tensions are rising in and around syria as a powerful blast rocks downtown damascus causing damage to the russian embassy as the rebels threaten to attack neighboring lebanon. the adoptive mother of a three year old russian boy who died in the u.s. says his death was an accident as investigation into the case drags on. and the u.k. energy market regulate britain is on the verge of a crisis as the country becomes more dependent on imports to generate energy. use and much more twenty four hours a day you're watching. and we start with news just in from syria where powerful car

bomb is said to have shaken central damascus damaging the russian embassy comes as the free syrian army threatens to launch assaults on who's been and that's the lebanon based groups this is its alleged shelling of rebel held areas in syria from the latest developments we're joined now by paula. what's the latest you're hearing about this explosion. well what we have to stand is just a few minutes ago there was a car bomb explosion in downtown damascus very little information at this stage but we often told that there are a large number of casualties we understand that the emergency services as well as ambulances already of arriving at the scene the russian embassy was in the vicinity we're also being told that part of the russian embassy exterior building has also been damaged as of yet no indication of who was behind this bombing and as i say we have no indication of the real numbers of casualties but certainly we'll we'll fill

you in on that as we get that information paula what can you tell us about the tension between their first say and his with. well today we'll see the expiring of a forty eight hour deadline that was issued earlier by the syrian rebels to his by the lebanese political party now want we are hearing from the syrian rebels is that has been needs to stop shelling if you say controlled areas or else they will retaliate this does follow several days of clashes between the syrian rebels and hizbullah finest has that have occurred here that they've been these borda as of yet there's been no official response or statement from his below to this rate but it's if he does indicate heightened tensions between the two groups we saw for example on tuesday this week four mortar rounds that were fired and landed near the presidential place palace although we are told not inside the grounds themselves now the free syrian army rebels have also shot down is through their fighter jet

that was earlier this week that followed a government is strike on a provincial town outside of damascus so certainly there is an increasing tension along the borders and particularly between these two groups what is important to note is that by taking on his the lead syrian rebels are taking on a very significant enemy we're talking about a group that has the support of the rand we're talking about a group that is very strong you need to remember back in two thousand and six in a conflict between has been that israel has been like a monster. yes and came to clear to the arab world that they had given the other world back a pride by taking on israel this doesn't have the mood regional implications and also if this ultimatum crosses today without any response from prison it also could be a sign that the syrian rebels are more about consulting than anything else if indeed they do not follow it up with action so very war in somalia. for now thank you.

we're don't have mother of a three year old russian boy died in the u.s. exactly a month ago says maksim cruz means death was an accident russia has demanded justice spectum the toddler was abused over local police are claiming it's too early for conclusions. canaries in texas twenty russian children in the last seventeen years died in their adoptive american families most recently here in texas much steam could mean known to locals as mark shadow just what i heard on the news. just the kid had some scratches. that's all i know three year old marquis him and his younger brother keel lived in this house with their adoptive parents in a rather secluded neighborhood it was from here that on the afternoon of january twenty first the boy was taken away by an ambulance never to come back the boy had severe bruises on his legs head and internal organs can get into that because it

would be speculative i'm not a doctor. for the results russian authorities didn't hear about the case for almost a month. even unfortunately it's usually months after a russian child has died in the u.s. that the american side informs us about it in one case it was five years after a boy died meanwhile at the u.s. state department we obviously take very seriously the welfare of children particularly children who've been adopted from other countries according to moscow little corp has been shown until it was demanded highly political. along with two dozen deaths caused by abuse and even manslaughter russia in a move often criticized recently imposed a ban on american adoption of its kids i have always believed that russia should stop these adoptions and i hope that they maintain this ban and don't yield to pressure weeks after my means death tax and officials have little to say while they wait for autopsy results the results of the investigation with russia heavily

involved and asking for punishment of those responsible could take weeks to be announced no arrests have yet been made while the investigation of flow paced and the alleged information on the little boy's life and death extremely scarce one of the questions that demand an answer is why should it take a rigid push from abroad for the us to pay attention to yet another tragic destiny of a hopeless child to whom it promised a better life on its soil and r.t. after county texas. when the. spokesperson for pound puppy legacy to promote the safety and well being of children in care leaves this incident puts the u.s. adoption system firmly in the spotlight. in general we can say that the adoption system itself is a failure especially in america where the federal government has no control over what actually happens in options you need to have

a proper system in place that checks. adoptive parents much better before the adoption which has post docs in monitoring all that is not really in place there is screening but it's not properly done post adoption monitoring is impossible. especially in america it is impossible because of right to pray. that could fast be heading towards power shortages so according to the u.k.'s gas and energy regulator a number of coal fuel power stations have to close. the pollution regulations and the country is becoming more dependent on imported gas to generate energy well let's get details now from artie's sarah ferguson live for us sara is it really that bad. well care is not good news for consumers here in britain after all they've been warned once again that their energy bills are set to rise now this

warning was issued by the chief executive of the energy what store of jem and he said that a fall in the u.k.'s power production capacity a gap where renewable energy market hasn't quite caught up yet kid. goes even higher as we rely more and more on energy imports i want to put this in context the because the debate around energy bills here in the u.k. has been raging on for years we've had control of a cia for energy terrorist you've got the big six kind of cartel of energy companies that have been under constant criticism for not giving a fair deal to consumers just this morning i was talking to someone about this he said you know it's outrageous i pay a hundred and forty one pounds a month just for my gas that's not including the electricity on the water so you know this is really hitting families here in the incredibly hard it's becoming very

scary to get that energy bill through every month millions of households here in the u.k. already in fuel property and it looks like many more could join and so that's obviously extremely concerning now the same time it was we've had these warnings before what's happening right now is that you're seeing power station closures here in the u.k. as they try and get some of these old polluting plants off the grid but there hasn't been anything yet that's being built to replace that and as he said renewable energy isn't quite there yet so there are warnings that we could see a fall in u.k. capacity by as much as ten percent by this april so this is going to be happening fairly quickly now to shed some light on just exactly what is going on and how concerned consumers could be i'm joined by richard running from the institute of economic affairs thank you very much for joining us. not great news for consumers we have heard that we're going to be relying more on imports but at the same time

you know when we're trying to meet our climate change targets we need to get those all policing power plants off the case system so now going needs but this is unavoidable and i don't think so and this is really terrible for news for consumers so energy prices have gone up by one hundred sixty percent since two thousand and four we've got six million households in fuel poverty expected to rise to nine million within just three years and the problem is of course by having higher energy prices in this country tends to exports economic activity psychiatrist such as china and india so the effects of overall effect on climate change let's be very small say actually could end up being counterproductive event in china and india the government has said don't panic and female if we're going to keep britain flights which don't actually as countries like china are demanding more imports that's pushing the global prices higher so we're actually moving ourselves in the risk of way by you know looking towards renewable energy non-fossil fuel types eventually actually exposing the u.k. more to external risks for example imported gas is

a lot more vulnerable to security risk than imported coal it comes from potential flashpoint such as the persian gulf of course some u.s. states now enjoy electricity prices around a third the price in the u.k. gas prices around the fifth the price is put in british businesses that's a major competitive disadvantage so why all the government catering if you know they're saying one thing to us you're saying it's a different thing what's going on well part of it's own coming from the european commission so the reason why these power stations are closing is because of pollution controls it's more to do with acid rain than climate change is a very small environmental problem but the cost of this is going to be absolutely massive so talking about tens if not hundreds of billions of euros across the whole of you you so really the once again the european commission is over regulating for no good purpose why is he a following these plants if you're saying there's evidence to the country that this isn't going to be good for the energy consumer it's not going to be. good for britain as a whole well it was partly to do with the rebranding of the conservative party so

they tried to claim to be the greenest governments have both there's obviously a strong support for environments and with a certain faction of the conservative party and david cameron so it's mostly ideological but the problem is given the economy is hardly growing this is really the last thing the brits and the ok looking forward into the future how concerned should energy can seem is be right now you know we're hearing the figure of ten percent falling capacity power plants closing what does this actually mean for the british and if you can see where they should be very worried about rising prices in some estimates could double again over the next decade business users should be very concerned so rather than power coastal experts have business use on special contracts where the power can be cut off for them before households actually get their power cut off we get a very cold winter this could be extremely worrying ok thank you very much joining me through their very controversial debate affecting millions of households all across the cape and it looks like the debate around britain's energy both to be heated and continuing story to run run sarah firth live from london thank you.

well coming up on the program raising the standard the debt crisis on financial woes in europe syria turned to bygone days with gold again in vote as may report later. plus we idolize the rise in popularity of the muslim brotherhood in jordan looking to the changing role and then visions that's all coming up off the break.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. download the official location so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television or it just doesn't work so how would your mobile device you can watch your t.v.

any time anyway. welcome back more world issues for you now well the u.k.'s media is tradition in the end for its high standards but a recent source mori poll has put journalists in the three least trustworthy professions in britain have a look at the actual numbers of politicians came out the worst as you might expect trusted by only nineteen percent of those surveyed in the u.k. under the threat of

a triple dip recession three quarters say they don't trust bankers and for journalists well more than seventy per cent of brits no longer trust them my colleague kevin owen spoke to investigative journalist tony gosling who believes it's all down to media bosses. the first thing i'll say is this you probably expect me to say this is not the fault of journalists because the people actually control the media really are not the journalists themselves journalists are hired and fired by the managers and boy bosses vaal papers the senior staff well it is actually and it's the owners as well i mean it's been one of the byproducts of the financial crisis has been very handy for some because the become much much easier to hire and fire journalists and so what's happening is the media is concentrating in the fewer and fewer hands and these owners are basically using their outlets to push peddle their own political line the idea being basically if you're a journalist like me you know don't rock the boat you might end up on the dole you

know you've got wife and kids to feed ok right so generally just stunning for this people feel that media is all too frequently lying to them study but as you see it in britain is that a fair assessment or is it overblown well i think it's overblown to say they're lying it's just that we're not told the entire truth i mean for example in denmark about ten years ago one of the news presenters was actually sacked for being on the news and saying at the end of the news that is what we decided to tell you tonight as a bit of a joke but you know there is a lot that isn't being said in our media i mean the b.b.c. is losing its credibility slowly ever since really the one nine hundred ninety s. because of the way it's been being managed not through the fall of the journalist but i mean for example the moment we've got the chairman of the b.b.c.'s chris patten he's a former senior conservative cabinet minister you know he's coming from a very specific point of view i mean i don't really think he should have people with that political persuasion or any x.

you know senior politicians running the b.b.c. and of course the result is being things like the savile scandal of coming out but nobody is actually being sacked from that. after many vending machines offer snacks sweets and fizzy drinks now you might find something that the spence gold bars instead of chocolate bars is an increasing reality across europe where economic times investment in gold is on the rise and it's not just the preserve of the rich parties put a lot of experience sometimes all that glitters is gold those who deal in the mess all say its importance today can't be overstated in crisis when you have constant prizes and monetary prizes gold and silver every time as a security for people for bad times and with europe still far from out of the financial woods buying up gold is no longer just the reserve of the super rich the reason we sell small pieces is because we get customers

a lot of people see buying gold is something only the rich can do we get customers who i reach poor everywhere in between just people wanting to secure the value of their cash. well if you're feeling the gold rush when you're in something of a hurry there's a.t.m.'s they can dispense it whenever you need it. here's why greed and fear is a very powerful combination of fear of her demise of all paper money. your alone. paper money globally and if that actually happens that will trigger prates three where everybody has to go into gold because they will feel. that their paper money will be rough worth while reason behind swapping currency for carrots could be more stock than this gold silver is a real monetary value is a paper it's printed it's like monopoly and it's not feeling that the way you would

you were with no longer hitting the right notes. that sending europeans on the hunt for metal that matters peter all of the r.t. germany seven that french hostages seized in cameroon on tuesday have reportedly been freed and off the front center team of special forces to the african country to help track down the kidnapped family france believes in the taurus nigerian isn't a sect was responsible for the hostage crisis the french foreign minister says if the news is confirmed it justifies the ongoing fight against terrorist groups nothing like mali cameroon is a former french colony on nigeria as the top oil producer on the continent and some observers say france and its allies are responsible for the rise of extremism in the region could use it as a pretext to go after african. the former colonial powers are once again flexing

their muscles and they're starting to reach back into and into yugoslavia into iraq into af afghanistan into libya and now into west africa if the main product of mali for example were mushrooms there would be no french troops there are in niger the main export is uranium and that's very important to the french we have a twenty first century race for colonies beginning it's a tragic fact there is a further problem that the west has introduced to and the successful overthrow of the lip of the gadhafi government it introduced. al-qaeda type terrorists into africa where there weren't them where they didn't exist in any significance before so that has created a can of worms the main point though is that the western powers. and europe the neo colonial powers and the united states nato these countries have no right to act

as the police of the world are emboldened by the rise of islamic studies of course the arab world and muslim brotherhoods brunch in jordan is now on the come to expand its influence the movement has long been put away by the morning allowing it to gradually win one thousand minds among the population but some locals nuffin the brotherhood changing parties can still trouble because the for polls. when it comes to the arts professor mohsen us four works to bridge the divide between east and west influenced by both islamic and renaissance art he hopes to inspire his students with the same passion. but he's going concerned about the muslim brotherhood's rise to power in the region a force says his students don't want to lose the freedoms they now enjoy and often worry about how their lives could change if jordan came under islamist rule. but. rather.

we are afraid. but not all share in that fear for decades the muslim brotherhood enjoyed a safe haven in jordan even as it was outlawed elsewhere in the middle east the monarchies tolerance has helped the group to become the country's most influential islamist organization. so. that system was on a full display at this islamic hospital in downtown amman the muslim brotherhood has gained support throughout the arab world with its model of combining political activism with charity work here in jordan the brotherhood is responsible for building schools clinics and hospitals like this one a critical lifeline for the nation's poor. emboldened by the arab spring rise of

their counterparts jordan's brotherhood is seeking more power it rallied behind calls for democratic reform of the country's political system trying to cast itself as the face of the opposition the group has vowed to refrain from violence but its leader to promise jordan would soon become part of the muslim caliph it rejoice. victory is that had. this logic state will be created on this subject can prevail. in january the brotherhood made its move leading a boycott of the parliamentary elections but instead of being a nonevent high voter turnout evidence perhaps that jordan's brotherhood isn't ready for prime time just yet. i have a lot of concerns and must be resolved before i can support the muslim brothers we've seen the recent rise in egypt and tunisia but so far they haven't proven to be a good solution in either of those two countries the power grab has also turned off

some longtime brotherhood supporters like this patient who is recovering in the islamic hospital. muslim brotherhood treat from its traditional role in helping communities now it's too focused on getting. despite such sentiments and fears about its true intentions the brotherhood still remains the only organized political opposition in town for now the group will have to bide its time helping perhaps that regional instability could tip the balance in their favor they think. if their evolution. we have like egypt. so that we. it's a game of political chess and chance for now the students could only wonder whether their futures will be shaped by the islamists or by their own hands you see r t amman jordan. now the remains of a mammoth have been discovered in the caucasus region of russia the rare southern

mammoth thoughts of an elephant grated from africa to your asia around two million years ago where searchers uncovered the remains in a clay pit which they believe may hold plenty more secrets yair has been home to many discoveries over the years including fangs ribs and other bones were locals frequently make furniture out of the finds anything that remains there were the most recent discovery of the tusks which will now be examined by experts. now in a couple of minutes we journey through the niger delta where the inhabitants of fighting for survival against a corrupt government and oil companies stay with us. if

you have a business than you need customers right this is perhaps the simplest law of capitalism but if your business is making juvenile prisons how are you going to attract more customers by bribing judges into condemning innocent children so you'll have all of the captives i mean customers that you need to charge mark c. of a junior from pennsylvania has been sentenced to twenty eight years in prison for illegally accepting money from a juvenile prison developer the pennsylvania supreme court determined that he may have unlawfully convicted the five thousand youths some of whom were young as ten years old for crimes they didn't commit this is obviously sickening a total exploitation of power but the thing we need to think about is the fact that the us has by far the world's largest prison population and a booming prison industry it leads me to believe that maybe this one scumbag judge from pennsylvania isn't the only one out there.