children kept underground and in isolation for ten years by an islamic sect uncovered in russia city of concern the shocking details ahead. the battle intensifies for the strategic syrian city of aleppo between government and opposition forces and it could be a repeating pattern adopted by foreign media in covering arab revolutions. tunnelvision rick limps inside the smuggling routes into gaza following egypt's decision to seal them off due to border tensions. and on screen international news and comment live from the new center here in moscow several stories of catechumens but in the theater where children have been

kept for years without daylight and contact with the outside world the accidental discovery by police in the russian city of khazan has shocked the country and the wider world a sect of seventy people has spent over ten years there following a self-proclaimed prophet. reports. if you were walked past this building on the outskirts of the city of cazan in central russia you wouldn't notice anything that would have been going on beneath it was a three story building with a small minaret and a tin present on top was a bit run down but was otherwise rather unremarkable but a passer by would not have noticed the eight story secret complex that had been built underneath and there it was indeed a dark and an isolated world children adults taken out from these catechumens extended basement underground complex whatever you want to call it most of them had

been there for a decade without proper heating or without proper light or sanitation and crucially without any access to the outside world a few were allowed to go and work at the local markets the rest were kept down there among them the youngest an eighteen year eighteen month old child and a seventeen year old girl who was later found to be pregnant the children are currently undergoing medical examinations and all of those involved will also undergo psychological tests to see how they may have been affected by such a long period in isolation pfizer after months or tar of was the self declared leader of this cult eighty three years old bedridden and delirious he'd declared himself a second islamic prophet and had declared his complex a muslim caliphate essentially independent muslim state and then got his followers

to live inside it and refused to let them leave a similar kind of cult in the central russian city of pens or in two thousand and seven a group of followers their dog an underground complex and waited there they said for the coming apocalypse they were eventually talked out of. that's and they emerged into the sunshine as these people are in. and that will a correspondent you got a piskun of is now in the city of cars and to report on this shocking story you can get more by following his defeat. this kind of underscore t. . clashes a raging between the syrian army no opposition for control of the city of aleppo in what's being seen as a key battle in the war rebels have now withdrawn from a strategic district in the nation's commercial how to prepare for a counterattack activists sympathetic to the opposition say the use of heavy

weaponry by government troops is cause many civilian deaths but a u.s. war veteran says the claim seems unrealistic well it's been some years since i saw the syrian army up close but what i did see convince me that of the arab armies in the region the syrians were by far the most competent and capable and they maintained good discipline so we have to assume that the syrians have moved very deliberately in aleppo and that suggests that they have probably moved to seal off the rebels in the enclaves or in the areas that they currently hold to do that they have concentrated armor and artillery for direct fire not for indirect fire and they will move very very carefully with infantry and engineers in support with the object of doing as little damage to the infrastructure as possible because the more damage you do to the buildings the more likely they are to create defensive positions for the people you're trying to eliminate so i would say based on my again limited experience of the syrian military that the rebels in aleppo are now

in serious trouble. and is perhaps the troubles on the battleground of the printing some rebels to seek more support from abroad in response for french president nicolas sarkozy one of the principal architects of the nato campaign in libya has called for a repeat of the scenario in syria on a website our team. dot com. meanwhile a senior aide to president obama has not ruled out a no fly zone over a patch of syria under apparent rebel control the feature the conflict generally has been how the support of the u.s. and its allies for the opposition is matched in leading international media and as marina portnoy's found out it follows a pattern of coverage of recent revolutions in the region. in the arab world millions have been seen uprising. in the western world and one international news channel is standing accused of falling short on providing a full picture of the revolutions it was a great g.p.s.

. device and his human rights were supporting. themselves to reduce to the fact that a lot of the. killing and torturing edward mortimer conducted an independent review of the b.b.c.'s coverage of the arab spring the public news channel was criticised for many things including a lack of reference to video which wasn't authenticated and repeatedly using the word regime which is a word carries. connotation. regimes something nasty and you know that's the reaction. i have to the b.b.c. refer to the british government as the camera regime you know. so what are you guys now for i asked one of the executives i said you know how do you find energy is your policy on things and they're actually doing different offices to ousted leaders and one military intervention later the b.b.c.

now claims it will address its mistakes meanwhile across the atlantic america's corporate owned news networks still pioneer subjective rhetoric that the syrian regime of bashar al assad regime is now also facing another dynamic critics say more than one year of flawed reporting on syria may already have hard wired public perception to see only one side of the story the focus is on action coverage that reinforces a preconceived notion of what's going on and of course the government you know of of syria is all dead if everything that happens there is a result of what assad is doing there or not doing. again that's in the interest of people who want to intervene and want to overthrow this government washington has made no secret of its desire to force syrian president bashar al assad out of office getting serious in syria with questionable impartiality many

mainstream media outlets in the us have been seen portraying the syrian opposition as a single entity at the forefront of a democratic uprising there now overwhelming humanitarian grounds intervening in syria critics say the very same news outlets have not been so eager to report on the less appealing actions of syria's washington backed opposition. the people were very much involved in trying to undermine the syrian government and they had signers there just as they had in libya this isn't just a question of western democracy good. bad there's a much more complicated mosaic of forces involved here media doesn't seem to be keeping up with them as syria approaches its most delicate tipping point many experts say the western media machine should avoid oversimplifying sixteen months of deadly crisis that even the international community so far has been unable to

resolve marina port i.r.t. new york the syrian groups fighting present the sound of being armed with u.s. weapons despite washington's claims it's only providing lethal aid to the opposition so says activists middle east and un issues for this bonus and that full interview with her is coming up later next hour but his quick preview. there's already intervention under way the western countries have provided the military of saudi arabia the military of cutter that's where they buy their weapons from they buy american weapons so it is already western weapons that are going in it's not coming directly from the u.s. but it is weapons. the west the danger of that escalating is very serious. egypt has sealed off over fell's and underground tunnels leading from its eastern sorry region to gaza

a vital lifeline for many in the blockaded region the move follows the latest escalation of violence in sinai security forces are trying to drive militants out of the area but wednesday egyptian president mohamed morsy sect is intelligence chief the governor of north sinai after a militant attack killed sixteen soldiers the closure of the tunnels means more hardship for citizens of gaza who have depended on them for most of the basic supplies. has seen these on the ground routes first turned and explains the whole vital they are. these tunnels have been operational for several years ever since gaza was first put under blockade back in two thousand and six for many gazans they are essentially the only lifeline they have with the outside world and that's why you'll hear many gazans saying that they feel that they were living in a massive prison we're talking here about everything about goods about items about people even food and fuel that are smuggled through this extensive underground network of tunnels into gaza carlow has voiced its suspicions that some of the

militants who were involved in sunday's deadly attack were smuggled through these tunnels from egypt into gaza but it is still a highly unusual to seal off the tunnels particularly under the presidency of the new egyptian president mohammed morsi who is a muslim brotherhood party has close ties to hamas which rules the gaza strip what's more morsi has said that he is committed to improving the lives of ordinary palestinians now i've been down some of these tunnels and i can tell you that i've seen everything pass through them i saw because it was still fully intact i saw huge were for generators and even people the tunnels are a massive myth work everybody is somehow connected to everyone else and the people on top. of the ground know what's going on underneath the ground they stay in constant contact they also alert it sometimes by the egyptian security personnel who are outside the tunnels on the egyptian gaza border. but he's pulled a sliver and there's plenty more still ahead for you this hour on r.t.

including justice in the dock illegal weapons trading doesn't mean jail for everyone it seems we report on how the tourists private u.s. security contractor avoided prosecution plus. more pain for this economy to more european companies have been out of reducing their exposure to spain we've got to find out in a swedish security service company to now it's all about the fees customers won't be able to pay back their bills time in ten minutes time i'll be axin up at. american efforts to decontaminate parts of vietnam from agent orange are on the way more than three decades after the war there ended the toxic chemical used to burn the country's jungle is blamed for health problems and birth defects vietnam war veteran so i spoke to him a little early here in r.t. he believes the clean up effort took so long to get started because washington didn't want to admit to its guilt i really don't think the united states is over and over that. ever really want to do. any forward.

in fact it has. meant that. if used to any. and it is that they should not be. generational of. that there are generations approaching the fourth generation and we have annoyed here now all of this is going. to place the devastation every. one of the. lives. here. i see the. four meetings. i attend the funerals of the. former military as well as there were. and now. there are generation going into the fourth generation in other.

words you're going to get sick and as a result. and there's no relieve. there's more military controversy out of washington as the u.s. department of justice is letting a controversial military contract away with a fine despite it being charged with smuggling and other crimes the group formerly known as blackwater must now fork out over seven and a half million dollars to avoid criminal prosecution but for more i'm joined by scott horton he's host of antiwar radio so what do you make of this deal. well the amount that's being paid is a real pit this is it as these things go generally this is an absolutely tiny sum on the other hand we've got this blackwater is not completely out of the woods yet what they got here was a deferred prosecution agreement that is they have time to persuade the justice

department not to prosecute the justice department gets an extension in the statute of limitations period to continue its investigation but that being said these sorts of agreements aren't entered into unless the government thinks dismissed so that is non-prosecution is a probable outcome so obviously blackwater there's got to be delighted with this but there are serious allegations issues surely they should be facing criminal prosecution at this stage rather than just getting off with a fine. well i think that's right i mean i think one thing that comes out is we get a really deep view into the way walk where there was conducting business around the world and its provision of arms and sophisticated communications equipment to other governments and not quite governments and one thing that comes out of these papers is that a lot of this is being done and a very very close relationship with the united states remember blackwater is

a principal contractor for the department of state and it appears in many of these dealings of the part of the state is opening the door for quark water and helping blackwater sell its services to other governments that this has to do with just one of those governments where blackwater didn't get approvals so try to give away too but i think you're going to say that a trial here would actually give away too many secrets that the u.s. authorities they will be. i think that's right they may in fact i think that was threatened by erik prince at one point that there were a prosecution things would come out that would be damaging to the u.s. government and i think we see from the settlement agreement the papers behind it there seems to be a lot of substance of that because a lot of what black weather is doing is you know under the auspices of the u.s. government so it's got a little bit of time to prove that it is in fact going to behave as it were in a bearing in mind it's murky postie think it's contracting really can't be trusted and we won't see any future of nations. oh well i certainly don't think that

they've changed their name two times and they've changed some of the personnel and seen your actual ons or their reputation does not seem to be materially changed there's still more or less the cowboys of the industry operating on the edge although i think it's probably true that they have put in controls with respect to export licenses and tracking the movement of firearms and things like that they've probably done some routine regulatory things but i'd suspect they're involved in the north a lot of business that they don't want to see come out and that the u.s. government probably also doesn't want to see how the lie the day but just briefly what sort of image have these contractors as you say you call them cowboys in the industry what's an impact has had on the u.s. is image a brood. it's been devastating to me i think we can look at specific cases certainly in iraq i mean blackwater was kicked out of iraq and they were kicked out

of the after the new source square incident in which nineteen iraqis were murdered by blackwater agents for no good reason blackwater said they came under fire that was just on true there was a back firing of an automobile and that turned into a massacre by blackwater employees yet no one has yet been held to account by that and we have comparable incidents in many many other countries so they are basically . soldiers of fortune out there for hire and they're operating principle seems to be shoot first ask questions later great to talk to you thanks for your thoughts host of antiwar radio joining me live in new york. poor remember there's always more futility dot com a website online all the time here's a look at what we call you that right now the perils of online shopping the strange story of how men in the u.s. capital used the web to order a t.v.

box it was sent a high caliber assault rifle instead so he doesn't confuse it with the remote control. and the country toys becoming enemies of the state find out why taking pictures of teddy bears and by the roofs could lead to a lawsuit and a hefty fine. then let's have a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world around fifty police officers being hurt in face clashes with students in the chilean capital of a government education plans buses were burned while demonstrators held rocks at offices it was seventy five arrests in the latest protests which began more than a year ago campaign is the rich to pay more to give one to access to education but reject government initiatives. new scholarships and lower student loans. dozens of people have been taken off

a train at the main station in athens by police as part of a campaign against illegal migration it follows a series of sweeping operations with more than seven thousand immigrants arrested since last week and just international is accused of brutal attempts to control the number of those seeking asylum he rights organization says that if athens fails to provide proper detention conditions he could feel the anger of registered immigrants. well suicidal that's how labor unions in spain describe the government's austerity measures not just on the ground but in the two pilots say passengers are being put at risk to save cash. ripples. fly fly fly at any cost more when you can get just about the same thing for less money since low cost airlines took more than half of spain's aviation market many regular air companies have gone bankrupt so of course they choose low cost flights

it's cheaper the seats are less comfortable but it's not such a big problem after all and this discount model is supported by the state over the past three years the larger part of the government's two hundred fifty million a year investment into aviation was allocated to low cost airlines this scheme is simple lower expenses all round but while passengers are happy it's cause turbulence in the cockpit as pilots find themselves less and less motivated. we don't have high salaries and there's no prestige about our work as it had always been the bus drivers were only doing it in the skies nowadays we even have to pay for our insurance and buy uniforms for ourselves the industry has become a mess since two thousand and eight the number of recruits in spanish flight schools has been dropping rapidly and the general economic situation has also been affecting the quality of graduates. employment rates already. and that's why many of our graduates have to take several jobs just to survive. it is

not difficult to see that degrading pilot quality may have serious consequences not only has the job been suffering in spain over the past several years with people actually willing to become pilots but also experts say the policy of the local airlines is harming the most important thing and. which is the security spanish pilot's working hours are already stretched to extremes new legislation to increase them to sixteen hours a day is now being considered by the european union. if we go over the limits here then the problem of stressed and fatigue personnel arises for example the law says there must be at least forty five minute breaks between flights but in reality it's barely twenty minutes she should be on board at those who were twenty minutes between twenty eight it's almost impossible to conduct a proper. you know in terms of force to tick off without any security check. it's clear that cheaper flying is essential to keep europe moving during the

financial crisis but pilots and aviation specialists shudder to think what could happen if low cost airlines increasingly cut corners and dangerously push those who keep us safe in the sky. r.t. reporting from madrid in spain. when i was in the business and you promises news of some activity an hour ago difficult to find was in the week in fact an hour ago was wishing the way the week was as friday of course is thursday isn't it so what is the latest in the world of money today and well i'm going to worth out the chart again actually bill because there's more skeletons coming out of the cars it right now but the u.k. bank they're fighting back as all the charges that it greenwash a quarter of a trillion dollars a pair of on other bank argues that before seen in dollars while the deals are dodgy are they u.s. regulation of the troubled land lost a quarter of its market value where new york officials where public with the charge

is the british banks charge was have kicked off a transatlantic spat with now by london boris johnson accusing new york of damaging london's reputation as a financial hub now british. man agrees it's a targeted attack on the british financial system but what the american politicians and regulators are doing is specifically targeting with over emotive language british banks and the reason is. new york is trying to steal part of the dollar trading business that goes through this is america taking on europe and trying to regain cage that sea and ship riches barriers that's going up and when american politicians and regulators say there's a little problem there really there's a problem with international banking there's a problem in the ethic should behavior of international banks including in london

but this isn't a problem it's just a british problem of international banking took an international let's get over to wall street and see that the stocks are still struggling for direction and that's despite the weekly jobless claims to climb in gaza as you can see the dow jones modestly imposed to turkey just one basis point just for the nasdaq it remains a while the european markets fell to take off the last around less consider a calm before the storm filter the trading session meanwhile persons total goods and services trade deficit hit a record high in june after a sharp drop in goods exports not softer ablate economic outlook for the cave by the bank of england just this weeks of britain's really fell of the beds meanwhile unemployment in greece is now topping two one see percent and that's as the country loses hold of the year i say let's see what the year is doing just now and it is managing to drop in last because investors are really getting on

a ship and going over to the u.s. dollar the safer haven as the ruble that i was not rumbling anymore and managed to finish next against the basket of cars says ok let's stay with moscow for now and get on to the x e markets the most say that it was a very much a lackluster performance sideways very much a not much action to talk about blogs because they managed to finish up in positive territory but as i say the volatility was incredibly low because a lot so we've long holiday on the oil is. trading near where you have high still but there's now speculation that nations are stockpiling oil at the fastest raise in fourteen years not finding expectations that break created could drop below one hundred dollars have dr look at it is that over one hundred thirty s. he's got a long way to guide but we sell say. and moving on a thirty seven pages but it's getting set to his the asia pacific economic

cooperation apac is going to be has seen for the first time it's costing big money apparently the twenty billion dollars almost twice the amount of the london olympics is costing now i wonder if we've got time because to meet you and the bank does explain for us why it's so important. the fact that russia is spending so much money on the apec summit seems ridiculous first glance but let's face the facts russia's stance in the region is not as strong as it could be now it has become a member of the world trade organisation promoting trade liberalization is easier than ever before especially for the host of the event next there are obvious perks in trade let's take a look at this for example russia is an energy and metals champion though it's producing seventy percent of the world's many of copper and nickel asia on the other hand is the main consumer of energy metals and it accounts for fifty percent of the world's consumption of aluminum forty percent of copper and nickel this is a multi-billion dollar market now let's take

a look at china at its main port of shanghai the country imports resources from around the world but it takes more than a month to ship from brazil twenty days from south africa and two weeks from australia now would be so much quicker and this means cheaper to import from russia's than in a port just four days finally growth in asia projected at eight point four percent developed countries two point six percent max plus a shift in priorities from europe to asia would mean development for russia's liking far east. i did manage to squeeze it in and that's all for me and the rest of the business team also use my bell right on cue thanks very much and they get to do more coming up banks and their schemes to catch a fall all is revealed in the latest edition of kaiser report coming right after i bring you the headlines starts in about a minute often up. wealthy

british science on. the rise. market why not. why not what's.