i

actually saw far for the past fifteen months and has shown nothing but great support to the syrian government to the president. this was ministered by huge rallies several times. the issue the idea of the opposition field repeatedly to demonstrate in the city to sure they are their size in peaceful demonstrations or. battles. recruiting others from other areas and have them circulate the area in the countryside but not inside this it is all part of. r.t. correspondents from a few reporting to read from the conflict zone there first hand before for analysis and the latest think is always available on twitter now xander poincare is in damascus in one of her latest tweets she says the capital's most peaceful neighborhoods are the predominately christian ones just a small snippet of information we've latest lately got through from her go to no more follow twitter the latest news from syria also online as well of course and on

artie's main twitter feed. the mandate of the three hundred strong international observer force in syria was extended for another month on friday the unanimous u.n. security council decision followed another vote which saw russia and china veto a resolution threatening sanctions against assad's regime moscow described that western led plan which could have potentially have led to foreign military action in syria as based sorry as biased because it only put pressure on the government middle east academic professor lawrence davidson says if the world community really wants to stop violence in syria it also has to put pressure on those sponsoring the rebels. this u.n. resolution was something of a red herring. because it wouldn't have made much difference on the ground the british ambassador to the u.n. made a statement that. the resolution would have helped save lives i think this is just utter fantasy i think from the american standpoint why into being openly when

it's possible that the regime might fall not just through clandestine intervention in direct intervention and if the british and the americans and the french want to save lives have to do is put pressure on the saudis and qataris and others to stop running into this area and tell how the rebel as the u.s. continues to back the syrian opposition a series of online training videos seem to show desire to influence the conflict from afar. many of these videos well aimed at the syrian opposition on actually made in syria itself is that many of them originating from other countries including a lot of them coming from the u.s. and of course that again raises questions about the u.s. involvement in this type of cyber warfare yeah well we invite you to watch the footage and join in the conversation on the west impact on syria online and r.t.

dot com also coming up the series to have all sparked worries in israel we've got live comment on this ugly the defense minister suggest closing borders to ward off any influx of rebels and fears of a weapon stockpiles falling into the wrong hands that's coming up. next the real martha protests in spain this last week has deep anger with the government's austerity drive grows the outrage reached fever pitch on thursday with over a million protesters thought of rallies across the country. reports from madrid and what's driving the disillusionment. now this is yet another one in a string and sigh austerity anti-government protests in spying which have been hitting the country for the course of a pos several weeks now several thousand have gathered in the central square in madrid here to protest against the austerity measures by the government the situation is very bad it's terrible unemployment is growing the government's job

reforms are aimed at increasing mass layoffs and cutting benefits every person who's come out to demonstrate is exercising their right to protect what he's entitled to by the norms of democracy one vote every four years doesn't mean anything the government is not representing the interests of the people all the measures are aimed at helping a few not the holy this comes just days after thousands of people across spain in madrid in particular closs with the police several dozen war wounded the police actually used tear gas and rubber bullets to pacify the crowd this is all because on the july the eleventh the spanish prime minister announced that additional sixty five billion euros will be cut from things like for instance on unemployment benefits to rescue the country's financial banking sector one hundred billion rescue plan was then first approved by the german parliament on thursday and by brussels on friday when the standard that the spanish government has been defending their policy just defending the cuts saying that this is basically the only way to

rescue the country's ailing economy and the ailing banking sector will certainly have to wait and see whether more protests will happen and whether the people who are getting more and more aggressive with every step in the austerity measures that the country's government is implementing will be willing to take more the anger to the streets once again. so show that just carlos del close spoke to us he believes the worst is yet to come in spain is that people are pushed beyond insurance. it's a very small patch over a massive massive gaping hole and that gaping hole is private sector people when you take their food you take all that they have you take their homes they respond quite viscerally what we saw in madrid for instance wasn't violent an artists and a group that decided to burn a bunch of dumpsters what you saw were you know police charging against other police protesting police we saw them charging against firemen and women you saw them charging against public sector workers and chasing them through the streets of madrid and neighborhoods in madrid the actual people that lived there were actually

throwing flower pots from the balconies at the police now that's a qualitative change from what we've seen over the last year certainly you see people living in a.t.m. buildings right in the late services and you see them living out in the streets looking in the in the trash you know for food i mean these are people that two years ago were working and they were working and maintaining families and now they're very livelihoods are threatened and of course tensions are going to boil over. come a grim anniversary for norway to radical nationalists and his brother extensively terror attacks we look at the extremist ideologies that are blooming in this supposedly voting cold through here of these days also why americans do it the deserts in the network news shows in droves and turning instead to d.i.y. . the protests in bahrain this week with thousands of demonstrators up against police firing rubber bullets and tear gas the rallies were spotted by

a government decree to ban all forms of public protest the monica's response was swift with hundreds of raids on the homes of suspect to protest his dozens of arrests the media is also being targeted with police apparently ordering the prevention of coverage of the arrest we spoke to someone who witnessed the brutality on the streets filmmaker and veteran human rights activist. before she was kicked out of. one of the she was the one of the few western journalists left there she told us the situation is. more desperate than many will believe. 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 this practice of targeting activists and demonstrators fortunately seems to be on the rise and very widespread right now and 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. israel's prime minister is blaming the deadly suicide bombing in bulgaria this last week on hezbollah the shiite group supported by seven people including five israelis were killed in the attack on a bus carrying tourists but it depends. things around wouldn't risk international

condemnation support to terrorism. time yahoo and israel in fact need to play the victim card in order to be more aggressive and in the past few months few years israel has lost a lot of support even here in the united states it's very easy to put the blame i mean iraq iran is not a very attractive country to the world and the masses are very happy to accept whatever they're told told by mr netanyahu to me it doesn't make sense that iran would want to carry out this operation and it's very hard to accept that iran would willingly have the world condemn it and cater to the wishes of these really is by providing them with an excuse to attack but it's israel we're focusing on next israel's growing increasingly worried with events in its neighbor syria as defense minister says it's worried about the prospect of the country's alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons falling into the hands of violent militants it

was also considering shutting borders to prevent an influx of syrian refugees. lucia's a political analyst professor said today university in amman he joins me now live to talk about this hi there thanks for being with us we've had eighteen months of unrest we've witnessed across the arab world why is israel only worried about the possible quansah consequences now do you think or at least being vocal about it now . well this is just another excuse to justify direct military intervention in syria and phase one there was talk about violations of human rights and instability was used as an excuse for direct military intervention where russia and china blocked that over and over again so they have moved now to arguing that. the situation in in syria is so unstable that there is a danger of weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands zionist entity

that the so-called israel is part of the mentoring instability in syria we have witnessed the major politicians of the four major parties in israel declaring their support for the so-called syrian revolution so their hands are not too far away from what is happening in syria right now they are playing games behind the scenes for sure but it is a fact i guess. it could prove very problematic for israel these refugees coming towards the border to try and escape the trouble in syria it's interesting how that may affect u.s. israeli relations and israel's closest ally the u.s. calls what's happening in syria a democratic uprising but it could cause problems people problems in israel's border area how is it going to affect israeli u.s. relations do you think. well first let's let's remember here that the reason there

is instability bloodshed and now and the overflow of refugees and certainly within syria and over the syrian border is because there is nato the cia turkey the g.c.c. financing and arming and so on the rebellion of armed gangs within syria so they stop that then maybe we can have enough peace and stability that people would not have to migrate out of their own country but as far as the borders with with occupied palestine is concerned i don't think that's the issue of refugees is going to be a major problem most likely a very large syrian refugees they will be going in the direction of lebannon turkey and jordan already ends or done we have close to two hundred thousand syrian refugees so you know this this is just another make up issue a make believe issue that is being used to argue in the rectally that there's so

much instability in syria that it is now affecting the regional situation and not just the internal situation within syria dr we're going to go to minutes couple things wanted to ask you what about the worry about chemical weapons falling into the wrong and the former chief said israel quote won't spare any effort to stop series alleged chemical weapons from falling into militant and do you think it will actually lights are can support for the rebels. i mean i think we need to define what wrong hands mean here i mean i think weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the israelis are in the wrong hands i think that the syrians are moving caches of weapons of conventional or non-conventional nature within syria that's their own prerogative of a sovereign state they have their rights and the prerogative of moving their weapons wherever they want at the same time if that's what the argument is as

defending lebanon but then again let's see who is supporting the salafi fundamentalists in syria who are supporting the. fundamentalists who are being smuggled smuggled into syria i think it's clear that she and turkey are are doing that so of there's a danger of such weapons falling into the hands of these people then the culprit of the would be exactly the the israelis and the united states doctors are very layered picture as you're pointing out dr thanks for updating us there on your thoughts a little i think you're referring to a university in. norway is marking year since anders breivik massacred seventy seven people in twin attacks brevik still on trial he insists the killings he carried out were part of a war on multi-culturalism and as our reports europe's clash of cultures is growing

ever more radical. i swear to god we will not let it pass peacefully therefore we say stay in your homes you know. just in our streets girls are raped molested and insulted by gangs of immigrants the battle cries of grown louder. of hatred to religion. in extreme cases ideology turned to tragedy more than seventy people were killed by far right militant anders breivik in norway over his rejection of the government's policies towards muslim immigrants in france seven people including children were killed by islamist mohammed merah in a deliberate attack against jews he was then killed in a police raid both men adding fuel to flames of hatred and prejudice dismissed from

. the caliphate the perfect misstate the far right to build the racist. it's a primitive state. not his style and the far left. to build companies and deliver of his property than it was ten years ago we tried to talk to proponents of each extreme edia me is the leader of a group in belgium that's labeled the far right and he's been convicted on charges of racism which he denies up immediately with the influx of foreigners because really can't cope anymore you don't have to be an extremist it's needed the same anti immigration argument put forward by the golden dawn party in greece dubbed neo nazi and fascist by critics it won a seven percent of votes in recent elections at attacks on foreigners and greece is reportedly on the rise. again.

we also met with the leader of the islamist group sharia for belgium there is judgment if you if you're a muslim you will go to paradise if you are this believer you will go to hell that's what we believe he's now in custody and is being investigated for terrorism suspected of sending young muslims to fight in holy wars in yemen and chechnya but such arrests have not stopped other groups from sprouting we tried to talk to another hardline salafi group in belgium reportedly with saudi links and are under surveillance by authorities several young men tried to stop us from filming and in the end called the police we were told that for our own safety we should just leave that doesn't boil down to what you cannot make solution is a fundamental clash of cultures of religion are these extremists or just some minority of the. isolated cases or the answers you get depends on whom you ask and in the end all you get is a hodgepodge of opinions and no real solution on how to curb this growing the still

what some experts call a cycle of feeding off of each other a gargantuan challenge for europe to address before hatred turns to more of this. tesser cilia r.t. brussels. now we go few online. counting the cost of global tax avoiders as much as twenty one trillion dollars could be. as the wealthy exploit loopholes aided by private banks story. also a married mother a model made the russian woman to be the only north american to reach the last sixteen of a project that celebrates a perfect one. seems

more and more americans have lost faith in their main network news shows these days a survey says they've had enough of bias reporting errors and too much airtime given to showbiz as many porton are explains their responses a rise in citizen journalists who satisfying the public hunger for real and reliable politicians. venning goodness statics around the clock operations this is a product always being exported america's mainstream news industry generates power and profits but it seems partisan reporting and frequent gaffes may have made many americans turn away from the big broadcasters when their big uprising the revolution going are across. and. they're getting the word that where are a recent gallup poll shows an all time low of only twenty percent of the public trusting the news many say this means citizen journalism is becoming

a big game changer and the amazing thing about training citizens to be really good pundit is that they they have a wealth of information that journalists just don't have when you help them connect what they know are exposed to their experience with a big picture political event it's very powerful what's that journalist and best selling author and i only wolf not only supports citizen journalism she and business partner lisa thomas have built a nonpartisan training ground for it it's called daily klout dot com we're not just teaching people to vent we're training people to write rigorous shapely opinion pieces which are eight hundred words long and also to source their assertions and we also teach them how to link what they're exposing are calling for with action steps. daily klout also features

a legislative search engine that monitors and explains bills making their way to capitol hill a tool allowing everyday people to hold federal state and corporate leaders accountable when america's fourth estate fails to i think the mainstream media has become about entertainment. and. so concerned who holds the purse strings if the mainstream media is controlled by large corporate interests they're going they're beholden to them but this website is independently financed giving tens of thousands of citizens the freedom to report on topics many news networks are accused of suppressing i think one of the best ways you can judge the state of democracy is in how it's needed. and i think if you have a situation where the citizens of the country are actually bypassing the mainstream media i think that says a lot of the stage of democracy critics however argue that only properly educated and experienced journalists should be intrusted with understanding the rigors and

ethics involved in news reporting but even then. there is no guarantee the public will receive the facts the supreme court justices have struck down the individual mandate in order unconstitutional the direct blow to the president i would say it's a direct blow to his democratic party the individual mandate has been struck down it has been struck down no it has no. shock i knew i was mass media still maintain some stronger and wider reach that citizen journalism but it no longer holds the power to determine what the public is to be doing or even reporting about very important parts seen me on a recap of the main news in just a few minutes then britain's most outspoken m.p. exposes the secret side of british politics i don't support russian. claims his

first win of this year's cliff diving world championships in portugal great pictures coming up that's how the next half hour shapes and this sunday evening on our t.v. live from moscow. download

the official t. up location on the phone the i pod touch from the choose ups to. life on the go. video on demand on tease money from old comes and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the t. dot com.