it's. only taken. in life. israel snaps international pressure continuing to bomb gaza while the death toll surpasses one hundred twenty palestinians mostly civilians. geodes militants in syria and iraq recruiting a fresh army of volunteers is the self-proclaimed islamic state reportedly collects a million dollars a day from selling captured oil. blood in your blood now there's a price extra stop on his life an american tour showing up in nicaragua after from full day of talks with the castro brothers in havana.

three pm in moscow good to have you with us our top story this morning on saturday israeli air strikes hit a mosque in gaza saying it was used to store hamas weapons and other attacks and nine people were killed including two disabled women who died when an israeli tank shell struck their rehab center where the one hundred twenty palestinians have lost their lives since tuesday most of them civilians including two dozen children. and then i began and i now want to i mean that. i. know they. will

all all israel saying no international pressure will force them to back down while warring with hamas they've also struck residential areas keep in mind gaza is a tiny slice of land densely packed with almost two million people the size israel is now using twice the force it had during a similar operation in two thousand and twelve more than thirty thousand i.d.f. troops are on standby with a possible ground invasion looming gaza locals say they're bracing for the worst journalist terry fear reports for r.t. . several days into the latest escalation between israel and hamas and the situation in gaza has not eased. his relative here is to be preparing for more hard hitting campaigns to rein in the mass rocket fire along the israel gaza border as thousands were ordered to evacuate a warrior indicates that a ground invasion may be imminent is that unless we are attacked by f. sixteen jets to destroy her home but that's the only we're going to level when the

israelis began demanding people move out of their sea and their children say so we left the area and then did up on the streets rockets continue to find vigorously from gaza with disparate militant groups working together to strike israel which has itself mobilized twenty thousand troops in preparedness for an escalation israel struck over one thousand talk its many of which hope it's friday morning the air force targeted a building belonging to. a family can shake redwine locals are adamant that it was just a residential building they all civilian there are no weapons. nothing is . hidden within this building as you can see i don't know why the family managed to evacuate before the main missile struck no one was injured but they didn't have time to take their belongings before the house was destroyed not

all of the strikes are on militants and buildings though late thursday night a peculiar strike took place at gaza's marina a boat owned by the international freedom flotilla coalition was the sole target gaza's ogg was a humanitarian project designed to export goods from the besieged enclave to the outside world to boost the economy and act as a symbol of palestinian nonviolent resistance in the face of what they see as the israeli occupation as you can see this shit isn't going to be sailing anytime soon it was struck i would say last night by the israeli air force no connection with the win. or political party this is individually. outside no distance talking. about double palestinian activists say israel struck the boat to ruin their work but it's unclear if militants were at the marina that night in what's normally

a relatively safe area of gaza. more than eight hundred gazans have been injured and the health care system is struggling to keep. the medics to treat the injured that is gradually decreasing before doctors are provided with medicine it will soon be tougher to provide such services with border crossings closed in an intensifying book and the israeli escalation in gaza. as this war goes on. it's the palestinian civilian population that is paying the greatest price the bodies continue to arrive at gaza's hospitals israel says it's got hundreds of strikes left exactly against gaza it feels very much like this is not the end of the latest israel gaza war. gaza. israel is also being attacked from gaza and so far has dodged civilian deaths but eight people were wounded one of them seriously after

a rocket hit the country's south on friday policy reports that people there are learning to live with the daily attacks the situation here in israel is extremely tense barrages of rockets continue to be find at the country from gaza there was one incident when a gas station in the city of ashdod was hit and one person has been seriously injured in fact that is the most serious incident so far ninety percent of the rockets are coming from gaza into septic by the iron dome anti-missile defense system on friday night three missiles were intercepted over the skies of tel aviv and i was at an open field when this happened and it's almost surreal people who rushed out of a cars in this almost a few seconds before they can get to the ground or hide behind some kind of building many people just watching this interception in the sky and when it happened there was this huge applause that went up from people on the street where i was but certainly people are afraid what we're hearing from the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is that he will not back down and he will certainly not back down to international pressure he says and i'm quoting that the battle is

progressing as planned so there is the sense on the ground that this could ultimately lead to a ground offensive meanwhile the un's top human rights officials are deeply worried over the rives of civilian casualties in gaza especially children high commissioner navi pillay is calling for an investigation into the airstrikes adding that the attacks could violate international law bill van as well from the human rights watch thinks the attacks could amount to war crimes. the civilian suffering is not getting enough attention it's not getting enough attention from the israeli forces who are conducting those air strikes naval strikes tank shelling and other forms of attack under the laws of war which bind israel as they bind any military force you cannot shoot first and ask questions later you have got to make sure that what you're shooting at is a legitimate target and if there's any doubt in your mind whether it might be civilian you have to hold fire and i'm very concerned that we are not seeing that we may be seeing the opposite we've seen virtually no accountability for the very

well documented past cases of abuse of violations and even war crimes and without accountability and with impunity then abuses will obviously continue you leaking your enemy by by attacking their fighters and their military objects you do nothing to weaken your enemy by attacking a civilian population who is not fighting you it does nothing for you it's a war crime. and there's plenty more on the israeli conflict with hamas on our web site r t v dot com. the islamic state proclaimed by jihad base in parts of syria and iraq is expanding its influence in attracting more volunteers extremists reported by u.k. media to be raked in around a million dollars a day by selling seized oil some rival rebel groups are now changing sides and joining the jihad is nevertheless the u.s. supports the moderate syrian opposition and wants to send weapons to the war zone or he's got. more rebel groups there pledge allegiance to the islamic state the extremist group now controls a vast part of iraq and syria and has announced

a caliphate one report says a thousand strong syrian rebel brigade arrived at the headquarters of the islamic state in a convoy of over a hundred vehicles including ten tanks ceased from syrian government forces for several years now u.s. officials have been trying to create this image of the syrian opposition is former teachers farmers and dentists fighting against bashar assad the speedy advance. just how much more complicated the situation is the obama administration began to stumble when answering questions about the contradiction between u.s. efforts in syria and now in iraq. oftentimes the challenge is if you have former farmers or teachers. or pharmacists. who now are taking up. opposition against

a battle hardened regime. with support from external actors that have a lot at stake how quickly can you get them trained washington is still determined to continue arming the syrian opposition the white house has asked congress for half a billion dollars in eight for the syrian opposition and you have many hawkish lawmakers here who want just that the white house says the forces there are now providing weapons to our moderate but what does moderate mean in that part of the world where everything can change overnight we get into this conflict between who is a radical and who's a moderate and and who we're going to arm and then people change sides look what happened in iraq in recent years and it gets so confusing that even the experts don't understand it and get all tongue tied when they try to describe it in light of the onslaught of these lawmakers state you can often hear the criticism that in

its exists to remove assad washington may have overlooked the threat of this radical group in washington i'm going to take on our team. at least analyst phyllis bennis thinks there is no way for moderate syrian groups to prevent their hardware from falling into the hands of the hottest. the syrian rebels come in a wide variety of idiology and belief and organizations but they're all working quite closely together so this notion that there is a an expansion of isis for instance is certainly not a surprise i think many people have been worried that if the u.s. provides weapons to what they consider this so-called moderate opposition that there will be no way that those quote moderates can protect those weapons from falling into the hands of jihadi forces like isis and others that it won't be because they want to turn it over to them necessarily although it might also but

simply because they don't have the military capacity that some of these other organizations these islamist organizations do have so it's going to be further militarization more people will be killed it's not going to help the syrian people and particularly syrian civilians it's going to make it worse for them. u.n. security council should show more concern over the rising number of civilian casualties in east ukraine that statement from russia's on voyage to the body vitaly churkin meanwhile anti-government fighters in the donetsk region claim to have downed an air force fighter jet near the city of gori all of these the latest pictures from a town in the donetsk region where once again a residential areas had been hit by government shelling. locals say the damage there equals that of slovyansk according to european observers lies in ruins they also report more civilian casualties. the way. there are two bodies if it is. in total least six people have been killed there. amid the devastation and

casualties on both sides a renewed army showing has been reported in the neighboring lugansk region where if an ocean reports ukrainian crisis continues to escalate with death toll from all sides and anger also rising one friday you credit president with what i'm trying to say that every soldier's life the militants will pay raise or send hundreds. that's off to the on the army's brigade near the russian border in which twenty three servicemen including the border guards were killed and around one hundred others were injured and it is sad that multiple rocket launcher known as good or hay was used in this attack that is considered to be so far the deadliest attack on the army's position since the beginning of what it calls its meant in terror operation later the operation commanders in kiev reported that at least seventy five anti government forces were killed in the clashes around the city of donetsk the biggest in the eastern ukraine with

a population of one million people that became the key battleground to surrender over the towns of slovyansk and mentors but this information was not confirmed by the anti government forces themselves they said that they lost a dozen of their fighters and they have and small ain't well of course these reports are sometimes conflicting and it is not clear exactly how many men women and children died in months of the large scale here in eastern ukraine but both sides agreed that casualties in months of didn't completion very high and it is continuing to rise and of course in this situation we can say that hopes are fading away but a dog that many of those who are not directly involved in this conflict in ukraine a calling for could happen any time soon. go online to see firsthand account and expert analysis of our in-depth coverage on the ongoing violence at r.t.e. dot com later this hour a look at how the latest spy scandal in germany is affecting free trade talks

between the u.s. and europe stay with us. a little. cross-talk rules and if it doesn't you can jump in anytime you want.

as past the hour now russian president vladimir putin heading for his maiden visit to argentina will be the president's third stop on his weeklong tour of latin america he's already visited nicaragua and cuba where there's plenty to discuss with havana as current leader raul castro in his older brother fidel. westbroek it's not as though you just had a lengthy meeting with comrade fidel. yes it was an excellent and very interesting conversation we discussed international affairs economic matters the markets as

well as more specific issues like i agree culture so do you have a deal still talk a lot. yes he talks and listens a look he's an experienced politician have. several important deals signed during putin's visit including one allowing russian companies to drill for oil off the cuban coast he reports on the other highlights of the trip. the vigorous news of the day and this is the talk of the town now is that officially confirmed it is writing off ninety percent of cubans debts to the soviet union which amounts to thirty two billion u.s. dollars an astronomical sum of money for this country the remaining ten percent will be reinvested into the cuban economy the intrigue of course is now what come on a willful and offer in return the speculation is rife that the military base the writer base on cuba the soviet base will this which was shot down in the late one thousand nine hundred may be relaunched but that is of course a speculation it was not confirmed by and neither are or. one of the highlights of this visit here was. talk with fidel castro who has been spending the best part of

the last decade in a hospital being seriously ill. they talked about international and regional politics and it was a rather short conversation which is typical for the legendary cuban leader he has been a good talker his longest speech in one thousand eight hundred six and have on the last that for as many as seven hours may no longer be controlling everything in his country but still he is pretty much the cuban leader politically outliving ten american presidents he has been claiming that he survived as many as six hundred thirty four attempts on his life most of them as he says were masterminded by the cia and some of those have been creative to say the least including poison peels a toxic cigar exploding even a special chemically created powder to get rid of his beard to undermine his popularity. on our web site now homing missiles inspire

a quantum leap in military research and development a u.s. tech firm games it's a step away from producing self guiding bullets that will allow snipers to shoot the wrong way and still hit their target. and a team of russian archaeologists hit the jackpot when days of careful digging revealed this war about the romeo and juliet of the bronze age on our website. one spy scandal after another is battered ties between the u.s. and germany and after two american agents were exposed by german intelligence berlin kicked out the cia's top official from the country but germany seems that to maintain its friendship with its powerful ally. in my opinion there is no alternative to our partnership with the united states despite the events of the last weeks which were disturbing and lead toward decision we want our partnership our friendship revived on its levels when it comes to cooperation the biggest

upcoming deal involving both countries of the transatlantic trade investment partnership that would see the creation of a single market for the e.u. and u.s. are these peer all over takes a look at how the latest spy scandals are affecting what could be the largest free trade agreement ever struck. the relationship between germany and the united states is somewhat strained at the moment against the backdrop of spy scandal after spy scandal the unprecedented action taken of expelling a cia operative from the u.s. embassy here in berlin and a recent poll suggesting that almost seventy percent of germans have lost trust recently in the united states while all of this comes against the backdrop of the negotiations of a potentially multi billion dollar trade deal between europe and the united states the transatlantic investment partnership deal well this could potentially be huge for the industry but it does have its critics not to talk a bit more about this and about the negotiations are going to be going on on t.

tip i'm joined by professor michael from democratic thank you very much for talking to me what are the major concerns for germans about the t. tape negotiations. in germany there are a lot of citizens who are worrying that european standards will sink we're talking about consumer protection and environmental protection those standards are lower in the u.s. there are also worries that international investors and corporations will receive special legal treatment that will lead to the abolition of some environmental and social protection laws. in the last two weeks we have seen the relationship be somewhat strained with regards to spying but do you think that would have any kind of impact on the go see a shins for the trade deal or is this pretty much already a done deal chimney are set to sign that part of it is going to cause i don't believe it will have a significant effect on talks it's going to take until the end of two thousand and

fifteen when negotiations should be completed this current affair will be forgotten quickly and i think negotiations will continue as if it didn't happen. well thank you very much it does seem that despite jimmy taking the unprecedented option of expelling that cia operative and seemingly standing up to the united states when it comes to trade they are going to sign this deal despite the concerns of some of the citizens here in germany home delivery service on the brink of revolution traditional ways to get your pizza book or your latest gadget may soon be a thing of the past the world's biggest web retailer amazon seeking government credit permission to test drone technology in seattle it thinks that one day drones will be as normal as mail trucks on the road today some pioneers of already taken the bull by the horns a pizzeria in northern russia has started flying its food to customers and as you can see it's going smoothly so far so private drones on the up and up governments though raising concerns on the market not so pleased to be buzzed by

a drone and during an election day rally last. this video of a daring aerial tour of the kremlin raise questions in moscow as well drones are near airports a whole other issue already cases where they've narrowly avoided collisions with planes independent aviation scientists are trying to handily thinks the risks only grow. rooms are so small that they are almost impossible to see you on radar we don't have systems for detecting the modern magically that are available to aircraft or control except looking out the window currently we have very few drones in the sky so that tells you that if the numbers are higher it's going to happen that drones are going to collide with our drones are going to collide with people regardless of what kind of systems you have on the function drones can take down aircraft. like that if they if they get into or sucked into a jet engine going to take out the jet engine a strike from a drone is

a denser heavier material and that that will deliver a harder strike to an aircraft body hits it seems like that also creates a very serious issue for four for drones. after the break i mean martin takes a look at political campaign financing stay with us here at r.t. international. from time to time i get emotional emails in broken english from quote nationalists of various sort who support the current government in kiev and it makes me wonder if young people today even know what the word nationalist means for example just last week a bill was passed in ukraine that will open up forty nine percent of the country's gas pipelines and storage facilities to european and american companies let's also not forget the joe biden son was put on the board of ukraine's largest gas producer

we should also remember all the way back to the first days of the coup against you know a covert what did the nationalists do first sign up big time for i am loans wow putting your country into massive debt with foreign entities now that's nationalistic and would you think ukrainian nationalists would put ukrainians into power all over the regions of ukraine well think again because money sure trumps ethnicity what it comes to the two thousand and fourteen governors lined up and most importantly of all how can nationalists want to join the e.u. which is lefty liberal paradise where patriotic movements are the black sheep of the continent so my dear detractors who write me letters just what sort of nationalist revolution are you so proud of i'm sorry but i'm not seeing your triumph but that's just my opinion.

this is what we do we kill people and break things. we can see something as simple as people playing soccer you can see individual players and you can see that. you can only see his facial expression. the sea is crying. maybe he cursed us or maybe he asked. for forgiveness for. there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or in. what's out and folks i'm having martin and this is breaking the set so between speaker of the house john boehner so you know obama over obamacare and the design

of carrying on the i.r.s. scandal to say that congress is getting nothing done would be a severe understatement but yesterday the senate actually managed to take a big step forward and one of the most important reasons why our current representative system is so toxic and corrupt campaign finance seen a ten to eight vote the senate judiciary committee voted to approve a constitutional amendment that would overturn a notorious two thousand and ten supreme court's citizens united decision of course this rolling solidify the notion of corporate personhood and equated money with free speech by allowing companies to give unlimited amounts of cash to political action committees or super pacs which then lobby on behalf of individual candidates now realistically this move is purely symbolic considering that a constitutional amendment requires a two thirds majority vote in both the house and the senate but the fact that ten of the most powerful members of the senate willing to vote against their own interests for once as encouraging chairman of the senate judiciary committee

patrick leahy even went as far as saying quote i've always believe that amending our constitution must be subject to the highest measure of scrutiny and is something that should only be done as a last resort when the voices of hardworking americans continue to be drowned out by the money and few more serious action must be. again now i'm hardly suggesting that we should rely on the very people who benefit from this pay to play system to change it instead we should be looking at grassroots movements from outside the beltway movements like made a pac a super pac started by harvard professor lawrence lessig but ironically is raising money to elect candidates promising to repeal citizens united and other measures but of institutionalized money in politics unless they came on the show a couple months ago to talk about why the current system is so what poisonous any human who spends thirty to seventy percent of your time raising money from a tiny tiny fraction of the one percent you can't help and develop an intuition about exactly what sorts of things you need to say to continue to succeed in

raising money from those people and what sort of issues you need to avoid so you begin to develop a sense that this six that ends of what range of appropriate issues to approach and to talk about and to push are if you're going to continue to be able to be successful to raise money from these funders now amazingly the made a pact which was only started in may of this year has raised a stunning seven point six million dollars to date from over fifty three thousand individual contributors so while the future of our political system does indeed look grim the fact that there are people using the system's own tools to dismantle it is a bright spot indeed all to break the set. of. a. very hard to take. part in that sax results are right there though.