crashes to earth in central russia injuring over nine hundred people we've got the firsthand accounts in our special report coming up in just a few seconds. to tap the currency clashes on the euro zone's plight occupy the hearts and minds of financial decision makers meeting here in moscow will be keeping you posted on this story this hour here on r.t. . and budget cuts in britain police numbers thousands of layoffs in just the past year i would take a very close look at what a few offices means more crime.

it's a pleasure to have you with us here on r.t. today i'm a rory suchet live from the russian capital picture this it's eight fifty one in the morning in a mid-sized city east of the year olds and an alien fireball strikes fear into the minds of millions of people of the city of chelyabinsk but it was not as some theater the end of the world nor was it world war three it's ultimately in a vent that's captured the imagination of the media and has been widely caught on camera. now joins us here in the studio to bring us up to date on this so it was and i mean it was a ball in the sky but it wasn't a plane crash it was in the beginning of world war three what was it it was well it was the sky falling. asteroid which are broken into several pieces upon the

striking the earth's atmosphere and causing a massive sonic boom and you can see that it was ignited again actually i cannot get enough of these these pictures to you start yes but unfortunately as the more we talk about it the more details we find out is that we realize that there has been actually massive damage with three hundred buildings were damaged windows blown out doors also blown out. more than one hundred people have been wounded i mean the numbers you know that we've been getting the numbers all day get higher and higher. and i wonder why well because when the windows go flying or so does the glass and the people end up with the numerous cuts from the shards of the of the of the glass and of course there's a all hell breaking loose essentially and people were panicking and thinking what is this like i mean we're hearing residential homes blocks of flats. being blown out with this deafening boom yes and in fact children that were let go nobody is

going to school or kindergartens today the world told to stay home because they're actually have been more than children injured as a result of this and people were absolutely frightened first it was you know it was like a massive panic attack if you looked at twitter people were posting stuff anywhere from like you said world war three to williams attacking well they weren't too far off fairly easy to believe but when you look at this guy you see this thing coming with no warning whatsoever no wonder people say you know what i guess one of the most amazing things is that we actually had our own documentary crew there and they have they have come into contact with us and they have told us what they've experienced as well as several other people who have also told us about their feelings when they first felt the impact and the sonic boom. we saw a huge hill in the sky like from an airplane and then there was a bright fire and an explosion but the feeling was like the earth shattering thoughts of military crashed or the. disaster it was

a relief to. clean crashed right into a building then we were told that a wall has been partially dislodged and metal structures inside of the band blast wave it was very scary. just about sums it up with a look at there saying it was very very scary thinking that a plane actually crashed into a building do we have any any word on the level of work the emergency services are doing here and any any any quotes from any officials as well who are dealing with absolutely we do know that at least twenty thousand of the emergency personnel have been told to stay on high alert and i don't know i don't think that order has been recalled to get so i think they are still on high alert because you have to understand this is a matter of fact that this could be a little teaser of what's coming and we have to also mention that several thirty's several towns have been affected of course to have been has been the center of the screen you can see it right there but i guess this is one of the places where they

have been finding debris from the fragments from the asteroid that have been finding them and i think that is one of the places where they have located it and they say that one of the fragments has left a. crater that is six meters in diameter as i was not a small crowd. later in the program here on r.t. already somebody is claiming to have a little piece of this meteorite saying also that you had ten thousand dollars so look out people already trying to capitalize on this which was a stunning event indeed but you know i've got another one of our colleagues who are going to take us into more more depth i suppose with the history of events like these so for now we're going to glasgow thank you all see but later in the program and i'm talking about the one and only lindsey france you can join us here in the studios ultimately about how people reacted here also you know we've been getting a. there's an impression here that there was actually a feeling over relief from people when they actually found out what this was absolutely it can be hard to imagine feeling any sort of relief in the face of a meteor crash really in your backyard but if you look at the history of the area

here we've got video of the zinc factory that was hit and just blown out if you can imagine waking up to this if you look at the history of the area this is essentially a giant nuclear facility there are seven nuclear plants here that produce fuel so it's a very dangerous it's a very big danger zone during soviet era it was it was basically a nuclear test site very heavily protected and so you can imagine that what residents thought was either an attack or a manmade disaster because it would have been the first time it happened something like that it happened a manmade disaster at these facilities in the fifty's and the sixty's sort of find that it was a rock from the heavens essentially was somewhat of a relief so it's very scary to think that possibly someone's attacking you or god forbid something is going wrong going to be this area this part of russia you know they've had things like this in the post over there it is absolutely shocking if you look at this scene when you know the series of coincidences all if you look at

when it first started for a lot of people back in one thousand weight we got from. that crash and it actually decimated two thousand right kilometers of a forest area and the video from it is really amazing and it almost seems like every other decade there was another crash in siberia or southern russia at least every twenty years the most recent one was ten years ago and so now to have this happen you do see just how much happening literally by the. people who have to go phenomena that you know back in the day the days it wasn't until the thirty's actually when the soviets actually sent a whole team of investigators to see what yes because the theory is whether it was a meteorite or not or that asteroid for that matter it exploded before it hit the grown hence this massive shockwave that took out as you said two thousand square kilometers or fours that the. your theory is to be having a field day with it for a day how you would know that and what they wouldn't be but again not exactly an unusual phenomenon and i want to shocking also on top of that rory is that there haven't been any record of injuries or deaths with media or crashes except for one

and that was in the one nine hundred fifty s. in this u.s. state of alabama yeah there was run an injury all of these and that have have been without any doubt was a story about a poor old lady who was lying in bed and this little meteorite went through the roof and smacked into wake up darling made me breakfast honestly want to say it that way the way i would ease these people had quite a way to wake up the world and use them so i mean we will get a phone calls from the crack of dawn this morning about this stunning event in the just east of the year olds in russia and look at that footage i mean that i can't quite watch my going to a blast in the distance illuminating the ground during broad daylight so you have stuff indeed or it also has lindsay fronts and many many thanks indeed for coming on. where we can all we can discuss this further here on our team with piers corbyn an astrophysicist and founder of the weather action dot com website now joining us live from london a pleasure to see you want to thank you for coming on the program so quickly what do you make what do you make of the often mass of the of the meteorite fall nine

hundred people injured those numbers that they say seem quite holiday. well it's a ridiculous no because it's not very densely populated i mean imagine if london this would be a complete catastrophe or if it hit a nuclear facility it would be a complete catastrophe but fortunately these things don't happen that often you know i mean every twenty years or so of course you hear more about them in russia because russia is so big and therefore catches them but the question for the future must be could they be perfect. i would think with more satellite. space research you could get some sort of looming over all of these coming but i mean that's i mean that is the bizarre nascimento to this because ultimately you think about the thousands of satellites in orbit you think about these massive tell us give us a sense around the world in a high elevations like hawaii for example how is it that things like this are not being tracked and they penetrate national airspace and then cause i'm on

a disaster. well thing is there's a lot of a lot of skill out there and the speed of this thing was it was goes. one and a half times around the world in an hour that's the speed it would go or that it is going in a straight line so it's really fast you see even if it's some way away. slowly in the sky then the question is when a long way away they look very small they are very small to the to the oil so you need to do a lot of work with telescope saw it to be able to see that but i mean it does it does seem to be so it certainly is something you believe. you're going to say it seems that sometimes it's the backyard astronomers it's the teenagers and the whole with their telescopes who are the ones who end up finding these and not the all for a tease. that is true you know it's true could you see. an authority telescope you need to be

a top scientist has got someone to look at and you just pointed to that particular star cluster or whatever so. they're not scanning the sky looking for things like this but i mean that's an issue maybe there should be an international effort at least in the scholars to prepare for things like this what i mean it's certainly should be an international effort as you say but then again i suppose a worldwide government will have an issue of budget and budget restraints how much are they going to pay and who should shoulder most of the responsibility but i'm not so you know this damage being done well it certainly has and i must ask you very quickly here before before about out of time we are getting suggestions here at r.a.t the meteorite that came in just east of the year also smalling was the preemptive part of the beginning knows part of what could be a bigger chunk coming in in the next few hours do you know anything about that well . i don't know but of course you see these things generally of originating from something bigger which is breaking up or broken up. even millions of years ago so

we don't know but i would say that a lot of the hood of something more coming is greater now than. any other time. but it doesn't mean it's for a lot. you know one percent chance of something big happening but of course. normally the world ability of something big happening will be much less well i mean that certainly may be possible we're getting reports that that if indeed there is this chunk and apparently there is a chunk it's going to be passing by in the next well the next five or six hours over the pacific region appears corben that's all the time i have for you now astrophysicist the owner of action dot com live from london a pleasure to have you on the program today on such a fascinating story thank you very much. dot com right now we have live updates on the meteor that fell in siberia including how some enterprising locals are already cashing in on what's become

a disaster for others some are trying to sell parts of the crash or online the most expensive being offered for ten thousand dollars but of course someone is willing to. no real easy way to verify whether you're buying a piece of meat. so you have.

to thank you for joining us today. potential currency war and the european debt crisis will dominate a meeting of finance chiefs from some of the world's biggest economies when they're meeting right here in moscow for russia the gathering is seen as a launch pad for the g twenty summit. in the kremlin join us live here on the program. good to see you thanks for coming on the other there was a lot of talk about a looming currency war ahead of the meeting or anything being said on that so far. well actually it's interesting although we've seen the currency wars dominating the headlines suddenly a lot of silence on the issue in fact we've seen officials sort of trying to urge a lot of calm pushing away from the problem we've even heard russia's deputy finance minister say and i quote there's no competitive devaluation there are no currency wars going on right now what's happening is really just the market reaction to exclusively internal decision now what is all of this about which right

japan is actually at the center of this crisis because of its aggressive monetary and fiscal policies that have led to a weakening of the yen now what does all this mean in layman's terms basically in tough economic times one option that a country has is to artificially make the value of its currency worth a little bit less so for example making something like this twenty dollar bill is worth less you can do that by a variety of means like printing money why would you want to do that because when you do value your currency your manufactured goods your goods your exports become cheaper and that gives you a short term economic boost which is something that a lot of these countries europe the united states japan certainly desperately need in these tough economic times there are many problems with this approach but of course the biggest one is that when you start to do something your trading partners will say hey your stuff is cheaper i want to follow suit and do the same thing and that results in a tit for tat economic clash that we know as a currency war of course the last time that this took place was in the one nine

hundred thirty s. and we all certainly remember the horrors of the great depression and some of the havoc that that has wreaked on the economy and so what we're hearing right now is finance ministers essentially saying this currency war thing it's probably not going to happen does that mean that that's the case we don't quite know perhaps japan and other countries have gotten the message behind closed doors but the other issue that a lot of experts have really brought up here is that there is no consensus in the g twenty on this issue because of internal divisions for example what you're doing isn't really all that different from what the fed. in the united states does which has been printing money furiously so there's really not a lot of incentive for countries to sort of get together and take a tough stance on this issue despite the fact that at the end of the day nobody really wants a currency war of course that will devastate all. but we have to have these big heads that if we don't have all if you're going to excuse you know apart from the issue of currency wars and can you bring us some of the other major issues that might be on the table at the moment. short of very briefly president putin had

mentioned the issue of i.m.f. voting rights is going to be huge because of merging economies really want a bigger say at the table for example china and russia hold trillions of dollars in reserves and yet they have a relatively small say at the international lender of last resort the i.m.f. so they're really going to be pushing for more agreement to get these developing countries to have sort of more more of a power there another battle that we've really seen emerge in these talks between the united states and europe over a stereo versus debt basically the europeans have been pushing for countries to stick to agreements that were decided upon several years ago to cut down borrowing and debt they think that this sort of tough austerity measures medicine is the kind of thing that's going to help this economic crisis come to an end well countries like the united states and we in fact i've heard that the u.s. is blocking specifically this push in want to reduce their borrowing because they're heavily in debt and if they stop borrowing if they reduce their deficits that could theoretically hurt unemployment and other sort of domestic internal

issues so those are really the two big fights on the table there's a whole lot going on of course in these tough economic times but these are the main bones of contention as russia emerges assumes the presidency the annual presidency of the first big emerging economy to do so with the g. twenty but you know what worry i think these guys maybe took a piece of that media home and are planning to sell that on e bay perhaps that will be somehow a resolution to all these global it's going to could hope would be decent for reporters or moscow thanks very much and. thank you. all right well our business tasks are closely watching exactly what so what's being discussed at the meeting what should be discussed i suppose that perhaps expectations are higher also his own natasha gets going are starting for us outside the kremlin there i mean beyond that beyond the political issues we've already mentioned here what else is being talked about that you can tell us. pull out already there was an interesting moment heard during a president to newton's meeting with the finance ministers we actually detected

some tension between russia and germany on the issue of cyprus and helping that country pay its debts to two sides agreed to discuss this issue behind closed doors and of course the finance ministers during their meeting in moscow also touched on the issue of the much discussed financial transaction tax in europe earlier on friday the head of the o.e.c.d. and he told me in an exclusive interview that this measure would only work if all of the world's leading economies would agree to it and he explained why you could watch that entire interview later on oil r t and of course we'll bring you all the details of the g twenty finance ministers meeting here in moscow in the business bulletin at eighteen thirty g.m.t. not a very good looking forward about eighteen thirty g.m.t. the business bulletin elsie's on the touch and yes guy a pleasure to see you today thank you. for you with all to you live from moscow

still to come for you on the program but of libya preparing to mark the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled could definitely and preparation include setting up roadblocks across the country and nato forces gathering inside the capital this as the number of those protesting against the new government continues to increase more after a very short break. speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all

here on. reporting from the world talks about six iffy ip interviews intriguing stories for you to. try. to find out more visit our big. dog called. mission free could you take three months for free make amends free. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media project free media r.t. dot com. good to have you with us here on our team today i roll over sushi in moscow and the british government's program of cuts has resulted in

a drastic drop in the number of police officers to the lowest level in over a decade and the radical reform package has already spoke many security questions. that a chance to ask unpaid song both sides of the argument if indeed the fears of. in the number of police officers drop to the lowest levels for eleven years as the impact of a twenty percent cut and whitehall funding to police budgets takes effect but just think more about these. joined by conservative m.p. and britain and labor m.p. thank you very much to both of you for joining us jim i'm going to start with the a lot of the police officers that we were speaking with we've got is a bit of. a bit of the same time. the number of. police. i mean it's quite confusing time i think the police to what's being expected. i understand that there may be slight consolation but given the battering the

reputation of the police is hard over recent months the government had to take steps to shore up the reputation in terms of morale. of the police service. in my part of east london we've seen over one hundred fifty uniform stuff go in the past two years productions in crime which we've seen year on year for six years and reverse and for the past two years have been an increase in crime last year of nine percent so as certain parts of the country are being imposed are of saying the safety of people on the streets. or the lowest level of police now for eleven years. so they not know the the police are having to take their share of the of the spending reductions along with the rest of the public sector to get the deficit under control and what we're actually seeing is it's not about police numbers it's what you do with the police or innovative ways of maintaining a police presence on the streets and. have a increase in crime in his constituency but the facts are that across the country

on average last year crime fell by eight percent and fell in my force in leicestershire by eight percent as well so we are seeing a overall reduction in crime across the country at the same time we're cutting police numbers but they're doing innovative things like sharing back office services because the forces. to save money and keep those police out on the streets where people want to be sort of filling in paperwork and all that with red tape not just the police integrity it's the public perception of the police integrity and the reforms will help to improve the public perception of. wright thank you very very much for joining us you can join in our debate online dot com we've also been on twitter a lot of the public have been getting involved in this debate as well as members of the police. reform to join in the debate about the latest. westminster has been active in other areas as well bringing in free mental health treatment for m.p.'s nearly twenty five thousand pounds put aside for the program online we've got the details of why the politicians and parliament are being

offered the treatment free of charge. plus a top secret documents surfaces revealing al qaeda plans for military involvement in mali dot com we lift the lid on the plans of the world's most feared terror network. for now libya's braced for fresh unrest the second anniversary of the revolution that toppled gadhafi is being held under the threat of violence security is tight foreigners are leaving on mass the first protests against the current government are expected in benghazi the birthplace of the revolution a former m i five agent explains why libya has seen any post arab spring optimism destroyed. people have invested a lot of hope in the arab spring i think now they're beginning to realize the harsh reality that a lot of it was backed by the west and the west wants to strip their countries of the mineral wealth i mean we're seeing the spillover into other areas like mali and

niger as well and this is all part of a bigger sort of power play or link between the u.s. wanting to secure the minerals or says about africa generally and stop china getting them so in terms of democracy in arab springs they're very naive to think that that's what the west is trying to help these countries to achieve we've seen an absolute mess left behind by the nato invasion of libya which is what happened two years ago let's not mince words and that was problematic on so many levels not just the international legal level where suddenly aggressive war could be justified as humanitarian intervention even though it destabilized an entire country and results in many more deaths than could be prevented and we're also looking at a situation now where the country has lost its stability where there are reports coming out from independent journalists about militias still holding great swathes of the country and their power where we have competing fairly fundamentalist politicians police groups as well fighting over their territory without any of the

promised ability wealth and democratic values that were suggested when nato went in so it's become such a mess on so many levels. all right into the that we go now starting with the u.s. senate where republicans have stalled an attempt by the white house to make chuck hagel the secretary of defense he fell short of two votes as senators decided to push one more time to find out just a bit more about him has come in for criticism for saying the jewish lobby has too much influence in washington. and that south africa athletics superstar oscar pistorius has been formally charged with the murder of his girlfriend the man known as the blade runner will be held in custody until court hearings begin on tuesday model reeva steenkamp was shot dead of the paralympians house on thursday in the suburbs of. a sixteen year old protest and a police officer have died during demonstrations marking the second anniversary of

the uprising in bahrain the policeman is said to have died after being wounded by a projectile teen boys believed to have been hit by birdshot two years ago antigovernment protests began to demand more freedoms and rights for the shia majority in the nation run by students. just about to our top story here on our other meaty although it crashed into a densely populated area in russia as you rolls now more than nine hundred people ended up being hurt as a result of the explosion two hundred children among them and the rifle was met by a certain amount of panic as many initially thought the flash would come from a plane crash or worse perhaps a nuclear explosion there's also speculation the meteorite is part of a bigger asteroid due to pass later this evening for the first pictures of ground zero the suspected point of impact just head over to our website to go.

and crosstalk. helicopters flying through the air day and night rounds of assault rifle ammo popping as the choppers buzz over the land now this unique form of hell of terror is no longer restricted to those in vietnam in the middle east now houston miami residents of the good old usa can get in on the fun houston residents in terror called nine one one and scrambled for cover and even to schools put on lockdown as a military helicopters participated in a multi-agency training thrill in miami at night in the middle of downtown onlookers caught video on their telephones of blackhawk helicopters pumping.