the latest news and the week's top stories gaza militants claim victory despite dozens of civilians dead as israel stopped short of an invasion after an eight day bombing campaign. protests. in cairo with tear gas fired crowds venting their anger over the decree granting president morsi unprecedented powers. 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 the e.u. budget talks failure as divisions between member states emerge at the summit in brussels over whether to spend or save for another meeting has been scheduled for next year.

when live from moscow this is our team in gaza is recovering from israel's anti hamas campaign of it ended with an egyptian brokered a cease fire one hundred sixty eight palestinians were killed in airstrikes around half of them civilians while militant rocket fire claimed the lives of six israelis despite those numbers hamas believes it came out the winner and some israelis now say the government has failed them as artie's policy or reports. and this one and rachel packing for the us 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 you 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. it's being scared public transportation and staff.

the streets of tel aviv on fall cry. i 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 and i think it's finished 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 a. better result 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 our lives have been crossed among the disappointed i viewed 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 so 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 the masses 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 quiet however it came about is less

important as the results no doubt hopefully will be peace and quiet a 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 television capabilities that have made him us 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 are 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 but after the huge amount of collateral damage caused by the airstrikes however israeli defense forces maintain the operation in gaza

only targeted militant 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 a senior hamas commander. buried 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 injured 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 this little i 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. so. 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 stars 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 see are 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 was the press was a european press with a turk a 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 housed no r.t. journalist was injured targeted journalists according to israeli spokes persons

neither journalists nor civilians at all and therefore journalist 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 harry fear for r.t. gaza. this week my colleague kevin owen interviewed 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 be 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 let me see the graphic footage of dead children being pulled out

dug out of collapsed buildings to maintain their deaths at the hands of israel and israeli air strikes on the fold of hamas. so i can tell you they genuinely genuine 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 celebrating and they 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 with a hotly thousand civilians while shooting at our civilians for every 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. to egypt where protests have now entered their fourth day earlier police in cairo fired tear gas to disperse crowds the demonstrations are aimed against president morsi decree 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 islam is the movement of the back the president the opposition is staging a sit in and 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 his way to power and his latest comments later stressed his new powers are temper. middle east analyst at the university of sydney believe the crisis is only deepening. its actual deadlock the fact that morsi has gone this far and he's actually moved. it would be you know he would have to lose face in order to do that but you know i don't have a moment really it's anyone's guess because the situation in egypt is the love it's all eyes and it's very mental politics and now i know you've been there was

a buildup to this tension regards. imaginative approaches to grasp. these operate on the island screenshot that. is most critical to. this or not it's really a big confusing mess and some result it's really hard going on. in crunch elections in catalonia pro independence parties have won almost two thirds of the vote the regions president vowed to hold a referendum on breaking off from spain if the separatist coalition won parties and are 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 at the end 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 to session 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 i hope he 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 the e.u. are simply madrid trying to derail the separatist argument. on the spanish state machinery i'm trying to see a complete pencil and so we are european city sounds as though there's not such stress of that that we would be out of the european union's to have millions of people suddenly in a house that would be more difficult actually to manage who to order when he's 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 european union just because we have

exercising universal rights as east to get us are going to suffer to the nation to talk about democracy here it's only a it's a rich country we do have side g.d.p. of two hundred thousand million which is like and dead mike economy that we have to understand that in the european economic and context we are a country of super rabbit we are not as if should syria that country and more disunity in europe as budget talks and with no result. the leaders postponed further negotiations until the new year after failing to work out a deal acceptable to walk. around the un says it will send x. bridge the bahrain to oversee the implementation of reforms as protests continue across the country that's still to come in the program. syrian rebels looking to overthrow president assad have received the backing of the european union this week brussels agreed to the new syrian opposition group the national coalition as

legitimate representatives 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 ancora is now pushing for nato to deploy patriot missiles along its border with syria to defend itself russia and iran are among the countries are strongly opposing the move seeing it as a possible first step towards a no fly zone. foreign boots on the ground political activist a doctor years dollar thinks if nato grabs turkey's request it would plunge the region deeper into chaos. the crimean such mess 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 time for example this is clearly for a larger scale intervention where they want to secure a no fly zone area we've been hearing the country especially britain and france

advocating such intervention recently we've been talking about limited 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 made. a lot of chaos and in the region. and are staying with syria activists there say rebels have captured a helicopter base on the outskirts of the capital damascus at least fifteen fighters and eighty 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 says it will resume form demonstrations despite a government ban on gatherings bahrain's uprising has been going on for almost two years with activists calling for more freedoms. better access to jobs and education from the sunni leaders up to eighty people have been killed and thousands thrown behind bars during the government crackdown on dissent on wednesday a court sentenced to twenty three minutes 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 from the rise in the gulf states. well we have on doubt is that back to the situation is much more spending months ago it's really the terry

rate when we're talking about at least twenty four people being killed after that one thing depending on which you keep firing issued its report last year a ban on not protest at the un to fucked over an only a week ago there were occasional nationality of thirty one opposition activists were also talking about continuous harassment of human rights and one of them is now being as you have the president of the buffet and center for human rights that was sometimes peace some are two three years and three senate marilee 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 happened especially since the beginning of two thousand and eleven until now international community has not enough pressure on that one. to ensure that. any independent commission of inquiry recommendations are implemented well it is quite worrying what we are seeing is that you are sure that if you report was issued we have seen that that main commendation is that would

ensure a country we can to justice for victims have not been implemented. now time to take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world at least eleven people have been killed and dozens injured in twin suicide car bomb attacks outside a church on 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 the country. rebels fighting for control for the democratic republic of congo have held a first round of talks with government officials the negotiations are being mediated by uganda last week of 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 persons. appear storms battering in 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 california family's home in the middle of the night as they were sound asleep causing substantial damage to the house authorities are reporting there were a total of nine people inside who were lucky to escape on the harm it 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 mostly you members hoped for an increase in spending while some including britain called for a freeze saying nations simply don't have the money to spare our first has the details. the year paying commission in london but in a week that seeing the brussels budget debate ending in failure is once again britain's place within you this back in the spotlight your opinion it is ultimately

failing to come up with a deal that would please him. 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 the negotiations there was a lot of concern that we see worse and isolated from the other twenty six countries because angela merkel who was the mediator these negotiations he stepped up to take personal side and then likely form of support perhaps she was very much adamant that person wouldn't be left to fight this alone an exercise that 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 bit of calls that leads us back 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 the ultimate leeway got to see this budget battle continuing now into the. euro sceptic parties are winning more and more support in as many countries struggle to deal with popular disillusionment with the idea of a united europe the u.k. independence party's leader nigel farage believes 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 by the actual trade deals with any other part of the world that has to be done on our behalf so the u.k. 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 biting than ever soaring energy prices that look set to drag people into what's being hailed as fuel poverty where the only way to stay warm is an extra blanket here's our teaser laura smith with the full story. it's a bit of a 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 a few libel from the ceiling and i only use one in my room it's only seated in my kitchen and my you just one like trying to cut down. off the bill next time but every kind of bill come is still high we spoke to julie last winter when she was already struggling and we've come. back to see how she'll face is 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 founts and people into fuel poverty that's on top of an estimated seven million people who already have 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 of rising costs for food petrol and mortgage and rent payments julie shows me her energy bills carefully conserve to charge 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 detune are just put it on the moon we will call two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven there were sick because i tried to be mean. while julie is 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 when you go from stem the world i don't know laura smith r.t. london. the west's controversial use of unmanned drones in hotspots around the world looks set to go on with of the british government now developing a new technology but as our teaser polly boyko found out some locals close to the testing ground don't share their government excitement. for victims in tribal regions of pakistan yemen and afghanistan it's the last sound heard before bloodshed and see you use 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 in the beginning are now opposed 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 piling up we know from pakistan that somewhere around two to three thousand people have been killed in trying strikes 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 safe 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 now does it from a coming up we have another special report called the legal abduction just after a short break right here on r.t. . do we speak your language or not of the. news programs and documentaries in spanish what matters to you breaking news a little turnitin bangalore's kidney's stories. for you here. in the spanish to find out more visit.