powerful blast rocks the syrian capital while russia makes another push for a diplomatic solution to the crisis claiming the west to terminate oust president assad is to rail in peace efforts. and looking back at the week's top stories on our t.v. hurricane sandy reach havoc across the northeastern united states leaving up to one hundred dead millions without power and shaking up the country's most expensive presidential campaign today. no peace for post gadhafi libya as the country's two major cities are attacked every need strikes the security headquarters in tripoli while a car bomb detonated bengazi. and truth under attack in greece journalists show solidarity with whistleblowers who say they're being silenced while trying to expose the government with all.

it's five am in moscow why mattress or bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r t an explosion in syria's capital has wounded at least eleven people the blast happened near a heavily guarded military and government buildings no one's admitted to the attack but all titling militant groups have been behind similar recent incidents meanwhile there's been another drive toward a diplomatic solution to the syrian conflict as russia's foreign minister met with peace envoy lakhdar brahimi sergey lavrov and so stressed in states priority of regime change in syria the strategy of the needs to more bloodshed ali mohamed editor in chief of the syria tribune says no resolution can solve the crisis while the u.s. and its allies seem determined to oust president assad. the west insists that

they should dictate the outcome of the struggle it would be no solution because the . choir member is too outside. but he who is our full and who enjoys a lot of support from the syrian people and the syrian army more importantly insisting on having him removed means since to see one war and this can lead to being anything good to the syrian people the russian diplomacy has been very active trying to find a political solution to the syrian crisis and this was unfortunately. this year from the nato nations mr lavrov is trying to convince everybody that. the new syria will be a syria for for everybody all of its components and one of these components is present there so that the supporters there is obviously too little what's going on is the u.s. will try it for more than if there is a more weapons to their balls more and more massacre as more deadly events and the

other one is by russia where everybody has to love for us and everybody in the russian diplomacy are asking people to start stop fighting and start talking and start negotiating and to start their way to find common ground from where we stand a syrian people it's it's only diplomacy that mr lavrov is supporting is what could bring the solution it's down to the wire in the u.s. presidential race while voters in florida why enough to cast their ballots in early voting who's in new york or queuing for fuel rations and blankets thanks to hurricane sandy much of the big apple remains paralyzed with tens of thousands still without power heat or hot water nearly a week after the so-called super storm tore through artie's marina porton i meanwhile has more on the political fallout from the disaster. she was a storm the size of europe and it might be a game changer for america's upcoming u.s. presidential election early voting was suspended as hurricane sandy ripped through the west coast monday causing eight and

a half million homes and businesses to lose power with the death toll expected to surpass one hundred president barack obama. canceled campaign appearances to handle the superstorm the election will take care of itself next week right now our number one priority is to make sure that we are saving lives national polls show the commander in chief garnered excellent marks for his response. i think it was the president. flying overhead. it's my man. a vote for obama. the possibility of the biggest praise of all me making from a staunch romney supporter the cooperation from the president i did states has been outstanding the president has been all over this he deserves great credit if you think right now i give a damn about presidential politics that you don't know me looking to also score political points republican candidate mitt romney rebranded his victory rally in

ohio into a relief a vent for say anything. to stop their political campaigning. so much he says they. are still being very close thank you but while the candidates attempt to feature sandy in their midwest from her victims are too busy piecing their lives back together below thirty ninth street has become known as the dark side of manhattan hundreds of thousands have been surviving without electricity heat and hot water for more than five days the traffic lights do not work and most businesses have remained closed city officials say that power will be restored to the borough by election day the same promise has not been made to millions of voters living in other parts of new york and nearby states on staten island polling stations are no longer standing voting locations are removed in parts of new jersey massachusetts connecticut and pennsylvania that are still dark and damaged by the

storm some experts say the last minute scrambling will undoubtedly leave countless americans disenfranchised from democracy on november sixth it's destroying the legitimacy of the election potentially on the east coast early voting is being wiped out in these cities and states the voting of the elderly on election day the voting of the poor on election day the voting of new yorkers on election day. it is likely to be diminished through no fault of their own and that will affect the outcome of the election i don't lection now defined by two men and sandy marina port ny r.t. new york regardless of who wins tuesday's vote washington will still have to locate fifty billion dollars to cover sandy's damage and it's not likely to come from military cuts the country's defense budget dwarfs that of any other nation and in

these hard times some observers say the money could be put to better use. there's no more important issue in america today and how much we're spending on our military our military industrial complex that's where most of us tax dollars go i mean most americans know that this is just wasteful spending here it creates a few jobs but there's so many more jobs that would be created if that spending that governmental spending was done on a whole bunch of other things like publicly utilities like a whole other range of areas so it's really destroying our economy in a lot of ways besides creating a lot on this sort of violence around the world it seems like the legacy of us being involved in always on this war's over these last several years is going to be the same legacy that happened to a lot of other. empires that just they just spent themselves out of existence what happened to the soviet union in their own this is very wars that happened to the british you know what happened to a lot of other societies that these military industrial complex takes over nobody

stops them before you know it you know your whole country is like an overwhelming debt contrary to what much of the mainstream media shows there are alternatives to the republican and democrat leave us presidential politics we bring you extensive coverage of third party candidates plans and policies that continues monday when they host we host their final debate live from our washington studios. will two parties keep us politics a one way street. or will new voices disrupt the power power of the. u.s. it's america changes. it was election. monday nov fifth one or two. militia men in libya's capital have set the supreme security committee headquarters on fire and looted it this after a series of sporadic gun battles outside the building our middle east correspondent paula sleeper has been. well a gun battle was raging in south tripoli between two rival libyan militias around

the libyan security cave courses building and from the information we have at least five people have been injured and part of that building has been destroyed now we are receiving reports that the whole area has been cordoned off that many residents in the area have rushed home and if there are cave in that selves in front inside of their homes and also arming themselves to the point of weapons that security building is force and makes to the tripoli central hospital and some of the what it's from has gotten that all the hospital was also on sunday morning and there was a car bomb explosion in front of a police station in the second largest city in libya of being ghazi now at least three police officers were wounded in that car explosion we not hearing any reports as of the actual people who have been killed we also know that part of the building particularly the entrance has been damaged that facade to the building has been talking just for you and they are in shattered windows now what if this comes up to

more than a thousand protesters take to the streets of benghazi they are calling for the eastern half of libya to be separated we're talking here about the hospitality of the country that holds more than three quarters of the oil and so they want their own autonomy their one too many which they own to face and they one thing ghazi to be the economic capital of the country all of this coming a little more than a year since we saw revolution ousted the former you were in the gadhafi and. these polarized nations of people polarizations in terms of what people want and gun battles on the streets we also know that for weeks now the city of bunny when it has been and to see and from there we saw how when pictures of death and destruction yet are of the pan african newswire says the revolution is turn the clock back for libya by several decades. historically during the period of the ottoman empire as well as a tie of colonialism the country was divided basically in the three different

regions of trees on the south tripoli in the west and of course their annika in the east and as a result of the end the pinnace movement in libya after nine hundred fifty one and of course after the seizure of power back a daffy and his cohorts of nine hundred sixty nine there was a concerted effort to bring about some type of national identity and cohesiveness inside of libya all that has fallen apart over the last year and this is why we're having these type of sexual conflicts inside the country still to come this hour wiki leaks could vanish from the radar of america's library of record doesn't want to divulge anything uncomfortable so this is what you see when you search for anything linked to wiki leaks plus. a wave of discontent hits kuwait and bahrain over the country's monarchies recent bans on public gatherings this and more after a short break.

a sacred place rising out of the waters of the lake the lawn ministry is home to one hundred fifty orthodox monks mostly younger than thirty five and they've come from many different places and backgrounds to live in isolation here spiritual life it takes up many hours on the road to becoming a monk requires both hard work and religious telly cation. alexei wants to become and has cattle as part of this preparation. however these beasts get a musical company i mean. they can remember sound sequences you know they react to the sound signals the flutes the herders had in the old days they needed them it wasn't just a fun thing but these matters didn't come naturally requiring decades of composting to bring the soil up to farming standard. this island is mostly rock. the

soil here is very thin on the monks can't just get more of it because they're surrounded by the lake so they have to work very hard in order to provide whatever food they need. they grow their own crops farm their own fish and repair their own churches. but the central purpose of alarm has always been religious the main ministries surrounded by smaller priories spread through the many archipelago the monks here know their existence is a little different from that of of them on the streets here we are out of the way and we do have. bill creams and song times tourists as were the term a way of. tranquility use is hardly. disturbed. and is that combination of high religion and down to earth hard work than motivates these man.

cultures that so much are different and there's a huge music a shared power line that mark with democracy promotion the export of a universal set of values or the means to change and control the global order twenty years after the. judge is waiting falls fifteen goats to kells. forty kilograms of rice one thousand flatbreads. and a live. but why is the bride in a bad mood. now to tell the groom he's not the one. after all it is a done deal. thanks

for staying with us here on r t fifteen minutes past the hour a greek whistleblower arrested after publishing a list of his country's potential tax evaders was acquitted thursday but another is still in custody after threatening to reveal how the books were cooked before greece got its belly up as peter all reports the trend in greece is to root out those who revealed wrongdoing rather than those doing the wrong. is the greek government using the bully tactics to cover up its own failings that's the question that took thousands of journalists to the streets of athens the council list for their outrage was the arrest of journalist vaxevanis after he revealed the names of

more than two thousand wealthy and highly influential greeks accused of stashing illicit gains in suisse bank accounts. we published a list that other countries had in their possession and our government was aware of for two years but did nothing in the absence of democracy is governed by corrupt characters who deceived the public i mean their handling tax evasion vaxevanis was set free after the judges decided that he did not have a case to answer however his story is sent a shockwave through an already fractious society we are in a period of political social and political crisis social crisis is obvious we have. unemployment we have a real thing one might say weimar republic kind of unemployment levels there is. there are under. more there it coming but when it comes to reporting on government

business one senior member of the greek of journalists told me that it's getting close to cooperate all quit a mess some of its own members of the frustrations have been in any voice of the opposition and the media restricting journalists some two thousand five hundred media professionals technicians included have lost their job since last year. and those who attempt to stand up to authority and expose corruption are handcuffed to be arrested because he revealed the names obviously you can understand that people can cooperate with the state but vaxevanis told me he won't keep silent i asked him if he was given another list of names they already do this is my job this is what journalists do they don't cover scandals yet they told the truth and the elites tried for two whole years to convert me to evidence that renders them in the system entirely unreliable one of the good from the arrest of

a journalist while trying to reveal wrongdoing has left some greeks feeling that the democratic rights of the road here and the very birthplace of democracy teacher all of a party. greece has its work cut out apparently needing to introduce another one hundred fifty changes to its financial policies to please international creditors investment advisor patrick young thinks it's a futile effort. alice in wonderland that fabulous children's book alice famously saying that sometimes she imagines six impossible things before breakfast we're not going to get the troika of lenders that there are one hundred fifty eight impossible cuts before breakfast for the greek economy look the greeks are in this mess because ultimately they spend huge amounts of money we have terrible sympathy with the ordinary greeks on the street they are being left in a situation where they don't even have primary medical care in many cases but are we going to be able to see them manage to come. the economy are coming back in many

different ways of course and all they'll be lucky to manage to get twenty of these cuts to stick let alone one hundred fifty. alice in wonderland economics the us literally erasing wiki leaks from memory with the national archives banning any search including the whistle blowing organizations name civil rights groups joined by librarians are unhappy saying such blatant censorship is akin to george orwell's ministry of truth low scale leader of the u.k. pirate party sees a little good in the bat. mission of the library of congress is to preserve a collective body of knowledge the job of any nine re shortly should be to share that knowledge when it is frankly not surprising that central denies the nations that felt under pressure to actually can form to these kind of classification law but essentially this is still censorship and censorship rules are actually stepping on freedom of speech we often see the united states and its very quick to criticize

states abroad stepping on preening speech would seem a moment able to hold a certain standard at home we can see how blind. and political whistleblowing both men for democracy local activists in kuwait say security forces detained dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators another crowd clock to clamp down on an arrest in the gulf state protesters defied coates ban on public gatherings that was imposed last month thousands demonstrated against new voting rules it was a peaceful rally but police still resorted to stun grenades and smoke bombs the opposition claims changes in the electoral system give an advantage to the pro-government candidates in next month's a vote meanwhile in bahrain the government also introduced a bat on public gatherings last week that caused outrage among the people as hundreds of pro-reform this took to the streets tension is escalating twenty one

months after dozens of protesters were killed and thousands arrested when the arab spring pro-democracy uprising was heavily suppressed by bahraini security forces geo political analyst eric draitser says gulf monarchies confidently take undemocratic measures feeling the support of the west. that the government is scarify a look at protest movement developing in saudi arabia one that's continued to go on in bahrain we see the same around. the arab world more generally and kuwait looks at itself or rather the government does and they see that they really stand no chance at maintaining power maintaining control of that country unless they are able to successfully suppress the end repress the opposition these are client states of the united states bahrain as is the u.s. fifth fleet the navy kuwait as we all know the role that it played in both wars against iraq kuwait is very much dependent on saudi arabia and the united states

and so all of this is part of a geo political calculus of us that gemini us does not want to see its control over the region slip away by something as piddling as the democratic aspirations of the people of the region. stargazers now of a chance to spot a manmade marvel in the night sky with their own eyes whether to conceive a space station with a nasa text alert to tell you when the eye assesses flying overhead details online . and a prize for the pied piper who can read a small south african town where rats are on the rampage on our website we'll tell you the bounty for being a rodent terminator. taking a look now at some other stories making headlines across the globe at least ten

refugees in the mediterranean on our way from north africa to italy a boat carrying around eighty people was heading to the island of lampedusa a destination for thousands of migrants seeking refuge in europe reports indicate more than fifteen hundred people died last year while trying to reach italy. who needed to run a kenyan church has killed one police officer and wounded fourteen others mostly security officers because in the wider region have suffered a wave of similar deadly attacks in response to kenya sending troops to neighboring somalia to battle al qaida linked insurgents there in july eighteen people died in church attacks in the same town as sunday's assault. and eleven year old child is dead and eighteen others injured after a bomb targeting a police vehicle exploded in turkey's sendin lee district the area is frequently hit by acts of violence carried out by the kurdistan workers party which is fighting for tanami in the country southeast no group has yet claimed

responsibility for the attack. coming up examining cases of bride snatching in kyrgyzstan this after a short break stay with us. in japan the average height for men is one hundred eighty two centimeters ten centimeters shorter because of that some employers refused to hire me one of them even told me directly that i was too short to deal with the clients could you just already spend three months in this hospital and plans to stay for another four to add the coveted seven santa majors to his stature invented by the famed soviet author p.d. is good for you is there of in the nineteen fifties these frames were initially used to treat fractures in deformities by cutting bones and slowly pulling them up or therefore stimulating tissue regeneration it was out of was able to receive arms and legs and people who thought they were crippled for life be sent to the other

patients shattered bones and in many cases their shattered lives will go when professing designed his first brain using bicycle parts sixty years later as his invention is increasingly being used to help people quite eager to fracture their legs to become a few centimeters taller in the ultimate goal is still the same fixing somebodies life both literally and figuratively about a third of patients admitted to be was out of center now days seeking series three focus medical reasons most of them a man and most are not what you would call vertically challenged professor novick of who operated on many of them says it usually comes down to a man's pride some of the first patient to turn to us with a leg length i mean request to meet his fifteen centimeters to be still want to surgery because panos to than him we like to say that we need to break their legs in order to fix their head maybe nothing wrong with them from an orthopedic point

of view but there is something psychological that prevents them from living their lives fully being happy and we fix it like lengthening surgeries are banned in many countries and even the out there play. he bitterly expensive in russia the entire course costs eleven thousand dollars about one tenth of the similar package in the united states financial considerations were one of the reasons that brought this washington state to western siberia his main motive for the surgery had to do with how he fared in the others in america advertised as one seventy five i was one sixty seven or one sixty eight in so one eight centimeters would have brought me right to average users wanted to be average for women height isn't so important you know i think girl can be short and it's not a big deal i think a guy is like expected to be taller just before the operation most this matter a russian girl who found he's

a regional hide quite india ink yet he still want to have had the surgery adding seven more centimeters to he self-confidence she took told me the whole time you're crazy you're normal you're perfect. so now or so they call you so what a compliment for somebody who's used to falling short of his own expectations. what. gives wedding draws to a close as a result of brilliant be parents to feel good by. choosing to see them for over a week after the ceremony the bride to be taken to a new husband's house and kept in a room for seven days the young wife will have to spend all that time with the husband so she can get to know him she's never even kissed him embraced him or held

his hand before. what's more nor one of the guests can be certain that the groom has ever even proposed is it real or if he simply should not. the nearer cousin really ever was also a bride once over there was no white dress or limousine at her wedding veneer or lived with her husband for only a week then she ran away to hang herself. or go over to everyone posts trying to persuade her that living together would be ok and this boy was also crying hard trying to talk green hearing into this marriage but says she wanted to give it

a try however it didn't work you heard. the story shocked the nearest fellow students of the state university in a circle. as lira had been kidnapped from the los countryside a dark alley way but on her way home from school in broad daylight a car stopped on the university campus three strangers drawn tales grounds for tara and took her to a nearby village one of the kidnappers and said nel you will be my wife and as i knew she called me every day after she had been kidnapped and that even though she was a strong girl she was crying all the time she kept on book saying that she just didn't like it there. i told her to go away and tell her sister as everything but she was scared she thought they would tell her to stay there. and that's why.