three years behind bars that's the demand of the prosecution as the trial of the pussy riot is drawing to a close here in moscow it follows that controversial protests in russia's main cathedral. turkish and saudi fighters essential been captured in syria helping the rebels fight against president assad meanwhile in a new twist in the conflict civil servants are finding themselves a target for simply working for the government. and tolerance is put to the test in belgium as a candidate with mental health problems runs for public office however critics fear it's nothing more than a publicist and our top stories this hour. online

on screen international news and comment live from our new center here in moscow prosecutors are demanding three jail sentences for the members of a controversial feminist punk band pussy riot who staged a protest stunt in russia's main cathedral the women musicians are on trial accused of inciting religious hatred and the case that's caused a storm not only among the russian public but also abroad parties and in a going to has more. prosecution's insisting on a three year jail sentence saying that the girls have severely offended those who were at the christ the savior cathedral at the moment of their performance now descends and the defendants are saying that that was not the point that there was absolutely no evolutionist context in their song and in their performance they're saying that their action in christ the savior cathedral was purely politically motivated and that should be kept in mind they have also said that if indeed if

they are being in fact to try to for making a political statement that it's a somewhat of a. type of a situation it and it does look like russia is a turning back towards the soviet times and the child has attacked is a lot of attention not just in russia but worldwide there were even and there was even a member of british parliament hasn't shared the court session on monday but of course it wasn't just the politicians who have been paying close attention to the pussy riot trial here's artie's killer all over with more details it's the trial that's gripped global attention three members of the. pussy riot of hooliganism after taking part in protest inside moscow's main cathedral the demonstration a punk rock prayer to rid russia vladimir putin to media focus around the world. but what i would like to reiterate our status which we have expressed from the very start our defendants did not a perpetrate a criminal offense and therefore any verdict of court say for an acquittal will be

unlawful. the group of being called political prisoners by human rights groups and media outlets support from many within the music industry sting of the river chili peppers of all calls to the women to be set free but groups associated with the russian orthodox church were outraged by the demonstrations and the polish use of these available all of those who defend the women say the protest wasn't born out of any religious hatred. yes and this acts obviously had political character which just went side by side with other such political acts the didn't stand out so the attempt to proclaim what has happened as abusive actions motivated by religious hatred is ridiculous also guided that political character and the search for the shocking is clearly visible when you look at what the women have done previously past months of included inviting the media to an orgy in a museum and one member performing a sex act with a frozen chicken in

a supermarket because the performance though was a step too far for many in a nation where the majority of people orthodox christian in search of a foreman's in the country's main cathedral saw some accusing the group of blasphemy however some of russia's most ardent anti-government activists who agree the women took things too far also said they shouldn't be punished too harshly and it turns out was that they don't deserve it by the way i strongly disapprove of their act i'm old enough to be their dad so i would just spank them properly and let them off and now when they face up to seven years of prison this is going too far afield of the call for clemency was repeated by president putin the man who was the target of the protest jewish to. which i hope the court will rule with a just decision if the bonds let's say defiled a sacred place in israel they would have to cope with some tough guys there are many of them would face difficulties from attempting to leave the country was ready

for example they went to the caucuses and defaced a muslim shrine security wouldn't have enough time to protect them from public anger. nevertheless i don't think we should judge them too strictly when there are some important conclusions themselves and where the final decision rests with the court. the trial continues here in moscow its public opinion is divided over what punishment if any should be handed down to the three women in the dock peter oliver r t moscow. well we have more reaction to this trial online for including a plea for leniency from the queen of pop the dollar while some finnish activists show their support with a copycat protest targeting the largest orthodox church in western europe. and also online at the moment r.t. dot com just days after a u.s. army veteran goes on a shooting spree in a sikh temple a radical baptist church praises him for carrying out god's work all the details right now dot com.

syria says its forces have captured a group of military officers from turkey and saudi arabia in the flashpoint city of aleppo the group sort of run rebel combat operations against the syrian army the area in northern syria has been the scene of deadly fighting after rebels moved in from the outskirts last month and a report suggested the opposition has started to receive its first heavy weaponry from foreign allies turkey and saudi arabia was paying salaries for fighting against president assad. reports from syria even those who are not involved in the country's standoff are living in constant fear for their lives. it's a fixture in any public office in syria but if you buy a ticket or get a driving license president assad will be watching all. those working here it's not

a political statement problem or a sign that their company belongs to the. yet this sign is now becoming a death mark for an increasing number of state employees. this call in the middle of the night cost here my brother. was one of syria's most experienced civil pilots u.s. educated more than twenty thousand hours around the globe he was coming home from the airport when gunmen attacked his car. radical islam. is the worst enemy of radical islam since when you were rounded incapable of using your page you try to estimate what's going on by yourself. his brother a plastic surgeon also received brad's their family belongs to the alloway it's the same religious group as assad but they were never politically active. you said the

way documents confirm syria's armed opposition has a hitlist scientists engineers doctors and civil servants on it. what started as a battle against the regime now increasingly looks like a battle against the syrian state but there are around a million and a half of the country's civil servants are becoming targets doctors teachers and when the simple workers have all been kidnapped or assassinated for simply doing their work any government in the world where they seem a credit cannot has two distinct groups of people working for a political fox whose job is to keep the ruling party in power and civil servants to make sure that streets are cleaned and hospitals are running and in syria regardless of that political affiliation civil servants are being targeted as assad sympathizers in damascus hospitals window blinds are permanently drawn now because of the scorching heat the fear of snipers a local doctor was kidnapped on his way from work

a few months ago his family hasn't heard from him since his colleagues are now afraid of prevailing the identities. of. all the syrian people are in danger children dale drily farm workers civil servants doctors and scientists there are no exceptions to live with the fact that my life and the lives of all the syrian people are a true it makes me tremble with fear along with fears for their safety syrian civil servants also have to deal with a much higher workload many now put in sixty hour weeks with barely a day off due to inflation their salaries have devalued as have their lives so i am not surprised to hear that some groups within the free syrian army are with those people who are trying to make life better or orderly because at the end of the day if things get back to normal they will lose any support they will lose any attention from the media from the international community it is in the interests.

oh the subsections and the opposition to make things worse for people so that those people who are the silent majority join in the fight and round of world attacks against the don't situations carry some of the high sentences and promptly can down as terrorism yet in syria for the sake of ousting one man millions of lives up to the line it's not boycott artsy demarcus because syria. there are unconfirmed reports of turkish military convoys across the syrian border and entered a city in the north of the country had been threatening to invade its neighbor under the pretext of curbing what it called the terrorist threat it sees coming from kurdish groups in northern syria where some analysts fear the turkish government could use this as an excuse to unleash its arms against america's mark holland a professor of international relations at bill can university believes a potential turkish strike on syria would open a pandora's box the problem is that the measures may reach.

across a particular group which has not resolved the turkish government seems to want to have it both ways it wants to see an ocean. but it doesn't want to see claps of public order in the control of borders that seems to me to be simply a logical. want to shake the kaleidoscope more the pieces will come around and unfortunately for many took the soldiers and police are ordinary civilians this is not a contradiction it's coming home to haunt turkish territory as a conduit of support for the syrian rebels or the syrian army and other groups this one raises a security guard and were. once. the situation in syria itself. it's not at all clear that all will be returned to barracks or put in custody. just to remind you all t. his crew is traveling around syria the moment bring you all the latest blog twitter you also find discussions on what's going on by members of the open sit ins all the

country's political spectrum you can check out the analysis reactions and comments right now. security leaks from the obama administration continue despite an only going internal investigation that's according to the u.s. house intelligence committee agencies and they'll have to do crack down with harsher punishment for those caught spilling information to the media but he's going to check on explains. the f.b.i. is on a hot believe her they have interviewed current and former high level government officials from the white house the pentagon the national security agency and the cia all to reveal those who spilled the beans investigation has already kept the distinct chill of a press coverage of national security issues as journalists here say agencies declined routine interview or firestone refused to provide background briefings on top of that the legislation is in the works in the u.s. congress that would for example allow to strip the government employee of their

position in punishment for on off the ride sharing of information with the media so you have an assault on the first from both the government and the lawmakers the former assistant director of the cia's that everybody in the intelligence world agrees never have there been so many level leaks one has to what ministration is being so hard on leakers as this one we're talking about all kinds of the leaks about the administration's targeted killings program as it continues to illegally execute suspected terrorists abroad or leaks about government agencies sweeping surveillance capabilities at home feel bomb administration alone has prosecuted government officials believe king information to the press more than all other paths that miss ration by earlier i spoke with one of the. great that is once was a senior executive of america. largest think they can then he blew the whistle on fraud and abuse with regard to the agency's secret surveillance program here's what he told me speaking truth to power is very dangerous and his world power elites.

those in charge they don't like dirty linen being here 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. i guess we have to point out that not all leaks are being criminalized because you have a type of information that the government leaks deliberately to manage and control the discourse in the media so to say but any journalist would tell you that it's the on the rise that really helped reveal a sensitive story to the public otherwise journalists would just have to copy paste and reprint whatever the government decides to release to the press in washington i'm going to check out. still to come the program. to communications satellites become dangerous space junk and pose

a potential threat to the space objects off of their rockets fail to deliver them to their intended all this. monday was russia's most successful day the olympic games so far seventeen year old ali in the stuff in the winning gold on the on even boswell tonight she goes for a second gold on the floor will have news about on the rest of the sport in around half an hour's time. the first year of may be facing a tolerance crisis with the far right and immigration rich rick intensifying but it's at the other extreme in the belgian city of ghent where politicians are being accused of being too tolerant to allowing a man with mental disabilities to run for office parties to sicily reports. where here and get the city in flanders known for its pretty medieval town center but it's also recently made headlines when a political party put a man with mental disabilities on its candidate list for local elections meet d.d.a. pelham on the forty one year old candidate of the flemish christian democrats who

is hoping to get a seat in gan city council he admits he has difficulties in speaking and writing. yeah i've been active in community work for a living years our party slogan is everyone's included so i want to be given the chance to be counselor to express myself and help people with disabilities. he says he wants to encourage voluntary social work and make the city more accessible to people with handicaps by promoting the use of simple language this is just the single to do people in the end also people with disabilities can run for elections in our community. here in ghent so we can't ignore them you'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd say such people weren't part of society but some see the party's move as inappropriate where public office is concerned raising questions of whether politicians have pushed the envelope too far this time. if

he's physically disabled it's not ridiculous but he has mental disability so that's another question you may have problems with the reasoning but. i think he's not capable of making decisions for other people i do voluntary work myself with mentally disabled people i've got a lot of respect for them but they have to realise themselves that they're not able to do everything other get residents like frederick and think it's really nothing more than a publicity stunt and i know it's difficult when you criticise such a nice and good guy but i don't want to criticize him in person i want to criticize his party for using him as a kind of political tool and to get media attention in a time where we are close to. on the simple elections did he is well aware of the criticism but as far as he's concerned the political i spend a lot of energy campaigning the rest is up to voters at the bitter end of a not this one yes or a silly arty ghent in belgium. greece is struggling to curb the flow of illegal

immigrants claiming scarce public funds more than one thousand six hundred people will be kicked out of the country after the latest crackdown well part of an effort to save money in any way possible greece is sinking under its own debt but economist roger bootle believes leaving the euro zone is the only way the country can save itself and that full interview is coming up a little later this hour. race in my view needs to get out of the year i cannot see any way in which this current policy of austerity is going to free any relief or slow the arriving process of trying to. take. decades because of our credit freeze very bad things possible to imagine a return to economic growth the current setup by contrast with the euro breaks i can imagine economic growth so far from being a disaster i think it could be the major step that leads to the restoration of growth in europe. that interview in

full coming away very soon here on. the egyptian prime minister has reportedly been assaulted as he arrived at a funeral service for sixteen security guards killed in sunday's attack on the egypt israel border egypt's president mohamed morsi didn't attend a military funeral because of security concerns curious the israeli spy agency mossad of carrying out the deadly assault over the weekend israel called the allegations nonsense and instead blamed islam innocence of the say yeah i spoke to him a little earlier here on r.t. he believes terrorists are taking advantage of egypt's weak security following its uprising. was first of all. you had raised tensions between. i think that's going to be. the attackers had in mind and second of all we have to remember that these organizations will leave that violence. and justifies all of that in the act itself as an ideological. their religion as.

a responsible decision makers in egypt should be trying to increase cooperation with israel in order to ensure that these kind of. terrorists are not able to carry out their plans so perhaps. closer together the islamists and especially because that we're talking about now have been for years. and now what they're doing is taking advantage of the fact that there is an unstable situation in egypt but if you just as we've seen now across the region egypt syria i mean all the other countries north africa then what we're going to see is chaos and that is what we're seeing unfortunately. now let's have a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world regime demonstrators have continued their protests. demanding the release of political prisoners tempers once again flared and fresh clashes with police are up to one

serviceman was injured when his patrol was talking to put petrol bombs on monday security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets in the thames to break up the readies. new zealand has been forced to close main roads and several airports off to the volcano erupted in the center of the north side and mount started ash and rocks into the sky last night covering the ground with a thick layer of dust a number of locals fled their homes to safety the volcano has been dormant for decades and experts are trying to assess if this is the beginning of a new activity cycle. communication satellites are now lost in space after a russian rocket failed to place them into all that expensive myth that they now pose a threat to other satellites and potentially potentially i should say the international space station. has. the greatest fear now is that the booster and the two satellites that are stuck in an emergency or that could become potentially

dangerous space junk flying around the earth the greatest danger could potentially come to the international space station on the cosmos has said that no emergency maneuvers are planned for the i assess that hasn't allayed fears of a possible collision has come as an embarrassment to ross cosmos which saw a string of errors in space flights last year with the two communications satellites is now stuck in a lower orbit the chances of those satellites getting to where they're supposed to be is nearly nothing says and they're probably full back to worth and burn up. and now time for business with early evening here in moscow but a lot of wall street was the latest and katie no exactly right that's what we really concentrating on at the moment bella's you know the world's biggest economy of right now there's a lot of head scratching going on and that's really in the absence of any major economic news day to the moment we've got volumes that are currently alive and it

seems the bosal eyes of the pond investors seem to be waiting for the next big thing and that's what investors are telling me anyway and analysts are saying they're not quite convinced about the rally that's going on there's also speculation but the big banks across the globe are going to intervene believe have no solid proof of my men so have a look at the us still see the figures they do speak for themselves a lot of the time now as you can see they are continuing with their rally that's for a third day now way better than estimated corporate earnings are helping to really push. figures the second largest us national gas producer chesapeake nova seven percent and that's after reporting the biggest profit taking in history for the company's us probably one of the biggest news agendas as well as that job openings in u.s. what price is also helping to give investors a bit of a boost apparently they haven't quite all right as get on to europe because the markets now the end of their trading day business never closes and as we can see

there we called around hope of dissent for the european markets for the data on three courses up now the also some mold they brought news that came out of the u.k. in respect to the industrial manufacturing numbers as well but really the biggest news agenda today was standard. now it was a whole escapade going on at one point we saw the stock losing over twenty percent is off to be in a suspected of hiding tens of thousands of transactions with a wrong which is subject to u.s. economic sanctions the american financial regulators have said that the banks laundered as much as two hundred fifty billion dollars over navy a decade that started childhood which did noisey allegations face is losing its u.s. banking license serious stuff there so with that they have a look at the exchange rates and a lot of investors lot of bankers are on holiday it must be said so they're going to want to see these though all of the yards of that one twenty four twenty five the ruble to stop moving and shaking in this session physics as we can see it did

lose out against the u.s. dollar a year or so fell off those summer highs that we saw all right then we'll move on it was through the markets here mostly because there was a green colors yes we finished up healthy impulsive charge and i can say a lot of that was because of oil prices they managed to get a higher rate investors all here in moscow speculating along with the rest of the world i want to talk about some overseas still somewhat megaphone it's russia's second biggest mobo operates once again it's postponed its loans in this thing previously the moved it from july so. temba slicing financial turmoil in the markets but now that i see news paper says the company plans to go cover it in middle seven for the say the same reason is here to traded russian big telecom company and it's reportedly plans to list twenty percent of it says i mean for that intel is. breathtaking scenery tell it at any minute because it's all about cleaning up the arctic it is the mission of the russian geographic society which is

already kicked self an expedition to free islands of the barents sea from the collected industrial garbage ahead of the trip russia's president vladimir putin aligned at last is basing his activities in the region but it seems that other countries are plans do exactly the same thing. that one submits. to greener than you think this is the arctic temperatures this july top to those in moscow and rising on average twice as fast as and you where else in the world the record i smelled has made the arctic's vast natural resources easier to get than ever before imo then we all want to be horrid off our planet or oil and gas reserves and in fact both have have a war their encounters and even china eager a whole way of their quote five arctic countries russia norway denmark canada and the us have the right to explore waters up to three hundred seventy kilometers

coast but it's the central pullers zone that may now be up for grabs russia's already owns a vast arctic territory but there are concerns that this may unite the others against moscow's polar ambitions most recently denmark is a last contender to send an expedition to the pull to developing the arctic according to a civilized manner of behavior and proposed a drilling moratorium in the central pullers zone this year all giant rosneft signed contracts to explore russia's arctic with america's exxon mobil norway's start oil and. any billions of dollars is all ridges pledged but much more will come when the pool is partitioned and the borders set so the more businesses that come here the quake of its own charge of and on for giving this nation home to manage a political battles will transform it into a high tech economic hub that can put a call of business are to the arctic very beautiful and

a part of the wild that bell i'll be back in about fifteen minutes more updates the markets as you think so that's. a bit later now we'll be getting some more financial analysis is deemed controversial by something just a few moments from now stay with us live here in moscow.

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