all. illegal the more the statists the less the blame russians demand equal justice

since the spotlight falls on cases of influential figures using their connections to evade prosecution. due for another crisis as the u.k. prepares to reveal massive public service cuts economists warn the country is on the verge of plunging into an even deeper recession. criminals in the us heroes at home the kremlin the war russian secret service agents at the center of the biggest spy swap since the cold war. around the clock around the world this is all in moscow the daughter of a powerful siberian official will be retried over and horrific crash that left one woman dead and another paralyzed a public outcry was sparked when initially it was revealed that she was not going

to be over the incident which took place a year ago c.c.t.v. footage. showed a toyota very onto the pavement and then the calls driver only checking for damage ignoring the critically injured pedestrians and pregnant at the time of the crash got a three year suspended sentence and was given time to raise her child it was alleged her high profile mother a regional electoral committee official could have took the case in her favor and there's a lot to sort of first reports it's not the first time a kid with connections in russia has been accused of escaping a justice. when valarie the day it was made down by a car it was the beginning of a long and very difficult to recover it was there but valerie was not there and. that was five years ago and since then he's been unable to pay but investigation he suffered horrific injuries and the memories of that day still very clear in his

mind. i remember exactly how it all happened moment by moment my friend oh yeah and myself we're standing here as we parted you have to cross the street on the green light i remember the green light vividly i had turned and began walking in that direction when i heard a sound and saw something flying towards me. the driver of the car was eighteen year old abuse of the daughter of a former high ranking f.s.b. officer for larry's case or they being denied a criminal trial did make it to the civil courts. of. we asked for one hundred thousand dollars in compensation but at the time of the trial she claimed she was just a poor student with twenty dollars monthly allowance so she was ordered to pay three thousand dollars to me and she did in installments but even before the trial she was actually a major shareholder at a commercial bank in moscow. and larry made eight attempts to have criminal

proceedings launched but was refused every time. if an ordinary person had been in her place they would have faced criminal punishment long ago the incident is too serious to refuse to open a criminal case there seems to be a category of the population in russia which is immune from criminal prosecution for larry's repeated attempts to get the case tried in the criminal cause have led to accusations against him with the abuse of the family claiming he jumped in front of the car and was trying to extort money from the in response to larry made an online play to president dmitri medvedev. i'm hoping for your objective help mr president. an investigation into the legitimacy of the refuses to launch criminal proceedings has now been ordered. but i made my online statement not because i want compensation for my hill but because i've been

falsely accused and because of all the corruption i want justice. with the full investigation yet to be conducted abuse of her remains in the driving seat larry left to slowly rebuild his life with the help of friends and family sarah. cheney had been sweden. well fred we're from the christian science monitor says media coverage helps bring privileged offenders to justice you know this is not an unfamiliar scenario in a lot of places it is perfectly common in almost every country but the rich get a better ride in legal systems if only because they can hire better lawyers and and find their way navigate through the system better and the thing you notice is that the intensive press coverage of that forces the authorities to make a show of treating equally the more publicity the more like the trial on this the

better the better it will be and that was fred ware moscow correspondent for the christian science monitor the company the storms looming on the british horizon. the difficulty is that when you've drunk three bottles of vodka then you may well think that you're capable of putting the world to rights but at the same point in time you know you're going to wake up in the morning with a hangover. the u.k. fights to recover from the credit crunch some say nothing's been learned and the worst is yet to come. but first joint efforts to tackle terrorism and global security are expected to loom large at a summit for the leaders of russia france and germany the meeting is taking place in the small resort french town of the view another major issue expected to be in focus is the sustainable economic recovery katrina's are of a has more. the tranquil setting of the french. is said to be the perfect backdrop for the. meeting between the heads of state of russia germany and france.

and. are expected to discuss a number of issues relevant not only to their countries and specifically to european matters but also to the international community. promoting unity in the international community and improving existing international security institutions . with the goal of economic. overcoming. and i think we've had some successes in this area the recent development of our ties with the u.s. improving relations with. deal with norway and many other of our foreign policy initiatives demonstrates how this approach works. in their discussions subjects like the ongoing situation in afghanistan peace in the middle east iran's nuclear ambitions all those things are going to make their way onto the agenda. france and germany sit down to the table but of course topping the agenda will be relevant.

specifically matters of security and the proposed plan for a global security system such as setting a meeting of three heads of state a lot more personal and therefore they are expecting to get a lot more results from. russia's relations with the north atlantic treaty organization will have to be discussed and that is also going to be on the agenda pacifically the european plans for anti-missile defense and how. those plans will be discussing the consequences of the financial crisis also on the agenda are expected to be. citizens wishing to travel to europe at the moment of course. visa in order to travel within the e.u. the matter of russians being able to travel to europe without the visa is something

that russia has brought up frequently but of course everybody here and all of the observers are very early paying attention to what will be said about this concept of a more global approach to security specifically to european security and that of course is what will be updating you as a member get new information. and that we can cross live to thomas clough from the european council on foreign relations for analysis on this summit taking place at the moment so what are we seeing here an emergence of some sort of new international club with russia france and germany but actually excluding all the european union countries now i think that will be overplaying the importance of the meeting tonight although it is it is an interesting meeting i think any attempt by france and germany to manage the european relationship with russia they need their own relationship with her or joint relationship with russia excluding countries

such as poland or spain italy and others and indeed be used in situations would be doomed to fail so i think what we're seeing is a step in order to try to find out the russian leadership wants and form the russian leadership of current franco german thinking which is very close to european thinking of are already very representative of it but we don't see i think the american specific separate three country club discussion forum but nevertheless we do see that european the european union is divided on really how it should deal with russia could perhaps this summit mark a positive change in in you russian relations. there have been indeed great of it within the e.u. about how to manage the relationship with russia what we've seen over the last few weeks and months is an airing of these divisions and in particular the the very important fact of the russian report from our has really engineered a whole new dynamic and i think you today is much less divided than it was two or

three years ago and this is the background against which this meeting is taking place and i would almost argue that it couldn't take place without the background being what it is now so you talk about poland is this because of the recent improvement in relations between poland and russia it's all based on that that we're getting this more positive feel. i think that's an absolutely crucial fact there was a big split between the learn and also especially about how to manage the relationship with moscow that was a source of strain in the pro to term relationship that is now gone and we are seeing a much more polished anomic over all but why do we need to see better relations between the e.u. and russia what does one need from the other what's so important about all this. well obviously peace and stability on the european continent and the wider sense sense beyond the use borders isn't possible if these two major powers on the

continent the you on the one hand in european countries e.u. member states leading you remember socialist france and germany and on the other hand russia don't don't find a positive way to manage the political situation political tensions economic dynamic on the continent and we've seen a very good example of that during. the crisis in fact a bloody crisis such as the russian drug war russian children war which was only two years ago but also over issues like gas deliveries and the destruction of them and the whole tensions over ukraine so the last two years have shown how vital it is for moscow and e.u. member states but true to manage their relations positively all of those points you've mentioned is exactly why russia has been pushing for changes in the european security structure and it really does want to have a greater say in strategic issues because at the moment it feels very left out as you talk about peace and stability on the european continent do you think it will actually win support from paris and berlin and this summit could make some ways

towards that. well it's surface signals a red a readiness to talk with russia the problem is of course that moscow and i think a lot of you countries see it has been giving off conflicting signals on the one hand a desire to engage positively with europe more positively with europeans and deal with the west as a whole responding positively to obama's president obama's decision to reset to relaunch the relationship but on the other hand maintaining a very hostile cold war rhetoric towards nato for instance and of course nato countries and in particular european nato member states deny nato's in any way and the russian alliance or should be seen as a threat to moscow so i think we still have elements like of cold war thinking more or. language sometimes affecting the relation of negatively and this is something i think which both sides need to overcome and work to overcome very interesting to

hear what you have to say tell us cloud the editorial director and head of the paris office from the think tank the european council on foreign affairs joining us live there in paris thank you very much for your time here on r.t. . the way this. invasion. of italian troops in afghanistan has been wrecking a series of secret operations. bracing itself to hear about public spending cuts worth tens of billions of pounds the coalition government will reveal the comprehensive spending review on wednesday it aims to dramatically cut the budget deficit and put the country on the road to financial recovery but some economists say the worst is yet to come. reports. the start of a new working week in the city of london in the eye of an economic storm life goes on as normal but those who work here know that the financial crisis is far from.

the worst to come i think the worst still to come. how much. they're talking about the financial crisis we've already had but according to some economists we ain't seen nothing yet certain respected finance. rather than solving the issues that caused the last financial crisis governments and central banks like the bank of england behind me are actually leading us towards an even bigger meltdown and they can't even seem to agree on what to do in europe the powers that be are stopping the money printing machines over in the u.s. the federal reserve has just announced another round of quantitative easing but who's right nobody is right i mean that's really the problem the difficulty is that when you've drunk three bottles then you may well think that you're capable of putting the world to right but at the same point in time you know you're going to wake up in the morning with a hangover this is the point where we're working up in the morning with

a terrible hangover in a new book the gathering storm a group of finance he has got together to say that governments have learned nothing from this crisis policymakers to apply. old models and their economic projections and that could lead to inflation hitting ordinary people hard debt will have to be repaid and restructuring will have to begin but in the city there's a fear that people are in denial for sense of security i think yeah i think it's very convenient from the political perspective and overall feel good. to feel better you know people want to feel better you know but it's the fundamentals are not great people are still in denial out. there from the tax man starts chasing people who can't buy even though be a problem that idea may come home to roost this week when the government announces extensive cuts to public services we shouldn't let the period of

extreme global weakness which followed the lehman brothers collapse. in this long drawn out depression there could be much worse episode still to come. and here in the city of london that would really put the cat among the pigeons. r.t. london. when i take a look at some of the stories making headlines around the world at this stage of the day students have entrances to schools and set vehicles on foreign powers and must say they join a nationwide protest against government pension reform plans in a quarter of gas stations across france have run out of petrol as truck drivers throw their weight behind the strikes also fears that paris could be left without fuel workers say they won't stop protesting until the pension bill is abandoned the senate has to hold a deciding vote on wednesday. a trial in turkey has started in the case of more than one hundred fifty people charged with links to a separatist kurdish guerrilla group overturned elected among suspects who have

been held in prison for eighteen months and the case is being closely watched by human rights activists it comes at a time when the turkish government is trying to reconcile with the kurdish minority who have been fighting for autonomy since one. eighty four. thousands of fleeing their homes after super typhoon hit the northern coast of the philippines return of just one of the typhoon is capable of causing catastrophic damage one man has already drowned in the state of emergency declared it's been four years since another storm of similar strength triggered landslides and left dozens of people dead. italy's joined the u.s. surge in afghanistan which will bring the number ten in troops in the country to four thousand by the end of the year but if the reports suggest rome is not pulling the rules of engagement it's an italian troops carried out secret operations involving raids on afghan villages resulting in civilian deaths of hundreds maybe dying in afghanistan but journalists for brits and one to says it's not for national security. the government is not talking about it because basically we

really is fighting a war in denial in afghanistan what's happening is that we are there are fish fully on. peace keeping rebuilding our reconstruction mission because that was the way the government sought to detail in public opinion are engaged in in afghanistan which is an engagement which is not well seen but probably public opinion being very costly in terms not of money of course but also in terms of risks and lives of our soldiers in a place which is seen by the public opinion as very remote and not really willing to the to the national security because the obsession with terrorism which is something that some countries namely for example the united states or britain feel particularly strong it's something which is felt less strong only one in italy the problem is that we are not there because our government or our establishment in

general is concerned about the situation in afghanistan so we're not really there for strategic calculation if one or we are there because it's a way to a foreigner to clearly and differentiate their. with the united states it's more political engagement this is something which is very crude and it's something that of course is not subject of public statements of course but that's basically the substance of our stand in afghanistan and this means that we have really no strategic thinking about our staying there we are there because nato is there. and that was a telling journalists for more on to there by the way to get to the latest on everything we're covering here on r.t. on our website that's r.t. dot com online all the time and some equipment and see what's there for you right now the russian capital cools off after a hot summer the city's can't walk so heating up designers from all over the world display their spring summer collections for russian fashion week. also on the web side today just two of the russian mafia. to see if your knowledge of these guys is

good enough to get you into their closed circle stories and plenty more on r.t. dot com. russian secret service agents sent back from the u.s. this summer in a high profile spy scandal have received state awards from the president dmitri medvedev honored employees of the russian intelligence services in a ceremony at the kremlin palace. has more. this story was probably the biggest spy scandal between moscow and washington since the cold war in june american offshore he's announced that they've arrested a group of ten people who are suspected of being secret russian agents were working for many years in the united states undercover they've all been detained had gone and undergone trial were found guilty of being on registered illegal russian agents and their property and belongings or taken away by american authorities they were

also banned from ever coming back to america unless a bit of green light is given by the white house itself they're also all bridgette from ever publishing any information on their activities while were working undercover for russia in the united states and then they were deported from america in exchange for four people who are serving time here in russia after having been found guilty of being foreign spies this whole ceremony was held in the relatively secret atmosphere we don't exactly know how many people received the state awards we don't know exactly what state awards they were decorated with according to the president's press secretary not only to mark over the people who are in the center of last summer's spy scandal between moscow and washington who are also reportedly awarded state awards now out of those ten people g. ported from the united states probably the most popular figure was and is on a chop and who is a young very successful business woman she used to have

a british husband she used to have british citizenship which was actually taken away after this scandal last summer and this she's got the type of character we usually see on the cinema screens in james bond movies and not in in news reports that's why probably even more state pensions from the media was aimed at her as this story was broadcasted across the world and there are a. some russian media including the radio station that on the job one was also there and was also given a state award but this is still unconfirmed information and more of speculation be unofficial at the moment. but brings up at the moment i'll be back with a look at our menu stories in about seven minutes from now in the meantime business is next with a shot. and i welcome to the business program here on our team with michelle and i was folly

b.p. has agreed to sell assets in venezuela and vietnam to its russian joint venture tank a b.p. for one point eight billion dollars they do include b.p. stakes in three joint ventures of venezuela and two gas fields in vietnam was part of the peace plan to raise up to thirty eight billion dollars by the end of two thousand and eleven to help the company meet its financial obligations off the gulf of mexico oil spill acquisitions are responsible to k.b.p.s. own resources and won't require additional debt. this is all part of a global expansion plan to make a big p. . has adopted for itself in an attempt to diversify itself out of russia and become become a true global company. as a starting point for the from a step towards that goal. grow to a modest size and modestly sized acquisition might be just the right saying. now in

other news that he repeated has been talking up the prospects the russian economy the prime minister told a meeting of foreign businessmen and investors that growth was returning and the budget deficit would be smaller than expected he also pledged that foreign investors would get the same protection as russians all correspondence united and fed of a small. there was only a top man to talk and just once let him if he did has met with over twenty c.e.o.'s of the global corporations to share their views on investment climate in russia addressing the audience would be put in explain that investment into russia when you talk to a hundred billion dollars that the see we have some and he explained how attractive russia a part of me is noting the upcoming privatization of very interesting us it's the house of the huddle with corporations such a spectacle telling nor heirs to the young expressed their concerns of what preventing investment to flow into russia and that is administered barrier slack of access to infrastructure and labor force the shoes since their last year emitting

the last point i don't labor the boring labor issue has moved up from the death star and that's thanks to the new law that eases the regulations of the korean labor high skilled labor force so access though to russia will give me a point in talking to the business men sad that actually russia doesn't make a difference between domestic and foreign business is just as in your position we do make a distinction between russian and foreign business when it comes to protecting the rights of is the best is it's important for us to create comfortable conditions for those who want to make investments in russia to develop their business to promote their goods and services. separately vitamin peyton has approved a plan to give companies working in the amal peninsula a tux holiday the government is keen to encourage gas production in the region which is rich in resources just hard to access and subject to extreme winters the

conclaves exemption from results extraction tax and zero exports. as well as local tax breaks the terms of tax holders will be greater for the end of the year when it exceeds tovia. time see how the markets are forming now in u.s. stocks opposing modest gains old. an index of home builders sentiment falling cannot tell you but in the months before the first rise in five months horse races the group has reported depression makes but before to kick off the week us about her surgery profit two point two billion dollars. there pre-installed so rising how it was opposed to the museum so to prove that she has a philips electronics a folding maybe five percent off the group if they will just outlets the rest of the gear for it seize up will be seventy percent of the stuff. here in russia yes in my section close imposed to territory there was a last minute rally at the end of the session meaning most of the main players were on the r.t.s. creating the games with bad bank responds more than two percent off a strong financial report rebounding oil helped lift energy producers gas pump on

building one percent. so news in brief for you know that lower just food retailer chain must need to increase profits by almost two hundred forty million dollars in the first nine months of the year turnover was five point four billion dollars that's a jump of thirty five percent of the previous year results a considerably better than analyst for calls as of now among the top grain is only yesterday around two percent. america mobile phone maker is leaving russia it will close offices beginning of two thousand and eleven or no longer officially distributed in the country the company's first came to russia nine hundred ninety three and gained a leading position since two thousand and three seen its market share steadily decline in just one percent of mobile phones sold in the country most wrote in a sense out of the number of calls possible measures this shift including plans to close this is an act.