device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. near comes crashing down in central russia leaving over twelve hundred people injured and the building shook and windows smashed by the force of the blast. for the first time ever republican senators stall the confirmation process of a proposed u.s. secretary of defense demanding chuck hagel answer more questions. and money troubles and a belt tightening during the g. twenty meeting in moscow finance chiefs discussed the possibility of a currency war as well as the ongoing e.u. debt crisis.

top news in commentary live from moscow this is r.t. glad to have you with us. picture this it is eight fifty one in the morning in a mid-sized the city east of the urals people are starting to go to work or school when the sky is lit up by a fiery path of the media are about to smash into the earth in the middle of russia when i witness was the canadian hockey player michael garnett who gave a firsthand account of the dramatic arrival. speak bright like shining across the sky you know blinding brighter than the sun and then it was followed by a huge. explosion on board a minute or so later that broke last nearly sank the lake fixtures were swaying back and forth i don't point to when looking out the window when i saw this giant

street going across the sky like the tail of the cloud of what what had just happened and i at that point i knew it was something that came from the sky immediately called one of my teammates who lives in my building and i you know i couldn't get through to him by phone in work so i was a little bit scared at the point the radio broke up in the earth's atmosphere resulting in multiple fragments falling near populated areas the incident triggered a huge panic among people in the affected region as r.t.c. got a piece can offer ports well this was right about the time when most people were already at work the children were in schools and in kindergartens and all of the sudden this extremely bright flash of light one man told me that it actually hurts even looking at it many people managed to actually filmed what was going on many of these videos are now online here is the one actually picturing the moment of one of the explosions. you saw the

sounds of broken glass and all these alarms going off can be groovy good and all this it's really like a scene from a science by movie but it's real and we were shocked and emphatic and especially in the first few hours calling each other to find out what's happening and so many rumors from a jet which went down to a satellite and even to the start of the end of the world and then actually artie's documentary team happened to be in the affected area writes what all this was happening here's how they described it. the feeling was like there are three shattering we thought a military jets may have crashed or that it was some manmade disaster it was a relief to find out it was a natural phenomenon. i was told that a plane crashed right into a building then we were told that a wall has been partly dislodged and metal structures inside were banned by the blast wave it was very scary over twelve hundred people were injured including over

two hundred children but thankfully these are minor injuries and related mostly due to all this glass flying around caused by these explosions the side of the blazing skies made some people fear a nuclear catastrophe was unfolding in the region earlier my colleague bill dodd talked to artie's lindsey france about why many people first feared an atomic disaster. if you look at the area and its history you begin to understand why people are actually expressing relief at the fact that this was a rock falling from the sky and not a nuclear disaster there are seven nuclear fuel plants in that area in fact during soviet times it was sort of a nuclear playground for scientists where a lot of things were tested and nuclear experiments were done and there were actually two man made nuclear disasters there one in the fifty's and one in the sixty's so when you're driving to work or picking up your child from daycare and you see a huge bright flash and you hear an impact like this imagine what you think if you

live there not exactly the place you think oh i'm sure should be told getting but of course interesting to know this region has experienced this sort of thing before yes it seems to be a magnet it's such a mystery to a layman like us who have no idea why something like the media would be so very attracted to eastern russia to siberia and even to southern russia one of the most famous meteorites ever to hit in one thousand eight the famous tom goes. meteor that they hit out in the very far east it cleared two thousand square kilometers of forest land it's shockingly huge and less than twenty years later another another meteor one nine hundred forty seven another and then another ten years ago in siberia these were huge events. one of the chilled. me to their very very slim in fact it's extremely rare to hear of anything but there has been one case of a woman being injured by

a meteorite falling through her house this happened in the u.s. state of alabama in the one nine hundred fifty s. she was napping it all right through the roof hit her on the arm. the shockwave from the meteor disintegrating has left over twelve hundred people injured and even destroyed several buildings but to recap malique managing editor of space dot com claims it could have been much worse if it had come down in a more densely populated area so this is the worst one and the first big one since one thousand know it. also in sight in a remote part of russia so you know that more than one hundred years you would you would hope that it would be longer than that more than a thousand people injured already just thousands of buildings you know severely damaged or collapsed from a shockwave didn't even hit the ground. a much more. populated city like moscow like new york city you can imagine that that same kind of damage on a much bigger scale would have substantially wider back there and impact on the

people that live there so you know it's not it's not great for the people that were here but it could have been much worse if it was a bigger city meanwhile an asteroid has just made the closest approach ever to earth coming just twenty eight thousand kilometers above the surface the event was watched by scientists with extreme interest as it passed the planet even closer than many satellites lawrence maxwell krauss from the school of earth and space exploration tell the more about the phenomenon of meteors. maybe there is an asteroids are common many of them come from the outer part of our solar system perturbations from the planet jupiter and other planets there's a huge. store of of comets asteroids out outside the orbits of jupiter and outside in fact the outer solar system some of them periodically get disturbed by the gravity of the inner planets and get sent inwards some of them are big balls of ice and become comets others are big balls of rock and the impact on

mars and the earth and the moon and. what's fascinating is actually you could if you can collect some of this material some of it is primordial if we actually detect it and we can we can get it right after it falls we can actually measure material that hasn't been processed since the solar system formed four to have billion years ago so for scientists it's a fascinating event and i'm happy that people weren't killed but about if some of that material can be recovered it'll be incredibly interesting and important for scientists. on our team dot com we have live updates on the strike including how some enterprising locals are already cashing in by selling parts of the meteor online some of the most expensive pieces will set you back almost ten thousand dollars this as scientists say that media or was the largest recorded object to strike the earth in about a century now it is estimated that it weighed about forty tons as it approached our

planet before shattering into smaller pieces experts also say that when it exploded the media released a huge amount of energy making the blast even more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by north korea just days ago specialists are currently examining a crater six meters wide where a piece of the meteor supposedly crashed and also another piece of puzzle a fell into a lake creating this hole in the ice. republican senators have blocked a vote to confirm chuck hagel as u.s. secretary of defense he is the first such presidential nominee for pentagon chief this is happened to two the senators claim they need more time for another hearing as artie's going to church you can comments. those who blocked the vote on chuck hagel nomination this thursday know very well that he will eventually be confirmed

as defense secretary there are enough votes in the senate to confirm him but the stalling of the vote together with the humiliating treatment that the senators gave chuck hagel two weeks ago at his confirmation hearing this whole process is seen as a message all by itself those lawmakers showed that they could crush anyone who would allow themselves to dissent from washington's core foreign policy beliefs chuck hagel remarks at the confirmation hearing disappointed even his supporters during the hearing which to many seemed like an inclusion mr haygood had to backtrack on many of the statements he had made before including that war with iran should not be an option including his criticism of israel's actions and some other foreign policy views that he had expressed as a senator so throughout that long an exhausting hearing mr hague kept apologizing for much of the previous statements he had taken from previous positions he had taken and he bent backwards to show how quote unquote mainstream his use are and the senators kept accusing him of not being again quote unquote mainstream enough

to get the job chuck hagel swore to defend basically all of washington's foreign policy orthodoxies his confirmation process has been humiliating in many ways and it demonstrated the state of u.s. foreign policy basically intolerant of an ill turn to be a vision alternative flawed having said all that the president's decision to nominate chuck hagel of course knowing the position chuck hagel had taken before was also seen as a message president obama had said previously that there is too much of your talk going on and maybe by nominating chuck hagel he wanted to play down because too many people here in washington are too eager to talk war just during the confirmation hearing the word war was mentioned one hundred twenty times the word iran one hundred eight times by comparison of ghana's than the war that the u.s. is fighting right now just twenty six mentions of course those are just words but they may very well show how eager many many in washington are to discuss new wars

without even having finished the old ones. paul craig roberts assistant secretary of the u.s. treasury under president reagan thinks it's chuck hagel bold views on israel that's landing him in trouble with republicans she had. made a mistake some years ago when he said that he was an american senator not an israeli senator and this instant come up look almost in the in the last presidential election in the united states the israeli prime minister. supported. the peace process for the war and treated president of the united states and in very demeaning way. and so the bombing now is answering back to the israeli prime minister by appointing a u.s. senator who did a very very rare thing and asserted his independence. of the

israeli government and still to come for you this hour libya prepares to mark the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled gadhafi. preparations including setting up roadblocks across the country and nato forces gathering in the capital as the number of those protesting against the new government increases. and a possible currency war and the e.u. faltering economy tops the agenda at the g. twenty meeting in moscow we have more on that just after a short break right here on our two. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we. covered. and it seems so you think you understand it

and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is. welcome to the big picture. is. this is our team glad to have you back with us g twenty finance chiefs have met in

moscow to discuss a potential currency war as well as the european debt crisis for russia the gathering is seen as a launch pad for the g twenty summit later this year. has been following the talks in the kremlin. a lot of conflicting statements have been said about this talk of the impending looming currency war which has led some folks some market watchers to be quite confused as to what we'll actually see coming out of this g. twenty talks here in moscow now at the center of the whole controversy of crisis is japan due to its aggressive monetary and fiscal policies it has seen a weakening of the and so what this has resulted in this essentially a clash between the countries very little consensus we did hear from a russian finance minister. who has said that this is certainly an important issue that of currencies that is very much on the table but at the very same time we've seen other world leaders come up and say that you know what currency wars aren't

really a threat they're trying to calm down the market some have even questioned whether japan's actions constitute as a manipulation of the currency basically when a country is in the dire fiscal situation such as of course as we all know many countries are today like japan for instance is one option that a country house is to devalue its currency so making something like this a twenty dollar bill worth less you can do that by a variety of means for example me printing cash because why would you want to do that when your currency is worth less your manufactured goods are cheaper on the market and that gives you a temporary boost in the economy which could be pretty critical in tough times like this now what we've actually seen the fear here is that when a country does that your trading partner strike back they say hey we're going to lower the value of our currency and that sets off a currency war such as the one that we saw in the one nine hundred thirty s. which has led to the great depression now japan insists that it is simply trying to stimulate as kwame it's not doing anything to prompt

a full scale currency war of course no country here wants to see that but the reason that we're seeing so much disagreement and so little consensus among the countries is that you know what for example the united states policy isn't all that the. the fed in the us has been printing money like crazy so these developed countries don't really see any incentive in isolating japan in trying to really squeeze down this currency manipulation issue because they don't want to mess around what their problem is essentially said that is really the crux of the issue . or tease lucy catherine off reporting for us there now what would you do if you happened to find a four thousand dollars diamond ring many would keep it but as we report online one american homeless man did not hesitate to promptly return it to its owner and as it turns out this wasn't the first time he had acted so honorably to find out more on our to dot com. plus america is known as the land of the free but online we

have the story of one man who does not seem to cherish his freedom as much as others after he robbed a bank just to be sent back to jail. libya has braced for fresh on rest the second anniversary of the revolution that toppled gadhafi is being held under the threat of violence security is tight and foreigners are leaving and mass the first protests against the current government are expected in benghazi the birthplace of the revolution political analyst abraham lines where libya stands two years after the uprising and to what we have seen over the last two years in libya is that this integration of a new form of sun throw control paving the way for the fragmentation of the country into three states at the same time the lawlessness in the country there is an outgrowth of fundamentalism of the chrome on the side that has spread over and

somali as we have seen over the last couple of months and a little bit. more than two months and at the same time we have this but sort of. strife breaking out between the front militias in the country so yes a lot has changed but not for the better. thousands of anti-government protesters have packed a major highway in the capital of mana ma that's less than two days after one teenager was killed and dozens of demonstrators were wounded on the second anniversary of the program for uprising in the country london based bahraini activist dominic cab says that the government is not trying to resolve the standoff peacefully. looking at two years in which we've seen no reform and seen nothing change i mean we started this uprising two years ago and on that day the monster of the uprising was killed and now two years later on the same day fourteen february another teenager has been killed and this me and shows and displays the lack of

reform continuous human rights abuses the continuous repression taking place on the streets of bahrain it's good that dialogue has come back on the agenda and there is discussions happening but it seems that this latest latest escalation of the security against the people is going to possibly put dine in jeopardy within the ruling family i think of course there are those who simply want to please the international community to say look we're having this dialogue and there is not a great thing was continuing the violations on the street the people have come out on the streets time and time again saying that they they won't go out and they said we will go until there's reform and i think the fact that they stayed out for two years clearly proves that so the only solution is through dialogue and i think the regime has to realize that. and now on to some other world news in brief for you at this hour at least one hundred fifty rebels and government soldiers have been killed in two days of heavy fighting in the northern city of aleppo according to

anti regime activists opposition fighters launched several attacks on wednesday in a fresh attempt to seize control of the city's civilian airport and a nearby military airfield the rebels have been trying to take the airport for months now as many analysts believe it will give them a vital strategic advantage over president assad's forces. a peaceful rally outside a prison in the west bank has turned violent after palestinian started throwing stones while israeli police responded with tear gas officials say around two hundred people took part in the clashes the demonstrators gathered outside the facility demanding the release of a prisoner who has gone on hunger strike to protest again. his detention has not eaten since august and is now suffering serious health problems. and fresh clashes have broken out at the presidential palace in cairo following a day of relatively peaceful opposition rallies riot police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse the protesters who were throwing stones and setting fires in

the street the latest on rasta erupted three weeks ago on the two year anniversary of the revolution that ousted president hosni mubarak over the seventy people have been. going on during the have been arrested during the ongoing demonstrations. the number of police officials officers in the u.k. is at its lowest in a decade that's after fierce government budget cuts resulted in mass layoffs are asked both government and opposition m.p.'s whether britain's should be concerned about crime in the country. in the number of police officers up 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. form but at the same time they see the number of police and police. i mean it's quite confusing time i think the police. 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 and terms of morale. 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 some parts of the country the cuts are being imposed are affecting the safety of people on the streets. or the lowest level of police now for

eleven years. so i may 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 jim a home for to 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 in fact it 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 fitting in paperwork and with red states 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 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 police. from london now the u.s. is funneling money into tracking systems that are threatening to make the very concept of privacy a thing of the past it could result in people's every move being recorded banishing forever any hope of personal privacy or to look at the future of surveillance. the information age was an era nearly everybody in braced by today's surveillance age experts say is a reality oh most no one can escape we are five years away in new york from zero privacy from every new yorker being tracked and catalogued and watched and that information being saved for pretty much an indeterminate period of private investigator steve rom bomb believes america is being landscaped into an eis wide open society through the advancing market of biometrics technology that uses

physiological and behavioral recognition to identify people. a system touted as a national security necessity is being used to build a database where the biometric identity of millions of americans be gathered and stored when you look at crying when you look at terrorism what we're really focusing on is the individual and so if you are interested in reducing crime or do think terrorism you do have to focus on the individual and i am in a way of. connecting the person with a measurement recognition of unwanted visitors face recognition and iris scanning are the current tools of the trade however scientists are reportedly developing new technology aimed at identifying anyone from much greater distances if researchers are successful the defense department may eventually be able to detect individuals by your shape heartbeat walking patterns and possibly even older long

range fingerprint and iris scanning are reportedly also being explored for the u.s. toolbox of tracking are there reasons to have such security devices sure. do i think it's american do i think it's appropriate that somebody can press a button and determine everywhere i've been everything i've done ever. i want to know its role and i think that we're entitled to privacy. author and journalist a.j. jacobs recently spent three months documenting every second of his life with a small camera and like a bluetooth it's remarkable it holds ten hours of video esquire magazine editor at large subscribed to self surveillance for an article about life logging yet he believes the market of high tech cameras and consumer biometric applications will soon make little brother and equally big concern and i think that we are. we're not

going to have a private moment in the future and i always tell people listen if you want to have an extramarital affair you better have it right now because you're going to be able to have it in five years because everything will be tracked your husband or wife will be able to know exactly where you are at all times as companies like apple moved her words fingerprint readers and facial recognition insiders say that consumer electronics will generate an entirely new source of revenue for the biometric industry and industry estimated to bank more than nine billion dollars globally this year however the top cash cow is expected to remain government spending on security the bit in the past five years the department of defense has shelled out an estimated three billion dollars on biometric programs. hard to believe that just ten years ago the concept of facial recognition biometrics surveillance and domestic drones was limited to science fiction movies like

minority report marina point nine r.t. neal. and i'll be back with more news in around thirty five minutes but before that peter lavelle and his guests take a look at the tensions between japan and china and where they could lead. some countries want oil but that's kid stuff who needs oil when you could secure the world's largest supply of truck a soda located exclusively in sweden and meeting sweden for absolutely no logical reason as a possible you say well supreme commander of the swedish armed forces general severe guru and son must have watched red dawn too many times because he thinks the russians are a common.