from the student. starts on t.v. dot com. the u.s. is warning that the latest fierce battles in syria will be a nail in the coffin of president assad as we reported the moment how youngsters now are being increasingly drawn into the bloody conflict on both sides. wrong with the reverberations members of a russian punk band go on trial facing seven years in jail for a protest in a church is still today to a case that continues to divide russian society. and another campaign promise goes unfulfilled as barack obama spends billions to prosecute whistleblowers showing the u.s. government is as opaque as a. it's

good to have you with us here on our t.v. today. live in moscow the u.s. military chief says the fighting in syria's largest city of aleppo will also be quote a nail in the coffin of president assad leon panetta is currently on a tour of the middle east promising to continue pushing for the departure of our side of the commercial hub of aleppo has been the scene of fierce battles between syrian regime troops and government forces for more than a week now both parties view the fighting as decisive and life lead to define the fate of the country with the u.s. and its allies soley condemning president assad for the civil conflict the standoff is getting more violent on both sides as are to use on a boycott reports it's now seeing more and more children getting involved. young

minds burning hearts bad blood while the syrian conflict often comes across as a power struggle of grown man on the ground many of those who fight and die are in their late teens early twenty's. this group of f.s.a. snipers operates in a deserted town forty kilometers southwest of homes twice a day to god to shell a syrian army checkpoint nearby omar's twenty three he left his family in dubai to join the uprising. to support the young fighters and to feel the pain and to experience what very experiencing on the ground and to help with the operation. while their weapons are becoming more sophisticated if you are good at handling them most say they want to become martyrs and their dads help recruit their younger brothers. but those they're aiming at are not much older but a military hospital in damascus

a week long supply of coffins has been used in vast and forty eight hours while the syrian authorities do not release an illiterate just so all indications are that over the past few months it has increased dramatically here in damascus main military hospital soldiers and officers died just the last two days. in the beginning of the uprising the soldiers were laid to rest to the sounds of a solemn march but if you days ago a military band was ambushed now the burials are conducted in silence and then. nineteen year old he is an army conscript who is tasked with putting bodies into conference he was working in his uncle small shop and before being drafted a year ago. no i'm not afraid to die. to be in the place of my fallen comrades and to become a martyr defending my country it's every man's duty. and now the nineteen year old lies in a coffin just a few steps away he was the victim of

a sniper near homs but unlike many in syria his father and uncle are not calling for revenge. we just want peace. jesus all the prophets calls for peace we need it. martyrdom has long been glorified in muslim countries but it's also one of the reasons why the conflict in syria has been so protracted in seoul deadly when the youngsters profess readiness to die for their cause they usually even more ready to kill for it. r.t. damascus syria. and iraq sonorous are constantly following the developments in the syrian conflict from deep inside the country sharing her firsthand experience via her twitter feed she says it's an understood the syrian army has detained a group of rebels in aleppo more than two hundred of whom are about twenty years old and i say just from the conflict zone are also lined up on the twitter feed.

for the syrian opposition to ask its foreign allies to provide heavy weapons to fight president assad author and journalist afshin rattansi thinks the flow of arms into the rebels hands could have dire international consequences. call for weapons that some from the syrian national council have been making in abu dhabi this is this is getting worse and worse and the blowback for these countries that are aiding already aiding the islamist fighters is astounding i mean as far as i understand it parts of northern syria are already in control of the control of goods they call it western kurdistan thought it was in syria but i think the turkish authorities will be happy with that for the blowback for the united states last time they went around doing this alarming these jihadists sending special forces and so forth we got september the eleventh two thousand and one and the attacks on the world trade center in the pentagon the white house while the saudis are obviously on the qataris are overseas sending in their arms across the border

is interesting that saudi arabia is also having problems at home i don't think you'll see the mainstream media want to cover problems in saudi arabia that oil superpower in the oil rich east of the country they will no doubt get the arms and i notice that the syrian foreign minister being over in tehran and already the american press talking about syria's w m d and and the chemical weapons i don't think this time around the west are going to intervene using their means they're going to they're going to go the proxy way they did in afghanistan. you're watching r t live from moscow still ahead for you in the program a romanian president trying on a bus a school survives a second impeachment attempt at a spider dorothy wanted him out of office for supporting grounds of partial sterett he shows that sometimes it's better to be lucky than good plus. tops the list of countries most that's why europe why not why in the business

updates or at least. it was a musical performance a split russian society and could land three members of a female punk band in jail for up to seven years three feminist rockers from pussy riot have gone on trial here in moscow for staging an anti government punk prayer right in the capital's main cathedral as are used to refer to reports public opinion is torn between those who call them martyrs and others who say they are blasphemous. but the trial is now underway for the three girls from the provocatively named pussy riot this comes also the high profile stunt back in february where they performed a protest in the center of quite the state you get the drill that gained widespread recognition on the internet that it calls outrage amongst the religious community with paycheck calling it blasphemy now they stand accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred still it is now the girls have pleaded not guilty to these

charges because if the found guilty they could face up to seven he is in prison now . saying that they were protesting against the coups from their lives just leaders of the support of the now president putin is cool to months of control the sea here in russia it really has divided the population you've got people taking very radical stances both ways the religious community have reacted very very strongly we have paid. coming out some calling it blasphemy girl's house he said not on used to this type of. high profile stunts like this in the post that was video clips of the one of the most eclipse in the museum here most go another of them kissing female police offices again they maintain this is political motivated this is that their artistic expression get a hair loss about the silliness of the stunts and a lot of the supporters saying that perhaps is misguided but the question is really now remain a how and indeed even if these go should be punished in this way the stuff. is i'm

sorry for the reporting right that well our prime minister to me treatment beautifully shares his opinion over pussy riot this in an interview with the u.k. you know the times newspaper you can find it on our t.v. don't call me you can also discover how nato's intervention in libya last year is impacting russia's stance on the crisis in syria as well as some of your gifts thoughts on the olympic games and how. the two thousand and fourteen. plus empty seats in london has members of the so-called a lympics family feeling the heat of the organizers going to great lengths even pulling children out of schools to fill the void and have more online at r.t. dot com.

it's just turning ten minutes past the hour moscow time the u.s. is preparing to send hundreds of military police across the world to help local authorities handle security where needed special units have already been created by the country's marine corps how many are linking the apparent change in tact to a new report that says washington's multi-million dollar effort to train local police in iraq has been a total failure let's get some more insight now i'm joined by michael maloof a former pentagon official coming live on the program here good to see you today how do you understand the mission why does the u.s. need to send these units. well the thanks for having me first of all the united states believes that having a and ongoing training program is probably going to be essential as part of. to maintain a certain level of security to prevent sectarian violence and what have you. as i understand it with the. iraqis don't want the assistance and

a lot of it has to do with the conditions that are put on them and and inevitably they can probably get similar training elsewhere if they needed that kind of training. the united states is trying to justify in many respects trying to maintain a presence in iraq because it was so abruptly told that they had to leave so i think. trying to come up with creative programs to keep the presence of the united states in the in the area and frankly iraq doesn't doesn't want it and that's the way that we know that the iraqis don't want the americans were in there helping to train iraqi forces we've seen the same thing happen in afghanistan and you make this suggestion that america wants to maintain a certain presence in politics the world where else around the world apart in iraq and afghanistan for example where what would they send these additional troops. well i think it has to do with once the main body of troops have left they want to

maintain a certain level of security otherwise they're concerned as in. afghanistan. taliban will come on back and and that the areas will be overrun and they won't know how to deal with that kind of activity i think that the. amount of training that they get. going to be questionable simply because of the prohibitions that are put on them also many of the people who are getting the training don't really want the training they don't want to be involved in the training and but ultimately it's for the united states to keep a presence and to try to maintain a certain level of security to maintain the current regime. and i really would i mean you know happen i do apologize for interrupting you wrote a very good point as you say that i mean you used to work for the pentagon so you're suggesting that america wants to maintain a certain presence in certain areas but i doubt this will do much to quell those

who do like to call the united states of america as the world's policeman with with military bases in over one hundred countries do you really think this is necessary . well you got to look at the areas that the united states is looking at right now. afghanistan from a geo strategic standpoint is going to remain very very important for a lot of reasons. on the one hand you have china on the other hand the united states is looking upon iran and afghanistan remains a good geo strategic location for what u.s. foreign policy they want to assert in that region. but iran is it's unfortunate the united states doesn't try to get along a little better with iran than it does because there are some other threats that are coming along the line and i think that iran plays a very important role you know you may remember there is another three we mentioned there are some other threads coming along the line apart from iran is as washington

always says iran is a major threat a nuclear threat many doubt that as well but you said there are other threats in the pipeline. yeah. yeah the some of the other threat the one major threat that i see that the looming is one that we're seeing right here just north of us and that is the gathering of salafi potentially al qaeda for china and for russia both i think that and russia itself has a as a sole office problem in the northern caucasus. i think iran plays a very important role and i think that's why moscow tries to maintain a relationship with tehran to help. alleviate that potential threat of more seoul office moving into the region and trying to set up caliphates and we've seen it in the northern caucasus we're seeing it potentially now in western china and so i iran has

a critical strategic role in trying to offset this and all of this law office. activities that we're now seeing both in. area and what we will potentially where we're seeing in the caucus in the north northern caucasus and in central asia is a rise of the salafi the obvious that are that have come in and along with the taleban so it's a very serious potential threat we're seeing it right here potentially in lebanon and it could alter the balance of power tremendously and the instigator of all this frankly is saudi arabia there are many there are many deduce and that is that the saudi arabia has a massive regional role to play to play in the midst of this and i'm michael maloof i certainly wish we had more time for this conversation we just dying but former pentagon official michael maloof many thanks for coming on the program here thanks for having me. well while i will continues our spending hundreds of billions of

dollars in the middle east and the obama administration is writing equally shoes checks at home since he took office the u.s. president has prosecuted a record number of whistleblowers costing more than ten billion dollars this despite a campaign promise to make his government more transparent guy in a chicken reports. keeping government secrets is expensive business according to america's information security office last year the u.s. spent around thirteen billion dollars on classifications that's twice as much as it spends ten years ago and more than the entire budget of the country's environmental protection agency for instance the u.s. government keeps way too many secrets even even government entities responsible for evaluating these things like the office for government information oversight. these officers have may have done studies and said well you know a lot of this material doesn't need to be protected so it's in many ways it's

a huge waste of money u.s. security agencies regularly fight in courts to keep volumes of decades old documents classified like the files on the cia's bay of pigs operation in cuba when the u.s. tried to overthrow fidel castro in one thousand nine hundred sixty one but the sharp increase in secrecy over the last decade is due to america's expanding counterterrorism programs rather than on classified historical files the power that the national security staff has acquired under president obama is greater than any time history. during the cold war period the government indicted only three people for disclosing classified information however the obama administration alone has prosecuted six government officials believe king information to the press more than all other past administrations combined and thomas drake was one of them it was a senior executive who. america's largest intelligence agency during the bush

administration he blew the whistle on fraud and abuse with regards to the agency's secret surveillance program mr drake was charged under the espionage act much of what's happening now particular my case it sent an extraordinarily chilling message that anybody who i was a senior executive the government had a very high position and say it sends an extraordinarily chilling message that if you speak out if you speak up we're going to hammer you and we're going to hammer you hard because look what we did to mr drake but after a public outcry last year the government dropped charges against thomas drake in exchange for him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor of misuse of a government computer speaking truth to power is very dangerous and his world power elites. those in charge they don't like dirty linen being aired. they don't like the skeletons in the closet being seen. and they not only do they object to it they decide to turn it into criminal activity national security germ

they say the government always has and always will leak information deliberately to advance their own interests and it's not at all leakers that they're after the primary. you're is that the national security state is striking back is becoming much more repressive in regard to its response to whistleblowing you know individuals who. oppose oh sees that are carried out or who oppose simply abuses of power the obama administration is spending record amounts to keep its secrets coming down hard on the kurds and yet thousands of classified documents are making their way onto the web the internet has taken leaks to a whole new level but it seems the more the internet reveals the more upset the government becomes about secrecy i'm going to check out in washington hard to. know

while some of the us a busy trying to silence those speaking out others marginalize anyone who does not agree with main stream politics next hour here on out c we speak to dr howard friedman who argues that the american political system disregards the interests of the poorest people. can't underestimate the impact of money on the american political system and in fact there are some interesting analysis done by political scientists that show that people from the top third of the economic class have a very strong voice in government people in the middle third have a weak voice in government and ensure that people in the bottom third of the economic group united states have no measurable influence and that's a real challenge in american democracy is to make sure that we really are in a world of one person one vote. and of dollar equal spoke.

twenty past the hour moscow time the world update in just a sec for now though romania is president who survived a referendum on his impeachment for the second time during his rule try and screw could have been the latest e.u. leaders swept from office by the economic crisis and austerity measures demanded by international creditors but a low turnout invalidated the poll allowing him to stay in power following the story and book arrest as artie's tests are awesome. initial exit polls have come out on the remain a referendum vote on whether or not to impeach its suspended president of tryin of a cesspool while the numbers show that it had failed to reach the a fifty percent plus one vote a requirement in order to validate that vote now sunday's referendum is that and three weeks of political bickering really between the center right of assessed and his rival center left her and the prime minister on top of the cesspool has been accused of proteas of as well as overstepping his powers as president denies any wrongdoing or that he had done anything on constitutional what's going to happen

next is that the cesspool will be reinstated as presidents as soon as the final numbers come out and if indeed invalidates that referendum vote let's not forget his popularity has gone down a drastically ever since he introduced us there the measures in two thousand and ten as a result of i.m.f. a back financial funding and this is certainly not going to be easy in a country that is very divided politically very tired of any political bickering and again these two sides seem to show that they are not going to stop accusing the other side of any wrong to we were already hearing some scandals coming out again coming from want to side and they will have to figure out a way to work together you have assessed before to still maintaining positions as president and prime minister what romania nice now really is political stability especially for its european counterparts who are watching this very closely insisting that the country find a way to stabilize the situation and to exercise the prophecy the rule of law is still be

a checks and balances in all the institutions. reporting right there right straight to anaheim california to start off the day now it's where a hundreds of people have again protested against the recent case of the shootings at shootings that left at least two people dead two hundred demonstrators rallied outside the city's police headquarters and on a high end one hundred others marched on with me along the way. to this point at least nine. have been arrested. and nine people have been killed in poland after a train smashed into a minibus the vehicle apparently drove onto an unguarded crossing and was carried thirty meters down the track ten people were said to have been packed into the six seater bus the identities of the victims have not been released but it's thought they were ukrainian mineworkers is the latest in a series of road accidents in poland which has claimed more than two hundred lives in this summer alone. u.s.

republican presidential candidate mitt romney is continuing to make headlines on his world tour after appearing to criticize the london olympics he's now in israel where he referred to the disputed city of jerusalem as the country's capital you also claimed jewish culture is far more advanced than palestinian culture it of course provoked the wrath of palestinian officials who condemned his statements as racist and unacceptable well despite this his reported to have gained his campaign at least a million dollars in donations. ok well talking dollar signs has crossed over to. you you are there at the r.t. business desk investors are going home right now and what you are still doing there for a different time zones of course here they're going on and they us they're just rolling up their sleeves it's that fresh day beginning of their sell that's why but we'll start with the euro which is also about to go home and they came particular because the country has topped the list of countries most exposed to

a decline in the euro maple consultants have in fact made a map showing the most unsafe nations they'll be shown in red it's all for extremely vulnerable countries are the czech republic hungary poland and most of all the u.k. it's not the blames it's having a reliance on exports to the continent and its banking system major economies like russia are also call it high risk and earlier i discussed this issue with nick parsons from national australia bank and first i asked them whether countries can minimise those risks to countries outside the euro zone can indeed seek to protect themselves they can cut interest rates they can print money in the case of countries like switzerland they can effectively put a floor on their exchange rate so they can seek to protect themselves against disruptive capital flows they can seek to protect themselves against a collapsing trade but all this is really seeking to minimize damage rather than avoid it why do you think the breaks in the african countries are also high risk i

looked at the reports russia was ranked number fifty one hundred sixty nine in and that's really not what you'd classify is the highest risk so i think some of the spin that was put out was perhaps a little misleading obeyed bowl comforting for you guys over there. and staying with the issue standard and poor's rating service believes banking systems in russia and the c.i.s. are in little danger of being hit hard from the eurozone debt crisis and that's because they're reckless with european banks are limited however the agency as a russian banking systems could suffer if the global economic slowdown weighs on oil and commodity prices now let's take a look at how europe is doing in the last few minutes of trading it's a growing mass on hopes brussels will provide that economic stimulus later on this week if we take a look at currencies the euro has reversed its gains from last week against the u.s. dollar when it comes to the ruble it ended the session mixed to both the major currencies

not a quick look at the russian markets as i said they are now closed and basically that optimism from the e.u. trickle down to investors here as well plus sort of crude prices were helpful now if you take a look at some of the major movers on the my six naturally most of the blue chips were higher we know that north nickel is a main metal that's of course the nickel it's output to seven percent in the first half of the year when it comes to gas forbes magazine named it as there was a most profitable company that's in two thousand and eleven it also said of course and we know that gas from a great supply rushes liquefied natural gas to vietnam and when it comes to be t. be it agreed to jointly by a mobile operator in other news therefore russian billionaires who own the half of the have voted against b.p.'s bid to play a billion dollar dividend the representative said quote while to give you governments remains spring payment now is not and this comes on reports that russian co-owners himself or stake in the company to roles that much case b.p. will reverse its decision to leave the consortium. in the us markets are still

investors there has it's in their going between gains and losses right now they are flat the post will have more of these on that next hour as the session takes off more and more now talking about shares in luxury brands because they are managing to define the economic turmoil we've seen around the world and we say. find out why that is. the global financial crisis is not a topic people shopping around this part of town are particularly worried about i'm here in moscow on one of the most exclusive stories i'm talking fabulous people designer labels and of course fat wallets as well and this is the exact market savvy investors are tapping into right now trying to make fast cash out of people that love to spend it well a perfect example of this in recent years would be michael kors is a high end fashion house they've been producing clothes for over thirty years now based in hong kong announcing fragrances and accessories as well now in

a bloomberg survey for the best performing i.p.o. and they were actually placed at number one so they came out with their initial public offering on the fourteenth of december last year and it's now trading at twice that amount and as far as asian companies are concerned seven of the maze up the top ten of the top five performance companies that's really is people in asia they're running more money and generally have more disposable income to go shopping and that's really in spite of slowing growth in china and the european sovan debt crisis so it seems as a service and she's coming in and. out a luxury goods well at least the life of the people who shop around places like this said away. well are tires off your back to you.