breaking news this hour here says the gates of hell have been opened after its top military leader is assassinated by an airstrike which israel warns is the start of a major offensive against gaza. rising up against the stair achieve millions of europeans sign up to block wide action against cuts with mass protests underway in almost every nation on the continent. and a sex scandal triggered by revelations the former cia chief cheated smashes america's p.r. push in afghanistan and topples the reputation of the current celebrity commander. and the foreign formed syrian rebel coalition secure as overwhelming recognition from france when other european states and the u.s.

pulled back. from our new center here in moscow this is r.t. with international news and comment twenty four hours a day says the killing of its military leader has opened the gates of hell for all out war with israel he was assassinated by an israeli air strike which promises to mark the beginning of an israeli led offensive against gaza for more let's cross live to r.t. and he's in tel aviv tom tell us what exactly has happened. hi there bill i don't think it would be over dramatic to say but it will has indeed broken out between israel and hamas in gaza just a few hours ago an israeli operation a targeted and strike killed. beary the head of hamas his military wing inside

gaza that airstrike killed him and for others reportedly including one of his sons we've also heard since then that there has been another targeted assassination another air strike has killed another prominent prominent militant leader there and as we hear in tel aviv at the moment we're getting reports of explosions rocking garza as air strikes continue we've tried to get some answers from the israeli defense spokespeople here they refused to confirm what's widely being discussed as operation cloud pillar but they have told us that their aim is to destroy terrorist infrastructure inside gaza and really there's been nothing like this certainly not on the scale of this since operation cast lead over the new year of two thousand and eight to nine that was that was a full scale ground offensive launched by israel we're not sure if it's going to be

involved ground troops this time but it's certainly as of a very large scale and since it started have masses come back and said this is now all out where the rockets have been dropping on on southern israel for a few days now reportedly earlier today some rockets were fired also across the egyptian border as well according to israeli spokespeople and that seems to have tipped the israelis over the edge there now. with really quite great intensity as far as we can understand they said the operation now is going to go on for some days and it seems now that if it could if the cast lead in two thousand and eight to nine could be considered a war this is certainly as well tom barton thanks very much indeed for that live update there from tel aviv well for more on this i'm joined live by james petras he's a professor of sociology at big hampton university in new york. you can hear me there . james may well thanks very much indeed for joining us well by the sounds of

things it doesn't look as if all out war is on the cards why is this happening now well several reasons one is the supporters of palestine are very diminished situation the latest developments point to a major attempt to overthrow the government in syria through a combined goals in western european. and turkish sense of iran as a fact of lee a neutralized and the israelis have been gobbling up territory in the west bank and now you have. the missile attacks on. israel's feels it has a free hand today it's using bulldozers in the west bank and missiles

in. fact of lee dispossessed what remains of the bar to stand colonies in among the palestinians so i think the netanyahu regime sees the western offensive against palestinian supporters in the region as the green light to move full scale the. of the west bank and the demolition of what exists in gaza can we talk about that iranian connection you mentioned iran and allegedly are of course masses funded by iran is one of course a lot of rhetoric recently saying it could well carry out strikes against iran is this perhaps a precursor of some sort of. initiative maybe to temper the fact that hamas could respond if israel doesn't attack iran. well i think one shouldn't.

overestimate the capacity of hamas. has very marginal weapons i don't think any of its recent. shootings across the border has done any damage to israel. a soldier wounded here or wounded there but i think israel is really looking first and foremost to take over the whole of what remains of palestine and patients james what would happen then with palestinians neighbors the neighbors what sort of reaction we get now from that what the implications if israel did indeed go ahead with this plan. i don't think i think you would get pro-forma condemnations but the arab league now is to attack syria i think the tremendous decline in nationalism among the arab countries is clearly evident in the gulf

states seem to have taken the leadership from any other arab source warsi is on a course of collaboration with the us and has agreed to the israeli treaty and controlling the border to gaza so i don't see the arab spring also calls for being in any way form of closing israel's annexation of palestine and i think this is for knowledge by netanyahu and that's why he's sending the bulldozers in every single day scores of acres hundred survey because a month of being taken over by israel it's the end of any part of. a two state solution or not and what about what about the us his reaction now you are in new york. and. by the fact that bomb has just been reelected. well obama's

been reelected but his bonds to israel here's dependence on the zionists power groups in the united states continues obama is not going to lift a finger to oppose israel's and it's a show of palestine he'll make some some symbolic gestures and criticism as well netanyahu got a lot of support i mean this man apparently was responsible for financing directing military operations against israeli citizens netanyahu has said that he has a tutti to defend his people so is is an overreaction israel has done or is it justified. well our i think the israelis have been engaging in provocations to against. the gaza strip for a long time and the western media continue to present present this as some kind of god. offensive but if you look at the casualties and destruction there's

a tremendous asymmetry here you'll have hundreds of buildings in gaza destroyed you'll have scores of palestinians wounded and dead and you have a stray israeli dead this clearly israeli take it's ok to terrible situation there but of course looking at the region and as a whole the instability that can it really afford now what's happening in israel to happen i mean can't can things get any worse now what are the implications of all out war this talk about with israel and the palestinians not of course what's going on with the tensions between tehran and then also of course all the other problems in syria i mean is this a serious turn of events now for the middle east well it is serious because anytime you're talking about displacing and dispose. people but this notion of an all out war it is a misnomer what we're looking at is an all out offensive an blitzkrieg kind of

assault on. jane to leave it there thank you very much indeed for joining us james petras professor of sociology at being hampton university in new york this is all to you joining us joining me now shortly we'll be talking about europe it's a day of unity there at the moment to europe and seen in years for all the wrong reasons of course the unity is occurring today a series of mega protests are underway across the block with million signing up to join in on a resoundingly chorus saying no to austerity well we had to be talking to our correspondent sara a little later who is in the trouble. but in the meantime we'll get more on these sweeping anger across the block and spain specifically with carlos del close he's a sociologist to put the cover university in boston lona well so far the protests where you are in spain and i understand you've taken part in those they've really fallen on deaf ears haven't they what makes you think today will be any different.

well i think the most obvious reason that it's going to be different is because all of southern europe is engaged in a general strike in their days of action all over all over the continent i think also the scale and the intensity of the conflict opened up by a type of mobilization like a general strike is it is something very different than we've seen with the indignados and we really haven't seen the most intense part of the of the mobilization yet i mean the protests in major cities besides the picket lines and all of that haven't really started that starts at six o'clock where people who maybe haven't been able to take part in the picket lines or in the actual strike them selves or people who have participated in the strike will join in what will what we expect to be a hundred thousand person marches what are you saying though in those protests are you coming up with some sort of alternative whereby many people are saying of course austerity is the necessary power no alternative. well i mean i think

a protest isn't about a solution a protest is normally about something you don't want so in this case what they're protesting is eat you austerity is cuts in social spending and cuts in social rights and the expansion of social misery people can make the argument that austerity is a solution to the current problems being faced by your the european citizenry and in particular by the southern european citizenry the problem is what does that austerity mean is that neoliberal e.u. austerity where you cut basically all of those all of the social protection that keeps people from descending down the sort of downward spiral of social misery and with all of that escalating conflict or do you leave social protection in place and cut in places where there really is overspending such as a bank bailouts and and and areas like these just how damaging all these protests and strikes at the moment someone says it's reckless what you're doing because it's

just making matters even worse. well it's making matters worse for whom i mean i mean that's really the question the economy is not make these matters worse that's a question can the economy afford it at the moment. can the economy afford it well the economy can't afford twenty seven percent capital flight right now and the economy what does what do we mean when we talk about the economy the economy is workers and the economy is the people who were and who spend and if you cut in basically the areas that allow people to work to be contracted to be employed or that allow people to spend then that's really not going to help the economy what is going to help the economy it's a bailout citizens and to bail out not banks and not financial institutions and not kleptocratic elite but bail out citizens who can then spend money and again stimulate the economy in their favor i mean there's it's not something i can

explain in minute to minute interview but there are alternatives that have been proposed by organizations all over the world for years carlos thanks a lot for the coastal sociologist to put fabric university in spain what is a promise to a little earlier would be crossing live to our correspondent sara first and she joins me now. getting some strong images from where you are at the moment tell us what is the latest situation. where you can see some dull clouds hanging the city here the mavens and not very much much is the blood across here at this today we've seen this pool out in eighty eight multinational mega protests taking place in europe now it's been a fairly tense atmosphere today sporadic gatherings throughout the city the main munches g to kickoff about seven pm local time in the wee starting just behind us so you can probably see some of the crowds gathering already at the moment but as

we said he missed some of the gatherings has already been said outbreaks of clashes between the riot police and protesters a large number of the tensions here today and uncomfortably tense meeting in a lot of the city we watched some of the riot police meet in on a couple of the. protest is thirty years he said you can fill that anger just below the surface is very hard to predict just how that's going to play out later on this evening as the march gets underway of course these things can turn in an instant most contrast i have to say to what we saw in spain just a year ago r.t. have been following this story every step of the way since the very beginning of the euro crisis and it's been really sad to see the deterioration in countries such as stay the by and large fairly peaceful protests nevus very big ones very peaceful but of course as the recessions continue successive governments have been and gone up with that austerity drive has just continued they feel very much of their

governments have made to do with the devil and that there is no way out of this and really as the desperation sets in you seen an increase in that anger and of course that's very much so selective in the sorts of images that you already think playing out today as the protests get underway all across europe yes you see all across europe there you are madrid of course i thought the only place where these approaches to taking place italy as well greece interesting of greece sorry for seems court did you know what's happening there. well again as i said it's very very hard to predict exactly how these things play out of course we seeing have a large number of gatherings in recent weeks some of them turning extremely violent it is difficult to say but what we can tell you if that today this is the first time that you've seen europe come together in this way in this unified kootenay to me this isn't just playing this isn't just great this isn't just italy it's not just portugal all these debt laden nations are coming together and you know all

across the continent you've got the united kingdom you've got france you've got cyprus you've got most you know a whole wealth of countries that it joining and oh all right ali in around essential message and that is no it will start interesting tonight stays. we've got the european trade confederation it absolutely massive organization getting involved in this they represent about eighty five labor organizations with about sixty million members i mean it's an absolutely huge maven to get behind that is really going to be shaking up some european leaders in brussels i going to be watching today very very closely and there's going to be a lot of concern from the the big question is is this going to be a game changer all we now going to see anything really old hit by these protests may have been coming together again very difficult to tell what we have seen is that the fiscal at time tables have been slowed down a little bit by these types of movements but of course you know those billion euro

bailouts need to be paid back and we think the government's very very committed to this will start to drive you can probably hear behind me we've got hundreds of people out the moment we're just going to show you that marching down alone to join the central protest movement as it gets underway probably not what european founders had in mind when they first talked of european unity but we all seeing a unified meet men today as this all started debate continues that we see pitting european leaders against the right people we're going to be keeping you updated on that every step of the way today ok thanks very much indeed sir for floods in the trade in the services of course we'll be keeping up to date with all the developments with what is happening in europe stay with us for our coverage of course of those mega strikes and i'll be back after a short break this is r.t. in moscow.

it's perched atop a jaw drop and the view from the kremlin stretches as far as the eye can see. for a city to siberia for centuries. it lost its economic importance even before it was bypassed by the chance i bear in railway but the poles cremains a spiritual center. scenes like these are a yearly occurrence thousands of worshippers implicity walter to commemorate the baptism of jesus. in the fifteen eighties the russians had only just conquered siberia taking it from

the muslims. surrounded by enemies the balls to be their stronghold constructed on top of the city but soon enough it became an economic hub siberian was the oil of its time bringing in a third of the state revenue but the location had of the uses for the russians the russian crowds had a revolt against the czar and eight hundred twenty five known as the decembrists will stand here and drove. there they created a replica high society adopting the latest fashions as soon as they came out or at least once they made it from paris to siberia. but the city also serves up some bit of irony for the russian royal family after the bolshevik revolution. this is the office was czar nicholas the second spend most of the last year of his life his whole family had been exiled here and they were at a fairly comfortable existence this was a big house but they weren't allowed to see visitors or go outside themselves was

leading the ordinary normal countryside life style they even had thoughts of a skate but within the year the czar and his family would be dead. news continues now the u.s. campaign in afghanistan and suffer the military grade blow with at least two celebrity generals and veterans of the intervention for grace a sex scandal that started with revelations of the ex cia chief having an affair has now claimed the reputation of the current afghan campaign commander obviously she cannot explain. in the papers here in afghanistan for transit star and battlefield felled at cia by an affair this situation the reaction on the ground has been one of outrage people are really quite confused by this whole scandal one

of the comments that i heard from a person who wish to be anonymous in the foreign ministry is office was they founded really indicative of how well the afghan war effort is going in terms of u.s. policy if the top general in charge of it had time to send twenty to thirty thousand pages worth of inappropriate e-mails people here have also expressed some confusion as to why these kinds of scandals would force these top men to resign and not for example the scandals that have really resonated among the people here on the ground for example the tragic massacre by a u.s. soldier of sixteen civilians here in afghanistan the burnings of the koran by officials here as well as regular policies like for example night raids which are so controversial here that often result in the deaths of civilians so people are quite confused by this scandal they're not quite sure what implications will have on the u.s. war effort here in afghanistan and of course it's coming on the heels of very important talks between the u.s. and afghanistan the two countries have been in negotiations over what the u.s. will do with the remainder of its sixty eight thousand troops that are here that

are due to withdraw by the twenty fourteen deadline some analysts i've spoken to on the ground here in kabul think that this embarrassing scandal will really be sort of a pardoning chip for some factions in afghanistan to be able to effectively get more of what they want to say well look you know you guys here in the u.s. military top brass don't necessarily have the credibility to pull off certain policy options and that's really been the concern as one of the fallouts of the scandal but of course if we look at the big picture in terms of u.s. policy in afghanistan it really has been crisis after crisis it's not just these resignations betray us and the implication of general allen we've seen in the u.s. spend nearly six hundred billion dollars and it's eleven year effort in afghanistan the insurgency the taliban insurgency has low. actually remained on the ballot by that we've also see in the u.s. actively shifting towards other policies for example trying to train afghan soldiers to to take over after twenty fourteen and that too has been marred by

scandal with nearly fifty four americans being killed in the so-called green on blue attacks showing that the u.s. influence is really waning here in this country another concern is of course the implication on the morale of the troops here the american troops who are not necessarily welcomed in this country they're not the scandal is not going to help them continue to operate on the ground and there's also the concern that the u.s. is really shifting from person based policy to a robotic policy what i'm of course referring to is the drone strikes afghanistan has seen three hundred and thirty three drone strikes in the past year alone that's more than pakistan somalia and yemen combined. coverage of their syria's foreign formed rebel coalition is collecting international approval france's the first western state to recognize it is the sole voice of the syrian people other european nations and the u.s. which is behind the group set up stops short of doing the same the rebel coalition was made up of various opposition factions after marathon talks and cattles capital

doha washington says the bloc should first show it's able to represent syrians inside the country professor of international relations mark allen says the u.s. is trying to act as if it's not meddling in syrian internal affairs. the united states wishes to lead from behind to use the term that was used about obama's role in libya it wants to give the impression that there are regional states playing this part and perhaps european space like france the other is that the united states is a bit of a quandary about who to support. in syria in the sense that we don't know exactly who come out on top president along with the new coalition is not only the sole legitimate representative of the syrian people but also believed to be the future of every government by definition a democratic governor has to be decided by the people of the country rather than her forum sponsored the point is that you have a chaotic possible and also we have a growing role of islamists and this witness of course supported by the islamic

regimes in saudi arabia a belt states they are not worried hard working people who were very long beards and very taliban like after all they supported the taliban in afghanistan until two thousand and one. back to our breaking news story here in r.t. israel has launched strikes and assassinations in gaza killing the military leader of the us and bombing police stations across the street there's no talk among israeli military leaders of protracted fighting in gaza with warnings of an imminent ground invasion and now says israel has opened the gates of hell saying it's not war with the jewish state all of this in the last few hours this is all breaking news and of course will be key be updated as the story unfolds. about with more news when thirty five minutes from now coming up after a short break it's breaking the set with abby martin.

looking at some dogs you simply do not believe they const baek and goodness how they can wrong oh. it's an international sled dog race with those driving the dogs. coming from as far away as australia canada and the u.s. they come to russia and everybody is so very friendly they welcomed me with open arms and the scenery is so beautiful it's very much like alaska and so i felt at home the first black dog was brought here from australia now let's try and come to this remote russian village to take part in the race it's not surprising they love it this trail are amazing but even more amazing is the story of how racing first started here atoll it wasn't the top. grazing who set the trail ablaze

but a nun and for all friends who brought their dia to life. five years ago about a bill to dock kennel in the village kids from the local open age came around to take care of the dogs and one day they state their life might seem extreme to some the boys wake up at six to feed to the dogs before school in the evening they spend up to three hours training their full legged friends but smother her schedule also encourages her kids to become dab hands on the computer and internet the boys who regularly update their website and they're in touch with the busy mother twenty four seven on the phone need someone but children are the most important thing my own interests not play any rule any more and regardless of whether parsky was huskies window race or not she hopes the competition will take place in the village next year. but called these dogs and the children it really is not the winning but

truly just the taking part that counts. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a drawn out fight concludes the longest while this campaign in our history our zeal let me format a quick look at some of. the twists and turns that belong hallmarks of this campaign for you to watch what we're about to do to you cover see if you like .