corruption across states cost an astonishing one hundred twenty billion euros a year according to a fresh study but details on the shadowy cash in the union's institutions are left out of the report. america's secretary of state admits that white house diplomacy has failed on syria and suggest more weapons are the answer we report from the war zone on how the already deadly fighting is affecting the country's youngest citizens. such it is set up for sports but what about the gay propaganda boycott battle we talked to that cesar l g b t community about what life's really like and how they are affected by the anger directed at russia.

who want chain are to come into line from the russian capital and marina joshua welcome to the program now a whopping one hundred twenty billion euros each year succumbs to corruption in the european union's member countries the figure compares to the blocs entire annual budget brussels home affairs commissioner a sicilian will storm cold the extent of the problem breathtaking our europe correspondent peter oliver has the details. over half of the people in the european union half of the over half of those who were surveyed have said they think the corruption within the union was growing seventy six percent of those who were asked thought the corruption was widespread within the european union twenty six percent said that they'd been directly affected by corruption sixty seven percent of people

thought that the financing for political campaigns well that that wasn't legitimate within the e.u. and that they worried about where money was coming from the government effectiveness of tackling corruption though only twenty three percent thought that they were capable of doing that and seventy three percent a huge number three quarters almost saying that they thought that the best way to get public services was through bribery just into who's put forward this report the e.u. commission or an unelected body they have made the headlines themselves a few times when it comes to some of the more left field that have been imposed upon e.u. citizens now their report didn't look into e.u. institutions and that's certainly raised a few eyebrows people wondering just how much more than one hundred twenty billion a year in backhanders of being going on if the e.u. it looked into themselves and russia's foreign minister has urged the u.s. to maintain contacts with all sides of the conflict except for jihad as a group sergey lavrov speaking after talks in moscow with syria's opposition

leaders also welcomed the rebels willingness to take part in the geneva negotiations set to resume next week but while politicians push for a breakthrough time is running out for people living in the war zone as marie finished now now reports. lesson of arab league in a syrian elementary school these boys and girls may look like ordinary kids but they've already faced a lifetime of adult experiences they must have the cover at which it was bad but let's call them day and cross the road i saw sarah and then a missile foul somewhere nearby me and my cousins ran for cover the next day when i went to school on teacher told us that sarah died god bless her. sarah sister was also killed that day had asia is now afraid to go to school a choice pons was a bravery that many grown ups would be proud of but what did it mean i hear from my

parents teachers and friends that there is a lot of people dying but i will not surrender i will continue to started to rebuild my country. amid the violence of a protracted war the kids grow up very fast so. i feel afraid because of various and i feel sad because it's not ok to see kids killed like this it's not good the searing kids die like this. ziad is eleven years old the syrian conflict has claimed for his relatives he was eight when it started and his had no real childhood seems so long i ask myself these girls why did they die they have nothing to do with this conflict so why did they die. this story is not unique in almost every syrian school direct casualties like these. last november the entrance of the school in damascus old town was hit by three mortars four

children and a bus driver died at the scene i haven't been able to accept these deaths until now they were my kids i can clearly see their smiles and hear their voices i still see them in my dreams nothing can justify this no religion no moment of thinking makes it acceptable. but life the principle of the school tells us must go on hell holy and reliving the pain is immense both the children and the administration have been deeply affected but it's also encouraged us to continue are teaching and are learning the mission of education is to bring up new engineers new doctors new teachers to build up this country we have to resist this violence and this will be anything but an easy mission after a short break kids at this school in damascus are back to their classes but thousands of other syrian children all across the country still can't make it as their schools are destroyed and families displaced there were around twenty

thousand schools in syria before the crisis today at least a feel for them a gun and even if the reasons school nearby parents are simply too afraid to let their kids out of this site once a thriving nation with a strong education system syria today faces not just a crisis of the present but of the future too. from syria. on our website we've got much more in syria including the latest reports from the overcrowded refugee camp in damascus where tens of thousands are on the brink of starvation for the atom or even hand to r.t. dot com. now as athletes from all over the world arrive in sochi there is reassurance from the hand of the international olympic committee that the resorts more than ready for the games to begin artist scott is there for us well organizers have been saying for some time now that sort she is ready to welcome the sporting world of course all gets

underway on friday evening at eight fourteen pm local time the contents of that two and a half hour spectacle are a closely guarded secret over the last twenty four hours or so athletes spectators and journalists have continued to arrive in and around sochi the reports all remoting that a number of hotels a colony in complete hotels they're going to house spectators and journalists but the president of the international olympic committee thomas bach who is here in sochi says he's confident that everything will be completed in time on the games will run smoothly but the olympic stage is ready for the base. of the world. we can see this in the sports facilities. there we can see in the olympic. which are all of very high quality about eighty percent of their fleets literally walk from their

bed in the wheel each to their competition bring you. something i have never seen before an. olympic games. also went on to address the issue of security saying that he is assured the games will be secure all that is a direct quote of course the recent twin suicide attacks in volgograd less than a thousand kilometers from here have heightened tensions but part went on to draw parallels with the two thousand and two winter olympics which were held in salt lake city just a few months after september eleventh and the other issue that of course has overshadowed really the buildup to these games is russia's adoption of the law banning the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors now many critics feel that this is infringing gay rights on my colleague martin andres has been out and about in sochi and he's been finding out how if at all the new law is affecting the lives of gay people here in the city. thousands of athletes visit is

expected to arrive this week and three billion people are also estimated to watch the winter olympics this month for some however the games aren't about spiritual progress they're about gay rights and the controversy surrounding last year's legislation that restricts children being given information about nontraditional relationships a similar law to the u.k. section twenty eight that was imposed for two decades in the late eighty's we had to the city's only beach front gate venue my ak old lighthouse english club that's been in the city for more than thirty years it seems that and it's beating subculture is far more liberal. some people think traditionally one of the more tolerant russian cities when during the soviet era russians from all over the country could holiday here. club owner and his partner a man had been a couple for over thirteen years and they don't agree with the law they remain mostly unaffected by it and well business is booming they describe the west's

response as heavy handed and an overreaction. of course i think it's really bad it negatively affects gay russian people because society blames them for spoiling the olympics for a new port of opinions are still divided on sexuality in russia and this club does give something of an insight into the reality of gay life here the one time in the club and meeting people. meeting like any other gay bar that i've ever been to backstage the performers are getting ready for tonight's performance in preparation for the club's new foreign audience english songs have been added to the show. the performance here can't believe the media attention bush is gacy has generated in the west activists abroad have spoken loudly in great numbers but the reality is that the issue is more complicated than it seems while some in the algae to

community say. yeah let's bring in a new way the behavior violence and the situation has to be changed and they gave up and you know let's look at the ballot even somewhat. well people do not roam the streets handed hand in sochi behind closed doors at such clubs people can be openly affectionate and one thing is for sure whether you have conservative or liberal views this month is going to be a celebration of sport to remember. he so. well r.t. is at the heart of the winter olympics will be broadcasting daily from saudi throughout the games and online at twenty twenty four thousand dot com.

and drone activists are finding themselves in courts across the u.s. for protesting against the use of the deadly unmanned aircraft several groups are on trial separately with one being prosecuted for walk aiding a drone airbase yeah there is still relative media silence about what the drones do to civilian populations leaving the public in the dark and that's why anti-war activists david swanson has told r.t. . but he has had people serving you know the six month prison sentences we've had people facing horrendous charges for exercising their first amendment rights this

is an ongoing activity across the country and it's noticed in the local media there's a virtual blackout in the national media in the united states you would have no idea this was happening it's that there's an extensive protest resistance movement against these drone murders and unfortunately most americans don't even know it's happening don't even know what the drones are being used for much less that they're being protested when these missiles go and kill innocent men women children infants in pakistan afghanistan yemen somalia there is no discussion there's no debate it just happens under the radar and there's a little blurb the next day saying militants were targeted and nobody knows what that means who they were and good reporting has shown that many many innocent people who have done absolutely nothing wrong have been killed by these drones which are counterproductive in their own terms they are making the united states

more hated now the drone program was launched under george w. bush but has been widely expanded during barack obama's presidency the most affected by drone strikes are yemen and pakistan where hundreds of civilians have been killed by the unmanned aircraft a variety of estimates suggest that in the last five years more than three hundred innocents became victims of drone warfare and even though the american people are growing on a.z. with the attacks washington has no intention of putting an end to them. i worrying major drug supply route is opening up in israel to have only our nation is unable to stop the spread of illegal substances we're reporting that in just a few minutes. and the secret hobby island of the dead one of the united states the largest cemeteries keeps the public away and is barely accessible to even the relatives of those buried there that story is just ahead for you.

or london. the whole world is. a further one on the end. of the court's ruling at the end of the street another one a more transparent society gets the money or the tears become we see military and state unfairly forces mobilized against people who blend into the city hobbit the city the more people trust electronic devices the more new from. fear that it has a thousand i. choose your language. we can we know if. someone. chooses to use the consensus

you can. choose to use that to. choose the stories that impact your life choose access to. welcome back you're watching r.t. live from moscow now one of the world's largest hacker groups is soon chancellor merkel and the entire german government for fostering in-depth spying projects led by american and british agencies along with human rights activists they say leaders enabled a mass surveillance and violated the country's criminal law we spoke to one of the activists behind the move. we have strong indications that the german government. and or together with the american spies on all of our digital lives at the moment even if the whole media blitz covering but they stay very very passive and they it

for us with looked like they were just waiting until the storm is over and that's why we want to force the federal prison prosecutor to start real investigation on what is going on and want ground wrong and whole of the government not only the american all the others are insured invading our digital lives it's still not proven that any of these measures really help finding terrorists and all the other excuses they find and that's just a new way of power which is. destroying every everybody's privacy and probably will also be a big danger for the democracy. moscow high school was reeling from us shooting rampage online gather story of how a russian student who had been showing great promise turned into a killer on campus boss. speaking out against the king of saudi arabia can get

you branded a terrorist or it's a dot com as a story. now the trillion dollar war on illegal drugs could be largely insane a u.n. report reveals more than two hundred seventy million people around the world are addicted to illegal drugs despite strict policies and billions of dollars spent on fighting the problem the study also lists world's largest drug hobbs' naming israel and on down policy reports on how the country became a major traffic center. like most major cities there's a dark side to the tel aviv night scene armed with a hidden camera we visit one of the popular downtown nightclubs everything's on offer short of doing drugs in the middle of the room. using drugs in a twenty five years but you know. stuff and there are sixteen years ago. i fell to the heroin and this was terrible one is

a former user he spent many nights in prison and paid the ultimate price we were living on the street do you know if we want to do it you know you just you know you want to use this you're getting a berth for an hour or two to get it again so it's a circle that soup can come out from a lot of people coming over from the circle my wife she died from the drugs. she couldn't stop with for borders drug smugglers are entering the country from all sides although in this instance security forces manage to make an arrest they cannot stop them all israel has a starve role in the most recent wooldridge drug report issued by the united nations office on drugs and crime alongside brazil it's listed as a country that is a major manufacturing importer expulsion and user of narcotic drugs i can confirm that more than fifty percent of all the drugs that enter israel

a seized but this is obviously long term counter police operations that will take place and continue working with the into porn is twenty five representatives that are here in israel and therefore information is transferred on a day to day basis but maybe that is not enough based on figures that the israeli police know about and based on the suspects that we've arrested there has been an increase in attempts that's correct all sides agree this is a dangerous situation and that israel has to do more so people like one e will have. once again i think it's through. even the government even the go. people to understand that it's it's a disease this situation is well it's not substantially different from that in europe or in the united states. simply a riot in the country fashionably late police here on television. a blast targeting a military boss in yemen's capital sanaa has killed at least two soldiers and left

several injured the incident comes at a time of mounting tensions in the country's northwest where shia muslim groups or trying to establish a breakaway state are battling local tribal leaders and the army among the sounds of shia protesters marched through snow accusing the sunni led ruling party which has been in power for fifty years of mass corruption and abuse of power. international peacekeepers in the central african republic have been engaged in firefights while trying to stop looting in muslim neighborhoods in the capital the communities were earlier attacked by rival christian militias forcing muslim residents to flee their homes currently over six thousand troops from france and the african union are in the country trying to quell months of sectarian tension that has killed more than two thousand people. now as a final resting place for almost a million people yet it's kept under strict lock and key the heart island cemetery

is one of the biggest in the united states and the access is strictly limited by the government it's even difficult for relatives of the disease to visit their loved ones graves as a situation now reports. for a place kept from the public eye. you've likely never heard of it despite its long history and size one of the largest cemeteries in the united states with nearly a million burials almost one million people buried here since the eighteen hundreds the poor homeless stillborn children and bodies not claimed by anyone on just over one hundred acres heart island a piece of land just off of manhattan this is as close as we can get to the island with a news camera this is a dog where ferries transporting bodies inmates and occasional visitors depart from after a variety of uses from a prison to a psychiatric ward to hospital the place has been ran by the prison system making

the cemetery more reminiscent of a jail where inmates beurre up to fifteen hundred bodies a year burrows for those the city takes care of take place in mass graves here inmates dig ten feet deep trenches at fifty cents per hour in dollars that are buried out there are primarily homeless there are people that are generally forgotten and ignored by society. photographer in ferris was able to get these images by reaching the island in secret on a handmade boat the most striking thing when we first landed it hit our boat for the morning. was that we almost stumbled into an open area we stepped out and just realized that the plywood covered coffins controlled by the city's department of correction the location is difficult to access and visits if any are strictly regulated i had a live child. and she's gone and i have no control over going to a cemetery to visit her former navy commander ilene josephs five day old baby girl

died thirty six years ago at twenty three all by herself while the grieving mother was trying to figure out funeral arrangements she found out that her childhood already been buried by the city people are not properly informed in the hospitals as to what it means to allow the city to take care of it ilene was given a death certificate with no indication of where her daughter and did up the search for her child's grave went on for decades she was five days old i had nursed her she was my daughter and i wasn't just about to throw her away i would like to go to walk to my daughter's grave and be able to have some final. closing but getting closure has been a struggle so far elaine has been able to come to a dizzy ball on the island following id checks after permission from prison system officials if this were a private cemetery it would be very clear under the law that you had to allow visits to the actual grades because it's

a public cemetery the specific law that requires access does not does not apply filmmaker author and founder of the hard island project melinda hunt works with women like elaine to have the island be made into a public park it's inappropriate to expect the public or someone who's lost a child to have to contact the department of corrections and to make arrangements to. visit hard island and then not to be able to go to an actual grave site hi this is work to regular taylor lawyer mark taylor works with the grieving mothers pro bono many of them were did not subsequently have children so they have still born children who are buried out on the island and for them looking back in their life it's something that has meaning and importance to them access to the graves is is impossible because the graves are not marked lost records lost graves they're

storing their own records out there under sharpie conditions the department of corrections has not done a great job of maintaining this island as you know the new york culture urges jurors is a viable part of the prison system after a battle that's lasted years eight mothers including elaine have recently been informed that they will be able to visit specific grave sites still under strict regulations but until the island stops being ran by those who run prisons this place holding almost one million people will continue to treat those fighting for closure like inmates people don't throw their families away and stay in a new york. well stay away to our athena national as we explore alliance to s. thousand lances with a big city big brother. the

first recreational marijuana shops are now open in colorado finally the question of what effect legal marijuana will have on the american public can be answered with real world experience you know there are a lot of people out there with strong arguments as to why we should legalize this controversial play it firstly there are plenty of things just as bad for us as marijuana or worse like beer cigarettes anti-depressants and mystery fast food meats which are totally legal secondly young men are often thrown in jail for the absolutely victimless crime of smoking marijuana i could see punishing someone for drugs like crystal meth which can and do turn people into maniacs but have any of you out there ever heard of someone breaking into people's houses on a we ramp age no no you haven't the downside to all of this is that across america while the world people are looking for change and they want the message store rise but when the masses are stoned out of their minds it makes things in life that we

shouldn't tolerate become very tolerable we now call allow us to make it through another day of our miserable lives so that we can live without going through all that effort of trying to make things better or challenge the system legalizing weed will just pacify the masses even more but that's just my opinion. the united states has significant technological over the rest of it well that it is now using that spy on the rest of the world then there was the deal between the u.s. and england where u.s. spy agencies. couldn't spy on people in the u.s. but british a spy agencies could spy on people in the u.s. so the two governments said alright each of us will spy on the other's citizens and then we'll trade and that way we'll be surveilling our own people so this is what i think of as the scandal.

pushes the perpetrator is a real dylan is driven by the hatred of the government. as a religious fanatics. kind of society protect itself against the uncomfortable how should it react to attacks with retaliation. or like the citizens of norway in spain who opted for freedom openness and. london two thousand and five. on july the seventh four bombs exploded three in underground trains one in a double decker bus the result fifty six deaths and seven hundred injuries the

attack is not from the outside nor from the end. the four young assassins of muslims three of them born in the u.k. . a traumatic experience for the metropolis in the blink of an eye the entire city fell out of step it's about her ability visible tool. these things live on in the collective memory they become sources of mourning and many more and they have formal memorials and song but this is nothing actually new you know london has a two thousand year history of disaster of plague of wall of strife so there is a pragmatic culture to this city as with many other cities that you know you grief you move on you go through trauma and shock and then life goes on and what is still to.