it's nine pm here in moscow tonight the apparent witnesses to a cold blooded mass murder in a damascus tell r t that dozens of people including children were killed by radical jihadists there. hangs over ukraine again tonight as the e.u. says it's frozen trade talks while keeping up pressure on the president moscow for meddling. amnesty international condemns the torture of detainees including children in bahrain the rights workers say the scale of the abuse is even worse than the latest report suggests. the british energy company finds a massive wind turbine sprawled across the entrance to its drilling site a gift manty fracking that has caught up in the christmas.

just joined us my name's kevin zero in this is r t international our top story then as just mentioned nazi like atrocities of being described in war torn syria residents of a small town outside damascus have told r.t. how they witnessed anti government is the mists burning civilians in other news and using others as human shields all the army struggling to overthrow the extremists and get them out of the area says the horrific scenes did take place artie's arabic channel try to get a clearer picture of what's happened here. r t sources in the military say radical islamist fighters and toward 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 and men came to search our houses and demanded to see our documents he told us to step outside but he spoke and in foreign dialects they killed everyone at our draw money a police station and also the local hospital where my sister works she still lives on the because she didn't show up for work that day there are still about two hundred civilians at the police station that the militants are hiding among them using them as human shields to prevent the army from showing the building forts that. is from chabad a looser and the army of islam seize control of all the streets and cross roads very quickly this iteration became terrible there were killings outrage and fear the worst thing in the crime was when they shot people in the baker's opens the kid those people and many were beaten. i still can't recover from the shock i went through on black wednesday but praise be to allah i managed to grab my kids and my

wife at the very last moment and flee under a hail of bullets that was terrifying or just recently i spoke with a friend whose name i won't disclose he is still hiding in the basement of his house he and my other friends told me about the atrocities committed by the rebel units what they have done to civilians is simply her lipstick if tortured innocent unarmed people inflicted a lot of bloodshed. 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 may in fact increase because the syrian army has not yet liberated the entire town. and i spoke to british journalist john white who believes western powers are starting now to acknowledge the two nature of the war in syria adding weight to this particular atrocity is the announcement just

recently made by the british and us governments that they have ceased what he described as knowing lethal aid to defeat sitting on me this is a knowledge of what we are seeing is not of revolution in any meaningful sense this is an invasion by as the mists and sunni fundamentalists sponsored and funded by saudi arabia and these latest reports were not really picked up by other media outlets they're focusing on and not lead to government assault in aleppo where seventy people including children were killed are these rebel atrocities being deliberately ignored here. yes because it would embarrass both the british and american governments and their liberal supporters in the west to try to support the rebels as much as they can even if a so of the undeniable evidence that these rebels as i say. of an attempt to.

a region into a graveyard for minorities muslim and non-visual i'm on the way to turning the clock back to the seventh century i really do think there needs to be a public inquiry into how we came so close to effectively acting as al qaeda and city as if force along with our u.s. counterparts. just last week the us and britain limited their aid to only moderate rebels due to the increasing inflow of al-qaeda linked jihadists it's led some analysts to predict that the opposition might unite with the army against a common enemy now 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 as military intervention did not happen this is a wholly different ballgame down in the opposition sees the danger here obviously the syrian government has seen it and said so from the onset you know developments russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov has condemned the massacre outside damascus the latest in a string of sectarian killings across the country that's priscilla joins us now live with more details on the test what was said about syria. well first of all the foreign minister sergey lavrov had given a general statement on what's happening in the region where russia is concerned as well as its international partners he said that in cases of trying to work together to deal with the situations there he does feel that they need to be equal footing and fair consideration of where the different parties stand he gave syria as an example where russia's voice he felt was heard by the international community in

coming up with that syrian resolution which now has led to the process of destroying chemical weapons there and he says e.u. partners want russia to be helping out in the situation in libya but he says that russia wants to have a say in the way the operations are going and that's the kind of equal footing that they want now in reference to the recent killings that had happened in the syria us again lavrov had said pointed out again how horrible those killings were and the kind of people making up the groups right now going around in syria he said that even human rights watch had said that there are some other bandit groups that were being very ferocious that the free syrian army is now a group of bandits and it's in the past have been presented as a democratic group fighting for the better good but he says of the right now there is there are a lot of extremists joining in that front as far as where this visit this will conserve the international community is that it's important for all the partners to determine who is going to be representing the opposition in syria the syrian army

or those divided factions when it comes to the negotiating table in the geneva peace talks and he said that this has to be terminated before that happens for any progress to happen. while you're on the line with. russia you start to prove ukraine is now the major issue i guess that came up. regarding. yeah that's right before you even came here there were a lot of warnings from the other foreign ministers that he's going to get an earful from the e.u. partners about russia meddling in the affairs of ukraine a lover of the did say pointed out to the behavior oh. european partners and this is what he had to say. to offer the last few days we've been hearing statements saying how good things would be if we knew russia would stop meddling in the ukraine's affairs we see our western partners coming to clear the not going straight to my done cookies and call on the

ukrainian people to make what they call a free choice and choose europe. and he also said that europe the e.u. tends to want all and all the ones and he said it's only natural that the countries would consider their national national interests in the process urged transparency where ukraine is concerned coming from the us and e.u. partners in dealing with the russian he says that ukraine is a very important partner for russia and therefore the he would he would advise that all parties involved in these talks would be considered as russia would also want to see the best deal for ukraine where the eating was concerned. in brussels there thanks for the update. now there are mixed signals over ukraine is possible trade deal with the e.u. meantime which has been the source of massive protests of course for the past month a senior official stated that all talks are now on hold for the same time ukraine's authorities say they're progressing in this hesitant was fear the u.s.

seems eager to assume the role of decision maker. story. trauma care. bremer oh there are few america is where you. are 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 that i'm here 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 kiev if the movement and membership and he has not achieved that cause is going to have very serious effects here in ukraine and in u.s. trade craned relations he accused russia 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 that 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 bonds between the ukraine and russia economically and culturally and 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. to 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's pleas for more financial help upon signing the agreement the previous offer of six hundred million euro was branded as humiliating by unocal which or brussels rumored willingness to seize any talks with this government this latest statement by the european also puts huge pressure early on the coverage because he has been saying all along seriously during the rest of it is that we do this with european officials and the opposition that the train would not the. euro integration. he was all expecting to see. in the new year is the future and with the news that this prospect is as remote as ever the broadcasters resolve is now also being hardened by a rallying cry from the new with the rivals from america let's hear a chance the artsy reporting from kiev in ukraine it's not the first protest aimed

at regime change where senator mccain's popped up either here is embracing ukraine's orange revolution almost a decade ago archive picture i think they call that he also was a frequent flyer to georgia in these days well this time another former soviet republic that saw a color revolution of course mccain friends with its now former president mikhail saakashvili who have to come into power and then of course move swiftly to crackdown on protests against his own administration to the arab spring didn't escape his attention either john mccain supported protesters on egypt tell you square you may recall and in libya where he pushed for more active u.s. involvement in its civil war syria didn't escape either the mccain turret she was among the most vocal advocates for america to start bombing the regime and arming its rebels. well back to ukraine again as the e.u. and antigovernment protests in the capital are rumbling on they're becoming a source of conflicting media reports too early we spoke to graham phillips he's

a british journalist living in kiev he wrote an article on what he calls the mythical mantras of the protest movement. ukraine's our most popular band ok an l.c.d. a good performance there and it's become very can be to conflate the numbers in attendance in that crowd with protesters i think it's become quite fashionable to it's almost become a festival what we're looking at is a very pleasant to use or by a definition have you seen the pictures as we only have a protest as we all need weapons for a change to tear gas attacking police since they themselves have received an injury they switch over from effectively terrorists to becoming innocent protesters what we're really looking at is a picture of quite ambiguous country because certainly in the east that isn't the case however ukraine is as it stands a country it is east and it is west and it is in a moment all of that here in the center where you've got bussed loads of people coming from the west to protest e.u. is affecting me offering prestige but it isn't offering hard cash and furthermore i

would say to the protesters in my dan are you really there for the future of ukraine to make your country better or are you there because you believe in a visa free system it will be easy if you to leave ukraine with putin involved you always effectively reduced to the role of answered my daddy basically what was the e.u. these shining knights of the day are the even that interested or is it simply become convenient to polarize russia as the pantomime villain of the piece which is to take any comment and the equation of what is happening in europe my dad. coming up here on the program the crushed hopes of those who are coming of age in egypt to this disillusionment among the country's younger generation with how the arab spring turned out their main goal to get out and live abroad report on that shortly then also to coming up in the program with me seven zero in the fortress mentality

in western europe as leaders look to ringfence jobs for their own nationals amid fears of a new tide of even the. ration from the east just a couple of stories among many more right after this break. the. economic down in the final. deal and the rest

i think it will be. followed and torturing bahrain's once again being revealed by human rights groups missed international claims that children as young as thirteen have been subjected to a brutal treatment while in detention not to judge from the rehabilitation and antiviolence organization claims actually the reality is even worse. as a person who's chairing going in geo that deals with torture victims and survivors

of documented myself 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. online tonight russia might consider a decade long ban on genetically modified foods to talk about that the legs got a lot of hits if you haven't checked there yourself scientists are urging the government to give them ten years now to try to study the effects on humans of these controversial products and keep your drones yemen's parliament votes to ban unmanned strikes amid say the rage of a deadly u.s.

attacks against our story interests you plenty on line about it. fresh clashes erupted in cairo where police have used tear gas to prevent student protesters from reaching the defense ministry the anti-government movement seen a surge in recent months with youngsters staging regular demonstrations to it comes at an all time for the military led authorities who are trying to drum up support for a new draft constitution the campaign hasn't been going smoothly though the official banner promotes the document as representing all egyptians but if you look carefully the image actually shows stop pictures of people who are most likely foreigners and they can be found elsewhere on the web anyway beltran reports on how the nation's hopes for a better life after the revolution have been fading. almost meet a young egyptian design student sits in his favorite downtown cairo cafe talking about a better life it brought three years on from participating in two thousand and eleven revolution omer is frustrated by the state of the country he says once he finishes

his studies he'll have to leave you i have been. here you study for four years then you don't find a job at the end of it there are better chances are that side 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 and 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. population that would 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 fleeing amid 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 rock 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 grow 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. chiro sales up a bit and talk about christmas show way tis the season to be jolly while in true christmas spirit activists have gifted a british shale gas drilling company this rather specially for unusual present

still scratching head working out what it is is a seventeen metre long one and a half of one half of an yway wind turbine propeller they put it rather inconveniently across the entrance to the said fracking site complete with lovely red ribbon their christmas spirit was talking about the local company leaders of friends of the earth says that eventually the government's got to to listen. we've only had a handful of exploratory drilling sites across the u.k. but already we've seen huge local opposition whether it's been in the southeast 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. potentially to fracking we're going to see even more opposition 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 shale gas well so we think about actually as more and more community opposition in arises across the u.k. where we will see the government having to listen in brief a series of attacks across iraq and left at least fifty four dead the deadliest government foreign a bus traveling to the holy city of karbala killed twelve shiite muslims elsewhere a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives at the gates of a police station two hundred kilometers north of baghdad then three more attackers made their way inside a full blown themselves up killed on top of the five offices. buildings have been evacuated in harvard university because reports of bombs on campus there the ivy league institution located just outside boston says the big no explosions though and police have conducted research student examinations are currently underway at the university as it was disrupted wimberly. britain's mulling over protecting its jobs and wealth system by putting

a cap on the number of new arrivals from within the e.u. the plans were leaked as concerns grow that a wave of immigrants from romania and bulgaria lie ahead when freedom of movement rules change in the new year 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 new asst 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 open arms to change the rules about remove 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 up a series of measures this week to put beyond doubt that there isn't the freedom to

go and play the same sentiments have been shared by germany and france so it's no surprise their views not going down well with the european commission it argues migrants boost these countries economies rather than sponge off their governments but immigrations by no means the only issue that you can't agree on god only that we're facing right now is actually has been lost and i'm not talking about. today or it's always i've been outside and inside europe i'm talking about. 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 for tax harmonize

ation but castro mind back to recent scandals about google and apple housing their 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 nation is a long way off you're seeing economic effects of a shed from greece across the eastern europe recent germany but without political control over those things happening it's a very untenable situation to have. in london it's go on here in moscow thank you being with us we'll be watching around the world this is the international the next full news update just about an hour's time till then let's catch up on the week sport after the break here. play. for the. science

technology innovation hall the list of elements from around russia we've got the future of coverage. there's a media leave us so we leave the media by the same person see your. play your party there's a bill. for shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all politics only on our t.v. . dramas that can't be ignored to. stories others refuse to notice. the faces changing the world. the picture of today's. column to and from around the globe.

look to. me. hello welcome to the r t sports show coming up our twenty six action packed minutes of sport from russia and around the world with me kate partridge and here's just a taste of. top of the tree was a neat lead the table at christmas in russia finally an excuse the same in germany going seven points clear with a three one home went over how. while kings of the court discuss avenge their recent loss to barcelona with an eleven point victory over their rivals in moscow as the top sixteen beckons in the euro league. and the devil of a k h l tesco moscow are stand by for a time to minnows love on and we take

a look at the slovakia you colors and their superstar captain will slap shot down. so let's kick off with football and with the russian premier league now in its winter break so these are top of the table at christmas while by munich will be the same in germany going seven points clear and still unbeaten in the league with a three one home went over how that guardiola side bounced back from their surprise three two champions league defeat at home to manchester city to stretch their unbeaten quintus league a run to forty one games mario monk you get headed the hosts in front of the forty two minutes against a backley homburg and seven minutes after the restart manager gets a volley didn't to make it to nil well the visitors mashallah saw that grabbed a goal but later on but to carry wrapped up victory in stoppage time to inflict a fourth defeat in six games of the visitors. while simon who appears by laver cruzan stayed second button and seven points off

the top spot after a shock one zero defeat at home to struggling i'm proud primed for it to bend marco rust headed the visitors in front of the hour then go keeper kevin trout help preserve the lead they could have doubled it after being awarded. u.p.s. penalty would strike at joe saloon missed with the last kick of the game the victory ended frankfurt's tangoing winless run and handed lay vicars and their third loss of the season. while the us or dortmund are now twelve points up top spot after coming back from two goals down to do it two to a person time then shipped what marked his signing of a new five year deal with the eighteenth when it opened up and hit the ball and made it to will twenty minutes later but just before half time goalkeeper gans brawl fumbled a corner and yet every one may and proved wrong back and midway through the second half who cashed this check levelled from close two range to.