a russian team uncovers evidence of alleged rebel involvement in a deadly syrian chemical attack while u.s. congress puts the brakes on military aid to the opposition fearing weapons may fall into the wrong hands. egypt's political forces fail to agree on a transition plan while crisis convulsions and what used to be a popular tourist destination are turning visitors away dealing a have a blow to its volatile economy. snowden reported we will be towards venezuela for silent while our team speaks to aqua doris foreign minister on the reasons behind latin america's backing for whistleblowers on the run.

it is to be am in the russian capital you're watching r t with me maureen and josh welcome to the program while russia says it was the syrian rebels not president assad's forces behind a chemical attack in aleppo that left two dozen dead earlier this year that incident was used by washington to justify sending arms to the opposition but those weapons are now in limbo with congress refusing to bring in line their shipment that he tales from. washington seems very convinced that bashar al assad was behind this attack that it was allegedly a chemical attack they say they had evidence no one seen it hasn't been published or given to it to the press in any way so a lot of people still wondering what exact evidence that is that russia has conducted an investigation alongside so actually on the ground and ambassador to the u.n. at the tele turk and now can explain what exactly they found and why they believe

that it wasn't assad who was behind that attack the results of the analysis clearly indicate that the ordinance used in kannada so was not industrially manufactured and was filled with sudden but the sudden technical specifications proved that it was not in the us to really monitor actually either the projectile involved is not a standard one for chemical use therefore there is evidence you seem to believe that it was the armed opposition fighters who used the chemical weapons so now we know that turkey and went on to pass these results the actual the actual results of this investigation on to bomb ki-moon and there has been some reaction from the u.k. from the u.s. and the u.k. they say they highly doubt that in fact these results will prove that it wasn't behind the attack and it goes as far to show that the u.s. in fact the white house spokesperson when asked if he had read the report he

replied no but they're already saying that they believe it's highly unlikely that this will really prove anything what you have is you have people in washington know who are behind some kind of military involvement in syria and then you have people who are out right against it you have congress blocking this delivery of arms which was made possible it was proposed after this attack and this these alleged reports that assad was behind this so-called chemical attack this was the reason they began laying out this arms shipment shipments it's being blocked by members of congress but then. you have certain committees in congress so called war hawks one of them being led by carl levin who writes open letters calling for friends of syria to begin as soon as possible precision air strikes against assad and then you have more direct representatives of the obama administration vice president joe biden secretary of state john kerry pushing and really lobbying for that lift for that

block on this weapons shipments to the syrian opposition to be lifted so it's a very complicated war a civil war but in washington like i said it seems very clear cut you have people either completely against or completely for military action. how force feeding one time or inmates is just a symptom of a far more serious disease that's the view of one of us clary who thinks conducting the painful procedure at niger in ramadan is far from the key concern in a prisoner's desperate plight stay with us for that. plus losing its spark in britain millions of pounds worth of electricity is being stolen from the grid to grow illegal drugs and it's householders who are food in the bill that's coming up later here on r t. a transition roadmap for idjit proposed by the interim leader has failed with both the muslim brotherhood and liberal opposition saying no to the motion the plan outlines constitutional

amendments and parliamentary elections by two thousand and fourteen the army though is standing behind an interim government warning against any attempt to disrupt the transition the country struggling to get back on its feet after its second crewing two years which led to the ousting of islamist president mohamed morsi has been aggravated most recently by deadly street battles across egypt which have landed a blow to the country's tourism industry and the wider economy more details from our correspond belcher. behind me is the egyptian museum one of the most popular tourist destinations in the whole of the country is the first port of call for many tourists coming off the plane here in downtown cairo however it isn't empty this is a scene that's been seen across the country in all the most popular tourist destinations following a week of political turmoil after the ouster of mohamed morsi egypt's tourists and history which makes up a never percent of the country's economy has taken a massive beating since the only way to define revolution particularly as terrorists are becoming increasingly scarce in the last week we've seen massive

makes my demonstrations funded by clashes between rival groups on sunday fifty people were killed in clashes between security forces and supporters off the deposed president leaving many to feed the terrorist were coming to egypt in the future. that been travel warnings have been issued by embassies including the us embassy actually sent may spend on a measure to stop time off turning u.s. citizen was stopped last week in these bloody clashes major international tour operators that are becoming kind of also come so to speak to my oldest on september fearing the principal time i will continue to do to this this is a free like but still work this has most kids however local tour operators on souvenir shops and you don't have international backing israel to plug the gaps i'm here with a showcase of the one hand he works in the museum behind me. and he is saying that this being a very difficult week here for tourism so tell me. how you know how has the last

week been in the in the museum all that any tourists last week this week that's before months. new duties to come the boy the no. don't place the city yeah i mean. if you do that somebody place goes and you feel as if it shows you know more world than if you used to be thanks very much sarkozy. so people are fearing meant as those supporters of the previous leader mohamed morsy remain in the sit in and refuse to go home in various parts of the country they're going to see further clashes but those like shoki working in the tourist industry they feed this means tourists are going to continue to be scared from coming to egypt and actually the future of egypt's tourism is going to be even worse. well here with me in the studio is our business for the presenter katie pilbeam to tell us more about how the revolution has battered but has any of broken the egyptian economy kay thank you so much for joining us here as we heard

it used to be one of the top holiday destinations for a lot of people so how has it been affected yet it's obviously not a great advertisement for people wanting to go on holiday or a lot of the. we know and right now it's the ac fifth most popular place to go it's dropped ten places in just a year because of what's been happening on the streets let's see how many people are still going and as you can see we did have a surge going up to twenty twenty levon is where the problems began and that's when we saw the dip although we did see some resilience coming back and those numbers were expected to go back up to thirty million people visiting egypt but that's looking less likely now about what's happened we can see this just here that counts to a drop of thirty seven percent of people visiting the country to go on holiday that's a lot isn't it i mean it is a significant drop there and given the number of tourists visiting this country out to say that for many russians still is top destination but maybe not now so are the

time being they have to change their routes a little bit let's now take a look at tourism in a broader context a broader economic on this perhaps so how is it affecting the economy of the country or huge debts you really considerably we're talking two point five billion dollars since the troubles first began so it's a big dent in the egyptian economy it will be able to see and again it's just there in twenty eleven when the charles did begin we've got the lights of the u.s. the u.k. and canada or issuing these warnings to their people either not to go or to be cautious when they do go so far as i say and if we consider each terrorist spends on average seventy dollars a night when you consider you've got millions of people going it is a big problem for egypt to have to really focus in on it surely sounds like a huge blow because there are so many services and industries that are services. industry restaurants hotels and infrastructure lots of things infrastructure it's

both camel riders it's taxes are all these people is having a knock on effect of all of that and if you consider one in eight people addictions work in the tourist industry. so a lot of people are affected by this and of course it's for now though i mean seems like a vicious circle but let's hope that one day the country will get through a very capable beam thank you so much for this and there are those who are happy to help egypt out of its dire financial situation during its sensitive transition period saudi arabia has agreed to provide the struggling nation with five billion dollars the lion's share of which is an energy products in cash while the united arab emirates will stump up three billion in loans and bank deposits are to contributor returns he says it's not a gesture of goodwill. the u.a.e. and saudi definitely did not like the muslim brotherhood and so the saudi station al-arabiya quite called it in dubai in the u.a.e.

backs the rebels and you go. back to qatar which is backing the mostly government is against a military coup so you have both sides using media using financing using weapons sales to back them in egypt all the time the united states we must remember that president obama was backing mubarak dictator up until the end seemingly not quite knowing what he's going to do and perhaps the saudis are threatening him even john mccain the presidential candidate used the word coup for obama we get nothing in the mainstream media all we get is mom will baradei another nobel prize winner like obama who is saying nothing about the house arrest without charge of a democratically elected president let alone the ending of a parliament and the destruction of a free media which continues at the moment in egypt now the fall of egypt's democratically elected president and the return of the revolution these are among

the issues discussed in today's edition of crosstalk. you know it's it's easy to want to call it a revolution it's easy to want to call it a coup it does fit the textbook definition of a coup but at the same time secy isn't sitting here trying to to be the new dictator he's not trying to be the new mubarak hold on a minute that's supposed to have the facts on the ground what city which who is general since you is that defense minister did when you first giving. out huge mess which was absolutely impossible that they knew fully well that he was going to spectacularly failed because he's been trying to do that i love you and you know maybe i need to defend don't get me wrong. and cross checks coming your way next hour here in our later this hour the first ballot from moscow in a decade the russian capital prepares to choose its next mayor already and.

some of the ruling party is acting in their opposition blog earth to broadband front man a few minutes we'll look at who is in the running and the water weights the winner . will. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

download the official publication if you so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television or it just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch your t.v. any time anyway. welcome back you're watching r.t. coming to a line from the russian capital now three latin american states have offered asylum but average snowden has yet to pick which one he looks out reported say is leaning towards venezuela as offer came in early on a wave of south american support speaking exclusively to our tea aqua doors foreign minister explain the continent and why

a backing for whistleblowers and why he believes it's necessary that he tales from reimport not. as the world waits to see which country edward snowden will pick as his new home martine spoke exclusively with ecuador's foreign minister ricardo patino about the n.s.a. whistleblower and the fallout following his revelations now ecuador was the first to initiate an emergency summit among south american states after a plane carrying bolivian president evo morales was grounded in vienna last week it was grounded according to reports on suspicion that snowden was on board in route from moscow foreign minister put seno says the unprecedented violation of international law should prompt more countries to offer their assistance to snowden . after the incident with as we have no doubt to the snowden is being pursued at an international level. countries to offer him asylum ecuador is also considering this

option but it'll be better if it's not just three countries that come forward to offer him protection but ten twenty or one hundred states ecuador's foreign minister told r.t. that he was thoroughly surprised at the scale of the u.s. surveillance system in particular that programs were created to indiscriminately spy on people in latin america and even friendly states in europe now but senior said he was also shocked that instead of being persistent in demanding immediate explanations from the u.s. about its pervasive spying some european countries allegedly work together to ground the plane of a world leader and put the life of bolivia's president in danger. it's just outrageous if it had been a european leader or the american president it would have triggered a war if any latin american country had done this then troops and fighter jets would have been sent in to rescue the leader you can't just discriminate against

countries so that some nations see their international rights observed while others are ignored. now the foreign minister of ecuador argues that the plane incident indicates that europe he says now functions as america's back yard a position that latin america has rejected to serve. a massive two day conference is taking place between the world's premier economies china and the u.s. on the face of it it's all about trade economics and conventional security but behind closed doors it's all about cyber security let's get more now on the talks with france's luna hong kong based political commentator mr lim thanks so much for joining us here in r.t. to discuss this so according to the seen so far everything is going very well what's your take. well two months ago the u.s. congress was waiting. for people who.

have been take to the. u.s. government. you as corporations for trade secrets but at that moral high ground. since last month since june when it was snowden disclose that actually do you ask of my inspire everybody running the world so. you as the gaucherie they would have a lot of explaining to do why the heck does everyone that happen remember that it happened on a deal with the california summit where obama met so the timing of it was quite interesting as well so the question now is how has that word snowden's revelations affected the tone of negotiations between the u.s. and china afterwords. post california some of that is well put did you yeah well put do you on the defensive actually because you. really

aggressive. pursuing the fact that. humans but now of course they. are much much larger scale and. think that you will be on the defense if it is. economic summit and they were trying to explain to china what they did was really they really didn't get anything but of course that is. rubbish well ok politics is politics and business is business we know that china and the us are economic and potentially military rival so how likely is it that the two will drop the cyber espionage against each other well. i think the us has to recognize the the growing power of china

it will have to treat china as a you call power in the near future and of course china is the number one trading partner. of the us least china's second trading partner after europe they have more. on each other. invest for technology and also for trade so it's better to top post and try to get the best. all right francis loan thank you so much for sharing your views with us joining us from hong kong. in the u.s. two leading democrats of cold for the forest feeding of guantanamo bay prisoners to be stopped where the party's whip labeling the procedure inhumane it adds more

pressure on president obama to and the practice after a u.s. federal court can dam that as painful humiliating and degrading that's as prison authorities say force feeding will take place only at night during the islamic holy month of ramadan the hunger strike is now in its six months with almost two thirds of inmates taking part in a protest against and humane treatment and being held for years without trial in mali made from the council on american islamic relations says indefinite detention is real problem at the prison just ridiculous and to see if they're having some sort of religious accommodations by. basically torturing the people with names to makes the situation you know no better and this discussion about force feeding you know this is only a symptom of the bigger disease in which there are over eighty individuals in guantanamo bay who are being cleared of any wrongdoing and they're being held indefinitely against their will and really want a person gets to the stage we need to be worse but they've really given up hope

that they can get any type of justice and this is really the bigger problem with the bigger issue at hand that we really need to be addressing. now it's one of the basics of being a consumer that you get what you pay for but people in britain are finding their electricity bills are a few pounds higher power they don't even receive it's to cover the massive amount of anarchy which is being stolen from the grid and according to regulators it's being used to grow illegal drugs here's our taste test our cilia on the effect of a catalyst growers or hungry for electricity. when you get consumers look at their electricity bill in the year there may be seven pounds in there that they didn't actually consume that's according to energy watchdog who has highlighted the rampant nature of electricity the industry falls victim to about twenty five thousand known cases of electricity and that's costing consumers about two hundred million pounds now one third of that amount actually goes to one of these farms a production of which is very energy intensive so that's about seventy million

pounds a year ago we get to those kind of his farms how often has put forward a set of stricter guidelines for energy suppliers to comply with and maybe imposing fines on those who refuse to do so or don't want to. be the problem of electricity . will be spoke with a lot of weight on these proposals why was it important to raise the issue that one third actually goes to kind of this process where it's a growing problem according to police that they place around eight thousand people a year growing cannabis and that figure has doubled in the last four years so this is a new form of. how we want to bring people's attention let's get one things right the supply is responsibility to crank on electricity so what we're trying to do. so the energy industry does and so make sure all the fifty's reduced to its lowest

level pulse. energy u.k.b.a. association that comprises of about eighty energy companies have already welcomed these proposals however they're not too happy about the proposed impose fines on them however at the end of the day no matter what is agreed upon what will matter to consumers is going to be assurance that they're not paying for any more than they're using and that they're not funding any criminal activity reporting from london. now the race to be moscow's next mayor has no shortage of contenders applications close. as in a few hours but already forty candidates have put themselves forward for the first mayoral election and the russian capital for a decade they in charge of a rapid growing twelve million population mega city with a budget the size of a small european country sets a number of big challenges and wannabe mayors have offered some bold solutions promises range from compulsory personal helicopters for richer muscovites to replacing migrant workers with robots more from our to. those

who last visited more than two decades ago would hardly recognize it today from a grim ofen unfriendly city it has turned into a major european capital with glossy lights and vibrant lifestyle however the facelift came at a cost traffic jams overground human gems underground and the never ending din of construction have reached a critical point six generations. of believes the time has come for change it has all the characters real global city from top to a. push of business some somebody. who can see that it isn't a station much appreciation it not being creative how to provide the will be to say see. now we have what we have destruction that's the collapse but if people do this and that change may well be on the way to acting mayor said bannon handed in his

resignation letter a snap election was called and the reaction from mayor want to be has been swift the flight that's on the way for the mayoral seat is unprecedented not only due to the number of candidates which exceeds thirty but also because the last time russia's capital elected its boss was a decade ago this position long has been appointed one and this is part of a huge process i think this is the second major step in reforming the political system of the russian federation this position is. and it's crucial to the future and the current state of the country not just. in this battle for more school candidates of radically contrasting profiles and backgrounds are coming up with very different ideas from charging car owners for driving into the city center to replacing labor migrants from central asia with the robots. who is this time running without the ruling party support wants to build on his current achievements

and is offering to implement more high tech features into everyday life opposition activists. currently on trial for allegedly prioritizes the fight against corruption and introducing younger faces into local authorities this eccentric candidate. the spider a former heavy metal front man has promised to hand a new sun over the russian capital and build a new imperial moscow each political party has its own contender forward but regardless of who wins and it's still an open race with no clear front runner everyone agrees that this job will be no walk in the park. moscow is often called a country within a country so whoever takes the rain here may have to be more than just a talented manager after years of practically nonexistent elections the russian capital braces itself for an unprecedented heated political battle and that campaign is gaining intensity with every day. reporting from moscow.

and stay with us for prime interest that's next in our. i would rather ask questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more. right on the scene. first street. and i think that you're.

on our reporter's twitter. and instagram. to be in the know. on. good afternoon welcome to prime interest i bob english here in washington d.c. here are the stories we are telling today there's a sea change in the markets that is putting the squeeze on china and other emerging markets not necessarily intentionally that's because when ben finally pulls the plug as he's been signaling those markets get hit hardest we'll be talking about the rock and irish banks with reggie middleton a boom bust blog dot com in just a bit. to also check out his new google glasses which he said could be bigger than the i phone oh tim cook and speaking of sea changes.