a series of explosions rocked damascus at least thirty one people are dead but the ruling party's headquarters on the russian embassy hit by the blasts. the adoptive mother of a three year old russian boy says his tragic death was an accident russia wants to be solid geishas probe further officials still await autopsy results. and lights out of britain faces a prospect of energy shortages as e.u. regulations forced him to search for overseas.

twenty four hours a day this is. a powerful blast struck the syrian capital killing thirty one people and injuring dozens more explosion also cause severe damage fracturing windows and sending a cloud of smoke above the city where it comes as a free syrian army opposition group has given his below forty eight hour deadline to stop selling its location from neighboring lebanon on middle east correspondent paula has the latest. a car bomb has exploded near the headquarters of the ruling baath party in central damascus it happened in front of a barrier with regular troops are stationed this is also not far from the russian embassy according to eyewitnesses there was a gunfire off to the blast that seemed to come from the vicinity of the russian embassy compound and the building there now both government and opposition forces all confirming that this boston fact did take place but we are hearing from opposition fighters and opposition sources and activists that they were at least

two other so more tenuous explosions we have no independent confirmation of this at this stage state media is reporting that there has been many casualties they are calling it a suicide bombing that was carried out to quote by terrorists there are also reports as of yet unconfirmed that all four teams have in that position a truck that was carrying up to some three hundred kilograms of explosives now there seems to have been a large number of children among the wounded and this is largely because it happened near a school syrian television is ball costing footage of at least four bodies that have been thrown along a main street and also footage of fire fighters that are dancing dozens of vehicles that were in the vicinity this conflict is likely and in fact is already spilling across the border today thursday is the expiry date of a forty eight hour deadline that was issued by syrian rebels to the eleven nice political party has been that now the ultimatum says that his bill that needs to

stop shelling free syrian army controlled areas or otherwise it will retaliate it follows several days of clashes between syrian rebels and his bill of militants near the lebanese border so far has been has not officially responded to the straits but it certainly has more regional implications and we're now seeing this kind of conflict between two board factions on either side of the border and at the same time if indeed the. ultimatum passes today and there is no response it also seems to present a sonali in which you have the syrian rebels giving a lot of hard and walk talk but actually not following up with much action on the ground so they'll be hard pressed to make good on their threats let's get more on this now from middle east expert tariq ali thanks for joining us here on the today show what do you think this recent attack was aimed at. well it's so obvious the recent attack was and the syrian government. it will say

introduce stabilized say it further and at the same time it was a very clear response to those who are arguing like myself and others the base should be a political settlement that this ugly stalemate should not be allowed to continue. any longer and that the saner elements within the opposition should sit down and see what can be sorted out even at this late that late stage because if this doesn't happen the war will expand as we are seeing into lebanon on and then anything's possible affectively the syrian rebel forces trying to topple the government have not had open public support which they wanted in terms of the nato strike promise of the united states coming to back them and their fictive league trying to maintain their position during this ugly transitional

period to see how they can keep the situation the stabilized but it is not in the interest of the syrian people in my opinion that you mentioned lebanon there and how worrying a development is it that the free syrian army has apparently sent an ultimatum to has been off threatening to send its positions in that well if they can carry that out which is an open question because their pockets often worse than their bite but worth it to do that they would be dealing with a totally different entity then they deal with in syria because hezbollah is a popular mass organization with support of a very sizable section of the lebanese population and walked that could do could be a could be to reopen the wounds of previous civil wars in lebanon which no one wants neither has the law nor its opponents in that country. if this happened to me my western countries use this conflict as a means of targeting hezbollah in lebanon even well they've never stopped during

that don't forget the last attempt to crush us with i was made by these release who invaded lebanon on bombed of bare root tried to crush but suffered reverses themselves so i think they've learned from that that it is not easy to wipe out a movement with popular support and popular bases they have they have learned their lesson the hard way and were there to try it again the results would not be too dissimilar. and as for finding a solution the syrian opposition coalition earlier said it's ready for talks but only if president assad has no role in the transitional government so where is the way forward in your opinion well in my opinion you know this is a critical moment for syria just look at the ordinary people in this country suffering mouthfull mune of dozens of months it's an appalling condition in which

to bring up children or to live everyday lives and blog sites have to make compromises and if the opposition is prepared to call the above leadership without something in my opinion so be it it's not a defeat for anyone it's just a sign that it's time to recognize reality so should he resign. and it all should open up i don't think there should be seen as a defeat it be a victory for the entire syrian people were about to happen and it will reassure many many minorities and create ok when they think their territory historian middle east expert thank you for joining us here on r.t. today. well still to come leap of faith jordan. what the muslim brotherhood surging there and it's worrying many about its newest organizations growing influence in the kingdom details on later in the program.

rusher is demanding more clarity of the investigation into how a three year old adopted boy died a month ago in the us is adoptive mother says maxime's death was an accident moscow suspects the torture was abused by the american family the local officials though claim it's too early for conclusions. that is in texas. twenty russian children in the last seventeen years died in their adoptive american families most recently here in texas much seen clues mean known to locals as max shadow just what i heard on the news was just the kid had some scratches. that's all i know three year old mark sam 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. for the result russian authorities didn't hear about the case for almost a month. even unfortunately it's usually months after russian child has dined 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. 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 markstein cruz means death texan 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 floor paste 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. west to pay attention to yet another tragic destiny of a hopeless child to whom it promised a better life on it for oil and r.t.e. act or county texas or nails wholegrain is a former group which works for the safety and well being of children in care he believes next seems death puts american adoption firmly in the spotlight and all we can say about the adoption system itself is a failure especially in america where the federal government has no control over who actually happens. you need to have

a proper system in place that checks. adoptive parents much better before the adoption which has post option 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 a right to privacy britain may struggle to keep the lights on in a few years the country's energy regulator warning that it's coming dangerously close to power shortages and household bills are likely to skyrocket because more fuel will need to be brought in from abroad because e.u. position regulations mean coal fired stations have to close over martie sarah first in london. not good news for consumers here in britain after all they've been warned once again that their energy bills a set to rise now this warning was issued by the chief executive of the energy what

store of gem and he said that a fall in the u.k.'s power production capacity got wherever nubile energy market hasn't quite caught up yet kids be set to push our bills 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 and 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 what we've had these warnings before what's happening right now is 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 boat 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 gray. 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 operating

power plants off the case system so nice 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 a 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 and exports economic activity psychiatrist such as china and india so the effects of overall effect on climate change lies very small so you actually could have it being counterproductive he mentioned china and india the government has said don't panic and fear we're going to keep britain flights which don't actually have countries like china are demanding more imports that's pushing the global prices higher so we're actually removing 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 recently imported coal it comes from potential

flashpoint such as the persian gulf of course some us 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 that's a third a very controversial debate affecting millions of house of all across the cape and it looks like the debate around britain's energy both felt to be heated. sort of reporting there from journalists to blacklist the u.k. as media gets a thumbs down from the public in a nationwide poll now to find out who came out and why british his popularity has taken a nosedive. last mammoth remains undiscovered in the caucasus viveash not just we do go into the details of the brain.

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about the program. now then the journalists are among britain's least trusted people according to a nationwide survey let's have a look at the mori poll which revealed all this politicians in general came out worst a whopping seventy seven percent don't like what they're saying bankers only did slightly better we've got seventy five percent of then that people are deeply suspicious of and no surprise really i suppose given the money troubles they've landed the public in but journalists are viewed oh most as trustworthy as bankers more than they go seventy two percent there of people in britain no longer believing them either or it's only gosling who's investigative journalist himself told artie's kevin no and it's not the reporters but their bosses who are to blame

the first thing i'll say is this 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 volcano is 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 on these owners are basically using their outlets to push peddle their own political line 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 so general just stunning for this people feel the media is all too frequently lying to them starting 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 or saying at the end of the news that is what we decided to tell you tonight is 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 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 you should have people without political persuasion or any x. you know senior politicians running the b.b.c. and of course the result was being things like the savile scandal of coming out but nobody is actually being sacked for that. about fly on the war might have more to it than you think online and we have details of the american air force and

insecticides drones would be able to fly and spied out deadly targeted missions. on the website but this prime minister cameron says he's open to something money overseas and the military budget he says it's skipping operations story. prosecutors in poland are reportedly set to drop the charges against the country's former intelligence chief stemming from allegations that the cia was allowed to run a secret prison in the country he was the first high profile official of any nation to be prosecuted and the so-called black sites. who coordinates the cia observatory program says national security is widely used as an excuse for human rights violations. there is a very interesting records of the council of europe. marti. who say the national security is actually. kind of instrument

and justification to high human rights violations and i think it might be a case in poland where the whole investigation in this occasion is sick classified it's covered by state secrecy and this is why. the government like titian's and persecutor office they don't want to disclose any information regarding this case. well the russian scientists have heard another huge glimpse into a prehistoric past of discovering the remains of a mammoth no this was the area could hold more skeletons of the animals which became extinct tens of thousands of years ago well it is within a culture never is on the trail and joins us now here in the studio would you know where they find this thing well kerry wasn't siberia where they found it like many would have thought actually happen in russia as in north caucasus now the discovery

was made and because as you know about a region which is a very mountainous area and also home to al bruce europe's highest peak now during the seasonal snow saw landslides occur and it's these landslides that can reveal what's been burry deep in the ground and that's exactly what happened and they know exactly what they found it is the history of this thing well local researches say that these are the remains of the south and mamma's now that animal lived in europe and central asia as some two and a half million years ago which was around the time b. ice age began they were huge animals four meters tall and also known for its curled tusks their laughter african homeland and migrated to eurasia and their last resort as widely seen as what is now self and russia we should also say that out of seven full mammal skeletons that were found in the world three were found in russia wow

what are they going to do with all these remains that well first of all research us will have to date and task them but the most interesting part here is that they believe that there could be many more remains close by. living near the site have been finding pieces of bone vertebrae for many decades some of them used the vertebrae of screen that gives you an idea how large it is one theory suggests that all mammals became extinct at the same time so we may have found an entire graveyard where they were all together before her death. so we'll wait and see what kind of prehistoric treasure trove the caucus this could be and i've lived in the caucus as another reported from the north caucasus and i can tell you it's a place that's really dripping in history which parts of which have been remained untouched for thousands of years and who knows what it actually holds absolutely untouched and so now fantastic or maybe the coach never thank you very much for

that well then an update of some other news for you. well there's misery for air travelers in this plane above gary's entire government may have resigned a protest there last night of this team thousands marched across the field to the parliament building as did supporters of the now outgoing prime minister must resignation for the week or angry nationwide demonstrations in forest country that was sparked my energy price rises spent images and women living standards. but i barrier stood on strike stages out in the drift against a plan to lay off thousands of workers the airline merger of british airways and twenty that and make a baseball season targeting a loss making it deep cuts hundreds of flights have been grounded are expected to cost the struggling leisure humors most readily. the

detective leading the oscar pistorius murder case is also facing serious charges in both there is accused of seven counts of attempted murder of the claims he and two other officers drunkenly opened fire on a minibus in two thousand neven he took the witness stand again on thursday but could be removed from the investigation into why paralympian pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend reeva steenkamp last week. there are conflicting reports over whether a french privateer were abducted on holiday in time read on tuesday had been freed in nigeria news who was first announced by french minister who later backtracked an official from come ruud also denied it. says the four children three adults were seized by the new taurus is in this group boko haram reports had emerged that the hostages were rescued off of special forces tracked down come room where they were seized he's a former french colony just like mali a military intervention continues in political expert ken starr in doubts france's

liberation tensions in the region saying it's only fueling extremism the former me on. well you know powers are once again flexing their muscles and they're starting to reach back into and into yugoslavia into iraq into at 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 your arabia and that's very important to the french we have a twenty first century race for colonies beginning so tragic that there is a further problem that the west has introduced in a successful overthrow of the look of the good up. to types 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 but a couple of minutes we journey through the niger delta where its inhabitants thoughts into survival against a corrupt government and oil companies with its.