the latest news into the week's top stories at gaza militants claim victory despite dozens of civilians dead as it israel stops short of an invasion after an eight day bombing campaign. protests enter a fourth day in cairo with tear gas fired crowds venting their anger over a good president morsi unprecedented power. pro independence parties emerge victorious in the catalonian elections paving the way for a referendum that could see spain's richest region go its own way. and. failure as divisions between member states emerge the summit in brussels over whether to spend or save another meeting has been scheduled for next year.

and broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow recapping the week's top stories this week with the weekly gaza is recovering from israel's anti hamas campaign that ended with an egyptian brokered cease fire one hundred sixty eight palestinians were killed in airstrikes around half of them civilians while a militant rocket fire claimed the lives of six israelis despite those numbers hamas believes said came out the winner and to some israelis now say the government has failed them. reports. and this one and rachel packing for the u.s. a cease fire might have been announced but they're not waiting around to see if it works the women were part of an internship program to see what it's like to live in israel so they came they saw and now they choosing to leave and to spend very

anxious living on that mike knowing that at any moment the science right off i may have to go into a bomb shelter and. like it's being scared of public transportation and staff. the streets of tel aviv are a far cry from the streets of gaza when news of the truce was met with celebrations and fireworks the somewhat muted israeli reaction belies a growing disappointment in the way many here feel the government handled things but i do think that israel finished the operation just so anything to finish it very soon i think we had a good momentum for this operation we have a very good start and i think that if we would have continued we could have achieved. more better results from it's i do think that we could have put some more pressure oh and the organization of hamas. would probably keep us from further rocket attacks in the future i hope.

the government has good reason to finish it now many military experts and commentators believe the ceasefire was a strategic victory for hamas for two hours after officially came into force rocket fire from gaza continued it seems that the israeli government has given in to some of the demands of hamas and has made an agreement with a terror organization i think a lot of red lines have been crossed among the disappointed i've had friedman a lone protester on television campus he's frustrated his army didn't into gaza and was one of the first to call his officer to volunteer it's important for our safety for our. turn civilians safety and that's what we should do against it i'm prepared today for my country any day any time. but television says its operation was a success enabling it to destroy

a significant portion of hamas infrastructure hundreds of rocket launchers and dozens of smuggling tunnels by belief that the ceasefire in the day was just a means to an end and the end was peace and. however it came about is less important as the results and result to hopefully will be peace and quiet to return to normalcy for israelis and also innocent palestinians on the other side of the border but hamas claims tel aviv capitulated to its demands especially by agreeing to ease its blockade on gaza the group also showed its military prowess by sending rockets for the first time from gaza to jerusalem and later to tel aviv capabilities that have made hamas a real hero of the palestinian resistance the conflict also managed to silence the more moderate palestinian government as must not about us which is why some of pointing out that israel has sent a very dangerous message to the arab world if you want to get something from israel you have to go to war policy r.t. tel aviv. human rights watch dogs are now investigating whether any war crimes were

committed during the conflict that's after the huge amount of collateral damage caused by the airstrikes however israeli defense forces maintain the operation in gaza only targeted militants documentary filmmaker harry fear has the story for us . israel's military operation pillar of cloud has officially ended it started with the assassination of senior hamas commander barry barrett here. more than one thousand two hundred palestinians were wounded overwhelmingly children and women and over one hundred sixty seven were killed half of them civilians including journalists israel says when it targeted the top and eleventh floor of this. building and it was targeting hamas as operational communications and then just six when it struck the al could t.v. office just below here. at exactly one fifty three on sunday the occupying forces

started bombing our office the satellite channel located on the eleventh floor in the western side of the building and three rockets hit us my colleagues and i were wounded one of the striking things about the a day war was the number of journalists that were explicitly targeted by israeli forces three appear to have been deliberately assassinated. on monday israel called major local news agencies ordering them to evacuate their premises it then targeted a computer center belonging to the t.v. channel based in the building in gaza city setting it to blaze killing two and injuring several star this is what's left of the second floor of the building in central gaza city reporters without borders says that this building is known in gaza as the reporters building the targeting of any journalist or civilian and international law is a war crime and war reporting is explicitly protected under international

humanitarian law the next day israel targeted a press car carrying two al aksa t.v. cameramen they burned to death when i got in yesterday near our home a car with a press logo drove past with two young men inside all of a sudden we saw a rocket hit the car those inside were killed we pulled one of them out in pieces but couldn't get to the other one he was literally on fire of course it was the press what else can you say. and al could of the most popular t.v. stations in palestine israel says they're not legitimate journalistic enterprises and that they're associated with the islamic jihad group and the quote hamas terror organization. only had a camera where is the press was the european press with the tarka democracy these crimes are being committed against women and children all of this democracy is a sham. israel targeted media towers including the one in which r.t.s.

sister channels office is how no r.t. journalist was injured targeted journalists according to israeli spokes persons neither journalists nor civilians at all therefore. are worried that the atrocities massacres perpetrated by the enemy in gaza will be concealed. israel says the air bombardment campaign was aimed at wiping out a massive infrastructure personnel and capacity garson reporters say that they will never be deterred from reporting their side of the story parry fear for r.t. gaza and this week my colleague kevin owen interviewed in an israeli official who placed all the blame for the civilian deaths on hamas. the israeli defense ministry who i represent and indeed the israeli public mourning civilian deaths on both sides i've seen it agree running around the south from bomb shelter to bomb shelter

dodging rockets hearing the cries of israeli civilians and the cries in the wells of the air raid siren when we see the graphic footage of dead children being pulled . out of collapsed buildings to maintain the deaths. of israel and israeli air strikes are the fault of mass. i can tell you genuinely generally breaks my heart you think that we want to see dead children on any side as i said we mourn every loss of life hamas on the other hand a celebrating and they're putting their own civilians in danger i cannot tell you how much we desire quiet how much we desire true peace and calm in this region when we facing an enemy that is guilty of this double war crime whereby they hired me to own civilians while shooting at our civilians for over a decade now we are in this predicament that however with the most strategically surgical precision pinpoint strikes when they're hiding beneath their civilian population there will be collateral damage. protests have now entered their fourth

day earlier police in cairo fired tear gas to disperse crowds the demonstrations are aimed against president morsi has decreed granting him sweeping new powers his decisions can now no longer be challenged by any authority reports say one person was killed in an attack on a muslim brotherhood office the same islamist movement that backs the president the opposition is staging a sit in in cairo's tahrir square while egypt's top judges have called for a nationwide strike mohamed morsi has defended the move saying it's aimed at protecting the revolution that paved is way to power in his latest comments and the leader stressed his new powers are temporary and middle east analyst at the university of sydney believes the crisis is only deepening. section. and. it would be he would have to lose in order to do

so but you know i don't have a moment really it's been one of the situation. for us and it's very minute. and now you know. there was a buildup to this tension. imagine to project. these are really. his most critical. it's really a big confusing mess and. really going on. in crunch elections in catalonia pro independence parties have won almost two thirds of the vote in the regions president vowed to hold a referendum on breaking off from spain if the separatist coalition one hundred farmers in barcelona for the result. well as expected arthur mass has been reelected as the cattle and president albeit with a reduced majority but the result does up the ante in terms of the region's battle

for independence and that's because mr mass will now be required to fulfill his pre-election promise of holding a referendum on succession and that would place the region and him on a collision course with the spanish government because they say any referendum would be against the spanish constitution and what's more the prime minister mariano horry will be desperate to keep hold of one of the country's wealthiest regions as he tries to stave off a european bailout why this all happened today and why people voted in this manner it's probably because of the economic crisis for many cattle and this was the tipping point they say that their region is very wealthy it has an economy the size of portugal's but in terms of the number in terms of the size of taxes they pay it's much more to central government than they actually get back from madrid in terms of investments in schools and hospitals so they're annoyed about that and particularly when you consider that unemployment here is around twenty five percent so if a referendum does happen i suppose you could say that you would expect people to

vote in favor of it although i say that those people who are against separatism do point out that if catalonia does withdraw from spain it could also mean it has to drop out of the european union and not many people in catalonia would be in favor of that if that turns out to be the case and maybe they would prefer the status quo so there are a lot of ifs and buts but what we do know as a result of today's election there is a growing sentiment of nationalism and a sense for independence here in catalonia. from the european partnership for independence believes claims catalonia would be unable to join but your simply madrid trying to derail the separatist argument. on the spanish state machinery and trying to see a complete pencil and so we are european city science i know there's not such stress of that that the group could be out of the european union sun a half million of people suddenly in

a house that would be more difficult actually to manage who to order what is necessary to be out and it's not a consideration we don't believe we're going to be out of the european union like it's scotland i'm not going to be outside the european union just because we have exercising universe of rights as east if you give us a grant of something to the nation let's talk about democracy here it's only a it's a rich country we do have some g.d.p. of two hundred thousand million which is like and dead my economy that we have to understand that in the european economy don't context we are a country of super rabbit we are not as if should syria that country and more disunity in europe as a budget talks and with no result he has postponed further negotiations until the new year after failing to work out a deal acceptable to all. and the un says it will send experts to bahrain to oversee the implementation of reforms as protests continue across the country still

to come in the program. syrian rebels looking to overthrow president assad have received the backing of the european union this week brussels greeted the new syrian opposition group the national coalition as a legitimate representative of the country's people you ministers did however stop short of official diplomatic recognition france and turkey were the first powers to give the new rebel alliance a stamp of approval with britain following suit soon after one car is now pushing for nato to deploy patriot missiles along its border with syria to defend itself russia and iran are among the country strongly opposing the move seeing it as a possible first step towards a no fly zone and foreign boots on the ground political act. i. think if nato granted turkey's request it would plunge the region deeper into chaos. deploying such missiles is not really going to be for defensive measure what do they need to defend against at least turkey has an army and they can defend against more tire

for example this is clearly for a larger scale intervention where they want to secure a no fly zone area and we've been hearing the e.u. countries especially britain and france advocating such intervention recently have been talking about limited scale intervention how about how how. comprehensive and how a normal out war style this is going to be i think it is not going it's not going to be a war style it will be a war of attrition it's not going to threaten the syrian government of a sudden intervention they know very well that this is going to ignite a. response from the syrian side that made. a lot of chaos and the region. staying with syria activists there say rebels have captured a helicopter base on the outskirts of the capital damascus at least fifteen

fighters and eight government troops were killed in the violence leading up to the takeover recently militias have concentrated on army bases across syria hoping to stop the regime from using them on thursday they took over an artillery outpost in the oil rich eastern province near iraq. the u.n. human rights commission plans to send a team of experts to bahrain this week amid growing concern the nation is slipping into protest chaos the main opposition party there will says it will resume pro-reform demonstrations despite a government ban on all gatherings bahrain's uprising has been going on for almost two years with activists calling for more freedoms and better access to jobs and education from the sunni leaders eighty people have been killed and thousands thrown behind bars during a government crackdown on dissent on wednesday a court sentenced twenty three medics to three months in prison for treating injured protesters and taking part in rallies that comes after a report by leading human rights group amnesty international which concluded

torture and oppression are on the rise in the gulf states. where we have on talked is that actually the situation is much or spending months ago it's way to terry right we're talking about at least twenty four people being killed after that one thing depending on which he issued its report last year by not protest at the end to fucked over an only a week ago there were occasional national thirty one opposition activists were also talking about continuous harassment of human rights and one of them has not been as you have the president of the famed center for human rights that was ten times the summer to three years and three senate merrily for having exercised its right to freedom of expression and we consider him to be a prisoner of conscience and we are talking about hundreds of hands and hundreds of allegations of torture that that's happening especially since the beginning of two thousand and eleven. not international community has not and no pressure on that and i'm to ensure that. any independent commission of inquiry recommendations are

implemented that already it's quite boring what we are seeing is that you are on your. report was issued we have seen that that main welcome day shows that would ensure a come to justice for victims had not been implemented. and now for some other stories making headlines around the world this hour. at least eleven people have been killed and dozens injured in twin suicide car bomb attacks outside a church at a military base in northern nigeria no organization has claimed responsibility for the attack churches and security forces are frequent targets of extremists fighting for an islamic state in that country. rebels fighting for control for the democratic republic of congo have held a first round of talks with government officials negotiations are being mediated by uganda last week the group known as m twenty three seized control of the key city goma the country is facing a growing humanitarian crisis with around five hundred thousand displaced. severe

storms battering the u.k. have claimed at least two lives and flooded more than eight hundred homes people in wales and cornel have been evacuated to safety as major roads were closed off and train service is cancelled weather forecasters say there is no end in sight and predict more rainfall in the coming days. and a car has plowed into a californian family's home in the middle of the night as they were sound asleep causing substantial damage to the house authorities that reported there were a total of nine people inside who were lucky to escape unharmed and a twenty four year old woman has been charged with drinking and driving. talks on europe's budget have been postponed until two thousand and thirteen after days of intense negotiations in brussels came to nothing most your members hoped for an increase in spending while some including britain called for a freeze of saying nations simply don't have the money to spare parties here first has the details. the year of paying commission in london but in

a week that seeing the brussels budget debate over symmetry ending in failure is once again britain's place within europe just back in the spotlight the european leaders also failing to come up with a deal that would please everyone and the budget that would take us from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty that person very much wanted to be seen as leading the way in calling for the cuts indeed in the lead up to see the negotiations there was a lot of concern that we'd see burson isolated from the other twenty six countries whose uncle merkel who was the mediator these negotiations he stepped up to take person side and the unlikely form of support perhaps she was very much adamant that person wouldn't be left to fight this alone and exercise their veto as we saw happening in two thousand and eleven and so we saw those other dana countries getting behind britain in this now at the end of it the prime minister said the

person didn't get a deal but they didn't get an unacceptable deal but of course that leaves us exactly where we started with nothing happening and so those countries are going to be left to continue the the negotiations to try and hammer out some form of a deal that's acceptable to everyone else some of the we're going to see this budget battle continuing now into the. euro centric parties are winning more and more supporters many countries struggle to deal with popular disillusionment with the idea of a united europe u.k. independence party is a leader nigel frosh believes that britain should say farewell to the e.u. if it wants to prosper. every time the big decisions for the next seven years come up there are always countries that are donor countries that are a bit reluctant and there are always recipient countries that are rather keen to push the budget up and of course the french always make sure that the common agricultural policy doesn't get reformed the difference this time is that the split

isn't just over the budget the split is also about the eurozone as well because it's those northern countries that are members of the euro zone who are really becoming increasingly reluctant despite the fact that the u.k. is the world's sixth biggest trading nation we are actually pretty hip it'd from having our own buy that we trade deals with any other part of the world that has to be done on our behalf so the ukip message is simple we love europe we want to get on with our neighbors we want to trade with them through a simple free trade agreement but then refocus british business to start concentrating on doing more deals around the rest of the world this european model this idea that europe is what matters in the rest of the world can go hang frankly is decades out of date for millions in the u.k. the cold winter may be more binding than ever soaring energy prices that look said to drag people into what's being hailed as a fuel poverty where the only way to stay warm is an extra blanket here's artie's

laura smith with a full story. it's a bitter winter's day in london and inside this plot it's not much warmer single mother of four julie has only one thing on her mind as the cold bites how is she going to pay her ever rising energy bill i decided to take few libel from the ceiling and i only use one in my room it's only supermarket jeremih you just one like trying to cut down. off the bill mess time but in regard to bill. we spoke to julie last winter when she was already struggling and we've come back to see how she'll face this year's even bigger challenge five of the six big energy companies have announced price rises of around ten percent according to use which whose business it is to help people reduce their bills it will drive more into an increasingly common form of poverty fuel poverty is where you spend more than ten

percent of your net income on your energy bills and we've seen these recent price increases pushed three hundred fourteen founds and people into fuel poverty that's on top of an estimated seven million people already one survey ahead of this winter found energy prices were the biggest concern for consumers ninety percent said the cost of energy was their main household worry ahead rising costs for food petrol and mortgage payment julie shows me her energy bills carefully conserve to chart the inexorable rise since she moved in in two thousand and seven she's afraid that this winter her children's health will suffer again in a way that when accomplice or his blanket his socks and the children just put it on

the moon we will call two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven there were sick. because trying to be mean. while julie's children are getting sick the energy companies are profiting british gas whose prices are up six percent is on track to make one point four billion pounds in profits this year and e.t.f. with the highest price rise of ten point eight percent announced profits of one point six billion in february where are you going to find the extra ten percent that's going to go in your bill from somebody who was i don't know you're a smith r.t. london. the west controversial use of unmanned drones in hotspots around the world looks set to go on with the british government now developing a new technology but as art has probably boyko found out some locals close to the testing ground don't share the government's excitement. for victims in tribal regions of pakistan yemen and afghanistan it's the last sound heard before

bloodshed ensues a constant worrying that gets louder before it becomes visible but for residents of the quiet coastal town of abba porth in west wales the sound is synonymous with daily life this is the area where the r.a.f. tests its watch keep a drone from as you can see there's one taking off behind me as we speak in good weather the drones take off throughout the day and during the night and as you can hear the noise is so high pitched and dominating that local residents have called this area the buzz box. for local people the noise is a great disturbance because. and whining noise send they fly over this quite regularly the welsh government build it as a state of the art technology park that would create four to five hundred much needed jobs for the community the reality

a half deserted site where the ministry of defense employs about thirty people to help test the watch keeper there is a sense of frustration in the area a number of people who were for it in the beginning post to it because they didn't realise the level of nuisance that there was going to be there is behind the development of drones say it means less soldiers come home from war zones in body bags but civilian casualties a piling up we know from pakistan that somewhere around two to three thousand people i think you know in trying strife because of these unmanned systems it's a lot easier to go to war and therefore there will be much more warfare and the world isn't safer the british government has already spent two billion pounds on development but they're about to commit another two billion on a new armed drone because. it could be better spent it could be spent on hospitals and schools rather than on killing machines despite drastic government cuts on

welfare spending financing for the drones isn't up for debate to the dismay of locals the daily testing along with the bloodcurdling noise drones on. our t.v. west wales and our technology is coming up just after the short break you're watching are to. speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world's hot spots to vo ip interviews an intriguing story for you here. in trying. to find out more visit our big teeth.