people around the world and of course people living in sin petersburg it is no exception there and we know that at the moment of the blast there were thousands of visitors inside that particular shopping center where on the first floor of the building that supermarket worth the blast took place was located so of course in might have been a bit of a different tragedy that happened but again a very particular time of the year again very very busy busy timing and. keep close all of what's been going on in separatist book. let's bring in charles troubridge a security analyst former u.k. counterterrorism intelligence officer as well good to have you all always troels it's unclear exactly what's happening at this stage it does appear though increasingly like an improvised explosive device stuffed with ball bearings other sort of metal objects projectiles was used i mean how much damage could have caused

things you know even worse what temp people in hospital with severe injuries but really things could have been a lot more severe. well a lot depends on the nature of the device of course the investigators at the scene can quite quickly normally establish a rough size for the blast of explosives concerned in this case they've estimated as your reporter said that there were some two hundred grams of high explosives wraps around with shrapnel ball bearings nuts and bolts and so on this is a typical homemade even improvised explosive device hence the term. but it is in terms of terrorist attacks particularly ones we've seen recently in russia and elsewhere of course in europe and around the world it's relatively small scale attack two hundred grams would equate to the rough explosive content for example of a hand grenade and therefore together with the shrapnel that that would be surrounded with that's not to downplay the impact on the victims of course which is

terrible and can be of course fatal and often is but indeed this could be indeed either a small device that's gone off it seems to be the suggestion or it could have been a partial explosion of a larger intended device more investigation i think what we need to look at that and again as your reporter quite correctly said at this stage it needs emphasizing and indeed as the russian authorities seem to be stating quite quite or thought actually at the moment that the motivation for this attack or this blast appears unclear for example it could even have been a situation where a device intended for use against another target was left in a bag at a shopping shopping center as indeed often shoppers in countries such as russia ukraine in east europe for us asked where it's often a requirement i think people don't know that when you go into the supermarkets and shops you often have to leave your back in a locker at the entrance and it might be that this shop wasn't even the intended

target a lot still remains to be seen absolutely and i believe local media reported initially at least. five minutes ago that this explosion did take place in or around the block or as you might. in the supermarket just in terms of sort of modus operandi though here charles if we look at back at the history of terrorism in russia the last major attack also tragically in the city of st petersburg involving a large much larger device a much larger number of victims both killed and injured if i remember correctly involving a suicide bomber as well as suicide bombings have been used in russia and in past. what what could this device have been intended to achieve and how different is this to the modus operandi or why the suicide bombers or using quite large explosive device as you mentioned it was the size of a hand grenade. absolutely progress remember of course that terrorism keeps all options open to it i mean different perpetrators even if they're acting in the same cause and for example and i give you an example islamic states for example against

which russia has been particularly effective in syria and elsewhere and of course therefore provides a motive for an attack such as this it could be to do. more restive regions within the russian federation we know there are problems for example from chechnya and dagestan and so on and elsewhere as indeed in in many countries around the world and so it's difficult to say what the motivation would be but it certainly terrorism as we've seen can evolve attacks that aren't even including explosives or farms such as knifes cars and so on and so it's very important to keep an open mind here and of course bearing in mind the definition of terrorism which is widely accepted. not universally as being violence that is carried out with a political or perhaps also religious motive this may not even turn out to be terrorism as defined in that way it could be for example a criminal act something perhaps with a commercial or an economic background everything could still be open and you're

quite right to say that the modus operandi here the use of an explosive device like this which may even turn out to be a grenade when it's popular analyzed which of course are widely available in countries such as russia where military forces are quite large and where in the past there have been incidents of where. military equipment such as this because i've been popping accounted for. this means that from the ammo itself the made operandi it doesn't really point to in any particular direction when it comes to motivation but i'm sure the police and intelligence services in particular will have some handle on this and it may be that they're already working on suspects to be arrested don't forget they've got the full range of investigative tools that you c.c.t.v. witnesses forensics and so on to guide them in that process indeed and as you saw. i want to keep an open mind at this stage investigative committee have confirmed it's a improvised explosive device but no comment yet on whether it's officially been labeled

a terrorist act no official comment yet on what the motive could be just to ask about the timing of the explosion charles of speaking to medina just earlier it's the middle of the holiday season in russia sort of the twenty fifth of the early days of january the longest holidays of the year the most important of those of the year in russia could this have been timed to coincide with people going about doing their christmas shopping two to maximize casualties if that was the aim here. well almost certainly someone carrying a device and planting it or putting it somewhere where there are casualties where there are large numbers of civilians. assuming that the end is only an assumption is stage that the attack was intended and let's say the whole of the vice wasn't just being left in a locker because it was on trans in on route in transit somewhere. but even in that example it's likely that it's going to be used against civilian target if it's in those circumstances and of course at this time of year as indeed other times of year there are many many civilians shoppers and so on around it's also worth noting

and of course the terrorists or even the criminals concerned who haven't carried out this attack if indeed that's what it turns out to be as you say creasing lee it does appear to be this they know as well as an attack like this has an impact that goes well beyond the physical impact it creates fear uncertainty and indeed of course terror of course where the name terrorism comes from and it's not just in terms of the physical damage to property under physical injuries to people. difficult and of course upsetting though those are and serious though they are the impact of these attacks in terms of psychology in terms of society of course and uncertainty and fear goes beyond that and i think people in some petersburg and elsewhere around europe will now be thinking more about terrorist attacks in the future it's something order to ask you as well charles just particular about the psychological impact here because you know as we said earlier it's not clear yet if this is a terrorist attack there's been no claim of responsibility. there's still you know

looking for a suspect if there is a suspect at large but how want to approach the will the last option be for security services i mean a lot of them will be analyzing the scene making sure the immediate cd is called an office closed off but in terms of follow up devices perhaps that could be found the over the city will that be a protein a lot of rest a geisha for security for intelligence to make sure that there perhaps. other devices around other public areas shopping centers metros etc how much of a protein will that be right now in st petersburg. yes you're absolutely right this could be part of a much more effective campaign smaller devices of course are magnified many times over even if one or two other ones are used because simply because it spreads the fear factor the uncertainty of any public place being a possible target that's always the case of course in this day and age but of course it's very much more in the public mind when instant like this happens even should it turn out to be criminally motivated it still doesn't mean of course that

people are afraid they're going to get caught up in this kind of activity and it reminds them of the more political politically motivated terrorism that is everywhere around west east and central europe and indeed the rest of the world at the present time certainly i think the police will be relieved to more time that goes on from this that would suggest it's not part of a coordinated series of attacks although as you say that may well still prefer to be the case but the police focus in this event just in case of that eventuality but in any case any way will be to quickly identify the perpetrators in this case and i suspect there will be quite a wealth of forensic evidence left at the scene in terms of fragments of the device in terms of explosive traces in terms of fingerprints fibers d.n.a. and of course c.c.t.v. as well as perhaps mobile phone records that may point the police and security services in the direction of a suspect or suspects even if and i suspect it isn't a case even if they don't have an idea in advance or at least after the event of

the people that may be concerned and don't forget of course the russian police and security services like many of their western counterparts have very effective intelligence service intelligence systems in place in terms of informants eavesdropping phone monitoring and so on and so it may be that at this very moment the plans are going ahead to arrest or perhaps have under surveillance those that carried out this attack what it was criminal or terrorist in motivation ok child sue bridge that security analyst and former u.k. counterterrorism intelligence officer thanks for your expert insight today here on r.t. good to have you in the program with us as always. a thousands of documents relating to controversial episodes in british history appear to be missing the u.k.'s national archives claim they were misplaced or removed by civil servants revelation has sparked a bit of an outcry the british people deserve to know what the government has done in their name and their laws will only fuel accuse ations of a cover up as

a historian it's impossible to believe this loss the declassified files themselves show governments view the public largely as a threat the threat of democracy is deeply embedded if it happened in russia for example would be up in arms about corrupt governments but hey this is the british way to avoid scrutiny of its past misdeeds artie's party workload takes a closer look now at what pages of history have been lost. national archive is a very important resource especially for people like historians and journalists because it keeps documents relating to the country's history and the idea is a perfectly transparent system whereby once government documents are declassified anyone over the age of sixteen can go to the national archives and access these files but not all of them because it appears that some of them have gone missing some of the files relating to thought

a moment in british history among the files missing are papers relating to the fall clinton's war there are documents missing relating to the northern ireland troubles as well i'm perhaps most controversially the files relating to the famous. letter from way back in nineteen twenty four that was a huge political scandal at the time because m i six almost certainly forged a letter that was then leaked to the press that well it was just discredited the labor government at the time and ultimately resulted in its downfall now the files missing are all listed as misplaced while on loan to government departments so there is this situation now where a number of different government departments are under pressure to explain why they have taken these bits of paper but they have failed to return them now we've asked

the home office for a comment on that letter we still haven't got a response we have however heard from the foreign office now the foreign office had misplaced a file relating to the markov case that was way back in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight it was the shooting of a dissident both gary and journalist on waterloo bridge which isn't too far from where i'm sitting now this is what the foreign office had. just say about those documents take a listen seventeen of nineteen documents have been recovered and sending them back to the national archives we're still searching for the documents to have not yet been accounted for so an explanation there and clearly efforts being made to shall we say correct what has happened because the public care has a right to access these files access these chapters of british history rather than finding that they have been misplaced and according to some misplaced

a little too conveniently. we contacted the national archives they told us that when loaned files go missing they request that action be taken international affairs commentator jonathan steele says that the huge loss of sensitive documents raises many questions. because as you pointed out to them refer to incidents in the past britain was in a very bad position because there was a question of torture in northern ireland there was no obvious really interesting time when we're talking about a fake news we used to tamper with elections all kinds of allegations being made we haven't got the evidence that was once a variable has now gone missing references to do you do you keep documents did you make copies did you make duplications where are the duplications why didn't you send the originals back if you were making a copy why didn't the government department send it back to the national archives

where they belong. just on the term prevent a whole series of questions that need to be answered. by social media controversy facebook has blocked all accounts of the head of russia's chechen republic after the us treasury included his name on a list of sanctioned individuals. as more so since last weekend the facebook and instagram accounts of the head of russia's church their region runs. could there of have been unavailable that smaller than just regular offline status isn't the pages were blocked it was big news in russia and chechnya since mr kadeer off is a really big fan of social media it's a bit like donald trump and twitter on a smaller scale but the total of four million subscribers that's something that's more than china's population could arabs instagram became one of the main if not the number one new source in the region the reasons for taking the chechen

president offline were first unclear but it's easy to start drawing conclusions given the bad followed us sanctions so quickly and there you have it a few days later facebook admits it if you read the network's terms of use you'll find it rather difficult to interpret the rules on banning people but the question is why have the pages of russian companies for instance most free hardware producers which are also under sanctions not also been blocked so after all facebook seems to be quite vulnerable to pressure from washington some may now even say that they could have seen it coming after hearings like this in america crucially monitors information from users in the developing world who are you doing to make sure this is not used to undermine. democracy this brings us to the question of who won or who lost in this indeed the band is an

inconvenience for and i was on he ends up having to switch to russian equivalents of facebook and instagram think of it as let's say switching from apple to android but where does this leave the reputation of facebook and its attempts to keep up the image of being independent time will tell but easier is will start having second thoughts about their social media lives after this not only in russia. but around the world. no major prisoner exchange between the self-proclaimed donetsk and lugansk republics in east ukraine has now been completed it's the largest since the start of the conflict germany's foreign minister the u.k. foreign office have both called it a significant step towards implementing the minsk agreement i'm going to moscow and it might hold my court i've also praised the swap calling on both sides to exchange the remaining prisoners. the latest this is the largest prisoner changed since the beginning of the conflict back in next wednesday fourteen seventy four ukrainian

soldiers were returned from donetsk and lugansk. while three hundred and six were supposed to be returned from kiev here to the nest and lugansk however that figure has changed at the very last minute with authorities in kiev cleaning that some of the prisoners had already been released and some of the prisoners had refused to be richard back here to find all number all those who read third home to the guns stands at two hundred and forty people however everything went smoothly during the prisoner swap. deal to close the checkpoint as it was a greet for this prisoner swap the exchange took a little bit longer a lot longer than planned initially of course this prisoner swap with the humanitarian part of the minsk agreements which are designed to settle the conflict

here in the east of ukraine however one positive that can be taken out of this is that the families will see their loved ones for the new year holidays both in ukraine and here in the contested territories as well. meanwhile the u.s. department of state has released a statement regarding yesterday's phone conversation between sergey lavrov and rex tillerson the acumen says that the u.s. secretary of state asked russia to return its representatives to the don't boss region they left last tuesday saying that this would help to decrease violence in east ukraine. now of our breaking news this hour from st petersburg security services have confirmed an improvised explosive device may have caused the explosion at a local supermarket the force of the blast is thought to have been equivalent to about two hundred grams of t.n.t. the device was apparently filled with objects causing maximum damage emergency

services say ten people have been taken to hospitals the surrounding area has been put on lockdown and the building was immediately evacuated russia's investigative committee says it's considering all possible causes of the blast. all for myself on the team here at r.t. for this hour would you join us again. time for more global headlines. and where in north kensington location of the ground. this is going underground of the day u.k. opposition leader jeremy corbyn introduces him run the jewels at this year's glastonbury festival in the southwest of england coming up in the show.

whether only the army on the streets. and police with guns. britain british foreign policy and the next terror attack. has evacuated. one of the poorest communities in one of the richest in the world we ask a question. british government guilty of deliberate and systematic social pleasing of british. director about his new film dispossession the great. housing swindle seventy two hours since the day of rage how the people are rising up against social cleansing of the u.k.'s working classes from alleged u.k. government cover ups to u.s. backed torture in yemen we uncover some of this week's buried news all this and more coming up in today's going underground but first the politicize ation of the grand catastrophe in london is becoming clearer coverage of the fire which left so

many dead in the poorest community in one of the richest areas on earth initially included voices like this what do i want to happen i want to be a revolution in this country the media the mainstream you don't deserve to be did i mean you should be campaigning to go back to the b.b.c. because mouthpieces for the corrupt government people need a revolution in this country and if any other country did it in a revolution we've seen how you the mainstream media responded to for two years you've hounded demonize them jeremy corbett and you said he was unelectable he can't be there's no possibility of this man being lifted and you created that narrative that people actually believed for a while but what this election has done is shown that people you knew there were still you and the other billionaires sort of media owners and rupert murdoch will go. there and that is the vote of confidence not in terms of joining the call but it dismisses men but it also stands to use the mainstream media. i don't find you the mainstream media rapidly coverage return to this. good afternoon from west

london where the queen and prince william have been visiting people affected by the terrible fire that the gulf grenfell and then the charity single initiative for going on the record conservative music mogul i honestly. believe. i mean chills it sounds beautiful absolutely beautiful the country will now have to wait for a public inquiry which will report directly to number ten where the former u.k. housing minister well accused of breaking promises. is on fire safety works has to raise a maze chief of staff we'll have more on grenfell and its implications later in the show but now we go to outside the british parliament to talk to lord west former minister for security and counterterrorism in the wake of seemingly one terror attack after another on britain. before we get to their latest counter terror initiatives

a police with machine guns on the streets army on the streets id cards mass surveillance is the way we're going to combat terrorism and i says in britain i don't think it is the right way of combating it doesn't mean you don't need some policeman with weapons doesn't need you mean you don't need some sort of surveillance but i think doing that all mass is obviously what you don't want it means that all of these various terrorists or various persuasions of one if we come that sort of society and i certainly don't want to live in a country like that one of the things i love about this country is that most of the policeman don't carry weapons that is very unusual in most countries police all carry weapons and i rather like the fact that i think that we are retrograde step to go down that road but immediately. secretary started her statement actually went to resume started speaking out of the three park incident alone the london bridge attack was to talk about internet surveillance on the helicopter surveillance we're obviously now suffering from is it all about the internet not the twenty thousand police officers that was sacked the answer is not all about it's about

a whole raft of things i think in terms of internet surveillance i'm i'm very glad we got the investigation through. very in the name the snooping i mean actually not doing it would have been a charter for more people being killed in court. the people who are using the investigative powers bill but interested what's in your email i mean i could be having affair with thirty different women it would give it would give a damn what they would be interested in is if i was regularly in contact with a known bomb maker in yemen. then they would have to ask bush and they say he's speaking to him every day and. speaking to a man we know actually planted a bomb in new york and went inside and you know why isn't this going on would you give us permission to look at what's in in his e-mails the area is currently in u.s. backed operations over syria right now with civilian casualties being reported every other day is it time for the u.k. to work with the syrian government in trying to attack isis and syria. have

a track record on this as you know i believe that our whole policy in terms of how we've dealt with assad has been bad a sad is a fairly nasty disgusting man. he is a fact of life on the ground some of the opposition forces we are dealing with some of the more hardcore than al qaida itself we call them that are going democratic forces. and it was the libyan blowback which we saw in the area on the ground. when it comes to the i mean what you just been saying about syria is a bit like what donald trump was saying when he was running for president and now shot down as. is the president. he shot down a syrian plane over syrian airspace russia is now threatened any plane west of your freight river american and british planes now flying over not at the invitation of the syrian government like russia in the. syrian planes should britain stop flying

over syrian airspace like australia has decided i fear of it being. i mean what the australians have stopped there because the risk of australian plane being shot down and i can understand that i think right now ari of pilots are over there we've got to be more robust than that with the americans but what invading another country's airspace with crucial is that we deal with particularly sad. control people which we were doing before to make sure that there's the conflict that has got to be done and i think the shooting down of a serious. i personally think it's not a very clever thing to have done at all the syrian air defense system is still pretty well there they have what are known as triple digit sams that's very very capable surface to air missiles and i think winds are very we're in a very dangerous position and we need to look at this very closely but there's no doubt that the military attrition of. this is making them lose ground so they can

no longer claim they have a caliphate it is important and and there's no doubt that without the element the mixture of forces on the ground could not actually achieve it because i mean if we and the americans went in we could easily take it over but then you got a problem what the hell do you do then and i don't believe every which way it's like we've done that before you know you don't do it without without our air without the air power mainly american air power a little bit of. i don't believe we would be able to stop dying having the caliphate and i think that is important but within hours of saying they shoot down . down in a rainy and made drone should britain should raise or maybe part of an anti iran coalition have signaled obviously the best one of the best. things that was signed in the last few years was the agreement with iran about the production you but weapons and when trump said he was against that really worries me like he's done

nothing yet. but i think i think we have not dealt with iran very cleverly now admittedly they support a lot of terrorism but actually basically they're a country that they were very good and i think they could be very interesting and i think to demonize them constantly is not clever and just fine because the bricks of negotiations are going on here on the record as saying. here like headless chickens what sort of preparation military preparations going to break i mean the trident submarine still able to flick swim around in the e.u. waters off the brits and the answer that one is yes but that's. i think my point is that actually i don't think they had been yes exactly i don't think there'd been any i don't think anyone ever did thought we might actually leave and i don't think and this is very unusual because one thing that the military good at is not so what if you can bet your bottom dollar where we're fighting anywhere we have what if after what if one of water and i don't think anything has been done and you could tell that from when we were asking questions about what this meant for europe i

mean i am sure they'll deny this by the way and i'm very concerned about it states and britain have ensured the safety and security of europe because of the count's we've had in our defense because of what america is saying i'm not sure that is any longer the case and there it is extremely important from a thank you. as well as the fact that he is the first labor leader in ten years to be the number one choice for britain's prime minister but what other stories have been lost in the anniversary of bricks at the concert was absolutely sweating it's boris johnson's off this week with a heat wave reaching from the north to the most southern points of england where the presenters took great care to point out high pollen counts but didn't focus so much on hiring a particular levels those that want to kill millions of people every year but maybe that's because defra allegedly covered up the ad pollution in parts of england breached levels this week with michael gove teresa mayes.