this town in ruins a powerful explosion rocks a small community leaving behind death and destruction coming up the sights and sounds out of west texas. and a day of prayer to remember the victims president obama attends an interface service to honor the victims of the boston boston marathon attack this as the f.b.i. appears no closer to finding out who was responsible for the explosions and update from boston straight ahead. and cisco is the backlog makers in the house vote on a controversial bill but the white house is vowing to veto it later in the show what's in the bill and why you should be concerned about your internet freedom. it's thursday april eighteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching r.t. well we begin in texas where a major blast at

a fertilizer plant literally decimated half a town between five and fifteen people are reported dead upwards of one hundred sixty people have been injured that included in that count are three to four firefighters as well as one police officer who is still missing the explosion happened on the west fertilizer company the blast happened at eight pm eastern time in the town of west texas this is a small farming town with about twenty seven hundred residents this town is located just about twenty miles north of waco texas now amazingly last night's blast was caught on multiple cameras let's take a look at some of that incredible footage. sure the. authorities were called to the plant more than half an hour before the explosion occurred because of a fire in the factory evacuations of the surrounding area had already begun not

a moment too soon as you just saw now i want to give you some perspective on just how far reaching this blast really was it decimated a five block radius toppling between fifty and seventy five homes take a look at this the explosion was so powerful that a seismograph in our morello texas which is over four hundred miles away detected it it was so big it registered as a two point one earthquake on the richter scale r.t. correspondent is in west texas this afternoon and he takes a look at the aftermath. yes of the world's continued to be on the tiny town of west texas where a mass casualty explosion continues to cause great emotional heartache here in the heart of texas we're just a few miles away at hillcrest medical center where more than one hundred people were transported more than one hundred sixty people have been transported to local

hospitals according to the mayor of west who also spoke to us overnight and told us that at least fifty to sixty homes have been completely destroyed we were about a mile away from the fertilizer plant which had an explosion yesterday and we saw the devastation in the downtown business district windows blown out right now there's still a search and rescue effort going on. so far law enforcement has said that somewhere between five and fifteen people have perished in the explosion however we expect those numbers to greatly increase as many first responders are believed to be under the rubble many still unaccounted for right now though first responders and local officials were not say that the casualty count has gone up however hospitals here are ready to take in more patients reporting from waco texas. r t. let's turn now to boston where investigators are still trying to piece together the

events that led up to the explosions at the boston marathon and actually track down those responsible for the bombings the f.b.i. is in the process of locating two men seen in at least one surveillance video from the boston marathon at this point homeland security secretary janet napolitano hesitated to call these men suspects but expressed interest in interviewing them for more on the boston marathon bombings r.t. correspondent. right now hey they're not so what are the latest developments coming out of boston are we any closer to a suspect or an arrest. made and that certainly the question on everybody's mind certainly you know the bombings took place on monday this is thursday here and people are expecting some kind of tangible results to be announced of course yesterday there was a little bit of panic surrounding a possible arrest as we know the media here started reporting that possibly one arrest has been made that was later reiterated and definitely people are getting impatient to find out exactly who was behind these bombings but unfortunately we

are nowhere closer as of today as of right now in terms of whether or not the f.b.i. is closer to finding the man or several people behind these bombings we're still questioning and wondering whether or not it's going to turn out to have been an individual or group a domestic or foreign attack certainly waiting to find that out even though our reporters are being promised that the investigation is moving ahead every hour they're getting somewhere closer so far there have been no tangible announcements made as you mentioned officials are considering two possible men and surveillance videos but really this is something that's very much up in the air we do know that they're considering thousands of videos including a week before the bombings took place using all the surveillance videos they could lay their hands on and certainly right now they are not close to being to announcing who could have been behind this attack from what we know now on a saucer you just brought something up and something that has been brought up in

numerous media outlets the new york post today has a feature cover featuring two alleged suspects what has happened to those men and are they still is still suspects. you know nobody is yet using the word suspects there is certainly talk of two men with backpacks that we're seeing somewhere around the finishing line at the boston marathon but you know there's really a lot of speculation at this point especially when it comes to the media you know there's footage out there of course as we know the bombs are said to have been made at home homemade devices and officials are saying that the bombs were likely placed in backpacks and then later put in garbage can so you know a lot of talk about backpacks certainly when there's a certain picture of people holding one there's a lot of discussion of you know whether or not the backpack looks suspicious is it reason enough to look into that particular person so certainly this is being talked about by the word suspects are not being used as of yet now on a stasi i understand that president obama today went to

a multi-faith service commemorating the victims of the boston marathon bombing and giving a speech that he used to use the marathon to actually as a metaphor to compare that to american president president can you tell us a little bit more about this morning service. well you know it was definitely an emotional time people living here in boston were certainly looking forward to some kind of consolation and they did in fact to get that the president was here the president of united states was here to address the people living here in boston and people throughout the united states concerned with this latest tragedy and certainly he gave a very hard heartfelt speech and did meet with the victims' families and you know tried to do what he could on his part to make people feel better and i guess safer because of the situation because certainly this is something that was never expected or could have been predicted in this in this kind of picture perfect city megan now i also understand. yesterday was not the proudest day for our colleagues

over at c.n.n. as well as at fox news both of them reported that an arrest had definitely taken place and then they actually backtracked within the hour wireless confusion and did you see any direct consequences of this false reporting on the streets of boston. well yes megan you know that was definitely quite amusing and we did see this unravel in front of our very eyes when reports started coming out of c.n.n. saying that there was an arrest made there were quoting there special sources only within you know literally minutes after blowing this up into breaking news that one arrest was finally made to backtrack and you know they had a guest on who said well actually we can confirm with much better sources that no such arrest has been made on the f.b.i. was scheduled to hold a press conference yesterday on wednesday which they ended up canceling you know reportedly because of this false information started coming out in terms of whether or not this effect of people here in boston probably not there was probably some kind of false hope that finally this investigation has moved closer to finding who

was behind the attacks but certainly there was some concerns that this could have been misleading for for the investigation itself and for certainly the whoever is behind the attack in terms of their further their further steps and then being closer to tracking this person down are to correspondent honest reporting in boston . well bizarre new developments in the incident that put the white house on the lawn high alert along with the capitol hill and actually caused the numerous evacuations on capitol hill yesterday authorities have now arrested and charged a man believed to have sent two suspicious letters to president obama as well as republican senator roger wicker forty five year old paul kevin curtis was arrested by f.b.i. officers in his home in corinth mississippi last night mr currence is somewhat of a celebrity in his hometown he and his father are famous for their elvis impersonation zz don't believe me well see for yourself.

he also does of buddy holly johnny cash and prince impersonations as well paul kevin curtis has made his intentions for the letters clear and he believes that he covered a conspiracy to sell human body parts on the black market he also claims that the f.b.i. and various parties within the government are trying to ruin his reputation and are using drones to actually spy on him and yet another strange twist senator wicker confirmed today he actually hired mr curtis to do impersonations at a party that he and his wife were hosting just a few years back and additional letter was sent to mississippi judge earlier in the week the letters tested positive for the poisonous substance known as rice seen now just to have some background that is a substance that is derived from the castor plant that is the same plant that is used to make castor oil there are no known antidote to race scene and is

extraordinary deadly poison which is actually inhaled those letters though did not actually reach the hands of the president or the senator mr curtis has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the past he and his attorneys maintain his innocence they have not yet decided whether to seek a hearing to determine his mental state if convicted mr curtis could spend anywhere between five and fifteen years in prison. well it's thursday and that means it's time on today's agenda is the u.s. cyber intelligence sharing protection act it's better known as cisco we talk about a lot here on r.t. now just today the bill passed through the house of representatives two hundred eighty eight to one hundred twenty seven it is now on its way to the senate so this is causing a bitter divide in both the capitol hill as well as in silicon valley computer giants like i.b.m. and intel have both lobbied very hard in support of the bill meanwhile months reddit and advocacy groups like the electronic frontier foundation have voiced

concerns over privacy rights and even the president is weighing in in a letter to congress the white house threatened to veto the bill in its current form so to talk more about this tangled web is sharon bradford franklin she's a senior counsel at the constitution project and she joins me now hey there so i use the internet every day for work for play for everything i'm sure you do most americans do how does this but change the way that i use the web or should use the web well the problem is that the bill that was passed today by the house does not include adequate safeguards to prevent private companies from sharing your personal information with the government and the basic approach of the bill is to promote information sharing between private sector and the government and the basic concept of that is fine as long as we do have robust safeguards built into the bill and unfortunately we did not get that with this book now let me ask you this this bill in its current form says that it wants private companies as you said it promotes

cooperation it asks private companies to share their information but it does not force them what does that mean that's correct it is voluntary for companies to send information to the government but it creates a huge incentive system because it provides broad scale immunity from liability when companies do share that information with the federal government. and in fact the breath of the immunity provisions is another key problem with this book because companies now if they act in good faith are immune for their information sharing even if they engage in some behaviors that may be reckless or without any kind of reasonable planning involves well let's talk about that liability let's talk about that what does that encompass what exactly can these companies get away with and how little fact us and how we use the internet. well the way the bill is structured poses all of the comments on the government once it receives information to protect our rights and that is really troubling as we do want to make sure that companies

have to play a role here in avoiding sending in your personal information to the government the breath of immunity includes protection for any decisions made based on cyber security purposes and that's a very broad term it can compass a whole lot of activity including as i mentioned some that may be reckless if they perceive there's a cyber attack and they want to take action based on that now as i understand it essentially overrides a lot of the current laws that we have in tact including the electronic communications privacy act for instance considering all those laws a lot of those laws haven't actually been updated since the eighty's is this a way to kind of shortcut and get around actually updating those laws by just passing. no i wouldn't say that and we still do have important efforts to try to mend those laws the concern where the structure the bill says notwithstanding any other law is that it trumps any existing privacy protections and safeguards in that

regard that are already in place and that's why we want to make sure that the provisions within the bill are sufficiently robust and one key problem of course is it does not have a provision that we had hoped for an amendment that would require companies to make reasonable efforts to strip out information that could be used to identify a specific person unrelated to the cyber threat and companies have testified before congress that this is something they can do and i have to ask you about another thing that kind of sparked my interest and that is that this bill actually allows for the or the critics of the bill are actually asking for the bill to be able to allow for this information to first go to some kind of civilian organization like the department of homeland security before it's dispersed to other agencies like the n.s.a. for instance so from your perspective what what does that do what will that help when this information is going out and general well the provision you just mentioned that's actually one good thing that did happen very last minute we got an amendment that was introduced on the floor it was not one that was originally

passed through by the. that does help on this problem of maintaining civilian control under that new provision if companies want to come under the liability protection immunity protections they can only give the information directly to either part of the department homeland security or if it's related to a crime to the department of justice and how well that hell out of her checked us even more because the central means that more people have our information essentially. well it helps protect us because it maintains a civilian agency at the as the one that receives any information coming from our private civilian networks in peacetime so that is a big improvement and that was a key concern for us now of course the bill does require that they departed homeland security and part of justice then set up rules to pass through information in real time to other agencies including of course the n.s.a. but they will have to do that with policies and procedures in place that hopefully at least through automated ways can help minimize the personal information that is

passed through to those other agencies so more regulation and we have a little bit of time left i have to ask you about the money the lobbying efforts that are actually going into this kind of saying now i know on monday i've sent over two hundred executives to d.c. in order to lobby for this bill and as a result thirty six new coast co-sponsors we can see if those who are exactly correlated but thirty six new co-sponsors actually join us but so to say anything about outside interest playing a role on capitol hill well it's a good question there certainly is some indication of that there also i do have to give some credit to the bill's sponsors for making some of these improvements this one that we just discussed about civilian control being an important one but of course it didn't get far enough and we still need to have much more robust safeguards for privacy rights and hopefully that will come through the senate if this bill does continue sharing baffert franklin senior counsel at the constitution project thank you so much for weighing in on this thank you very much now we want to go back to our top story that explosion at the plant in west texas r.t.

correspondent joins me now from west texas with the latest information ramon can you describe the scene there in texas for us. we have still several police departments from around texas border you know of a large area around the fertilizer plant which exploded at about seven thirty local time no we've been getting a refund. briefings periodically from the mayor and from local law enforcement i just came back from one of the local hospitals which admittedly nearly one hundred people who were injured in the explosion last night overall we know that more than one hundred sixty people were hurt in the blast right now there have been compare and tell us however having gotten a new casualty count recently given the fact that this is still a search and rescue mission some of these first responders to get through the

rubble this morning still hoping to find survivors in a neighborhood which has been described as a war zone the mayor called said that it looked like a nuclear bomb had been dropped on his town now ramon i understand that you actually visited one of the hospitals that is hosting a lot of these victims today what did you have a chance to speak with any of them and how were they describing the scene. right well we did speak to one woman earlier who was slightly wounded during the explosion she lived in the vicinity of the blast when she saw the smoke she tried to run towards the senior center knowing that there were tons of seniors there then that's when another blast came and blew her away she was forced to run away with her children but this morning when we talked to her she was so emotionally distraught her family was ok but so many of her friends she did not know the

whereabouts and we have to remember that this is a town of twenty six hundred people many people here know each other many people know a lot of these first responders who are still not accounted for this evening here in texas so a lot of anxious and tense moments for the residents here despite that people not just the police and the fire department the police department came out and told us it is the civilians that live in this town. who should also be considered heroes also ran towards the fire in hopes of helping to save some of their neighbors and at ramon as we were just speaking about it was people in waco that came in as i had reported earlier waco was quite a distance away one of the remarkable things about the boston marathon bombing is how quickly the victims were able to get medical care seeing as possum has some of the best facilities in the country as well as equipment that is already that was already set up for the runners meanwhile west texas is twenty miles away from the nearest hospital so how authorities are sponsored to this catastrophic incident and

helping the victims. in this is a very small town with only a few advil and says and some of the people who work in this town for these emergency services were caught up in the blast itself so hundreds of first responders from throughout texas were able to show up immediately a tree was set up last night behind one of the local community centers on the football field and on the baseball field in the couple of hours that it took us to drive from austin to here that had been cleared and more than one hundred people had been sent to local hospitals so definitely speaks very highly about the preparedness and the cooperation that we've seen here in central texas amongst first responders and finally ramon very quickly any indication on what caused this explosion. you know.

absolutely right now the un investigation is still underway the a.t.f. the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms is taking part in the investigation as a criminal investigation hiver they do not want to say that it was an intentional explosion or something was set there intentionally we have to remember that fertilizer is very volatile and has been using explosives before so it is a dangerous plant however the investigation is still underway for the root cause meanwhile police and firefighters are still searching the rubble near the fertilizer plant r.t. correspondent ramon glenda working hard for us in west texas thank you sara. and now the very latest on a story we've been covering quite frequently here on our team the transpacific partnership is a u.s. led free trade agreement that involves the countries you see here on this map in southeast asia as well as south america one new country is looking to join and that

being japan the u.s. has already approved japan to become one of the partners a move that still needs partner nations australia canada new zealand and peru to give the go ahead other countries have already agreed so what is the t p p well it is a free trade agreement described by the public citizens as the north american free trade agreement on steroids and it's still shrouded in secrecy but we do know that the partnership would involve nearly forty percent of the world's economy and has been a negotiation since the bush administration and is one of president obama's top administrators priorities c.p.p. rules that would actually override any national laws including those regarding internet freedom the production of generic pharmaceuticals environmental and financial regulations and much more for now for more i'm joined by stan so sure he's a labor representative at the special aerospace union pay their stand so now the unions have come out in opposition of the t.t.p.

but that isn't really new news generally oppose free trade agreements so as a representative of the professional aerospace union can you explain your stance on this trade negotiation. sure and thanks frank it's great to talk to you about this very important subject a lot of times you kind of suggested this in the way you friend the question a lot of times it comes across as free trade versus protectionism and my union for instance where in the earth space industry we're one hundred percent in favor of trade everybody i know is in favor of trade we make products the rest of world wants to buy so the issue it for us is is having a good trade policy or a bad trade policy and i think we would know a good trade policy i think all of us do a good trade policy is one that raises our standard of living and so i think that's kind of the way we look at it we have always looked at these trade agreements as you know what do they do for workers and families and communities do they bring

prosperity which is the promise of free trade or are they really you know deindustrializing our economy and shipping jobs overseas and. making you know a weaker economic future that that's really the test i think and it's not just unions who feel this way this is really something that you get across social society i was quite surprised to see that as explained to me it was from by the koreans the japanese understand it this way. in europe they understand it this way these agreements are not so much about trade as the way we express our social values so every organization civil society i think has a very strong stake in this now sand the tipping close the creation of tribunals to deal with disagreements between national laws and foreign firms how does that work and isn't bad for regular citizens. well. that's a very interesting question you know we think of

a tribunals we think of justice and courts as something that have a lot of legitimacy this is very important you know to our social fabric these trade tribunals are very different they're not like our courts they're the decisions are made by trade lawyers who have day jobs being you know employed by trading companies and organizations involved in trade they have no public responsibility they're not accountable to anybody so they'll express the interests that are set up in these tribunals and the way the trade agreements work the highest interest is maximum possible trade and investor right so that's what these tribunals are going to be all about so if the province of quebec wants to study fracking and suspend fracking as a public policy issue. when that goes to the trade tribunal that's not one of the high priorities public interest is not a high priority for the trade tribunal they're going to be thinking about investor

interest because that's what's written into trade agreements and finally sam we have a very very short amount of time left can you break down for me specifically how this is going to hurt your business well that's an interesting question is that going to hurt our business it's going to hurt our communities and our families and workers businesses are going to do very well their interests are being served when it comes to sharing the gains from trade most of those gains which is what we've seen most of those gains go to investors in multinational trading companies and who will be at a disadvantage here at the environment human rights labor rights public health and for financial regulation all those interests of civil society they will they will have a much lower priority then i'm going to have to cut you off their stance or share from the professional aerospace union and that's going to do it for now say right back here at five pm.

a clear image of a rushed onto invasion. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the roads full of danger. clear evidence from north to south of. the rooftops of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. by god taxi all r.t. . good are sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you sheer see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture.

comes. from new york about international and world in the very heart of moscow.

on the road to bass for this morning the u.s. army is beginning to withdraw from iraq. in december twentieth after nine years of occupation the last american troops are finally leaving the country. every guy got in it but it was the only way to get members of the iraqis anger towards the departing innovators who once dreamed of being liberators the departure resembles abandonment and escape despite the optimistic speeches. a. cease. a. little.

april twenty twelve and i'm back in iraq and so on the border with turkey. i have an appointment this morning with the lebanese taxi.

family the united states said they would make a democracy out of iraq in the heart of the arab world but iraq i see today is a country on the brink of chaos torn between three groups kurds sunnis and shias. it is a country divided a stranger to peace that i'm about to cross a taxi ride to the heart of iraqi history. from the hole in the north of travel down through l b let some ammonia cook. tikrit volusia baghdad babylon. and. a road map of the iraqi tragedy. obviously i'm delighted the americans have finally left iraq as much as we're rocky's a very happy not to see that here anymore enough was enough the americans occupied us so we hate them like they lean here in iraq they killed in creating the

conditions for chaos they're responsible for the whole tragedy of them and of course we were living in peace and they came to destroy our country and us over the tallest of the. journey begins on the mountains of iraqi kurdistan. an army of two hundred thousand soldiers called peshmerga watch over this rather particular region of a country. that . jeff. was. my first stop is an l.b.o. the capital of iraqi kurdistan is the only region of iraq today that is seeing peace and an economic boom the miracle of being made possible by the discovery of oil on kurdish territory. for a long. time dominated by baghdad and saddam hussein kurdistan dreams of achieving

autonomy. the first customer the first passenger on our trip is a member of the new kurdish parliament. but just you know in iraq we can say that oil has always been a curse. but today in kurdistan that's changing. foreign oil companies are coming here to work with. the revenues are finally being used for reconstruction and what negative it's a huge difference for us as in saddam's times we never benefited from the oil money or would he had any put this that. he went so it's quite simple we could spend for we're iraqis and where i think they're very rapidly as soon as we have been able to create a stable basis for building

a country ninety nine percent of people will vote for independence because that back east you. know what do what the people want their own country a country called could you stand looking at it as that they want their own passport but there's no kurdish one i suppose you could stand. a land of shepherd's good astonished discovering well through its oil a nightmare for baghdad which had long controlled with the resources and riches. without driver khalid we had east towards the mountains along the border with around. driving through abandoned villages i feel like i'm visiting some a trace. passenger ahmed is a survivor today he's on

a pilgrimage paying tribute to the dead. one thousand nine hundred eight during the island that follow a military campaign waged by saddam against the kurds my village was completely destroyed. and some of the inhabitants i would report it to southern iraq and locked up in the terrible new grass on prison. many women children and men women last week and thrown into mass graves. the kurds have always dreamed of independence saddam hussein decided to eliminate the problem once and for all. his cousin to go down in history as chemical ali was in charge of the repression.

on march sixteenth one thousand nine hundred eight his helicopters dropped bombs loaded with toxic gas over kurdish villages. one hundred thousand civilians were killed and three thousand villages were raised the kurds rebellion was crushed. here in the villages the peshmerga who didn't built up supply. anyone opposed to saddam could seek refuge here. so the regime began by attacking the villages. burning gassing and destroying the villages meant controlling kurdistan. lunch is like a homage to the victims on the menu adama stuffed vegetables prepared by a mets wife. a sunny like saddam hussein my driver khaled is a he didn't know or didn't want to know the terrible truth. look i'll show you

the house where i was born yeah here on this hill where we're a city is like a memorial to the village as it was before the tragedy it was here that the villagers came together every evening to talk to play backgammon and listen to the radio. i leave a comment to mourn and commemorate his loved ones. we continue towards the east and kirkuk the former capital of kurdistan today on iraqi territory. so what if that god be praised i'm not scared when the region was under american control i was afraid about it but as soon as the iraqi police and army took over things got much better if the americans didn't know the region they were afraid and trigger happy that they didn't hesitate to fire at anyone who approached them but you know as a passenger foreigner anyone. on this road has seen a lot of drama how many times did the american shoot down iraqis here for no reason gotta go. through the windscreen the first iraqi checkpoint appears it's time to

lower the camera and film or discreetly. that. the soldiers here are regularly targeted by armed groups and are also quick to shoot a journal about the attacks and kidnappings are frequent in area. and there is no checking our identity an itinerary takes too long hours. but at last we can hit the road again a road that is more than dangerous. to be honest no one took this road before al-qaeda or basically all the terrorists control the region and everyone is afraid of venturing out on this road today we feel a bit safer at getting there but it. the constant road blocks me now two hundred kilometer journey takes eight hours. night

has fallen when i reach her coke in the sky is lit up by flast tanks the city floats on a vast sea of oil. for centuries pilgrims came here to gather around the eternal flames. the kurds would dearly love to reclaim the city the former capital of baghdad. unwilling to lose such a profitable treasure. one term to a majority of kids today is a mix of turkmen arabs kurds and christians a veritable ethnic powder keg. so i went to. this morning's planters around occurred but did not work out who can kurdistan's independence he would pay with his own blood. so i would.

kind of cook. has to become part of kurdistan and that it's vital we are bonded by blood to go to them but them they can kill us and shoot at us but he won't change anything we are linked to kurdistan let's have a city i mean we cannot live outside of kurdistan it would be like dying. my brother we invite you to a restaurant. my i cannot let you go without inviting me i am a kurd and hospitality is a custom with us. you can continue your journey after the mail and i swear before god i want to come to the restaurant with me you are welcome when you're. away of course. for khaled it's time to pray. and for us to eat. as we enter the village a few peace men appear as an escort. i would say to watch as they say to protect us

. and so i pay for everyone's meal as a kind of friendly tax. was. it said that kirkuk could be one of the world's richest cities it is certainly one of the most dangerous. discreet an ordinary heroin. who was a kurd investment or a republican fortune in the opening of a private school a generous act which has attracted m.p.'s attention. don't let. this man i'm terrified so little if i do the day after not thought it was broadcast to promote the school to physio and so i got a telephone call i would you know bold enough to join they said oh yes there's a lot of hobby hello about any hello little you know a nothing at hobby that is simple. enough to go and then introduced himself as a member of

a terrorist organisation and demanded money for that and my colleagues were terrorized through. the night close the school for a month and then i said we have to open it again we can't just give in. michael but we have to work still life has to go on. that. neither the terrorists nor anyone else can stop me from working a bit still only god is the master of my destiny wealthy british soil. the time to let. the. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max culture there are no holds barred look at the global financial headlines two kinds a report on our. world with.

science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. the same.

the new cover international airport in the very heart of moscow. when we reach must to the second biggest city in iraq it has been locked down by

the army. the previous night two bombs went off in the suit. i have to negotiate with the military chiefs for three hours before they let me in. across what appears to be a dead city and yet today mosul is in party mode. my name is ahmed on about i'm a law student today is a festival the university day that's why we can see all the troops they have to protect us. the situation is very difficult the country is undergoing a wave of anonymous attacks and assassination of a do it my dream is quite simple i just want to live in an iraq that's safe and peace it's a magnificent country mustn't forget that it was once respectfully known as mesopotamia the land between two rivers i dream of peace. but peace seems impossible. the americans have gone but now kurds shias and sunnis battle for

control of the city even the mosques are under military protection the internet in killing goes on in the name of allah. a leave muscle with no regrets. this road fraught with danger can also hold certain surprises in the stops to help a friend even in iraq one can run out better. it's hilarious we have the world's second biggest oil reserves and we're short of petrol and gas. were reduced to filling up on the black market at exorbitant prices. common sense would suggest that petrol was available in quantity and free perhaps not free but not too expensive anyway and what. john.

as soon as we arrived on the outskirts of tikrit saddam hussein's former stronghold where arrested by the police i have the feeling we were expected. after a few hours of questioning were put under house arrest in a hotel and forbidden from going out. and the situation eases the following afternoon when we're granted two hours of freedom but we're still under close surveillance. the next man who joins us in the taxi is in mourning his name's feel he's a journalist and he lost his best friends just two days ago. but god will save iraq . sorry. you had to draw your they want to make iraq a wretched country be. glad when they assassinate the best among us the terrorist

who kills a journalist like my colleague at the new shanel or who kills a religious man behind an academic or teacher. certainly doesn't do it for religious reasons it's obvious he does it mostly for money because our religion does not tolerate all these crimes the only motive for these crimes is money and they're ordered from outside to kill our best people any of us. in the city center the mosque still bears the name of the man who built it was saddam hussein. idealist come to pay a final homage to his murdered friend. i am on april second two thousand and twelve . a holiday in a journalist for a local t.v. station was killed instantly when his car exploded. until. a relaxing evening along the

banks of the tigris overseen by the palace of the local hero sadam. saddam was always surrounded by members of his own tribe and many here miss the man who built a sunni state much to their advantage. they can injure or kill the americans didn't come here to look for weapons of mass destruction or to hunt down saddam hussein they came to rob us and to kill us ation iraq it was a unified country but at the moment when they arrived at the americans that triggered divisions by creating ethnic conflicts just you know this very well. they destroyed everything and then they left but they don't know but in reality they're still here they make people think they've gone but they're still present their aim is to create discord in iraq that all muslims are the self but.

as we leave tikrit we come to a village the heart of saddam hussein's kingdom where he was finally caught. on decide. fourteenth two thousand and three saddam was captured at dawn in his hideout in a farmyard a miserable rattle two meters underground. disheveled and distraught he surrendered to the american forces. in his possession with two kalashnikovs and seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. by. other goals taxis a gas guzzler and we need more petrol. but it was here. we seek out the black market and the power level business which fills the coffers of

a few politicians civil servants and terrorist groups to. the oil money benefits everyone apart from the iraqi people. not. enough of. the temperature hits more than forty degrees on the machines a cool down with a hose. for the men it's time to wash and pray before sitting down for a meal. that surprised by my presence but soon opened up. for the sunny customers the whole affair was an american manipulation. movement the greek word kuwait plays a key role in the arab world and. the americans use the country to trap saddam of like them or fearing i mean harvard before they set the date of when he took it it

was a prearranged ambush. it's time to leave and head for fallujah. well it doesn't like stopping for too long. kidnappings are frequent here and for the criminal gangs everyone has a price probably including me. the killing in the kidnappings may be motivated by political or religious convictions but increasingly simply for profit. i've lost count of the checkpoints along the way but the controls this morning seem interminable. i don't know who this fever victory sign is aimed at as we finally enter the ravaged city of fallujah.

and the little girl oh joe was the scene of one of the most violent american offensives. a g.i. summerlee killed youngsters and whole families here yani. always a collision recover. but they blew up cars and caused a lot of fatalities. is the most ravaged city in iraq of them annoying. oh yes that's the america lots of legit ok. the heat is unbearable and our motor is overheating the local grocer helps us to cool it. he's a man driven by anger he experienced the battle of fallujah at first hand and how there was what i am what they are you call a democracy now it's quite simply about killing and stealing our wealth our lands were burnt from the effects of the white phosphorous bombs and now our children are

gone disfigured. that they are not one with us they are so beloved all the god living with us go and see the hospitals and you'll see mothers throwing away their babies deform the. by all the chemical weapons that saddam the only good know if there's justice in the world bush will have to answer for his war crimes and crimes against humanity he claimed iraq had weapons of mass destruction but where were they these weapons. before let me although i do know that there was a killer using the white phosphorus bomb while i'm on one side and not even the mosque was safe from his barbarity when i look at the ruined minaret well i'm not that's bush's democracy the job holy hell them about the other bullshit i be at. on nov seventh two thousand and four a deluge of iran and fire rained down on the city of two hundred mosques. to die it was a last stronghold for the al qaeda mujahideen. twelve thousand marines three hundred

tanks and one hundred also helicopters were launched against pollution. the biggest urban battle in iraq was under way. the american victory was total the casualty figures speak for themselves one hundred american soldiers were killed and on the iraqi side it's estimated there were between four and five thousand victims most of them civilians. the battle left a city in ruins where death continue to take its toll. and their offensive it's thought the u.s. troops used white phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium weapons banned by all international conventions.

said i want a new passenger is not administrator at the general hospital. since the battle of fallujah ended has kept records of the children born with congenital malformation. for him there's no doubt the americans were responsible for this tragedy. for me the administrator's office becomes an empty chamber of horrors. the war is far from over in fact it's still going on for the stigmata rivera and they're only in two thousand and five we know to

a spectacular increase in genetic malformations a new born babies. voters only show a tiny part of their reality just for the month of january we recorded forty three cases. worst. white house to give a. minute. did you ever see anything like that i'm cold.

the cut international airport in the very heart of moscow. for the. texas town of roy.