smoke on the water landowners in the u.s. blame corporate greed for contaminating their soil and water as fracking expands worldwide promising big money for big business. the slaughter everywhere the rule children i saw them with my own eyes as horrifying reports of war crimes keep coming from rebel occupied syrian town of hadera r.t. hears from survivors of the massacre carried out by the islamists. in ukraine out of crossroads the country's president is in russia seeking the financial help the west is unwilling to give that's amid a month long throat e.u. protest back at home that opposes any deal with moscow.

it's three pm here in moscow you're watching r t international with me and you some our top story this tuesday a cosy countryside get away from the city hall saw an idea ruined for some americans by the negative effects of a fracking boom in places like texas the ground drilling technology has become a proven way to boost corporate profits but it's going to each to count finds out it's the landowners who pay the price. the local government in texas tells steve lipski that the water from his well what of that he can set on fire is safe to drink and to use in his home. you can hear it in here. thank you but steve has the assessment of other experts who say he's well is it ticking bomb in his backyard loaded with methane and other contaminants why the starkly different assessments steve claims that

a fracking operation nearby contaminated his well and that texas energy authorities are shielding the gas company they don't want the world to know that it really is this bad they don't want it in official documents it could be that the fracking allowed gas from lower formations into the aquifer and subsequently into steve lipski as well the gas company denies the claim the lipski is sued the range resources corp but the firm counter sued and won in caution effect evidence a ground water is incredibly difficult to prove my use of us are is an engineer who worked with the federal environmental protection agency is not surprised that the state oil and gas regulator sided with the gas corporation conceit that derives its income in survival from oil and gas production issues fully putting in charge of also

regulating the protection of groundwater from going down swells and there's any parent conflict of interest in that determined to fight for his home father of three steve has been shipping fresh water from the city on trucks at a cost of five hundred dollars a month but the family now faces another blow from the fracking corporation of four point two million dollars lawsuit for defamation. steve lipski is dream house and it's a beautiful property has become his nightmare several of his neighbors apparently have the same problem but they're reluctant to speak out after they saw how the gas company went after mr lipski they shouldn't expect much help from washington either why do you sell us are says the environmental protection agency has not put nearly enough resources into studying the effects that fracking has on groundwater but

that didn't stop the p.a. from coming up with a reporting favor of the practice. phillips case word vice to vent the gas constantly to keep it from accumulating under their property as their neighboring gas well continues to frack despite thousand it were pretty much standing around the top of the one hundred years from now when somebody dies because there's some timing on the border and they're able to trace it to this fracking and we've got the office ted who cares invest in a philosophy for now it seems that the authorities at all levels are so fired up on fracking potential profits that households like steve leaves his family are left to fight alone to get a healthy environment in their homes going to check on our t. parker county texas. the controversal industry is already experiencing some unwelcome festive attention across the ocean in the u.k. protesters dressed as santa have blocked the entrance to a drilling site with

a wind turbine blade but this won't be enough to stop the government from further shell glass gas exploration as artie's laura smith explains what started in bold sussex where locals and campaigners barricaded to test drilling sites but two months it's continued in the old goods with demonstrators blocking roads to stop drilling equipment big deliberate but it's full steam ahead rocking ministers are preparing to identify thousands of square miles for exploration across the country but the announcements likely to add more fuel to the fire of the protest movement there's an enormous amount of water involved in sort of what you do if you blast these rocks with water and chemicals people are concerned about the waste they're concerned about the noise here in the u.k. the government so keen to get locals on board that it offering up front payments of

one hundred thousand pounds per well even if no gas is produced but campaigners look unlikely to sell their countryside even at that price. the local campaign leader for friends of the earth hopes the u.k. government will have what it takes to stand up for its people 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 or a limb of 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 potentially to fracking we're going to see even 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. check out our website for the latest on the activist struggle against corporations there now campaigners in the u.s. are raising the alarm after the coast guard offered to ship fracking waste down the

river saying the method is a potential pollution hazard. people put in of and entire families kidnapped christians and executed these horrifying reports come to our chief in the town of north of the syrian capital which has been occupied by islamist rebel groups and at least one hundred people are said to have been massacred by the rebels but as the syrian army continues to liberate the city that number is expected to rise our crew spoke to some of the survivors. the heart when dawn was breaking over address the l. ners were front and the army of islam gave a signal for their fighters to attack that they came in hundreds making use of bad weather and the element of surprise over government forces you to say yeah after fierce fighting with the syrian army the rebel factions achieve their objectives with the city soon falling into the hands of those who the residents of the city

have dubbed the decapitated hours. a friend of mine told me that he claimed he was insane in order to save his life and avoid the militants they believe just story and let him go he also said he's children have been emotionally scarred from the savage act they have seen on the road between their house and the places where the fighters gathered people's heads were chopped off in the bodies thrown all over the road. in the slaughter everywhere the eldest was only twenty years old he was slaughtered they were all children i saw them with my own eyes they killed fourteen people with a machete i don't know if these people were alawite i don't know why they were slaughtered they grabbed them by their heads and slaughtered them like sheep. and industrial town is inhabited by thousands of workers and their families who were all trapped when the fighters surrounded the town the details of what happened there are still uncertain you know we've only had leaks about massacres that have been described as the most gruesome since the start of the syrian crisis civilians

told us that the workers of the not to be crew all legs acute and burned during the first hour or so they've attacked whole families who were massacred we do not have an exact estimation of the number because we were unable to get into the town but the number is high the other the woman vicious and the syrian army commanders in the region decided to besiege the town and protect civilians by isolating them from areas where fighting is ongoing and a move seems necessary by the military whose operation is not expected to be in. he won me too much of. our teeth. but the violent scenes in andhra haven't interfered with america's support for the rebellion washington officials are planning to meet commanders of the islamic front this week it's a radical union that has recently over sound of the moderate free syrian army we spoke to a geo political analyst who told us the world should be aware of the part he says american officials play in supporting extremist violence in recent weeks there's

been an important shift in the relationship between the united states government on the one hand and what is now being presented as the new islamic front and we see doll that the united states is in fact negotiating and establishing a dialogue with the leaders of these terrorist organizations i should say that in this particular case the people who have dialogue with the terrorists they have blood on their hands they have provided funding most of the military and logistical financial aid has been china holds to these al qaeda affiliated organizations and that's what we have to address there can be no peace as long as the west military alliance supports the terrorists. coming up on r.t. international a landmark judgment

a court in america holds the n.s.a.'s data collection program may be unconstitutional after answering an invasion of privacy complaint. and germany is in a hurry to phase out nuclear power but the alternatives comet a high price for the environment and consumers. of the. pledge it was terrible they are looking very hard to take a. while to get along here a lot have you ever had sex with the perfect they're no. longer.

going to. look at. the bottom of the. welcome back you're with arch international live from moscow pro e.u. protesters in ukraine are holding their breath as president. seeking loans that the country's troubled economy desperately needs the opposition fears any deal with

moscow could undermine their ambitions for closer ties with europe. reports despite everything that's been happening in ukraine for the past few weeks here still has been trying to sit on two chairs at the same time either leaning more towards the e.u. who are leaning more towards russia but to the protesters are stored there and they're closely watching in fact they said that there are further actions will largely depend on the outcome of this meeting in moscow. while despite these promises not to do so it is feared that within the opposition and in the european union that president you know besides discussing the loans and gas prices were also discussed the customs union it's interesting is that the street protesters have actually passed a so-called resolution banning him from doing so which is which has been greeted with a mixed reaction since it is a ban not a demand in itself but on the other ahead ukrainian economy is in bad shape

brussels did you read the rights to financially compensating the reforms that it demands from the king of well there is speculation that moscow may be looking at giving crean multi-billion dollar awards and slashing gas prices which clearly isn't it with applause in the west and my colleague i did see it ourselves he took a closer look at the e.u. leaders rhetoric. the threat of sanctions if he goes to most called afterwards as well. might be interesting to. the brink of clones in general would not be. anymore for some trainers to open a questioning of the green government's credibility this government of ukraine has clearly discredited itself in terms of economic help from the e.u. the reaction of europe's officials to the events of last month in ukraine has indeed made it reach cocktail they've effectively played pinball with ukraine's

expectations some have expressed uncertainty about a future dialogue with. we're lacking a decision by ukraine's leader in a situation when ukraine's president says the offer is not good for his country we need to take a break and think it over while other signals still hold political statements on twitter are not the best way to resolve the matter the best signal we could make is to tell you krane that our doors are still open for it. all this marks quite a change from the sweet talk of many european leaders before the vilnius summit in november where president which had refused to sign the euro sociate india's the offer of signing the most ambitious agreement the european union has ever offered to a nonmember state is still on the table we should always respect ukraine's suffering decisions but that's all rapidly changed once again because each side in this proposed compensation for signing the deal was in order no it's

a blackmail all. right on my. president. and of course it's connected so with they are present connect that with the interests of those core wants to get some benefits from ukraine joining the comprehensive free trade area we thing european union the money is still the main sticking point and grain needs billions. millions and both sides refuse to budge in their demands that makes this continuing standoff both geopolitically and on the streets of. which is going to forestall the fifteen billion dollar loan from. or reviewed rumored to be the likely result of this trip despite harsh rhetoric coming from europe has been insisting that ukraine will not step down from the euro association however the protesting crowd behind the barricades already made it clear that every step of ukraine's president in moscow will be closely watched

let's see russia. reporting from kiev in ukraine. well there's another party involved in trying to sway ukraine towards e.u. integration with an array of american politicians visiting kiev lately to support the protesters international affairs commentator rick explains washington's heightened interest by its desire to ultimately lure ukraine into nato what's important to realize is that the west has crafted a program for integrating ukraine into the west which means not only the european union european union it's the economic component of the arrangement the north atlantic treaty organization is the real. goal of western policy piece of it the ukraine so the intent is to use the lure of economic benefits trade benefits. you know visas to soften. their ukrainian populace ultimately for absorption in the north atlantic treaty organization. but nato has

long been striving to lower ukraine into its ranks but it's the current ukrainian president who actually sell the membership plans three years ago and that signified halt in the alliances expansion to the east towards the russian border which peaked in the late one nine hundred ninety early two thousand as you can see on this map here well ukraine together with ballerinas remain the only blank spots standing between nato and russia. of course we have more expert and expert opinion and analysis i should say on the situation in ukraine on our website r.t. dot com there you can also find facts and numbers regarding what brussels and moscow can offer ukraine in the case of closer partnership. in other news a judge in america has ruled that the national security agency may have violated the constitution by collecting telephone data it follows

a lawsuit over privacy violations the first such judgment in open court the n.s.a. has been ordered to stop collecting data and to destroy the data it's already gathered but it can come can come rather i should say into force because the government has at least six months to appeal the decision of chris could say who moved his secure online messaging service to avoid u.s. intelligence control its people would comply with legal searches but not with mass secret surveillance. it's not a strong argument compared to the right of people to have privacy in their papers from unwarranted searches so what's what's basically happening the argument the government's making is that the medic data that they're collecting which is all the information about the phone calls who called who at what time how long the call was all that information they think that's fair game that they should be able to grab as much of that as possible most people who who look at this you know from a situation like

a normal person would say it's just like wiretapping the reality is this they don't need to do a dragnet on everybody if they really care about terrorists i mean most people would say yeah if there is of suspicion or a reason for people to be surveilled like this go to a judge get a warrant we'll cooperate everybody i know in this business would cooperate with a legal warranted search but when you go on a fishing expedition to catch every fish in the ocean and then throw ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of them back in the water that's that's not good the american public deserves a chance to see how the secret service is get permission to monitor data that's how edward snowden who of course opened the world's eyes to the n.s.a. is massive spying operation commented on this judge's decision he says it was the main reason behind his actions just cursed steyn us senior white house reporter considers that snowden's revelations made the courts take the side of the victims of surveillance. in the past these kinds of lawsuits have failed because the courts

and ultimately the supreme court concluded that it was too speculative that the individuals who were suing could really show that there was a high likelihood that their communications had been tracked or intercepted that's why the supreme court threw out a case like this a couple of years ago but in the wake of the snowden disclosures there are now documents public records and declassified information about how this program works that indicate that virtually every american is affected by it. if they use a telephone at any point to receive a call or make a call it's very likely some information about that call is being retained by the government for five years so the judge essentially found that this scene here in the background has basically changed and that individuals who sue over those now do have standing to pursue their suits. so while the n.s.a. is appetite for personal data seems far from being satisfied some groups have sound quite an unusual way to stand up for digital privacy.

you've been. telling. me. now this humorous video implores people to not let the n.s.a. spy on them during this holiday season had to r.t. dot com for the full story. also their never before released information about the boston bomber so the elders are naive brother tom or len that's saying he heard voices in his head before the attack. in the wake of fukushima disaster germany has been shutting down nuclear reactors the country plans to completely abandon nuclear power by twenty twenty two but

almost a fifth of germany's energy comes from atomic power plants so early names to go green to keep the lights on let's take a closer look now at the pros and cons of green energy unlike fossil fuels these sources of energy of are renewable and should be environmentally friendly but wind turbines and solar panels are expensive to install and take a long time to pay off driving up household energy bills also some of the green energy sources are dependent on weather and since you don't get wind and sun every day. they only produce relatively small amounts of power compared to the conventional energy sources artie's peter all over reports now on the cost of germany's transition. disagreeing with germany's no to nuclear has become it to boot topic in a country that has set itself up as the world leader in renewable energy of can and for all their lives germans have been told that nuclear energy is bad but that idea

has now filled up their brains so that there is no space left for any other thoughts the race for renewable wind and solar is being financed by rising electricity bills for consumers in twenty twelve the cost paid by households was three point six euros cents per kilowatt hour now it stands at five point five cents adding about one hundred eighty five euro to the average yearly bill that seen the emergence of groups who want an end to the wind and solar switchover and the return to nuclear this is not to those who have money who are the target audience of this green energy can pay everyone else gets left behind despite the ability of nuclear power stations like this one to generate large amounts of electricity relatively cheaply no matter what the weather conditions the pro nuclear side of the debate in germany have struggled to get their voice heard the experts say part of the problem is that people are worryingly naive about the real

issues of generating power. always know is that electricity comes out of the board in their house they don't know what it takes to keep a stable power grid to do that you need big power stations nuclear coal or gas the twenty eleven fukushima disaster prompted germany to ramp up the shutdown of nuclear power stations which is being carried out with a near religious zeal of youth i know this whole movement is like an eco religion you commit a sin creates an evil and as with other religions this leads to the end of the world this attitude to energy makes me angry so as prices rise more fossil fuel power stations are having to be built to take up the slack for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine leaving germany's green revolution coated in coal dust peter all of a r.t. germany. let's take a look at some other global headlines for you

a car bomb has exploded at a stronghold of the militant movement has eastern lebanon local media reports the blast caused deaths and injuries but there is no confirmation from security officials has been the target of several recent attacks believed to be in retaliation for their taking the side of president also in the syrian conflict. reports say twenty six people have been killed in two days of fighting in the capital of south sudan to press violence has erupted today following monday's failed coup by soldiers loyal to the country's former vice president gunfire has been heard near a military headquarters thousands of civilians have meanwhile fled to the u.n. mission in. coming out and breaking this that.

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 realized 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 waiting 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 know 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 sophie photos at the wake after grandpa'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. someone who 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 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. of. what's happening folks i'm abby martin and this is breaking the set last week a sixteen year old texas teenager named ethan couch was sentenced for killing four people and severely injuring two others while driving belligerently drunk so knowing texas is penchant for punishment one can only assume that this kid got at

least a couple of years behind bars nope instead the judge gave him ten years probation and a trip to a four hundred fifty thousand dollars rehab facility lindsay you know hand style see the poor kid was suffering from a debilitating illness called affluenza and it is a rich parents of spoiled him so badly that he's never had a chance to develop something called morals because there's no better punishment for a spoiled brat than to send him to a celebrity rehab center if you don't think this is about class or race for that matter one only has to look at another verdict by the same judge from just last year where a fourteen year old black teen killed someone in a fight was sentenced to ten years behind bars but as ridiculous as this case is what's most terrifying is the precedent that it sets what's stopping bush administration war criminals and wall street crooks from pleading out the ones at the i.c.c. or new york federal court. look guys this is america where to tear just. this is now served on

a silver platter now let's break this up the pieces look it was terrible a little very hard to take out of the sense of the long flight that he ever had sex with that her right there was a little. below. the. live live. live live look. that led guys a lot has been percolating in the news lately but there's one story is so bizarre.