the battle for syria engulfs the country's second city aleppo braces for the worst as rebels and government forces go head to head. elsewhere in the rest of region united arab emirates sees a fresh protest to the west's blind eye attitude echoing its stance on saudi arabia and bahrain. because the troubles past the ancient limpid truth as politics hangs over sport for the syrian squad at the london games. international news in coming live from the 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 kenyan orton city of aleppo intensifies columns of army tanks reportedly rolling into residential areas where opposition forces 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 he is one of the few international broadcasters still covering events from inside syria basics on a boycott with the latest. over the past few days that leopard has been at the center of a matter major military operation we know that the army the syrian army use tanks used stuff i did jets military helicopters to strike its targets the free syrian army has also. enlisted a lot of support for its separations in that they are calling it the battle for aleppo and there are some reports that on the eve of this battle. they receive

major reinforcements new supplies the military equipment new supplies of 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 the 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 our left are telling us that they don't understand why that 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 also telling us that before this military operation was launched the army how to evacuate the residents local residents out most of them are now stationed at the compost of the i left university residence from other locations at. the campus so. on one level syrian people were able to

come together and try to help 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. a lot easier sort of boy who is in the conflict zone bringing you updates and fresh pictures via twitter as we continue to keep a close eye on developments there. and kurdish separatists have laid claim to several areas in northern syria with a view to creating an autonomous region the lands no longer under the control of the syrian government or the rebels this is infuriating neighboring turkey which considers the kurds a threat and is warning it may strike across the border if necessary want to get some reaction from this development from dr franklin lamb he's director of the americas concern for middle east peace well turkey has been backing the syrian

rebellion but no appears that's led to a kurdish enclave appearing on its very doorstep did not see this development coming. well it's certainly on the internet if they didn't see it coming on the other hand maybe they feel they can deal with it because they're obviously the lead a horse the agent for nato in a in this and i think it probably. weighing the odds and feel of the thing you have you know a good reason to do what they're doing but. what these enclaves we don't know how long they're going to last and increasingly same's that that and car and car is going to make good on their. promises their pledge to cross the border in pursuit of the kurdish rebels so that border may really

heat up energy report indicated the key now the future of the assad regime is in aleppo if they lose that battle i think they will fall. earlier very people are speculating that damascus was a kid but that doesn't seem to be the case with the business community in aleppo in the center of the finances as your report said it seems to me that in the next few days we may see you know a dramatic change in the in the balance over there so you're saying what you're saying will happen is no significant as to what happens in damascus. i absolutely do because it's the financial center the business community is based there the turks are there nato is thinking of coming in with our r p two responsibility to protect plus the fact is that the. basket seems to be reclaimed. by the initiative by the regime and i personally think that

they're more secure there but aleppo is getting a lot of infusion of arms cache of personality even today twenty five arrived supposedly from libya the commitment of the libyan saw first to support that effort there pouring in you know a lot of that five hundred fifty bow border of turkey and syria so i think that the key personally is for me it's aleppo and that will show us a lot of how this whole thing is going to end up did i hear you correctly when he said that nato could get involved in this but there's been no u.n. security council resolution so what how can how come that could happen no. well well what are what the gun has hinted is that he may invoke article five of the charter as you know article five of the nato charter and nato and turkey has been a member since nine hundred fifty two know this very well and it's considered an attack on one tack on all and if they bait syria right now they're going to cross

the border in these enclaves but now imagine what if syria did that and if syria does that and pursue across the border well then one can imagine that the turks would say to their nato partners look this is an attack on all of us we've got to go in and that might give some excuse not that i'm suggesting there'd be a full nato action size but it's clear that there are other measures. reasons to do or opportunity to go in and i think that's what being that is what is being prepared now and i think that turkey by its actions is taking you know the leave in creating a situation you know to as they say humanitarian for corridors for safety zones exactly what the american congress is calling for a while and then doesn't that is a tradition of syria talk to frankly that's exactly what russia is saying shouldn't happen humanitarian corridors really shouldn't be imposed because at the moment

there's a foreign backed supporter of the rebellion going on in syria until that stops then russia believes there is humanitarian corridors shouldn't go ahead. quite right that's their position but as you know there is a lot of reaction to russia's research activities and that this may be because of the great con the intense competition now between moscow and washington or washington may use this and overwhelm the russian position to the international allies arguing for humanitarian. corridors and saying that russia is only interested in arms and their powers where we're actually interested in the humanitarian aspects and i think world opinion might well go with the americans are not least short term if they decide to do it and i suspect if things continue they will do it and where does that put russia and china then if that does go ahead after we've seen that major division the major arguments between from russia and

china wrangles against the rest of the international community what are the global diplomatic political implications and if that does happen. well i think you'd be short term they'd be a setback on the other hand the russians have shown you know a great skill and they have been so active as you know all over the map in making their argument so i wouldn't rule out it's not going to russia is going to be in the area it seems russia is a rising power in the region returning you know in many ways to what they had been during the cold war and before so i think it'll be a short term and certainly have to be a setback for the russians and i think the chinese are kind of following the russian lead on this but it is what it suggests is yet one more conflict between moscow and washington that potentially you know could it could intensify not not militarily particularly but problematically and you know it looks like since another one just very briefly said everything hinges on a leopard the moment could all this be over then in the next few days if the rebels

do succeed in aleppo just very briefly. i think so yes i think we'd see the end if aleppo falls and within thirty days that's very interesting here thought thank you so much live from beirut dr franklin lamb direction the n.g.o.s americans concerned for middle east peace thank you. we look at whether london twenty twelve can really be the world's level playing field for serious athletes. to go into the lympics with a message of peace without over politics with the details for you in just a few minutes from now. but first united arab emirates continues its crackdown on protesters eight new arrests to be made with almost forty now in detention the rest came after the government announcing 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 similar crackdowns in saudi arabia in bahrain political analyst romana xabi says 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 nations there are some legitimate. reforms that are necessary and 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 violence comes in and nothing happens 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 freedoms and that applies to all the other countries and one cannot say that for example limitations on freedoms and democracy in syria were less then the limitations on freedoms and democracy today in saudi arabia or

in some gulf countries now that will require some fast movement on the part of the regime to open and 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 other international news in brief for you this fierce fighting between iraqi troops and militants in the province of the other 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 sixteen lives. pakistani officials have decided to suspend nato supply routes following a bomb attack in the northwestern border region of the killed nine injured twenty

explosive device was hidden in a pickup truck went off at a busy market place your district has been a front line in pakistan's fight against taliban militants is a spectrum of the alliance applied routes comes just days after they were reopened following a seven month blockade. european commission president has urged greece to press on with reforms and deliver results following his meeting with the country's prime minister despite the outline bailout plan greece is still contracting at an alarming rate and pushing through further cancer is proving hard to stomach both the politicians and the public i think there's only enough money to make it to the end of the summer and speculation is swirling again that it may have to quit the eurozone. hundreds of people gathered here in central moscow to support opposition activists detained during the may the sixth protest those rallies turned violent with dozens of police officers injured and numerous arrests made griese was at today's demonstration. this is the so-called white ribbon movement amalgamation

replacing the left and the political right there stood against but in every sense presidency there stood against a disputed parliamentary elections back in december behaved today they're here for something altogether different now this is against the tensions of some of their members has taken place since may the sixth that's where 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 the work clashes between protesters and police so about thirty police being injured in proceedings and dozens of protesters well on the day there 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 foreigners who 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 words of police officers and prosecutors so they want change and indeed human rights organizations that describe these people who have been detained as melissa who prisoners. the background behind russia's protest movement is available for you right now at r.t. dot com including that latest viral attacks on the government opposition from an election of all these calls votes online by accusing the country's chief investigator of betraying the motherland find out why online plus. the ultimate star wars the u.s. and europe face off with china to capture the sun get details of these solar power struggle. all that available right now at r.t. dot com 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 they could have been used in research or in illegal beauty treatments artie's 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 at this and i went to get some food for the campfire 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 some ten and 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 floor 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 in the hospital contracts out the service which is where companies can

cut corners. to be nation discarded syringes and other materials were dumped into sent beats in children. 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 by 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 party. congress in the u.s. is considering extending the act which gives federal agents broad while topping

commission officials have now come clean and said that the foreign intelligence surveillance and then act has been used to validate people's constitutional rights at least once in the past four years one u.s. activist scribe's 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 was a lie that they were misleading congress in order to get this 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 it's a huge shift and very scary. syria's infighting has crippled the country of a for sixteen months now but there's one delegation which is trying to instill the spirit of peace and that is the country's a lympics squad syria is sending its largest team to the games in thirty years but sport can't be split from politics that isn't revolution 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 was just as important a mission i think. the situation in syria is better than ours the 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 it says his major competitors in london will be from russia but the country's true enemies the athlete flames the nations back in the rebel forces britain the country that's hostin this year's games and has been among the most loudly condemning the bloody regime of bashar assad calling for tougher sanctions military intervention and the president to step down seems to turn a 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 afflatus six men and four women have been preparing for their peaceful mission in the. a real war zone at home with real risks 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. but despite a national wide crisis the country sent in its biggest of a geisha instance than one thousand nine hundred games. although we are in a state of war we are not listening to what the see a bogus especially the bad media we know the truth and this is very important especially this like 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 living behind however it will be a message of peace not war that these competitors take to the london games. or if an option r.t. from damascus in syria. and its chicken in the business with katie to get a roundup of all the day's market action today it was germany's turn to take a beating it was indeed nor may they get away with it but today it was all about germany they were eating up all the news headlines and that's what investors were really focusing on the last of the mood is put them on a negative outlook that the rating agency artie's tests are still there she's got all the details for us. the moody's is downgraded 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 of funding a lot of the bailouts it had gone to the other countries and 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 bonds of 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 fears that spain is going to ask for a full country bailout to keep investors really jittery greece has also been on the spot like the troika of the i.m.f. the e.c.v. of the european commission have just gone there and really there wasn't much of a surprise of 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 here 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 what about wall street them we'll have a look at some i already know i mean they're actually experiencing a bit of a rally in the session a lot of that is because. good orders by the european central bank president pledged to defend the euro right so let's see how the european markets

reacted to those comments as we can see finished up the trading session up with dareus if you look at the dax that is actually in frankfurt germany edging towards the way it has sent now it's all because of these comments that came out from mario draghi the e.c.b. president and he said enough. that policymakers would do everything to preserve the euro to keep it intact really was kind of a day of conflicting data because we had fifty announcing that they now see a ninety percent jobs that greece will leave the euro in the next twelve to eighteen months a lot to digest today if we look at the euro itself this one twenty two eighty one so it is aligned me at the moment as to the ruble but if finished up the trading session gaining against the u.s. dollar the european a current say let's move on that we'll have a look at the markets here in russia that will see that. mirror what was happening in europe and we had gains we've also got some moves that shake is to look at as

well if we march. to the biggest lead to head that finished up in positive territory nearly two percent the second biggest again another financial benefiting in recession. imposed to terrorise the worse and big game is send us to spy as in peacetime they might downgrades the energy major they might be taking over pay let's get on to all right with me and david see that it is indeed a climbing as you can see just a lot of that is because of the e.c.b. president's comments and also because us stop polls as as well. ok so we've got time for everybody tomorrow with all the latest the market. is called it is you know the year we know all about and we'll see sometimes a more a good to see and have a good evening so one more money news on the way with mexico is a bout with the headlines for that stay with us live this is our team in moscow.

wealthy british style sun. sometimes the title. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for

a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our.