and realized everything you thought you knew. was a big issue. president putin signs a bill which includes a ban on americans adopting russian children the legislation has split russian public opinion by the authorities say the same as the flawed adoption system in the white. house massacre shopping spree u.s. gun stores are flooded by customers two weeks after a tragic school shooting in connecticut has brought a bomb a threat to ban firearms bought size plants. a coffee you just can't get good coffee right. through to nasty weather we'll look at why many britons including more millionaires than ever want to leave the u.k. in the near future.

around the world this isn't she was me hello and welcome to the program president putin has signed off the bill and the two u.s. citizens accused of abusing the human rights the russians that includes a ban on americans adopting russian children the restrictions came about after washington introduced travel and financial sanctions against russian officials it alleges are involved in rights violations. has the story for us. earlier the president said he saw no reason why the bill shouldn't be passed and signed it on the next day after the final draft got into his office and now starting from the first of january american citizens suspected off while ations of the rights of the russian citizens will be banned from entering russia the bill also introduces financial sanctions and restrictions on n.g.o.s and non commercial organizations

with foreign sponsors and also the article which has been talked about the ban for all americans to adopt russian children for the past few weeks russian society and even the political elite have been split over the issue and there have been many cases of abuse of russian children and sometimes even deaths after they're brought to the united states and russian president has been saying that this bill is not aimed against people or children but it's aimed against the american system due to a lack of a proper legal reaction from american authorities to these cases including the a lack of heavy jail sentences and other problem is that russian officials are often not even able to monitor what happens to russian children after they're brought to the u.s. one of the reasons behind so much debate around the ban is also that many people are concerned with the state of orphanages in russia and along with signing this bill the president also releasing the gui aimed at improving the lives of orphans

in the country lawmakers from the beginning have been saying that this is a response to the magnitsky act bans passed recently by american lawmakers city game was russia more of work for foreign investment funds who were suspected of money laundering but died in prison before a court could make a decision on his case is seen by many in the west especially united states as a victim of various human rights violations and the magnitsky act basically gives the green light for sanctioning a russian official suspected in the us of being connected with human rights violations in moscow by many officials it's seen.

while he was held in prison but the judge said she found no evidence that the doctor's actions caused the little is death magnitsky family promise to appeal the ruling. critics of the new adoption bond say the homes of russian chances of a better have here but a former director of the american adoption congress told us that tracking how russian children are being treated in the u.s. is all but impossible a lot of the cases have gotten very very light sentences for the takers whether for store or adoptive of russian children here in the united states but we certainly have no idea how many children are enduring abuses surviving abuses of all kinds the children that died at the hands of their adoptive parents were tortured

in some horrendous ways they were sexually abused they were burned they were caved ever any conceivable kind of torture one human being could inflict on another was done to these children so these were the parents that were caught and prosecuted nineteen how many more there is there is absolutely no way of knowing the united states has no system of follow up on adoptions once an adoption is finalized the child is considered as if born to that family gun sales have skyrocketed in the u.s. of iraq obama urged the ban on some firearms in the wake of this sunday school massacre and salties granted as you can explains that has backfired on a bomber. about two weeks ago actually on this particular wall here. we are is

four rows down four rows across. with everything going on in politics right now with the possible ban and everything everyone is flooding in. purchasing right away gun stores all across the u.s. are reporting record sales just two weeks after the tragic shooting at the elementary school in newtown americans are scrambling to buy the same type of weapon that adam lanza used in the connecticut shooting plus high capacity magazines and a lot of them panic buying trigger it out of fear that the white house is out to ban the weapons but this time the words need to lead to action no a r fifteen for this customer all sold out at the store while prices on line have gone through the roof have been going for a thousand and fifty eight hundred eight hundred dollars to twenty five hundred three thousand dollars even in some cases it's just the most amazing gun buying spree i've ever seen so many gun retailers now quite cynically refer to feed

ministrations ben talk as the obama gun stimulus that's how good it's been for their business so how do you go from a president with a tough gun control agenda to someone gun dealers call the greatest gun salesman in america manufacturers of semi-automatic rifles report that their market has grown thirty percent over the last four years states like north carolina iowa and you have seen a one hundred percent increase in gun sales over the same period in the wake of the tragedy in newtown one of the country's biggest ammunition suppliers said they sold more than three years worth of magazines in just three days. although president obama himself has so far failed to act on his pledge to ban assault weapons his words have certainly provoked action just not the type you may have wanted or someone they say is against her will be doing a great job for us. maybe they should be

a third term in order to sell even more weapons many dealers hype up gone apocalypse scenario so the band there there were no which made it sound like you need to stock up not only to start the search region but many of them don't actually see any drastic changes happening any time soon after all and it's significant gun control measures adopted in the past ultimately clashed with the second amendment of the constitution and were subsequently scrapped. i'm going to check on. one group and he time has come up with our own unique way to prevent more shootings by introducing even more guns to schools but giving them to teachers the gun rights advocates on the side of to do and shooting lessons for teachers in case of an emergency and let us know what you think by logging on to altie dot com and giving us your opinion and we haven't section.

iran is holding a fresh round of naval drills in the strait of hormuz one of the world's biggest oil and gas shipping rates the six day war games can as they west systematically builds up pressure on iran of its nuclear program and the speculations of a military confrontation but i said say the hammer on day from the university of tehran has explained why the rain don't think an attack is possible any time soon in the sense that western countries are brutal and uncivilized enough to carry out an attack i think that that's clear to the iranians the fact that western countries are imposing sanctions and an embargo on it on iran they're trying to prevent iran

from even importing and exporting medicine and food stuffs by blocking the central bank and there are shortages of some medicines right now in iran and people have died so the fact that the western countries are willing to kill ordinary people and to make people suffer i think makes it clear that the idea of carrying out an attack on iran is something that they would contemplate if they could but i think on the other hand the iranians believe that western countries are much weaker today than they ever were before the defeat in iraq and afghanistan the setbacks in. that israel had in lebanon and gaza make as well as the economic crisis in europe in north america make it highly unlikely but the iranians have prepared themselves and i think that itself has been it took deterrent to war so the i think in general the iranians feel that a military assault on iran aggression would be highly unlikely. and still ahead for you this hour washington's financial stability is close to the edge as the united

states is closer to the fiscal cliff with congress and the president still struggling to find common ground. and see where it dives deep into conflict with take a look at the key developments in this civil war over the last year and ask is a record later. a growing number of wealthy britons plan to wave goodbye to the u.k. over the next two years and move their lives and money elsewhere more than a fifth of the country's millionaires are considering emigrating according to a recent survey by lloyds t.s.b. international bank or his point of order explains now what exactly is making the reach part of the luxury luggage. blame the dismal weather that's reportedly the overwhelming reason for why one in five british million as a considering upping sticks and leaving the country now those reasons a followed closely by the high rate of crime in the u.k. and antisocial behavior and then another reason why they might want to leave is the

high cost of living here in the u.k. and only in fourth place to my why they might might want to leave is the high rate of personal taxation now where are they growing well top of the list of destinations is france it's nearby and it's warmer weather and same goes for spain which is the other place where they're all thinking of flocking to followed by the usa now we didn't manage to track down any millionaires but we hit the streets of london to talk to the ordinary londoners to ask whether they were considering opting sticks and leaving as well and it looks like most of them agree with the millionaires so let's take a listen to what they told us you consider leaving the u.k. . what reason to climb up first second the dark. ages. would you consider leaving the u.k. and leaving somewhere else i'm going to do really what are the reasons my wife. my

children but also the expense here looks like the middle class professionals are the ones who are actually packing their bags and leaving a recent report by the home office said that more and more middle class we professionals are actually packing their bags and opting to continue their careers elsewhere and for them the main reason is the high rate of personal taxation so it's the millionaires are the ones that don't like the rain then is the middle class professionals the senior managers the academics the scientists that are actually continuing their careers abroad and a lot of business leaders are saying that if the high rate of personal taxation isn't cut it's going to lead to a brain drain for the u.k. in the future so something that's very worrying for politicians to consider here. he or chelsea and we're back with more news on how she will break.

if you're from my generation or younger and you were born into the one percent that i bet you have a lot of college debt i sure do you know the deal used to be that you paid a significant amount for education but in turn that gave you a much higher salary later but now the system works in reverse many young americans studied very hard to not make any money at all around nine percent of americans with student loans have defaulted and at least nine but maybe up to eighteen percent are ninety days late with their payments given the situation the people at u.c. berkeley were nice enough to give away a million dollars in scholarships for everyone everyone that's an illegal immigrant yeah that's right if you're born in america then pay till you die but jump the border and enjoy the red carpet education treatment the people who would be getting

the scholarships are mostly the children of illegal immigrants who spent many of their formative years in america and yeah i could see the logic that could be hard for them to get an education when the when they aren't citizens but they came into the country illegally it isn't taxpayers jobs to help them but wait berkeley it's a private institution so i guess they can give out the money to whoever they want whenever they want however they want but berkeley management if you're watching this i would really appreciate if you chose some financial mercy to american citizens it isn't like they don't need the help but that's just my opinion. welcome to the. this month high tech means good health whether it be the latest laser cutters or lifesaving heart valves russian innovators are working hard to keep you healthy for some companies it's been a winding road from car simulators to come. stream systems brothers it's been

a lifetime of work marking the mysteries of the chicken on technology are we going to the future or. you're watching our seas great to hear whether it's in a trip the country's made opposition leaders are under investigation for allegedly inciting their supporters to overthrow president mohamed morsi a probe was announced shortly after the islamists drafted new constitution in training shari'a law was officially approved in a referendum that's now discuss these latest developments with journalist and writer neil clark as he is joining us live from london neil clark very nice to have you with us as always so. is this investigation the beginning of

a full scale crackdown on the opposition well i think it's too early to say categorically that that is the case but it certainly doesn't bode very well let's think back to just two days ago when morsi when the results of the constitutional referendum came out she was sounding very conciliatory he was shouting now time for a national dialogue between the government the opposition and they were hoping that they would be she would look to hear it and now this happened just two days later so understandably many people in egypt are very worried about the direction the country is going in and each all a kind of very grim throwback to the mubarak years just because this is what these what mubarak did so so many times sure and the secretary general of the opposition party headed by mr el baradei one of the figures and investigation now said it showed a tendency toward a police state apart from the probe are there any other indications to support that . there are plenty i'm afraid i mean if we look at the roster you can itself there

are some very worrying sort of calls that people are quite upset at least of the guarding the role of the army which is still very much entrenched the rights of women and of and of strikers because the constitution says that strikes to be legal only if they are peaceful but it doesn't actually tell us what you mean by the strike so understandably people are very worried that the new constitution will mean more powers to morsi and that this is not really what the egyptian people took to the streets in the hundreds of thousands of back in twenty eleven it's not what they went to the streets but they didn't want to see sort of islamic version of mubarak. so this is a referendum on the violent clashes which preceded it we actually haven't seen any major process they say within egypt so what's the point of morsi now going out to the opposition well i think there's two reasons firstly i think he wants to sort of deflect attention from the economy because the underlying problem the biggest base huge it is the economic crisis one in four if you are without jobs poverty on the right he just ended subsidies on fuel which means that the prices of gas and

electricity are going to rocket and so this is a kind of a sort of smokescreen for him and he i think he's very keen to get the opposition tied up in the legal challenges to sort of stop them from focusing on opposing him on the issues where he's he's very weak and i think also he'll be worried that you know a sizable minority thirty six or thirty six percent of people voted against the constitution and the fact seems to be that that history is on the wane. and i think that obviously you know i think we can see more protests in the new year. journalist and writer neil clark neal many thanks indeed very few. you arses sliding ever closer toward has become known as the fiscal cliff was broke obama hosting another last minute emergency meeting later today for weeks the republicans and democrats have been trying to reach a deal on the how to reduce the national deficit and if they don't billions of

dollars in tax hikes and spending cuts automatically take effect on train or at a fast activists and journalists don de bar says it's not the deadlock that the that bothers him but what has already been agreed. the real problem in my eyes is not the fact that they can't reach an agreement but rather that they have reached an agreement on many fundamental things the grievance they have reached is that neither of them are going to advocate put more money in the hands of working people they have no problem whatsoever removing a trillion dollars or two trillion dollars from the economy and delivering it to the bankers they did that inside of twenty days back in two thousand and eight and again in two thousand and nine with very little discussion. everyone agrees on both sides of the aisle that sums sort of. reduction in benefits from social security and medicare is inevitable quote unquote well you know the rest of us don't believe

that it's inevitable or even that it's necessary and certainly not the best that it's not desirable yet the remit between the democrats and republicans on these fundamental issues is in my mind more important than their disagreement to the posturing that they're doing for the media basically to try to blame each other for the you know going over the so-called cliff that one. needs to catch while online including clamping down upon a christmas party in saudi arabia local police arrested dozens of integrating on a day that in line with the country's strict islamic grow. up it's hard to imagine these devastating twisters could be useful for much but one business things that can turn them into the green on a tree to find out what. russia

is the syrian government on the stalemate on statements that he's ready to talk with the up to opponents speaking to journalists foreign minister sergei lavrov outlined their russian on how the conflict should be resolved. we actively encourage the syrian leadership to make as concrete as possible is declared readiness for dialog with the opposition you're also asking when will the international community make up their minds that bashar assad should go with all due respect to the international community is the syrian people who should make that decision the international community should not be instigating one of the sides to continue bloodshed or set any preconditions they should instead encourage all the fighting sides to follow the geneva statements which set conditions for the syrians themselves getting all political ethnic and religious groups to agree on which kind of state they want to live in russia. also criticized the deep

reluctance of syria's key opposition group bonds by the west to make any concessions in this civil standoff but his trust that russia is ready to hold talks with the group in the push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict the syrian crisis has dragged on for nearly two years with reports on fresh blood shed or almost daily basis of his correspondents caught up close as close as they could to the real stories of violence tearing the country apart and that's what we're focusing on today in our series of events that straight twenty two out. it became very apparent after a massive regional arab spring and in the wake of that the next contact of a pro-democracy movement and

a revolution or civil war was not what was happening in syria when you see some politicians there and the media circus is just. cracking down on people you think but what about the other side. of the politics and diplomacy there are facts that are simply too important to ignore. i remember i was a training session of the syrian football team and the coach was very angry with how his players were practice and he was shouting he was swearing from time to time and then i move my head like this just like this and i saw two helicopters fly and it's a very low altitude and firing were ito the hotel restaurant and close to us there was a group for rich syrians playing cards laugh and smoke and living life as usual and just before that as me and my colleagues were leaving the local t.v. station there was an almost lost a few blocks away most likely terror attack most likely people have been killed and what struck you was the coexistence of those two power. religion is the religion of

death and the real truth most interesting interaction for me with assad happened before and after the interview obviously and that's often the case. i ask him if he's afraid. said no. he said no i'm not afraid that's the one with the you believe the person or not and the only reason you know if he's right or wrong is intuitional i think series becoming the next iraq it's a country that is totally disempowered from within. and murder don't surprise or shock anybody and like in the case of for iraq all this harm was done to syria with the substantial help of the outsiders on the guise of democratic intentions. former egyptian president hosni mubarak has been readmitted to hospital after his

health took a turn for the was guilty of the eighty four year old was ordered into account by the state prosecutor who bark for three decades and is serving life in prison for failing to protect protesters killed in the arab spring last week and while current president mohamed morsi has launched an investigation into opposition leaders here tuesday of supporting efforts to just cause him. was a sin and muslims in the wrong have joined protesters against the shia led government the rallies are the largest public anger in a week of demonstrations that flared up after the rest of the sunni finance ministers bodyguards many sunni and whose community dominated iraq until the fall of saddam hussein ten years ago accuse shell sorties over fusing. now on the twenty three year old of female victim of a gang rape in new delhi remains critical after she was flown to singapore for treatment the case has sparked mass outrage on the way we're gonna protest. with

people demanding the death penalty for that doesn't bode meanwhile another victim of a sexual assault has committed suicide after being pressured to drop the case. and shortly we'll look at the latest medical breakthroughs five russian scientists that are breaking. the mighty volga that runs deep through the russian soul it has provided inspiration for songs and poems and is the country's main north south artery and decades ago schumann ingenuity connected it to the dawn river to the west the vocal dawn canal is an engineering marvel within a day a vessel can pass the canals thirteen locks ten million tons of shipping does so

every year. another concrete giant is this finished fifty years ago it's the biggest hydroelectric plant in europe it powers the local city of volgograd and sends lots more electricity to moscow the hydroelectric plant behind me is a potent example of how much the volga can provide but harnessing the river like this isn't without its cost. fishermen have been watching fish stocks for years they see the slow damage the downing of the river has done especially to russia's prized sturgeon the source of caviar but in the president of the hydroelectric plant has done significant damage because it stocked fish swimming up river to their spawning grounds. within a year all these houses would have gone fallen into the river depending on how many of the hydroelectric plants turbines are on the water level can change suddenly and dramatically too suddenly for the banks to absorb. control of the river flow by the plant has made building on the bogus flood plain more attractive serious floods are

less likely but the water that is put into the drains is taken away from the fish that need it now but last the voice of the voters of color jay might start being heard. the first time in fifty here is the rules will contain a point on maintaining biodiversity in the river will still have a chance to bring the volga back to life. meaning that the mighty volga is treated with the respect it deserves.