i'm interested always in the waters of morality. first sip. headlines in r.t. armed police response reports of shots fired in oxford street in london and a nearby underground station our correspondent is that the singh. meanwhile more than two hundred thirty people are reportedly killed in the tack on a mosque in egypt's north sinai province also this hour the chief donald tusk pins that russia or interfered in the u.k.'s breaks it referendum despite the country's prime minister earlier having denied that claim and a high security facility that strikes fear into the hearts of even russia's most hardened criminals we gain unique access to the black dolfin the nation's toughest prison. it is here but some of the country's worst maniacs serial killers terrorists and you wouldn't have the balls held.

but i welcome you watching our international start with that story from central london where police there have been responding to reports of shots being fired at oxford circus tube station police of urge people in nearby oxford street take cover in nearby buildings oxford circus cheap station has been evacuated and bond street nearby to is also being closed to prevent overcrowding so let's get more details now from afshin rattansi he's at the scene for us at the moment i think he joins us now on the one he's trying to get even to action just describe them what we know so far. so good crewmate in the past hour or so. good shots being fired i should just sat in the perhaps two or three minutes that

really is it so there's no trace of shots no trace of casualties moochers or suspects but the area around objects work is one of the busiest shopping areas. in the whole of the ruled is being evacuated he will write it before once that was mr stops at the london palladium lots of people in the dinner jackets or around here they can't get it more seriously no journalists were allowed very near the scene and the internet services were all pulled down in this area certainly over the past off out there they have been restored so for british transport police only saying that there's been a minor injury in an evacuation that was actually valid we have accusation three fire engines were sent here no sound of any ambulances you can hear the sound of eric up there lots of police and says so hopefully that suggests that sent me this is nothing like the attack which killed hundreds of people in and all the egypt today thankfully that does seem to be the case and the police response there afshin

was a rapid and comprehensive is he said and that presumably just reflects the high state of alert the country still in. a yes there seemed to was quite a few panicky police officers in crested expectable and police for just the largest police force in the country the security services obviously there. that britain is a target perhaps more aware than the mainstream media narrative would have it they obviously aware of british foreign policy which has been clearly it's approaching defacto isis day ash and al-qaeda in the middle east so at the irony lost on bush up is maybe today but it's certainly very the security services that london is a target of is the mists and in terms of the not down there in the mines any chance so any sign of that being lifted then in the nay sort of in the near i was to come this evening. simoun other live the moment these lines are still here the police

shouting and you know maybe maybe i should have done this live a little bit earlier they just really. region street has been talking to you. that suggests that this terror suspect a terror attack is winding down and the numbers of casualties it's actually getting to the bridge police zero you can see there were police marching in la and. people. go up to the regent street still the traffic but still there were a few inches i think of it ok afshin thanks very much for that update there was ashley tansey for us there in the center of london thank you right. now meanwhile an attack on a crowded mosque in egypt's north sinai region has killed at least two hundred thirty five people according to state media becoming one of the deadliest in the country's modern history more than one hundred are reportedly wounded.

this all took place during friday prayers the perpetrators are said to have arrived in for off road vehicles and set off a bomb at the site they then opened fire as people try to flee the country's president has called an emergency meeting to decide how to respond and no one so far has claimed responsibility for the attack although the government drones have already reportedly killed fifteen suspects cairo based journalist jacob shafter has more. security services are not saying a lot about the details of this attack but we already know what the attack means to the egyptian people this is an attack on the state supported mosque in the north sinai this is an attack on the kind of islam it's promulgated by the egyptian administration one that denounces and renounces terrorism and we see that the jihad is now have decided to go not only against up against the government and up against

christians but against muslim or worse a person who are choosing the path of moderate islam that is the mainstream form of that religion here in egypt we do know who operates terror organizations in the sinai and there are groups that are affiliated with isis there are groups affiliated with al qaeda and the egyptians of course are very angry and we see that there is really a stark ideological confrontation here between the kind of islam promulgated by isis and al qaeda and the kind of islam that embraced by the egyptian administration and so this is becoming a religious war inside of islam that has implications way beyond egypt itself but but to the wider sunni middle east. in other news the president of the european council says that the e.u. is not fundamentally opposed to russia though he did have some harsh criticism full moscow his own. with. this summit is all about eastern

europe so they talk about things like security shared challenges and it's not only attended by e.u. states pretty much everyone bordering russia was invited so countries like ukraine and georgia where there as well are not many of them have many good things to say about russia certainly today the forum was heavily focused on the issue of russia and some of the strongest criticism came from the e.u. council president donald tercel take a listen well of the biggest problems will do is a real. example. hostile activity during the british referendum for example so donald tusk referring

to that foreign policy speech that reason may gave last week where she tore into moscow he was the kremlin of attempting to undermine western democratic values through election interference and flaunting fake news stories but this is a pretty important but especially for donald tusk she clarified later on in the week that those sort of russian misdeeds that she referred to weren't specifically in relation to the u.k. to look at the speech i gave on monday that was the that the examples i gave of russian interference were not in the united kingdom donald turse clearly didn't get that particular memo from london and this looks now like a case of sort of classic chinese whispers really where the facts don't really matter because it fits an overarching narrative and that is of russia as a threat to the whole of europe it's

a narrative that perhaps rather. conveniently unifies the e.u. and the u.k. at a time when they have little else in common and to reason they had more to say about russia at the summit today we must be open eyes about the actions of hostile states like russia who threaten the potential growth since eastern neighborhood and who are trying to turn our collective strength. and i'm looking forward to journey to renewed commitments from european countries to working together to tackle the challenges in both security and development despite the fact that the u.k. is actively negotiating its way out of the european union right now at this summit this summit today the u.k.'s pledge to spend one hundred million pounds on countering what it calls russian this information in eastern europe there's a further fifty million pounds from london going towards reform and security in

eastern europe as well and talk of russia really appears quite fruitful from a domestic perspective here in the u.k. it's kind of managed to draw the fire away from extensive media coverage of ministers inappropriate behavior scandals to do with that and constant talk of how fragile to reason may's government is well as we heard there to resume a did call russia a hostile state we talked to when grant a professor of politics of war university in u.k. about this and he thinks the search language is unhelpful. the seem to be some confusion between the term about what they rushed in and certainly he didn't seem to have very much in the way of the evidence for critical or statements he was trying to make but it was the black cloth or with all these very different would be gauche asians on bricks it between the united kingdom and the european union talk about russia or the hostile state is very strong language indeed because one would

hope you have a constructive relationship between the u.k. the european union russia or not don't think that sort of terminology. helps the development as constructive relations for its own thought because it obviously goes in the opposite direction. and you bundestag president wolfgang schauble there is facing an angry backlash after demanding that m.p.'s not use twitter during sessions in the german parliament with more on this his piece of all of. the experienced former finance minister and now president of the bundestag has sent a message to his fellow parliamentarians stop tweeting during bundestag sessions and they have responded and they're not happy with the police that president gadgets for tweeting iran wanted you can watch the session live but we can't sweet anything about the plenary session so if you go outside the plenary hall it will be ok our facebook and instagram finds a use with

a handwritten letter p ok that makes no sense i won't lead choice blair buns with me from the dark haggling is a part of parliamentary debate at esalen haggling so what you shouldn't have to go outside for that. i have little understanding why twittering is banned in the bundestag transparency also includes commenting on current events for laid out his problems with tweeting in a letter to all members of the bundestag he said it was inappropriate didn't mention any other platforms by name but i think it's implied that he meant they were supposed to post things on instagram or facebook as well some of the wording raises a little smile he says in this letter that a parliamentarian should conduct themselves in a manner that is appropriate to their participation in a recession all very good things to say so here's some pictures of. that oco on a tablet during one of those bundestag sessions very much

a do as i say not as i do from the president there he's not alone in being caught on camera with a device in his hand chancellor merkel has been pictured quite a few times on the phone while she's in the chamber as well not tweeting though that's hardly a glimmer can style but the fact that she has put out this letter it does show the ten state of german politics out the moment there is no government coalition talks broke down last last weekend at the beginning of this week coalition talks collapsing there is the slim hope of a grand coalition being rekindled but that is still a long way off and all the time that there's no government here in germany we get closer to there being a call for fresh elections. ok let's go back to our top story from central london oxford street station has reopened we are told after it was evacuated over reports of shots being fired london police say their operation has finished they

say they have found no casualties or suspects bond street station has also been reopened let's go live to see now speak with our correspondent who's been there for the last hour or so for us he said just bring us. to date them because it seems like police said winding things down. yes i drew out of around twenty five that will pull itself out of the force of gunfire coming for you from all the second station and we smoked some eyewitnesses in the area who said that they saw hundreds of people streaming running out of oxford street helps asika station and down here into regent street now of course to put this into context today is black friday which is one of the busiest if not the busiest shopping day of the year many sales are on many people tried to get those deals before the christmas holidays and so people here are really busy really busy area tens if not hundreds of thousands of people would have been in the immediate vicinity of the station and so what

happened was those people were evacuated from other people we're being told by police to run into various shops screamed out to go into different shops and to take cover and then we had heard from the metropolitan police who said that they were treating it a diff it was a terrorist incident but as we've had since then they've now stood down the incident and said that they found no deaths or injuries actually did hear of one reports of a minor injury but it was somebody who got injured in the panic of trying to flee from the station which it really highlights exactly how nervous things are here in the capital of especially this year seen a number of terrorist attacks take place in london which of course have people on a very nervous but what i would this we spoke to said actually the way the police responded to the incident made people more of us and panicked by screaming at them so he said but that they should have perhaps a student more but in any case what was feared to possibly be

a terrorist and the second looks now have been a false alarm as these roads which was cordoned off about twenty minutes ago are now open with shoppers again trying to get their cell phone i don't. christmas holidays. ok thanks a so that was a sorry there for a say in the center of london say the street seems to be reopening and the alarm seems to be receding let's get the views now a former british army intelligence officer chris hunter joins us live to discuss what's happened over the last hour a bit further. chris good evening. by there you are good to good to have you on the look we were just discussing there the police response i mean when you when you look at it it was very rapid incomprehensive wasn't. it was yes of course you know the police and our security services we look at potential targets all the time we look at certain face of the

year we look at the likelihood of certain events being targeted and certainly what we saw here was black friday as your correspondent mentioned you know one of the busiest shopping areas in europe on this particular day of course it's a high profile targets and we know that there was the islamist extremists in particular who were looking to targets crowded areas messed up various so it was certainly viable but it was really good to see the police response was instance it was in my was in my view certainly measured a proportional and there were four key priorities preservation of life preservation of property preservation collection of forensic evidence and the key one restoring the situation to normal as soon as possible which is exactly what they've done so i think you know it's quite a good response because certainly of course the ramifications and the implications around the rest of london the transport system and of course the economy on such a procedure yet chris are supposed to it doesn't reflect doesn't it have nervous the country is still on you know

a high state of alert saying with relation to terrorism. but i think you know the key phrase that you know the authorities use it i certainly subscribe to these you know be alert for the loss of business as usual but of course people have to be more cognisance of this. threats to be naive of you to not be so. but also you know i think people have to get on with their lives and we've got christmas coming up today is the other day that many could. actually begin albeit sort of at the question. but the point i mentioned earlier about the ramifications you know we saw people in street clothes we saw that circus clothes. they are very very key routes for you know citizens traveling around the capital. we've seen canary wharf europe's largest financial district was close to certainly about thirty minutes ago before all this was just it was still closed and that has ramifications of course as well so you know the whole sense of mission response which i felt was very very

good if you have to shout suits or the population if you have to have to shout assistance across to get them to move to instill that sort of sense of you know drive amongst them i certainly to stretch that but i think the key quincy's you know it's very very quickly discounted the terror threats and they you know back to it to this is usually chilled just on that point chris i don't know if you heard that comment that our correspondent got from a member of the public he was critical of the police saying the pony shouting everybody sing to make matters worse and sort of made people panic a little bit and i was according to reports of a stampede to get out of the t.v. station is that fair comment do you think the police could be more calm. now i mean i think you know it's very very easy to criticize from the comfort of an armchair or a studio but you know the person on the ground is a different situation and sets the i've i've been in my military experience in situations where i've been dealing with crowds of very kind of keep very concerned

people worried about their lives for this bomb disposal hostage rescue operations and sometimes you just get a grip that you've got the phone call to be assertive because that's the only way to elicit a response because you've got to get the people out of there was quickly as possible and if you can find the whole. and remove the harm that you would remove the innocent people from the uniforms for it and that's exactly what they did and i certainly you know commend them for its achieving the public i know it's hard for you to say exactly but she think the public will be feeling more secure having seen the police response or perhaps more frightened about doing next me shopping. while i'm in london right now other than the you know the streets being very packed just with traffic you know people have gone back to business as usual i think you know we were doing island nation we've you know we've been in conflict for many many years there's only one year in the last of a hundred g.'s or certainly since the second world war look british servicemen hasn't been injured or killed in conflicts from quote you know we're used to this

sort of thing we're used to conflict but most importantly we're used to normal everyday living that anyone else is so i don't think people are less silly scared and clearly it's i think you know this will certainly set a shot across the bows will make them more aware of the potential threats but most importantly you know with the exception of the one in the possible injury that we've heard of for the lady being of action it. was a very very good response people reacted and responded well under the circumstances i think the police did very well and most importantly it's business as usual we've gone back see still the situation to little as quickly as possible i think people trying to go about their business they'll you know. it's comfort and safety ok let's hope that remains the case chris nice to talk to believe that there was chris hunter former british army intelligence officer thank you. ok we can go back now to one of our other top stories this evening because the

president of the bundestag has banned germinal makers from using twitter during parliamentary sessions triggering an anxious cry from many m.p.'s political analyst and consultant raise office joins us now to talk about this tehran to get even thanks for coming on to our take what's your reaction here to this ban is it sensible. well i think the message that has been sent out. remains quite i'm clear because he just says it's inappropriate to use electronic devices in a parliamentary session i don't know if it just refers to the behavior of parliamentarians that they should not look like an interested pupils in a classroom when using their electronic devices i think there is something more behind it because the media revolution that we have seen by using twitter for example like in the case of donald trump where he has gathered already more than forty three million users it could rather be the point that he wants to

address he wants to ban the use of twitter to make additional concessions and the debates a little less transparent if this is the case if this should be the case then of course media should ask very rigid questions to this move but i mean that's the point isn't it the twitter life paper to be in touch with at this very quickly and politicians should be in touch with the public as often as they can come in twitter does allow them to doing that. exactly and germany also wants to be the leading market for digital applications and wants to lead for example the five g. market by twenty twenty five but the parliamentarians shall be banned from using the electronic devices i mean i would wish that element ariens get quicker and better information during the debates in parliament because often they don't have

this expertise and detail that they would need to decide issues like foreign policy syria intervention etc you need a device that your hand where you can find very quickly very precise information and it's also good to show that parliamentarians are transparent and they share their thoughts and information also with that won't tears show you think will be much of a backlash then. well i think he will be. quite heavily criticised by the parliamentarians and he's already being ridiculed by the public for this move so i think it will not be very hard directives that people really have to obey to and i think that discussion will go on about this in the parliament or another office thank you that was the run of the political analyst and consultant thank you. we've got a special report had inside one of russia's most notorious prisons the black

dolphin as it's known does has some of the country's most dangerous and violent criminals or locked away for life for heinous crimes. the facility the facility was built in the eighteenth century and today it holds hundreds of inmates and is known for its brutal rules and grueling conditions take our correspondent was granted access to the site. in this provincial town at the edge of siberia is a prison but it's no ordinary prison the mere sight of this statue has broken the most solace butchers the black doll thing russia's highest security prison it is here that some of the country's worst maniacs serial

killers terrorists and even cannibals i held in this cell a man who raped forty four miners and killed five children aged seven to eleven some of the people in this prison will never be allowed out so we dread for the things that they've done and then the man in a drunken killing frenzy killed six of his friends in this cell a murderer killed eleven people. seven hundred inmates sentenced to life between them they've killed almost four thousand people everything is procedural everything intended to minimize risk from sleeping schedules to how inmates are a school that bend to the waist and blindfolded so they can't memorize the prisons

layout. it may seem excessive humiliating even but don't forget what these people did to be here to that end every cell door has a description of the inmates crimes any sympathy the guards might feel disappears immediately. you ask me if i do it again and i thought about it and it would have been petrified died with them i probably wouldn't have done it but it's better to die than sacrifice others eagle was just over twenty when he and his father dakota rival gang after killing their enemies they attempted to get rid of witnesses. ordinary civilians in a restaurant seven dead eight injured he and his father and castrated here do see each other sometimes when he fell ill they transferred me to help him for a while the most important thing is to avoid becoming in britain it is so easy to

turn into an animal here some say a life sentence is worse than the death penalty. i've been here for seventeen years and i've never heard anyone say they don't regret it's what they took you more i'm sorry but that's nonsense. i regret it everything is lost and the years go by your health worsens everything passes by i think there are a few people left in here who think they did the right thing they are sure you that you were wrong totally wrong you can't do that. dimitri snorted his family his father his mother and his brother he was twenty now he's forty five. he said we watch t.v. we see people who've committed two or three murders get sentenced to seventeen or nineteen years that isn't so terrible yes we are guilty before the law yes we are guilty before the public but if they're left out after twenty years why are there fraid of letting us out who in their fifty's could be bothered to do anything all

they would want is a normal life here the difference is that life sentences are mostly reserved for crimes of such brutality that they escape reason for individuals deemed a permanent danger to society one inmate released early from the black dolphin committed the murder on the very train that was taking him home lives will never see release control is total god's check on everyone every fifteen minutes in self cameras a monitored twenty four seven and there is three doors to every cell. yes this is so for those sentenced to life it's locked with a full metal door a cage door and another one for complete security and we essentially have a cell within a so it's easy to see why no one has ever escaped from the black dolphin the

moves you can be sure we are out is in a coffin or i guess the. from soli let's russia and. the international olympic committee has slapped for more russian athletes with lifetime bans from the gangs and even doping violations of the twenty fourteen so she winter olympics with more on the story has any potential. trouble for russian saatchi olympians keep piling up the international olympic committee has just punished for more people and as a result never again will be able to take part in the olympics in any capacity here we're talking about two bobsledders and two speed skaters among them is the man who got russia to saatchi gold medals and bobsled that is alexander's who called he was also the flag bearer for team russia at the tsotsi twenty fourteen opening ceremony so that is of course additional disappointment for.