it starts on t.v. dot com. latest headlines the week's top stories from r.t. syria's rebels fight to retake control of aleppo with the help of the western financial backing as the u.s. and turkey consider a no fly zone to put pressure on the mascot's. egypt's president orders the country's powerful defense minister and the chief of staff to resign it comes amid a militant crackdown in the increasingly volatile sinai region. and members of the russian female punk group pussy riot await their verdict after an anti putin stunt for the country's main cathedral in a trial that divided the nation. hello

this is r.t. you're watching the weekly with me kevin now in our round up of the top stories of the last seven days and first this morning with syrian rebels struggling to regain ground in the country second city of aleppo some nations led by the u.s. are piling more pressure on the massacres and bypassing the un washington and turkey have discussed now bringing a no fly zone over syria and have set up a joint group to facilitate regime change the u.s. and its allies have also pledged even more multibillion dollar support for the syrian rebels london being the latest to weigh in all this is un chief ban ki moon is back in the presence of international monitors in the country as the current observers mandate runs out in just two weeks time but for the people on the ground in syria the situation remains as dangerous as ever public sector workers in particular feeling fearing for their lives. as the story. 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 over those working here it's not a political statement rather a sign that their company belongs to the state here this time 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 when you were rounded in cape using your page you're trying to estimate what's going on. his brother a plastic surgeon also received. their family belongs to the alloway it's the same religious group as assad but they were never politically active. he said the

documents confirm syria's opposition has scientists engineers don't kiss and civil servants only. what started as a battle against the regime now increasingly looks like a battle against the syrian state but the round a million and a half of the country's civil servants are becoming targets doctors teachers many 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 clean 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 is permanently drawn now because of the scorching heat for 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 he's calling now afraid of revealing the identity of. all the syrian people are in danger children the elderly farm workers civil servants doctors and scientists there are no exceptions well over the fact that my life and the lives of other syrian people are a truce makes me tremble with fear along with peers basically syrian civil servants also have to deal with a much higher workload many now put in sixty hour weeks but 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 targeting 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 use any attention from the media or from the international community it is in the interests

of at least some factions in the opposition to make things worse for people so that those people who are the silent majority join in the fights around the world attacks against paid institutions carry some of the highest sentences and promptly condemned as terrorism yet in syria for the sake of ousting one man millions of lives are put on the line it's not boycott artsy democrats because syria. and more public sector stuff is simply being targeted a leopard to this and some damage footage here apparently showing rebels throwing the bodies of post office workers to some series of supporting the opposition now say they'll have nothing more to do with such groups to make this link to the video we talk about is it time for you to stand today with the latest from syria we're following the. u.k. based journalist and broadcaster neil clark told us fighting in syria will only

escalate as the rebels get strong support from the west and back is a regime change. there is going to be a great danger that the rebels become even more violent now more desperate because it's quite clear they haven't got the job to support and they will be using more violence because of the attacks on members of the government etc because this isn't going to plan the rebels get routed this past week i don't think it really matters who succeeds unless there is a sort of sea shift in the approach from the west and the arab league because at the moment all they're talking about incessantly is a sad must go we have a grotesque meeting in turkey between hillary clinton or and the turkish as they talk about regime change in a country which is illegal by international law we've got to understand quite clearly the u.s. doesn't want a peaceful solution to the situation through the last very last they want is democratic elections free democratic elections because they know the ba'ath party would do very well and so they want to undermine the u.s. mission they did it all the time and they cope in one way instead of pressurising the rebels to people to put down their arms actually encouraged actually sending

them arms so it's quite clear that washington doesn't want a peaceful solution they want violent regime change so unless that changes then they are afraid the budget will continue. middle east activist and you're an expert for this planet explains why sending more weapons to the conflict can only create more danger. if the lation continues if the militarization continues what we will then see is that the post assad government will be led by the men with guns when the victors are those with the guns that always bodes ill for women for children for civilians syria is not libya syria has a long history of civil society mobilization and organizations they have many things that was not possible in libya but the danger is that you will have certain parallels certain similarities such as unaccountable militias who will not put themselves under the accountability of a new government that is a very dangerous reality and if syrian body politic explodes it will be an

explosion not an implosion the danger of course is that with that growing the sectarianism growing there is the danger that it will spill over the border. if you'd like to hear more of what phyllis bennis had to say the full interview on air again next hour here on r.t. . egypt's president orders two top military officials the defense minister of the chief of staff to resign no explanations been given yet for that decision one of them the defense minister who saying turn towie had previously been egypt's interim ruler after the ousting of hosni mubarak last year he also served in the defense role under mubarak for nearly two decades will be replaced by a sissy who will also take charge of the country's powerful military council islam is president mohammed morsi is also a council beyond these amendments to the constitution that gave top generals wide ranging powers the muslim brotherhood relationship with the country's military been

strained since last year's uprising all this comes as a gyptian security forces say they've killed at least seven suspected militants in northern sinai violence is recent. escalated the operation was launched off the sixteen egyptian border guards were killed in the campaign to hunt down the killers of the largest in the region some for months and simply three with israel and the israel based journalist believes the chaos is the legacy of abrupt changes across the middle east and north africa the attack was first of all. increased tensions between israel and egypt 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 means they did in the act itself as an ideological goal to shield. their religion as they see responsible decision makers in egypt should be trying to increase cooperation with

israel in order to ensure that these kind of homicide terrorists are not able to carry out their plans so very abscesses if you don't know opportunities for the countries closer together the islamists and especially you hobbies that we're talking about now have been for years. and now what they're doing is taking advantage of the fact that there he is an unstable situation in egypt but if you just live as we've seen now across the region egypt syria and all the other countries north africa and what we're going to see is chaos and that is what we're seeing unfortunately. still to come this hour a criminal case is launched over the actions of a muslim sect in central russia the children in a secret underground bunker brawl most ten years because of the shocking story ahead and we also look into how rainy and get their hands on the latest gadgets despite coordinated western sanctions cutting off trade to the islamic state. here

in russia it's been two weeks of courtroom drama for the female punk group pussy riot they face prison on hooliganism charges for an anti-government stunt in moscow's main cathedral in february where prosecutors are demanding three years jail for the women with a final verdict expected next friday peter all of a reports. over the past few days we've heard from the prosecution and the defendants themselves the prosecution saying that they wanted three year jail sentences for the three women for the demonstration which they held in rush's main cathedral in february of this year the women themselves speaking to the court said that they never intended to cause any offense to the orthodox church or its believers by their protest in which they performed a so-called punk rock prayer calling on the virgin mary to reach russia vladimir putin now we've also heard support coming out for the three women on trial from celebrities in the music industry madonna. speaking about pussy riot during her

concerts in moscow also having heard having the name of the group painted on her back madonna of course no stranger to controversy regarding the church itself and nine hundred eighty nine a single like a prayer the video for which caused such a controversy that some catholic church groups were calling for her to be excommunicated was also condemned by the vatican and it's also being politicians from. great britain germany and the united states that have been giving their support for the women but it remains a hugely divisive case here in russia with some people saying that the women are modern day saints almost building them up to huge levels of. social standing saying what they're doing is right for russia and others mostly linked to the orthodox church suggesting that these women are essentially the anti christ that we all have to wait until the seventeenth of august at three pm moscow time when the judge in the courtroom just behind me will deliver the verdict. london's olympic summer

spectacle is coming to an end with the last of the events completed now and all the medals handed out the closing ceremonies underway meantime to put the seal of a memorable games to check on the final results and look back on a fortnight of top class sport is a season to fam. i think it will go down as one of the best in the olympic history i mean the venues have been fabulous the way the games have been managed over the last fortnight has been very smooth and the athletes have produced performances that i'm sure have captivated audiences around the world and not just talking about the likes of you saying bowl to michael phelps british team selves got twenty nine gold medals that is a record for them i think in over a century and that in itself created a feel good atmosphere in britain i think hasn't it over the last fortnight to such a point that the i.o.c. president jacques rogge came out and said that today he thought that these games had breathed new life into their competition so ringing praise from him it is hard to think they only started their sixteen days ago but as you say they are coming to

an end now as the closing ceremony gets underway in the usa or china it is as it was the usa got the better of china this time around but they are the two powerhouses them britain came third that was a bit of a surprise they performed exceptionally well i think there's only one prediction that i read that said they would get around thirty gold medals and most people had people russia would finish in third place but i don't think the russians we too disappointed they are they have finished lower than they ever have done before but they've have got what they wanted to achieve they want to get something like twenty five gold medals they've got twenty four that's one more than they got four years ago and they've got more medals than they got four years ago around nine more so in that if you look at it in that perspective they are starting to improve also you have to remember that the british team are built on two decades of lottery funding and it was only in two thousand and six that the russian government decided to systematically fund athletes in russia and that the time they did say look it is

going to take us around ten years to start producing world class athletes they were around the halfway point and if you look at what they've achieved here talent is coming through half the team i think are making their olympic will have made their olympic debut which bodes well for the future. they're also break through sports they did well in judo this time around they did well in artistic gymnastics which is an improvement and they've done well in the key areas their traditional key areas of athletics and wrestling so overall i think russia you might say would be disappointed about finishing in fourth but if you look at the detail they have achieved what they have set out to achieve i think what it can learn is how these games have been managed over the last sixteen days or so because as you say there was concern at the start about transport but so these are concerns that didn't really transpire we were walking around london and there isn't much congestion basically what they said how to achieve has been achieved. the work concerns about the economy but i think if you look at overall figures people are upbeat about it

so i think russia might learn from that how these games have been managed. more use more than two and a world up to now a huge blaze is still raging at a recycling plant in the city just ten kilometers from the olympic park more than two hundred firefighters have been tackling the flames it's believed to be london's biggest fire in recent years the work is the incident could affect the olympics closing ceremony but as we saw earlier on they went off without disruption no injuries reported there in that fire and it's not yet clear how it all started. rescue operations have concluded after two earthquake struck around the revised death toll is now over three hundred with more than two thousand injured in the disaster leveled a fifth of the rounds northwest of villages with both quick smothering over six point three magnitude rescue personnel working through the night to recover survivors from the rubble of now been reassigned to help the estimated sixteen thousand left homeless thousands of people to the streets lyndon easier to protest

discrimination against the muslim minority of myanmar demonstrators called on the government to end the bloodshed and recognize them as citizens over seventy people have been killed and tens of thousands have been forced to leave their homes during the ongoing clashes. criminal cases have been opened in central russia against some of the parents of the twenty seven children rescued this last week after the horror of being forced to live on the ground for a decade and islamic sect bar them from any contact with the outside world your piskun off report for r.t. . three people in just one square meter this police footage shows the shocking conditions members of this isolated religious group have been living in for years. up to seventy people all cramped in a small country house on the outskirts of gaza men women the elderly and more than twenty children most of whom have reportedly never seen daylight is posing with for these children living in south india and the basement right in this syle under the

house it looked kind of like an eight story and here shocked by what they found the authorities began taking the kids outside in order to take them to doctors most of them are still being examined while their parents demand they be left alone. the children are terrified and after everything that's happened they are afraid of what can be done to them despite being in need of urgent medical help some of the adults had to be talked into allowing doctors to see them. one woman had a miscarriages and a doctor had to treat her right there at the scene it took a lot of evidence to convince her she needed his help with the sectors around twenty years old its founder is eighty five year old for that. he proclaimed himself a prophet almost fifty years ago and is now too weak to get out of bed his followers believe only in the koran rejecting all other religions and even movements within islam the police found them while investigating a recent terror attack in the city they also found around

a thousand religious books and texts which are now being examined for possible extremist content but sect members appear to be defiant about their way of. if it is really what you are fighting against ally himself the authorities have already opened several criminal cases involving senior members of the sect and the feet of the children is yet to be decided plans are also being drawn up to three house sect members who are allowed to film inside neither did any of the groups or members agreed to speak with us on camera but off camera the man that i spoke with said that around forty people remain on their territory they do expect the afterwards to try to take everything down but he claims that they are going to resist even if they bring a court order since they don't recognize their own neither do they recognize the authority of muslim leaders or do they recognize the existence of the state or any country altogether. you go to school of.

the international security contract to fully known as blackwater has agreed to cough up seven and a half million dollars to avoid criminal prosecution it had faced seventeen counts relating to arms smuggling illegal weapons possession and other charges but the u.s. justice department deferred prosecution if the firm which is now called akademi paid money to the government of the company which has been through a few incarnations in this troubled history as previously been the source of strained relations between the u.s. and iraq five blackwater staff opened fire on unarmed civilians killing seventeen in baghdad five years ago scott horton from opposite magazine says the contract will be delighted with the deal which underlines how close it is to the u.s. authorities. the amount that's being paid is a real pit this is as these things go generally this is knapp's atlee tiny saddam on the other hand we've got this way blackwater is not completely out of the woods yet what they got here was

a different prosecution agreement that is they have time to persuade the justice department not to prosecute the justice department gets an extension and 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 dismissal that is non-prosecution is a probable outcome so obviously blackwater there's got to be delighted with this one thing that comes out 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 and department of state is opening the door for clark water 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. the u.s.

might be trying hard to make life worse for radians right now imposing sanctions on the country's vital oil industry and its banking sector and one america's also banned high tech product exports to iran and still find their way their. ports next there's even a store selling up latest gadgets in the capital for those wanting to enjoy the life. i pads i phones i pods apple's political popularity has meant that their products oh familiar sight everywhere from our workplaces and on our high street there's one place you might not expect to find products like this on sale and that the iranian capital of tehran where apple along with many other u.s. products abandoned the functions that had been in place in the years but it seems that tech savvy arraign eons at managing to outsmart this u.s. embargo and products like these not only popular in toronto they're widely available as well just like any other apple next door this one in tiran is bustling

and busy. i have no difficulty in importing electronics from the us nor do we feel any impact on imports from sanctions what doesn't come so easy indeed is getting technical support and updates for the products but we still managed to get them all the time. the secrets of u.s. sanctions has been mainly on iran's banks and oil industry in a bid to curb the country's nuclear ambitions but when it comes to the bans on consumer products alternative trade routes and enterprising iranian tradesmen have meant that in forcing the sanctions has prevented chile impossible in fact it's estimated there are now hundreds of traders in the capital selling these kids. the only impact of these sanctions that we see is higher prices which alter the real sinking against the dollar we're also forced to charge more from costa mowers in order to keep getting our shipments bypassing the sanctions and people still want

to these gadgets even though they become more expensive. so are the sanctions working. the sanctions have not. come because if they have you we're going to hear of new sanctions being announced by the u.s. congress or. western powers the fact that they're coming over. new sanctions every other day is the case on the board thanks i was very much there the working in fact many critics of the sanctions feel that far from the achieving anything banning these products in bug is a punishing the very people who will help in building around future creative individuals musicians film editing is right is the film a key positive apple's kind tell the world eva. children are special report we expose the secrets of britain's nuclear tests in a stroller that's coming your way out of the headlines they're here just over five functioning without russia.

russia would be so much brighter if you knew all about songs from finance to

impressions. start on t.v. dot com. wealthy british style. that's what i got in my own car. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger or a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to kaiser report. my parents really truly honestly believe that what had happened was as a result of my father's exposure to agent orange i was born with multiple problems . i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot i use my hands

a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit to me for my hands you know just as if anyone won but they do tell a story they tell us story of. the oxen. nuclear . side. radioactive fallout

old government betrayal the government. and laws and laws and claude how can the truth be revealed if there's no official evidence there was a very bright day to the servicemen concerned who were given no problem protection and to the people of this country generally because of the right deal like the full . the secrets of the u.k.'s nuclear tests. the. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future covered.