the battle for syria engulfed the country's second city aleppo braces for the worst as rebels and government forces go head to head. elsewhere in the restive region of united arab emirates sees a fresh protest to clamp down on the west's blind eye attitude echoing its stance on saudi arabia and bahrain. but can the troubles past the ancient olympic truce test as politics hangs over sports for the syrian squad at the london games. international news and comment live from our new center here in moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day syrian government troops and rebels are reinforcing their positions as the week long battle for the key northern city of aleppo intensifies columns of army tanks reportedly rolling into residential areas where opposition fighters are

placing snipers on rooftops seizing control of syria's commercial capital is seen as crucial to winning the fight for the north of the country clashes are also being reported in damascus where rebels launched a major offensive recently but were pushed back some countries are calling for humanitarian corridors but russia says that's impossible as long as the rebels continue to receive foreign backing which is fueling the violence party as one of the few international broadcasters still covering events from inside syria is oksana boyko with the latest. over the past few days has been. at the center of a major military operation know that the army the syrian army used tanks used fighter jets military helicopters to strike its targets the free syrian army has also. enlisted a lot of support for it's a parade. they're calling it a good battle and there are some reports on the eve of this battle they receive

major reinforcements and supplies the military equipment you supplies with arms from turkey and saudi arabia when you talk about syria what's important to keep in mind is this sequence of events it is true that the syrian army is employing having artillery in this city but they are conducting drive military operations in response to terror attacks that have been happening in this city that have been happening in aleppo for several months and many residents of aleppo are telling us that they don't understand why the it took the government so long to conduct those military operations because they've been suffering from this criminal activity for quite some time now the residents of aleppo also telling us that before this military operation was launched the army how to evacuate the residents local residents most of them are now stationed at the campus of the i left university residence from auburn locations of. the campus so. on one level syrian people were able to come together and try to help for each other and what's

important to stress also is that allowed for is believed to be the stronghold for both the bashar al assad government and for the opposition but most people i've spoken to they say what they want now is the violence to stop and then they can proceed with the political process has. told you so the boy who is in the conflict zone at the moment bringing you updates and fresh pictures via twitter as we continue to keep close all of the benefits that. that's. get some reaction and analysis now from government consultant christophe hall still he's been to syria recently joining me live now in berlin well with the rebels taking the fight first to damascus and making quite an impact there and now to the country's second city of aleppo all the tables turning against assad now not now i think maybe later that remains to be seen for now we have to see that the attack on damascus was pushed back very successfully then now seeing the house

chicks in the masters going on by the army by the government army and what we have in aleppo is of course a fight for the me in a production in trade center that is very serious. the survival of the government and as for now i'm quite confident the pushing back of the insurgents terrorists will be successful despite what you see is a forthcoming success we have seen incredible success though from the rebels but bury him on what we saw in libya it took the rebels there months to overthrow gadhafi even with overwhelming nato air support how do you think the syrian rebels are making such an impact now without this official direct foreign action that we saw in libya. who or that is not so difficult unfortunately to explain that we had an influx of one to two times ten thousand fighters from outside

syria into syria mainly from jordan and lebanon recently and these fighters have made their way. to the us because we have a leading group of small. attack teams very highly trained obviously and my best guess with a secret service background sponsored by the usa and of course christoph amongst the opposition the german government itself believes that al-qaeda has committed what something like nearly one hundred terror attacks there in the country at the moment germany in the rest of nature there still supporting these forces which are fighting against. so you see i have just read the original source of this of this figure that is the official answer of the german government to a question of the leftist member of parliament in germany seven ductile in now this

is quite interesting they are talking about attacks in the line about big attacks they are not talking about bomb attacks so the government is obviously attribute these ninety or so attacks to al-qaeda and twenty more attacks to unknown and you know attackers so this kind of calculation to me seems to be very questionable we don't know exactly that we can define that to you know the heavy attacks what we know is that i tried as a kind of army and not only you know special hit teams like you know american black ops operations and things like that which are also active in the country so what we have here is a game of you know unexplained terms and words and my feeling to say the attack number of personnel is much much higher twenty to forty or fifty

times higher than these ninety just indicated by the government but now comes the big but what is interesting is that the german government is talking about this at all that it's you know it's like opening and it is of little you know disobedience towards the united states of america and that in fact has increased this disobedience of the german media a little bit after the recent meeting in may between the russian president putin and the german chancellor merkel is now something like up to ten percent off you know disobedient publications in germany for example regarding the terrible massacre in a whole. so in effect germany and other countries are in directly supporting the likes of al qaeda or she had a sore islamic fundamentals fundamentalists in this chaos now that is occurring in syria which of course could mean that they could what perhaps take over the power

vacuum so this is a major problem that the west in effect is perhaps supporting an islamist takeover . yeah this is in fact happening right now and we can assume very clearly i mean i receive private messages of members of the family of soldiers you know doing service in libya right now without any official knowledge of the parliament without any official knowledge of the you know control of the people in the parliament for our secret services so that is quite interesting my best guess is that german illegally and secretly is also doing service in syria right now we have a hint recently here in the german media and in some american critic and we see there germany's indulging and this is a fish really acknowledged and you know prove that the two germany is illegally and without any. data from the united nations or so involved in setting up

a new syrian government for the italians after the. possible fall of the president president assad and this involves you know the trends purge of opposition people from syria into germany and their leader network so in fact i think that network has a bridgehead in syria interesting to hear your thoughts thank you very much indeed christopher still joining me live there in berlin thanks for being with us here on r.t. best regards to moscow. well later we look at whether london twenty twelve can really be the world's level playing field for serious athletes they go in and fix with a mess of things but can sport win over politics with the details in a few minutes from now. in the meantime united arab emirates continues its crackdown in protest as a new recipe made with almost forty now in detention the rest came after the

government announced an investigation into groups plotting crimes against the state the activists were locked up for allegedly opposing the constitution as one of the country's ruling system it follows similar crackdowns in saudi arabia and bahrain political analyst i'm on a shabby says that all arab countries are in desperate need of democratic reform but not through the flow of weapons. as in all the arab countries i believe the twenty two arab nations there are some legitimate democratic reforms that are necessary and that are asked for by the people there are some there are some limitations on basic freedoms there are some there is a lack of a system of accountability one would expect people to come out and take to the streets and call for these these reforms and this is completely illegitimate however when when things go out of hand and violence comes in and nothing happens as as is the case in syria the whole region all the arab countries and as i said in

the beginning why and need a democratic reform and more freedom and that applies to all the countries and one cannot say that for example limitations on freedoms and democracy in syria were less than limitations on freedoms and democracy today in saudi arabia or in some gulf countries now that will require some fast movement on the heart of the regime to open an open dialogue to have an open dialogue with the opposition groups and that's what the kofi annan plan was in syria however you cannot have an open dialogue when you have an atmosphere of tension and killing and violence and countries sending in weapons and guns into the country where there are opposition groups. some of the international news in brief for you this hour in our world update this fighting between iraqi troops and militants in the province of the has killed twelve people with an army helicopter also shot down the clashes erupted after a police patrol came under attack by a group of suspected al-qaeda fighters on wednesday causing the army to intervene

this comes just days after the terror group claimed responsibility for the worst attack in two years which took at least one hundred and sixteen lives. pakistani officials have decided to suspend nato supply routes for the bomb attack in the last western border region a budget that killed nine and injured twenty explosive device was hidden in a pickup truck and went off at a busy market your district has been a frontline in pakistan's fight against taliban militants the suspension of the alliance supply routes comes just days after they were reopened following a seven month blockade. the european commission president is in greece for talks at the moment aiming to get the country out of its financial market despite outlined a bailout plan greece is still contracting at an alarming rate and pushing through further cuts is proving hard to stomach for politicians and the public i think there's only enough money to make it to be end of the summer and speculation is swirling again that it may have to quit the eurozone hundreds of people are

gathered here in central moscow to support opposition activists detained during the may the sixth protests those rallies turned violent with dozens of police officers injured and numerous arrests made jacob greaves says that today's demonstration. this is the so-called white ribbon movement amalgamation replacing the left and the political right there's that against but in a person's present see there's that against a disputed parliamentary elections back in december behave today they're here for something altogether different this is against the tensions of some of their members has taken place since may the sixth that's when the so-called march of the millions took place now this is just before the inauguration of madame a potent get the millions they wanted though their work clashes between protesters and police we saw a bout thirty police be injured in proceedings and dozens of protesters well on the day there are about four hundred protesters being detained but their dispute was

attracting there right now at the moment all the tensions that have followed about twelve of the organizers have been detained and police say they played a role in sparking provoking that violence we saw take place on may the sixth now the people at the moments taking those on the podium they stress that their point hasn't been listened to their evidence hasn't been listened to instead authorities have pursued so of those who have been detained and i've only really taken as clear cut evidence the worst of police officers and prosecutors so they want change and indeed human rights organizations have described these people who have been detained as the list of who prisoners. russia is in a state of shock after grisly remains of human fetuses were discovered dumped in a forest investigators are now poring over the evidence for clues and some experts believe that they could have been used in research or in illegal beauty treatments or the sean thomas has this report. a picturesque meadow in russia's urals at first

seemingly serene but an unfortunate encounter for one outdoorsman reveals a scene far more disturbing i discovered the birds while i was out there and i went to get some wood for the camp fire which i found the barrels and i thought i would take them home but when i looked inside i saw many little babies medical waste in total two hundred forty eight fetuses each around half the size of an adult human hand sometimes with surnames and identification numbers discarded in a remote ravine around seventy kilometers north of you catalina berg in some cases the remains spilled on to the ground. inspecting the scene we found a total of four barrels fifty to seventy liters each filled with human fetuses police will investigate this incident the materials found will be examined at the lab the mystery of the discovery in the woods and how it got there has sent a shockwave around the world but one main focus for investigators is where the

fetuses came from in the first place in russia abortion isn't legal only up until the twelve week mark and early evidence in this case shows that these fetuses were terminated between twenty two and twenty six weeks russian law states that women can only have an abortion during this time period for medical emergency reasons now investigators must find out why there were so many late term abortions in such a relatively small area was there something deeply sinister going on such as an illegal abortion operation and why were they discarded so carelessly human tissue is classified as hazardous waste and as such it should be incinerated when disposed of properly often the hospital contracts out the service. which is where companies can cut corners. we've got to be a nation where discarded syringes and other materials were dumped into sent beats and ended up in children. or police say hospitals in the area had been contributing

fetuses to scientific research but the project supervisor was fired in two thousand and eleven they believe she took some of the bio medical waste with her when she left. those fetuses contain stem cells which may be used to treat cancer various immune system diseases and forage of an asian purposes but skeptics say this scenario is unlikely considering the fetuses were found in formaldehyde rendering them useless for this type of research now the health ministry has requested information from all clinics within one hundred kilometer radius hoping to find answers to a story that has left a community perplexed in moscow sean thomas our t.v. . series in fighting has crippled the country for over sixteen months but there's one delegation which is trying to instill the spirit of peace that's the countries and then pick squad separate sending its knowledge is team to the games in thirty years but the sport can't be split from politics that easily as more of a notion or reports. for almost half his life twenty eight year old ahead has been

part of syria's national weightlifting team during the opening ceremony for the two thousand and eight olympics in beijing he carried the syrian flag this year his going to the games in london who is just as important a mission was i to be in this situation in syria is better than how some media trying to show that we are going to send the message that our country safe and beautiful and that its people don't want violence and had says his major competitors in london will be from russia but the country's true enemies the aflat flames are nations back in the rebel forces britain the country that's hostin this year's games and has been among the most from loudly condemning the bloody regime of bashar assad calling for tough sanctions military intervention and the president to step down seems to turn sport in turn other battlefield they had of the syrian

olympic committee former syrian army general and a close friend of the country's leader has been refused a visa and will be watching games on t.v. in his home in damascus. this is a conspiracy against syria and its people and it even contradicts the olympic charter if you're sad and disappointed this is part of a pressure package and serious psychological pressure today the cycling team will have to double their training the day before it was cancelled due to security concerns apart from the psychological pressure the syrian athletes six men and four women have been preparing for their peaceful mission in a real war zone at home with a real risk to their lives the u.n. says in seventeen months of the revolt of a ten thousand people have been killed while some opposition sources asked to meet almost twice that figure to vote for her but despite a national wide crisis the country. sinden its biggest of

a geisha and since the nine hundred eighty moscow games. although we are in a state of war we are not listening to what they see a bogus especially the media we know the truth and this is very important especially this time we raise the flag of our country and the world the best of our officials sport experts say syria is unlikely to go home with any medals these year but it seems winning is not the highest prize for the team sport is often described as a matter of life and death but for serious olympic team the phrase is a reminder of a real conflict they'll be leaving behind however it will be a message of peace not war that these competitors take to the london games written off knotty from damascus in syria. and we're reporting from early and then picking berries minute r.t. dot com a website that the first games gaffe north korea's women's football team get in a flap over their flag storming off the pitch after being introduced with south korea's colors. dealt with star wars the u.s.

and europe face off with china to capture the sun get details of the solar power struggle. and the global conference full of clothes but not a politician inside these are the real deal and they're getting together in guatemala city as the slapstick summit covered. download the official r.t. application so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. t.v. is not required to watch our t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch r.t. any time any. congress in the u.s. is considering extending the act which gives federal agents broad what's happening commission officials and come clean and said that the foreign intelligence

surveillance amendments act has been used to violate people's constitutional rights at least once in the past four years one u.s. activist describes the practice as virtually illegal government but they have broken the law they admit that the courts have said what they're doing is illegal and now they want congress to rubber stamp it anyway they've gone to congress and say look we always apply you know we always comply by the law everything's been approved by the courts we now know that it was a law that they were misleading congress in order to get their stuff approved that's huge and it's important people know that it hasn't gotten enough coverage thankfully we can get the word out but i think once people understand that i think it's going to be a whole new debate about you know usually this stuff is presented to congress as this is just standard stuff we do it every year it's to fight terrorism how could you be against it we now know that what the government has been doing is in fact illegal that they've declared whole classes of information including the location

of everyone in america was attacked by their cell phones which report back to the cell phone companies where they are the government is now sweeping all of that information together without any warning they're spying on where everyone is all the time without getting a court to sign off on it that's a huge shift and very scary. well melissa joined in the business first to investors still scratching their hurt absolutely i think that pretty much sums up the sentiment at the moment there because there's so much to digest and it's almost conflict ing information and will be one of the biggest blows today really came for germany the biggest economy in the eurozone they were dealt a real blow by moody's investor agency they downgraded over a dozen of their lenders and they also said that more cuts could be on the horizon and we've got all artes tests are cilia with all the details fully. the moodies is downgrade at seventeen german banks and this is just

a week after the country's a credit rating was down downgraded from stable outlook to a negative outlook so it it wasn't very surprising that this on the banks had followed mainly because many of those of those banks that have been downgraded hold government back to debts and therefore if the country's credit rating is not stable it just goes to show and followed that the banks themselves are not stable as well they've been struggling since two thousand and eight and also since the onset of the eurozone crisis now aside from these downgrades the outlook in german business is not very good across all sectors business confidence has gone down in june certainly not bad news for the country that's considered the main creditor in all of the euro zone nations funding a lot of the bailouts that have gone to the other countries now one of the main a destabilizing factor in the euro zone is actually spain its current situation very unstable and it has long passed that psychological threshold on the interest rate on its sponsor seven percent right now investors are asking for seven point

six percent of our doesn't take much to figure out that this is a very very unsustainable level and that there are there are fears that spain is going to ask for a full country bailout to keep investors really jittery greece has also been on the spotlight the troika of the i.m.f. the e.c.v. of the european commission had just gone there and really there wasn't much of a surprise in what they had found out i think investors are already expecting to hear that greece is still off the track and it still needs a further death restructuring in order to get its finances in order so therefore we're not seeing good news any good science at all from the euro zone nations. ok moving on then we'll see some of this kind of confusing information the moment as we still got the u.s. dollars they are still combing the dow jones that one and a half percent up in positive territory and that's because there's been a plethora of news coming out today we had job was kinds for laying durable goods orders climbing and recently the european central bank president he pledged to

defend the euro at any cost so we'll have a look at the european markets they're actually closed now but this is how they finished the day they managed to get in that was after. they said that polish the makers would do anything to preserve the currency to keep it intact having said. citi group they announced that they now see a ninety percent chance that greece will leave the year i took him of year it's on the screen just now it's one twenty two a c. for just that we've got a very well that's how it performed today managed to day i guess the boss gave us and the year i talk about the ruble it's still about the exit markets here moscow we had gains again very much mirroring what we've just seen in the european markets to wall street as well and asia also finished in positive territory the r.c.a.'s there heading towards two and a half percent of positive territory this time of year is normally quite quiet but with all that's going on the markets is still they say this is in stocks and to see

how some of the biggest blue chips performed here most of the biggest lender one point eight percent if finished in positive territory that solved they're expected to raise that benchmark mortgage rate next month we've got. another financial big show ahead one and a half percent of. yes they've been given a warning themselves by s. and p. another credit rating agencies saying that they may downgrade the if they were to go ahead with the acquisition of. a half of a share of this have a boil on this very much justifies why the russian markets with gay. we've got canes that they were waiting feeling the love from is the president saying that they got a hold of the year and they're also going to check out the surging bond yields the borrowing cost way to keep an eye on that as well so that's the markets bill i'll be back in less than two hours time keeping track of those numbers for you could see they see a bit later here. and very soon. we will be crossing over

to america to washington where he's got america's economic escapades in focus with a capital account with more on the so that'll be off the headlines with me stay with us live here in moscow. well. it's technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got the future covered.

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