and apparent when there's to cold blooded mass murder near damascus child archie that dozens of people including children were killed by radical jihadists their. uncertainty hangs over ukraine as the e.u. says its frozen trade talks while keeping up the pressure on the president and blaming moscow for meddling. british energy company finds a massive wind turbine sprawled across the entrance to a drilling site a gift from anti fracking activists caught up in the christmas spirit. or welcome you're watching r t international with me and he said now

a nazi like atrocities are being described in war torn syria residents of a small town outside damascus have told r.t. how they've witnessed anti-government islam is burning civilians in ovens and using others as human shields well the army is struggling to throw extremists out of the area says the horrific scenes did take place or she's arabic channel trying to get a clear picture of what happened. phenomenon the loss of the last r.t. sources in the military say radical islamist fighters entered the town of address and massacred local civilians according to the latest figures at least eighty people were killed in the districts which the syrian army has now liberated entire families were killed other families were kidnapped and are being used as human shields in the battle against government forces. militants from job i don't know strike and the army of islam seize control of all the streets and cross roads very quickly this edition became terrible there were killings outrage and fia on of them

to find armed men came to the city they carried out the slaughter the worst thing in that crime was when they shot people in the baker's old ones they kidnap people and many were beaten some of the kidnapped families have been transferred to areas south of the town they're now being held in strategically important zones which the rebels have been using as a base of operations these places are heavily fortified sources also say the total death toll in an address main fact increase because the syrian army has not yet liberated the entire town but just last week the u.s. and britain limited their aid to only moderate rebels due to the increasing inflow of al-qaeda linked jihad this has led some analysts to predict that the opposition might unite with the army against a common enemy. only a few months ago. supporters of the opposition and even the opposition itself was being very quiet and many people turning a blind eye to the existence of

a significant radical jihad it just al-qaeda linked elements running round it let's say in syria so it serves their interests at the time because the us britain and france were positioned themselves possibly for a military strike against the syrian government over the alleged chemical weapons affair but now his military intervention did not happen this is a wholly different ballgame no in the opposition sees the danger here we see the syrian government has seen it and said so from the onset. parties arabic channel news team is trying to get more firsthand experiences from people in abra the city was apparently attacked by the hottest reports say dozens of civilians were massacred there you miss anything i want to catch up on the story head to our chain dot com. there are mixed signals over ukraine's possible trade

deal with the e.u. which has been the source of massive protests for the past month a senior official stated that all talks are now on hold while ukraine's authorities say they're progressing and in this hasn't asked miss fear the u.s. seems eager to assume the role of the decision maker as alexie are now reports. trauma care. premier oh there were few america is where you find you know john mccain's media conference in kiev was rich in loud statements thinly veiled warnings to moscow we need to make it clear. to the russian government and latin your putin that interference in the affairs of ukraine is not acceptable to the united states of america or to any other free country in the world followed by explicit threats to. if the movement membership and he does not achieve that is going to have very serious effects here in ukraine and in u.s.

trade crain the relations of interfering but many question twice he was there in the first place it's not the first time john mccain has been seen playing a visit to those the united states is currently lending its support to he had a photo op with some syrian rebel kidnappers now it's a world boxing champion turned politician and mccain is not the only american politician in ukraine his appearance that gives independent square was preceded by u.s. assistant secretary of state victoria nuland handing out cakes to the protesters the reason they are there is bluntly because i think these people want to detach the ukraine from russia as they see it and they think that by supporting the protesters in kiev they might actually achieve that the problem with that strategy is that it's simply not working the balance between the ukraine and russia economically and culturally ethnically and simply too strong and i think for american politicians and indeed european politicians to go to the ukraine and to

try to do that is actually very unwise and very dangerous and he simply exacerbating making worse the differences the divisions in the ukraine which are already very great but as u.s. officials seem keen on pushing the e.u.'s o.c.a. ssion deal through brussels all but shut the door and signing it through or tweets from the man in charge of e.u. expansion it's unclear whether it's a matter of the e.u. not budging on ukraine splays for more financial help upon signing the agreement the previous offer of six hundred million euro was branded as communicating by unocal which or brussels rumored willingness to seize any talks with this government this latest statement by the european or so also puts huge pressure on the converts because he has been saying all along seriously during press corps as it meets with european officials and opposition that israel would. to integration. he was fully expecting to see. in the new year is the future and with the news that

this prospect is as remote as ever the protestors result was not being haunted by your rallying cry from the newest the royals from america let's see if in ukraine. well it's not the first protest aimed at regime change where senator mccain has popped up here he is embracing ukraine's aren't revolution almost a decade ago he was a frequent flyer to georgia another former soviet republic which saw a color revolution mccain is friends with its now former president mikhail saakashvili who after coming to power move swiftly to crackdown on protests against his own administration we are of spring of course didn't escape the attention of john mccain he supported protesters on egypt's tahrir square and also in libya where he pushed for more active u.s. involvement in its civil war as for syria mccain was among the most vocal advocates for america to start bombing the regime and are being its rebels international relations professor marks the border says the u.s.

senator demonstrates a highly selective approach when it comes to anti-government anger. senator john mccain hasn't shown any such concern for occupy wall street protesters when they were brutally repressed in the united states and driven from zuccotti park and from the main centers of american cities across america or with. protesters in europe against neoliberal austerity measures when tens of millions receive like treatment over the last two years indeed just this week in spain in the united kingdom and in italy we saw police repression of peaceful political dissent john mccain hasn't. shown any concern about this what john mccain has always been concerned with is he views russia as a geo political enemy of the united states of the greater trans-atlantic community and he like many western officials is viewing through this through

a cold war lens of trying to separate russia from the ukraine in order to in his mind keep it in a permanently geopolitically weakened state issue of moscow suppose pressure on ukraine is one of the main topics for a meeting between russia's foreign minister and the top diplomats that's our silly reports from brussels. russian foreign minister sergei lavrov visit to brussels comes on the back of a tweet from the e.u. chief for enlargement who says that the e.u. believes that ukraine's position on the big o. seizures of the association agreement is quote unquote now has no ground in reality now the ukrainian prime minister's office has responded to that and said that ukraine is very much open to continuing negotiations with the e.u. however it will not respond to tweets it will respond to official messages and also it wants to if it does decide to sign it wants to do so on its own terms that as far as russia is concerned here among the meetings of the foreign minister is the

deputy foreign minister of lithuania who is also chairing a presiding over the e.u. council and said that's of the lover of can expect to be told about quote unquote the inadmissibility of putting pressure to bear on ukraine now the permanent representative of russia to the e.u. has responded to that and has also turned the table in question the very actions of the e.u. towards q. basically likening it to steamrolling and also reiterated that it is a ukraine sovereign choice to sign or not to sign that agreement we can expect sergei lavrov also to be commenting on that or to be asked that very same question but aside from ukraine there's also a slew of other topics that they will discuss such as promoting bilateral relations between russia and the e.u. in line with the upcoming summit touching upon visa free travel for instance energy cooperation as well as iran and syria so the foreign ministers today really have a lot on their plates. migraines being condemned for torture amnesty international

has exposed how people are being routinely mistreated in detention including children coming up. but first in true christmas spirit activists have given it a british shell gas drilling company a special if unusual present a seventeen meter one and a half ton when term mine. well or paste in the conveniently across the entrance to a fracking site more now with helen rimmer whose north west campaigner at friends of the earth thank you so much for joining us but these two groups i mean they're never going to agree how far will stunts like this while they may be amusing how far will they go don't need the government behind you to get anything done on fracking i think today started this morning certainly i'm a show in the spotlight on the alternatives to fracking and shale gas that we have in the u.k. and wind turbine blade was placed across the front of the entrance to the to the fracking site and we have some of the best wind results is in europe on the shore

and offshore and the point of today's time was really to highlight and show that there are alternatives to shell gas and the government doesn't need to be following this this dash for gas that is so that it is so gung ho for here in the u.k. despite britain's active anti fracking movements we've seen quite a few protesters especially recently exploratory drilling is still going ahead don't you think the government's already made up its mind here they obviously know about the options. so we've we've only had one hundred full of exploratory drilling sites across the u.k. but already we've seen huge local opposition whether it's been in the south east of ireland or the northwest where we're seeing it now and i think with the government's new licensing round which is going to open up another two thirds of the country to to potentially to fracking lookin to see if a more position and i think the government is going to have to put a moratorium in place like it had done previously and actually listen to the concerns of communities because there's a very loud and clear message that people do not want this in their local community

and they don't want to anywhere else we've seen a lot of support from the energy in a recent survey seven times as many people wanted a wind turbine in their community than a shell gas well so we think eventually as more and more community opposition and rises across the u.k. we will see the government having to listen in the u.k. energy bills are soaring there are almost weekly protests about that are people going to put their finances ahead of the planet when it comes down to it one of the main claims of the shale gas lobby has been that it is going to reduce energy prices and we have seen in the us it has had an impact on prices but here in the u.k. it's a vastly different story it was much more expensive to extract even now the secretary of state for energy and some of the fracking companies themselves are saying that that is highly unlikely to bring down an egypt bills so i think people will start to see through that through that claim because it simply unfounded in evidence green energy is very expensive while conventional energy is polluting is

there some kind of middle ground about once here perhaps the two sides could agree . in or out friends of the earth thanks so much for talking to us here on r.t. international. for you the crushed hopes of those who are coming of age in egypt there's disillusion about among the country's younger generation with how the arab spring turned out their main goal now to get out and live abroad we report shortly.

the. economic downturn the final long days the new york and the rest of life doing the case will be every week. but if you're going through a moment like the bank of new knowledge base your life you know. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v.

today i roll researcher. welcome back you're watching r.t. international live from moscow torture in bahrain has once again been revealed by human rights groups amnesty international claims that children as young as thirteen have been subjected to brutal mistreatment while in detention i'm joined now by dr nabil chair of the bahrain rehabilitation antiviolence organization thanks for being with us this is far from the first report of bahraini authorities torturing people has the kingdom done anything to address its human rights record. in fact if you want to look at the situ canal it's deteriorating the fact of the abuses against children and by lesions towards the children is increasingly

very high and bahrain is not adhering to the international standards and as dignitary to the convention of the rights of the child they failed to adhere to that the number of children quoting to amnesty report is about one hundred and one and they've been subjected to abuse and torture but our number since the beginning it's more than four hundred the current number is actually one hundred in town why i killed or unwire children being tortured. well this is a very hard question to answer of but usually if you target. the most vulnerable group and they're really weakest and to scare everybody and to scare their parents the community it's very shocking to the community if a child is abused and tortured and it can send a very harsh message that we would crack down really badly there's no mercy even on

children if this message goes around and and you know it's a run people will be scared to go and protest and ask for for their rights or any any further demands you were convicted yourself and then later quitted did you personally come across cases of torture. yes yes well as a as a person who's chairing going in geo that deals with torture victims and survivors documented myself not to mention the other documentations by buying team but myself off you committed cases of children who were abused and tortured and as young as eleven years old these children not only tortured beaten and. beaten with hoses. they were threatened with rape to the extent that the children were threatened that a member of their family a mother or a sister will be a date in order for them to give false confessions or to give names to death or it

is and in some shocking cases that they wanted these children to work as an informant to the security forces what needs to be done to force spock rain to stop people's freedoms. well bred in needs to do respect its international obligations and now seriously to think all of this warming it's international. is this international record and does abuses are still continuing and we see no intention of going in the right track and the human rights council is required to put and to push ahead and to do the right i think i don't know in which way at the the other option is for the security council to step in me. so far because as strong. as the united kingdom and united states does very little seems to be

done that it's. not a guy who chairs the bahraini rehabilitation and violent antiviolence i should say organization thanks so much for sharing your personal experiences with us from bahrain. a rush of my consider our decade long ban on genetically modified foods on our website you can find out how scientists are urging the government to give them ten years to study the effects on humans of the controversial products. and if you're drawn out yemen's parliament votes to ban on mad strikes amid seething outrage over deadly u.s. attacks more on that archie dot com. egypt has set a date for a referendum on its new constitution the mid january vote is seen as the biggest test so far for the military is seen evidence of clarity for the campaign has

already had its fair share of scandal this is a banner promoting the constitution as representing all egyptians but the poster itself seems to have fallen short of that ideal it's stock images of people most likely westerners who pop up on internet searches and the timing isn't good for the government with young egyptians increasingly disillusioned with the results of their revolution beltre reports on their hopes for a better future. omaha meet a young egyptian design student sits in his favorite downtown cairo cafe talking about a better life abroad three years on from participating in two thousand and eleven revolution omer is frustrated with the state of the country he says once he finishes his studies he'll have to leave. here your story for four years and then you don't find a job at the end of it there are better johns is outside egypt there i can find the freedom to work with the skills that i have that is one of the most important

reasons forcing people to leave egypt there are eight million egyptians already abroad and others are looking to join them as the economy flatlines in the political instability even if the economy of the country will grow in the future the double digits there will never be able to accommodate every new job seekers there is going to be always a percentage of the population that will seek job elsewhere job outside the country youth unemployment rates are at a staggering seventy seven percent and that may well rise after years of turmoil for young men like almost seeking work abroad is often the only option but it's not just the economy driving egyptians to leave some a feeling a growing crackdown on political freedoms a growing numbers of activists are now facing jail sentences after the military installed government enforced the law banning protests without official permission daily battles between student protesters and security forces broke egypt's campuses

police and the army continue to patrol the streets here where we need democracy freedom better health care and social justice to fulfill the main demands of our revolution the police need to change the whole regime needs to have a better ideological way of dealing with egypt or more people will go the government hopes and new constitution and upcoming elections will help stabilize egypt but until egyptians can find work and enjoy basic freedoms. more will be forced to leave. for r.t. . now a look at some of the global headlines a passenger bus in the philippines has veered off an elevated highway implodes into a van below killing at least twenty one people it's not clear what caused the accident but the road was slippery because of rain authorities have suspended the entire fleet of the bus company involved. a series of attacks across iraq has killed at least fifty four people. a bomber blew his car at the gates of

a police station three more attackers then made it inside before blowing themselves up killing eight officers on the nearby nearby to create the gunman forced their way into the city council building and have barricaded themselves inside. britain's most being over projecting its jobs and welfare system by putting a cap on the number of new arrivals from within the e.u. the plans were leaked as concerns grow a wave of immigrants from romania and bulgaria lies ahead and freedom of movement rules change in the new year poly boycott reports it's supposed to be an ever closer europe but the european commission the body responsible for keeping the twenty eight country club together is facing a growing number of complaints from its members in january as the newest members remain ians and ball gary ins will be able to travel to work and live

anywhere within the zone but the u.k. prime minister david cameron's not exactly offering. to change the rules about every move with people to countries want to join is one thing but i'm not in favor of people being to be able to claim benefits that's why we set a series of measures this week to put beyond doubt that there isn't a freedom to go and play by the same sentiments have been shared by many in france so it's no surprise that views not going down well with the european commission it argues migrants boost these countries economies rather than sponge off that governments but immigration is by no means the only issue the yukon to agree on i don't believe what we're facing right now. is this really has been lost and i'm not talking about. or it's always being outside and inside europe i'm talking about. over the roads like

a european banking union has long been on the cards designed to offer the same confidence to a deposit in a greek or spanish bank as enjoyed by someone in a german one but richer member states a worried it'll only end in bailouts for banks and other countries last time ministers met to discuss the union they wrapped up early because of a lack of progress and speaking of money brussels has strived to tax harmonize ation the cost of mind back to recent scandals about google and apple housing the headquarters in ireland with a corporate tax rate of just twelve and a half percent compared to thirty four percent in belgium and you'll see that harmonized station is a long way off you're seeing economic effects of the show from greece across the eastern europe recent germany but without political control over those things happening it's a very untenable situation to. london. one of eastern

europe supreme mirror award winning filmmakers and social campaigners talks to sophie shevardnadze about the dangers ahead which he sees for ukraine that's next. they're calling obama's happy smiling sophie photo with the danish and british prime ministers at the mandela funeral an international incident but before we rail on obama for doing something stupid a funeral we need to clear one thing up the washington post says that this action occurred at the memorial service after the funeral was over and trust me after about three hours of serious lectures at a conference or some sort of super long wedding most of us will just be banging our heads against the wall out of boredom and i've probably checked my email about seven times obama's place note i said most of us but the president isn't supposed to be like most of us because he represents. all of us it's one thing when you're

fourteen and too stupid to realize that selfie photos at the wake after grampa's funeral is a bad idea but it's another thing entirely when one of the most photographed and powerful people on the planet takes a selfie at the memorial service of someone he claims to respect although i might sound annoyed this sophie is pretty much irrelevant this is just a big error of etiquette there are plenty of real concrete things with real consequences to be bad at obama over like our being religious wacko rebels in syria or signing into law the n.b.a. i wish with all my heart that we only had to be angry with obama over some minor etiquette errors but sadly they're just a drop in the obama bucket but that's just my opinion.

hello welcome to sophie and komi sophie shevardnadze and as brussels goes on a renewed push to bring more countries into its fold the division of nations affected deepened the call for european integration rings on kids squares some fear it will turn into a western expansion who really knows what's for the best while those who create always feel the tide turning sharper than others so i asked an artist about the changes in their.

stories a filmmaker actor director writer musician you name it ever sing great to have you on our show today so ukraine has been in the news lately everyone's talking about it you have said that ukraine is looking at a yugoslav scenario what exact parallel would you with your question in yugoslavia do you think civil war is possible. gerson as you.