well when it comes to a two year sentence for this the internet sensation do you think this could dissuade other copycat protests who have been doing similar activities would it dissuade them from getting involved maybe people who are a bit more chicken you know what i mean like there are people who might think it's kind of cool to be punk and if they didn't get punished they probably would do stuff like this but people who are more kind of committed i think will just anger them in a way i think that this decision may actually be the motivation for people in the future to want to push the envelope farther in all honesty i think maybe something more but since i was a recent interview but according to the judge the judge has said in order for these for these women to be reformed they must be isolated from the public do you agree. i don't really think that anything is going to reform somewhat when you have a mentality that's that extreme in some way there's really i don't see how there's going to be reform you're going to sit in jail you're going to get bored you're

probably going to time to get angry i really don't think that their mindset is going to change because of this punch out all right all right off the list and thanks for coming on thank you very much why we're coming to life in the heart of moscow a before the case came into the public eye both in russia and abroad pussy riot was little more than an obscure punk band of more on the path to popularity in the reactions to the trial are going to score points. it was a prayer directed at virgin mary but it was heard all around the world pussy riot performance of the christ the savior cathedral outraged some invigorated others and left almost no one indifferent along with the patriarch or russia who condemned a flash mob of thousands of orthodox believers especially of the radical kind we're just short of demanding the women be burned at stake the whole question of us burning it was blasphemy a desecration of a church it was sacrilege but i think they belong to some sect which conducts the

tanach rituals and here too but their supporters see them differently to the defendants their lawyers and hundreds of supporters the dancing and singing was an artistic way to express the women's disagreement with the government particularly with president putin that's why they say the women ended up on trial and on trend. madonna the red hot chili peppers sting franz ferdinand just some of the celebrities who have voiced their support for punk collective on this point a very limited number of seats inside the court house even a member of british parliament managed to get in to observe and make her own judgment of something he just said something like. that i don't like that but the place was the space station. i don't think they were as part of the our group by now which translates from russian as war this wasn't the

first time pussy riot has attracted attention but is that the work when you go participated in one of the group's performances an orgy moskos biology museum just four days before giving birth because you know some would say which is said to be the woman seen here performing a sex act with a frozen chicken in a supermarket both incidents were also meant to be forms of political protest but neither were followed up with arrests. most of the actions of pussy riot in mormon initially they were forgiven for their first attempts to disturbance i mean the museum the incident in the supermarket foods now we just want this to end but we don't want to go to jail ever puzzle from playboy for a cover photo shoot and offer to perform along with bjork from of the singer herself and a contract with a record company who believe pussy riot are now worth tens of millions of dollars these are just some of the offers the group has received in the week leading up to

the verdict so if their goal was to be heard and to become famous then it's safe to say that with the rise players have been answered in moscow. r.t. . i'll ask about our breaking news here for you one r.t. of a quick reminder that a russian court has just sentenced members of the controversial punk band pussy riot to two years in jail and this of course following their protests in russia's main cathedral are the three women found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred artie's peter all of our joining us live right outside the courthouse so peter the judge has ruled guilty as charged what's been the reaction what so what's going on where you are now. well i was talking to you just a short while ago and i was saying the police were telling us over thirty people had been detained here today oh that number certainly got up just a little bit as soon as that news filtered through that the judges sentence them to two years in prison a group just behind me and right in front of the courtroom broke through the

barriers they were then the police of a stop put up here they were then taken some of them kicking and screaming on to buses just behind me to my left being detained there these are people that i've seen over the last few months covering the trial that have been vocal supporters of that group we are hearing from the police so they're from both sides both those opposed to pussy riot and those who support them being detained on friday however they recognize some of those. faces people who are have been leading figures some of them almost in organizing support for these three women on finding out that they will spend two years in jail the judge saying that they they they would only be rehabilitated if they were removed from society that they have also found themselves detained by police still very much heated debate is continuing here outside the courtroom between those who are in favor of these women and those who

oppose them. the round of applause you can hear just behind me that is for the those people who were being loaded on to onto buses by the police right now but constant debate by by both sides some people saying that they. these women apologized why should they be facing long prison sentences another side say well we just don't believe those apologies were sincere that was heard and echoed in the courtroom the victims of this this crime which of these three members of pussy riot have been convicted of said that they could not accept those apologies that had been issued by the three women the judge had taken not into account and was taken into account when she hunted down the guilty verdict and handing down these two year sentences that the each will face there are still large groups of both supporters and those opposed to pussy riot here all chanting slogans various in

favor of the sentences or calling for pussy riot to be freed well they can call for pussy riot to be freed they aren't going to be freed the judge handing down those two year sentences for the crime of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or about his pressure on her right outside the courthouse on this breaking news peter thank you very much. just to do a very quick recap the all girl punk band pussy riot now sentenced to two years in prison after being. guilty of inciting religious hatred by committing acts of hooliganism more details on that of r.t. dot com again we're actually still showing live pictures from inside the courthouse in central moscow you know it's ultimately they say the girls of the band say they meant to protest against president putin and the patriarch of russia who supports the russian president that's why they staged this protest inside the iconic landmark of the cathedral of jesus christ the savior they say they did not mean to offend any christian believers although the witnesses who were at the cathedral at

the time on february twenty first say that the members of pussy riot were offensive aggressive and willing to stop their protest prayer others saying that the act was a blasphemous violation of public order and insulting to orthodox believe it was so there we have it the members of the or girl punk band pussy riot now sentenced to two years in prison and the court proceedings here now wrapping up these are live pictures from the central moscow court live pictures on r.t. . it's now approaching a ten minutes past the hour here in the russian capital julian assange just now officially a political refugee but seems no closer to getting out of the ecuadorian embassy in london than before the asylum announcement britain made it clear the deal did not affect his determination to arrest there was a blow and extradite him to sweden in clear defiance of international law artie's laura smith who was at the embassy on the day of the drama now has this report. it was the day they've been waiting for julian assange was holed up in london's

ecuadorian embassy for two months and his supporters who turned out to cheer for him rain or shine since his legal battle against extradition to sweden first began more than eighteen months ago also there in large numbers the police who didn't wait long to make death first arrests. when the decision came it was the one they wanted. we decided to grant asylum to julian a song. that was a seller's called it a significant victory and his mouth was full. and shining right it will automatically encourage the government. but not everyone was pleased the u.k. foreign and commonwealth office called the decision disappointing and foreign secretary william hague said it changed nothing it does not change the fundamentals of the

case we will not allow. safe passage out of the united kingdom nor is there any legal basis for us to do so hague also denied any suggestion that british police would storm the embassy so over in territory under international law to arrest but that's not what ecuador inferred from a letter it says was delivered through the british embassy in quito in response ecuador played hardball. when it was no national law could be used in this way in any intrusive way in any diplomatic facilities any place in the world it shouldn't be used to threaten or blackmail the sovereignty of any other country and they called a summit to try to deal with this threat so that this fact doesn't go unpunished. the scary part the part that i found completely incredible and outrageous is the british threats to actually. go in and try and extract you're in the sun but i must

say to see british police surrounding that embassy was it an act of intimidation that should not be allowed and is not allowed under saddam or stuck in the middle. who has a new home but no way of getting there and put him in a big trunk diplomatic bag i'm not quite sure whether that would work but otherwise we might see him holed up there for a mixed couple of years who knows and solution to this. if he leaves the embassy he's liable to arrest by the u.k. which insists it must still extradite him to sweden a position ecuador wouldn't accept it or respond to the united kingdom it would that mean possibly breaking relations on a regional level if it happens the bronzing of asylum by june enough songs has been spelled the end of this tale already full of twists and turns in fact it appears to be the beginning of something else with neither the u.k. no ecuador apparently willing to back down it's developing into an ugly diplomatic

spots which could affect relations for some time norris may see outside the ecuadorian embassy and up to as you can see just behind laura smith reporting around a dozen british policeman a car stationed outside the ecuadorian embassy there in london the u.k. is only a threat to raid their premises to get hold of a song provoked a massive wave of criticism with many experts agreeing that such an act would set a very dangerous precedent. the u.k. made a huge mistake u.k. government and the u.k. foreign office but i threaten in the ecuadorian threatening to invade the ecuadorian embassy which is the sovereign territory territory of another country this just isn't done i mean i couldn't even find a case where this was done in the last sixty or seventy years and they probably i'm i'm sure they thought that this thread would never be made public but the ecuadorian government released the letter and it's

a very clear threat they tried to walk back from it's so they were threatening but if you read the language it's very clear they said that. if we want to we'll go in and arrest sanjeev you don't cooperate with us and you know the ecuadorian government made every attempt to reach. a solution to this impasse because you know they offered first of all to let him be assigned to be interviewed in the embassy he's not wanted for trial he's not charged with a crime they really only wanted to question him which they could always do in the in the u.k. so what this shows those of us who have been saying all along that this really wasn't a case about alleged sexual offenses in sweden but it was a political case and they were going after a son for political crimes i mean this view has really been vindicated. well one of the key factors in ecuador's decision to grant a songe asylum was the danger he could face political persecution in the us now the

south american country also stressed the u.k. and sweden's failure to guarantee that he won't be handed over to america ultimately prove that assad has fears for his freedom and life are legitimate is more important now looks at the part of washington's playing in this ongoing long running saga. while julia saunders mother is calling this a victory for her son many see this as a small defeat for the u.s. and that is because many believe the u.s. was hoping that julian assange would be extradited to sweden so that sweden would subsequently be able to extradite julian assange to the united states we have heard in recent years it's no secret former and current u.s. government officials equally even julian a songe two are terrorists and that was in the aftermath of releasing cables and memos that were classified that belonged to the u.s. government as a result the integrity of the u.s.

government was compromised a lot of secrets were revealed and it painted the u.s. foreign policy in a dark light it's no secret that the administration of u.s. president barack obama has been earning a reputation for waging a war on whistleblowers fiercer reputation than any of his predecessors many journalists scholars and activists in the u.s. have signed a letter of support for julian a songe one is including naomi wolf she's a journalist and author first of all this is a white house now to wait houses obama's and bush's which is systematically overclassifying everything especially wrong doing it specially anything related to what whistleblowers want to release specially you know torture that even gauged in methods of torture like mafia tactics it's come to this the government same to journalists everywhere in america. we're going to be you and we're going to threaten you and we're we're threatening you with with serious legal penalties like

prison time if you do your job when i was speaking with naomi wolf what she wanted to clarify for me and her position is that she sees julia sanji many do as the publisher similar to the new york times chilliness orange is the publisher the one that made the information available he is not the leaker she noted why isn't the u.s. government going after the new york times for publishing what wiki leaks published instead the u.s. government it is presumed is all to me hoping to go after julian assigns either way she said that this is this would be a dark day for all journalists in the u.s. if he would be in the custody of america prosecuted held indefinitely or possibly even face capital punishment. well of course moscow is are watching very very closely the developments around the case and the russian foreign minister who said it's bewildered by britain's position on the whistleblowers asylum deal by the ministry of representative said the threat to take a songe of the embassy by force contradicts the vienna convention he also added

that the u.k. itself is harboring dozens of russians suspected of grave crime but yet denies the right to asylum to a solid you hasn't even been charged among those who found shelter in london are. wanted on terrorism charges and murdering also a former tycoon. accused of fraud and an attempted. murder. but it doesn't not look like an access to our website has been restored earlier today r.t. dot com was jammed by an avalanche of online traffic in what's known as a denial of service attack this allegedly by a hacker group known as and leaks party's top bottom reports. if you try to go to our web site today you may well see this message instead of the actual website that's the result of a d.d. o. s. cyber attack which struck many hours ago and has made r.t. dot com unavailable around the world on twitter

a group calling itself anti leaks is claiming responsibility for the attack they linked in their tweets to the topics june songe and wiki leaks they also made a joke about the show hosted on r.t. saying that they wanted to see him smoking cigars and drinking whiskey but that they weren't able to because of this attack those and other tweets indicate that they wanted to stop artie's coverage of the granting of diplomatic asylum to the wiki leaks founder by ecuador's embassy in london d.o.'s or distributed denial of service attack is where attackers used remotely control computers around the world to flood a website with too much traffic for it to handle until leaks has previously attacked wiki leaks is site itself with d.d. o. s. as well but they say that their primary target is julian assange tim self describing him as a new breed of terrorist the group says they're based in the usa there's much speculation as to who anti leaks actually are. so it does seem at the moment though

we have managed to bring back up the web site r.t. dot com so you can now or you should be able to head over there for any stories or features that you may have missed that's the have a quick look and see what is standing by there right now a scandal of the paralympics again serving as a symbol of world unity overshadowed by accusations that have outraged disabled ticket holders. bus so terrifying that it effects as a suicide rates in the u.s. army reach. the average of now more than fourteen people committing suicide. or it is nearly twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow international observers in syria have begun winding down their mission which expires on sunday after the u.n. security council decided not to prolong their mandate and the move is viewed as disappointing by russia which sees the mission is key to finding a political way out of the war artie's anastasio reports from new york. regretfully

for russia we have to see the united nations security council did in fact decide to not prolong the mission the mandate of the observer mission in syria of the united nations now there were two conditions for this mandate to keep for them to keep functioning on the ground and these were an end to the violence as well as ending the use of heavy weaponry and of course we know that this unfortunately has not occurred as of yet the united nations will however mean team a presence on the ground in a different format this will be a civil mission that they will put in place the details of which are being discussed now russia's position in all of this is quite simple well we're story of the monday is coming to an end we believe that those members of the council who insisted the continue did not show a commitment to ending course still it is. working towards a political settlement in syria however we're looking forward to the form of doing a u.n. presence in damascus. doing the job it is supposed to do in the light of the need

to stop the violence and to stop political process in syria it's important to keep in mind that russia of course has been calling for a peaceful political process in solving the syrian crisis and this of course comes as we're hearing armed groups on the ground threaten to combine forces with al qaida if the west does not help them out and this would of course be a catastrophic development in the crisis or let's go straight into the world of the you know we'll start with south africa where police have killed more than thirty workers striking outside a mine officers opened fire when the group charter them with machetes and spears but the strike began last week when miners demanded higher salaries and better working conditions the shooting is one of the worst in south africa since the end of the apartheid era. iraqi police and hospital officials claim thursday's wave of attacks across the country has now left more than one thousand people dead. and the

bomb and shooting attacks targeted civilians and police in baghdad and other cities near the capital i'll timidly making it the deadliest day in three weeks of violence at this month's death toll has risen risen to at least two hundred as al qaeda continues to tear up the country eight months after u.s. troops left. an afghan police officer has shot dead two u.s. soldiers are just minutes after they gave him a new weapon as a present at the incident in the west of the country is the latest in a number of similar attacks when members of local security forces have targeted those training them overall thirty six nato troops have been killed this year alone by afghan forces are raising concern over the continuing presence of u.s. troops in the country. just about our top story for you now here on our c russian court has sentenced members of the controversial punk band pussy riot to two years in prison following their protest stand and russia's main cathedral the three women

were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and they have pleaded not guilty saying the choice of location for their performance was an ethical mistake they insist it was a political protest against president putin and what they see is his backing from the church as leaders crowds have been rallying outside the court today both in support and against the trio around thirty people have been detained following warnings from police against breaking public order of the case of pussy riot is causing rather large divisions in russian society versus supporters say it's politically motivated or their opponents argue they went over the top with their performance by the head of the russian church said the pussy riot stunned amounts to plaster. off to the beach where you go for the ali good to see you again any reaction to the pussy riot verdict on your markets well either the markets don't care much sure they don't care it's all because that's the kind of reaction we have right now they did take slightly more let's take

a look actually at the figures that we've got right now on the russian markets where another twenty minutes still to go on the clock and the r.t.s. is down point six percent well that was at the beginning of the hour it was down around point two percent so that's the only point four percentage points actually the change that we've seen going down while yes other markets did seem to be recovering us take a look at what's going on in the u.s. there we've got several indicators we've got the leading economic indicators point four percent and we've got consumer confidence up also in the month of august and this is greeted by. you can see the moderate leaders still downward pressure. over in europe steam is going away from the from angela merkel's sentiment when she said she reiterated basically a promise to keep in supports the euro and therefore the dax is up just point four

percent in this session. same thing applies to the euro which is down slightly versus the dollar it had received a huge boost in the previous session the end of the first day session when we got that statement from this angle michael. and on the commodities markets boil is coming down that's on rumors that the u.s. might actually release some of its reserves oil in order to increase supply and therefore right. now ukraine has made its first big step to wean itself off russian gas now the country is doing a consortium led by exxon mobil to develop a gas shell for the black sea bottom and the project as we have ten billion dollars will provide ukraine with five billion cubic meters of gas per year which is around twelve percent of what it gets from russia you know ships explode. the biggest gas

deal involving foreign investors in the history of silver in ukraine this is how experts have been describing the latest agreement between ukrainian government and the exxon mobil consortium on development and exploration of the natural gas field in the black sea coast of ukraine the offshore gas field combined with other potential deals which the ukrainian government is now discussing with the british investors within this trauma center by john and many stan could and large the natural gas extraction in ukraine in the next twenty years by four times which would make this country all but independent from the gas imports it's been having from russia currently key if it is on a contract with moscow until twenty nineteen buying russian gas in a certain amount of a certain price and it's been looking actively for both the discount and lowering the amount of gas it has been buying but so far when the stand negotiations time not brought any success another way that ukraine is trying to implemented to diversify its natural gas resources is getting

a loan from the china investment company and there's already been an agreement on that three point six billion dollars on buying new technologies which would allow ukraine to buy less russian gas certainly this raises many concerns among european consumers whether there would be any more disruptions of the russian supplies into the european continent which go through ukraine but both sides in the negotiations have been holding over the past several years have been saying that regardless of how much gas ukraine buys from russia the transit of russian gas through ukraine to europe will not be hampered will not suffer in any way besides russia is already building several other pipelines to deliver its gas to europe so this should not be a concern according to both countries' governments and both countries gas monopolies companies. all right i've just looked at. some as down a little bit even more so you could say that the reaction is slightly negative on the markets are very good to me too thanks very much

a review of anyone morrow. it's good to have you with us here at all it's here we come to you live from the heart of moscow it's a nearly half lost the hour and i'll be back with the headlines in just a moment. wealthy british style the sun. is not on the side of the.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause a report on our. news today violence is once again fled up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada.