paving the way for scotland to go it alone leaders put pen to paper setting up a referendum for independence by two thousand and fourteen. moscow says it's impossible to confirm whether damascus is using soviet era cluster bombs against rebels while the e.u. slaps the syrian government with new sanctions. and stuck in the siege of the libyan opposition's last stronghold tells us here at sea the supplies in bani walid are running out.

to have you with us here on r.t. today. life in moscow the prime minister and scotland's leader have signed an historic deal paving the way for a referendum on breaking away by the end of two thousand and fourteen. prime minister david cameron met here in edinburgh today with first minister alex salmond they signed that memorandum of understanding ahead of the referendum for scotland's independence to be held in the autumn of twenty forty now that's going to focus around a single question is the prime minister said today is that the biggest question of all will be set to a set for scotland or a united kingdom now that this is being used in the coming long wrangling lots of consultations but now all sides are going to be able to gay forward and they're going to be wanting to set full their arguments to the scottish public about whether or not scotland should indeed be independent the polls often around

a quarter of people actually full independence but you know it really is two years until that actual vote will be held it's an incredibly turbulent economic climate is the moment they campaign for keeping still in within the union will say they said wes is to say there's nothing to worry about the majority in scotland willing to remain within the union but you know it is old still to play for here and maybe was missing taking a bit of a gamble because they dropped that little option the devaluation max the options that perhaps more powers to be had to stall and that was to look there's no middle ground it really is one question it's all or nothing and you know possibly they'll be a lot of people here in scotland who are maybe on the fence he will say well i k we might not have wanted all of that we might have wanted to remain within the hour but actually we don't want to be left with nothing if we going to remain you can see a very interesting couple of years of fist fighting at the back of the school and

begun. to serve for reporting right when our prime minister david cameron has stressed that he believes the u.k. and scotland would benefit from sticking together but scottish your m.p. alan smith says london is home again and brought both financially and socially. scotland pays in more to the u.k. than we get by and we pay more into the e.u. than we get back but it's not just about the money but i'm absolutely absolutely one hundred percent certain scotland will be richer independent will be able to spend money on the priorities of the people of scotland will be able to get rid of nuclear weapons so there's a saving rate there will be able to stop sending in peace to westminster i'll save a fair bit of money as well we can actually put the money of scotland to work for the people of scotland domestically within the u.k. there's the london government on the scottish government and the people of scotland who with every day that passes are increasingly looking at the scottish government saying yeah you know you guys are actually representing us you could do with more powers which is where the u.k.

government ditching the second question in terms of we were open to the discussion so you've got the bizarre proposition of its independence or the state of school so the status quo is not working for scotland we could do better as a direct democracy in five and a bit million people within the european union good two years to actually run through all those discussions and debates and i feel very very confident that we're looking at a yes vote at the end of the this is our take at the e.u. has slapped the syrian government with fresh sanctions and comes as claims that serviette era cluster bombs are being used by assad's forces moscow says that cannot be confirmed because the region is being flooded with illegal weapons from abroad and with details now to r.t. spitter on a. human rights watch the new york based watchdog has said this following what they've seen in a online video that dates soviet era cluster bombs were being used by the syrian government to take against the civilian population in syria and the ongoing

conflict there now russia has rebuffed these claims wholeheartedly. there are plenty of weapons in the region right now with huge amounts being supplied illegally to syria and neighboring countries in which they are immersed in reason for in trainers in the conflict zone you mean this has been confirmed by independent media through the region is flooded with domes we produce it's very hard to determine where they're all coming from the alleged cluster bombs are said to be from the soviet era we can come to terms with some countries on regulating their production of soviet technology without a license because so there's plenty of things that need to be sourced you know. also to get a level of was giving his address he reiterated russia's stance which hasn't changed since the conflict first started over a year ago which is that they want to see both sides lay down their weapons they want a peaceful solution through dialogue no that stance has been backed up by the current joint u.n.

and arab league peace envoy lakhdar brahimi now he took over the job from kofi annan you remember he's currently on a tear of the region trying to convince syria's neighbors to stop pushing for both sides to lay down arms and comes to the table and come to the table for talks all of this comes against the backdrop of a further round of sanctions that have just been signed off on by the european union on syria. syrians caught in the crossfire of fleeing the conflict zone an f a big numbers the u.n. has warned the figure could soon top half a million and it probably won't stop there. for ports. the bekaa valley is one of the poorest regions in lebanon from. sources are scarce living conditions visibly harsh but for syrian refugees with the fewest means this is now home we arrive to the town of all cars just thirty minutes after a syrian shell hit the area the lebanese army wouldn't permit us to film the damage

but even here at the official border crossing. sporadic gunfire serves as a reminder of the dangers on the other side hundreds of thousands of syrians have fled their country many coming right here to lebanon to seek refuge from the escalating violence but whether numbers are growing by the day and no end to the fighting in sight many find the prospects for their future are increasingly grim there are no camps for the refugees in lebanon most stay with host families mohamed not his real name isn't so lucky. we thought it would be safer here but bullets are still reaching us bombs are falling three or four hundred meters beyond our tents inside lebanese territories people here advised me to move my tent to protect my children which i did now i live there near those trees. we met this refugee at a nearby apple orchard where he and seventeen members of his family have been hiding after losing everything in the war he didn't feel safe showing his family on camera but describe the struggle of trying to survive where you're not wanted. yeah

the situation is awfully miserable especially for us the syrians so come to a car outside this region it's safer in the situation is better everything is secured for the other refugees they have refrigerators food televisions everything here we have nothing at all we don't have work either it's a catastrophe but you know there's. no help from lebanon he says and no way to return home. we're stuck in between we don't feel safe neither from the syrian army nor from the rebels. lebanon has registered nearly seventy thousand syrian refugees but their number is set to soar the u.n. warns that the syrian refugee pop. elation could more than double before the end of the year today there are just under three hundred thousand syrian refugees in the form a boring countries and the prime provides for up to over seven hundred thousand this means is an additional four hundred thousand the question is whether syria's

neighbors can absorb the incoming wave already cracks are showing riots erupted last week at the un runs attari refugee camp in jordan police fired tear gas to quell the uprising by syrians complaining about poor living conditions it was the worst violence since the facility opened in july. we can close the border in the faces of the refugees we have to help them. but help is hard to come by turkey sides refugee populations swell to more than eighty seven thousand people over the past month prompting ancora to at least partially shut it's open door policy less than one hundred meters from its border makeshift camps like this one have sprung up were desperate hopefuls wait to be allowed to cross ravaged and dispossessed by war marginalized in the collected in neighboring countries for syrian refugees like these hope in itself is a herculean feat to see catherine of lebanon at a time when it's past the hour moscow time a british man who hacked into the pentagon ten years ago is set to find out his

fate on choose day that washington has been seeking his extradition and if found guilty gary mckinnon who suffers from mild autism could ultimately spend sixteen years behind bars as aussies laura smith reports his family fears he could commit suicide if indeed he is shipped off to america. gary mckinnon john this has been up all night working to get everything in order to convince the home secretary not to deport her mentally ill son the trial in america it's ten years since the u.s. demanded gary's extradition the hacking into the pentagon's computers from his north london bedroom he's mildly autistic and doctors say a very real. suicide risk gary would not survive five minutes and that c agreed by so many top a psychiatrist and doctors do we really extra day somebody with a mental condition who is suicidal and his emotional age or child does. civilized

country do this surely not but there may be a light at the end of the tunnel the home secretary has until october the sixteenth to decide whether the extradition carries mother has high hopes as does his lawyer who wouldn't give up if the worst happens to be open to the supreme court twice we've been to the house of lords we've been to the high court so we've exhausted every possible because we challenge we can because as they would seem all absolutely sure and convinced that if would commit suicide so we're talking about man's life we're told no has built a successful practice on fighting water is seen as one sided extradition rules in the treaty with the us the americans must only show reasonable suspicion if they want to extradite to britain compared with probable cause going the other way the result nine times more britons have been extradited than americans it's

a treaty that even david blunkett the home secretary who signed it in two thousand and three admits was a mistake it's now under review but so far it's just words also just talk has been prime minister david cameron and his deputy nick clegg the ports but gary mckinnon both were loudly on his side while in opposition but after two and a half years in power there's been no action all the while the case is rob two forty five year old gary of almost a quarter of his life and taken a potentially irreversible toll on his health is beginning to wonder who is real. and the boy isn't he says it's like there's a view between him and the world and sometimes actually feels that it's just not real gary used to cycle used to swim music he signed if gary had been tried in the u.k. at the start he would have served his sentence and been able to put all this behind

him by now as it is he's stuck in limbo still liable to sixty years in an american jail and still insisting he was only looking for evidence of u.f.o.'s laura smith london. iran is facing a fresh round of sanctions over its nuclear program that you've. been buying transfers from the islamic republic and that's despite iran's apparent willingness to compromise. also iraq records shoot rises in birth defects following an american led invasion but new research claims are more on that in just a few parts. i never thought i could earn a living this way. natalee assured of i as

a lawyer should test small arms of the sort i was to machine building plant a lot earlier sourced count of all the weapons she's fired over the past twelve years. i got so used to it sometimes my friends ask me to join them at the rifle range and i say no way i'm so tired of shooting. the planet's history goes from making firearms during world war two to ballistic missiles from your class submarines during the cold war the bulk of the soviet industry was moved here in the 1940's to flee the advancing germans south here also became the heart of soviet military production closed off to foreigners for half a century it thrived on the massive moods of the soviet military. when the u.s.s.r. collapsed the life here was shaken to the core but some adapted to better than others. this is this your truck factory is the number one truck made. look at how well the workplace is organized everything's done to make sure

the workers don't waste time waiting there was production is the factory has largely managed to get on to civil rails these giants are sold around the globe here but it's a brand new car waiting to be delivered to a client seventy trucks like this one roll up the plants conveyor belt every day look at this things that absolutely huge. well i'm no formula one pilot but hopefully if i can get that. far to drive. well that was fun to get one of these to travel to whatever it was with a cost of about forty thousand dollars i should start saving money.

so i could have you with us here on out to today i'm rory sushi the libyan opposition stronghold is facing an ongoing sea with residents calling for international help the conflict in bani walid so already killed ten people in a series of armed confrontations just over the last week. began with the national congress tried to arrest the suspected murderers of the man who captured colonel gadhafi but residents refused to hand them over talk to abdul hamid from the bani walid council is stuck right in the back in the middle of the sea. that's the. result of city have fifty's notes that are no food no fuel no can go no charge just have to be allowed to enter but it would eat some of the fuel and the crank.

out of the grooves and the militias if they were firing befitting would been filed and would be bombers which contains very heavy god i don't know what is it the militias was firing but what did they firing us would be different by before our legal guys i think that the way to get to understand was done with you through the week of the national congress of reveal the week of the government the week of the libyan army saw the light of the people the company where you. the e.u. has imposed pressure sanctions on iran the measures targeting the banking sector and gas exports are aimed at forcing terror on to curb but uranium enrichment all amid fears the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons iran has always denied this and says it might consider limiting the enrichment of high grade uranium if it's allowed to have fuel for were search reactor but to run university professor side it will have it marandi says the penalties are not about the nuclear program.

the iranians are willing to be more open and allow more intrusive inspections and they're willing. to talk about enriching uranium at twenty percent under certain conditions but in general nothing here has changed and increasing sanctions by the west will only make things more difficult because the iranians see the sanctions that are being imposed by western governments as inhuman the intention is to make ordinary iranians stop or there is a consensus that this is not this doesn't have much to do with the nuclear program the issue is iran iran independent iran is a country that not bow down to the western powers and the europeans and americans want to run to near like saudi arabia like most of the other countries in the region and that objective to make ordinary iranian tougher. this

is r t a new study has revealed a staggering rise in birth defects among iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the u.s. led war the findings were published by the bulletin of environmental contamination and toxicology it's suggested that american and british i mean ition has caused high rates of miscarriages and birth defects professor christopher busby from the european committee on radiation risks it believes the invading nations should take responsibility for what they did. it actually supports the work that we did and published about a month ago which did have for more evidence brought from the polluted general hospital there are high levels of lead and mercury which we also found in the. mothers of the children with congenital malformation we believe quite strongly that it was the uranium weapons the new uranium weapons that were used in fallujah and of course they used an awful lot of the piece of uranium in the world and i reported this whole issue about the uranium in the congenital malformation at the

united nations human rights council last month and there was an awful lot of interest in it so we would hope that the united nations might actually put some pressure on the united states not to come clean about the kind of weaponry that they were using and i'm sure they were using a lot of experimental weaponry in fallujah which is why we see these enormous increases in congenital malformation just a couple of minutes on the r.t. world update for now though chain reaction pussy riot style protests and going global the latest a copycat stunt took place in london's said paul's cathedral four women from the occupy movement chained themselves to the pulpit during sunday service this in protest at their wealthy churches links to big banks. plus why heading into the red light district may no no longer be anonymous police in the united states have decided the most effective method to combat prostitution is just to name and shame the punters. separatists in belgium have gained political control of the

country's wealth the port city of and twirp the party's leader. was voted in as mayor and called for more powers of self rule for the wealthy dutch speaking region of flanders in the short term he wants to end fiscal transfers to the poor french speaking wallonia the party's aim is to split belgium which are seen hostility between it's two deeply divided communities increased by the euro crisis belgian politician philip glass who is the you are m.p. . flounders says the outcome of the election illustrates just how support has been searching in recent. years. the idea is gaining ground that it's the most important thing because we are having a lot of problems now in belgium we see that france is the federal government doesn't have much already on the flemish side in the federal parliament although the flemings make up the majority of the population in belgium the federal government doesn't have a majority in flanders and that's of course is

a big problem it's a problem of democratic deficit and this means this government doesn't have a real democratic legitimacy in flanders voted for comes something completely different that we are getting now with this federal government and flanders is an economic economically socially powerful prosperous region we have we are already we have a flemish nation we have a french people you have to know that belgium is an artificial country it's really two separate countries already within belgium and we see a completely different political consensus on the federation around the world will lose side. flanders would be perfectly able to have to have an independent state and be a member of the you know european union. and i before we joined katie of the business let's go straight into another the r.t. world update starting with the turkish army which was killed eight kurdish militants in the southeast of the country during

a raid on their compound years old conflict with the kurdistan workers party has grown increasingly violent over the summer turkey has blamed syria for arming the kurds. more than three hundred taliban militants attacked a small police check post in northwest pakistan killing seven including a senior police official insurgents armed with heavy machine guns and r.p.g. stormed the post late on sunday but two of the dead were beheaded in the building and police cars were burned areas on the outskirts of peshawar have witnessed a string of ambushes over the past few months. across the border two boys under girl were killed in southern afghanistan by a nato air strike targeting the taliban the united states confirmed that it killed two insurgents who were planting mines along the road as well as three children walking nearby civilian casualties in nato and the taliban raids have severely tested relations between washington and kabul and sparked anti u.s.

protests. a u.s. military judge is deciding whether revelations about alleged torture in guantanamo bay during upcoming nine eleven trials should be kept secret five people including the self professed mastermind of the september eleventh attacks on four co plotters will face a pretrial hearing on monday human rights advocates and the media are insisting on complete trans transparency. of the katie we go nice to see you again energy demand across the globe taking a nosedive what exactly does that mean for gas problems well it means that gas problem right now the russes gas major of course is getting requests from a european partners for a discount on their contracts because of the slowing demand as well as competition as well is added to die an m.b.e. . is insisting on counseling a key contract provision these so who take all pay clause and is president only is reportedly also to remove the clause if he is to review the expiring contract while

the take or pay principle means that any either takes a specified volume of gas from gas from all pays a penalty the following could reach eighty five percent of the price last year and we've reported a loss of six hundred million a year to pay one point five billion a year in the take or pay. as good as the authors see what wall street is doing it's managing to just about hold on to the gains as it still remains in the first part of the trading day we had american retail sales city groups. topping estimates and staying with the west this is the prize in economics has been given to two american game theory as. lloyd as you can see just awarded the prize for starters on the matchmaking taking place when doctors are coupled with hospital students with schools like human organs with patients in need of them as good as

you ever see what's happening now in the last a part of their day as you can see they too are holding on to more. now that is really the main use was fueling the markets came from china really serious inflation which is giving hopes of policy easing measures the euro now which check out the current says it becomes it will be able to see it actually is managing to get a one twenty nine and fifty three now the ruble has finished trading today as we can see him finished up makes just as you managing to get a because the euro but lost out because the greenback the russian main indices they finished the day's a session in negative territory we'll be able to see the figures for you as you can see there. but they did remain in positive territory for nightime percent of the day but they lost. and that was because oil prices took a nosedive the recent volatility also says assessing russ's growth since his budget

really depends on or rather the former finance minister. he explains what to prepare for in case the ted continues. it was the first scenario which is also the base one is the status quo and given the current gold prices institutions and markets will improve but at a slow pace the second scenario involves a sharp drop in crude prices triggering a major cuts in infrastructure in education spending the third scenario is the most difficult one it involves the improvement of public institutions that compensates for falling oil prices this scenario requires a white support to get implemented. ok that's how business lives or advocate on our side and more fake is a little small ok many thanks to you in just a moment when i say else that aside for people of elena's guests for an overheated discussion of course that can only mean one thing it's nearly time for cross talk.

well with. science technology innovation all the lives developments around russia we've got the future covered. wealthy british style. that's not on. the. market mind can find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to name two crimes a report on. the phone lines. would be so much brighter if.

someone from phones to question. these phones turns on t.v. dot com. i'm in sochi the only city in europe i'm the host of the twenty four g. in which for the pic of. sunset. thank you. saucy. thank you the. dog days of. the fridays it. picks up come. sunday it's so true. the fact.